Route-66 Illinois the beginning
Route 66 begins in Chicago and heads southwest for 300 miles across Illinois to Saint Louis, Missouri.
French voyagers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673 explored the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and claimed what would become Illinois for the French Empire. The French ceded the land to the British in 1763 and it passed to the US in 1783 as the Northwest Territory.
Illinois is typical of the Midwest. Multiple glaciers tens of thousands of years ago gave the state its defining characteristics – it is flat. Very flat and very good farmland.
American settlements began on the good farmland in the south along the major rivers and worked northward. Illinois became the 21st state in 1818. Early transportation was by water. A decade later Chicago began to develop as a transportation hub between the Illinois – Mississippi River system where things could go south to New Orleans or the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes where things could be shipped east to New York City by the Erie Canal. Illinois straddles the old industrial belt built around railroads and boat transportation to the north and the excellent farmland to the south.
Interstate 55 parallels Route 66. Once you get out of the Chicago metropolitan area, you begin to get a sense of the original highway in Joliet and to the south. Tour the Joliet Prison built in the 1850s which has housed some pretty infamous characters including Jake Blues of the Blues Brothers. The spooky gothic architecture is definitely worth photos.
Joliet is also home to the original Dairy Queen. Restaurants are part of travel, and you can still find original restaurants like the Whirl-a-Whip in Girard. For a different food treat, stop in Funks Grove for the maple syrup. You have to look very carefully for the shop about half a mile south of the turnoff marked Funks Grove and back in the trees on the east side of old 66. If you turn west as marked to Funks Grove, you can end up driving in an old forest of huge trees that envelope you like the old growth California redwoods.
Illinois is very history conscious. You will find Route 66 museums in Joliet and Pontiac. Abraham Lincoln was one of the most important US presidents, guiding the country thru the Civil War. He began his career in Illinois, museums are dedicated to him, and his tomb is in Springfield and his name is common across central Illinois.
Route 66 is very well marked by signs. The actual route had re-alignments through the years, and you will see signs pointing to different ways, depending on the years. You can still search out segments of the earliest road such as at Auburn, Nilwood (complete with turkey tracks left in the wet concrete) and Girard made of concrete and brick at Springfield. The old highway is mostly straight lines and sharp corners following the private property boundaries of the farms.
The earliest segments were narrow and could have sharp corners. That wasn’t a problem for some of the early cars like the Ford Model T built from 1908 to 1927. Sticking a wooden ruler in the 10-gallon tank was the gas gage. The 20-hp. motor shook the car and steering was a challenge. The top speed was about 35 miles per hour, and it got about 20 miles per gallon. The tires were made from synthetic rubber and consisted of the outer tire and an inflated inner tube. Unless you were rich, you became very good at patching inner tubes and using retread tires. Still, it was a great improvement over horse drawn wagons.
While roads might not have been a problem for the early Model T’s, there soon came cars that demanded better roads. Basic car improvements in the 1910s include the V-8 and V-12 motors and electric starters.
By the 1950s America became a car society and going to the movies meant going to drive-in movie theaters where you watched movies from in your car – unless you were a teenager giving the drive-ins the nickname of passion pits. You can still experience that at Springfield’s Route 66 Drive-In. The era of drive-ins began to fade with the 1970s with the rise of the first DVD home entertainment technology.
One charming idea in Midwest towns from the 40s and 50s is the idea that having the largest of something on display will bring fame and fortune to your town. You must wonder about some of the ideas like having the world’s largest ball of string. Illinois has the largest wooden covered wagon at the town of Lincoln with, of course, old Abe in the driver’s seat and the world’s largest catsup bottle at Collinsville.
While at Collinsville, check out the nearby Cahokia Mounds site to see native Americans had organized and complicated agricultural societies.
Collinsville is right before you cross the Mississippi River. Before bridges you had to cross by boat. The two-lane steel truss McKinley Bridge opened in 1910. The more interesting bridge is the Chain of Rocks Bridge built 1927-31. It of course was originally planned as a straight-line bridge, but riverboat captains complained about how that made navigating treacherous for them plus the original plan had support piers built over bedrock that could not support the concrete weight. The solution was a new plan with a 30o bend. The piers were finished in 1928 and a New Year’s Day, 1929 Grand Opening was planned. Floods and ice delayed that. The bridge was finally opened in July at twice the original budgeted cost.
Either bridge takes you to St. Louis.
