The town council of Normal, Illinois, recently voted to spend $300,000 on work on three historic properties in the city, including the Sprague’s Super Service Station along Route 66, reported the Bloomington Pantagraph.
The station’s previous owner, Terri Ryburn, told Route 66 News the work will include removing the 1960s one-bay garage and restoring the windows, doors and wall on the west side.
“It was always my dream to take it back to its original 1930s footprint,” Ryburn stated in a direct message.
She said the city also recently removed asbestos from the building.
The newspaper reported the Sprague’s work would cost about $100,000.
Ryburn said the city has been good stewards of the station.
“I felt very comfortable selling the building to the town in 2016 after my ten lonely years of working to restore it,” she wrote. “There was/is more work to be done and I feel confident that they understand how important the building is to the town and to Route 66.”
Though Ryburn no longer owns the property, she runs the station’s gift shop, Ryburn Place, and lives in its upstairs apartment.
Sprague Super Service was built in 1931 on Route 66 by William Sprague. It was unique in its design as a gas station and residence.
It originally sold City Service gas, but it became other businesses by the 1940s, and the pumps were removed by 1979. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
(Image of Sprague Super Service station by Randy von Liski via Flickr)