Springfield, IL (WAND) – The late Bill Shea was an unofficial ambassador of Route 66 for decades, turning a Texaco and then a Marathon station into a destination on what is now Peoria Road near the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.

A legacy that is now four generations later.

A state grant helped provide some sprucing up and a wayside information board for current curator Randy Pickett, who bought Shea’s Gas Station Museum in 2017.

“He had a sign-in book, Mr. Shea did, and it was signed by people from over 70 countries back before the Internet, and all got to know one of the places to be. [I’ll] continue that as long as I have it,” Pickett said.

Outside, visitors can find bricks from Route 66 around the gas pumps.

“We like looking at the old pictures and gas cans, lighter fluid cans, any of the nostalgia stuff, and say I had one of them or have one of those,” said Phil, a visitor from Colorado.

What’s inside is worth exploring.

“A little bit of everything, I have been a picker my whole life, didn’t even know what that was until a TV show. So, [I] collected items over many years at home, and once [I] bought this place, it was completely empty ’cause all auctioned off in 2015, everything you see [is] what I collected over many, many years,” Pickett said.

The old garage space has a vintage car rediscovered in the family after 30 years. For some things, however, his wife still wonders why it’s hung around after all these years.

“The horse is one of them … who needs a horse in a gas station? I thought I did, and the camper you see in the background is a 1953 rare camper, only made about 200 and 40 left,” Pickett said.

The centennial year will see a surge in Route 66 pilgrims.

“We’re gonna go to the Cozy Dog and then tomorrow [we] wanna go to Motorhead,” Phil said.

Shea remains a reminder that there’s still a lot of magic in the slow lane.

More information is available on Shea’s Facebook page.