The Route 66 Chick

The annual International Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, Illinois, has come and gone again. This huge event, produced by Family Events (out of Indianapolis) in conjunction with the City of Springfield, is always fun. It's a huge car show and cruise (no surprise, car shows are what the company is all about) with numerous bands and plenty of vendors. The festival occupies over a dozen blocks in downtown Springfield surrounding the historic old state capitol.  The addition to this event that in my humble opinion is the icing on the cake is the Travel Illinois Expo, sponsored by Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway. A whole block of Washington Street north of the old capitol is devoted to the expo. This year, the expo exhibitors included yours truly and my fellow author Joe Sonderman. Joe drove his 1957 Chevy Bel Air to the festival again this year. We stopped at Cozy Dog when we got to Springfield and had a late lunch, visited with friends we ran into there, and admired a ...

With a meeting this morning gathering officials from the City of Edwardsville, a representative from the Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce, and yours truly, planning meetings for the 2015 Edwardsville Route 66 Conference have begun in earnest! Some details were hammered out, other aspects of the event came under discussion, great ideas were put forth for evaluation, and a planning structure was put in place to move forward with the event. At last we have definite dates and days to announce and thus a framework on which to hang the conference and the social events!  For those wishing to begin making their travel plans, please note that the Edwardsville Route 66 Conference will be Thursday afternoon - Saturday evening, October 29 - 31, 2015. The Wildey Theatre is confirmed as the venue, although there is discussion of an additional venue for activities. The host hotels in Edwardsville should be announced next week! And rest assured, there is PLENTY of lodging in ...

In just a week, the population of Springfield, Illinois, will temporarily increase significantly as thousands of people arrive for the 13th Annual International Route 66 Mother Road Festival. From Friday through Sunday, September 26 - 28, our capital city will be hopping with plenty of live entertainment on the Hot Rod Stage, the traditional Friday night car cruise (huge!), plenty of vendors and food, and the Travel Illinois Expo.  The Travel Illinois Expo (that's where my esteemed co-author Joe Sonderman and I come in) is presented by Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway and will be set up on Washington Street between 5th and 6th Streets on the north side of the old capitol/old courthouse. For those of you that caught up with us there last year, we'll be set up in the same spot - at the corner of Washington and 5th Streets. We were at the center of lots of action last year! For starters, Joe parked his tropical turquoise 1957 Chevy Bel-Air right beside our tent for a little eye...

Here's #8 of Edwardsville's Route 66 history. This story originally ran in the April 2013 issue of the Prairie Land Buzz  in my "Along Route 66" column. The Route 66 Alignment That Never Was: Alternative Edwardsville Route Opposed by Local Businessmen by Cheryl Eichar Jett It was 1938, and life on Route 66 flowed through Edwardsville. The highway brought heavy traffic from the northern part of the state up Mooney Hill northeast of Edwardsville and from St. Louis and points west through Mitchell in the American Bottom up onto the bluffs southwest of Edwardsville. Once in town, travelers and tourists found plenty of local services to entice their tired bones out of their automobiles and trucks. No matter which direction they were coming from, motorists found plenty of local establishments along Hillsboro Road, Vandalia Street, St. Louis Street, and West Street to fill their gas tanks and their stomachs and perhaps stay a night or shop for snacks or s...

As promised, here we are back to Edwardsville's Route 66 history with the story of the A&W Root Beer Drive-In. This was published in the November 2012 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz and also in an issue of Show Me Route 66. Give an eatery half a century in the same location and it's bound to generate a lot of memories. And when the restaurant is owned by the same family all those years, their story becomes part of the community's story. Mel and Vonney Kaufmann lived in Wisconsin when they started hearing glowing reports of Vonney's sister's successful A & W Root Beer Drive-In franchise in Springfield, Illinois. Inspired to search for a city that needed an A & W, Mel and Vonney decided on Edwardsville. They arrived in 1954 and purchased a lot on St. Louis Street/Route 66 on which to build their A & W. The Kauffmanns' chosen property had once been the location of the grand two-story A. O. French residence, but the now-empty lot had more re...

The second week of each month is almost always my busiest week. Two regularly scheduled monthly meetings fall in this week and every other occasional meeting and other commitment seems to land there too. On Monday  evening my esteemed co-author Joe Sonderman and I gave our "Route 66 in Illinois" program for the Marine Historical Society members and guests. Back in May, the society had invited me to do a program and I talked for at least an hour on "Route 66 in Madison County." I guess I didn't bore them too badly since they invited me back, and Joe, too. We do have fun with our programs, and we suspect that our audiences do, too, since they laugh at our jokes. We share a lot of fun things about Route 66, but we seldom leave a program without touching on a few of the sad stories, as well, because, Route 66, like life itself, is and was that crazy mixture of highs, lows, comedy, and tragedy. And, like our own little anecdotes in life, the stories are usually a ...

Here's #6 in Edwardsville's Route 66 history - this article just ran in the July issue of The Prairie Land Buzz. Edwardsville Garage and the Ford Dealerships Do you ever drive by a modern business and wonder what historic building used to stand on that spot? If you've asked that question when passing the The Bank of Edwardsville on W. Vandalia Street in Edwardsville, this article might help. It's the story of one of the business buildings that previously occupied that block. The Edwardsville Garage and Auto Supply Company was established at 306 W. Vandalia Street in 1913 by Thomas Fahnestock, Walter Kriege, and Olin Giese. Giese took over the location as sole owner in September 1915 and later renamed the business Giese Motor Company. Fahnestock became a chauffeur and Kriege went on to manage the Imperial Bakery. Giese operated his motor company for a few more years, but in 1920, he acquired the Kriege Building on Main Street. There he opened the Oh Ge...

Here's #5 in the Edwardsville Route 66 history series. This piece ran in The Prairieland Buzz, Show Me Route 66, and The 66 News.  Cathcart's Cafe: Known from Coast to Coast George B. Cathcart arrived in Edwardsville, Illinois, in 1921 at the age of 39, with a strong work ethic, two decades' worth of coal mining experience, and his wife, Clara. By the time he died in 1952, Cathcart had helped to save the path of Route 66 through Edwardsville's business district and had built up a restaurant business that anchored the community's Route 66 trade and served well its many local customers. Cathcart and his wife left the company town of Thurber, Texas, when the Texas and Pacific Coal and Oil Company began phasing out their coal operations. In the Edwardsville area, he secured a mining job. In 1922, Cathcart put a down payment on a house at 454 East Vandalia Street selling for $9,000, with plans to turn the residence into a “first class and up-to-date...

Here's #4 in Edwardsville's Route 66 history - the story of the Hi-Way Tavern and Cafe, which ran in the June 2014 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz. Edwardsville's Hi-Way Tavern Lives Again Frank and Dora Catalano opened the Hi-Way Tavern in 1934 in a small grocery store building on Route 66 in Edwardsville. It was an immediate success, and Frank and Dora remained a team operating the tavern and cafe until 1959. After that, the business changed hands several times, becoming Neumann's Bar in its most recent iteration. About a year ago, with dwindling business and a deteriorating building, Neumann's closed. Now, just in time for Edwardsville's big Route 66 Festival weekend June 13-14, the Hi-Way Tavern will celebrate its grand opening. Business partners Katrina Bain Howerton, Jeff Cox, and Michael Jones are bringing together their collective expertise in the bar trade and their nostalgia for Edwardsville to re-open the historic Route 66 business. Honoring lo...

Here's #3 in the series of Edwardsville Route 66 history! This originally ran in the October 2012 issue of The Prairie Land Buzz . (Note that three of the businesses listed below in the original article - Township Grocer, EuroFresh Farms, and Ursch Clock Repair - have closed in this location since this article was published. Something new is afoot in the space next to Cleveland-Heath.) Enjoy! "The Bohm Building Stands Sentinel at Main Street and Route 66 in Edwardsville" Route 66 travelers driving through Edwardsville undoubtedly regarded the three-story brick Bohm Building as a landmark at the intersection of Route 66/Vandalia Street and Main Street. But in addition to serving as a marker, “Edwardsville's first office building” offered a variety of services and merchandise needed by the resident and the traveler alike. The building was constructed in 1911 by William H. Bohm, who was born on a farm near Maryville in 1857. He began acquiring farm land ...