Illinois

Route 66 goes through the heart of Illinois: between the great cities of Chicago and St. Louis, there are 300 miles of adventure, history, culinary delights, and quirky attractions.

This is the "Land of Lincoln" and roadside giants. There are cozy motels, cozy diners, and Cozy Dogs. Interstate 55 will speed travelers to their destination, but Route 66 offers something more. It goes through the hearts of the towns, wandering onto old brick pavement far from the roar of the interstate. Historic restaurants like Lou Mitchell's in Chicago, the Palms Grill in Atlanta, and the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield still keep their coffee pots warm. Waitresses, pump jockeys, gangsters, cops, and politicians all gave the "Main Street of America" its distinctive personality, and their stories are within these pages. So slow down, take the next exit, and head toward the beckoning neon in the distance. Come explore Route 66 in Illinois - where the road began.

Prairie Avenue evolved into Chicago's most exclusive residential street during the last three decades of the 19th century.

Chicago's wealthiest citizens--Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and George Pullman--were soon joined by dozens of Chicago's business, social, and civic leaders, establishing a neighborhood that the Chicago Heraldproclaimed, "a cluster of millionaires not to be matched for numbers anywhere else in the country."

Substantial homes were designed by the leading architects of the day, including William Le Baron Jenney, Burnham and Root, Solon S. Beman, and Richard Morris Hunt. By the early 1900s, however, the neighborhood began a noticeable transformation as many homes were converted to rooming houses and offices, while others were razed for construction of large plants for the printing and publishing industry. The rescue of the landmark Glessner House in 1966 brought renewed attention to the area, and in 1979, the Prairie Avenue Historic District was designated. The late 1990s saw the rebirth of the area as a highly desirable residential neighborhood known as the South Loop.

William H. Tyre is executive director of the Glessner House Museum, H. H. Richardson's masterpiece of residential design that features an extraordinary collection of original English and American arts and crafts furnishings.

It winds from Chicago to L.A."--so says Nat "King" Cole's classic hit "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66." Beginning in 1926, Route 66 was the only U.S. highway
providing a direct connection between the Windy City and the City of Angels; thus, it is no wonder that Route 66 would become the metaphor of the American
journey. The crescent-shaped route from the shore of Lake Michigan to the southern Pacific Coast followed a corridor blazed by Native American footpaths,
pioneer waterways, and transcontinental railroads. As the frontier moved across the Great Plains to the ocean, Chicago was the point of embarkation for people emigrating from the east, and it was the marketplace for the products harvested in the west. During the golden age of the car culture, Chicago was where people started their California trips as they took "the highway that's the best."

From 1926 through 1977, Route 66 carried millions of travelers from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Pacific Coast. Americans fell in love with the automobile and made a family tradition of the road trip. On its three different alignments through the capital city of Springfield, Route 66 took motorists around the Illinois State Fairgrounds, past the state capitol, and through Abraham Lincoln's neighborhood. Mom-and-pop motels, gas stations, and eateries opened along the highway and became familiar landmarks to travelers in the "Land of Lincoln." In Springfield, the "horseshoe" and the "cozy dog" became popular local foods, and one of the first drive-up window restaurants opened. A man spent 40 years on Route 66 operating his gas station before transforming it into an internationally known museum. Meet the proprietors of these businesses, witness the growth of the highway, and enjoy a generous dose of nostalgia.

Once known as the "Main Street of America," the Lincoln Highway through western Indiana and eastern Illinois became the first urban bypass on the first hard-surfaced transcontinental highway in the nation. This stretch of the highway is also home to the famous Ideal Section, which set the national standard for road construction in 1923. Through some 200 vintage photographs, this armchair tour of the highway from Schererville, Indiana, to Geneva, Illinois, visits sites that early-day tourists saw and documents the people who made the highway what it was in 1913 and the people who worked to preserve its spirit and history at the close of the century. The Lincoln Highway around Chicago defines and describes the role of the Lincoln Highway in the Chicago area from a gravel track to a miracle mile that has served local residents as well as cross-country travelers for nearly 100 years.

The Dixie Highway, once a main thoroughfare from Chicago to Miami, was part of an improved network of roads traversing the landscape of 10 states. A product of the Good Roads Movement of the early 20th century, construction on the highway in Illinois took place from 1916 to 1921. When completed in 1921, the Dixie Highway was the longest continuous paved road in the state. It ran through parts of Cook, Will, Kankakee, Iroquois, and Vermilion Counties, with service stations, roadside diners, and campgrounds sprouting up along the way. With over 200 vintage photographs, The Dixie Highway in Illinois takes readers on a tour from the Art Institute of Chicago, in the heart of the city on Michigan Avenue, to the Illinois state line east of Danville, exploring this historic highway and the communities it passes through.

Route 66 zigzagged southwest across Madison County, Illinois, before crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri. Various alignments of this segment of the "Mother Road" rolled through pastoral farmland, headed down main streets, and later straightened as it bypassed towns. From 1926 to 1977, the path of the highway changed numerous times and crossed the Mississippi River on no less than five different bridges. Along the way motorists watched for the blue neon cross on St. Paul's Lutheran Church to guide their nighttime travel; they counted on the doors of the Tourist Haven, Cathcart's, or the Luna Café to be open for business. Travelers crossed their fingers that they wouldn't get stuck at the bend of the Chain of Rocks Bridge and hoped they could make it up Mooney Hill in the winter. A later alignment took motorists right by Fairmount Park and Monks Mound.

Maxwell Street is one of Chicago's oldest, distinct landmarks where a melting pot of nationalities lived. Home to the famous to the Maxwell Street Market, a hub of innovation, where where anything from eggs to shoelaces was sold.

The story of Maxwell street and its market is the story of immigrants and their children, generations of working class people who contributed to the advancement of our nation. The famous area became the ""Ellis Island"" of the Midwest drawing immigrants from all over the world. It's demise began in the 1950s and 1960s and was completed by the 1990s, but it will live on in many minds as the incubator for business and the electrified Chicago Blues, a starting place for working class immigrants and migrants and as a great streetscape for its shops and outdoor market.

Today Chicago's Central Michigan Avenue is a busy commercial and cultural center situated on the beautiful lakefront. Easy access to office buildings, major cultural attractions, and parks makes it one of the premier tourist destinations in the city. This book traces the history of the avenue from the 1860s to the present day. Once a genteel residential neighborhood, Central Michigan Avenue was reborn after the 1871 Chicago fire. Over time a street wall of buildings took shape on the west side of the street. The east side of the avenue was designed to remain open to green parkland and water. In this book more than 180 photographs document the fascinating history of Chicago's front yard.

Congress designated Highway 20 as a federal highway in 1926. The result of this was the evolution of Highway 20 as the most important road traversing northern Illinois. From Chicago to the Mississippi River, the road served both as farm-to-market route for local farmers and a vital link for interstate travelers. This book celebrates a journey across Illinois on historic Highway 20 as illustrated by more than 200 postcards showing the personality of the road, small towns, scenic vistas, and historic sites, as well as the tourist courts, hotels, diners, and roadside businesses that helped make automobile travel possible.