Illinois' Route 66 Red Carpet Festival-- Part 7-- Chenoa

Drove past the old Illinois State Police headquarters, the one with the $150,000 worth of asbestos and my favorite Illinois Route 66 bridge with the four spans and arrived in Chenoa.

We drove downtown where the festival was to be taking place by the gazebo and saw a taped off area, but absolutely no one around. No one was even walking on the sidewalks. We looked at the brochure and found that we could get our puzzle piece at the Redbird Antiques store out on US-24, near the railroad tracks.


REDBIRD ANTIQUES

Very friendly owners, got our piece and were told that the festival had been moved to a park from downtown because the front of a building is in danger of pulling away from the rest of it and collapsing onto the street. That explains it, but they really should have had signs up redirecting people.

This is a great antique store with a lot of vendors and very reasonable prices, but I am glad to report that I managed to get out without buying anything, though I was tempted on a few items. If you're an Illinois State grad or fan, this is the place to visit, plus they have several old tractors in a museum. This was our first time ever there, but well worth a stop.

Drove the couple blocks to the park, but it was already breaking down. No porkchop sandwiches which the town is famous for and a deejay, and maybe five other people.

On the way back to 66, we drove through the downtown to see this building. We approached from the back and you could see inside the rooms as it had collapsed. The taped off area we had seen in the street is in front of the building and the bricks are several inches pulled away. Definitely an event waiting to happen and good call on the town's part.

The building that is falling down is just one store removed from the old Chenoa Pharmacy store so hope this won't have an adverse effect on it.

Heading for Lexington. --RoadDog