Route 66 in the News

Lots To See at Old Station

2008-05-01 09:14:21

WILLIAMSVILLE, Ill. - Frank Kohlrus hasn’t quite picked an occupation yet, or it could be that he has picked a whole bunch of them.

He sells Route 66 memorabilia at his unique Williamsville shop, The Old Station. He also drove a tow truck in Springfield for more than 20 years. He sharpens blades, sells tires and about anything else, changes flats, welds, hauls grain in the fall, buys and sells mowers, does machine work and sand blasting, among a few other things. If it makes a buck or two, Frank’s there.

But The Old Station (formerly Die Cast Auto Sales) is the main attraction. It is on Route 66, on the north side of Williamsville. This stretch of 66 wasn’t even marked for a long time. A few years ago, Patty Kuhn, who was executive director of the Route 66 Heritage Project, led the campaign to have signs put up, and that has made all the difference.

The first unusual thing you might see at The Old Station is the truck, half of it anyway, coming out of the front wall. The truck is for sale, “half off.” Get it?

Or you might first notice Betty Boop, painted by Frank’s wife, Jackie, on the front door. Pictures of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are inside. Ah yes, inside. There you will find pipes (the smoking kind), bolts, handles, toy trucks, vintage soda bottles, lots of merchandise with Route 66 on it, thousands of things Frank has scavenged, traded for or bought over the years.

It’s “a little bit of everything,” says Frank, who, when asked what he does for a living says — guess what? “A little bit of everything.”

“There’s not much demand for anything I do,” Frank says with a laugh. He laughs quite a lot for a guy whose talents are supposedly not in demand.

Amid organized clutter, Frank sits behind a counter, with a sign above him that reads, “Smoking Required.” Another sign on the door says the place is open when he is here, and it’s closed when he is not. And that’s the truth.

“I don’t have any special hours,” he says. “People just get ahold of me.” His business card says the place is “Open by chance or by phone.” His cell phone number is on a sign on the front door in case visitors wander in.

Two men from Sweden happened to get lucky and find Frank at the place Monday afternoon. Foreign tourists are quite common at The Old Station. In the past few weeks, Frank has had visitors from the Czech Republic, Japan and France.

“I can’t imagine Route 66 drawing this many people from other countries,” he says. But his guest book proves that it does.

The two Swedes looked the place over a bit and moved on, after signing the guest book, of course. Tomorrow, it might be someone from Russia who stops by to see what kind of place sells gasoline these days for 31 cents a gallon.

That’s what the sign says right by the gas pumps outside. Regular sells for 31.9 and ethyl for 34.9 a gallon. Unfortunately, the gas pumps are not connected to anything but the ground — they’re just for show. But every now and then … “Some … fool will pull up there and can’t figure out why they can’t get any gas,” Frank says with another laugh.

Frank grew up in Williamsville, then moved to Springfield, where he owned Frank’s Towing. Never content to do just one thing for a living, Frank also ran a gas station in Springfield, the next one past Bill Shea’s station. Frank’s place in Williamsville has a lot in common with Shea’s Route 66 memorabilia shop on Peoria Road.

Eventually, Frank left Springfield to return to his hometown.

“You’ve got to go somewhere big, you know,” he says, “can’t hang around a small town. But then that gets old, so you want to go home where you know people.”

Back in Williamsville, he bought an old gas station and converted it into the memorabilia extravaganza it is now. At first he sold toy cars and called the place Die Cast Autos. He eventually sold his cars to a guy in St. Louis and changed the name of the business.

“It’s kind of an early retirement thing,” says Frank of The Old Station.

Actually, it’s a little bit of everything.

~Dave Bakke, SJ-R.com