Janice Tremeear - Illinois Haunted Route 66

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Janice Tremeear

All rights reserved

Unless otherwise noted, all images are in the public domain.

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

ISBN 978.1.62584.730.0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tremeear, Janice.

Illinois haunted Route 66 : ghosts from Chicago to St. Louis / Janice Tremeear.

pages cm

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-252-2

1. Ghosts--Illinois. 2. Haunted places--Illinois. 3. Ghosts--United States Highway 66. 4. Haunted places--United States Highway 66. I. Title.

BF1472.U6T7585 2013

133.109773--dc23

2013037055

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Dean, my life partner: I could not function as well as an author and speaker without your continued support and belief in me. My children, Jennifer Burgmeyer, Charlene Wells and Nathaniel Wells, are always rooting Mom on and expecting the best from me. My grandkids, Geoffrey Burgmeyer, Madison Burgmeyer, Tonia Burgmeyer, Erica Varga and Sheridan Varga, think Grandma Jees is cool and say, Well, thats just you, Grandma. Thanks to Mardee Robins, Charlenes school classmate, who braved the trip as a teen with Charlene into Satans Tunnel at Hawks Point, Missouri, where a shadow man followed them home and lurked outside our front door, launching me into my full-blown paranormal journey. Thanks to Dave and Kim Dewitt for firsthand accounts. Thanks to Sara Preston for her support. Special thanks to Philip Booth of Spooked TV for his movie The Possessed and the sharing of experiences the Booths had during filming.

INTRODUCTION

Ghosts, UFOs and odd creatures linger just outside our line of sight, notoriously refusing to leave behind written trails and contrary to having their photos taken. They are insidious and addictive, luring us in with sounds, glimpses of movement, a fragrance, unexplained dreams or memories, generational experiences or our own personal encounterswhich may often alienate us from our own families should we admit to them in public. The questions of life beyond our planet or after death beckon and tease, waiting for us to pay full attention, to catch them at their game of hide-and-seek, driving us forward to be bold in discovering whats out there. They may come nose to nose with us, hoping to break through our veil of ignorance for all things supernatural, hoping well hear and see that world lurking outside our comfort zone, beyond the realm of what we deem sane, adult reasoning. We in the flesh strive to maintain our feet upon the ground as we quest to achieve both monetary and social status in false belief that this makes us whole as human beings. But in the core of our primitive mind is the what if, the dare we brave the unknown and unfamiliar, and thats what drives me to search out the paranormal.

CHAPTER 1

ILLINOIS AND ROUTE 66

FROM THE BEGINNING

Get Your Kicks on Route 66, the famous song written by Bobby Troup, brings to mind the freewheeling, fun attitude of vacationing families seeking adventure and new sights as they traveled along the Middle Road or the more oft-turned phrase, Mother Road of North America, as coined by John Steinbeck. The call for adventure lured with promises of spicy sights and racy tales of roadside dives.

Called the most magical road in all the world with its roadside giants, campsites, mini museums, mom-and-pop businesses, motor courts and eateries topped with miles upon miles of glowing neon, Route 66 was a lighted pathway enticing the weary, delighting the wide-eyed seekers of the wonder of the open road. Cozy Dog Drive-in, the historic eatery in Springfield, Illinois, is the home to the original hot dog on a stick. Established in 1949, the drive-in served as one of the enticing oddities people loved.

Some believe Route 66 embodies a part of the dragon lines, a very powerful energy grid located at specific longitude and latitude lines, known as ley lines, which create sacred geometric grid patterns on the globe where many ancient sites and spirit roads exist, such as the Mayan and the Egyptian pyramids. In between Chicago and Los Angeles runs the shattered spine of America, the broken ley line of Route 66, with the main break appearing in Kansas.

A growing population during the 1920s and a growing number of automobiles forced highway officials to admit to the impracticality of disjointed trails. Legislation for public highways first appeared in 1916. Congress enacted an even more comprehensive version of the act in 1925 and executed its plan for national highway construction. Cyrus Avery, a Tulsa, Oklahoma resident, teamed with highway proponent John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, to lobby for the creation of a diagonal roadway running from Chicago to Los Angeles.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) named the road Route 60 and then changed it to Route 62. Avery strenuously objected to the switch, sending an impassioned letter to AASHTO executive secretary William Markham that read, You are making a joke of the interstate highway. On April 30, 1926, the route became Route 66. Avery gained fame as the Father of Route 66, the birthplace of which was located in Springfield, Missouri.

Illinois begins the great roadside culture with the 2,448-mile-long asphalt python starting in the downtown Chicago loop at the slabbed Pontiac Trail, SBI 4. Like the tip of the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz, the section of Route 66 constructed during 1926 to 1930 is the most scenic part in Illinois, slanting through a densely populated, developed state with a fairly level alignment thanks to the scraping of Ice Age glaciersunlike the twists, switchbacks, cuts and roller-coaster terrain it takes in Missouri, west of St. Louis. As early as the mid-1920s, the Prairie State boasted that its segment of the Old Road was mud-free and slab all the way.

Postcard image of the Muffler Man.

Muffler Men were gentle giants bordering the road in front of tourist shops, service stations or restaurants. Once common in the heyday of Route 66, only a few of them survive. The most iconic one, Tall Paul, holding a giant hotdog, is located in Atlanta, Illinois. It was moved (it originally stood in Cicero, Illinois) and beautifully restored by the Route 66 Association. Route 66 soon became the road of choice for Capone and other Chicago gangsters in the pursuit of wealth. During Prohibition, bootleg whiskey, speakeasies and roadhouses were at every turn. Tales spawned of rumrunners, gangsters and ladies of the evening lent a mythic, romantic image to the highway, giving it the wild quality some people sought to alleviate the boredom of daily life. They dared to take flight from the humdrum as they sought the riches of California on an exhilarating quest where a discovery of the unknown, unusual and bizarre was synonymous with fun and adventure. The fairy-tale charm of Route 66 was its idiosyncratic personality, spreading forth like a giant carnival midway. This corridor of neon signs and gaudy roadside attractions was widely embraced by the eager traveling public.