McLean: Funk's Grove and the Maple Sirup Road

McLean is a small Illinois prairie town on the original Route Sixty-Six alignment, and its most distinctive neighbor is Funk's Grove, a remnant stand of sugar maple forest that has been tapped by the Funk family for generations, ever since the family settled here in eighteen twenty-four. The grove is one of the largest intact maple forests remaining in central Illinois, a survivor of the agricultural clearing that converted virtually all of the state's original woodland to farmland.

The Funk family intentionally spells their product sirup rather than syrup, maintaining an older English spelling they consider more accurate. Funk's Grove Pure Maple Sirup has been sold along this road in one form or another since before Route Sixty-Six was designated, and the simple wood-sided stand on the highway is one of the most genuinely old operations on the entire Illinois corridor. The season runs roughly six weeks in late winter, when the sap runs, and sells out every year.