With the third highest total of interstate routes and mileage, Illinois' central location solidifies its place as the “heart of the country’s interstate highway system” with 2,185 miles of interstate across the state. Home to the first McDonald’s and the invention of Twinkies, Illinois takes pride in having one of the most complex highway networks in the country. Their efforts extend beyond their own highway system—read on to learn about Illinois’s interstate system and other ways they promote transportation in our country.
Given that 80% of the state is farmland, it's surprising that Illinois ranks third in the country for highways and interstates. In reality, Illinois is home to so much more. Firstly, this state is the leading producer of soybeans, corn, and swine but also produces cattle, wheat, poultry, produce, and even specialty crops like buckwheat, ostriches, and Christmas trees. Annually, agriculture earns $51.1 billion, with crops accounting for 40% of the total. They also export $10.6 billion to other countries, ranking fifth nationally. This success is partly due to the state’s favorable climate and varied soil, and partly due to its 2,185 miles of interstates and 15,969 miles of state highways. This makes Illinois’s agricultural products fast and easy to transport by truck. Thanks to Chicago being home to the largest rail gateway in the nation, train transport is also easy to come by. Illinois also has 1,100 airports, landing areas, and heliports, allowing for transportation by plane as well. Finally, with 1,118 miles of waterways, barge traffic is also an option for shipping grain to the Gulf of Mexico. There are also over 7,200 trucking establishments in the state. That's an impressive utilization of transportation!
When the interstate system was first being constructed, Illinois was the fourth most populous state, having earned statehood on December 3, 1818. Considering the first and second highest totals of interstate routes and mileage belong to New York and California, Illinois taking third place is that much more impressive. Not only is the interstate system and transportation central to our country, but their role in our food supply is critical, as well as a key part of our economic structure. Though we’re grateful to Illinois for bringing the nation McDonald’s and Twinkies, we have to marvel at Chicago having not only one of the largest libraries in the country, but also one of the largest science museums in the world.
Illinois not only maintains its thriving transportation system but also educates the public about remarkable transportation feats at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry! Open since 1933, you can still experience Griffin’s first exhibit: riding a hoist down to a “working” coal mine, and learning about how our mining methods and machinery have evolved over the past century. A year later, in 1934, the record-setting Zephyr, a diesel-electric engine train, ran from Denver to Colorado in just 13 hours. Now, the Zephyr can be seen in person, representing one of the biggest innovations in locomotive travel, influencing how we ride the rails today. In fact, Griffin MSI even has a model of the entire 2,200 miles of railroad from Chicago to Seattle in a 3,500 square foot exhibit.
More than just planes, trains, and automobiles, this Chicago museum also houses one-of-a-kind space- and underwater crafts. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft holds center stage for the Henry Crown Space Center Exhibit, highlighting how our technology is writing the future of exploring the unknown space frontier. When it comes to underwater innovations, the German submarine, U-505, can also be seen. Learn about and see in person “something the length of a city block, weighing three times the Statue of Liberty”—and how the U.S. Navy managed to track and capture this sub in 1944, earning a huge win for the Allied forces during World War II. The Griffin Museum in Illinois remains thorough in educating and sharing the nation’s history of transportation.
The Illinois Department of Transportation might hail the state as the “heart of the … interstate system,” but with 80% farmland as one of our nation’s major agricultural producers, and home to the western hemisphere’s largest science museum that showcases our major transportation feats, Illinois is so much more! Whether you find yourself on one of the state’s 24 interstates to check out where our food comes from, explore the origin of the Twinkie, or take in any of Chicago’s Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, remember that Interstate Signways marked the way!