My family and I once drove six hours to look for turkey tracks in the middle of Illinois.  No, we’re not super dedicated turkey hunters. We were searching for a forgotten road. These turkey tracks, in fact, are almost a hundred years old and embedded in concrete. They are part of the folklore of America’s fabled highway, Route 66.

In 1926, the federal government commissioned Route 66 as a national highway, running from Chicago to Los Angeles. In the early days of the highway, road crews paved a section near Girard, Illinois. Before the concrete dried, a turkey wandered across the wet road and was forever immortalized as a Route 66 celebrity.