- For the 100-year anniversary of Route 66, we are partnering with a lo of our local community members and our local Convention and Visitors Bureau, Visit BN, to really highlight all that our has to offer for travelers and locals alike.

- There is so much going on in Bloomington-Normal this year for the Route 66 Cente not only in Bloomington-Normal, but across the whole county.

I think visitors and residents alike are going to find so many ways to not onl honor the history of Route 66, but to also celebrate the Americana and the memory and th excitement of the historic route from Chicago to Santa Monica.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Cruisin' with Lincoln on Route 66 Visitors Center and Gift Shop, and the McLean County Museum of history where you can learn all about the history of Route 66 in McLea We have here a series of billboa as if you were on the road.

- McLean County Museum of Histor is located in historic downtown Bloomington, and we're located in a beautiful 1903 courthouse building.

It's worth the stop just for the architecture alone.

At the museum, we have our Cruisin' with Lincoln on 66 Visitor Center and Gift shop.

(upbeat music continues) We have various exhibits both in the visitor center and upstairs in the museum that kind of share more about the history of Route 66 and Abraham Lincoln's unique con to Route 66 in Central Illinois.

Cruisin' with Lincoln on 66 highlights the story of kind of the path, if you will, that is Route 66.

Started way before any of us wer as a Native American walking pat to kind of traverse the state and then also the waterways throughout the state.

And then it kind of evolved into like a horse and buggy trai eventually becoming the railroad eventually becoming Route 66.

When Abraham Lincoln was around and when he was a judge on the Eighth Judicial Circuit, that is the path that he took to meet with people to go to court across the state and to kind of build the foundation of his career.

We highlight those little connec and kind of just try to get people excited about that - Of course, you can't do Route without thinking about mom-and-p So there's a lot of history of f and this is just the beginning.

We have a whole museum upstairs.

At the Museum and Visitor Center it's really important for us to connect our local history wit We are in downtown Bloomington.

There's a very vibrant arts community locally, and we're doing increasingly more with murals that depict the history of McLea - [Micaela] Downtown Bloomington has added three new murals.

The biggest one that is kind of the eye-catching stop that most people see is on Red Raccoon Games on Jefferso and it depicts kind of the Bloomington-Normal skyline.

It has that Route 66 Americana, and it has the pink echinacea, the state flower.

So it's a fun one.

We also added a commemorative mural inside the entryway.

- So this is the first mura that we did for the Centennial.

This is just basically an overview map of the county of and all the stops along Route 66 So we have basically starting on coming in from the south side of McLean County is the Dixie truck stop, the iconic off the interstate Dixie truck stop.

So we have that and some bikers, which are all over Route 66.

I mean, this is their heydays.

And then it comes back around to which we have our Dead Man's Curve in Towanda, so we've got those cars racing, and then Memory Lane in Lexingto and then it curls back up to Che The couple that was just here from California, you know, they use this as like a learning experience.

This is an interactive map, basically, of the county, and it's a place for people to stop and get their photos taken.

And, you know, you're always seeing people stopping and taking selfies in front of m and it's just great for tourism, it's great for the community, community pride, all those things.

- [Micaela] The communit deserves to know that the place that we live is not just a flyov in the middle of a cornfield som This is a place that people have inhabited for thousands of All of those people have shaped the world around us.

- If you've lived here your whol I'm born and raised in Bloomingt and grew up with Route 66 in my When I was younger, I thought, no big deal, right?

But this has given me an opportu to really understand the importa and the significance of being in a community that has this hig running straight through the hea And I would really encourage our McLean County residents to not only take this chance to learn a little bit of the history about it, stop by the McLean County Museum of History, explore the Cruisin' wit Lincoln on 66th Visitor Center, but also get out and be a part of all of these celebrations.

Again, you're not going to have to do it again for another 100 y - This milestone, the centennial anniversary is a really great opportunity for us at the McLean County Museum of History, and then just for everyone in the community and whoever may be passing through to learn about how our spaces and our places kind of evolved over time and have shaped us as people.