It may not be serving up tasty treats, but the original Dairy Queen shop along Route 66 in Joliet is being restored to celebrate the moment, more than 80 years ago, when two local businessmen opened the first DQ.
The Joliet Area Historical Museum on Thursday showed off the completion of a facade improvement project, with shop signage and neon signs that hark back to the original 1940s storefront. The celebration featured an appearance by Dairy Queen International CEO Troy Bader and, of course, Dilly Bars.
The building, located at 501 N. Chicago St. in Joliet, is one of six historic sites along Route 66 operated by the Joliet Area Historical Museum.
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“You have the meeting of two very iconic things,” said Greg Peerbolte, the museum’s CEO. “You’re talking about one of America’s most recognizable companies, and it is sitting on Route 66.”
Peerbolte noted that Joliet is within the first 100 miles of Route 66, which starts in Chicago and spans 2,448 miles through three time zones to end in Santa Monica, California. This year marks the Mother Road’s 100th anniversary.
“This project is a wonderful example of what can happen when organizations come together and share a vision,” Joliet City Councilman Cesar Cardenas said. “Today is an exciting step forward and we look forward to seeing this landmark continue to be preserved, celebrated and shared for generations to come.”
In 1940, Sherwood D. Noble, known as Sherb, and his friend, J.F. McCullough, started selling soft serve ice cream at the Chicago Street building, which was constructed in the late 1800s. They named the shop Dairy Queen, because McCullough often referred to the cow as the “queen of the dairy business.”
Two years before opening in Joliet, Noble hosted a taste test of McCullough’s soft serve ice cream treat. They went through 1,600 servings in two hours during a 10-cent all-you-can-eat special, family members recalled.
No one is sure why the business partners selected the two-story brick building for their ice cream shop, but Peerbolte suggested traffic from the nearby Joliet Arsenal could have played a role in the decision. The working-class neighborhood, known as Slovenian Row, also is on the original alignment of Route 66.
Either way, the store proved so successful that Noble bought out McCullough and his son after the first season.
The flow of frozen dairy treats stopped at the Chicago Street location sometime in the 1950s. But from that one shop, Dairy Queen has grown to an international company with more than 7,900 restaurants in 20 countries. Company sales hit nearly $6.6 billion last year, Bader said.
“We’ve grown a lot since that first store opened here 86 years ago,” he said. “But without that first store here, you don’t get to 7,900 restaurants.”
Area franchise owners were among the first guests to see the store that started it all.
“The historical society has done an amazing job,” St. Charles franchisee Bob Cahill said. “It will be fun to watch it grow.”
Since the shop closed in the 1950s, the two-story building has served various uses, including a motorcycle dealership, lawnmower sales and repair shop, a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company and an insurance agency, Peerbolte said.
The restoration project has been three years in the making, starting with a notice in the building window that it was available for lease, Peerbolte said.
“It really just began by driving by the building … and we saw the for-lease sign,” Peerbolte said. “We called the number and said we’re interested and we started renting it.”
Peerbolte described the project as a “shared economic development initiative” between the museum and the city of Joliet. Regional and statewide funding helped cover costs of the project.
The museum’s restoration of the 501 N. Chicago St. building also involved the help of Dairy Queen International and members of the Noble family, who provided photos and other historical documents to aid in the facade restoration.
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“He would be smiling,” Noble’s daughter, Sue Stevens, replied when asked what her father would think of the work.
Thursday was the first time she’s ever visited the building.
“This is where my dad walked,” she said. “I just wanted to be a part of it.”
The Noble family still runs five Dairy Queen franchises in the Kankakee area and four in Kane County, including two in Aurora and one each in Geneva and Batavia.
As the country celebrates Route 66’s centennial, Peerbolte said he’s noticed an uptick in visitors to the city’s historic stops along the famed highway. A caravan traveling from Santa Monica and ending their trip in Chicago stopped for Thursday’s event.
“This is what Route 66 is about,” said Rhys Martin, project manager for Route 66 preservation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “When someone comes in here and sees the story of Dairy Queen, it changes from a brand or product to people and how many of these people believed in something bigger than themselves and that’s the story of Route 66. It was a big idea that changed this entire country.”
He said visiting the stops along Route 66 and hearing people’s stories along the way is what makes the trip.
“Every time someone gets to experience something like this and hear that authentic story; you never know how that is going to inspire them,” he added.
The city has hosted other events this year to celebrate the historic route.
In April, Joliet served as Illinois’ lone official Route 66 Centennial Kick-Off City and hosted a baseball game inside the Old Joliet Prison walls featuring the Joliet Slammers and Gateway Grizzlies of Sauget, Illinois. Earlier this week, McDonald’s erected a monument at the city’s Route 66 Park to mark the return of its fried apple pies.
Peerbolte said he has seen an uptick in traditionally slower days with visitors stopping by the museum or other Route 66 sites. In addition to the museum, which features a First 100 miles visitors center, and the original Dairy Queen location, the Joliet Area Historical Museum manages three other Route 66 stops in Joliet: the Old Joliet Prison, the Joliet Railroad Museum at the Gateway Center and the Planinsek Market Museum. The museum also manages the popular Gemini Giant Landing Pad, also on Route 66, in Wilmington.
For now, Peerbolte expects the Dairy Queen building will serve as a “selfie stop.” The Joliet Area Historical Museum is already working on the project’s second phase, which includes a full architectural and engineering assessment to help determine future uses.