This striking slide show from a French YouTube contributor contains scenes from abandoned mining villages, plus ghost towns along old Route 66, including Glenrio.

The song is “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues,” by blues master Chris Thomas King.

The Humiston Trust of Pontiac, Ill., will donate $75,000 to help defray a portion of the cost of installing an elevator at the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum, the Bloomington Pantagraph reported.

The elevator is planned for the alleyway between the war museum and Route 66 museum near Main and Howard streets. The war museum is on the second floor of its building and is only accessible by stairs, which has been a problem because many visitors have limited mobility.

The donation from the Humiston Trust will help tackle the project’s estimated $200,000 to $220,000 price tag, according to a presentation at an October council meeting from the Farnsworth Group. [...]

The trust was established in 1920 by Harriet Humiston to honor her husband, Bennet, and her father, Apollos Camp. The trust is dedicated to giving to charitable donations to organizations in Pontiac.

The story also reports that the Route 66 museum submitted a lease extension at its current building to 2014, which the city council approved.

The City of Normal, Ill., has given a $46,695 grant to a woman so she can put a new roof and install temporary heating in her 1930s gas station on an old alignment of Route 66, reports the Bloomington Pantagraph. She plans to eventually convert the gas station into a restaurant, visitors center and bed-and-breakfast.

[Terri] Ryburn, retired assistant director of kinesiology and recreation at Illinois State University, wants to restore the Tudor Revival-style structure to its original condition — something she says will take about $1.2 million.

She has already received a $20,000 federal grant and is seeking a grant from the state’s Tourism Attraction Development Program.

“I want to restore it, not just remodel or renovate,” she said. [...]

Ryburn also is hoping to get the site — one of only three along Route 66 with an owner’s apartment and a tenant apartment on the second floor — on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that could open up more grant opportunities.

You can read more about Ryburn’s project here. The $1.2 million cost is a lot, but I’m betting she will get a lot of donated materials and help, especially from the Illinois Route 66 Association, to defray much of the cost.