Cool Springs

3/29/09 - Route 66, Cool Springs, AZ

Cool Springs Service Station was built in the 1920s and had a cafe, a bar and cabins. Route 66 was bypassed in 1953 and the station was abandoned in 1964. Adding insult to injury, its ruins were blown up for the 1991 Dolph Lundgren/Jean-Claude Van Damme film Universal Soldier.

In 1997 Ned Leuchtner passed through the area and found the ruins of Cool Springs. The spirit of the place fascinated and inspired him. For three years Ned tried to buy the property and in the summer of 2001, the owner called and said she wanted to sell. Based on vintage photographs, the Cool Springs station restoration was completed at the end of 2004.