The Last Bit of Backroads Before Arriving in St. Louis Missouri

…as we moved through Illinois on two lane roads and highways, following IL Hwy 34 north from Elizabethtown, I realized that it was time for lunch.  Harrisburg Illinois turned out to be our final lengthy stop before we made it to our final destination in the St. Louis area.     

As we drove through Harrisburg, we spotted Morello’s Restaurant.  It was really busy, and even finding a parking place was a challenge.  Morello’s was opened in December of 2005.  The main dining room will seat 110, a side room will seat another 20, the bar area can handle 55 more customers, there is a banquet area that will seat up to 300 people…and there is a heated and covered patio as well.

Harrisburg was founded in 1853.  It was built on a 60-foot high sandstone bluff overlooking the Saline River valley.  The bluff was referred to as “Crusoe’s Island”.  The valley around the town tends to flood when the Ohio River floods and backs up the Saline River. 

Between 1900 and 1937, the city was one of America’s bituminous coal-mining distribution hubs.  Initially, the area boomed when the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad came to town.  Surface mining around the city produced a landscape, (roughly 172 sq. miles), that is named the Harrisburg Coal Field.  It completely incased Harrisburg.  Near the mines were ‘gob piles’ that spontaneously combusted.  The horizon around town flickered for years with the burning coal residue.  By 1930, the city’s population was 15,659 but today, it has only 8,219 residents.

As previously noted, the interior of Morello’s is expansive, although my photos really don’t capture the expanse of the dining areas.  We did think that the dining area was too dark and it would benefit from more light.  Updates in the décor would also kick the restaurant up a notch or two.

We were pleased when our waitress brought us this warm and cheesy loaf of bread.  It was a great start!

Then things went downhill.  Our server disappeared when we told her that we needed to look over the menus…and it took her 10 – 15 minutes to return.  Other customers were finishing up and leaving so that may have been part of the problem.

When our server returned, we placed our orders…and then the true ordeal began.  We waited…and waited…and waited.  Perhaps the kitchen staff took a break after the lunch rush, our waitress forgot to turn in our order, or the kitchen messed up the order.  It took about 40 minutes to get our food…

Laurie stepped out of her normal comfort zone and ordered the Salmon Patties with Grilled Asparagus. ($11.50) It was plenty of food for Laurie, especially after that cheesy bread, but those patties seemed pretty small.  She reported that they tasted fine though… Plating those patties with packets of tartar sauce on plate certainly wasn’t the best visual…

This item doesn’t appear on Morello’s on-line menu so it must have been a lunch special.

I ordered Morello’s Spicy Italian Beef Sandwich. ($9.99) It is described as ‘tender beef, slow cooked in a secret combination of herbs and spices, then served on a Hoagie bun and topped with Pepperoncini.  I opted to have it topped with mozzarella cheese.  It came with potato chips and a seasoned au jus for dipping. 

Once again, the presentation certainly was lacking something.  However, the sandwich itself was pretty tasty and satisfying.  There was plenty of beef, enough to satisfy the carnivore that I am.

After we finished…once again our waitress was nowhere to be seen.  Waiting for our bill for an extending time waiting for our food was just one more disappointing experience, one that would force me to alter our back roads route in order to arrive at our destination as needed.

Morello’s menu is extensive and offers everything from Italian food, to burgers and steaks.  Obviously, we just sampled a tiny portion of the menu and our experience is probably not the norm for most diners.  Check it out for yourself if you ever find yourself in Harrisburg Illinois.  Website: Morello's Restaurant & Catering (morellosonline.com).

Time was now an issue so I skipped along, bypassing various historic landmarks or places.  However, skipping another old railroad depot is not something I’d do lightly. 

The Illinois Central Railroad began service to Carbondale Illinois on July 4, 1854 with a wooden passenger depot.  This ‘new’ depot was built by the railroad in 1903.  Just prior to this, in 1898, they’d built a roundhouse for locomotive repairs and servicing, a water tank, office buildings, a bandstand and a park.  At its peak, this depot serviced 33 passenger trains every day and the roundhouse had 18 ‘stalls’ where locomotives could be serviced.  The depot served passengers until 1981 when a new (and ugly) depot was built.  Currently, this old depot houses the offices of “Carbondale Main Street” and the Chamber of Commerce as well as a Museum.  See Station Carbondale.

The diesel locomotive on display next to the historic depot is an Illinois Central GP11.  Fifty-four of them were built between 1978 and 1981 and this one was completed in 1979.

Construction is planned for a new and improved depot that will serve Carbondale.  Two Amtrak routes from Chicago terminate at Carbondale, and both of them operate daily.  A third Amtrak route, “The City of New Orleans” also stops at Carbondale every day… The current active depot served almost 41,000 passengers in 2021.  A lot of the traffic along the route to Chicago is provided by students and visitors for Southern Illinois University as well as from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Ubana.

It seems like a century ago when Laurie and I last laid our eyes on the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds in Du Quoin Illinois.  The fairgrounds, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are located just north of town along US Hwy 51.  These fairgrounds opened in 1923 under the leadership of a horse breeder.  He created the Du Quoin State Fair as a parallel event to the Illinois State Fair.  The latter had banned gambling on horse races. 

This fair traditionally began immediately after the Illinois State Fair so as not to compete for visitors.  The organizers promoted this private sector enterprise as short duration series of harness racing.  Eventually, the track was a mile long.  It hosted the Hambletonian trotting event from 1957 – 1980 and the World Trotting Derby from 1981 – 2009.  Today the racetrack is used for motor sport events.

To learn more about this September’s Du Quoin State Fair’s events, just go to duquoin illinois state fair schedule - Search (bing.com).

This old theatre in Du Quoin Illinois isn’t listed on the National Register for Historic Places, but the façade itself deserves a listing. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo)  The Grand Theater opened in 1914 with 900 seats.  It is one of the last small-town Art Deco style movie palaces remaining in the state of Illinois.  The interior has been modified many times.  A second screen was added in the former balcony.  By 2008, it was advertised as having ‘3’ screens.  The Grand Theatre finally closed in January of 2016. 

The current owner plans to keep it going for as long as possible but it needs a lot of work.  As he has said, the interior is hidden under a couple of layers of “improvement and renovation”.  Many of its most eye-catching assets are covered by a drop ceiling and several layers of paint.  The marquee is still an attention getter but it needs major restoration.  The Art Deco style concession area is still in good shape.  There is hope that this old theater can be restored.  If you would like to learn more, just go to Grand Theatre - Du Quoin (grand-duquoin.com).

From Du Quoin, we continued north on US Hwy 51, turning west on IL Hwy 154 toward my next photo opportunity.

If this look like a nice old home, it is…sort of.  This is the front of the old Perry County Illinois Jail in Pinckneyville Illinois.  It was built in 1871 and it cost $14,150 to build.  It looks like a home because the front section was the sheriff’s residence.  This allowed him to oversee the jail at all times. (I should have taken as side view photo as well)

Perry County used this jail for 116 years, until 1987, when it was replaced by a new facility.  After that, the building housed county offices until 1993.  After that, the Perry County Historical Society leased the building to serve as the Perry County Jail Museum.  To learn more about this museum, go to Perry County Jail Museum | Pinckneyville IL | Facebook.

Pinckneyville is the county seat for Perry County.  The city was named after Charles Pinckney, a Founding Father and signer of the US Constitution.  Pinckneyville became a “Sundown Town” ca. 1928.  That was based on the premise or story that a black man had raped a white woman.  Allegedly, the white city fathers loaded the town’s black population on a bus, driving them out of town and dropping them off in East St. Louis Illinois. 

After the suspect was hung, the town remained a sunset town, with signs posted at the city limits stating “No Coloreds After Dark”.  There was a town ‘hanging tree’ and at least 3 African Americans were hung in the city.  The ‘sundown signs’ weren’t removed until the late 1960s or early 1970s.  Today Pinckneyville has a population of about 5,100, of which about 25% are black.

From Pinckneyville, we continued due north up IL Hwy 127.  Our last stop before timing forced me to get on the Interstate was in the city of Nashville Illinois.  This small town with a population of about 3,100 is the county seat for Washington County Illinois. (Population 13,761)

The old Louisville and Nashville Railway Depot is located at 101 East Railroad Street.  This station was built in 1885 as a part of the railroad’s expansion throughout southern Illinois in the 1880s.  The design is simple or functional, rather than elaborate.  Not only did the station handle a lot of freight in its boom days, but it also served as an information center for the town.  The telegraph station was located here and the daily newspapers from St. Louis arrived by train.

At the peak of service, 7 daily passenger trains stopped at this little depot.  In addition, students from other parts of the county used the trains to attend Nashville’s high school.  The depot remained in service as late as the 1950s and all passenger service on the Louisville and Nashville Railway was discontinued in 1971.  The depot was renovated in 2015 and it is very well maintained.  From what I could tell…the Washington County Historical Society occupied the building after it was renovated.

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave