Odell Station in Odell, Illinois, will host a commemoration Saturday to the late Lenore Weiss, who was one-half of the couple instrumental in getting the historic Route 66 gas station restored, according to the Pontiac Daily Leader.
The event at from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the station will be a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Lenore Weiss died of cancer in 2010. The event will include a car show.
Lenore and her husband, John Weiss, won the Steinbeck Award for their preservation efforts along Route 66 in Illinois. The Odell Station project remains their among the most lasting example of their legacy.
When they first proposed the idea of saving the gas station, Weiss recalls nobody could see the sense in it. When people told the preservation group it would be impossible, Weiss and his wife responded, “the impossible just takes a little longer.” The goal was so extraordinary that the couple received a National Park Service Award for their efforts.
“We had no idea what we were doing,” Weiss said. “We just had a goal in mind. Knowing all the time and money and effort people put into restoring it makes it the perfect place to honor Lenore. It will be bittersweet for me, I love all that kind of stuff, but I’ll be missing her that day, too.”
John Weiss will be there to help create a fun, Route 66-centric time:
“We just want people to come there, park their cars, eat some food at the St. Paul Parish next door, or maybe go to Pour Richard’s tap and dining on a shuttle we’ll have going to and from the station,” Weiss said. “People have donated some nice door prizes and raffle items. We’ll have some drawings, but it’s not meant to be anything fancy. There won’t be any car judging, it’s just a casual event for a good cause.”
Weiss will be the special guest speaker at the event, but he hopes to keep the focus on his wife, not the fact that has been inducted into the Route 66 Association of Illinois’ Hall of Fame and Museum, or that the Route 66 Association of Illinois recognizes him as one of the most active preservation organizers in the state.
“I got involved in a lot of different things,” Weiss said. “She got involved with everything I was doing and developed it into something all her own. Her ability to attract people was very beneficial in a cause based on volunteering. Anything the whole preservation group did, she was right there in front.”
Odell Station was built along Route 66 in 1932 as a Standard Oil station, then later Sinclair and Phillips 66. It closed in the 1970s. It eventually was restored in the late 1990s and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
(Image of Odell Station by We travel the world via Flickr)