Have you tried the soup at Subway?
And I'm not talking about the tuna salad.
I always get the tuna where they lead out your tuna under there.
There's always that white puddle of tuna water.
It's like a tuna gaspacho.
You want to bring in a really long straw and you're like,
oh, that's where I cross the line.
Oh, that's where I cross the line.
So I was finally told that that tuna water joke.
My fiance is allergic to tuna water.
I want to appreciate the inconsideration.
If anyone in the Washington DC metropolitan area would sound like this voice
he's doing right now.
I think the accent actually changes the middle of the joke.
This is the way I've always dreamed it for me.
With that it is so when you were holding me.
I never had love or love or love or love.
Maybe if I try it when we won't love.
I can hear music.
I can hear music for you.
The sounds on the city, baby.
Sing to the sun for you.
I can hear music.
I can hear music.
Sweet, sweet.
It's 707 at WRG and I'm Don Rosen.
I want to thank you for joining us here today on this Wednesday.
You love it, you.
It keeps that inside.
My guest is Dwight Cannon.
He's the president, the new president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
He's been here once before.
Yes, you did.
We only got through half of Route 66 in Illinois because we had so many stories to tell about it.
Now we're going to finish Route 66 today.
We're halfway through and Dwight thanks for joining me again.
Thanks for having me.
What are the benefits to being president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois?
When you travel do you get a chauffeur limousine doing it?
They give you a free Uber?
How does it work?
Are there benefits nobody told me?
I'll have to investigate that.
That would be a nice way to travel Route 66 in a chauffeur limousine.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, you wouldn't have to worry about looking at Matt.
You just look out the window.
Okay.
So Route 66, for people that don't know, used to be a road that traveled from Chicago to the
the pier outing.
What's at the name of the pier?
The set of the few minutes of Santa Monica pier.
It travels Route 66.
And this is the way people travel across America.
Once they got to Chicago, they can travel.
And this is how they got there.
And you say, why don't they just go on the interstate?
Because there was no interstate back then.
This was the road people used.
And it was a lot of times a two lane road, one in each direction.
It wasn't a spade.
You didn't go 80 miles an hour on the interstate.
You went very slow.
And I don't think people back in the days when they traveled in Route 66 actually
appreciated what they had.
But yeah, right.
But nowadays we appreciate it more.
I think for more than nostalgia part of it.
So nobody traveled to Route 66 to get from one point to the next.
You just don't do that.
So we traveled Route 66 with you and we traveled it my wife and I all the way
at the Amarillo.
But we've done the Route 66 Association of Illinois route many, many times
because we've been a member of the organization for years.
And it's kind of fun because you guys have banquets.
You have a special, we did the, you had the red and the blue motor tours
of Route 66 where you actually have special arrangements
with different people along the route, different stores, different places.
You have different, you have a special arrangement to it.
And we'll talk about one of them when we get to the end of Route 66 in Illinois,
the chain of rod bridge.
But you guys are rain special things.
So if you want to go, I think it's $30 for a year.
You get this beautiful magazine four times a year or twice a year.
I think it's four times a year.
Four times a year.
Four times.
It's like an annual revenue report.
What I'd say is that you are one of those areas.
People put their pictures and memories in there.
Route 66.
I love when this thing comes in the mail comes in and I'm a little bit
of open up.
And I just start reading and read.
I keep it by my bedside.
I love reading it.
Okay, so you've got a ton of people involved, not only citizens,
but you got businesses involved in Route 66.
It starts in downtown Chicago.
But I tell people who don't want to go to downtown Chicago,
you don't have to start there.
You can start.
What's the nearest days as brule it?
No, it's not Julia.
Where's that chicken basket place?
That's Romeo.
Romeo.
Romeo.
So you can start there.
Oh, well, well, well, we'll look at where it goes.
And there's white fence farm, which is equally famous,
that's in Romeo.
Yeah, so you can start out there.
You don't have to start in downtown Chicago.
A lot of people don't like to travel in Chicago.
So you can bypass the downtown area.
But that's where it officially starts as a sign.
It starts in ends because it depends which direction you're going.
And I guess so you can start there.
You can travel all the way down Route 66.
Now tell us now there are places where you can't travel Route 66
because it's gone.
How do they get gone?
Well, there's a couple of spots.
One of them's unique.
I'll talk about that one first.
McCook is a village when you're heading out of Chicago
before you get to Romeoville.
And McCook has a large quarry.
Now that quarry is where an airport used to be.
One of these little Chicago used to be littered with municipal airports.
And in this case that airport closed because they discovered there was a material underneath it was valuable.
So they opened this quarry up.
Well, over years they kept digging and digging and digging.
And Route 66 was kind of right down the middle of it.
And it got dug to the point where it was kind of like a drop off on either side.
And I thought I guess was looking at it because there was cracks forming in the roadway.
And they wound up closing it because it was unsafe.
So you can't even walk on that part.
They're barricades.
They have a little routing around it.
Now that's an unusual closure.
Some of the closures were because essentially I-55 is over where 66 used to run.
Now there's only a couple of spots where that happens.
And one of them is near Delray.
So if you're going to Delray Chicken Basket, you have to kind of get off the interstate,
wrap around a little shopping center.
And then you get on this little section of 66 is pretty short because either end winds up under 55.
So there's a couple of spots like that.
But we really have.
We're very lucky.
A lot of 66 you can still travel.
Of course 66 had various alignments.
So you may, the later alignment.
So you mentioned Joliet earlier.
Joliet had 66 running right through it.
They later bypassed that and it went through Plainfield.
Now parts of that are under I-55.
But the perfect goes through Joliet.
Once you get off of 55, they're in north of Joliet.
You can pretty much stay on 66 all the way to St. Louis.
And we can talk when we get past Bloomington down south of there.
We'll talk about the two different routes that 66 took.
But you can travel all of 66 once you get past that part.
And in case you get nervous about it, the interstate is parallel to Route 66 for the most part.
And so if you get panicky, I want to get off the small road, you can get on the interstate.
And there's little brown and white signs that tell you where to get off for historic Route 66.
But once you get out, you're not going to want to get off of it.
It just winds and goes through different parts.
And if you have a, you got to have a book with you though to tell you what you're looking at.
I was very fortunate to have those two picture books of Route 66.
And I forget who wrote them.
I actually had the author on the guy who put them together on the air with the big ones.
And do you know the books I'm talking about?
The picture books?
Yeah, there's one that's John Weiss wrote that travels just Illinois.
So if you're wanting to do just Illinois, that's a good book.
It runs from east to west or kind of north east to southwest because it angles through Illinois.
That may be one of the ones you're talking about.
No, this one.
There's a lot of books that are out there too.
This one takes you from the start to the finish of Route 66.
Two picture books.
We get them autographed from everywhere it will stop.
But you got to have something with you so you know what you're looking at.
Because you'll drive by something and not even realize it was in a historic spot.
So we left off a Bloomington normal.
Route 66 goes through Bloomington.
That's the home of, was it at the University of Illinois?
Isn't Bloomington, right?
Am I right?
Okay.
And normal is yeah.
So you can go through there.
There's a lot of historic things when you go through Bloomington where you can catch up on Route 66.
But what's there that we should make note of?
Is there anything historic going through Bloomington?
Well, there's a few things that are there.
The original.
I believe those two original steak and shake is there.
But unfortunately the original is.
No, I think a pizza place.
They move.
They move the steak and shake down the road.
But that's where I believe the first steak and shake was there in the Bloomington normal corridor right on 66.
Exactly.
And then beer nuts is there.
Unfortunately, beer nuts.
You used to have a little like a factory story.
You could go in there and buy things after the COVID.
A lot of things closed and that was one of the losses that they closed that factory story.
That just didn't have enough traffic.
So that used to be any time we'd go there down there.
That was not right on 66.
But any time we were in that area, my wife always wanted to stop there and go in their little store.
But that one, like I say, is not available.
There's a lot of things that are not necessarily Route 66 associated that are close to 66.
There's the David Davis mansion, things like that.
So I mean, and of course driving by the university.
It can be difficult.
You have to be careful.
You mentioned the books.
It's worth having the book or maybe even one of the online apps driving through there because it was another one of those places where there was a lot of alignments.
And a couple of them that pretty easy get lost on.
There are sections that go through residential areas, which was typical for 66 on the day.
But that portions are closed up.
And you can see like a viaduct where it used to be, but that's no longer there.
So you kind of bypass it.
So heading towards tawanda to the north, you would see that.
But if you're careful, you can make it through.
Now a lot of 66 is marked now with the historic 66 signs.
You mentioned the brown and white signs.
Yeah.
But they typically are only one of the alignments.
But if you if you watch for those, it's very well marked.
Believe me, back in the day, I got lost plenty of times trying to follow 66.
But it is very well marked and Illinois.
Okay, we come down.
We got a break coming up here.
But let's start with McLean and Atlanta.
They're kind of back to back.
If you're heading south on Route 66 from Bloomington, you're running to McLean.
Yeah, if you're headed out of Bloomington, the first thing you might see would be like surely.
And then Funks Grove.
Funks Grove's famous for its syrup.
So you might want to stop there in season.
They're closed right now.
They sold out.
They sold out quickly.
So if you want some really good maple syrup.
I know.
Time it right to get there.
And I went there twice with the closed sign in front.
And I said, when does it happen?
Somebody's coming here to buy this stuff.
When is it open?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not really sure.
And it does vary because they do sell out.
And as soon as they sell out, they close the store.
There's only so much.
They're actually getting it out of the trees right there.
So when it's gone, it's gone.
And then after that is McLean.
And I do want to highlight McLean.
If we have enough time, we can get it in.
Maybe after your break.
Yeah, hold it right there.
McLean has come up next.
Okay.
And then we have Atlanta, not Georgia, but Atlanta, Illinois.
I think that's where the, one of the muffler managers, right?
Yes it is.
Yeah.
Okay.
We'll talk about the muffler managers in a moment.
It's a 718 at WRJN.
My guest is Dwight Cannon.
He's the president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
And you can join that organization.
We'll tell you how.
A little later on.
It's $30 a year.
And you get all this great stuff.
And you get people who love you.
Okay.
It's 719 at WRJN Radio.
Pacific Media Station.
hometown radio refreshed.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh my God.
We're back again.
No.
My brothers, sixes, everybody saying.
I'm going to ring the flame.
I'll show you how.
I've got a question for you.
Better answer now.
Yeah.
Am I your agent?
Oh.
Yeah.
Am I your agent?
Oh.
Yeah.
Am I the only.
I've gone roast and WRJN 721 on your Wednesday.
And we're talking to Dwight Cannon, the president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
We're in, we're in McLean.
Is that where we left off?
McLean, Illinois?
Right.
We're heading into McLean from Funk's Grove.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Take it from there.
Yeah.
So we have 66 runs through there.
After you get out of Bloomington, there's the two lane that you were mentioning before.
Very much looks like what you would have been traveling down across the pavement.
It's better.
It's a little wider and a little less travel than you would have been in the day.
But after you pass Funk's Grove and you picked up some maple syrup, S-I-R-U-P,
then you would be heading on farther south into McLean.
Now McLean, we have a history with because actually there used to be the Dixie trucker's home.
It's now a different company.
But at that time, that was our first, I guess you could say, Museum and Hall of Fame.
We had some cases there.
You could go look at artifacts from the history of Route 66.
We were there for a few years.
Of course, we have our own museum stand-alone now in Pontiac.
But we were there for a while.
I just wanted to mention that McLean, a few years ago, erected a new water tower.
Now, the water tower that they had before that was one of the old ones that you'd see along the route.
This one was built in the 30s, probably a WPA direction there.
And it was hot riveted.
So very unusual.
There's not a lot of them around.
And we just got through working out a contract with McLean, not us in particular,
but a group called CORE that is out of McLean as a community organization.
And they wanted to preserve and paint that, put a mural up on the tank and all that.
And just past Monday night, hot news.
A contract was determined to be in order.
And we'll be signed and the CORE will take over that.
And they're going to fix it up.
So you'll want to head down there and see it after they get that all painted just to see the beautiful job they do with that.
Is this a WRG and exclusive?
Well, they might have some news on a down south or in the McLean area.
But up in this area, yeah, it probably is.
An exclusive.
All right.
Yeah, hot news.
Okay.
Well, that is good.
So you have that to look for when you go to McLean, probably within the next few months,
I'll start on that little, little chilly out right now.
But when they get the opportunity, they'll clean it and they're going to repaint it and put a mural on it.
Okay.
So then we have Atlanta, we just home to one of the muffler men.
If you get right off, it's right there on Route 66.
And the quick history for people that don't remember we talked last time about the muffler men.
Yeah, this throughout the country actually there used to be these big huge fiberglass guys.
Typically they're called muffler men because a lot of them were used for muffler shops.
So they were like 24 to 40 feet.
They just really tall guys.
And they would be holding mufflers.
So you would see it driving down the street and go, I want to get my muffler fixed.
Oh, there's a place to do it.
Yeah, these are fiberglass figures.
Right.
Right.
And they are big.
So they are eye catching.
But a lot of them have been repurposed.
And it just so happens to one in Atlanta is one of those that was repurposed.
It used to be in, I think, in Cicero or Burwin.
There was a hot dog place called Bunions.
And he stood outside of there holding a hot dog.
So instead of a muffler, he was altered a little bit holding a hot dog.
And when that closed, somebody purchased that guy.
And he is now standing in downtown Atlanta.
He's known as Tall Paul.
And he's still standing there downtown holding a hot dog.
Now, on top of that, Atlanta has recently opened a museum.
I don't know what the official name is.
We call it the Giants Museum.
But that's what it is.
They have several of these giants.
And it's not just the guys.
There's also like the dinosaurs.
You might remember some of those, too.
That is in Atlanta.
In addition to that, there's a small section just north of Atlanta.
You have to look for it.
But there are signs pointing to it that is original 66.
It is not improved.
So it is the little narrow concrete path.
It's short.
But it's worth driving down just to see it.
And there's a sign down at the end.
One of our, another organization in Illinois, scenic byways,
has erected a sign there.
And it's got pictures of when they were actually building that.
And it has mules and horses,
towing the materials that they were using.
And it was all manual labor.
It's worth seeing.
Okay, so that's Atlanta.
Then we move into Lincoln,
which is named after, obviously, President Lincoln,
who was in Springfield, Illinois.
But this is not Springfield.
This is Lincoln, Illinois.
Yep.
And there's quite a bit to see in Lincoln.
There's a little, just off 66,
as in the parking lot, next to 66.
And a little tiny chapel.
It's like a one-room chapel.
That's what we're seeing.
There is, again, the route going into Lincoln,
you will be on part of that where it is the four-lane divided highway
that was the, I guess you could say,
the piece of 66 that existed shortly before the interstate took over.
There are several sections of that.
This happens to be one of those sections
where both sides are open.
A lot of that's one side's closed,
but you've got a driving in the Lincoln.
You have that piece where it is the four-lane.
So you can get a taste of 50s and 60s, 66s driving in out of Lincoln.
Is that where the rail splitter is,
that big conistoga wagon, the big wagon with Lincoln?
Is that in Lincoln?
I forget where that is.
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, I'm thinking it's there.
There was a couple of things that were moved.
So I'm not really sure, but I believe that the rail splitter is there.
And then there's a park down there
and you can go see a reconstruction of the courthouse
that was Lincoln used to present his cases in.
There's a lot in Lincoln,
and it's certainly worth a visit.
And if you're on the interstate, you're going to miss it.
If you're on 66, you're going to go right through Lincoln
and you'll see all of these.
Yeah, get off the interstate if you can on these places,
because that's why you're traveling.
There's all doing all this.
Elkhard and Williamsville are coming up next.
Is there anything there of interest?
Elkhard's a cute little town off the side.
Again, bypassed by 55.
Now, in many cases, you'll be able to see the towns from in the interstate,
but that's all you'll do is your pass by and you'll see something over there on the side.
66 runs right through it.
And when you go after there's a beautiful old cemetery that's located in Elkhard
and in the downtown area, though it's small,
has quite a few places that are worth visiting.
It's worth the stop.
And unfortunately, of course, if you're on 55,
you're going to miss all of these things.
And that's why you want to get on 66,
so you can see all these interesting places.
Mom and Pop restaurants and that kind of thing,
which I prefer those as opposed to the big chains.
Oh, yeah.
Whenever I wife and I go out on a road trip,
we always eat at the Mom and Pop places.
Because that's why you're there.
You can eat at the Arby's anytime,
but you can't eat at these Mom and Pop places all the time.
Hold on a second.
We're talking to Dwight Cannon, president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
Coming up at just a moment, the big ones, Springfield, Illinois.
A must stop on anybody's trip.
I don't care if you're traveling Route 66 or just traveling across America.
You got to stop in Springfield.
We'll talk about that coming up in a moment with Dwight Cannon right here at WRJN.
Old Town Radio Refresh to Civic Media Station, 729.
I'm Don Rosen. Thanks for joining me here.
It's 734 at WRJN Radio.
Dwight Cannon, president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois is with me here.
We're taking our second part two trip.
Hope we get through all of it today.
It might have to be a...
Well, here's part eight of our trip.
Hey, there's so much to see.
I mean, you can't blow by it.
Yeah, you can't go blow by it in just a few minutes here.
And we're not even touching on some of the smaller places you can see along the Route 66 roadside.
Old restaurants.
And you know what people love to see?
And I don't know why, but they like to see the ruins of the old motor courts.
And a lot of that stuff you'll find in Missouri and Oklahoma.
You don't find a lot of those old motor courts, you know, dilapidated going through Illinois.
But you do see it on Route 66 and I went up to one.
It's kind of dangerous, too, because those things can fall apart on you.
But the old motor courts you would see in the 1930s movies.
You know, they show people pulling up their car and they're still there.
They're not operational, but they're still there.
Okay, we're in Springfield, Illinois, a home of Lincoln.
This is where you live.
And we looked up the official name.
It's the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
That's the official name.
It's in Springfield.
And if you go there, three or four hours minimum, you have to allow,
because it's just a knockout when you get in a hologram.
When you were in there, did they have the hologram guy giving your tour?
It's been a while.
I don't recall seeing that.
So maybe that was put in afterwards.
Yeah.
But like you say, it takes a lot of time.
So I mean, out of it, everything.
We were there for a couple hours and there was still more to see.
When we went there, they had a guy behind a glass giving a speech.
And I wanted to ask him a question.
And I found out that it was a hologram.
And I said, this guy looks real.
But you start out when you go there through the birth of Lincoln,
they have a replica of his actual cabin.
I think it's a replica of his cabin.
And you go through his entire life.
But before you take us on a tour of the whole area,
I notice them.
They have pictures of Lincoln on the wall.
And they have pictures of him as, you know, a lawyer there
than they have right through his presidency.
And if you compare the pictures, you can see the smile
leaving his face as the Civil War took a toll on this man.
And he gets older.
And you can see it in his face in these pictures.
But it's a great place.
Yeah, it's a great place.
It's true to it.
Yeah.
But if you go through there, you wind up at his funeral
and they have a replica of his laying in state at the funeral.
And I cried.
Here's coming down my face.
I felt terrible after I left that place
because you saw the entire life of a young man.
And, you know, it's well worth it.
You can spend three or four hours easily in that place.
And you want to come back for more.
But so that's in Springfield.
Now, you can go to Lincoln's house there
and go inside the house.
What do you tell us about that?
Yeah, it's not, you know, if you're drive by,
it's not a real impressive residence.
It just looks like a big box.
Basically, it's very plain.
But it's a two-story house.
And you can go, like you say, you can go in there,
you can tour the house.
And I would assume at the time,
it would probably be pretty impressive.
Of course, today with all our McMansions
and everything everywhere,
probably not so impressive.
But in its day, it was probably a reasonably large, pretty house.
But again, it's just a, I guess you call it like a four-square house.
A very plain looking house.
Very much worth going into, though.
Just like you were saying,
you're looking at these artifacts and things from the period.
And it's impressive.
Yeah, and you get to see his chairs, his book.
And this is where Lincoln lived and walked around.
He had, he doesn't have any living relatives.
I mean, he doesn't have any relatives anymore.
His line of succession is gone because none of his kids had children.
So that's it.
There's no more, there's no more Lincoln's from, from his family.
But you're in the place where Abraham Lincoln lived with his family.
And it's just awe-inspiring to be in that building.
And they show pictures of when they announced that he won the presidency,
all the crowds of people outside that house in the streets.
But you're where history took place in Springfield.
Right there on Route 66.
Who knew the Lincoln would be on Route 66.
But oh, God, you're going to say something.
No, I was going to agree.
I mean, when you go into Springfield,
it's got a lot of history for both of obviously Lincoln and 66 both running through it.
And you could spend all day there easily just looking at the Lincoln things.
His home, the cemetery where he's buried, the library and museum.
There's just an awful lot there.
And the other towns around there.
So it's where he practiced law and where he worked his way up.
And they wound up becoming the president of the country during a very tumultuous time.
I think you see his law office there.
It's right there in Springfield.
They still have it there.
I wanted to tell, I'm looking at it and I have time to finish this today.
We got to tell this story.
He is buried.
And when you go in to see Lincoln's burial spot,
you're actually standing about 10 feet above his casket.
It's buried under the floor and there's a reason for it.
In concrete.
Yeah, in concrete.
But his wife and some of his kids, not all of his kids are buried.
And you can see their crypts on the wall.
You can walk right next to it.
But he's buried underneath.
And tell me if I have the story correct.
When he was buried there originally, it's a strange story.
There was a guy who was a counterfeiter, a forger.
And he had these plates that he can make counterfeit money.
And he was in jail.
And his partners wanted to get him out.
So they were going to steal Lincoln's body,
hold it for ransom until they let this guy out of jail.
And so they got into Lincoln's body.
They got the sarcophagus, which is the actual concrete thing.
They got the lid open.
Took a break because they were tired.
And that's when they got caught.
So they never got the casket out of the sarcophagus.
But they were going to steal him to get this counterfeiter out of jail.
Is that the way?
Am I close to it?
Yeah.
That's certainly the entire story.
But there certainly wasn't a temp to steal the body.
And that's why it's sitting situated the way it is now
is to bring anybody from stealing that body.
Okay.
What am I missing in Springfield?
Are we missing anything?
There's quite a bit actually heading in.
If anybody's interested in real history,
if you're heading into Springfield and you go through the town of Sherman,
which is just north of Springfield,
there's a wayside, which is the precursor to our rest stops.
But nothing like what the rest stops are today.
You can actually drive down this little road and see this rest stop.
The original wayside is not there.
They have a replica of it.
But that's where if you were traveling down the road and got tired
or wanted to stop and have lunch or whatever,
you would stop at these little things.
And they typically had concrete picnic tables or whatever.
And then you'd sit at that.
So you can see that.
There's another section past that that is the crosses the river.
It's worth taking a look down where the road is.
I think the road right now is closed,
but you can look down to see it that a little narrow or original 66.
It was dangerous and fun to drive.
So you can see what people used to have to deal with when they were going through there
and then cross the bridge.
The bridge is long gone.
So you would be on what it would be Illinois 4.
At the time, passing by that.
So you can see that.
And then as you're going down through Springfield,
again, there's more than one alignment.
But there is a little place.
I believe it's called Made Right.
It's a little...
Yes, I've been there.
What do they call them?
Those hamburgers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They lose meat.
They put it on a bun.
It's not a formed burger.
It's just chopped meat, but it's not right.
Made Right.
I've been there.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's worth stopping by there and trying it out.
I suggest you get it with the cheese.
It's a little better with the cheese and without.
But that's typical of the type of places people would eat back in the day driving down 66.
Like we talked about earlier from the mom and pop places.
What is the hot dog place there?
The Kozy Dog.
Kozy Dog.
Yes, the Kozy Dog is located in the Springfield.
I don't have my book.
I should have brought my picture book with me.
I didn't bring it.
I brought your magazine instead.
I should have brought my picture books.
The Kozy Dog is there.
That's a famous one.
Yep.
The Kozy Dog was found by the Waldmeyer family.
Ed Waldmeyer created that.
He was a veteran.
World War II.
Opened up this place.
And it's basically a hot dog dipped in a corn.
I don't know what you call it.
It's a corn dog.
It's good.
Well, good.
The Kozy Dog do not order a corn dog.
I know.
Well, look at scans that you will order a Kozy Dog.
Apparently there is some difference between the typical corn dog and the Kozy Dog.
I suggest you stop by and try one and see what you think.
But it's been there for a very long time.
One of Ed's sons was a guy named Bob Waldmeyer.
And if anybody is familiar with Route 66, they may be familiar with Bob Waldmeyer.
He used to do a lot of art.
A lot of pen and ink, watercolors, that type of thing.
There are some of his examples.
In the museum we have in Pontiac.
His micro bus is there.
His land yacht.
They call it there, which is the big bus.
He used to live in at one point when he was traveling the route.
Big mural across the street that he actually designed.
But did not paint.
Family and friends finished that for me.
Unfortunately, he passed away from cancer and wasn't able to do that.
But he is an iconic figure.
And that's his daddy ran that place.
And he was there for a while, but it wasn't his cup of tea, I guess you could say.
So he wanted more of that free hippie style.
That's what the life he lived.
It's worth stopping by there.
There's pictures of him when he was younger or worse.
But yeah, the Kozy Dog is famous.
So it's worth stopping there.
I have his maps that he wrote, he drew maps and drawn.
Right.
So I have that whole collection.
All right, coming up, we've got Auburn, Verden and Nillwood.
What should we see there?
Anything?
Well, here's the thing of it.
When we get to Springfield, there's two different ways you can take 66 out of Springfield.
The original path, which wasn't actually real 66, it was alt 66.
Went from 1926 through 1930.
Because they were actually paving what was going to become the real 66 farther to the east.
Because it was straighter.
The path that it followed originally was down, again, Illinois 4, or SBI 4, they called it the day.
It was a little kind of crooked, because it went back there and they went,
if there was anything in the road, they went around it.
So farm houses, whatever.
So if you were to drive down that back, when it was originally 66, it lots of turns.
90 degree turns and all that to go around things.
But Auburn is one of those towns that's along that original route.
And it has, outside of town, a portion of the road that's done in brick.
Now, it's very nice.
It's very well maintained when you're driving down a side.
You're going to get jerked all over the road.
It is very, very smooth.
So you have that.
Then there's another town called Millwood.
And just outside of Millwood, there is a place where there are turkey tracks in the road.
The pavement is the original pavement from when the floor was put in.
And apparently they poured the concrete and went home.
And while they were gone, some turkey or turkeys decided this is a good place to do a square dance.
So they did.
So there's a little section there, you can see it.
And it's concrete from back in the, I guess that would have been the late teens or early 20s.
Before it was even 66.
Where these turkeys left their mark.
So now we have...
No, I'm just going to say it's cute. It's worth seeing.
You have to keep your eye open if you're going down four.
What is now Illinois four?
For the little science that point off to the side.
So you'll have to turn to go down through these routes.
Either the turkey tracks or the brick road or other sections is the original 66.
They are not straight like four was.
Or is now you would have to make these 90 degree turns and all that.
So it's worth the side trip.
So we have Litchfield coming up.
Now Litchfield has...
When you take the other route down through 66 that's to the east, you would go through Litchfield.
If you take the original, you go to Staten, then you have to go back up to Litchfield.
Which isn't a long drive.
So if you do go through that original thing to the west, it's worth going back up to Litchfield.
It has a restaurant that's been there for a very long time over here at Staten.
And it's worth going there and having a meal.
It's one of those places that's still around from way back when.
And it's worth stopping by and having a nice meal.
By the way, the food is new. It's just a building's old.
Yeah, the food is brand new.
Hold on a second there.
We're talking to Dwight Cannon, the president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
We're headed to the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which takes you right into Missouri.
That's coming up in just a moment here.
In 749, WRTN, all town radio refreshed a civic media station.
My guest is Dwight Cannon, president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
Let's see if we can get through the Chain of Rocks Bridge.
We've got a couple of other towns.
Mount Olive, Staten, Livingston, and Hamill, anything in those towns we should be noting.
Oh, each one of them has its own unique spots that you want to see.
I guess one of the more famous ones that you're going through Staten is the guy there that has a huge collection of old cars,
which are available for purchase.
And you can spend quite a bit of time there until that Springfield's been into three hours.
You could spend that much time there at that car place.
I can't talk to my head and recall the name of it, but anybody that's since not will notice it.
And it's pretty well known.
There's a lot of little towns along the way.
And each one of it has its own features.
It depends again on whether you're in the Eastern or Western Route of 66 through there.
One of the things that I guess is an eye catcher is if you're heading through particularly the eastern side of things,
it's the huge ketchup bottle.
And Collins, is that Collinsville?
Yes.
Collinsville, Brooks ketchup is what it was built.
It's actually a water tower.
We've talked about water tower in McLean.
This one's probably a little bit more famous water tower, and it looks like a ketchup bottle.
And it's very well maintained, and it's worth getting in there and getting a picture of yourself with this huge ketchup bottle.
Let's talk about the chain of rocks bridge that's coming up here.
This is what connects Illinois to Missouri, the St. Louis.
Now, if you remember the organization, they actually opened it up to traffic, car traffic.
It's very rare they do it, but they did it for the organization.
And we're able to travel across and back again on the chain of rock, chain of rocks bridge.
I can't understand how people used to travel that bridge.
It's got like a, it's almost like a 40 degree angle in the middle of it, which is dangerous if you're traveling on a bridge, especially if it's icy.
Yeah, so let's talk about that bridge.
Certainly unique.
So to talk about that bridge.
Yeah, so when you're heading into St. Louis, there's another place where there was a lot of alignment.
And it basically, chain of rocks is one of those bridges that was done to get around going through St. Louis.
Obviously, the big city driving through St. Louis was a pain, you know, if you're going through all the stoplights and everything.
So they rerouted 66 to go a little bit north.
And when they did that, the bridge that was used was the chain of rocks bridge.
So I believe that was the third alignment of 66 going through.
And it was built, private funds built it.
It was a toll bridge.
And when they put it up originally to engineering, was it just went from Northern St. Louis across to Illinois and towards Mitchell, Illinois.
When they first put it in, it was not supposed to be bent.
It was straight.
But what happened was it's called the chain of rocks because it's not a very navigable part of the Mississippi.
There was actually shows down rather shallow there.
And there were real hazard to shipping.
And the Mississippi actually has a lot of shipping going up and down it.
So they had to be able to navigate around this.
Well, there's also two water intakes that St. Louis has there for their municipal water.
And between the bridge and these intakes, there was a lot of concern about having accidents running into the bridge or running into one of the intakes or hitting the rocks.
So they said in order to make it more navigable, you're going to have to make it straighter here.
So they wound up putting that little hitch in the bridge, which became pretty famous or infamous depending on how you look at it.
And I think it's around 30 degrees.
And I never experienced this because I never drove on it when the chain of rocks was open.
But it was, I guess an adventure if you were coming one way and a semi was coming the other.
Because in order to make the turn the semi basically had to use up the entire bridge.
So cars would have to stop until the semi would make this turn.
It's a neat bridge to go across. Like you mentioned, now it's a pedestrian and bicycle pathway.
All the time, I believe it's called the greenways has this bridge. They maintain it.
But it's strictly pedestrian and bicycle except.
And however, however, however, you guys got special permission to have the organization travel one way and back again the other way.
And on my cell phone here, I can look at pictures.
I dropped I think maybe my wife get out of the car by the bend in the bridge and stand there.
I needed some scale.
I sent her out there.
And yeah, how did you get special permission for that?
There's a permit you could apply for and it is for special occasions only normally they don't want traffic on it.
It's an old bridge. It's not in the best condition.
Has been rehab, but not to the point where you'd want to have traffic on it all the time.
So it was only for special occasions.
Like you said, we have, you know, we come from the Illinois side and cross over and then get the Missouri side.
Rearrange everybody and then cross back over.
They are actually building a new park on the Missouri side that there's going to be the ground breaking up.
Believe April 14th somewhere on there.
It's supposed to be magnificent.
What they're going to be doing over there is really great.
So I'm going to be down there to check that out when it happens for the ribbon cutting.
It'll make it even more attractive to people to go down and visit this bridge.
Even if you don't drive across it, it's worth seeing because it is unique.
You don't see a lot of bridges with a bend in the middle.
I can't imagine how dangerous that was.
Keeping in mind you had that and it was a toll bridge.
So you had to pay for that privilege of going through that bend in the middle.
So now if you want to join the Route 66 Association of Illinois, it's $30 a year.
Now I get a little thing mailed to me just to renew, but if somebody wants to start up, how do they do it?
Okay, you can look up on our website, which is il66assoc.org.
Or you can type in Illinois66.org and it'll take you there too.
And there is a place where you can sign up online.
Or if you don't want to do that, you can actually ask for a form to be downloaded.
And then you can fill it out and mail it in.
And the actual rates are individual.
So if this single person is $20 a year, very much worth it.
You like to see four magazines a year, $30 for family and $50 for business.
And it does give you the magazine, gives you the right to vote.
We do have elections and all that.
And you get a little decal with your car.
But it's worth it just for the magazine.
Dwight Cannon, the president of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
When you have your big motor tours, we'll have you back again to describe them for everybody.
But get out there and join the association.
Be part of Route 66 history.
Hold on Dwight, don't go anywhere.
Stay right there.
It's 758 WRJ and I'm Don Rosenback tomorrow morning 6 a.m.
Brighton Early.