Route 66, the Mother Road, became one of the first numbered U.S. highways in 1926, running 2,500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles and later serving people fleeing the Dust Bowl in the 1930s as well as families seeking adventure in the Southwest and California in the 1950s and 1960s. In Illinois, it began in downtown Chicago, crossed suburbs and rural countryside, passed grain elevators, prairie farmland, Midwestern towns, diners, cafes, quirky roadside attractions, and service stations, and ended at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River, which carried traffic from 1936 to 1955 before opening for walking and biking. U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, but nostalgia sustained its place in American culture. In the Carlinville region, historic Route 66 attractions include the Auburn Historic Brick Road, the Battle of Virden Memorial, post office murals in Virden and Gillespie, the Whirl-a-Whip Drive-In, Doc's Soda Fountain and Deck's Drug Store, Nilwood Turkey Tracks, Sears Catalog homes built by the Standard Oil Company for mine workers, the historic Carlinville Square, the Macoupin County Courthouse, the Macoupin County Historic Jail, and the Deerfield Drive Historic Bridge. Carlinville itself contains a round-about square on old Route 66 and notable landmarks including the Loomis House Hotel, the "Million Dollar" Courthouse, and the old "cannonball" jail. The courthouse began as a $50,000 project in 1867 and, when completed in 1870 at a cost of more than $1.3 million, became one of the largest courthouses in the country, taking more than 40 years to pay off. The three-story, 50-room Loomis House Hotel was built in 1870 and has been remarkably preserved. Carlinville also has the world's largest collection of Sears Catalog homes, built in 1917 for mine workers, with 152 of the original 156 still standing. Route 66 passed through Carlinville from 1926 to 1931 during Prohibition, and local tales connect the nearby Ortic Inn and a large barn used for bootleg liquor with rumored visits by Al Capone and rum-runners carrying liquor to Chicago.