Route 66 Icon Destroyed

Legendary Pig-Hip Restaurant and Museum Burns

Fire on Monday destroyed the legendary Pig-Hip Restaurant and Museum, a Route 66 icon located in Broadwell, Ill.

Ernie Edwards, 89, who opened the restaurant in 1937, sat and watched as flames shot through the roof of the 70-year-old building, but grinned for local news photographers and reporters.

Those who ever met Ernie Edwards, know he looks on the bright side. "I've enjoyed it," he told them from his home, which is next door to his business. "I just had a wonderful time. It was the best thing I've ever done in my life."

The Pig-Hip is located about 8 miles south of Lincoln along what now is Interstate 55 paralleling Old Route 66, which is an American Scenic Byway - one of 45 designated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. In 1990, Edwards was among the first to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Route 66 Association of Illinois.

Ernie and his wife Fran closed the restaurant in 1991, but reopened it as a museum in 2003. Originally called the Harbor Inn, Edwards changed it. He said a local farmer came in and pointed to a ham on the stove and ordered "a piece of that pig hip." Thus, he named his ham sandwiches pig hip sandwiches, which he made from fresh, never cured, hams (and only the left hams, if you can believe him) plus a "special sauce."

Edwards likes to talk and regale visitors with tales, like how Gus Belt, the founder of Steak 'n' Shake, sued him over a building Ernie had bought and painted black and white, Steak 'n' Shake's color scheme. The suit was settled out of court and the two became good friends. Similarly, he claims Col. Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken came head-to-head. "He tried to sell me, and I tried to sell him," Edwards recalls. The colonel, according to Ernie, fried up a chicken right there in the Edwards' home.

Edwards is the subject of a biography, for those interested in reading more of Ernie's yarns, including his account of meeting Al Capone: Pig-Hips on Route 66, by William Kaszynski.