I loathe to speak ill of the dead, except for the biggest scoundrels.

Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon Johnson who died at age 94 on Wednesday, certainly wasn’t a scoundrel.

But the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, which restricted billboards along our nation’s highways, proved to be damaging to Route 66 businesses when they were struggling to survive amid the continuing rise of the interstates.

These Mother Road businesses were struggling enough against the chains. Restricting the use of billboards — a crucial advertising tool — made it harder.

And, as it turned out, the law apparently contained loopholes, too, as this cached report from the Environmental Working Group shows:

Thirty-two years after its passage, the Act has become little more than a billboard protection program. On average, new billboards are twice as big as they were in 1965, and there are fifty percent more of them than 30 years ago when Lady Bird Johnson championed highway beautification. Today there are an estimated 450,000 billboards on federal-aid highways, compared to the 330,000 billboards that first inspired the Act. Between 5,000 to 15,000 new billboards — 3 and 10 million square feet of new advertising space - are added to the nation’s roadsides each year.

There’s more in the report. But the gist is that the rich and powerful companies managed to skirt the law, while many mom-and-pop businesses didn’t have the influence to so.

Some of the historic billboards and signs managed to stick around, such as those by Meramec Caverns, Clines Corners, Jackrabbit Trading Post and, yes, “Tucumcari Tonight!”

But many more were lost.

I don’t begrudge Lady Bird at all for her other accomplishments, especially her advocacy of civil rights and her roadside wildflowers program.

But I’d say the passage of her Highway Beautification Act turned out to be an hollow victory.

The Planning and Zoning Board for the city of Pontiac, Ill., approved variances for two Route 66-themed murals, reported the Pontiac Daily Leader.

One of them is on a brick wall behind the Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum at 110 W. Howard St.

The second is on a wall at Diaz Sign Art at 624 W. Lincoln Ave.

However, it appears that one sorehead may keep the mural from going up for a while:

… [T]he board’s chairman, Josh Thompson, said he had heard that the owner of the lot next to the Diaz building had decided to put up a fence, thus blocking the view of the mural from its intended audience: people in vehicles driving Route 66.

Thompson said it thus appeared that, if the mural does come about in the future, it probably would be as a free-standing sign.

“That’s fine; we can do that,” replied Bill Diaz, who had outlined the project to the board. He said work on the mural probably would not start until next year, and that the car that will be on it might be changed every six months or so.

Board member Phil Bradley said he surmised that if the Diazes did not do the mural the property owners probably wouldn’t put up the fence.

“I’m not really mad at the guy,” Diaz replied. “He is what he is.”