3. i,
Ottawa Street Methodist Church: from sanctuary to
museum on Route 66
Greg Peerbolte and Maria R. Traska
Some wit - or historian - once observed that in any given community, churches
and taverns are the first institutions to be built and the last to be abandoned.
Joliet was certainly no exception. The last home of one of its very first
churches, a Methodist congregation, now houses the Joliet Area Historical
Museum. A more modern addition on the north side of the former church
building includes the new building entrance for the museum, a gift shop and the
museum's Route 66 Welcome Center.
How the church building became what it is today is a story that begins way back
during the 1830s, the earliest days of the Joliet settlement. What had been Mont
Joliet, a geographic landmark to French explorers and soldiers - literally a high
mound located at what is now the south end oftoday's city of Joliet - had been
abandoned by the French when they'd lost the French and Indian War. It had
been nothing more than a lookout for the French, if that; and it had been many
decades since French missionaries had traveled among the Indians ofthe area.
There were no French settlers, only occasional trappers and traders. When white
settlers finally came to the Joliet area after the Black Hawk War, they settled a
few miles north of that mound.
The history: Joliet's earliest churches
The first settlers in the vicinity were those on Hickory Creek in 1829 - a
Colonel Sayre and Mr.L Brown - on the east bank of the Des Plaines River,
about two miles north of the creek's confluence with the Des Plaines, and a Mr.
Friend, whose cabin stood about a quarter-mile farther northwest on the opposite
bank of the river. Others came in 1830, including John Gougar, who also
settled on Hickory Creek, and Charles Reed, who settled at Reed's Grove on the
river's west bank. Another two dozen men arrived between 1831 and
1833.Before the land was surveyed and platted and deeds were granted, any
settler was technically a squatter and risked being removed from the land
(Charles Reed, for example, had to relocate twice). James B. Campbell arrived
in 1833 and purchased a considerable tract on the east bank (67 acres in one
spot, 13 in another). The following year, Campbell was the first to plat his tract
- and, when he had it recorded, he ignored what Frenchmen had done before
him and named the settlement "Juliet" for his daughter, then began to sell lots.
In 1837 - the same year Chicago incorporated as a city - the village of Juliet
was organized by act of the state legislature. The village unincorporated for tax
reasons in 1841 but kept the name until in 1845, when, at the suggestion of
President Martin Van Buren, the city was returned to its original name, Joliet, to
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Figures 1 and 2: (above)
Restored exterior of the
former Ottawa Street
Methodist Church (photo
©2014 by M.R. Traska; all
rights reserved). (on right)
The museum entrance,
featuring the Route 66
Welcome Center (photo
©2012 by Keith Yearman;
all rights reserved)
honor the French explorer and companion of Father Marquette (Joliet was then
incorporated as a city).
Someone else had arrived not long after Campbell in 1833: the Rev. George
West, a Methodist preacher. At the time, there were no churches in the Joliet
area. There were only small groups of individual worshippers that made do with
mission services and circuit-riding preachers or missionaries. The Methodists
had the Des Plaines mission circuit, a string of locations along the Des Plaines
River where fellow Methodists gathered for services whenever an itinerant
preacher was in the area. The Des Plaines mission or circuit was run by the Rev.
Steven R. Beggs, but he was not its pastor: the term pastor only applies to an
established congregation with a resident minister or priest. Rev. Beggs wasn't
resident in Juliet or anywhere else on the mission circuit and so cannot be
considered a pastor; rather, he was a traveling missionary with a regular,
repetitive route.
Rev. West, on the other hand, was in 1833 the first resident churchman in the
settlement of Juliet, according to the Souvenir of Settlement and Progress of Will
County. IL (published in 1884). But Rev. West didn't have an organized
congregation or a church building. He merely preached and conducted Sunday
school out under the trees near what today would be downtown Joliet. The most
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accident that same year, he was replaced by Father Du Pontdavis, who continued
the work. The parish's early records have been lost, so no one can say with any
certainty whether St. Patrick's Church was completed before or after the
Methodist church building was finished. Moreover, until the mid-20th century,
Joliet belonged to the Archdiocese of Chicago - and that archdiocese lost all of
its early records in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. All we know for certain is
that the first St. Patrick's church building was completed on the west bank in
1838.
And here, finally, we come to the appearance of an organized Methodist church
community. During 1836-37, first the Joliet Circuit was established for the
settlement, then later a Methodist society was formed. In 1838, there was an
organized Methodist congregation, and the first Methodist Episcopal church
building had been completed. Constructed of prime black walnut lumber, it
stood near the southwest corner of present-day Ottawa and Washington Streets,
a spot now in the shadow of the railroad viaduct with its commemorative murals
and across the street from the infamously Brutalist-style Will County
Courthouse.
This first church building lasted until 1852,when it was condemned for a
railroad right-of-way (today's Rock Island line). The congregation sold the
property to the railroad, bought a new site, and began erecting a second church
building immediately at Ottawa and Clinton Streets, which was completed in
1853. Unfortunately, that one burned down only six years later in 1859 and was
replaced with a stone church at Ottawa and Clinton the same year. That site is
now occupied by the Plaza Hotel Building, which includes Joliet's popular
Route 66 Diner. At what point this congregation became known as the Ottawa
Street M.E. Church is unclear, but it must have been no earlier than 1853 and
possibly not until 1859. Its fourth and last home downtown wasn't built until
1910, and that's the one that decades later became the home of the Joliet Area
Historical Museum.
one could say, then, is that there were practicing Methodists living in the Juliet
settlement in 1833, as well as a group that supposedly met under the trees at
Gougar's Grove three miles west of Juliet and was served by the Des Plaines
Methodist circuit riders. But they weren't the only local settlers with a religious
affiliation.
There are sources - the former Ottawa Street Methodist Church's own history
among them - that cite the presence of a Methodist circuit three miles away and
an unrelated resident Methodist preacher in 1833 to claim that the Ottawa Street
Methodist Church was the very first church established in Joliet. Not true: as
we said, for that you need an organized, formally established congregation
served by a resident pastor. The first such organized congregation in Juliet was
Christ Episcopal Church, whose parish was founded on May 16, 1835,
becoming the second oldest Episcopal parish in the Chicago diocese (at the time,
there were only four other Episcopal parishes in the entire state). That's
Episcopalian, as in the American equivalent ofthe Anglican Church (Church of
England). That this congregation merged with another Episcopalian parish
many decades later after its church building burned down is irrelevant: the
surviving parish still exists in the Upper Bluff district. Please note: Christ
Episcopal's third church building, designed by nationally known architect Frank
Shaver Allen and completed in 1887, was listed on the National Register of
Historic Places from 1982 until it burned down in 2006 and its remains were
demolished. Christ Episcopal was never rebuilt.
Next: on August 12, 1835, the First Presbyterian Church was organized as a
society/congregation in Juliet. However, when a local Presbyterian minister
organized the rival Union Church in 1839, First Presbyterian ceased to exist for
many years; it was re-organized on August 3, 1866. Because of the 27-year gap,
First Presbyterian doesn't count: there were two very different, unrelated
congregations at two different times.
The next church society established was the Universalist Church, organized in
1836 by Rev. Aaron Kenny. At first, its services were held in the court house
until a church could be built. That didn't happen until sometime between
November 1843 and July 1847, during the term of the Rev. W.W. Dean. The
first Universalist church building was replaced with a stone church in 1856. It is
unknown whether this 1836 congregation became the st. John's Universalist
Church that once owned the multipurpose Joliet Auditorium Building block and
the chapel within it (all completed in 1891 and designed by G. Julian Barnes) or
if it is related to any remaining Universalist or Unitarian Universalist
congregation in Joliet.
Now the Catholics reappeared. Any who had previously been in the area had
vanished with the French and the Indians. The first Roman Catholic parish in
Juliet - st. Patrick - was organized in 1838 by Father Plunkett, who began
building the church that year; but when he died a sudden, untimely death by
38
Clearly, the Ottawa Street congregation couldn't claim to have been the oldest
religious congregation in Joliet - the Episcopalians had them beat. Could they
at least claim to have the oldest church building, then? No, unfortunately not.
The Catholics beat them on that point - but not with st. Patrick's Church. That
honor falls instead to the Church of St. Anthony, the only remaining Catholic
church in downtown Joliet. Back in 1859, the First Baptist Church congregation
built itself a homely sanctuary with an exceedingly plain brick exterior of no
discernible style, stuck somewhere between the most simplified German
vernacular neo-Gothic and the blandest Romanesque imaginable. The Baptist
congregation sold the building in 1902 to the local Italian community and
moved elsewhere; they, in turn, founded st. Anthony's Parish that same year.
The parish has remained solidly Italian to the present day.
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In fact, this century-and-a-half-old building on Scott Street is not only the oldest
church structure in Joliet, but the oldest edifice of any kind still in use in the
city. The Church of st. Anthony is no longer homely, either: whereas the
interior was immediately renovated and an altar added to make it appropriate for
a Catholic parish church, a 1976 renovation that included an updated altar and
sanctuary also remodeled the building's exterior in the American Colonial
Congregational style, aka Williamsburg Colonial, adding a new Colonial-style
spire for the square bell tower but retaining the church's original structure
beneath its renewed red-brick appearance. The beautiful stained glass windows
were likewise preserved but were covered with arched, white-mullioned
Williamsburg-style windows to match the renovated exterior and protect the old
leaded glass.
angel and the women at Christ's empty tomb. Architect G. Julian Barnes had
done much the same for the Universalist chapel in the Auditorium Building
almost two decades earlier.
George Julian Barnes, who was well known at the time throughout central
Illinois but not at all outside the Midwest, lived and worked in Joliet during the
last quarter of the 19th century and very early 20th century. He began practicing
in Joliet around 1884. Not to be confused with the later, younger John H.
Barnes (no relation), Julian Barnes rarely used his first name, more often the
first initial but sometimes not even that. Not a problem: say 'Julian Barnes' in
Joliet, and even today, most local people would think of the architect first, not
the 20th and 21st century novelist. The Richardsonian Romanesque home of
Joliet limestone that Barnes built for himself on Richards Street in 1890 is still
standing, a local landmark and a contributing building in the Joliet East Side
Historic District. The Auditorium Building block with its now defunct
Universalist chapel- another local landmark - went up on Chicago Street the
following year, 1891, also in Joliet stone; it's now one of the most well-
preserved, good-looking buildings downtown. He also designed a number of
homes located in what is now Joliet's Upper Bluff Historic District. Although
Barnes was known to use pattern books for his residential designs early on, his
work on the Upper Bluff was apparently of his own invention.
So: Ottawa Street Methodist was one of the earliest religious congregations to
be established in Juliet/Joliet, but not the first. No matter: the early Methodist
settlers were still pioneers and their congregation was historically important.
Before and during the Civil War, for example, several members of the
congregation worked with the Underground Railroad to hide Negro freedmen
and slaves and help guide them to safety in the northern states and Canada.
The sanctuary on Ottawa Street
By 1910, none of that mattered to the Ottawa Street Methodist congregation:
they were about to get a brand-new sanctuary, a much bigger, more handsome
one than the church had ever had before. The second half of the 19th century
had brought unbridled growth to Joliet, especially in its burgeoning downtown.
Joliet was not only Stone City but also Steel City, flush with rolling mills, coke
ovens and wire makers. It had breweries and wallpaper factories and all kinds
of other manufacturing. By the early 1900s, the Methodist congregation was
need of a new building to accommodate its rapidly growing numbers. Church
officials decided to sell their current sanctuary, move one block north to the site
of an old parsonage (which was sold and moved), and build anew at the
northeast comer of Ottawa and Cass Streets.
The Ottawa Street church would have been one of his last commissions, if not
the last; Barnes had already mostly retired by the early 1900s. However, this
church would be one of his best designs, eventually becoming listed on the
NRHP - but not until after its congregation was long gone.
The congregation seemed to be proudest of the fact that the new church had
been dedicated free of debt. Although the building's construction had overrun
the cost estimate by some $13,000, a last-minute fundraising campaign had
brought in more than $17,000 in donations from wealthy church patrons,
including $5,000 from the Irving Street Methodist Church, which had recently
united with the Ottawa Street church.
The new church building would also be significantly different from its previous
iterations. A Neo-Classical style rectangular building made of pale brick with
grey Bedford limestone trim, it had an Ionic portico and four tall columns each
on the south and west sides. It looked less like a church than an urban temple.
A limestone tablet was inset above each entrance. The one on the Ottawa Street
side read: For the glory of God, whereas the one on the Cass Street side said:
For the good of Man. Thus, they echoed the twin goals of the congregation's
charitable works. The sanctuary inside was enormous, with high ceilings.
Several of the tall stained glass panels decorating windows on the north and
south walls were copies of famous religious paintings whose images included
the Holy Family's flight into Egypt, the boy Christ with the Elders in the temple,
Christ and the rich young ruler, Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, and the
The congregation continued to thrive, all through the First and Second World
Wars, the Great Depression in between, through the arrival of U.S. Routes 66
and 30 in 1926, and even into the postwar era. The sanctuary was remodeled
and updated several times. But alas, growth couldn't last forever. When
construction on Interstate 55 began in Illinois during the late 1950s, that
signaled a change ahead in local population distribution. By the late 1960s as 1-
55 drew housing and business away from the city center, neighborhoods and
communities in Joliet began to shift westward to the newer subdivisions and
suburbs.
In 1983, the Ottawa Street Methodist Church celebrated its 150th anniversary
(evidently still fudging and using 1833 as the year of its founding, rather than as
40 41

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the year its forerunners appeared). The building's Bedford limestone
cornerstone, laid in 1909, was opened in April 1983 as part of its
sesquicentennial festivities. All was not well, though. The church struggled on,
its faith never wavering but its membership shrinking.
represented on the board, as are at least one member of the board appointed by
the mayor and someone appointed from Joliet Junior College.
By 2002, Shapard had determined that in order for the museum to succeed in
attracting enough visitors, it had to have facilities and exhibits the quality of
which was on a par with those of the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium or Adler
Planetarium on Chicago's Museum Campus. The adaptively reused former
church building would also require an addition on the north side of the building
for a new entrance, gift shop and welcoming. display area. "I named it the
'Route 66 Visitor Welcome Center' solely because state grants were available
for such facilities, and I hoped to get some," Shapard recalls. "Turns out it
worked out very well, and the Route 66 theme became quite popular, grant or no
grant." But that was still ahead.
By 1996, however, the Methodist congregation had fought the good fight - and
lost. The major downtown retail contingent had escaped to the Louis Joliet Mall
more than two decades earlier. A few restaurants, taverns and smaller retailers
still lingered amid the government office buildings, along with the Joliet Junior
College campus and some law offices, but other businesses had run off long ago.
Dwindling numbers and its location in a downtown area consumed by blight and
fraught with the perception of danger finally forced the congregation to close
down on Ottawa Street and merge with another Methodist church on Larkin
Avenue in a newer neighborhood. The Ottawa Street building was defunct,
emptied as so many others had been by organizations and businesses that fled
westward or had simply given up altogether. Like its shuttered neighbor down
the street, St. Mary Carmelite Church, the former Ottawa Street Methodist
Church was a ghost building in a spreading ghost downtown. By 1997,
however, the Ottawa Street Church had already been purchased for $250,000
with a museum in mind. Now, the long planning process began.
Such ambitious plans would require an architectural practice and a museum
exhibit firm with extensive museum experience. Several architectural firms
specializing in museums were interviewed by the committee, which eventually
chose Ueland, Junker, McCauley, and Nicholson (UJMN) of Philadelphia. In
addition to remodeling the interior space and designing the addition, UJMN
designed all the initial museum exhibits, which were fabricated by an exhibition
firm called X Plus in Dulles, Virginia.
The revival
Cut to the early 2000s. The Joliet city government embarked upon a downtown
revitalization program. The local economy being flush with a temporary
upswing due to the city's casino income, optimistic city officials put together a
$56 million economic stimulus package that included $25 million for a new
minor league baseball stadium (Silver Cross Field), $10 million for a new water
park that is now part ofthe city's park district, $5 million for the Joliet Public
Library, and $11 million for a new Joliet history museum. The intent was to
purchase and repurpose the Ottawa Street Methodist Church building for the
museum. To fund these projects, there was a 2001 bond issue, the cost of which
was repaid in full by 2004 from the city's gaming revenues.
Meanwhile, "It was local banker Bert D'Ottavio who proposed connecting the
museum with [Joliet Junior College's] Renaissance Center," Shapard adds.
D'Ottavio was then vice-president of First National Bank of Joliet (since
acquired by Harris Bank). The Renaissance Center consists of two buildings
next door to the north - a former Sheridan motor inn, now converted into
classrooms, and the old Joliet Chamber of Commerce Clubhouse, a 1925
Italianate building with Spanish elements, aka Mediterranean Revival style, that
was designed by the Burnham Brothers and later used as a nightclub during the
postwar era. These two structures currently comprise the college's downtown
campus. When people mention the Ren Center, however, they usually mean
only the former C of C clubhouse.
The first step was to purchase the former church, make it a local landmark, then
get it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. An NRHP listing and
the addition of a Route 66 tourist venue would potentially provide additional
funding for the project. The city appointed Deputy City Manager James
Shapard as the project manager for the museum. To obtain both professional
advice and citizen input, a committee was formed that included several
prominent local businessmen - such as Tim Wilmott, CEO of the local Harrah's
Casino - and educators as well as representatives from the Joliet Historical
Society. It was already clear that the city and the historical society would join
forces to create the museum. Society members would have considerable input
on the content of the initial exhibits. Even now, former society members are
The college had set the precedent for adaptive reuse when it acquired the
clubhouse in 1980 for its downtown conference and educational facility, a
combination of rental facilities such as meeting rooms and ballrooms plus
kitchens and dining areas for the college's culinary school and student-run
dining facility, where young chefs in training get to show off their skills.
Connecting the museum's addition to the former clubhouse would promote both
buildings' event venues and services - and allow museum visitors to take a short
cut into the college's superb dining room for the culinary school's weekly buffet
lunches and special dinners (the buffets have been temporarily replaced with a
shortened cafe menu while the HC city center campus undergoes new
construction and remodeling of the Ren Center facilities between 2014 and
42 43

7. 2016). Connecting the museum and the Renaissance Center turned out to be a
brilliant idea: the two facilities would add value to one another.
has been remodeled in recent years into apartments, though the sale of those
units initially floundered because their completion coincided with the start ofthe
recession of the late 2000s.
To take further advantage of this connection, the museum's initial welcome
center design included a rooftop deck with a teak canopy that could also be
rented out for parties and special events in good weather. Today, the Ren
Center's second-floor Grand Ballroom has doors that open onto the museum's
rooftop terrace, so that both facilities can be used at the same time - the terrace
becomes an outdoor extension of the ballroom, thus profiting both organizations.
Use of the teak deck, however, must be arranged with the museum, not the Ren
Center - even if the main affair is scheduled for the Ren Center's facilities.
The museum project's new construction and remodeling was done by Castle
Construction Company. By the time of its completion, the entire project totaled
approximately $10.5 million.
The results
The renovated former Ottawa Street church now looks every inch a proper
museum inside. The high-ceilinged sanctuary has been divided into two levels:
a mezzanine balcony surrounds the space from above while providing extra
room for small displays and overlooking a much larger exhibit space below.
It's important to note that JJC hadn't been alone in repurposing historic
buildings. Rather, it had become a small but prospering nexus for adaptive
reuse downtown. Right across the street was another Burnham Brothers
building, the former Joliet YMCA, built in 1928. It, too, had been sold and
converted, after the 'Y' moved to newer facilities. In this case, the developers
took a classic Georgian Revival building and remodeled it into senior citizens'
housing, now known as Senior Suites of Joliet. That brought residences back
downtown again, though not enough yet to spark any big return to the city
center. But it was a start.
Figure 4: The mezzanine
balcony not only provides
a bird's-eye view of
exhibits below and gives
visitors a close-up look at
the historic building's
original stained glass.
(photo courtesy of the
Joliet Area Historical
Museum)
Dividing the space this way means that visitors can't see the historic building's
original stained glass in full, but that's a small sacrifice in exchange for being
able to see part of the glass up close via the balcony. There is also a top floor
above the former sanctuary for the museum's administrative offices. The
modem addition north of the original church building provides the new museum
entrance (the former church's west and south side entries are closed now) and
features a gift shop/registration and information desk plus a large open area for
the Route 66 Welcome Center exhibits (see photo). At the opposite end of the
addition, the welcome center connects via double glass doors to the main
ground-floor dining room of JJC's facility next door.
Figure 3: Inside the
Route 66 Welcome
Center; to the right
are the museum gift
shop (photo ©2014
by M.R. Traska; all
rights reserved)
The transformation of the former Ottawa Street Methodist Church into a history
museum made it the third adaptive reuse project within a square-block area but
the first to become a cultural attraction. The only other cultural venue
downtown was two long blocks away on Chicago Street: the beautifully
restored but all too frequently empty Rialto Square Theater, opened in 1926.
Designed by movie palace specialists Rapp & Rapp of Chicago, it was restored
in 1980 and has been listed on the NRHP since 1990. The theater is more often
used for concerts, plays and as a special events venue, however, than as a film
theater. The theater also anchors a square-block area that includes the former
Louis Joliet Hotel, another historic NRHP-listed Georgian Revival building that
Inside the Route 66 Welcome Center is a space with seating that mimics classic
1950s automobile bench-style car seats, where visitors can watch a short
documentary film about Route 66. The colorful wall murals that surround the
welcome center's space and the eye-popping Route 66-related exhibits are the
first things that catch a visitor's attention. At the far end of the welcome center
44 45

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is a wall map of the original eight-state path of U.S. Route 66, from its eastern
terminus in Chicago to its western terminus in Los Angeles. Next to that are
displays about diners and road food, two phenomena that developed in tandem
with the growth of traffic on Route 66. A few examples of classic gas pumps
are scattered around the corners of the room, along with other displays. And
there in front to greet visitors are two figures representing 'Joliet' Jake and
Elwood Blues, aka the Blues Brothers, their film characters now forever
synonymous with Joliet.
The exhibits in the Route 66 Welcome Center may cover fun pop culture, but
they include some serious history, too, and have surprised and gratified many a
walk-in visitor who didn't know what to expect (or didn't expect much) from a
small, local museum. The welcome center remains one of the most popular
sections of the museum and draws people into the museum who otherwise might
not have expected to find anything interesting inside. Upstairs are the more
detailed exhibits dealing with local history, including the creation of the Illinois
& Michigan Canal and its importance to the greater Chicago and Des Plaines
Valley areas. Another big draw is the exhibit on a native son and former Joliet
resident, the late John Houbolt - the NASA engineer who proposed the lunar
orbit rendezvous path to the moon for the Apollo program and thereby became
the godfather of the Lunar Module. Without both of those, the astronauts would
never have made it to the moon. Houbolt, the persistent Man With a Big Idea,
died in April 2014 at the age of95.
From the start, attendance at the Joliet Area Historical Museum and Route 66
Welcome Center has been encouraging. Moreover, the museum and the JJC's
Renaissance Center are both thriving. There will likely be more opportunities
for the two organizations to collaborate. The college's attractive new city center
building on Chicago Street (under construction for more than a year, at this
writing) will increase classroom space and services to downtown students once
it opens in 2016, bringing even more young people into the city center. The
Welcome Center estimates 20-25,000 visitors each year, a large portion of
which are foreign visitors traversing Route 66, from over 35 countries. In 2014
they set a single day attendance record of over 4,000 visitors at the annual "Star
Wars Day", which is a cross-promotional activity to promote literacy with the
Joliet Public Library.
Figures 5 and 6: (above left) One side of the John HouboltlNASA exhibit describes the moon
missions. (above right) the exhibit emphasizes technology of the era and challenges of the
Apollo missions. (photos courtesy of the Joliet Area Historical Museum)
Please note: the authors wish to thank Joliet Deputy City Manager James
Shapard and Tony Contos, former executive director of the Joliet Area
Historical Museum, without whose generous assistance this article would not
have been possible.
References
History/Statement of significance, NRHP nomination form for Christ Episcopal
Church, Joliet, IL; submitted 1982
History/Statement of significance, NRHP nomination form for Joliet East Side
Historic District; submitted 1980
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9. II
History/Statement of significance, NRHP nomination form for Joliet Upper
Bluff Historic District; submitted 1991
Commentary: Which came first, preservation or tourism?
History/Statement of significance, NRHP nomination form for Joliet YMCA
Building, Joliet, IL; submitted 2005
John Weiss
Everyone's heard the expression, "Which came first, the chicken or the
egg?" Here's a more relevant question for Route 66: "Which came first,
preservation or tourism?" Let's see if we can analyze that.
History/Statement of significance, NRHP nomination form for Ottawa Street
Methodist Church, Joliet, IL
Souvenir of Settlement and Progress of Will County, IL, Historical Directory
Publishing Co., Chicago: 1884
Preservation in all its forms is extremely important. Sites, structures and
more must be saved and/or restored in order to represent a sense of time
and place. However, what to save and where becomes an important
issue. It takes lots of time and money to do preservation. You cannot
save somethingjust because it's old. Ifthere are two similar sites, such
as old filling stations, which one do you preserve? Common sense
dictates that the site most likely to be visited by the greater number of
people is the more logical choice.
Tourism means potential dollars to an area or community. Often, a site is
preserved with the hopes that it will attract tourists. I mean generic sites,
not historically significant ones such as a president's home or battlefield,
etc. Those high profile locations are obvious choices. Our dilemma is
with the less obvious choices.
Greg Peerbolte is the executive director of the Joliet Area Historical Museum
and afan of Route 66. Maria R. Traska is an independent journalist, author and
policy analyst who is also editor of the blog CuriousTraveler66.com and co-
author of the upcoming book, The Curious Traveler's Guide to Route 66 in
Metro Chicago.
Let's look at some great but lesser known sites on Route 66 here in
Illinois. Joliet has the Rialto Square Theatre, Wilmington has Midewin
Tall Grass Prairie, and Gardner has its two-cell jail. Dwight has the
Windmill, Odell has the Standard Station, and Pontiac has its swinging
bridges. On their own merits, all these sites are viewed with great
appreciation by tourists who visit them.
Now, let's look at this with some cold, hard facts. Just consider anyone
of these attractions -let's say the Dwight Windmill. I'll bet there's no
one in the whole world that at this moment who is planning his or her
vacation to Dwight, Illinois because of the Windmill. It just isn't going
to happen. However, I will also bet that at this precise moment, there are
people within a short distance or around the world who are planning a
trip on Route 66. Are they doing this because of the Windmill? Of
course not. At best, the Windmill, as great as it is, will be nothing more
then a chance meeting for the traveling public.
What does all this mean? Should we just forget preservation? Are these
sites just black holes that do nothing but suck in time and money? Are
tourism dollars just wishful thinking? Not at all.
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