Terri Ryburn, who’s owned the Sprague Super Service gas station in Normal, Illinois, for almost 10 years and has spent all that time getting the historic property shored up, will open a Route 66 gift shop and visitors center on the premises this spring.
This little tidbit was revealed during a recent blog post for the Bloomington Pantagraph newspaper.
I asked Ryburn about it via Facebook messaging, and she replied:
The Town of Normal is putting in a parking lot this spring and we have an agreement that I will open a Route 66 gift shop as soon as that is done. In February, I will begin to set up the shop as well as solicit vendors and buy items to sell in the shop.
Ryburn has used grants from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, Illinois Bureau of Tourism and the city of Normal to renovate the two-story gas station.
Sprague Super Service was built in 1931 on Route 66 by William Sprague. It was a unique in it was designed as a gas station and residence. It sold City Service gas, but morphed into other businesses by the 1940s, and the pumps were removed by 1979. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ryburn eventually wants to put a visitor center, restaurant, tea room, and meeting and performance space in the station.
Ryburn also has worked in the past few weeks to get “The Best of Hank & Rita: A Barroom Operetta” to Bloomington-Normal on Jan. 29-30, which is the final concert by a fictional husband-wife country-pop duo that has seen better days. She also told the Pantagraph she wants to parlay the musical performance there into a short film:
In fact, adds Ryburn, “The audience will be in on a movie set,” with the resulting film planned for submission “to various festivals,” and hopefully kindling interest in a full-length screen version.
“I love the idea of taking the show on the road and doing all these small Route 66 venues … that’s perfect. It feels like the right way to elevating its stature, while keeping in appropriate small venues,” says Fee.
“Yeah, my fingerprints are all over this,” Ryburn agrees. “You know, there hasn’t really been a Route 66 movie since ‘Cars’ …”
(Image of Sprague Super Service station in Normal, Illinois, by Teemu008 via Flickr)
Wow, it’s Route 66 in Illinois News Day! This is a great old place, and I look forward to being able to stop here on my trips down the Route.