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by Tom Teague

Because native stone and brick were in short supply, many central Illinois homes of the Nineteenth Century had chimneys made of logs and mud. Even in the first decades of the Twentieth Century, area builders frequently used local timber in lieu of other materials because it was cheaper. That's why the exhaust ducts in the kitchen at the original Dixie Truckers Home in McLean, Illinois, were made of wood. And they're why the fire, which started when grease ignited on a cooking grill, spread so quickly. It was June 28, 1965. Viola Walters Geske was in the office above the kitchen, working on accounts receivable. By the time she discovered it, the fire had already blocked the inside stairs. From outside, another employee set a ladder to the kitchen window so Viola could escape. But before she climbed down, she put all her paperwork back in the Dixie's two safes and closed their doors.

While the fire was still going, a local farmer used his front loader to lift the safes out through a second story window. They glowed red with the heat. Until they cooled down, the Dixie's future was an open question. Gas was already being pumped again on the evening of the fire. But without those accounts receivable and other records, rebuilding would be impossible.

A Home Away from Home

In 1918, the Illinois General Assembly passed a $60 million bond issue to start paving a network of hard roads throughout the state. It was the first time Illinois used that form of financing for public works. Six years later, the Assembly passed a second issue for $118 million. Then in 1925, the federal government announced it would plan and help fund a national highway system. From these initiatives, the Land of Lincoln alone would have more than 5,000 miles of hard surface pavement before the Twenties were done.

The original Dixie Truckers Home in McLean, Illinois.

All these new roads fostered perhaps this country's greatest period of opportunity for the individual entrepreneur. Nowhere was that more evident than on Route 66 in Illinois. J.P. Walters, a general store owner in Shirley, answered its knock early by opening filling stations there and in nearby Bloomington. His partner was his son-in-law, John Geske. In 1926, they branched out with their own delivery service, Shirley Oil and Supply Company. Two years later the duo opened a truck stop at the intersection of U.S. Routes 136 and 66 in McLean. They were already calling their product Dixie Gas. So they called this new business Dixie Truckers Home.

"The name stood for southern hospitality," said Walters' granddaughter, C.J. Beeler. "My grandfather was born and raised in Kentucky. He wanted truckers to know they had a home away from home here.'

The original home was a little cramped. Walters and Geske housed it in a small portion of a garage they rented from a local mechanic. In the beginning, the cafe had only a counter and six stools. As the new service became more popular, the partners took half of the garage. Eventually they took it all. Renovated many times, this is the building that burned in 1965. In its last days, it seated 60—but just barely.

With the Thirties came the Great Depression. But so did the diesel engine. Truckers kept stopping and the Dixie kept growing. For the new breed of auto travelers, Walters and Geske added a chain of six cabins on the east side of the lot. For area citizens, they produced a series of free shows, including some of the country's first drive-up, if not drive-in movies. These are the days that C.J., daughter of John and Viola Geske, first remembers spending a lot of time at the Dixie.

"I was nine or ten," she said. "At the time, there were several free shows a week in McLean County. Businessmen sponsored them to attract customers. We had ours out in the lot between the cabins and the Dixie. People would park, then bring their blankets to the lot and spread them out. They'd watch a woman called Aunt Polly and her musicians. Or we'd set up a screen and they would watch a good film. Then when intermission time came, they'd all rush into the Dixie for coffee, coke, pie, hamburgers. When that part was over, it was C.J. who was back in the kitchen helping to do the dishes.'

During high school, where friends gave her her nickname, C.J. waited tables at the Dixie. She would go on to work there and at other family truck stops for most of her adult life. But she never again focused on the restaurant. Like her mother, she helped run the office, then later the gift shop and travel store.

The Night the Old Dixie Burned Down

After high school in 1946, C.J. enrolled at Illinois Wesleyan College in Bloomington. At the time, she had no idea of becoming the third generation to run the family's business.

"The Dixie was just there," she said. "I worked there and I accepted

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it. But being a girl, I never thought about running it. In those days when you went to college, you went to get your MRS degree." After two years at Wesleyan, C.J. got that degree by marrying her high school sweetheart, Chuck Heeler. She never forgot about the other degree, though. Some 40 years later, she earned a baccalaureate in interior design.

The newlyweds helped farm Beeler family land near Leroy. But even then, their ties to the Dixie were growing. Accounts and bills were still done in pencil; C.J. spent about ten days a month helping her mother get them out. Then in 1952 they started their own farm near McLean. On it they had 2,000 laying hens. Virtually every yolk they produced ended up on a plate at the Dixie. And in the wintertime, Chuck was always available if his father-in-law needed help.

If they hadn't been raising three children and working so hard, the Beelers could almost call this routine comfortable. It lasted for more than a decade. Then came the fire.

C.J. still has trouble keeping her composure when describing the scene at the Dixie.

"There was my mother," she said. "She was heartsick to talk. Her dress was messy from cleaning up the fire debris. The strain was all over her face and her hair was so unlike my mother. She was always neat as a pin. But today she just looked...haggard."

John and Viola were almost in their sixties, but there was never any question that the family wanted to rebuild. Until those safes cooled, they just didn't know if they d be able. Only the old mechanic's garage had fallen to the fire. The gas pumps and cabins were intact. Friends, neighbors and customers came to help. One used his tractor to pull a cabin into place by the pumps. It became the new Dixie. By the Fourth of July, the lot was cleaned up. The cabin had a bank of vending machines in it, plus fresh sandwiches. But it wasn't until then that the safes gave their answer.

"When we finally opened them, a lot of papers were charred all around," C.J. said. "But we could still read the figures." The Dixie would continue.

Side by Side

"Two or three years before the fire, we had made a few trips to other truck stops," Chuck said.

"With the interstates, we knew the industry was changing. At the time, we didn't know whether we'd remodel or tear down and start over." With that choice made for them, the family got in a car and spent several weeks inspecting truck stops throughout the Midwest. Eventually, Chuck turned the farm over to his brother and started working full-time at the Dixie. After nearly two years, the new Dixie opened. The cafe had grown from 60 seats to 250. The number of staff had tripled to 150. Among them that first night was Chuck and C.J.'s older son, Mark Beeler.

"Dad called from the Dixie," Mark said. '"Do you have a pair of black pants?' he asked. Yes. 'Do you have a white shirt and a black tie? Good!

Come on down.' It kind of got in my blood."

"My father was still prominent in the business, but most of the leadership then came from Chuck," said C.J. "As more time went by, it all came from him." C.J. managed the gift shop, which had grown from a single rack in the old Dixie to more than 300 square feet in the new one. Until his death in 1975, her uncle, Dean Walters, managed the travel store.

"From the time the new building opened until 1972, John and I worked side by side," Chuck said. "That year, we opened another Dixie in Effing-ham, about a hundred miles southeast of here. John and Viola virtually lived down there for two years." Chuck, C.J. and Dean also drove there several days a week, worked through supper, then drove home.

When Viola had a stroke in 1978, the family leased the Effingham site to Truckstops of America. At the time, Ryder Systems owned that chain. But soon they sold it to Standard Oil of Ohio. Then British Petroleum bought Standard. Now Chuck isn't sure who owns the place.

Even though they let one site go, the family's mind was still on expansion. At about the same time they leased Effingham, they purchased another truck stop in Tuscola, about 80 miles east of Bloomington. The long drives continued. But by then, Chuck and C.J.'s son Mark was there to share much of the workload.

The Beelers' daughter Judy worked at the Dixie as a teen, but moved to Chicago after college. Their younger son, David, worked there several years after he finished school, but eventually decided to move out on his own. A decade ago, Chuck and C.J. helped him open a convenience store and gas station across the street from the Dixie. Then in 1997, Mark and his wife Kathy bought the Dixie itself.

Shoulder to Shoulder

"The truck companies really depended on us in the earlier days," Chuck said. "If a driver had any kind of trouble, they'd call and we did

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whatever we needed to do to take care of him. I got a lot of calls from John to go help somebody. I didn't give it any thought. We were there to help those people."

During a blizzard in the late Seventies, Mark and Chuck made several trips to Bloomington to pick up stranded truckers and give them food and rest at the Dixie. And if a trucker fell ill, someone was always there to drive him to a doctor. But now Chuck sees what he calls the depersonalizing of business.

Truckers themselves haven't changed much. They still like the Dixie. But between deregulation and technology, they're driving longer between stops and spending more time away from their families. Their loyalties are more spread out.

Like truckers, the traveling public is driving further between stops these days. Even so, the Dixie itself hasn't had much trouble maintaining its customer base. But new chain-operated truck stops don't have the Dixie's 74 years of service to stand on. So instead of personal loyalty, they encourage brand loyalty. This can be built on clever advertising and aggressive marketing, and not just service.

Chuck remembers one night when he forgot to tell the late shift that 300 eighth graders were coming in at 3 a.m. for breakfast. But somehow, they got everyone served in the allotted time. "You have to appreciate that kind of loyalty," he said. " I don't think you see it so much anymore. When C.J. and I were really into things, we worked shoulder to shoulder with the staff everyday. When you do that, you develop a real camaraderie with your people.

"I miss that camaraderie today."
"Me, too," said his wife.

Among Dixie employees, careers of 30 or 40 years have been common. For thousands of others, the Dixie was a stepping stone where they earned enough in tips to pay their way through college. Margaret Kirby, a member of the former group, retired nearly 20 years ago, but still gets invited to the annual staff Christmas party. Her daughter-in-law, Susan Funk Kirby, waited tables on weekends during high school and college. She remembers how Viola Geske helped her through her difficult early days.

"I was timid,' Susan said. "I'd gone to the back room three times to cry. Then one day I just couldn't figure out how to fit my hair under the net they required. When Vi Geske saw this, she sat me down and showed me how to pin my hair up. C.J. was always very sweet, too. I babysat for her and Chuck. Out of loyalty to them, I could never call in sick."

"In 1974, someone came in and wanted to buy the whole place," Chuck said. "We ended up meeting with some people in Miami. But we would have been part of a chain. We would have to relocate. We just weren't interested."

Then How About a Mom and Pop Chain?

The Dixie has consistently been ranked among the country s top ten truck stops. Upwards of 200 trucks a night park in its lot. Still, on a national scale, its size is only about average. If it were bare land today, it might stay that way for awhile because truck stop developers prefer to build where inter-states intersect. And the truck stop chains have economies of scale that the Beelers can only dream of.

Soon after he took over the Dixie, Mark Beeler remodeled it to fit his mind's eye view of how it should look. C.J. helped with the design. Before, people who used the main entrance on the east side of the building had to walk down a hallway to get to the restaurant. Now the first thing visitors see is two display cases full of pies. On the right is an expanded entrance to the gift and travel store. On the left is the restaurant. Its theme is '40s Americana, its motto "Relive the Legend." The traditional menu, headed by broasted chicken, is still served. But for travelers who prefer to eat with their eyes, there is now a buffet with in-sight cooking and an on-site bakery.

The north side, where truckers enter, hasn't changed as much. On the left, at the far end of the travel store, is their business counter. On the right is a bank of video machines. Down the main hallway past display cases full of drivers' polaroids, there's a private hallway to a truckers' lounge. This has a big screen TV and overstuffed chairs. Past it are 11 shower suites (free with a 50-gallon purchase). Back out in the main hallway, heading toward the restaurant, truckers become the most frequent visitors to the Route 66 Hall of Fame. This is a small, non-profit museum that the Dixie has housed at its own expense since 1990.

When Mark speaks of the Dixie's future, it's easy for sentiment and jargon to blend.

"This has always been a family business," he once told a reporter. "A personality comes with that. We want to make sure at least in our lifetime that we preserve this personality. But you also need to have critical mass. To compete, you have to find ways to generate volume."

Mark and Kathy called their way of generating that volume an independent chain. This is either an oxymoron, a business fact of life, or both. In time, they hoped it could grow to ten or twelve links. Even mom and pop must think big these days. But for Mark and Kathy it didn't work. Last year they sold the company's assets and signed a Iongterm agreement with a management firm to operate the four remaining Dixies. When that firm did not perform up to expectations, Chuck and C.J., through another financial arm ot the family, regained control of the business. Now in their seventies, they are back at the Dixie nearly every day.

Early last century, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed that the business of America is business. Through relentless competition and economies of scale, the family has found it increasingly difficult to be a part of that equation. And the way mergers are blurring national borders. Coolidge's phrase might be better rendered soon as "The business of business is business." To get an idea ot what that means for the consumer, pull up to a gas pump.

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