3/26/2007 12:17:00 PM Section of Illinois Route 66 receives little attention
Jim Hinckley Weekend Getaways
It would be a safe bet to say more ink has covered paper in regards to Route 66 than there has been asphalt to cover the highway itself.
In spite of this notoriety, it is surprisingly easy to become myopic about one particular section of the legendary highway. Such is the case here in our neck of the woods where other portions of the road, such as the eastern leg in Illinois, receive little attention.
More than a decade before there was a Route 66, or even a U.S. highway system, roads between communities were often primitive at best with community or commercial interest determining the route as well as condition. Illinois was no exception, and the main road between Chicago and St. Louis, following along much of the route traveled by Marquette and Joliet more than two centuries before, was an unpaved track little improved since the time of Abraham Lincoln.
In 1921 surveys, a bond issue, bids, and preliminary planning marked the beginning of transforming the Pontiac Trail into an all-weather road. By 1926, the entire route had been paved with concrete, just in time for inspection by the newly created American Association of State Highway Officials.
In 1927, appropriate signage proclaimed the Pontiac Trail was now U.S. 66. Three years later, Illinois and Kansas could proudly proclaim that only their portions was paved from border to border.
The eastern terminus of the icon that is Route 66 was at Grant Park. Renamed for Galena, Ill., resident Ulysses S. Grant in 1901, the creation of the park actually predated this president's administration by more than 20 years. As the park's creation was to preserve an area of land along the shores of Lake Michigan in 1844, a city ordinance prohibited building in the park. Developers sought to overturn this ordinance in the late nineteenth century but they were defeated in the courts through the efforts of Aaron Montgomery Ward.
The city's first exception to the ordinance was the construction of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1892. Today the lower portions of the park, known as the museum campus, is also home to the Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, Shedd Aquarium, a breathtakingly beautiful fountain and a misplaced statue.
As you begin motoring west on Route 66, Jackson Boulevard, be sure and allow time for a stop at Lou Mitchell's. Located at 565 W. Jackson Blvd., this wonderful eatery began serving food to travelers and locals alike three years before there even was a Route 66!
The drive west on Jackson Boulevard and then Ogden Avenue through Cicero and Berwyn is a true opportunity to experience Route 66 as it was in the era before the interstate highway and heavy traffic. The city of Chicago and its neighbors have experienced a great deal of sprawl since the christening of Route 66, but here and there arevestiges of the prairies, the farms and even the coal mines that once lined the highway along this portion of the drive.
In Bollingbrook, the old highway, now designated as state route 53, follows the west shore of the Des Plaines River into Joliet, home of the historic Rialto Square Theater. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Rialto, built in 1926 as a "Palace for the People," underwent an extensive restoration in the mid 1980s. Its intricate plasterwork, ornate ceilings, historic organ and other period features make the Rialto an architectural gem.
Farms and all that entails dominate much of the roadside on the next leg of this drive west. Interspersed among this agrarian landscape are a veritable cornucopia of Americana, small town America and Route 66 landmarks.
In Wilmington, there is the Launching Pad with its iconic Gemini Giant, where since the 1950s good food has encouraged weary travelers to take a break, and Odell Station, a true time capsule from 1932 in Odell. There is Pontiac with the Old Log Cabin Restaurant, where fresh homemade pie has been on the menu since 1926, and the historic bridge over North Creek and Lexington, where an original alignment of the old highway is now a walking trail known as Memory Lane.
Buried but not lost among the modern urban landscape of Bloomington are true treasures such as the 1903 courthouse, now a museum, and the Beer Nut Factory. The latter is a family owned business that has supplied famous red-skinned nuts since the 1930s.
A bit over a dozen miles south of Bloomington is a true national treasure, a roadside stop that has been serving Illinois travelers for more than a century, Funks Grove. This historic farm nestled among a natural stand of maples and ancient white oaks has been doling out pure maple syrup since 1824.
However, there is more than maple syrup to encourage a stop at this Route 66 landmark. Additionally, an excellent gem and mineral museum houses an extensive display of Native American artifacts and nearby is the Funks Grove Nature Center. From Funks Grove, the old highway rolls across the grand prairie into the heart of the land of Lincoln at Springfield.
As the capital of Illinois since 1837, Springfield is filled with more than a century of treasures that range from the shrine that is the only home Abraham Lincoln ever owned, his solemn tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, to the Route 66 icon that is the Cozy Dog.
From Springfield, the prairie quickly gives way to a landscape of limestone bluffs, thick forests, lush farms built on rich bottomlands and wide savannas. Almost as quickly, the landscape becomes an urban one and the road, with its various alignments, twists and turns through Maryville, Granite City, and Madison.
