Illinois Route 66 hosts its Red Carpet Corridor Festival in the northern part of the state each May. This June, a Blue Carpet Corridor Festival will celebrate the southern part of the Mother Road in the Land of Lincoln.
According to the State Journal-Register, a rolling Route 66 festival will run from Chatham (just south of Springfield) to the metro-east community of Collinsville on June 13-14.
The newspaper talked to Martha Jackson, president of the Litchfield Route 66 Museum Association and one of the event’s organizers.
Events will include car shows, festivals, music, food stands, yard sales, antiques and small-business promotions. “Our theme is ‘Miners, Mobsters and the Mother Road,'” said Jackson. Coal mines once dotted the landscape along Illinois 4 and Route 66. In its heyday, Route 66 was said to be a popular route for crime figures traveling between Chicago and southern Illinois. The event also coincides with the annual Motor Tour of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.
I’ll be interesting to see how this is promoted. As the website shows, Illinois Route 66 in that part of the state includes three prominent alignments, including the terrific but somewhat underheralded 1926-30 stretch from Chatham to Staunton.
Longtime Illinois Route 66 preservationist John Weiss also said plans are in the works for a White Carpet Corridor Festival on Route 66 between Springfield and Bloomington.
(Image of a billboard near Hamel, Illinois, by Brian Marsh via Flickr)