By Ashley Weaver
Lenore Morris grew up in Jerome, Missouri, located just off the original two-lane Route 66 in western Phelps County. She was born in March 1927 to Martha Gladys Duncan and Floyd Edward Jones, who worked for the Frisco Railroad in nearby Arlington. That same year, Vernon Prewett began laying stonework for the Stony Dell Swimming Pool and Resort, which opened five years later in Arlington, located about 14 miles west of Rolla.
In Morris’s memoir, she recounts a very hot summer as a young child, which likely drew residents to the new pool being fed from cool spring water. “There was a summer in the 1930s that is still cited by weathermen for settling all kinds of records for high temperatures. I can remember my parents taking blankets out under the trees in the evening to wait for the house to cool off a little so we could sleep,” remembered Morris.
Stony Dell was the premier place to visit along Route 66 during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Amenities at the resort included a spring-fed swimming pool with slide and diving board, stone bathhouse, restaurant, rustic cabins, souvenir shop, filling station and park with picnic area. It was built on land owned by George Prewett. His son, Vermon, was a stone mason who built many buildings on the property, including the bathhouse, restaurant, and cabins in an artistic stone style commonly known as giraffe stone architecture. This method of stonework was popular in the Ozarks and often used locally sourced cobble and sandstone. The most notable examples of that kind of stone architecture at Stony Dell were the bathhouse and restaurant near the pool.
Vernon Prewett built the cabins behind the general store and the filling station that his father ran in the late 1920s called the Hi-Wa Trading Company Store. The name came from the Ozark dialect for the word “highway.” Once the resort’s pool was open to the public, the area became known as Stony Dell.
The pool was constructed with concrete and spring-fed through a stacked stone structure that created a waterfall effect, which kept the pool filled with cool spring water. The pool was large, 100 feet long, 44 feet wide, and three-to-twelve-feet deep. It had three diving boards of varying heights built into a stone staircase. A star atop the staircase lit the entire pool area, allowing swimmers to enjoy the pool at night. Young children played in a small wading pool near the waterfall.
The Stony Dell Swimming Pool & Resort opened to the public on May 22, 1932. The Rolla Herald reported that the pool received over 1,000 visitors at the resort complex on opening day. Resort amenities included a two-story bathhouse with changing rooms for visitors, and a restaurant elegantly furnished with tables, chairs, and booths, all made of native red cedar. The restaurant, managed by Mrs. Prewett, George’s wife, served cold drinks, sandwiches, ice cream, and even cold beer after prohibition ended.
To accommodate non swimmers, the Prewett family expanded their enterprise to include a park with a picnic area, rock garden, and zoo. The park was well lit and open all night The zoo, more of a roadside menagerie, was built around 1934. It was a small, fenced enclosure that held animals native to the area, such as foxes, raccoons, mountain lions, and wolves, as well as exotic animals, including an African lion, a leopard, and a baboon. It was common to see animal menageries along Route 66, although little is known about the Prewitt’s roadside animal attraction.
Lenore Morris remembers staying in the Stony Dell cabin when she was a teen. In her memoir, she recounts “staying in a very rustic cabin,” and wondered “how safe she and her girlfriends were with all of the commercial and military traffic rushing by on Route 66.” Morris recalls how they spent a glorious week swimming at the pool, eating at the restaurant, and relaxing in the cabins at Stony Dell, a place so popular in the 1940s that a highway patrolman was stationed nearby to direct the traffic heading in and out of the resort on the weekends during the summer months.
George Prewett sold the business around 1950, due to ongoing property disputes with his son. After changing hands at least once more, Fred and Esther Widner purchased the Stony Dell resort in 1954. The Widener children managed the pool, offered swimming lessons, and acted as lifeguards. Mr. Widener operated the restaurant, well known for his steak dinners. The Widener family kept the price of admission at fifty cents, making it affordable for local residents to swim at the pool. In 1965, the highway department purchased the land to create Interstate 44. The swimming pool, restaurant, and gas station were demolished a year later to make way for the new interstate. Some landmarks remain of the Stony Dell. Travelers on westbound I-44 can exit at Jerome, turn right on State Highway D, and look for the ruins of at least one cabin, the souvenir shop, and some stonework arches, as well as the spring standpipe that was used to fill the pool.
Ashley Weaver is an archivist at the State Historical Society of Missouri Rolla Research Center.
Check out our Route 66 Gallery, below, for images of Stony Dell Resort.
For Further Reading
Bathing Beauty Contest and Swimming Demonstration to be Given at Stony Dell.” The Rolla Herald, July 18, 1935.
“Stony Dell” by Van Beydler, Show Me Route 66, Summer 1996.
“Native Stone, concrete Swimming Holes, and “The One and Only” Stony Dell on Route 66” by John Bradbury, Jr., Old Settlers Gazette, 2020.
“Route 66 East to West: A Self-guided Tour Through Phelps County” by John Bradbury, Jr., Phelps County Historical Society Newsletter, no. 9, New Series, April 1994.
“Don’t Miss the Greatest Swimming and Diving Exhibition Ever Held in The West at Stony Dell Swimming Pool.” Rolla Herald, August 12, 1937.