Ghost Towns of Route 66 (3 page)
Read Ghost Towns of Route 66 Online
Authors: Jim Hinckley
The Java Stop in Dwight exemplifies life as it once was along America's highways before the dawn of the generic age.
A colorful but forlorn old eatery in Dwight reflects the transformation the interstate wrought in the small towns along Route 66.
Jack Rittenhouse and His Classic Route 66 Guidebook
The 1946 Route 66 guidebook that author Jack Rittenhouse envisioned as the modern-day equivalent to
The Great West
(written by Edward H. Hall in 1866 and instrumental in fueling westward immigration) only sold a dismal three thousand copies. However, with the resurgent interest in Route 66 that began in the 1980s, Rittenhouse's
A Guide Book to Highway 66
was reprinted, is now sold at gift shops all along the highway, and provides an invaluable snapshot of Route 66 as it was in the immediate postwar period.
An interesting footnote to the guide and the expedition that led to its creation is the vehicle Rittenhouse selected for the roundtrip journey: a 1939 American Bantam coupe. These diminutive cars with seventy-five-inch wheelbases and twenty-two-horsepower engines were very fuel efficient, but they were also quite spartan and anemic, especially for a trip that included climbs to elevations exceeding seven thousand feet.
In his preface to the 1989 edition, Rittenhouse notes that his car had “no trunk, no trip odometer, no radio.” He also notes the car had a 1,200-pound curb weight and would often deliver almost fifty miles to a gallon of gasoline.
Braceville, originally Braysville, was large enough to warrant a post office by 1855, but it was the discovery of coal in the early 1860s that transformed this community and its bucolic neighbors into rough-and-tumble boomtowns.
A flood of immigrant Scotch, Irish, and Welch miners numbering in the thousands poured into the area. They settled in Godley, Braceville, and Mazonia, giving these communities a boisterous, vibrant atmosphere. By the late 1880s, twenty-one coal mines were operating in the area. The population of Braceville soared to 3,500, and in Braidwood it surpassed 8,000. In Braceville alone, there were six general stores, two banks, a hotel, restaurants, and more than a dozen other businesses.
Whimsy, a large part of the Route 66 experience, manifests itself at the Polk-a-Dot Drive In as a delightful vintage timepiece.
Dating to 1956, the Polk-a-Dot Drive In started as a bus in Braidwood painted with rainbow-colored polka dots and has morphed into a pre-franchise-era time capsule.
A haunting ghost sign in Braceville is an appropriate monument for a town that is but a mere shadow of what it once was.
A series of problems at the minesâa cave-in, a fire, a flooding, a string of labor disputes, and ultimately the exhaustion of profitable ore seamsâresulted in a near complete closure of the mines by 1910. The dismantling of many of the buildings in Godley, Braceville, and Mazonia quickly followed. It was an inglorious end to towns that had once been at the center of an investment frenzy attracting syndicates from as far away as Boston, New York, and London.
Most, but not all, of the vestiges of past glory date to the era of Route 66. These include Braidwood's Polk-a-Dot Drive In, dating to 1956.
In Wilmington, as in almost every community along legendary Route 66, windows to the past are found in abundance.
The unimposing Riviera, south of Braceville, had a long and colorful association with Route 66 before a fire destroyed the structure in 2010.
INTO THE LAND OF LINCOLN
F
ROM
G
ARDNER TO
S
PRINGFIELD
,
villages and towns amply sprinkled with refurbished pearls of roadside Americana nestle along shade-dappled Route 66, but only a few qualify as ghost towns. Still, many are mere shadows of what once was. These time capsules have a history that predates the highway by decades and illustrates why Illinois is known as the “Land of Lincoln.”
Now vanished from the map is the little village of Cayuga, located south of Odell. Rittenhouse tells us that, in 1946, Cayuga consisted of “a grain elevator, a small school, one store, and a dozen homes.”
This village was surveyed and platted April 10, 1855, and in
The History of Livingstone County Illinois
(1878), it is noted:
As a general thing, while towns established at a distance of ten or twelve miles apart have flourished, those lying between have been almost invariably less successful. Certainly, no other reason can be given why Cayuga should not have developed equally with other towns along the road. There is no more pleasant situation for a prosperous village on the road. Though the village compares but poorly with many other towns of the county, the business done here is, by no means, inconsiderable as will be seen by the following items, as given by the obliging agent of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, Edwin Chapman.
Apparently many were puzzled by the town's stagnation, a situation that neither the railroad nor Route 66 could alleviate. Route 66 enthusiasts today know this “town” for its Meramec Caverns barn. Once as common as the painted barns that proclaimed “See Rock City,” this recently refurbished barn sign is one of two that remain in the state of Illinois.
Another village now vanished from modern maps is Ocoya, which a 1929 Rand McNally atlas shows six miles southwest of Pontiac. Rittenhouse describes Ocoya as “another dwindling community with the ever present grain elevator, a score of homes, two small stores, and a gas station, [lying] just off U.S. 66.”
The post office opened here in 1860. Over the next forty years, it would open and close numerous times, depending on the ebb and flow of the population.
Shirley, just south of Bloomington, was a railroad town, but its proximity to Bloomington hindered its growth. In
The History of McLean County Illinois
(1879), it is noted that Shirley was “situated on the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, six miles southwest of Bloomington. . . . The surrounding country is fertile and the farming community seems in easy circumstances, but the little village of Shirley does not grow rapidly.”
Funks Grove, fifteen miles south of Bloomington, was never really a town. Yet
it is more than hallowed ground for fans of the old double six; it is an institution with roots as a family business that reach back to Issac Funk's homesteading on the site in 1824. Amazingly, the maple sirup (a spelling that designates purity) sold by the Funk family has never been sold anywhere but here. For more than eighty years, they have relied on Route 66 for customers.
From Gardner, continue west on State Highway 53 (Route 66).
A streetcar diner in Gardner has received a new lease on life; plans are underway for its restoration.