Time for a genuine spring break, now that genuine spring has arrived. Back to posted content around May 24.

Returning from Normal on Sunday, I took another short detour fairly close by, in the wonderfully named town of Towanda, pop. 430 or so, originally a central Illinois project of the busy 19th-century businessman Jesse Fell. I’d seen signs for Towanda on the Interstate for years, but never stopped.

Towanda is the home of a massive grain elevator, owned by Evergreen FS of Bloomington.

For a more ordinary tourist, a stretch of the former U.S. 66 passes through town, and has a walking path next to the road. I took a stroll.

Also part of the former highway: Dead Man’s Curve.

The nickname isn’t too hard to figure out, but a sign offers details.

It doesn’t offer a death toll, which may not be known, but does say that from 1927 until a bypass was built in 1954, the curve was the site of “many disastrous accidents,” especially involving drivers from Chicago, “unfamiliar with the road and accustomed to higher speeds.” Oops. Once a hazard, now a minor tourist attraction.

Note the Burma Shave signs. They look fairly new, so I take them to be modern homages, in this case noting the dangers of Dead Man’s Curve.

There’s a rhyme for each direction of travel on the road.

Northbound: Car In Ditch/Driver In Tree/The Moon Was Full/And So Was He/Burma Shave.

Southbound: Around The Curve/Lickety-Split/Beautiful Car/Wasn’t It?/Burma Shave.