The Illinois Route 66 Association is doing a really cool thing to help boost interest of Route 66 to children — it is offering free memberships to anyone in the U.S. under 18 years old.

From the association’s Web site:

Junior members will receive a membership card, membership decal and a junior newsletter.

Coming soon, they will also have access to a special section of our Web page to look up stories and link to other places, like coloring books, or the history of the road.

Route 66 runs from Chicago to San Monica and goes through eight states. We hope the entire family will develop a new love for the most famous Road in the world.

The not-so-fine print:

• We will send the parents a membership form, but it is not mandatory they join.
• The Junior Membership will expire on the 18th Birthday of each member.
• At this time, only continental United States please!
• All applications that are processed must contain the parents line filled out.

An application that’s an Acrobat file can be downloaded here. The mailing address to return the junior membership application is on it. The only thing it will cost parents is a stamp.

A set of long-abandoned, rock-faced tourist cabins just off old Route 66 east of Kellyville, Okla., was torn down Monday afternoon.

I received word from Route 66 fan Frank Gierhart of Sapulpa that the bulldozers were out Monday. Arriving there, I saw that the cabins were still standing, but a backhoe was digging a big trench nearby and the bulldozer had cleared out brush near the cabins.

The property is fenced by barbed wire, with the buildings nearly 100 feet from the road. The gates that would have provided access were locked. So much for getting close enough for a good photo or asking questions. Here’s a bigger version of the photo above. Here’s a close-up view of one of the cabins taken by another photographer years ago.

I didn’t stay to see it because of other commitments, but it was confirmed to me that the cabins were torn down later that day.

Not much was known about the cabins, not even the business’ name. A writer did the best he could to piece something together in an article for the Oklahoma Route 66 Association newsletter, but much of their history is lost to time. UPDATE: Read Michael Bates’ comment; it contains some of the information in the newsletter article.

It didn’t help that the cabins were set back far from the road. Many travelers, including me, often overlooked it. It was obscure even to many Mother Road fans.

The cabins had been rumored to be ready for the wrecking ball several years ago. Gierhart and the association made efforts at the time to persuade the property owner to leave the cabins alone. It worked, but only for a while.

UPDATE2: Batesline has a excerpt from the book “Preposterous Papa,” by Lewis Meyer, whose dad, Max, built the tourist cabins. Well worth a read for laughs, at the least.

This video, using the Rolling Stones‘ version of “Route 66″ as accompaniment, manages the trick of showing footage of each town or state’s attractions as the lyrics come up.