Illinois was the first state to have Route 66 fully paved and some of the old road segments are still drivable. In southern Illinois, Route 66 was routed primarily on Illinois 4, which was pretty much already paved between Springfield and St. Louis by the time Route 66 was commissioned. For this trip, we deliberately took the old alignment (1926 to 1930) through southern Illinois to enjoy some of the best-preserved sections of Route 66.
We got our first taste of original Route 66 roadway just outside of Auburn Illinois when we rode on a stretch of restored brick roadway. What made the drive even more interesting was that there was a gentleman driving the roadway at the same time in a what I think was restored Model A Ford while a younger gent operated a drone to photograph the car rumbling down the road.
The road itself was a restoration, but well done. It included the concrete curbs to lock the bricks in the roadway.
Though the stretch around Auburn was the only section of road paved with brick, there were several great stretches of mid 1920’s concrete that ran through the farmland.
At one point, we found a small section of the original 1920’s concrete that was outlined in paint to highlight a spot where turkeys wandered into the wet concrete after it was laid, leaving obvious tracks in the roadway.
Shortly after passing through Carlinville, we followed a couple of side loops of original road that wandered off the “straightened” version of Illinois 4 through a scenic section of woods and rolling hills. The second loop actually included a bridge over Honey Creek that was built in 1920, still open to traffic, albeit with a strict load limit.
There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road with us the day we traveled, so we had a chance to simply sit back and enjoy the ride!
Doc’s Soda Fountain – Girard Illinois
As we drove through Girard, we left the route just a bit to make a stop at a little shop called Doc’s Soda Fountain. The building actually housed a pharmacy for many years, serving refreshments at their soda fountain to those traveling Route 66. Today, the shop is a restaurant and soda fountain that maintains a small museum of what the pharmacy was like. Kathy and I perused the pharmacy display and then enjoyed a scoop of ice cream and a strawberry phosphate.
Carlinville Illinois – Typical Town Square Community
Carlinville was so typical of the southern Illinois towns that we drove through, with a community clearly centered on the town square. In the case of Carlinville, the square was busy and bustling at the noon hour; the town serves as the county seat and at a busy crossroads of two major Illinois highways.
Despite all the traffic at the hub of the town, the square is still a somewhat soothing spot, with a large gazebo in the center.
We stopped to have lunch on the square and then walked through some of the shops. Interestingly, some of the older buildings had historical plaques posted. One in particular caught my eye. It marked the building as being the original home of the Ariston Café, long an icon on the older alignment of Route 66; we had visited the Ariston on our trip in 2012.
Apparently, the Ariston started in Carlinville in 1924 by one Pete Adam. His cafe grew and business boomed with the commissioning of Route 66. Four years later (1930), Route 66 was relocated to the east. The change could have been the demise of the bustling restaurant, but the owner was a sharp businessman and realized he needed to follow the road, moving his restaurant to Litchfield, where it still stands today as one of the longest operating restaurants on Route 66 and still owned by the Adams family.