- Tonight's episode, sweet and delicious.

- We're cooking up some great stories for you on "You Gotta See This!"

(upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music) I heard your trip to La Salle was actually a delicious locale.

- It was indeed.

You might have heard of the program, the state program Illinois Made.

- Yeah.

- And they recognize businesses that work with their hands.

- Mm-hmm.

Like me.

Boo, boo, boo.

- Yeah, just like that, except they work a lot harder at this bakery.

- Oh.

Come on.

- They work so hard, the stuff they make is so good, there are folks from Chicago and beyond coming to this place for their breads, their confections, all this stuff.

You wanna check it out?

- Let's do it.

- [Phil] 60 miles north of Peoria, the smell and promise of baked goods lures customers from far and wide.

- Welcome in to Millstone Bakery in the historic Downtown La Salle.

- [Phil] The business got its start in a most unconventional way.

- I was never really a baker.

It started with the pandemic.

I got on the quest of making the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

And so we made a lot of chocolate chip cookies.

We were eating a lot of chocolate cookies.

- [Phil] Those cookies were so good that Kent Maze and partner Erin Maze thought others might like them as well.

So why not start a bakery?

Not just cookies, but breads, coffee, and other treats as well.

- So these are some of our, we do sourdough every single day.

So we always have the top shelf 'cause we make the most of it.

We also do specialty sourdoughs every day.

- [Phil] Since day one, customers have been lining up.

- I don't think we could have ever imagined how much the community would rally around what we're doing and, you know, how much the staff just pours their and soul into this.

- [Phil] In just two years, the bakery has enjoyed a quick rise.

- So here we have our stone oven.

This is our Italian loaf.

It's ready to come out of the oven.

So we use these peels, put it on there.

And you see that nice crust, that nice golden exterior.

- [Phil] In just two years, the bakery has enjoyed a quick rise.

It recently was named to Illinois Made, the state's roster of distinct small businesses.

Not too bad for part-time work.

Kent is a corporate tax attorney.

Erin is a project manager for a small real estate development company.

But seven employees help keep the place humming and customers smiling.

- And when you do it fresh every day, we have to have a team in here producing high-quality, you know, products every single day, just like a manufacturer would.

- [Phil] During the pandemic, when they first baked all those chocolate chip cookies, they were living in Michigan.

They wondered where to open a bakery when they thought about Erin's hometown of La Salle.

- We decided that we wanted to move back here because Erin loves Downtown La Salle particularly.

And so we wanted be closer to our family.

We wanted to do something for the community.

And we were looking and thinking, you know, what could bring people downtown?

And we always loved traveling and finding really neat bakeries where they make everything from scratch.

And we realized there's nothing like that within an hour radius of this area, - [Phil] They found a spot in an 1880s retail shop that had hosted many businesses over the decades, most recently a comic bookstore.

But the interior needed a lot of work.

- So it was sort of an old wood panel building.

A lot of the colors were very dated, everything was very worn.

And so they took off the carpet, they repainted the walls and the ceiling, and we kitted it out for a bakery.

And it really looks like a whole new place.

- [Phil] They chose the name Millstone as a nod to the area's rich history in growing grain and baking bread.

- Downtown La Salle I think at its peak had about four bakeries.

Peru had a couple of bakeries as well.

There was a lot of sort of agricultural milling and turning things into bread and different baked products.

(upbeat music) - And that really goes to the roots of baking, is the simple process.

Using really good ingredients, using traditional methods.

- [Phil] The process is a European style that takes time, such as for their popular sourdough bread.

- So this is gonna be our sourdough.

It just got mixed, so it's not quite, it's not at all the final product.

But what you do is you put your hands in there, and you fold it over itself rather than kneading.

We don't knead, we fold.

It takes about 26 hours to make.

So you get a slow fermentation that really rises slowly, builds all that flavor in there, and you can really taste the difference.

And that's why it's more European.

You don't add all the preservatives that are in a lot of bakeries and a lot of kind of commercial breads.

So it's just a different style.

I think one thing Millstone is known for is just making really good-quality products.

Really artistic.

And it's just a really neat experience to see.

- [Phil] The enthusiastic clientele includes sisters Jill Campos and Jean Carter, who live nearby in Peru.

They say Millstone has become a community gathering ground.

- Sometimes we sit here and we call them clients.

The regulars come in and they join our table, and sometimes we have up to eight people at our table.

Sometimes we're here for three hours.

So no, it's the whole experience we enjoy here.

- [Phil] Other customers come from many miles away.

- It seems like a lot of people have relatives or family from outside the area.

And sometimes, we had a woman in this morning who was buying bread to gift to her daughter this weekend when she goes up and visits her in Chicago.

So I think there's a, sort of a, here's a nice fresh baked bread like Grandma used to make, kind of as a show of affection or love.

- [Phil] And many come from more than bread.

They bolster tourism, a key economic driver in the Starved Rock area.

- We have a couple regulars for about 45 minutes out, and then they come to the bakery, and then they make a day of it.

They go to the boutiques.

They go to the Quilting In The Valley.

They go to Nina's Market for lunch.

So I think that's one neat thing about our area, La Salle, is you come for the bakery, and then you stay for the shops, you stay for the canal, you stay for the towpath.

It's just a really neat area.

And hopefully it encourages other people with ideas about a business.

You know, there might not be a business like that around here, like this bakery.

Give them the motivation to say, "Hey, this could succeed."

There's a market for really cool artisan places around here.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ Oh ♪ Oh ♪ Oh (upbeat music) ♪ Oh (upbeat music) - Central Illinois is a great place to live.

We have all these amazing people that are right here, just like an artist we talked to who lives in Bloomington, our own backyard, and he is world renowned.

And nobody realizes he's here.

- The name of Nicolas Africano.

I didn't know his name until I met him.

And most people don't know that name, but worldwide, like you were saying, the art world reveres this guy and what he's been doing for more than a half century.

Let's go to Bloomington and see what he does, where he does it.

For more than half a century, the artist has toiled in relative anonymity.

In Central Illinois, that is.

In the art world, he is renowned around the globe.

His works have appeared in some of the most important galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

But in the town of Normal, he works quietly, unbothered by fame.

His name is Nicolas Africano.

- I'm an artist who just says here, "I think this is beautiful.

Or does it have some other, more meaningful implications?"

- [Phil] And the Peoria Riverfront Museum wants to introduce him to you.

The museum recently opened a permanent display called "Nicolas Africano: Themes and Variations."

(gentle music) Museum Curator Bill Conger hopes to expand the three pieces into a vast chronicle of Africanos' vibrant and vital career.

- There is no denying the importance of Nicolas Africano in the art world.

- [Phil] Born in Kankakee in 1948, Africano came to Illinois State University in the early '70s to study English literature, hoping to pursue a writing career.

As he started writing stories, he'd supplement his prose with illustrations.

Soon, he felt his artwork far outpaced his writing in terms of powerful storytelling.

So in 1975, he earned a master's degree in painting.

From there, he would create sparse but powerful paintings, often depicting emotional struggles.

Africano is often associated with the new image movement, which aimed less to the viewing public's head and more to the heart.

- The new image painters were a bridge from those conceptualist, minimalist, the harder, colder ways of thinking about art, into a much more sensorial kind of experience with art.

They were extremely important.

It was fairly short-lived, this moment, in art time, but Nicolas was right there in the middle of that.

- [Phil] Then as now, Africano lived in Normal, eventually setting up a studio in an abandoned orphanage.

He finds the community calm and comfortable, a good place to make a home for his wife and three children.

Though he frequently has visited New York for his exhibits there, he has seen no reason to relocate to better fit in with the art world.

- This studio represents an opportunity to fulfill my ambitions because really, frankly, I just have never cared as much about anyone's approval or disapproval.

- [Phil] In more recent times, Africano moved away from paint to glass, using the medium like few other artists.

(gentle music) He sculpts with wax, with wife Rebecca as his model and muse.

Then the wax is cast with glass, which he then works further in search of his ultimate vision.

- Glass is a paradox.

It's a solid, real, concrete material and form, but its translucency, more or less, to a greater or less degree, allows it to have this ethereal quality at the same time.

So I saw the progression as the nakedness.

- [Phil] With his five-decade body of work, what is he trying to say?

He is simply trying to reflect what he sees.

- And I am not interested in any kind of moral lesson, nor do I ever suggest that my work provides an answer for the inequities we live with on a daily basis.

In fact, it suggests the opposite.

It says we're always vulnerable.

- [Phil] His works carry an ambiguity that leaves interpretation to the viewer.

- I think that for me, that's what lends the mysticism, the beauty, the magic of these, is I don't really want to know too much.

I don't really want all these questions answered.

- [Phil] That beauty prompted Conger to seek out Africano a few years ago.

- It made no sense that there were no museums in our area that I could go to and learn more about Nicolas Africano.

He's right in our backyard.

We decided that this was something we could do.

(gentle music) - [Phil] The museum recently purchased three pieces for the permanent Africano exhibit: a glass cast of Teresa and a painting and glass cast of Bell.

- Really, there's so much dissonance between the two pieces.

They couldn't be farther apart in terms of emotional content.

Bell seems to be lost in thought or imagining some beautiful divine awakening.

And Teresa is clearly scarred.

She actually has a physical scar in here.

So there's a tension between the two works that we found absolutely entrancing.

- [Phil] The museum intends to expand its collection of Africano artworks.

For his part, Africano lauds the museum for what he calls an impressive effort to showcase many genres of art, an evolving collection that Africano hopes Central Illinois will appreciate.

- What it all has in common is that they represent the power of imagination.

(gentle music) - You know, "You've Gotta See This!"

is so great, for a lot of reasons.

Hey, the hosts, of course, but also, we get to meet interesting people and go interesting places.

- Including some of the smallest towns around here that can be the most interesting, like Standard, Illinois, which if you've never been there, it used to be a booming mining town.

Now it's smaller 'cause they don't have mines anymore.

In fact, there's only one public place where people can gather, and they've been doing it for 90-plus years.

- Wow.

- Same family has owned it the whole time.

Why do people want to go there?

Well, let's take a look.

Break a mirror?

That's supposed to bring seven years' bad luck.

But not for Bellino's Tavern.

There, on the first day of business in 1933, the mirror on the back bar split.

However, cracked and all, the pub is still going strong after 90-plus years.

- Yeah, we've been good luck since then.

(laughs) - [Phil] Good luck, indeed.

He is the fourth generation of Bellinos behind the bar.

And though the tiny village of Standard has dwindled in size over the decades, Bellino's Tavern survives as the lone gathering spot in town.

- I think a lot of people have been coming here for a long time, so there's a lot of memories.

- [Phil] About 40 miles northeast of Peoria, tiny Standard sits in Putnam County, the smallest county in the state.

These days, Standard's population is barely above 200.

But in its heyday, Standard boasted almost 1,000 residents.

That was back in the 1920s, when Standard, like many Illinois Valley towns, hosted a coal mine.

- There was a grocery store, like, probably most small towns had back then.

The store building's still down there.

Obviously, it's not open anymore.

- [Phil] One of those miners was Peter Bellino, Sr. Like many miners, he'd emigrated from Italy.

After the mine closed, he turned a vacant Standard grocery into a saloon.

And as soon as prohibition ended in 1933, he opened his place.

- At that time, there was a lot of bars, from my understanding.

I don't know how many, but there was a lot more back then.

- [Phil] Amid all that competition, a bad omen struck the grand opening, thanks to nearby train tracks.

- But the train came through, and the vibrations cracked the glass.

And so it's been cracked ever since.

- [Phil] Cracked and all, the original back bar remains intact.

It's a point of interest for new customers who stop while traveling along Illinois Route 71.

- So we get a lot of newcomers actually from the, like, Peoria area coming up to, like, Starved Rock or Utica.

They'll come through on 71 to the beer sign and just swing in.

And then they'll come from Chicagoland area, too, the same way.

And so the first thing that usually catches their attention is the old bar and the back bar.

- [Phil] Newbies also like the original floor, time-worn furniture, and the rest of the throwback look and feel.

- And then when they find out it's family owned for 90 years and I'm like the fourth generation, then that's also a, you know, they also like that story.

- [Phil] But the story they like the most?

It stars Antoinette Bellino, John's great-grandmother.

In 1974, as the widow of the original owner, she ran the place with the help of son Pete.

- So she, I believe, was like 73 or so when this happened.

She was in here bartending.

There was one person in here and someone came in to rob the place.

The customer I think may have knocked the robber off balance, and she came out from behind the bar with a rifle and hit him over the head with a rifle stock.

Knocked him unconscious, they called the police, and the police came and arrested him.

So that's another local famous story.

- [Phil] The stories are great for newcomers, but longtime clientele simply enjoy the familiar faces and surroundings.

That's important in tiny Standard, whose business district otherwise includes a post office and a heating and cooling company.

- A lot of the regulars started coming here probably as soon as they were legal, maybe even before they were legal, especially if anyone's from town would come in with their parents.

So there's a lot of multi-generational customers who still come in.

So I think it's just a place to see friends and remember old memories.

- [Phil] Craig Vignali recalls coming in as a boy for chips and soda while his dad visited with friends.

Now 72, he still visits from his home in nearby Granville.

- I guess it's kind of like the youth center for older people, is the best way to explain it.

You know, it just, it promotes gathering of people, which is pretty rare nowadays.

- [Phil] It's really rare in Standard.

There, cracked mirror and all, Bellino's Tavern still serves as the only public house, a beacon to locals and beyond.

- It's just a community gathering place that, the whole of Putnam County.

You see people from all over stop here.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Phil] To sell a lot of gas, William Sprague used a little flash.

Setting up any business was a risk during the Depression, and in 1930, Vine Street in Bloomington already had two other filling stations.

Still, Sprague decided to build a new place, but one unlike the sparse cookie-cutter stations connected to big oil.

To grab motorists' eyes and attention and their business, he crafted an independent station in a two-door revival style, Sprague's Super Service.

- Most of the gas stations at that time were just tiny little square boxes or rectangles of cinder blocks, so this would really stand out in the neighborhood.

- [Phil] Though the pump shut down decades ago, visitors still stop to take a look into yesteryear as they get their kicks on 66.

- There is such a resurgence of interest in traveling Route 66.

I have hundreds of people a month who stop here.

30% of my visitors are international.

So everybody is trying to get back to that, you know, that original Route 66.

And so this is an authentic building that has been restored to its authentic look from 1930.

- [Phil] Ryburn is the proprietor of Ryburn Place, a gift shop inside Sprague's Super Service.

She serves as the unofficial historian of the site and the neighborhood.

Sprague, a contractor by trade, began building his operation at 305 East Pine Street in 1930.

At the time, Route 66 was just four years old, riding along established streets and thoroughfares connecting 2,000 miles of asphalt between Chicago and Santa Monica.

♪ Get your kicks out on Route 66 ♪ (upbeat music) - [Phil] Most filling stations at the time, including two on Vine Street in Bloomington, had no frills in design or offerings.

And they often were connected to petroleum companies like Texaco and Gulf.

So independent operators like Sprague had to find a way to stand out to passersby and establish loyalty to locals.

As a backlash against drab commercialism, Sprague's station was designed with steep gables, a broad roof line, thick brick piers, and stucco swirls.

Plus, it stood two stories tall, completely unusual in the gas trade of the time.

- He built apartments upstairs.

So the one for he and his wife was the size of this entire downstairs.

So it was quite large for two people.

And he built a small apartment above the two-bay garage for the mechanic or the attendant.

So it's very smart to have everybody live right on site.

- [Phil] Sprague also had the vision to offer more than just gas.

- He had a cafe on the first floor, as well as an office.

He had a two-bay attached garage.

And that was very unusual to have that with a, you know, pits in the floor where the mechanic could get up under the cars and work year round.

- [Phil] Opening in 1931, the station was a great draw through that decade.

Even when the new four-lane strip took Route 66 in a loop skirting around Bloomington in 1940, Vine Street remained busy as a business route.

- This was the kind of shortcut into town.

If you were coming into Normal from the north, and we had a lot of folks obviously coming into Normal to attend Illinois State University, you had to go right past here.

So it was still very heavily trafficked.

- [Phil] Soon though, Interstate 55 would pull much of that traffic away from the city limits of Bloomington-Normal.

In the 1960s, the site would change hands multiple times as a host of several businesses.

- They took the gas tanks out in the 1970s.

That's when they removed the original pumps and sold them.

I bought this in 2006.

The building had really deteriorated.

It hadn't been maintained, so it had holes in the roof.

And, you know, if you have leaking water, it destroys everything in its path.

So this interior was completely destroyed.

Ceilings, walls, floors.

So frankly, only a crazy person would've bought it in that condition.

- [Phil] But Ryburn bought it anyway.

A Bloomington native and Illinois State University administrator, she couldn't turn her back on Route 66.

- I couldn't let it go.

My family had traveled it when I was a little kid, and I always had that happy memory, you know, that adventure of travel.

And I'd driven it a few times as an adult.

Plus, I wrote my dissertation about Route 66 to get my doctorate in history.

- She did manage to get the site onto the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame.

But after running out of restoration money, she sold the site to the Town of Normal in 2016.

It now functions as a visitor center, as well as host to Ryburn's shop.

- The town recognized at that point what an important building it is, not just to the town of Normal as a historic building, but also to the larger community of Route 66.

- [Phil] At age 75, Ryburn isn't sure how long she'll continue running her shop, but at least until 2026, the 100th anniversary of the fabled road.

But she feels gratified in her role in keeping alive a vestige of Route 66.

- It's my legacy, essentially.

(bell rings) - I think that episode was on the right track for us.

Good people, great places.

- Always like telling good stories.

And we'll tell more down the line on.

- "You Gotta See This!"

Whoo, whoo, whoo!

All aboard!

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)