Romine’s, a famed fried-chicken restaurant on the Riverview Drive alignment of Route 66 of St. Louis since 1931, is closing because of crime and declining sales, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Security was hired to patrol the parking lot and cameras were installed on the outside of the building, but that was not enough to stop car theft and break-ins.

“(I) did not want the liability of one of my employees or customers getting hurt or killed,” Schafermeyer said. […]

Relocating because of crime is rare according to one expert’s experience.

“I have never had anyone come to our office expressing that concern of having to close their doors because of increasing crime in the area,” said Theresa Ebeler, director of the Illinois Small Business Development Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, which serves Metro East. […]

According to the article, Romine’s is moving to the suburb of St. Peters, Mo. How boring. Blech.

The Route 66 town of Wilmington, Ill., honored Angelo Aggelopoulos as the grand marshal of the town’s Christmas parade and led the countdown to light the Christmas tree, reported the Kankakee Daily Journal.

As far as I’m concerned, the honors are warranted because of this:

Tour buses visiting stops along the famous U.S. Route 66 are welcomed to Wilmington by Aggelopoulos who makes them “feel welcomed,” Fisher said.

We greet the tours with champagne and cookies and a little gift,” Aggelopoulos said.

Melissa Lea, a jewelry designer and Route 66 photographer, earns an extended feature article about her life and times (so far) from her hometown newspaper, the Bedford (Ind.) Times-Mail.

If you want to see her work, Melissa’s Web site is here.

Not that I’m complaining.

Illinois is frequently cited as the best-signed state for those who want to follow old Route 66. I’ve driven the Mother Road from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, and you don’t even need a map except for the rare spot where a sign is stolen. Even the older, obscure alignments are well-marked.

Well, Illinois’ stature is going to go up a bit more in that regard. According to an article in the Bloomington Pantagraph, the City of Pontiac is adding more signs so that tourists can better find local landmarks, including the Route 66 Hall of Fame Museum. Apparently Pontiac has a bunch of one-way streets that can be confusing for travelers.

What Pontiac is doing seems fundamental and common sense. But you’d be surprised how many towns along the Mother Road don’t do this. For instance, if I were one of the city fathers of Erick, Okla., I’d not only have a slew of signs near the interstate guiding travelers to the Roger Miller Museum, but also to the Sandhills Curiosity Shop. It’s hard for potential visitors to enjoy the Harley & Annabelle Experience if they don’t know it’s there.

For most of its 22 years, the big neon sign of the landmark Metro Diner at 3001 E. 11th St. (aka Route 66) in Tulsa greeted diners with this on its marquee: “ELVIS EATS HERE.”

Elvis will have to find someplace else to dine. On Sunday, the Metro closed its doors for good. It soon will be destroyed to make way for a new University of Tulsa entrance.

Signs of the diner’s impending destruction were evident: Land had been cleared around it, and barricades were everywhere (see top photo).

I squeezed in a visit to the Metro right before it finished its final 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. The place was packed with customers, although many were turned away because it began running out of food about 2 p.m.

Many people weren’t there to eat, but to record memories with their digital and video cameras. The restaurant graciously allowed them to shoot away even if they hadn’t bought anything.

I’m not one to skip an opportunity, so here are a few of my photos of the Metro’s distinctive 1950s interior design of chrome, neon lighting and glass brick.

This bunch apparently made the restaurant’s final day a family outing.

I saw at least three TV cameras, many hugs, a few tears and more than a few people saying, “We’re going to miss you.”

In one moment of irony, I heard a song, urging “C’mon baby, let the good times roll,” on the restaurant’s sound system.

One middle-aged, bearded man asked a waitress: “How about a dance?”

The woman replied: “I don’t know about a dance, but I can give you a hug.” To which she did.

Souvenir hunters were busy even before the restaurant closed. Someone pried loose a few of the building’s black-and-pink tiles. No harm if the place is going to get knocked down anyway, I guess.

Before I left, I spotted a chalkboard near the front desk. It said: “Thank you Tulsa for 22 years.” Below it in smaller letters read: “Elvis eats here.”

The Metro was loyal to Elvis — and its customers — to the end.

****

Here’s an Associated Press article about the Metro’s closing.

Here’s one from KOTV in Tulsa.

Here’s one from the Tulsa World.

Rod Harsh at Route 66 TV Online was kind enough to send me pictures from yesterday’s Route 66 Half-Marathon, which starts at the Kansas-Missouri state line and goes 13.1 miles on old Route 66 to the Kansas-Oklahoma line.

The photo above is taken at the historic Rainbow Bridge near Riverton, Kan.

Scott Nelson of Eisler Bros. General Store, who helps organize the event each year, said about 60 runners competed. The top athlete completed the course in 1 hour, 21 minutes. Nelson is in the center wearing a white T-shirt.

For more photos, check out Harsh’s site here.

The music isn’t all that catchy, nor uplifting. But this music video shot by Giuseppe Cristiano for J Crist’s composition “Route 66″ seems to evoke the dread and depression of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, even though sharp-eyed roadies will recognize sights from modern-day Route 66.

Artist David Malcolm Rose has created remarkably detailed miniatures of decaying filling stations, motels and cafes, many of which are inspired by what’s seen on Route 66.  The series is called “The Lost Highway,” and you can see photos of the works here.

Rose’s work will be exhibited at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky., through March. The museum is off Exit 28 of Interstate 65, and is open seven days a week.

With my curiosity up because of yesterday’s post about musician Melissa McClelland and her recent foray on the Mother Road, I surfed over to her MySpace site.

There, I found out that the footage for her music video for “Passenger 24″ was shot on Route 66.

Here it is:

Keep your eyes peeled; you’ll see a handful of familiar characters and sights from the Mother Road.

The Route 66 town of Elkhart, Ill., learned this week that its only school — an elementary one — would be shut down after the end of the school year, according to the Lincoln Courier.

The school has just 66 students and has been suffering from poor finances. The students will be sent to Mount Pulaski, which has a consolidation agreement with the Elkhart.

Elkhart’s high school closed back in 1974 and recently closed down the junior-high portion of its school.

Elkhart was trying like heck to spur economic development in town, mostly as a way to keep its school. A bigger tax base and more residents certainly would have helped. But apparently the efforts were started too late and made too little impact.

This isn’t so much like an “Our Town” situation seen in the movie “Cars.” Being a native of a small rural Illinois town, I can attest that the populations of all small towns in rural Illinois are declining unless they’re close to a significant-sized city.

In essense, rural Illinois is much like the Great Plains: If the population trends continue, in a few decades large swaths of Illinois will be nearly as deserted as they were in 1700s.