The April 2016 meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday, April 14, at 7:00 pm.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.
The following is the Treasurer's report for the month of February:
Do you have a family member that
is interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership
in the Madison County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful
gift. A gift card will be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $20.00
Patron Annual Membership $30.00
Life Membership $250.00
Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at [email protected],
about a gift membership.
On April 14, 2016, Cheryl Eichar Jett presented a program titled
Route 66 in Collinsville. She started with a general discussion
and history of Route 66.
Route 66 is celebrating its 90th birthday in 2016. On November
11, 2016, it will be 90 years since the federal highway system,
including Route 66, was signed into law. There will be a lot of
birthday parties across the country. One was held in April in
Missouri.
By 1985, virtually all of Route 66 had been federally decommissioned,
but you can still drive more than 85% of Route 66. The catch is
that it is not one contiguous highway in the sense of its maintenance
or who has authority over it. Stretches of it are city streets,
stretches of it are under the auspices of the states, and some
are county or township roads. The states are pretty good about
providing signage for the DOT in each of the eight states the
road traverses. In Illinois, the signs are a distinctive brown.
The official length of Route 66 is 2,448 miles from Chicago to
Los Angeles. Illinois was the first state to have the road completely
paved. Chicago and St. Louis were big industrial cities that needed
a good transportation link between them. So in the early 1920s,
Illinois paved the highway (old Illinois Route 4) between Chicago
and St. Louis. When it came time for Illinois to designate its
section of Route 66 from Chicago to St. Louis, they used old Route
4.
In Collinsville, interestingly, the most well known landmarks
are not on Route 66 and never have been the giant Brooks
Catsup bottle water tower, the beautiful Miners' Theatre, and
Cahokia Mounds State Park. As far as members of Route 66 Associations
are concerned, if a road or street ever carried Route 66, it remains
Route 66 forever. This leads to a multitude of road alignments.
In the 1920s when people were really starting to use the automobile,
the idea was to get from the heart of one city to the heart of
another city, because the middle of the city was where the hotels,
restaurants, and businesses were located. Eventually there was
enough traffic that it could not move smoothly through the heart
of the city. So bypasses were built to take the traffic around
the city. Then, the businesses started moving to the suburbs to
be where the traffic was. As a result, the downtown areas languished.
The final bypass was the Interstate System.
In 1955-56, Route 66 moved. It came to Hamel, bypassed Edwardsville,
and went to Collinsville. It came into Collinsville on St. Charles
Street and Vandalia Street. It went down and turned right, joining
US Route 40. It followed what is now known as the Beltline to
Bluff Road and out Collinsville Road.
All the different bridges that crossed the Mississippi River into
St. Louis were used, at one time or another, by Route 66 in one
of its many alignments.
Cheryl had photos of many of the businesses on Route 66 in Collinsville
filling stations, restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. She discussed
some of the businesses what they became, if the buildings
still exist, who some of the more notable habitués were,
etc.
This presentation was very well received and several questions
were asked.