In 1973, Pontiac’s leading newspaper warned that “I-55 will demote Route 66 to just a frontage road.” And that’s exactly what it did. While local businesses continued using their Route 66 addresses in advertisements, the highway’s name and presence soon faded.

Like many bypassed by the interstate, Pontiac’s business community worked to “try to pull cars off I-55,” as recalled by current and longtime city administrator Bob Karls. However, there was no thought of capitalizing on the city’s onetime link to Route 66.

All of this changed in the early 2000s when an opportunity — and future partnership — fell into their lap.

The Route 66 Association of Illinois, one of the first state associations to form, found its headquarters in McLean had run out of space. The group approached the city with a proposal to move their operations to Pontiac. Pontiac officials were receptive to the idea and offered their former city hall and fire station.

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the two-story Romanesque brick building proved to be a near-perfect fit. Using a tax increment financing (TIF) program established in the 1980s, the city helped the association bring the building up to code and carry out other improvements.

Opened in 2004, the new Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame Museum put Pontiac back on the Route 66 map. 

However, work remained to be done. The museum’s back wall, a blank brick façade, beckoned to be decorated.

Local artists at Diaz Sign Art, a family-owned sign shop, came up with the idea of a huge highway shield. Spanning nearly the entire façade, the six-sided sign — with its black double sixes painted over a white background — became an immediate attraction. 

The town’s mayor, Robert Russell, understood the pull of the mural — and Route 66.

As the story goes, one glum day, near the height of the Great Recession, Mayor Russell told his staff: “We can either sit by the curb and wait for someone to help us, or stand up and do what we can do.”

Working with the Diaz family and the Walldogs, a loose association of artistic sign painters, city staff envisioned an event where the entire downtown became a canvas for imaginative history-themed murals.

In June 2009, the “Walldog Mural Festival” attracted more than 150 artists, who worked with locals over three days to create 18 murals. Now it has 23 murals. There was some initial skepticism, but Karls says that the event, which one night brought 5,000 people downtown, “just energized the community.” To the mayor and his city administrator, it was a turning point.

Route 66 opportunities and partnerships then began to pile up.

On his way to Chicago, Oldsmobile car collector Tim Dye stopped off in Pontiac and liked what he saw. The mayor and city administrator were out at Dye’s home in Oklahoma within a week, working out a deal. As with the Route 66 association, the city offered Dye an attractive deal with a building improved through TIF money.

Today, the Pontiac-Oakland Museum and Resource Center —a first-class display of Pontiac cars and auto memorabilia — is tucked within the city’s museum.

Another opportunity — and partner — came with the family of Bob Waldmire, the famed Route 66 artist. Before his death in late 2009, Waldmire had traveled to Pontiac to look at a site for a mural. Pacing off the brick wall in the 300 block of North Main St, he delighted that his canvas measured precisely 66 feet. Waldmire died before he could start the mural, but his design, dubbed the “Waldmire Memorial,” was completed in 2011. It is a significant attraction.

Waldmire was a Springfield native, who had spent time in Pontiac, and his family thought the city was a fitting place for his legacy. Located on the 2nd floor of the Pontiac Museum Complex, the Waldmire Experience presents the artist’s life — from artist to naturalist to Route 66 icon. Part of the exhibit includes his famous mustard color VW van. Parked outside the museum is his “Road Yacht,” a school bus he made his home for many years. Many visitors approach the van “as if they are almost walking into a shrine,” observes current tourism director, Liz Vincent.

City Administrator Karls recalls that before the Route 66 Association of Illinois came knocking, the legendary highway was not on the city’s radar as a way to generate tourism, let alone a catalyst of economic development. But with the museum, the murals, the “Big Shield,” and a cascade of opportunities, Route 66 now plays a big part in Pontiac’s tourism marketing.

“Every time an opportunity arrived, we ran with it,” remembered Karls of the Route 66 renaissance. Once a community that didn’t even make it into Route 66 tour guides, Pontiac is now a “must-see.” 

An outstanding example of period historic preservation shines with the Standard Oil Station in Odell, Illinois. Erected in 1932 to match a 1916 Standard Oil gas station plan, it looks like a spry house that just happens to have a gas pump.

A fixture on Route 66, Odell Station served both locals and travelers until the 1960s when it was converted into an auto body shop. Shuttered in the 1970s, it fell into disrepair and would have been destroyed had it not been for the dedication of history-minded volunteers. 

With the assistance of the Route 66 Route Association of Illinois, the gas station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The association then started to restore it with their own volunteer labor. At one point, this included a poker run to raise money.

Then a fantastic partnership blossomed. As recalled by former association president, John Weiss, volunteers from every walk of life along with businesses far and near along with schools and qualified tradespeople from virtually all over the country joined the effort. Sometimes the preservation meetings would have up to 100 people. Weiss remembers, “Yes, the magic was there!”

In 2000, Hampton Inn, the national hotel chain, took an interest in the association’s work, providing funds to pay off a loan and lending volunteers. The NPS Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program and the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office provided technical assistance.

Completed in 2001, the project won a national preservation award the following year. 

“What you are enjoying today is the history of yesterday. What we do today will become the history of tomorrow,” Weiss wrote of the association’s persistence and the countless hours of volunteer work.

Covering a 30-mile, mostly urban stretch, Tulsa’s main alignment of Route 66 passes through diverse communities. Old motels and gas stations mix with a vibrant downtown stacked with Art Deco buildings. In 2005, the City of Tulsa created a master plan to generate economic development along the route. 

A master plan provides a long-term document guiding future growth and development, and the “Route 66 Master Plan” aggressively promoted economic development through large capital projects. These included the highly visible Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza and Route 66 Skywalk. The plan also created the Tulsa Route 66 Commission and a zoning overlay for the route. It was a great success. 

In “Plan 66,” its 2020 update, the emphasis has shifted from capital-heavy projects to encouraging private ventures and supporting emerging businesses and entrepreneurs on the route. Its goal is to create a Route 66 that “will offer a variety of experiences to people of different ages, cultures, and backgrounds, while sustaining what exists and encouraging economic development.” This includes continuing to preserve the historic route and the buildings and communities that surround it.

Like Tulsa, Albuquerque boasts a long section of Route 66, running through mostly urbanized areas. It includes sections struggling with decline as well as neighborhoods thriving with development. Route 66, or Central Avenue, continues to play a vital role in transportation and economic generation as the city’s main thoroughfare. Released in 2014, the “Route 66 Action Plan” sets forth a long-range plan with a set of strategic goals to support projects that will create economic development — enhancing the city, which has a strong identification with Route 66. The plan is divided into corridor-wide objectives, including streetscape and façade enhancement programs and discrete nodes for redevelopment or special projects. Like the Tulsa plan, it sets out goals to foster the preservation and celebration of Route 66. One of these is to establish a Neon Sign Design Overlay Zone, to preserve historic signs and encourage new neon signage.

In 2003, the Atlanta Public Library and Museum board, as recalled by its former president Bill Thomas, found itself “all of sudden in full possession” of the Downey Building, a two-story brick commercial structure fronting Route 66. 

Little did Thomas and the board realize they were embarking on a six-year project to bring back a Route 66 icon and create a new space for their museum. 

Erected in 1867 by local businessman Alexander Downey, the double storefront Italianate style commercial building had gone through many uses over its nearly 140 years of existence, holding at different times a bank, law office, millinery, and grocery. Important to Route 66 was a small café occupying the north storefront.