Farmers Weekly Review

By Nick Reiher

Route 66, The Mother Road, has been in the news quite a bit lately, most of it good, or at least encouraging.

Heritage Corridor Destinations and WJOL’s Scott Slocum were honored for Scott’s 10 live radio shows as he traveled the full Route 66 over a couple weeks, talking to some colorful peeps along the way. It was pretty entertaining.

Then, of course, we had the storm and stress over the auction of the Gemini Giant and the goodies inside the Launching Pad in Wilmington.

As many of you know, the Pad has been shuttered since the pandemic, and the Giant – a popular backdrop for pictures for thousands from all over the world who travel Route 66 – often blocked by the owner’s, make that former owner’s vehicle covered in assorted graffiti to discourage such photographs.

I became friends with the former owner and her former partner, dropping copies of Farmers Weekly Review at the Launching Pad during its too-short resurgence. There was really good food and a great atmosphere to capture those hungry and thirsty travelers hankering for a real Chicago dog and a pineapple whip.

We all know what happened then, but we don’t know why. I mean, we know why, but not why. What we know now is that the Joliet Area Historical Museum bought the Giant for $275,000 at auction with a state grant and donated it to the City of Wilmington to be the centerpiece of a tourist spot along the Mother Road on South Island Park.

I hope the Giant’s boots don’t get soaked when the Kankakee River chunks up again like this past January, spewing water onto the island and local roads. But, the good-hearted people of Wilmington no doubt will bail him out, as they tried hard to do during the auction.

A graffitied car hasn’t been the only obstacle for viewing the Giant, or anything else on Route 66 south of Interstate 80. For the past 20 years, this local stretch of the Mother Road, Illinois 53, has been increasingly filled with trucks as CenterPoint has built up its logistics parks in Joliet and Elwood.

Warehouses continue to replace former farmsteads along 53 and in and around Laraway Road. For the driver of a car heading south from I-80, playing chicken with northbound trucks under the viaduct gets your motor running.

Watching the southbound trucks ramp up the hill toward Doris while you’re stopped at the light has you praying the truck drivers notice the stopped traffic, lest you and your car become a cigarette case.

Or, while stopped, your prayers may be interrupted by a truck or even a car, running the light at Doris. I nearly got t-boned there when I was turning south on to 53 from Doris, and a truck driver running the light decided to use part of my lane to turn east onto Doris.

The Illinois Department of Transportation has noticed there have been a lot of accidents, some fatal, between Doris and Laraway. They told us during a recent open house they have plans to address that in a multi-year plan to reconstruct 53 from Doris to River Road north of Wilmington. You can see the plan in Stephanie Irvine’s Page 1 story in this paper.

There wasn’t too much mention of a nearly 7-year-old plan by NorthPoint to build a massive business park just east of Elwood along 53. That plan includes a bridge across 53 so that trucks can get from I-80 or I-55 to their 16 or so warehouses without affecting traffic on 53.

That “closed loop” plan initially was pitched as just that, a way for the business park to operate without affecting traffic on Illinois 53.

Since then, the “closed loop” has been pitched as a panacea for much of the traffic ills on Illinois 53. NorthPoint and its union partners have convinced U.S. senators and congressmen that the closed loop is a “no brainer.”

Except, there already is a closed loop within CenterPoint’s logistics properties, now aided by the new Houbolt Road extension and bridge.

I don’t understand how these reasonably intelligent people can drool over a “closed loop” that isn’t necessary unless NorthPoint’s business park is built. Unless the dollars in their campaign funds are clouding their eyes.

But the “closed loop” and much of the new business park hangs in the courts right now, even as NorthPoint built a partial ramp at Breen and 53 in case the one at Walter Strawn Drive doesn’t work out. I certainly hope no nouveau Evel Knievel takes a try on that launch.

So, as the Mother Road approaches her 100^th birthday in 2026, she will be getting a facelift on part of her Will County leg so that people from all over the world can drive her safely. More safely, anyway.

Long may she live. Long may we as we drive her.

Nick Reiher is editor of Farmers Weekly Review