Pontiac and Watseka Illinois

Having a couple of days to get to Shipshewana, IN we are going to spend the night at Pontiac, IL. We are using a Harvest Host location to spend the night, this time it is the Department of Tourism for the city of Pontiac, IL. We arrived at City Hall and to our amazement we were told to park it right there right in front of City Hall! I don’t believe we could have been more welcome, they had goodie bags for us and really made us feel like family. I know that we would never have stopped had it not been for Harvest Host. Although I don’t think there is enough to make Pontiac a destination, I am sure that a day or two stop would be really enjoyable.

Within walking distance of city hall there were museums, eateries and murals on what seemed like every wall in town. Footprints painted on the sidewalk guided us on our trek around town, just follow the red footprints for the murals and blue ones for the museums. Since the museums closed at 4:00 we went the blue route first. Our first stop was the Route 66 museum which covered the route of Route 66 through Illinois from Chicago to the Mississippi river at St Louis. It was very interesting, and it was laid out in an easy-to-follow pattern.

In the same building there was a military museum that paid homage to veterans from Pontiac, IL from WW I through today’s conflicts in the middle east. I have to admit it was a little spooky when you first entered.

Our last museum stop for the day was the Pontiac Oakland Automobile Museum. It was rather small as car museums go but their display of restored cars was phenomenal. Where this museum differs is the rather large area of the building dedicated to their research library.

After the museums closed it was time to get something to eat and we found a restaurant with outside seating so we went back to the RV and got Edgar so he could join us for a meal. We had a great meal and Edgar made new friends and after dinner we toured the town looking at murals and window shopping. There were too many murals to post all but here are a few.

The next morning, we went to the Gild Edge Musuem which showed how Gold Leaf was made. Although I have seen gold leaf lettering, I never knew how it was made. The simple version is that they would take a small bar of gold and run it through a press to flatten it out and once it gets so thin it is cut into small sheets of gold and then sandwiched between layers of vellum and hammered even thinner. This is a very labor-intensive process, and I don’t know if there is any place in the USA that still does it. They had a hammer on display that was used to hammer the sheets and I was amazed to find out that it weighed 17 pounds! I used to have blacksmith shop and the heaviest hammer I used weighed 6 pounds. I can only imagine putting in a full day of hammering using a 17-pound hammer.

Once we got on the road we headed for the small town of Watseka, IL which is the home of Nichol’s Fabrication and Paint. This shop is one of the many car shows on the Motor Trend Channel and it is called Wrench’d. Unlike the shop we visited in Salt Lake City this shop was more welcoming and friendly and once they found out that I was there on my birthday it opened all kinds of doors. As it turned out one of their mechanics was also having a birthday so of course they insisted that I get my picture taken with him. I did and they posted it on their Facebook page. You can bet that if I am ever near there again, I will stop in and visit!

We are going to be in Shipshewana, IN for the next two weeks but then that is another story.