The Duluth (Minn.) News-Tribune has an interesting story about how two Wisconsin towns survived when U.S. 53 bypassed them.

The story starts by comparing them to the fictional Route 66 town of Radiator Springs.

In “Cars,” the latest big-screen creation from Pixar and Walt Disney, a new highway bypasses a dusty desert town called Radiator Springs. And the townsfolk gear up for the major loss of business traffic by… well, pretty much all they do is print up and unfurl a giant banner to welcome weary travelers who never come.

The story line thankfully played out far differently for two of the Northland’s most recently bypassed cities. Freeway traffic started going around Minong in 1997 and around Solon Springs two years later, when U.S. Highway 53 was widened from two lanes to four. The 65 mph ribbon of asphalt was begged for and then celebrated by over-the-road truckers and boat-towing tourists.

The writer even talked to Route 66 expert and author Michael Wallis to get his opinion:

“There are actually a lot of forgotten or lost towns like Radiator Springs out there,” said Michael Wallis, author of “Route 66: The Mother Road.” America’s leading authority on the legendary highway that once carried Dust Bowl caravans, Wallis served as consultant for “Cars” and played the role in the movie of the Sheriff. I reached him by phone at his home in Tulsa, Okla.

Five interstates now parallel Route 66, he said, and “if your town was left without an exit you were doomed. You would die. And even if you had an exit, what you had to do, what the merchants and the people in those communities had to do to continue eking out a living was to figure out a way to lure people off the highway, off the super slab” of chain hotels, cookie-cutter gas stations and fast-food restaurants.

To do that, bypassed communities switched on neon lights, touted their town as home of the best apple pie or generated other gimmicks. They reminded travelers “to taste, to feel, to use their senses and to discover the America we had before we became generic,” as Wallis put it.

But the survival of Minong and Solon Springs should come with a lot of caveats:

• The bypass of U.S. 53 didn’t start until 1997. Route 66 towns were among the first in America to feel the effects of interstate bypasses during the 1950s and ’60s. No one was quite sure what would happen with the completion of those four-lane superslabs. Those Mother Road communities were basically guinea pigs. Seeing the devastation to towns like Glenrio and Seligman, the communities of Minong and Solon Springs knew they had to act to avoid a similar fate and had plenty of time to do so.
• Minong and Solon Springs have the distinct advantage of multiple exits from the four-lane into their towns. Many small Route 66 towns have just one, or in some cases, none at all.
• Minong and Solon Springs spent a lot of money to get those travelers off the superhighway — money that many small Route 66 towns didn’t have. This was also in the days before state grants were available for such economic redevelopment.

In essence, many Route 66 communities were sacrificial lambs — so that future towns would know better how to counteract the effects of the interstate.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting that a group called the Illinois Barn Alliance is trying to preserve what’s left of the state’s historic barns.

The group is encountering two problems. One, it’s not sure how many old barns are even left in Illinois. Second, farmers tend to be a practical lot and often tear down old barns when they’re no longer useful for their day-to-day operations.

The story cites two cases of barns that have been preserved. One is a barn near Freeburg that was dismantled and moved near Edwardsville. The other is on old Route 66 south of Litchfield.

At least a century old, it’s a working farm, centered by a sprawling collection of 21 structures - cow, horse and pig barns, chicken coops, a goose house, corn cribs, a smokehouse, a grainery and machine sheds.

“They’ve all got names,” explains the owner, Ophelia Niemann, who was born here. She won’t disclose her age, but she notes that her father was born here, too, in 1895. The farm was already established at that point. Niemann isn’t sure how old the buildings are, but most of them clearly pre-date her.

“They don’t build farms out of wood anymore,” Niemann says, gruffly, during a tour of the rambling sheds and barns. “Now they build them out of metal. They don’t have any class, any of the features that wood barns have. A barn has many things a metal shed will never have.”

The Illinois Route 66 Association at least had some foresight on this issue. In this list of preservation projects, you’ll see the restoration it did on the Cayuga Barn and Hamel Barn, both of which advertised Meramec Caverns on its sides. Here are more images of the two barns.

If you wish to help the alliance, call Jean Follett at (630) 654-9717 or e-mail jafollett@comcast.net , or call Wes Winter at (815) 235-4125 or e-mail wwinter@uiuc.edu.

A musical that aims to eventually get itself to Broadway, “Route 66,” will be staged today at the Kansas City Crossroads Musical Theater Festival.

Here’s the plot, according to Lower Hudson Online in New York:

A hard-charging, ambitious free-lance writer, Liz Mitchell, is assigned to write a magazine piece about Route 66, a road that is not on most maps anymore. The photos will be shot by Drew Garrett, a hard-drinking free spirit Kevin Bacon kind of guy. There is instant conflict.

But along the way, they meet the people who live along “The Mother Road” and they come to an understanding: Route 66 is a highway home to the past, to a slower, simpler life some people crave.

Performances are at noon and 5 p.m. today (July 22) at the Kansas City Public Library at 10th and Baltimore.

According to a news release I received Friday, a new Web site will be dedicated to Pixar Animation Studios, called Pixar Planet.

The site will officially launch about 8:15 p.m. CDT Saturday.

Here’s a description of the site from the press release:

Pixar Planet is a fansite for Pixar Animation Studios and the films, people, and products it has produced in its fascinating 20-year history. We are excited to be opening with a wide variety of features, including a Pixar reference guide which we believe will be the most comprehensive collection of relevant links to Pixar available on the Web! The site also includes a forum for uses to share their thoughts on past, current, and future Pixar products as well as other studio aspects.

I’ll be there. Pixar’s “Cars” already has made a significant impact on Route 66, and I’ll be there to spread further gospel about the Mother Road.

The folks who are restoring the Triangle Motel on old Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas, hope to have electricity restored to the long-closed motel by the weekend.

After that, new owner Alan McNeil and volunteers should be able to remove the rest of the contents from the rooms that were previously used for storage.

McNeil also is going to live on the premises in a loaned RV as the restoration progresses. Based on the e-mails I’ve seen, it seems like the Triangle’s restoration is getting a lot of positive attention from the area and beyond.

There’s going to be a Texas Old Route 66 Association meeting on July 26 in Amarillo. The Triangle is certain to be part of the discussion. If you wish to attend, e-mail association President Crocodile Lile at crocodilelile (at) peoplepc.com , and he’ll give you the time and details.