Seasoned by cigarette smoke, Buddy Holly on the jukebox and decades of pounding by polyurethane balls, the salvaged scraps of a once-popular bowling alley are being converted into instant collector's items.

Fifty years after it opened and five years after it closed, the wood that made up the pinewood lanes of the Route 66 Bowl are finding new life as high-quality, handcrafted electric guitars.

"We just couldn't stand to see it get destroyed," said Cameron Eagle, a local artist who acquired the wood and is helping transform it into instruments.