I will be taking to the road on Tuesday, January 15th for a PowerPoint presentation at the Crystal Lake Public Library. The program starts at 7 p.m. and will discuss Historic Route 66, past and present.
The library is located at 126 Paddock Street, Crystal Lake, IL 60014. The phone number is 815-459-1687, and the folks there would appreciate anyone interested to call and register.
I did a little research on Crystal Lake, which is the largest city in McHenry County, Illinois. Its local highways include Illinois 176 and U.S. 14. Illinois 176 was one of the State Bond Issue (SBI) routes created by the $100 Million Dollar Bond Issue of 1926. According to Richard Carlson’s Illinois Highways Page, “SBI Route 176 was Crystal Lake to Lake Bluff. In 1940 it was extended west to Marengo, replacing IL-67. It currently runs Marengo to Lake Bluff in McHenry and Lake Counties.”
U.S. 14 was one of the original U.S. numbered highways, approved on the initial map of November 11, 1926. However, 14 originally ran only from Minnesota to South Dakota. It was extended east to Chicago in 1933 along the general corridor once served by the Black and Yellow Trail. From 1951 until 1979 its eastern terminus was Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue in the Loop, where it intersected with U.S. 34, 54, and 66. Its current terminus is at Broadway and Foster on the north side, where it meets up with U.S. 41.
Again according to Richard Carlson, within Illinois “US-14 runs from the North Side of Chicago to the WI line at Bigfoot. In the Suburban Chicago area this is called Northwest Highway due to its beeline northwest from Chicago, and due to the parallel Chicago & NorthWestern Railroad (Now Union Pacific).”
