Grandchildren of Dixie Truckers Home founders pay a visit

Two grandchildren of the couple that founded the Dixie Truckers Home in McLean, Illinois, recently paid a visit to the site for the first time in years.

Steve Jordan and Cathy Greeneberg, descendants of the Route 66 truck stop’s original owners John and Viola Geske, sat down with a crew from WMBD-TV at what now is called the Dixie Travel Plaza.

Excerpts from the story:

The Geskes saw the good, the bad and heartbreak. June 28, 1965, a fire caused the original Dixie to burn to the ground.

“Literally within twelve hours our grandfather was pumping gas and selling sandwiches to travelers,” said Jordan.

So the stories continued. From couple’s first dates, to one last fill-up before home. […]

Now corporate owned, Steve and Cathy say their visit was their first time back in years. For them, they’ll always remember the Dixie from their childhood

“It’ll always be near and dear to my heart, but it’ll be different now. I wanna remember it just the way that it was,” said Greeneberg.

“Yeah, me too,” said Jordan.

Longtime boosters of the Dixie Truckers Home claim it was the first truck stop in the United States, but that’s never been verified to my knowledge.

The report didn’t delve into another one of the truck stop’s darkest days during the early 2000s. Perhaps it’s because the reporter didn’t know about it. It’s not in the Wikipedia article about the Dixie. Nor does current owner Road Ranger mention the saga on the truck stop’s website.

Instead, you have to do some drilling on Google. Mark Beeler, who was the Geskes’ great-grandson and once owned Dixie Management Group, was indicted by a grand jury in 2002 after being accused of stealing more than $400,000 in fuel taxes due to the state from 1999 to 2000. According to a nearly 10-year-old article in the Route 66 News archives, Beeler escaped prison time.

In 2001, the Dixie Truckers Home filed for bankruptcy, and it and three other Dixie locations were purchased by Quantum Management Group of Charleston, South Carolina.

Wikipedia does mention the fact the Dixie was sold to an out-of-state company and renamed Dixie Travel Plaza in 2003. In 2009, it was sold again to Ben Gulley of LeRoy, Illinois, after which it underwent a major renovation. Road Ranger bought it in 2012.

The Dixie, once considered a must-stop on Route 66 itineraries during the early years of the Route 66 post-decertification era, gradually lost its cachet with travelers amid declining quality and, finally, the loss of its family ownership.

The Dixie once was the home of the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum. Shortly after the Dixie Truckers Home lost its family ownership in the early 2000s, the Hall of Fame and its memorabilia were moved to a downtown building in Pontiac, Illinois, where it remains today.

This isn’t an exhaustive overview of the Dixie Truckers Home’s history, but it’s somewhat more complete than what you’ll find on the internet.

(Image of the Dixie Truckers Home logo in 2011 by Eric Allix Rogers via Flickr; image of the Dixie Truckers Home before the 1965 fire via 66Postcards.com)