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'\Special Issue: Route 6~ILLINOIS GEOGRAPHER 1

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Special Guest Editor: Joseph D. KubalEditor: Jill Freund Thomas

Volume S6 Number 1Spring 2014

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The Illinois Geographical Society

The Illinois Geographical Society is an organization devoted to the

advancement and dissemination of geographic knowledge at all levels of

learning. Membership is open to any individual or institution with an interest ln

geography. Annual dues are $25.00 for individual members other than student

or retirees. $10.00 for students, $15.00 for retirees, and $25.00 for lnstitutlonnlmembers. A supporting membership of $50.00 and a life membership of

$250.00 are available.

The Illinois Geographer is the official refereed journal of the Society. It I

published twice a year in spring and fall, and distributed to all member .•.

Editorial offices are at the Department of Geography-Geology, illinois 'it.lli

University, Normal, IL. Statements of opinion and fact by authors of nr tll hI •• 1111e1book reviews do not necessarily reflect the official position of th(' ~()d(\ty

Contributors should consult the directions provided on the lnsldt; hilI k IIIVIII

Address communications about membership, back issues, n<hhl1',O,IIII1I1

and other IGS matters to Susan Holderread, IGS Central ornUl Ill! 1111111,(.1111111 II ,. I

below). E-mail: holders@newtrier.k12.iI.us Back Issues om ilvlllhihlulIl ·,1111111.""

Executive Council Officers 2013-2014

President: Susan Holderread ('14)

New Trier High School

385 Winnetka Avenue

Winnetka, IL 60093

('111).dliJi)1

Normal, II II 1/(, 1

Secretary: Gregory Sherwin ('15)

Adlai E. Stevenson High School

Lincolnshire,IL 60069

Treasurer: Lon I:nlny (' I',)Pekin Public '>('hlllll, 1/1111\

501 Wllshlnl{l()l1 '>1111111

Pekin, IL 61554

Editor: Jill Freund Thomas ('14)

Department of Geography-Geology

Illinois State University

Normal, IL 61790-4400

Assistant Editor: Keith Scull

Sherman, IL 62684

Cartographer: Christopher Sutton

Western Illinois University

Macomb, IL 61455

Additional Members of Executive Council

Michael Sublett ('14) Tallia Del Bianco ('14)

Veronica Mormino ('15) Joseph Kubal ('15)

Ani Thompson-Smith ('1

Amy Bloom ('15)

Illinois Geographer

I Volume 56 Fall 2014 Number 1 ISpecial Edition: Route 66

CONTENTS

Introduction and Forward:

Joseph D. Kubal, Special Guest Editor 1

Articles:

Why Route 66? The Indelible Appeal of America's Classic Road

Trip for Foreign and Domestic Travelers (part one)

Maria R. Traska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 4

The International Appeal of Route 66

John A. Jakie & Keith A. Sculle 18

A Case Study in Tourism: Towanda's Historic Route 66 Parkway Students,

Teachers, and Community Volunteers Preserve a Piece of the Mother Road

Fred Walk 24

A Case Study: Sprague's Super Service: Saving a Route 66 Icon

Terri Ryburn 31

Heritage Corridor Convention & Visitors Bureau Helps Preserve, Promote

Route 66

Robert Navarro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 41

Book Reviews:

Markku Henriksson Route 66: A Road to America's Landscape,

History and Culture

Peter B. Dedek 51

John A. Jakie and Keith A. Sculle The Garage: Automobility

and Building Innovation in America's Early Auto Age

Ross M. Mullner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 54

Mississippi, the East Coast to the Gulf Coast through the heart of thecontinent, there would be no Route 66 as we know it. Downstaters willhate hearing that, given how much they blame metro Chicago fordominating state politics and sucking up most of the state's funding(even though the metropolis also provides most of the state's tax base),but it's true: take away Lake Michigan, the portage and Chicago, andIllinois becomes ... just another Kansas or Nebraska. A landlocked ruralstate with no major metropolis that draws in transportation, enterprise,people, culture, jobs and money. Yes: Chicago is the big reason forRoute 66. There are excellent reasons the eastern terminus is there andnot elsewhere.Actually, there are three reasons for Route 66, Chicago being the firstand greatest. The second reason is: Los Angeles. It wasn't just that thenation needed a road to the West Coast. It had a few of those, thoughthey weren't very reliable. Specifically, it needed one from the country'scentral transportation hub, Chicago, to southern California - one thatwould stay open all year, instead of being closed during the winter asmany others were in the higher parts of the Rockies further north. LosAngeles in 1920 was nowhere near as large or as fast growing asChicago, but it was no longer a sleepy little village founded by theSpanish. It had oil, it had the budding movie industry - much of whichwas abandoning New York and Chicago for a warmer climate and year-round filming - and L.A., too, was growing rapidly. To connect thesetwo cities, the West Coast with the Third Coast, with a road that servedthe growing tide of automobiles and trucks was a commercial necessity.Sure, there was an overall need for road building and that new grid ofhighways - especially in the West, where there were scarcely any roadsat all and rail was the only true connection to the rest of the country. Butthis road, which would cross so many others through eight states, thisroad would be special.

Without Chicago, there might or might not have been another route thatconnected the Midwest to the West Coast; but had there been another, itneed not have started in Illinois, or even in St. Louis - it could have justas easily started in Kansas City and continued through Wichita toAlbuquerque and thence to Los Angeles. And then it probably wouldn'thave become the iconic road that it did. And that leads us to the nextpoint.

The third reason is: Cyrus Avery, with the assistance of his junior manJohn M. Page, and B.H. Piepmeier, with whom Avery and Page weremeeting on April 30, 1926 in Springfield, Missouri. It's true that

5

Avery's fellow entrepreneur and business acquaintance, John Woodruffof Missouri, helped promote the idea of the angled southern route toCalifornia; but it was Avery and Piepmeier, with help from Page, whogot it done through the Joint Board. All three were state highwayofficials: Page was Oklahoma's chief highway engineer, and Avery washead of the highway department and Page's chief; Piepmeier wasAvery's counterpart in Missouri. They were also members of theAmerican Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), which inNovember 1924 had called upon the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture toform a Joint Board on Interstate Highways that would create andpromote "a system of numbering and marking highways of interstatecharacter." Avery and Piepmeier had both been appointed to the JointBoard, as had other state highway chiefs from across the country; butmore important, both men were members of the board's Committee ofFive. That select quintet - together with engineer E.W. James, chief ofthe federal Bureau of Public Roads' Division of Design - was chargedwith developing the numbering plan for the system of interstate routesthat the Joint Board had created. They would number and thereby namethe new routes, eclipsing the named auto trails in the process.

Avery and Piepmeier were the two main supporters ofthat curving linebetween Chicago and L.A. Nobody on the Joint Board disputed the needfor this southern route. All the major east-west cross-country routesproposed were two-digit numbers ending in zero; their north-south

Figure 2: Original 1926 path of U.S. Route 66 was 2,448 miles long, but the totalchanged with later alignments as highway was gradually detoured around cities' andtowns' main streets - a sometimes bitter irony for a road that began its life as theMain Street ofAmerica, connecting the main streets ofmany towns across eightstates. (Map courtesy of National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior)

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counterparts were odd-numbered and ended in 1. But in the center of themap, in a place where there ought to be a line numbered 60 fromVirginia through the Appalachians and ending in California, there wasinstead a line marked 62 - and it ended in Springfield, Missouri. Thenumber 60, in contrast, was emblazoned on Avery's swooping arc. TheJoint Board recognized that this angled road would cross many of thetranscontinental routes and therefore would inevitably be one of the mostheavily traveled routes in the system. Still, the numbering would causetrouble.

The Joint Board completed its work in August of 1925 and sent its reportand the proposed map of routes to the Secretary of Agriculture; inNovember, E.W. James reported on it at AASHO's next annual meeting,in Detroit. Maps of the network were distributed to state highwayagencies through members of the Joint Board's regional groups, in thehopes that they would limit the states' temptation to add roads (thatfailed). Any adjustments to the proposed routes would be made byAASHO's executive committee, on which both Piepmeier and Averyserved, before the system was approved. But the moment the maps werereleased, the howling began.

Gov. William J. Fields of Kentucky, a good roads promoter, was a quickand vehement critic; his state's prestige was at stake. A road he hadchampioned, the National Roosevelt Midland Trail, was not onlypartially dismembered across more than one federal route as well asstripped of its name, but it ended in Missouri and wasn't even a majorroute with a zero. Worse, Kentucky was also denied a major north-southroute because the Dixie Highway had been split. That meant a potentialloss of travelers. Fields was incensed, and he knew who to blame:Chicago. Not only did the Committee of Five have Avery andPiepmeier, it had a third Midwesterner, Frank Sheets of Illinois, who alsohappened to be AASHO president in 1925. Gov. Fields thought hesmelled clout and conspiracy (he was wrong).

Furious, Fields announced on December 8, 1925 that Kentucky wouldignore the route numbers. "Chicago influence is written all over themap. All east and west traffic is routed north of the Ohio," he charged."The north and south roads, too, are gauged for Chicago benefit and thatof the northwest alone .... I will use every means in my power to fightthis." (Remember that after the Louisiana Purchase, Illinois had beenconsidered part of the 'northwest' territories; evidently, Fields stillthought that was the case.)

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The embarrassing truth was that Kentucky's own delegate, StateHighway Engineer E,N. Todd, had been at the regional meeting inChicago when Kentucky's main routes had been identified, and he'd hadno objections. Indeed, he thought the named trails were outmoded,archaic holdovers from a past era that deserved to die (he was right, butthat was inconvenient). Worse, Todd had agreed to the numbering planat AASHO's last meeting in Detroit. Even worse, had he wanted toprotest the proposed routes - and he didn't - he wouldn't have been ableto vote against them because the state hadn't paid its $200 annual dues toAASHO.

The debate went on for months. Proposals and counter proposals wererejected by either Piepmeier, Fields or both, with Avery siding withPiepmeier. By April 1926, it was the last matter left to be decided by theAASHO's executive committee, which had resolved 79 complaints aboutthe route plan during its previous annual meeting and would handle morethan 60 additional potential adjustments between then and the nextmeeting in November.

The pressure was on to settle the matter. Without that, the Bureau ofPublic Roads couldn't respond to the public demand for maps of the newsystem. That was why Avery and Page were in Springfield withPiepmeier on April 30th: they had to find some resolution to thedilemma, and fast. And that was when Page - the minor player whoserole is usually overlooked -- cleverly noticed that among the still unusedroute numbers was 66. What about that? Avery and Piepmeier, whodecided 66 had a nicely memorable ring to it, seized on it andimmediately telegraphed Chief MacDonald: "We prefer 66 to 62."Kentucky agreed. And that was that.

This is why some people say that Route 66 was born that day inSpringfield, Missouri; but in truth, it was a christening before the birth.The route's path had been conceived months earlier, but simply agreeingon a name didn't bring it into existence. Avery, Piepmeier and Pagewere three godfathers still awaiting the arrival of the godchild. Unlessthe AASHO members approved the proposed federal highway system atthe next annual meeting, all that work would go for naught. As in zero.Aborted.

The trail associations certainly would have preferred that. They wailedabout how cold, soulless numbers would displace hallowed historicnames, deleting all the romance from the roads. The truth was that most

8

of those named trails weren't all that historic, and they weren't soromantic. By 1920, the vast majority of named trails (a few hundred)were barely 10 to 15 years old, invented during the 1900s and 1910s, andtheir 'romance' was mostly hype. They were auto roads that had beencreated on paper by private groups, who then solicited funds frommerchants along those paths and promised to promote the trails totravelers. True, a small handful were based on actual historic stagecoachroads or wagon trails, such as the Cumberland Trail, the Oregon Trail,the Chisholm Trail, the Santa Fe Trail and EI Camino Real; but mostauto trails had no particular logic to them, save to favor the merchantswho could be galled into supporting them.

Unsurprisingly, the named auto trails were typically not the most directroutes to wherever automobile drivers wanted to go. Most trail groupsdidn't do much beyond trying to create publicity. They were primarilyformed to make money for their originators and commercial supporters,although some were also helpful to drivers. However, too many trailassociations were fly-by-night operators who promised much, thenpocketed the money and vanished. Most did little, if anything, tophysically improve the trails. Even the best known group, the LincolnHighway Association, conceded that traveling down the auto trails wasstill a "sporting proposition" - in other words, at best they were a choreand at worst, an abysmal hardship.

It was precisely because the trail associations had failed the public oncetoo often that state highway officials couldn't wait to dump them. Therewas also the fact that named trails were too difficult for travelers tofollow, highways all over the country were in terrible shape, manyWestern states were still too sparsely populated to have a tax base thatcould support public improvements, and the federal government was theonly entity in a position to put together and oversee a truly nationalnetwork of reliable roads. Free-marketers, please note: privatization hadfailed miserably in providing infrastructure, a public necessity for thegeneral welfare of the citizenry - and the states had to turn to the federalgovernment to provide what the capitalists would not, because the latterwere busy making money, which, after all, is their natural reason forbeing. What delicious irony. And what all of that did was todemonstrate the need for more federal involvement in road building.

Particularly west of the Mississippi, all but a handful of auto trails weredirt roads, and some were so crude or in such disrepair as to be trulyperilous to travel. The new federal routes would not only strip these

9 10

roads of their names and the trail associations of their power, it wouldhelp the states replace the dirt trails with paved roads - not just withmacadam, a kind of layered crushed rock that was okay for horse-drawnbuggies but murder for motor vehicles, which quickly destroyed it, butwith something more heavy duty, like concrete, that could stand up toheavier vehicles and steady traffic. Moreover, the Bureau of PublicRoads would assist the states not only with money but with expertise: itwould provide and disseminate research that would help build better,more durable roads. No wonder state engineers couldn't be rid of theauto trails fast enough.

That was why on November 11, 1926 at its annual meeting in Pinehurst,North Carolina, the members of the AASHO approved the U.S.Numbered Highway System, better known as the U.S. Route System.The executive committee had made 132 changes in routing ornumbering; the final system size had expanded to a total 96,626 miles,nearly double what the Joint Board had proposed. Just as important,AASHO had also approved a uniform system of traffic signage andstandardized colors, which would help guide travelers on the nation'sroads - resulting in the road signs weze-use today - as well as adistinctive shield sign for the new U.S. Route System.

Meanwhile, even before the Joint Board had met, Frank Sheets of Illinoishad been a prolific road builder in his state, using mostly funds from

state bond issues plus a bit ofthe federal aid available duringthe early decades of the 20thcentury - and one of the majorroads he had completely pavedwas the old stagecoach roadfrom Chicago to St. Louis, laterknown as the Pontiac Trail andby 1924 known as SBI 4 or ILRoute 4. IL 4 connected to

,~ •••_ ••..••••••.•.•••.•,._ ••M'_k_"'__ ••• • \_,DMlfIooI ••••• III •••.•••••.• otL •••• ;.l916b<lOi<i6_ @I>"f •• h •••• """""..-:I\llloil .••••••••,•••••.••.• l.fJ»~~~ 6·:.=:~:.;:.:r~~!'l!6~~~ <,I.

Figure 3: A map of Historic Route66 in Illinois is seen on the back ofan information hub installed by theIllinois Route 66 Scenic Byway.(Photo J.D. Kubal. 2013.

Ogden Avenue near Berwyn and Lyons and proceeded southwestthrough Bloomington-Normal, Springfield, and Edwardsville beforeending on a bridge across the Mississippi River to st. Louis. U.S. Route66 was overlaid onto two major Chicago thoroughfares - JacksonBoulevard and Ogden, which in places was a de facto boulevard severallanes wide - and IL 4. Because Chicago was Route 66's easternterminus, Route 66 was born there.

On November 11, 1926, the day the route system was approved, Route66 was alive and kicking and open for business, starting at JacksonBoulevard and Michigan Avenue and headed west. By the end of theyear, only 800 miles of the route in eight states was paved - and half ofthose were in Illinois, where the route was 100 percent complete fromthe start. It was a smashing achievement - of which the state could beduly proud, thanks to Sheets - and a pointed example to the westernstates of what they still needed to accomplish.

Why did people travel Route 66?

So, then: what attracts people to historic Route 66? To answer that, weshould examine what brought them to U.S. Route 66 in the first place.The first and most obvious reason was that unless people wanted to takethe train and be bound by railroad schedules, Route 66 was the mostpractical alternative for getting from Chicago to Los Angeles and pointsin between, some of which weren't well served by rail. Better weatherand better pavement were two big incentives. Even though it took 12years for construction to be completed all along the rest of route, Illinoisgave drivers a real, concrete example of what they might find elsewhereon the route once it was completely paved. Meanwhile, the route wasalready largely in place in Missouri, and farmers from Kansas, Missouriand Illinois could use it to get their grain and produce to market inChicago.

Make no mistake: the route system wasn't devised primarily for leisuretravelers. Neither the states nor the federal government would havespent that much money on infrastructure for pleasure drives - they spentit for commerce first and foremost. Rail traffic couldn't handle all ofthefreight demand, and the number of trucks on the road had increasedsignificantly by 1920. Trucking was competing with rail as an efficientway of moving goods, especially on a local and regional basis. Tourismwas a secondary concern, despite the lobbying efforts of the bicyclists,the Good Roads movement, and the offended Gov. Fields.

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So: the trucks took to the new routes because they had to, for practicalreasons. Individual tourists also took to the new routes, not just to driveon a better road surface and be free of the congestion of the cities, butalso to be free of the railroads, their costs, and their limitations. Peopletoday underestimate just how much the American public during the1890s and early 1900s truly despised the railroads and the post-Civil Warrobber barons who ran them. Americans considered the railroad ownersa necessary evil at best and devils incarnate at worst and didn't like beingbeholden to them. The automobile, then, seemed to ordinary people likea wonderful solution: no longer bound by rail routes and train schedules,they could drive wherever and whenever they wanted, assuming therewas a road going there. Once there was a good road in the direction theywished to go and it turned out to be reliable, drivers flocked to it. Andonce there was regular car traffic on a road, the services that driverswould need - gas, auto service and parts, food, lodging - also sprang upas local operators saw a chance to make a little money.

But why would tourists choose Route 66 in particular? Because CyrusAvery sold them on it. Ifhe's known today as the father of Route 66, it'sless because of what he did to push for its creation than what he did afterit was born. Once the route system had been established, Avery's petproject was still far from realized. Now the real work began - bringingtravelers and their dollars to the new route, so that the rest of the roadcould be built. There was only one thing to do: sell the hell out of Route66.

WHt fOO",. 'fl,Q""W~f Ml Otijlo'Htl <'4W.t>H _ClUff

12

Avery immediately formedthe U.S. Highway 66Association, based in Tulsa,to promote Route 66 and getit completely paved. The trailnames faded soon enough,

Figure 4: The U.S. Highway66 Association, organized byCyrus Avery, distributedthousands of brochures likethis one as part of itsadvertising campaign topopularize U.S. Route 66during the 1920s through1960s.

and the route system had sounded a death knell for the trail associations;but Avery followed their example and began to aggressively market theroute. The difference between the trail groups and Avery was that Averyhad something real to sell, and he promoted it in every way that he could.For example: when in 1928 C.C. Pyle, the flamboyant sports promoterand agent for athletes such as football player Red Grange, organized theGreat American Foot Race (dubbed the 'Bunion Derby' by clevercommentators), a cross-country marathon that would travel all of Route66, starting in Los Angeles, Avery supported it. The benefit to Route66? At every town where the runners stopped for the night, they weremet by various national celebrities, and the race garnered considerablecoverage in the press. Avery used advertising, too, in magazines,newspapers and brochures and on billboards.

Route 66 was just as much a commercial highway as the rest of the routesystem, but it was never marketed that way. The rest ofthe system mighthave been a workaday blue collar road, but Route 66 was a prom queen:lovely and full of promise. From the start, Avery made much of theimpressive landscapes to be seen along the route - not just the big citiesof Chicago and St. Louis, or the Illinois prairie and rolling hills ofMissouri, but also Meramec Caverns and the great Mississippi River; theIndian lands and oil fields of Oklahoma; the grasslands of northernTexas; the mesas, missions, mountains and pueblos of New Mexico; thepetrified forest, painted deserts, Meteor Crater and Grand Canyon inArizona; and the Mohave Desert and Joshua trees of southeasternCalifornia.

And then there was Celebrity. Pizzazz. Glitter. The dawn of the movieage during the early 20th century brought with it movie stars and filmfans, and the fans wanted to see Los Angeles because that was where themovie business was now centralized and, thus, where the stars lived.Moreover, unless the celebrities took the California Limited (later theSuper Chief, which debuted in 1936), those same stars also had to drivedown Route 66 - and if a traveler was very lucky, he or she might get tostay at the same motel or inn where, perchance, Buster Keaton, or MaryAstor, or Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had stayed. Such a thrill.Route 66 was thus sexy in a way that other roads could never match.You can be sure Avery worked that angle, too.

In Illinois, there was an additional reason for choosing Route 66. Illinoisdrivers already knew about IL 4, and there were already some traveler's

13

services established along the suburban and rural sections of the route.More would be established as the traffic grew.

One example in the greater Chicago area was White Fence Farm insuburban Romeoville, still a popular restaurant today. It had beenopened during the early 1920s by Stuyvesant 'Jack' Peabody, thePeabody Coal Company CEO and heir, who owned a thoroughbred horsefarm across Joliet Road from the restaurant. Although he lived in thecity, Jack Peabody frequently had weekend guests and visitors at thefarm, typically fellow horse owners and breeders (his farm also boardedand trained horses for other owners, and there was a full-sized timingtrack on the south side of Bluff Road, so that Jack and his friends could

Figure 5: An aerial view of White Fence Farm, shot in 1939, shows the restaurantproperty on the west side of Joliet Road/U.S. Route 66 (above) and the paddock andhorse barn of Stuyvesant 'Jack' Peabody's thoroughbred horse farm, Arrow BrookFarm, on the east side of the highway (below). (Photo courtesy of the Illinois DigitalArchive)

judge their horses' speed and fitness for racing in relative privacy, awayfrom potential rivals' eyes).

Peabody needed a place large enough to feed all those guests, so heopened a farmhouse-style restaurant on 12 acres that he owned across theroad. He was also a businessman, however, and figured that peoplewould enjoy really good, simple food in a pretty farm setting. He wasproven right: White Fence Farm quickly became a popular dining spot

14

with locals and travelers alike, attracting more than 40,000 guests duringits first four months of operation with its wholesome menu of beefsteakhamburgers, sandwiches, ice cream and other dairy products made fromlocal Guernsey milk. By the time Route 66 was official, the restaurantwas already well established and gaining fame; for example, it was afavorite of famed restaurant critic and travel writer Duncan Hines, whoreviewed it several times over the years. The word spread: White FenceFarm became a welcome stop on the road to St. Louis and beyond. Norwas the Farm the only well-known stop in Illinois.

III

Use ofthe full range of mass media was key to publicizing Route 66.Avery's efforts through the U.S. Highway 66 Association were criticalduring the first 13 years of Route 66's existence. Radio graduallybecame a more important communications medium through the late1920s and 1930s, and it, too, became a factor in publicizing Rou~ ~~4.The publication ofJohn Steinbeck's novel The Grapes ofWratJyfn.ifi't1quick translation to the silver screen that same year further cemented theimage of Route 66 in the public mind. After WW II, most Americansstill had never seen the natural wonders of the Western U.S., and Route66 caught the public's imagination. Post-war automobile advertisingencouraged Americans to "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" andpromoted the idea of auto travel, as did 'road' books such as JackKerouac's On The Road and Steinbeck's Travels With Charley. Newlyprosperous Americans responded and took to the road with relish.

But the greatest publicity was undoubtedly provided by popular musicrecordings and television. Bobby Troup's 1946 tune "Get Your KicksOn Route 66," actually written on the route as he and his wife drove toLos Angeles so that he could begin working in the music industry there,was recorded by Nat 'King' Cole's trio less than two weeks after Trouparrived in L.A. and became an instant hit on the pop charts, spawninghundreds of other recordings over the years by other artists. By the timewriter and producer Stirling Silliphant's television drama series Route 66debuted in 1960 on CBS, Route 66's popularity had peaked, and it hadblossomed into that most American of all road trips. It had become anicon and a dream trip - one that didn't fade when the route wasdecommissioned during the 1980s.

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Maria R. Traska is an independent journalist, author, policy analyst andblogger who is currently at work on The Curious Traveler's Guide toRoute 66 in Metro Chicago. She is also the editor and major contributorto the CuriousTraveler66 blog and is developing Curious Traveler Tours,a specialized guided tour service that will highlight the northernmostsection of Illinois Route 66 between Chicago and Joliet.

Selected Bibliography

Avrami, Erica, et aI., Route 66: The Road Ahead (symposium report), WorldMonument Fund, New York: December 2013 (ISBN-I0: 0-9858943-5-0, ISBN-13: 978-0-9858943-5-1)

C.C. Pyle biography, Great America Foot Race website, last accessed October2014 at: http://archive.itvs.orglfootrace/progress/ccpyle.htm

Cyrus Avery biography, University of Virginia website, accessed June 2014 at:http://xroads.virginia.edu!~UG02/camey/avery.html

Cyrus Avery entry, Wikipedia; last accessed October 2014 at:http:// en.wikipedia.orglwiki/Cyrus _Avery

C.C. Pyle entry, Wikipedia; accessed June 2014 at:http://en.wikipedia.orglwiki/C._C.]yle

Hobbs, Allyson, "Bicycling," Encyclopedia of Chicago online; accessed June2014 at: http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.orglpages/136.html

Listokin, David, et aI., Route 66 Economic Impact Study, three volumes, Centerfor Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ: 2012(ISBN-I0 0-9841732-3-4, ISBN-13 978-0-9841732-3-5

Loerzel, Robert, "In 1890s Chicago, bicycles were all the rage," ChicagoTribune, May 3,2014; last accessed October 2013 at:http://articles.chicagotribune.com/20 14-05-0 3/news/ct -bicycle-craze- flashback-0427-20140503 _1_ bicycles-bikes-cyclists

Marriott, Paul Daniel, "Roads Designed For Pleasure: A Brief History of theOrigins of Scenic Driving and Automobile Touring in the United States (Part1)," Journal For America's Byways, Vol. 1, No.1, June 2011, America'sByways Resource Center, Duluth, MN; pp. 4-25

Marriott, Paul Daniel, "Roads Designed For Pleasure: A Brief History of theOrigins of Scenic Driving and Automobile Touring in the United States (Part

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2)," Journal For America's Byways, Vol. 1, No.2, October 2011, America'sByways Resource Center, Duluth, MN; pp. 28-51

Overwhelmed America: Why Don'! We Use Our Paid Leave? (survey reportPDF), Travel Effect report card, August 2014, U.S. Travel Association,downloaded from: http://www.TravelEffect.com/

PIous, F.K., "Why do Europeans tour Illinois? To see our old-fashioned travelculture," Midwest High Speed Rail website, guest blog posted November 7,2011; accessed September 2014 at: http://www.midwesthsr.org/why-do-europeans-tour-ilIinois-see-our-old-fashioned-travel-culture

Press release: "Route 66, Midwest culture charm international tourists, studyfinds," University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, October 21,2013; accessedAugust 2014 at:http://news.illinois.edulnewsI1311021route _66_ZhuoweiHuang_ Bruce Wicks.html

Ray, Rebecca, Sanes, MilIa and Schmitt, John, No-Vacation Nation Revisited(survey report), Center for Economic Policy and Research, Washington, DC:May 2013; http://www.cepr.netl

U.S. Highway 66 Association entry, Wikipedia; accessed October 2014 at:http://en. wikipedia.orglwikiIU .S._Highway _66_Association

Vogel, Andrew (Kutztown State University), "Hamlin Garland's Roads, theGood Roads Movement, and the Ambivalent Reform of America's GeographicImagination," Studies in American Naturalism, Winter 2010. Vol. 5, No.2,pp.II-132

Weingroff, Richard S., A Vast System of Interconnected Highways: Before theInterstates (PDF), downloaded from the USDOT Federal HighwayAdministration website at: http://www.ihwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/

Weingroff, Richard S., "Ask the Rambler: Why Do People Like to Drive forPleasure?" USDOT Federal Highway Administration website; accessed July2014 at: http://www.ihwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/scenic.cfm

Weingroff, Richard S., "From Names to Numbers - The Origins of the U.S.Numbered Highway System," USDOT Federal Highway Administrationwebsite; accessed June 2014 at:http://www.ihwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/numbers.cfm

17 18

The International Appeal of Route 66

John A. JakIe and Keith A. Sculle

Over the past several decades, America's Route 66 has resonatedstrongly overseas, not just with auto and motorcycle enthusiasts, but withthe general public as well. In the United States today.the nation'shighway and roadside history - at least from the 1926s through the 1950s-loads on this one roadjransformed into a kind of cultural memory.,Celebrated is the freedom of the open road when Americans relishedescape into the transient world of motoring, not just to see their countryclose up, but in ways that are fundamentally uninhibited. On theAmerican roadside, individuals could shed many of the inhibitions ofhome, seek highly personalized experiences, and then return home tonormal routines, remaining largely anonymous throughout. It was animportant kind of freedom. It spoke of liberation.

But what of Europeans?There's good reason to wonder about European visitors' interest in Route66. A 2011 Route 66 Economic Impact Study conducted by RutgersUniversity found that survey respondents - who were queried on theroute, by the way - included travelers from all 50 states and 40 foreigncountries. Foreign visitors made up 15.3 percent of respondents, but thereal figure could have been even higher because the survey form wasprinted in English only. The majority of foreign visitors among therespondents were either Canadian or European. Of the European-basedrespondents, most came from the United Kingdom, Germany and theNetherlands. Visitors/respondents who came the furthest distance werefrom Australia and New Zealand.

So what tempts Europeans to visit Route 66? If it's simply the desire fora road trip or a fast road, there's always the Autobahn. No, it's theparticular freedom of the road, the unique experiences and the specificlandscape here - which is so much bigger than anywhere west of Russia.

Europeans have endured more restrictions at home, more so thanAmericans, especially Eastern Europeans who were trapped behind theIron Curtain before it fell in 1989. Certainly, the experience of the openroad was much different in Europe, where one ran into a frontier orborder crossing in a matter of hours by car or train and the highwaysenabled one to travel but offered much less in the way of intervening