Register now! 2024 MILES OF POSSIBILITY ROUTE 66 CONFERENCE Oct 31-Nov 3
Presented by
City of Edwardsville and
Great Rivers & Routes
Tourism Bureau
Presented by
City of Edwardsville and
Great Rivers & Routes
Tourism Bureau
Don’t miss out! Get registered now!
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We're excited to announce the return of Robby Robinson & the Route 66 Band again this year! These amazing musicians will rock the house on Friday evening, November 1st, at the Wildey Theatre! UPDATE: As of Oct. 4, tickets are NEARLY SOLD OUT! GET YOURS NOW AT https://www.cityofedwardsville.com/769/Wildey-Theatre
We're excited to announce the return of the Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference to the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, IL, where the annual event began in October 2015! Take a tour of the historic theater and enjoy Edwardsville's legendary Halloween Parade as it passes in front of the Wildey!
You won't want to miss this year's amazing lineup of speakers, all experts in their fields! The keynote speaker is Joel Baker, founder of American Giants! Enjoy and learn from all the speakers who are experts in their topics!
The Ninth Annual Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference will be held Thursday – Sunday, October 31 – November 3, in Edwardsville, Illinois, with the theme “Giants of Route 66.” The main conference activities will take place at the historic Wildey Theatre just off Route 66.
The keynote speaker is Joel Baker, founder of American Giants and the nation’s leading authority of – and advocate for – the identification, preservation, and restoration of the giant fiberglass statues known as “muffler men” produced in the 1960s by International Fiberglass Company, once located in Venice, California. “Muffler men” got their name from their advertising use at automotive shops. Baker has established an American Giants Museum in Atlanta, Illinois.
The slate of speakers includes: Casey Claypool, Executive Director of Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway; Cory Jobe, President & CEO of Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau; Susan Croce Kelly, author of “Cyrus Avery: Father of Route 66;” Judy DeMoisey and Mike Gassman, preservationists who saved the World's Largest Catsup Bottle; Debyjo Ericksen and Ron Romero, staff and founder of the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66; Jim Hinckley, Route 66 author, historian, and tour guide; Bill Iseminger, career archaeologist at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site; Geoff Ladd, Co-Chair of Route 66 Monarch Flyway; Benjamin Lowder, expert on Buckminster Fuller and the Fuller Domes at Edwardsville and Carbondale; Rhys Martin, President of the Route 66 Association of Oklahoma; Mark Pierce, author of “When the Stars Came Out: The Story of the Mississippi River Festival;” Cindy Reinhardt, Edwardsville historian, author, and tour guide; Joe Sonderman, St. Louis radio personality and Route 66 author and collector; William Thomas, Chair of the Road Ahead Partnership; and Dave Tucker, Illinois coal mining historian and founder of the Illinois Coal Museum at Gillespie.
Other activities will include a trolley tour of Edwardsville's Route 66 and the historic cooperative village of Leclaire on Thursday, Oct. 31, and an outdoor tour of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville on Sunday, Nov. 3, weather permitting. On Sunday, Madison County Historical Society's annual “Dining in History” event will be held at the Crystal Garden in Edwardsville, beginning with a social hour at 12:30 pm, followed by dinner and a Route 66 presentation by Route 66 historians Joe Sonderman and Cheryl Eichar Jett.
Friday and Saturday evening entertainment and two special exhibits will be announced soon.
The 2024 conference is made possible by the City of Edwardsville and Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau. Additional presenters of past and present conferences include: Bloomington-Normal Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, Heritage Corridor Destinations, Illinois Coal Museum at Gillespie, Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66, Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway, McLean County Museum of History, Ryburn Place at Sprague’s Super Service, and Visit Springfield Tourism Bureau.
Registration for the conference sessions (Thursday-Saturday), the Edwardsville-Leclaire trolley tour (Thursday), and the MCHS Dining in History (Sunday) is now open at https://route66milesofpossibility.com/
For updates and fun facts, go to https://www.facebook.com/Route66MilesOfPossibility and route66_milesofpossibility on Instagram. Register now to secure your place in the 2024 version of the only annual, ongoing conference event dedicated to Route 66!
The first conference was held at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Illinois, in 2015. Subsequent conferences were held in Bloomington (2016), Joliet (2017), Carlinville (2018), Normal (2019), all-virtual (2021), Pontiac (2022), and Bloomington-Normal (2023). Each event has featured a combination of some of the biggest names on the contemporary Route 66 scene - historians, authors, explorers, photographers, artists, and cartographers - and also experts, academics, and professionals featuring the local history and culture of each host city. Each year, social and networking activities plus great music, film, or other cultural opportunities round out the weekend schedule. The event rotates along Illinois Route 66 to showcase different communities, each supported by the area convention and visitors bureau!
From the first conference held at the historic Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville in 2015, we knew this was a special kind of event. Gathering Route 66 aficionados, historians, authors, artisans, travelers, and explorers from across the U.S. and around the world, the annual event offers presentations, programs, workshops, Route 66-focused arts and entertainment, and social and networking activities. It is the only annual conference that focuses on the history, preservation, and economic development of Route 66. "Route 66 Miles of Possibility" is now a nonprofit organization to provide greater capacity and expertise for future events! Now in its ninth year in 2024!
Do you have questions or comments about the event? Do you need special accommodations? Send me a message, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.