A vintage Moose Lodge, with an equally vintage neon hanger. It's well faded but the glass is still nice and bright.
This building had a nice Vitrolite front too-I'm thought I'd shot it but I guess not.
Spotted this gem in Freeport, Illinois, as I was traveling along the Grant on my way to Iowa. Well seasoned, but a nice example of fifties/sixties neon goodness. Plus the glass still seems to be in good nick-I should go back that way and see if they still light it up!
Elizabeth, Illinois is a small town located in Jo Daviess County, amongst the area's rolling hills and valleys. Despite it's small population (less than 1000 at the last count), Elizabeth's downtown features plenty of shops and businesses, and includes this excellent neon sign at the bank.
Fun fact-when the rails on train tracks are made at the foundry, the dates are cast or otherwise written directly into the metal. This helps the railroad to know when they were made and installed, and makes maintaining them a little easier. If you look at the rails at your local station (staying safely away from the tracks, of course), you can probably see the dates on the inside of the rails.
This one is on an abandoned stretch of the former Chicago Great Western mainline from Chicago to Oelwein, Iowa. It is by far the oldest rail I have seen in the wild, and connects to the mainline, which uses rails from the late sixties, probably just before or after the CGW's merger with the Chicago and North Western. Located in St. Charles, Illinois, it used to serve a foundry on the west side of town, not far from the crossing over the Fox River. When the Union Pacific took over the line from the Chicago and North Western (who had gotten it when CNW took over the CGW), there were still a couple of customers on this side of the river. However, the last customer closed a few years ago, and the UP petitioned to abandon the line entirely.
The tracks already ended about a mile west of here, at an old warehouse that has since been demolished. Construction on Illinois Route 64 severed the line at a grade crossing as well. I imagine that there will eventually come a time when these rails are completely gone, leaving nothing but the railbed.
A moody, sunset shot of the Congress Hotel in Chicago. Opened in 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition, the Congress has undergone two major expansions through the years, the second one by Holabird and Roche in 1907. Originally designed as an annex for the Auditorium Theater across LaSalle Street, the hotel was connected to the theater for many years by a marble-lined tunnel called "Peacock Alley".
Both buildings still stand today.
Vintage neon for the Apache Motel, Chicago. Note the reversed writing on the marquee-it used to say "Welcomes You", but they switched it around to mount the marquee strips.
I took this in 2009 and only just noticed this.
The Art Moderne City Hall building in downtown St. Charles, with it's distinctive white clock tower. Situated along the Fox River, the building serves as an anchor to the downtown area, as well as a center for municipal services.
