My interest in Route 66 was forged at an early age. Each summer and Christmas my parents would pack their only child into the minivan and tow a week's worth of clothes and whatnot six hours north to Antioch, a (then) small town literally on the Wisconsin border. My mother was from Chicagoland, and as we headed north to visit her parents we left our home in Sparta, some sixty miles southeast of Saint Louis, and traveled Illinois 4 north an hour to its junction with Interstate 55. Exit 33: our ticket to lands far more exciting.

I was a roadgeek from the time I could peak out the passenger side windows, and no trip was as exciting as the trip north along I-55. The areas north of Springfield were the best, since we found our way to the capital city far more often than Chicago. This made the roads north of Sangamon County a rarer treat, and thus far more fascinating.

The young me did not understand the history of this corridor, that for decades prior to the interstate's arrival thousands and thousands traveled this route on a simpler road, barely bypassing the small communities and meeting other roads at-grade rather than with an smug superiority that denied this lesser highway the honor of an equal handshake. As I grew up, the name "Route 66" began to mean something - as it eventually does to most people - and my interest in roads coupled with my Saint Louis-to-Chicago history peaked my interest. When I went to college at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville I began to explore the old highway around the northern Metro East, and thus my education of the Mother Road began.

When I met my wife Emily in 2005 our first common interest was roads - specifically Route 66. She grew up on the Mother Road; the farmhouse she was raised in sat at the end of a lane less than a mile west of the old four-lane highway south of Waggoner in Montgomery County, and her paternal grandfather Francis Marten had been a member of the first ever Hall of Fame class of the Route 66 Association of Illinois after decades of tireless devotion to the Our Lady of the Highways Shrine on his farm two "doors" south of my wife's childhood home. We were a match made in heaven.

Today we reside in Litchfield where we serve collectively as the Montgomery County representative to the Route 66 Association of Illinois. I started this website in 2002 as a depository for all of the photographs I was taking along Route 66, and as my equipment evolved from a simple four megapixel Canon to an SLR with multiple lenses and filters the number - and quality - of the pictures contained herein has grown as well. As has the information, as I attempt to research the towns, businesses and people that made Route 66 more than just another long slab of pavement long forgotten by the various highway departments and better educate those looking to learn more about America's Main Street. Due to our location, the site has always featured photography solely from Illinois and the Saint Louis area, and for the foreseeable future that will remain the focus of the website.

As all good websites are, Digital Route 66 is always growing. There's always more photographs to be taken. New restorations that have to be captured. More stories that need to be told. Not all of the research is perfect, and corrections are welcome. All rights are protected under a Creative Commons License. Use of photographs are often granted; please contact me for details. Masters are available for all pictures in either 1600x1200 or 3264x2448 depending on the timeframe the photo was taken.