Overview
Route 66 through southwestern Missouri passes the near-vanished town of Avilla, and this stretch of the Mother Road has gathered the kind of folklore that clings to abandoned highways: travellers' tales of phantom hitchhikers picked out in headlights who vanish from the mirror, lights moving in the windows of empty storefronts, shapes crossing the road at night, and engine trouble on the same dark miles. Avilla itself, a Civil War-era town whose violent wartime history of guerrilla raids is documented, dwindled as the interstate bypassed Route 66, leaving ruins that fuel the stories; some tellings borrow from the region's wider legends, and none rests on a documented event. The road is public and drivable, the remaining buildings are mostly private property, and night visitors should view from the roadside only. The record should present this as highway folklore — a genre as old as the road — told for atmosphere rather than fact, with Avilla's real and difficult wartime history acknowledged separately from the legends.