- Where's the worst road in central Illinois?

We're gonna take a ride on that road.

A bumpy ride, coming up.

- You know, there's something coming up the road, too, that you're probably not expecting.

Armadillos.

- The March... - [Both] Of the armadillos!

(upbeat music) - You know, there are a lot of terrible roads in and around Peoria.

- Oh, I know.

The worst.

- And they're bumpy, the potholes, it's a mess with the construction cones.

State flower, right?

- They pop up everywhere.

- Well, we're gonna take a ride, a very, very bumpy ride, on the worst road in the Peoria area.

- I'm in.

- We're gonna do that later.

- But before we do that, can we talk about my friends, my new friends, the armadillos?

- They're your new friends, you say?

- They're so cute and cuddly and they roll up in a little ball and they're coming from down south up to Peoria area.

- And they're cuddly, you say?

That's what I wanna see.

You cuddle nature's little tanks?

- Well, I guess you'll just have to look at this.

- So, Julie, you get animals in your backyard, right?

- I do.

I have some fox and some kits in my yard right now.

- How about armadillos?

- No, I've never had an armadillo.

- Maybe sometime soon.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

- Okay.

- But I know you don't, you don't see 'EM around here.

You see in them in Missouri, but people say they're already in Southern Illinois and they're marching north, the March of the Armadillos.

- They're definitely migrating.

We've definitely heard of sightings even in Southern Illinois, in Indiana, Iowa.

And so they're rare, but people have seen them, which is really kind of interesting.

And so the, the biggest thing that keeps these guys from really going north is temperature.

They can't handle cold temperatures for prolonged periods.

And so if it's, with our shorter winters in Southern Illinois, you can kind of see how they could make it, at least for a time.

It would be difficult.

They can't conserve heat very well.

- So it seems weird that armadillos would be in Illinois, right?

- Right, they're usually in warm climates, like down south at least.

- Oh yeah.

But they've been on the move northward for hundreds and hundreds of years.

They come from far South America.

They came up through Central America.

That's a long way.

Then they got to Mexico.

Then midway through the 1800s, they come into Texas and then they're there.

They're hanging out.

And then the 70s, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, they march up and they get to some of the Southern states and they're in Missouri.

They got into Illinois.

Now, you know, Illinois, it's surrounded by rivers to the south, right?

- It is.

- How did they get across there?

Well, armadillos can swim, but those are some pretty strong rivers, you know, they can't get across those rivers.

- Yeah.

- But apparently, and this is the thought, they got into barges.

They weren't, I don't think they were stowaways.

- Do they buy tickets?

- I don't know, I don't think so.

They weren't like deckhands.

- Okay.

- They got onto these barges.

- Titanic, they're at the front, King of the World.

- Could have been.

- Okay.

- But as far as I know that what happened was they got on the barges and the barges go to the other side and they're like "Armadillo!"

And they fling them in into Illinois.

Really what are you gonna do with an armadillo that's stowed away?

- I recommend not flinging armadillos.

- Well, it's not nice.

- I'm just gonna make a stand.

- That's not nice, but that's what they did.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources a while back, they asked, people, hey, people of Illinois, have you seen armadillos?

People like us, yes.

They have a map on their website and there's all these dots in Southern Illinois.

Yep, yep, yep.

And it goes all the way up to about Springfield.

If you draw that as a latitude across.

- Okay, all right.

- And there's armadillos.

- I feel safe right now, okay, go.

- But then this year they asked for more input.

And so now there's more dots north of that.

- Oh!

- Yeah, and there's some in, a couple in Peoria County.

Not tons, not tons, but a few.

- Okay.

- Every time experts say, well, there's no way they can go farther north, they go farther north.

So.

- They're determined little critters.

- They say the state says, if they get to the Peoria area in a couple years, they wouldn't be surprised, but they're not gonna, they're not gonna attack, they're not nasty.

They, they just, they're mostly at risk of your garden.

- So if a nine-banded was approached by a human, he would kind of hunker down and protect his soft underbelly.

So he would try to cover as much as he could with his armor.

That's actually one of their strategies.

At least that's what the theory is that they confuse the predator because they, they just jump.

And you know, the predator's like, yikes.

He's pretty cute, isn't he?

This is actually how we tell them apart these, these scoots on top of their head, that's, they're, they're unique to each one.

- So yeah, they're, they're kind well, they're cute in a very weird looking way, but they, they dig through, they'll burrow through your garden.

That's about the biggest risk they are, unless you eat 'EM.

- I don't wanna, why would I eat it (gagging) No.

(slow music plays) - [Phil] North of Peoria in the middle of nowhere, you'll find something almost indescribable and certainly unique.

It's a playground of sorts, a place where you might find moms with strollers, families in minivans, old timers with canes and plenty of riders on motorcycles.

Welcome to the Psycho Silo Saloon, which boast fans from gearheads to grandmas.

It's many things, a motoring museum, an adult playhouse and a concert venue, all in one.

- Yeah, I don't even know how to tell you what you're gonna see there.

It's just a junkyard meets a bar meets an old corn crib.

- [Phil] 55 miles from Peoria, Psycho Silo sits in unincorporated Bureau County with nothing but farmland all around.

The open air operation is crammed tight with hood ornaments, gas caps, license plates, tractor seats, hubcaps, exhaust pipes, headlamps, auto parts signs, and much more.

All together, the chock-a-block collection comes off as a pop art exhibit, dedicated to warriors of the road.

- [Man] You can tell when newbies come, 'cuz they're all looking up and they're wandering around.

They got their cameras out and they're just don't even know what to really make of it.

- [Phil] But Troy Thompson knew what to make of it from way back when.

He grew up in nearby Princeton with a fascination for a ghost town called Langley, especially an abandoned grain elevator.

It's been closed since the 1950s.

As a kid, he'd poke around the elevator, he calls it a silo, and dreamed big dreams.

- [Troy] You know, I could see it from the road and it, I don't know, just 'cuz it was tall.

It looked like a cool place to build a fort or something.

you know?

- [Phil] In time, the dream came true.

In 2012, he and some pals bought the elevator, along with 20 surrounding acres of undeveloped brush.

They decided to make a modest investment and open a saloon that looked something like a giant treehouse.

They built a wide bar and surrounding deck, but with no real walls or roof.

They couldn't stay open during the cold winter or rainy spring.

But that also meant no utility bills to heat or cool the place.

- [Troy] Started out thinking, you know, it could be a cool bar, but with low overhead and we'd basically just throw parties.

You know, we knew, you know, a lot of bikers and we kind of called it our little, you know, clubhouse where we could hang out.

If not, if it didn't work as a bar, we'd at least have a cool place to hang out, you know?

So that's kind of how it started.

One thing led to another, it just kept growing and growing.

- [Phil] But it did work out as a bar from the moment Psycho Silo opened in 2015.

The laid back feel and attitude along with the garage wall look and nighttime country and rock shows lured in curiosity seekers.

Soon word crackled throughout watering holes in other spots throughout the area.

Have you heard about Psycho Silo?

- [Dave] We called it a biker bar initially.

That's kind of what it started out as, but I would say it morphed into and yeah, kind of a adult Disneyland, you know, it's like a theme park for our age guys, rat ride guys, car guys, bike guys.

You know, I guess that's how you explain it, I dunno.

- [Phil] That's not to say kids don't dash about the wide property, especially in the early afternoon.

As for grownup patrons, many sport white hair.

- [Dave] My mom comes out every weekend.

She's 80, gonna be 80.

She comes out with her girlfriends and they have lunch.

- [Phil] The food operation is manned by Thompson's parents, Rick and Sue.

Orders move fast, as do the drinks, in part because it's cash only.

Most beers and drinks go for a mere $3, another reason patrons keep coming back.

As for the decor, the exhibits get as big as planes and buses, all vintage.

Meantime, the owners often function as tour guides, pointing out doodads and their histories.

- [Troy] And you can never see it all in one trip.

I mean you can walk through or three times and see different things.

And, I don't know, it's just a destination.

- [Phil] Plus regular customers find plenty of other reasons to come back again and again.

- While it's outside, there's always good people, good food.

A lot of bikes.

They have a lot of car shows.

A lot of different things happen out here.

- [Phil] Concerts will bring thousands of motorcycles on some nights, but one of the biggest draws is simply the location.

Though the business sits out of the way amid cornfields, it seems all roads lead there for area residents as well as cross country travelers.

Even with convenient access, Psycho Silo still feels like a hidden oasis.

- Yeah, the reason we chose the location was, well, it chose us, I guess, but once we started the business, we realized that we had Interstate 80 here and Route 6 and Route 40 and everything was, it's easy to get to, but yet we're in the middle of nowhere, you know.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Julie] In 1862, Albert Cashier joined the Union Army to fight the Civil War.

After many battles, he made a home in the pastoral burg of Saunemin, east of Pontiac.

Cashier was quiet, mostly keeping to himself.

He socialized little.

Nights he'd always lock himself inside his small cabin, but he was known as a hard worker and he was proud of his military service.

Each year, he'd march in the town's Memorial Day Parade, clad in his full army uniform.

Eventually, that's how he was buried, in uniform, in Saunemin.

All in all, the town thought Albert Cashier was a good man, except he wasn't a man at all.

Albert Cashier was Jennie Hodgers, an Irish woman who had immigrated to America in her teens.

For reasons never made clear, she adopted a male identity, staying that way, undetected for decades.

If not for an emergency medical care late in life, she might have taken her gender secret to her grave.

- I would guess you would say he was pretty eccentric.

You know, he of course kept to himself as much as possible, but also had odd jobs in the town, led the Memorial Day Parades that they used to have and you know, carrying the flag and in his uniform and a very proud person.

- [Julie] And more than a hundred years later, the town of Saunemin still wonders, who was Albert Cashier and who was Jennie Hodgers?

In August of 1862, a group of soldiers to be gathered at a train station in Northern Illinois in the village of Belvedere.

They were destined for Rockford to join the 95th Illinois Infantry.

One was a pint sized, pale faced 19 year old, barely over five feet tall.

The volunteer listed his occupation as farming and his name as Albert Cashier.

At induction, with the Union Army desperate for more troops, the physical apparently was not rigorous, at least not to the point Cashier raised any eyebrows as to his gender.

He would spend the rest of the war, almost three years, marching 10,000 miles with his unit from combat to combat.

The smallish Cashier needed help with some tasks, like lugging heavy equipment, but he proved very skillful with a musket and fighting for more than 40 battles.

During downtime, Cashier stayed to himself, but at the sound of gunpowder exploding, he'd turn feisty.

One time, Rebels shot down his unit's battle flag, but Cashier clambered up that tree, gunfire raging all around him as he hoisted up the banner high.

Cashier was known as a tough and daring soldier.

- I think a lot of it was making sure that people thought she was a man.

You know, we didn't wanna be soft and, and quiet.

She was very loud and used a lot of cuss words, we were told, everything to make people believe that really she was who she said she was, Albert.

- [Julie] Another time he was taken captive.

- He was taken by one of the Confederates.

And that's somehow even at his small stature overpowered, whoever it was that had captured him and ended up back with his regiment again.

- [Julie] When the war ended, of the 900 soldiers in Cashier's original unit, only 153 remained.

Cashier headed back to Illinois.

He worked a couple of years in towns before somehow finding his way to Saunemin.

No one ever knew why he came there, but he fit in, in his own way.

Of several jobs, he tended sheep and cattle.

Impressed with Cashier's work ethic, his employer built him a small cabin.

In off hours, Cashier would secure himself inside with several locks.

What did he do in there?

Not much.

- Albert was illiterate, could not read or write.

And of course there, there were was no electricity.

There was no radio, there was, he couldn't pick up a newspaper or a book and read it.

We often wondered what actually kept him from going stir crazy in a, a little bitty cabin.

You know, especially like in the wintertime when, when it's dark early.

And I mean, we have no idea what, what she did to, to keep herself, her mind occupied.

- [Julie] Cashier's life of peaceful aloneness ended in 1910.

He fell ill, so a neighbor called a nurse to help.

The nurse returned in a fright, screaming to a neighbor, my Lord, he's a full-fledged woman.

Despite their shock, neighbors kept quiet about the gender secret, likewise, two years later, when he broke a leg.

In time, though, neighbors worried about Cashier, whose body and mind were declining quickly.

So they sent the 67 year old veteran to the Soldiers and Sailors home in Quincy.

There in an unexplained surprise, the old soldier revealed the truth.

Her name was Jennie Hodgers, born in Clogher Head, Ireland on Christmas Day, 1843 and as a teen, she stowed away on a ship headed for America.

Why change in gender identity?

She never bothered to explain, at least not to any officials.

If the gender switch had anything to do with sexuality, Albert Cashier never showed any such inclinations.

Most speculation tends toward an economic motive.

A military career, unavailable to women, provided a pension and civilian jobs paid at least twice as much to men as women.

- Women had very little status back at that, you know, back in those days and probably thought, Albert probably thought he had a better chance of surviving, being a male, rather than a female.

- [Julie] Cashier remained institutionalized during his last years, the final two of which he was made to wear women's clothing.

Still, survivors of Cashier's regiment continued to visit the aging soldier whom they saw, not as a man or a woman, but just as a brave patriot.

In 1915, an infection killed the old soldier.

The body was returned to Saunemin for burial.

The town, honoring Cashier's disdain for dresses, buried him in his army uniform.

A simple headstone read Albert Cashier, Company G, 95th Illinois Infantry, but years later, the town added another elegant marker listing the names of both Albert Cashier and Jennie Hodgers.

The town salvaged Cashier's old cabin, where he spent so much time alone.

It's now a tourism site, though it scarcely draws more attention than when Cashier lived there himself.

In fact, the 400-some residents of Saunemin, which these days has but a scant commercial district, don't get many outside visitors.

However, Cashier's life has been resuscitated elsewhere.

In 2017, a musical based on his life, The Civility of Albert Cashier, debuted in Chicago.

It opened off Broadway this spring, The story of Albert Cashier and Jennie Hodgers is remarkable, including an odd dichotomy.

Life as a man afforded many more freedoms though never free of a core secret.

- I think that Jenny would be very proud of the fact that she accomplished what she did, that she was able to stow away on a ship to America, that she was able to enter the military and live a life of adventure.

She told several people that that was what her goal was, was that she wanted to have a more exciting life than she would have had as a woman.

(saw buzzing) (upbeat music) - [Julie] Ah, life along the Illinois River.

Majestic waters, nature's creatures, strong commerce, and in Creve Coeur, Wesley Road.

- Hi, I'm Phil Luciano.

And we are today at Wesley Road in Creve Coeur.

Now I know a lot of us could name our worst road, the road we hate the most 'cause it's got potholes, it's a mess, it's this, that road's terrible, this road's awful.

But this road, I guarantee you, gotta be the worst road in all of central Illinois.

It is just looks like a bombed out mess.

It's needed work for a long time.

The good news is, yeah, there's gonna be about $2 million in funding to fix a good chunk of the road, but there's still a lot of it that's gonna need to be fixed.

You might be thinking, well, how bad can this road be?

We're gonna take a trip, bumps and all, screaming and all, I don't even know.

We might even lose the car in one of these potholes.

We're gonna take you along with us.

So we're gonna head down, a little bit down this road and show you what it's all about.

- [Julie] Co-host Julie Sanders, hey, that's me, and our intern Connor picked up Phil and we spent an hour going up and down Wesley Road.

- [Phil] Wesley Road is where Wesley City used to be.

It was here, I don't know, early 1800s and it used to be here.

Now it's out there in the river 'cause the river changed its ways and moved more easterly and sucked up Wesley City.

What's left?

Well, this road.

- [Julie] The northern most part of Wesley Road connects to Illinois Route 29 near the base of Creve Coeur Hill.

It runs along the river for three miles and hooks up again to Route 29 at the McDonald's in North Pekin.

Residents and businesses sit along Wesley Road, which get more traffic as a bypass whenever there's an accident on Route 29.

The southern third of the road is in solid shape.

The rest goes from bad to worse.

This summer, the village will repair the middle third.

Within the next two years, state money will fix the northern third.

Until then, as we found out, it'll be a bumpy ride.

This is the north end.

- [Phil] Okay, so about around here is where the road starts getting kind of choppy or choppier.

Like if this were Disney World, we'd be having a good time.

You pay to be jostled and jerked, but that's not the aim of the road, I don't think, as an amusement park.

- [Julie] And on the south end, after a rain, all those pothole get crazy splashy.

- [Phil] Impassable during high water.

How do you know when it's high water?

I mean it's, you're in the water or not, right?

[Julie] You're not, you're not a boat.

- [Phil] Uh-oh, uh-oh, rough road ahead.

Are you ready?

(tires grinding the road) (passengers laughing) Our trusty intern Connor has been counting potholes.

What is, what's the tally so far Connor?

- [Connor] 4,215.

- [Phil] That's that's a lot, here's two more.

Whoa.

- [Julie] In the middle, it gets nasty.

- [Phil] Now there goes the pavement and now we just have gravel, dirt and prayers.

(upbeat music) How are your intestines, Julie?

- [Julie] They're a little jostled.

But, they're still good, hanging in here.

We started to worry how much the WTVP mobile could take.

- [Phil] Is this is car insured?

[Connor] They have that at the station?

'Cause I think we're gonna need a realignment and four tires, possibly internal surgery.

- [Phil] So here's one of the bigger potholes.

It's probably a pot lake, you'd call it.

And here's trustee intern Connor.

He's gonna measure it.

Don't fall in.

Julie, did you bring your scuba gear to get him out?

- [Julie] I was not prepared to swim.

- [Phil] Not prepared to swim.

- [Julie] All right.

- [Phil] How deep we got out there?

What's that about 50 feet?

- Yeah, something like it.

[Phil] All right, what's it, what's it read?

- Two inches.

- [Phil] Two inches.

It's deadly.

What's deadly to a, it's deadly to a front end alignment.

- [Julie] Yeah, for sure.

- [Phil] And splashy.

- [Julie] All these potholes irritate motorists trying to get to a popular bar and grill known as Kuchies on the River, which is just about smack dab in the middle of the three miles of road.

- But people don't realize how much, how much traffic this road actually gets.

I feel sorry for the people that live on this road because they have to travel that every single day.

Our customers have been affected mostly because they come down, they complain about it.

We try to make it worth the ride.

You know, we joke around about being like Pirates of the Caribbean Adventure Ride that you have to take the ride and then, you know, you get to the other side and you get to have the fun.

- [Julie] In the end, we survived Wesley Road though the trip could have been better.

- [Phil] So what's been the favorite part of this trip for you, the trustee driver, so far.

- Well, I love a good road trip.

Love it, but we don't have any snacks.

Phil's fail.

And I've really enjoyed going through the puddles.

And I think I'm gonna have to wash the car now.

Not surprisingly, the road is still less irritating than Phil.

- [Phil] People have been known to be thrown from their car just driving along Wesley Road.

Have you ever heard that?

- I think you should unhook your seatbelt and let's give it a try.

Connor, make sure you buckle buckled up though, because we want, we wanna protect you.

Not necessarily Phil.

- I think we have this episode all locked up.

- That's the key.

- It is.

- Come back next time for more jokes like that.

Maybe better.

- Hopefully better.

- Aw, you gotta see this.

Well, that's the key.

- Oh, well they gotta see this.

No, that doesn't make any, well.

I'm talking first about the rope.

- Right.

- Yes.

Bumpy ride.

And then you're gonna talk about the armadillo, your new favorite pet.

- I wonder if I can adopt one.

(upbeat music)