The Satillite Cafe and John Glenn’s First Orbit of the Earth

Satellite Cafe, Photograph, 1981

Loren and Norma Alloway and her husband, owners of the grocery in Sleeper, a small town off F Road north of Route 66, celebrated John Glenn’s orbit of the earth on February 20, 1962 by opening the Satellite Cafe at the junction of F Road and U.S. 66 in Laclede County, Missouri.

Satellite Cafe

In 1965 they built a simple concrete block building, set a large sign in the shape of a cross that encouraged travelers on 66 to stop and EAT. They set a rocket on the roadside that no one could miss.

The Alloways operated the cafe and service station  24 hours a day for 14 years, hiring older women who knew how to cook to run the kitchen. At this link you will find an image of the Satellite in its heyday.

Alloway Grocery, Sleeper

Sleeper is an unincorporated village in Laclede County. The Atlantic and Pacific (Frisco) Railroad went through Sleeper as early as 1874. Then it became a station on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad. In 1889 it was a town with two general stores,  a blacksmith shop, and a railroad section shack. It was named for Mr. Sleeper, the construction gang foreman who laid the tracks. At first it was called Sleeper’s Switch, for the spur that connected the mainline to a coal chute.

More recently two trains on the BNSF collided in Sleeper. Read the article. It’s very funny.