Wanderers in Wonder

Valentine Diner in Hutchinson, Kansas…one of the first to open.

Arthur Valentine was born in 1891 in Elliot, Illinois. He knocked around until he landed in Wichita Kansas in the early 1930’s where he got a job as a salesman for the Ablah Hotel Supply Company. The Ablah company made prefabricated lunchrooms. Arthur came up with the idea of making small prefabricated diners. He began manufacturing his diners in the late 1930’s. He saw them as an inexpensive way for people to become their own bosses. The diners seated five to twelve customers and could be made with a takeout window. They came complete with stove, grill, oven, ice box (later a fridge) and sink. They were easily moved. Arthur provided financing for those who could not afford the upfront cost…$40 monthly payments for twenty years for the basic model. 

Business fell off sharply during WWII because of rationing. But, after the War business boomed. America was entering the Age of the Automobile. State governments were building miles and miles of roads. America was on the move and they needed places to eat along the way. Arthur’s Valentine Diners became extremely popular. 

Between 1937 and 1973 thousands of Valentine Diners were manufactured. Unfortunately, the interstate highway system left many small towns and their Valentine Diners across the country high and dry. These quaint little roadside diners became victims of an America moving ever faster and faster…fast cars, fast food, fast lives.

There are some fifty Valentine Diners still operating today. Most have been remodeled and added on to so much that they are unrecognizable as Valentine Diners. But there are a handful that are still up and running as Valentine Diners.

Suzie Q — Mason City, Iowa.

Stacy’s — Junction City, Kansas

Sugar Shack — Rudyard, Montana

Dot’s — Bisbee, Arizona

To be sure you are in an original Valentine Diner check for the safe located inside above the door to the right,

The Diner’s owners would leave $40 in an envelope labeled ‘Arthur’ in the safe. Arthur had employees whose job it was to collect the $40 monthly fee. 

We ran into a group of seventy plus motorcyclists from Ireland at a Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma. The cyclists solicit donations from people and businesses for every mile of the 2,000 plus mile Route 66 they ride. Their organization does this fundraiser every two years. This year they raised 750,000 Euros for The Irish Children’s Hospital Network…https://www.childrenshealth.ie/route-66/.

One of the riders, Tim, was from the small Irish community of Rathdowney, County Laois, Eire. He had already ridden on to the next stop. I told the gentleman with whom I was speaking that my cousin lived in Rathdowney. “And who would he be, Joe.” “Father Martin Delaney, he is the parish priest”, I replied. “Ah, the Lord be praised, Tim probably knows Father Martin better than he cares to. Tim can be quite the scamp, don’t you know!” Such a small world. 

Peace…Wanderers in Wonder.