Chicago is where Route 66 begins! While we initially wanted to experience Route 66 end to end, we knew we'd spend a lot of time in traffic if we started in downtown Chicago. So we decided to see Route 66's Chicago-area sights on a separate trip to Chicago. We headed from O'Hare south to start our Route 66 experience in Willowbrook, home of Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket. Keep reading for more on that.
But if you truly want to start at the beginning, here are some key sights in Chicago and its suburbs.
I think for many people, the main Route 66 sight in Chicago is the sign announcing the beginning of Route 66. It’s at the corner of South Michigan Avenue and East Adams Street, right across from the Art Institute of Chicago.
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| Sign marking the start of Route 66 in Chicago (photo from VisitTheUSA.com) |
But this has been the beginning of Route 66 only since the 1950s. From 1926 to the mid-1930s, the beginning of Route 66 was a block south, at the intersection of South Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard. The beginning of Route 66 was moved to East Adams Street when Jackson Boulevard became a one-way street going east. Today, the original beginning of Route 66 is marked, ironically, with a sign announcing the end of Route 66 for eastbound travelers.
Jackson Boulevard isn't a bad place to start your Route 66 journey, even if it does now go in the "wrong" direction. Chicago tour guide David Clark pointed out to me that only four buildings along Jackson Boulevard have been built since 1977, making it one of the best preserved stretches of Route 66!
Two other Route 66 icons in Chicago are classic restaurants. The Berghoff, two blocks west of the Route 66 sign on East Adams Street, first opened in 1898 and has a great neon sign.
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| Berghoff Restaurant in Chicago (photo from TripAdvisor) |
Several blocks west, at 565 West Jackson Boulevard, is Lou Mitchell's restaurant, open since 1949 for breakfast and lunch. It's on the National Register of Historic Places and still has its original neon sign.
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| Lou Mitchell's restaurant in Chicago (photo from NPS.gov) |
One of the first Route 66 sights south of downtown Chicago is the now-closed 1925 Castle Car Wash at 3801 Odgen Avenue. While some resources describe it as in Cicero, its actual address is Chicago.
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| Castle Car Wash in Cicero, Illinois (photo from Viviendodeviaje.com |
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| Henry's Drive In in Cicero, Illinois (photo from Route66travelers.wordpress.com) |
Note that, if you stop for a hot dog at Henry's, in the Chicago area it's considered bad taste (literally!) to eat it with ketchup, as this sign from a Chicago food stand explains.
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| Sign at Chicago food stand (photo from community.spiceworks.com) |
As I've already explained, we decided to skipped all the above sights and made our first stop Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket in Willowbrook (some guidebooks say it's in Hinsdale). For the drive from O'Hare, we didn’t try to stay on Route 66. We simply plotted a route on Google Maps that avoided highways and tolls.
It was a good thing that we used Google Maps, because Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket would be hard to find otherwise. The segment of old Route 66 that it sits has been largely cut off by I-55 and other highways and requires a circuitous route to reach. But it was worth it to see a restaurant that’s been serving chicken since 1946. It's also on the National Register of Historic Places and has another great neon sign.
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| Dell Rhea Chicken Basket in Willowbrook, Illinois |
We had hoped to have lunch at Dell Rhea’s, but the scheduling fates weren’t with us. We didn’t get here til mid-afternoon, so after a moment admiring the sign, we moved on. We took I-55 to the exit for Joliet Road south (IL 53) and followed it into Joliet.. Here we started to see some references to Route 66 in business names along the way, and the Chicago suburbs started to give way to rural Illinois. Our Route 66 experience was underway!
For more information on this stretch of Route 66, visit https://www.thefirsthundredmiles.com/.
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