Efforts continue to establish new Route 66 museum in Berwyn

BERWYN – A presentation kicked off June 4 to see if a new Route 66 museum is viable on Ogden Avenue in Berwyn.

The event in the potential future home of the museum in the former Beranek Pontiac, 6621 Ogden Ave., was expected to attract potential investors and sponsors, elected officials and Route 66 enthusiasts, said Anthony Griffin, executive director of the Berwyn Development Corporation.

Rich Faron, an organizer, said the building is 90 years old, and Route 66 will be the same age on Nov. 11.

“It’s kind of a perfect match,” said the Berwyn man who owns Museum Explorer Inc., which designs museum exhibits. “This is a test to see if there’s interest.”

A Route 66 museum currently is in the storefront of SWF Products, 7006 Ogden Ave., Berwyn, which does engraving for the jewelry trade, owner Jon Fey said. The museum is only open during store hours, although Fey said he does come in on Saturdays to have the museum accessible to travelers.

Fey said he has been part of a group that has put on the Route 66 car show for 20 years or so, and he has known Faron for about 15 years through the Berwyn Art Council and other projects.

“We were talking at the car show and said, ‘Why don’t we do a real museum?’” Fey said.

Faron said the new museum, in the discussion phase for 18 months, would be a nonprofit to make it eligible for grants, but the museum also would charge an admission fee.

The former car dealership, owned by Terence Lydon of Riverside, is for sale, Fey said. Lydon had renovated the vacant building that housed his Cingular Wireless store.

The organizers would buy the building, but they do not have a price or deal in place yet. They plan to meet with Lydon by the end of June.

“The site is fabulous for what we are doing,” Fey said. “It will be a pretty strong presentation of arts and culture on Route 66.”

Griffin said he has been involved for three to four months, since Fey approached him to get Berwyn Development Corporation assistance to link organizers with potential investors and Route 66 enthusiasts.

One of the next steps is to find a professional museum fundraiser to help pay for the purchase and renovation, which are expected to cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, Faron said.

“It’s not a small endeavor," Faron said.

However, he said the building is in good shape and should take less than one year to open.

“It’s basically ready to go; we need to design the exhibits,” said Faron, who worked at the Field Museum in Chicago for 20 years and worked on the DuPage Children’s Museum in Naperville.

Exhibits will be moved to the new Route 66 museum from Fey’s museum, which will close. The new site will be 10 times bigger than the old museum, Faron said.

Vintage signs and gas pumps will be on display. The showroom will be used to display vintage automobiles on a rotating basis. Volunteers would be available to give tours of the building and provide travelers with information for their trip.

A paper or app passport could be available to be stamped at landmarks along the way.

Organizers also are discussing having a shuttle bus available that could take tourists to downtown Chicago to see where Route 66 started, then come back to the museum and continue their travels from there.

Route 66 memorabilia would be sold in a gift shop. Other money-making ideas would be the availability of the museum as a rental space for parties or meetings by car enthusiasts, who also might want to make a museum donation to display their prized vehicles there, Faron added.

“There’s lots of ways we can create revenue," he said.

Some 20,000 to 30,000 people each year travel Route 66, many coming to America specifically for that purpose, Fey said. Those signing the guest book at the museum in his store have come from Germany, Belgium, Italy, England, New Zealand, Australia, China and Japan.

Chicago does not seem to be interested in “putting its arms around” a Route 66 museum, Faron said.

”Berwyn is the perfect spot. We feel this thing makes all the sense in the world," he said.

Griffin and Fey pointed to the sales tax revenue that could be generated for the city. Fey said other communities have shown they can bring in tourists who otherwise would not have visited.

“They spend dollars in that town," he said.

The current museum already attracts tourists, Griffin said, but the new building “will only multiply the effect.”

Fey did not seem sad about losing the museum in his storefront.

”I think it’s great," he said. "If we can make this happen, and I think we will, it will be a great addition to the community.”

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Take a trip down Route 66

The 2,448-mile Route 66 originally started at Michigan Avenue and Jackson Street in downtown Chicago and went through St. Louis; Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Okla.; Amarillo, Texas; Albuquerque and Gallup, N.M.; to Barstow and eventually Santa Monica, Calif., to its pier.

It was established Nov. 11, 1926, as part of a new, numbered highway system and became its most well-known road and shortest during all weather between the Midwest and West Coast, according to illinoisroute66.org.

In his classic novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck called it the "Mother Road," carrying farm families from the Dust Bowl to California. Route 66 also has been called Will Rogers Highway and the Main Street of America.

Many sections of Route 66 became Interstate 55 by the end of 1956. By 1977, it was deemed obsolete in Illinois, as much had been replaced by I- 55. The last sign was removed on Jan. 17, 1977. In 1984, Interstate 40 bypassed the last stretch in Arizona. The entire road was decommissioned on June 27, 1985, the website states.

Landmarks along the way include the art-deco U-Drop Inn and a restored Magnolia gas station in Shamrock, Texas; teepee-shaped motels in Holbrook, Ariz., and San Bernardino, Calif.; a restored Kan-O-Tex gas station in Galena, Kan.; the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Okla.; and 10 spray-painted Cadillacs buried face down at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

The road was immortalized by the song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” written by Bobby Troup and sung by Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones and others. A CBS television show aired from October 1960 to March 1964 and starred Martin Milner and George Maharis as two friends traveling the country in a Corvette and seeking adventure, according to the Internet Movie Data Base. Glenn Corbett eventually replaced Maharis.

- Ken Manson