The main neon sign for the defunct Bel-Aire Motel in Springfield, Illinois, now has resurfaced in a beer garden of the Route 66 Motorheads Bar, Grill and Museum in that city.
The Facebook page for the Motorheads establishment announced the move of the sign:
It previously had been reported in 2015 that Ron Metzger, who would open Motorheads not long after that, had acquired the sign.
The long-troubled Bel-Aire Motel, built along Route 66 during the early 1950s, was torn down by the city in summer 2015 after acquiring hundreds of code violations. The city had proposed buying the property and converting it into a Route 66 tourism center or museum, but it lacked the money.
Last year, Motorheads erected the “world’s largest” Route 66 emblem on its property, and the establishment contains dozens of other Route 66 memorabilia, including the Art’s Motel, Sonrise Donuts and Bel-Air Motel signs and items from Shea’s Route 66 Museum.
Route 66 MotorHeads sits near a later alignment of Route 66, west of Interstate 55 (map here).
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I’ve been to Motorheads a couple of times and he’s done a great job of saving and displaying Springfield Route 66 history.
They are getting quite a nice collection of these out there.