Route 66, established in 1926 as one of the first numbered U.S. highways, ran 2,500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles and became an American symbol of romance, freedom, migration, and travel. In Illinois it began in downtown Chicago, passed through suburbs into prairie farmland and Midwestern towns, and ended at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which carried traffic across the Mississippi River from 1936 to 1955 and is now open for walking and biking. During the Dust Bowl in the 1930s it served people fleeing hardship, and in the 1950s and 1960s it carried families seeking the Southwest and California, supported by diners, cafes, service stations, and roadside attractions. Though U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985 after losing out to faster freeways, nostalgia has kept it alive. In the Bloomington-Normal region, Route 66 sites include the Cruisin' with Lincoln on 66 Visitors Center in the 1903 McLean County Courthouse, Ryburn Place at Sprague's Super Service, the David Davis Mansion built in 1872, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, Lucca Grill, Miller Park Zoo, the 1864 Funk Prairie Home, Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup, the Dixie Truck Stop, and A Geographical Journey Parkway in Towanda. Bloomington-Normal also links Route 66 with Abraham Lincoln through railroads: as an attorney on the Eighth Judicial Circuit, Lincoln represented railroad companies including what became the Chicago and Alton, and the original Illinois alignment of Route 66 closely followed those tracks. The Miller-Davis Law Building, constructed in 1843, served David Davis and Asahel Gridley and became a gathering place for lawyers including Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.