Joliet Audioguides

Joliet is a city of about 150,000 people on the Des Plaines River in Will County, Illinois, and it occupies a particular place in American pop culture as the city that gave Joliet Jake Blues his nickname in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. The opening scene of that film, shot in two days in August 1979, shows Jake emerging from the limestone walls of the Joliet Correctional Center on Collins Street, a state penitentiary that opened in 1858 and closed in 2002. The prison, with its Gothic limestone towers, is now a tourist attraction that hosts film screenings, haunted tours, and memorabilia events.

Joliet sits at the northern end of Route 66 and was an important stop on the historic highway.

The Rialto Square Theatre, opened on 24 May 1926, is one of the finest surviving examples of American movie palace architecture, designed in a combination of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine styles with a lobby modelled on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The theatre's survival in a working-class Midwest city is a minor miracle, and it still hosts concerts and performances throughout the year. Joliet is also a significant gambling destination, with several riverboat casinos on the Des Plaines River, and the city's fortunes have been somewhat tied to the fortunes of that industry.