As my wife and I were traveling on Interstate 55 on our way to Memphis, Tennessee, the “home of the blues,” we spied a welcome center in Blytheville after crossing the border into Arkansas. We pulled over to stretch our legs and take advantage of the offerings.
We were greeted with a natural stone and post-and-beam constructed building. Inside, the slate floors beneath exposed beams led us past display cases filled with the state’s natural wonders and a bevy of racks filled with brochures and booklets.
On this day, Arkansas was nothing more than a pass-through state on our drive to southwestern Tennessee. As I awaited my wife, I picked up a small trifold brochure touting “Historic Dyess Colony: Where Johnny Cash’s Story Began.”
Well, this was intriguing!
I am a Cash fan, but this Dyess Colony was new to me. With a little prompting from a smiling attendant who stood ready to answer any inquiries about her state, I announced to my wife we were headed to Dyess.
Soon, we were bouncing across northeast Arkansas, down black-topped roads and past sandy fields, tired little homes fenced in by rusted memories and tottering road signs riddled by .22 caliber holes searching for the boyhood home of Johnny Cash.
There, we learned from the former mayor, and now museum manager, of the home where Cash grew up, the experiences that formed some of his earliest memories and served as the basis of some of his first recordings with Sun Records of Memphis. We also discovered the remarkable story of the New Deal community that helped shape his life and music.
It was a most enjoyable and enlightening detour.
I was reminded of this by the announcement that Illinois’ eight interstate visitor information centers closed at the end of September.
“The role of the state’s visitor information centers has evolved significantly over the past couple of decades as the ways visitors plan and access travel information have changed,” the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity told Capitol News Illinois in a statement.
The assumed inference is that travelers rely on Google for their travel needs and that informative brochures and knowledgeable attendants are a quaint idea that has outlived its usefulness.
There is no doubt that the internet contains a wealth of information for travelers. If you’re heading to Chicago, you can check Tripadvisor for the best hotels, things to see and top 10 restaurants. That is useful knowledge at your fingertips, specific to your destination.
But what do you know of the highway to your destination? Robert Frost wrote of the road not taken, and how he doubted that he would ever come back.
It’s the treasures along the way that need a voice.
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While driving on I-57 through southern Illinois to Chicago, who will tell you of Chester? It’s a 50-minute detour to the birthplace of Popeye the Sailor Man and Fort Kaskaskia of the American Revolution.
If you’re cruising on I-55 between Springfield and Bloomington, stop at the American Giants Museum in Atlanta, Illinois, which tells the story of the kitschy Muffler Man statues and other roadside giants in America.
Amid the cornfields on I-72, you can stop and ride the rails at the Monticello Railway Museum, home to a restored, running, 1907 vintage steam locomotive.
On I-80 to Joliet, you can take Exit 97 to see the more than 8,000 names engraved on the polished black granite of the Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial in Marseilles, each name representing a military member lost in service to our nation.
According to Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, visitor spending hit an all-time high of $50.2 billion in 2025. The state has greeted that significant news by eliminating the small budget of $1.6 million appropriated for the eight Illinois visitor centers.
Another name for visitor centers is welcome centers. They act as the front doors to Illinois, for the 115 million visitors who choose to grace our state.
Do we really want to close those doors?
Frank Hosek is a freelance travel writer based just outside the Chicago area and a retired director of human resources for an Illinois company.
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