Joliet buys Washington Lanes lot – with iconic sign

The city of Joliet is about to become the owner of an iconic although battered bowling alley sign.

Joliet is in the process of acquiring the former Washington Lanes bowling alley property at 921 E. Washington St. so it can use the now empty lot as storage space for the Utilities Department.

The bowling alley is long gone, but still standing is the Washington Lanes Bowl sign.

The brown, green and white sign is rusting. A bottom section is bashed in, although enough of it still is readable to show the word “Grill” and reveal a bit more of the bygone building. An Old Style beer sign is attached.

The place did have a bar, said Joliet City Council member Don “Duck” Dickinson.

“I bowled there when I was a kid,” Dickinson said.

That was sometime in the mid-1960s, Dickinson said, and his memory of the place is vague. But he does remember steel grates in the floor near the scoring tables so that if you ever dropped something “it would go about 4 inches deep and you were always trying to fish it out.”

Dickinson was among council members who approved the purchase of the 1.3-acre property for $120,000 at a meeting last week.

He wasn’t the only one with memories of the place.

Public Works director James Trizna added that his dad bowled there.

Council members questioned what would happen to the sign.

“There is a lot of interest in it,” utilities director Allison Swisher said.

Swisher said a decision has not been made on what to do with the sign. But city officials do appear willing to let someone have it if they’re interested.

If no one wants it, council member Larry Hug said, the sign probably would be taken down and scrapped because it would become a cost to the city.

“We can’t leave it up there indefinitely without doing some maintenance on it,” Hug said.

The Washington Lanes property is adjacent to the city’s Water and Sewer Service Center, which has been there since the early 1900s, Swisher said.

“We’ve grown a bit since then,” she told the council’s Public Service Committee.

The Washington Lanes property will be used for storage of equipment, materials and spoilage from such work as water main replacements, she said. The city will fence in the property. Eventually, the land could be used for an expansion of the Water and Sewer Service Center.