Before the U.S. Highway System In 1857, Lt.
Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a naval officer in the service of the
U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, was ordered by the
War Department to build a government-funded wagon road along the
35th Parallel. His secondary orders were to test the feasibility of the use of
camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert. This road became part of US 66. Parts of the original Route 66 from 1913, prior to its official naming and commissioning, can still be seen north of the
Cajon Pass. The paved road becomes a dirt road, south of Cajon, which was also the original Route 66. Before a nationwide network of numbered highways was adopted by the states,
auto trails were marked by private organizations. The route that became US 66 was covered by three highways: • The Lone Star Route passed through
St. Louis on its way from
Chicago to
Cameron, Louisiana, (although US 66 would take a shorter route through
Bloomington rather than
Peoria). • The transcontinental
National Old Trails Road led via St. Louis to
Los Angeles, but was not followed until
New Mexico. Instead, US 66 used one of the main routes of the
Ozark Trails system, which ended at the National Old Trails Road just south of
Las Vegas, New Mexico. Again, a shorter route was taken, here following the Postal Highway between
Oklahoma City and
Amarillo. • The National Old Trails Road became the rest of the route to Los Angeles. Legislation for public highways first appeared in 1916, with revisions in 1921, but the government did not execute a national highway construction plan until Congress enacted an even more comprehensive version of the act in 1925. The original inspiration for a road between Chicago and Los Angeles was planned by entrepreneurs
Cyrus Avery of
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and
John T. Woodruff of
Springfield, Missouri, who lobbied the
American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) for the creation of a route following the 1925 plans.
Birthplace and rise of US 66 in
Springfield, MO. The numerical designation 66 was assigned to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route on April 30, 1926, and traces of the "Mother Road" are still visible in downtown Springfield, along Kearney Street, Glenstone Avenue, College Street and St. Louis Street and on
Route 266 to
Halltown, Missouri. Championed by Avery when the first talks about a national highway system began, US 66 was first signed into law in 1927 as one of the original
U.S. Highways, although it was not completely paved until 1938. Avery was adamant that the highway have a round number and had proposed number 60 to identify it. A controversy erupted over the number 60, largely from delegates from
Kentucky who wanted a
Virginia Beach–Los Angeles highway to be
US 60 and
US 62 between
Chicago, Illinois, and Springfield, Missouri. Arguments and counterarguments continued throughout February, including a proposal to split the proposed route through Kentucky into US 60 North (to Chicago) and US 60 South (to
Newport News). The final conclusion was to have US 60 run between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Springfield, Missouri and the Chicago–Los Angeles route be US 62. Avery and highway engineer John Page settled on "66", which was unassigned, despite the fact that in its entirety, US 66 was north of US 60. The
state of Missouri released its 1926 state highway map with the highway labeled as US 60. After the new federal highway system was officially created, Cyrus Avery called for the establishment of the
U.S. Highway 66 Association to promote the complete paving of the highway from end-to-end and to promote travel down the highway. In 1927, in Tulsa, the association was officially established with
John T. Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, elected the first president. In 1928, the association made its first attempt at publicity, the "
Bunion Derby", a footrace from Los Angeles to
New York City, of which the path from Los Angeles to Chicago would be on US 66. The publicity worked: several dignitaries, including
Will Rogers, greeted the runners at certain points on the route. The race ended in
Madison Square Garden, where the $25,000 first prize (equal to $ in ) was awarded to
Andy Hartley Payne, a Cherokee runner from Oklahoma. The U.S. Highway 66 Association also placed its first advertisement in the July 16, 1932, issue of the
Saturday Evening Post. The ad invited Americans to take US 66 to the
1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. A U.S. Highway 66 Association office in Oklahoma received hundreds of requests for information after the ad was published. The association went on to serve as a voice for businesses along the highway until it disbanded in 1976. Traffic grew on the highway because of the geography through which it passed. Much of the highway was essentially flat and this made the highway a popular
truck route. The
Dust Bowl of the 1930s saw many farming families, mainly from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas, heading west for agricultural jobs in California. US 66 became the main road of travel for these people, often derogatorily called "
Okies" or "Arkies". During the Depression, it gave some relief to communities located on the highway. The route passed through numerous small towns and, with the growing traffic on the highway, helped create the rise of
mom-and-pop businesses, such as
service stations,
restaurants and
motor courts, all readily accessible to passing
motorists. A restored Magnolia fuel station is also located in Shamrock as well as
Vega, in Oldham County, west of Amarillo. During World War II, more migration west occurred because of war-related industries in California. US 66, already popular and fully paved, became one of the main routes and also served for moving military equipment.
Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri was located near the highway, which was locally upgraded quickly to a divided highway to help with military traffic. When
Richard Feynman was working on the
Manhattan Project at
Los Alamos, he used to travel nearly to visit his wife, who was dying of
tuberculosis, in a
sanatorium located on US 66 in
Albuquerque. In the 1950s, US 66 became the main highway for vacationers heading to Los Angeles. The road passed through the
Painted Desert and near the
Grand Canyon.
Meteor Crater in Arizona was another popular stop. This sharp increase in tourism in turn gave rise to a burgeoning trade in all manner of roadside attractions, including
teepee-
shaped motels,
frozen custard stands,
Indian curio shops and reptile farms.
Meramec Caverns near
St. Louis, began advertising on barns, billing itself as the "
Jesse James hideout". The
Big Texan advertised a free steak dinner to anyone who could consume the entire meal in one hour. It also marked the birth of the
fast-food industry:
Red's Giant Hamburg in
Springfield, Missouri, site of the first
drive-through restaurant and the first
McDonald's in
San Bernardino, California. Changes like these to the landscape further cemented US 66's reputation as a near-perfect microcosm of the culture of America, now linked by the automobile.
Changes in routing , along a section of Route 66 named a
National Scenic Byway In 1930, between the Illinois cities of
Springfield and
East St. Louis, US 66 was shifted farther east to what is now roughly
Interstate 55 (I-55). The original alignment, marked as Temporary 66, followed the current
Illinois Route 4 (IL 4). From
downtown St. Louis to
Gray Summit, Missouri, US 66 originally went down Market Street and Manchester Road, which is largely
Route 100. In 1932, this route was changed and the original alignment was never viewed as anything more than temporary. The planned route was down Watson Road, which is now
Route 366 but Watson Road had not been completed yet. In Oklahoma, from west of
El Reno to
Bridgeport, US 66 turned north to
Calumet and then west to
Geary, then southwest across the South Canadian River over a suspension toll bridge into Bridgeport. In 1933, a straighter cut-off route was completed from west of El Reno to south of Bridgeport, crossing over a 38-span steel pony
truss bridge over the South Canadian River, bypassing Calumet and Geary by several miles. From
Santa Rosa, to north of
Los Lunas, in New Mexico, the road originally turned north from current I-40 along much of what is now
US 84 to near
Las Vegas, New Mexico, followed (roughly)
I-25—then the
decertified US 85 through
Santa Fe and Albuquerque to Los Lunas and then turned northwest along the present
New Mexico State Road 6 (NM 6) alignment to a point near Laguna. In 1937, a straight-line route was completed from Santa Rosa through
Moriarty and east–west through
Albuquerque and west to Laguna. This newer routing saved travelers as much as four hours of travel through New Mexico. According to legend, the rerouting was done at the behest of Governor
Arthur T. Hannett, a Democrat, to punish the Republican
Santa Fe Ring, which had long dominated New Mexico out of Santa Fe. In 1936, US 66 was extended from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica to end at US 101 Alt., today the intersection of
Olympic and
Lincoln Boulevards. Even though there is a plaque dedicating US 66 as the
Will Rogers Highway placed at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and
Santa Monica Boulevard, the highway never terminated there. In 1940, the first freeway in Los Angeles was incorporated into US 66; this was the
Arroyo Seco Parkway, later known as the
Pasadena Freeway; now again known as Arroyo Seco Parkway.
Decline gas station. All along the route, preservation efforts are under way to preserve original buildings such as this. , once featured a zoo, gift shop, restaurant, campground, gas station and "death cave" The beginning of the decline for US 66 came in 1956 with the signing of the
Interstate Highway Act by President
Dwight D. Eisenhower who was influenced by his experiences in 1919 as a young Army officer crossing the country in a truck convoy (following the route of the
Lincoln Highway) and his appreciation of the
Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system. During its nearly 60-year existence, US 66 was under constant change. As highway engineering became more sophisticated, engineers constantly sought more direct routes between cities and towns. Increased traffic led to a number of major and minor realignments of US 66 through the years, particularly in the years immediately following World War II when Illinois began widening US 66 to four lanes through virtually the entire state from Chicago to the
Mississippi River just east of
St. Louis and included bypasses around virtually all of the towns. By the early to mid-1950s, Missouri also upgraded its sections of US 66 to four lanes complete with bypasses. Most of the newer four-lane 66 paving in both states was upgraded to freeway status in later years. One notable remnant of US 66 is Veterans Parkway, signed as
Interstate 55 Business (I-55 Bus.), in
Bloomington, Illinois. The sweeping curve on the southeast side of the city originally was intended to easily handle traffic at speeds up to , as part of an effort to make US 66 an
Autobahn equivalent for military transport. In 1953, the first major bypassing of US 66 occurred in Oklahoma with the opening of the
Turner Turnpike between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The new toll road paralleled US 66 for its entire length and bypassed each of the towns along US 66. The Turner Turnpike was joined in 1957 by the new
Will Rogers Turnpike, which connected Tulsa with the Oklahoma-Missouri border west of
Joplin, Missouri, again paralleling US 66 and bypassing the towns in northeastern Oklahoma in addition to its entire stretch through Kansas. Both Oklahoma turnpikes were soon designated as
I-44, along with the US 66 bypass at Tulsa that connected the city with both turnpikes. In some cases, such as many areas in Illinois, the new Interstate Highway not only paralleled the old US 66, it actually used much of the same roadway. A typical approach was to build one new set of lanes, then move one direction of traffic to it, while retaining the original set of lanes for traffic flowing in the opposite direction. Then a second set of lanes for traffic flowing in the other direction would be constructed, finally followed by abandoning the other old set of lanes or converting them into a
frontage road. The same scenario was used in western Oklahoma, when US 66 was initially upgraded to a four-lane highway such as from
Sayre to
Erick to the Texas border at
Texola in 1957 and 1958 where the old paving was retained for westbound traffic and a new parallel lane built for eastbound traffic (much of this section was entirely bypassed by I-40 in 1975) and on two other sections; from
Canute to
Elk City in 1959 and
Hydro to
Weatherford in 1960, both of which were upgraded with the construction of a new westbound lane in 1966 to bring the highway up to full
Interstate Standards and demoting the old US 66 paving to frontage road status. In the initial process of constructing
I-40 across western Oklahoma, the state also included projects to upgrade the through routes in
El Reno, Weatherford,
Clinton, Canute, Elk City, Sayre, Erick and Texola to four-lane highways not only to provide seamless transitions from the rural sections of I-40 from both ends of town but also to provide easy access to those cities in later years after the I-40 bypasses were completed. , east of Groom, Texas, along I-40 (old US 66) In New Mexico, as in most other states, rural sections of
I-40 were to be constructed first with bypasses around cities to come later. However, some business and civic leaders in cities along US 66 were completely opposed to bypassing fearing loss of business and tax revenues. In 1963, the New Mexico Legislature enacted legislation that banned the construction of interstate bypasses around cities by local request. This legislation was short-lived, however, due to pressures from Washington and threat of loss of federal highway funds so it was rescinded by 1965. In 1964,
Tucumcari and
San Jon became the first cities in New Mexico to work out an agreement with state and federal officials in determining the locations of their I-40 bypasses as close to their business areas as possible in order to permit easy access for highway travelers to their localities. Other cities soon fell in line including
Santa Rosa,
Moriarty,
Grants and
Gallup although it wasn't until well into the 1970s that most of those cities would be bypassed by I-40. By the late 1960s, most of the rural sections of US 66 had been replaced by I-40 across New Mexico with the most notable exception being the strip from the Texas border at
Glenrio west through San Jon to Tucumcari, which was becoming increasingly treacherous due to heavier and heavier traffic on the narrow two-lane highway. During 1968 and 1969, this section of US 66 was often referred to by locals and travelers as "Slaughter Lane" due to numerous injury and fatal accidents on this stretch. Local and area business and civic leaders and news media called upon state and federal highway officials to get I-40 built through the area. Disputes over proposed highway routing in the vicinity of San Jon held up construction plans for several years as federal officials proposed that I-40 run some north of that city while local and state officials insisted on following a proposed route that touched the northern city limits of San Jon. In November 1969, a truce was reached when federal highway officials agreed to build the I-40 route just outside the city, therefore providing local businesses dependent on highway traffic easy access to and from the freeway via the north–south highway that crossed old US 66 in San Jon. I-40 was completed from Glenrio to the east side of San Jon in 1976 and extended west to Tucumcari in 1981, including the bypasses around both cities. , in 2007 Originally, highway officials planned for the last section of US 66 to be bypassed by interstates in Texas, but as was the case in many places, lawsuits held up construction of the new interstates. The US Highway 66 Association had become a voice for the people who feared the loss of their businesses. Since the interstates only provided access via ramps at interchanges, travelers could not pull directly off a highway into a business. At first, plans were laid out to allow mainly national chains to be placed in interstate medians. Such lawsuits effectively prevented this on all but toll roads. Some towns in Missouri threatened to sue the state if the US 66 designation was removed from the road, though lawsuits never materialized. Several businesses were well known to be on US 66 and fear of losing the number resulted in the state of Missouri officially requesting the designation "Interstate 66" for the St. Louis to Oklahoma City section of the route, but it was denied. As the interstates were built, US 66 was decertified in the west and east, and by 1979, the highway officially ran from Interstate 40 in Kingman, Arizona to Interstate 44 east of Joplin, Missouri. In 1984, Arizona also saw its final stretch of highway decommissioned with the completion of
I-40 just north of
Williams, Arizona. Finally, with decertification of the highway by the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials the following year, US 66 officially ceased to exist. never having been resurfaced to make them into full-width highways. These old sections have a single, paved lane, concrete curbs to mark the edge of the lane and gravel shoulders for passing. Some states have kept the 66 designation for parts of the highway, albeit as state roads. In Missouri, Routes
366,
266 and
66 are all original sections of the highway.
State Highway 66 (SH-66) in Oklahoma remains as the
alternate "free" route near its turnpikes. "Historic Route 66" runs for a significant distance in and near
Flagstaff, Arizona. Farther west, a long segment of US 66 in Arizona runs significantly north of I-40 and much of it is designated as
State Route 66 (SR 66). This runs from
Seligman to
Kingman, Arizona, via
Peach Springs. A surface street stretch between
San Bernardino and
La Verne (known as
Foothill Boulevard) to the east of
Los Angeles retains its number as
SR 66. Several county roads and city streets at various places along the old route have also retained the "66" number.
Revival in
Mt Olive, Illinois The first
Route 66 associations were founded in Arizona in 1987 and, in 1989, Missouri (incorporated in 1990) and Illinois. Other groups in the other US 66 states soon followed. In 1990, the state of Missouri declared US 66 in that state a "State Historic Route". The first "Historic Route 66" marker in Missouri was erected on Kearney Street at Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri (now replaced—the original sign has been placed at
Route 66 State Park near
Eureka). Other historic markers now line—at times sporadically—the entire length of road. In many communities, local groups have painted or stenciled the "66" and
U.S. Route shield or outline
directly onto the road surface, along with the state's name. in
Seligman, Arizona. The eatery is still a popular tourist stop. Various sections of the road itself have been placed on the
National Register of Historic Places. The Arroyo Seco Parkway in the Los Angeles Area and US 66 in New Mexico have been made into National Scenic Byways.
Williams Historic Business District and
Urban Route 66, Williams were added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and 1989, respectively. In 2005, the State of Missouri made the road a state scenic byway from Illinois to Kansas. In the cities of
Rancho Cucamonga,
Rialto and
San Bernardino in California, there are US 66 signs erected along
Foothill Boulevard and also on Huntington Drive in the city of
Arcadia. "Historic Route 66" signs may be found along the old route on
Colorado Boulevard in
Pasadena and along
Foothill Boulevard in
San Dimas,
La Verne and
Claremont, California. The city of
Glendora, California, renamed Alosta Avenue, its section of US 66, by calling it "Route 66".
Flagstaff, Arizona, renamed all but a few blocks of Santa Fe Avenue as "Route 66". Until 2017, when it was moved to the nearby
Millennium Park, the annual June
Chicago Blues Festival was held each year in
Grant Park and included a "Route 66 Roadhouse" stage on Columbus Avenue, a few yards north of old US 66/Jackson Boulevard (both closed to traffic for the festival) and a block west of the route's former eastern terminus at
US 41 (
Lake Shore Drive). Many preservation groups have tried to save and even landmark the old
motels and
neon signs along the road in some states. In 1999, President
Bill Clinton signed a
National Route 66 Preservation Bill that provided for $10 million in matching fund grants for preserving and restoring the historic features along the route. Since 2001,
Springfield, Illinois, has annually held its "International Route 66 Mother Road Festival" in its downtown district surrounding the
Old State Capitol. In 2008, the
World Monuments Fund added US 66 to the
World Monuments Watch as sites along the route such as gas stations, motels, cafés, trading posts and drive-in movie theaters are threatened by development in urban areas and by abandonment and decay in rural areas. The National Park Service developed a Route 66
Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary describing over one hundred individual historic sites. As the popularity and mythical stature of US 66 has continued to grow, demands have begun to mount to improve signage, return US 66 to road atlases and revive its status as a continuous routing. The U.S. Route 66 Recommissioning Initiative is a group that seeks to recertify US 66 as a
US Highway along a combination of historic and modern alignments. The group's redesignation proposal does not enjoy universal support, as requirements that the route meet modern US Highway system specifications could force upgrades that compromise its historic integrity or require US 66 signage be moved to
Interstate highways for some portions of the route. In 2018, the
AASHTO designated the first sections of
U.S. Bicycle Route 66, part of the
United States Bicycle Route System, in Kansas and Missouri.
National Museum of American History The
National Museum of American History in
Washington, D.C. has a section on US 66 in its "America on the Move" exhibition. In the exhibit is a portion of pavement of the route taken from Bridgeport, Oklahoma and a restored car and truck of the type that would have been driven on the road in the 1930s. Also on display is a "
Hamons Court" neon sign that hung at a gas station and tourist cabins near Hydro, Oklahoma, a "CABINS" neon sign that pointed to Ring's Rest tourist cabins in
Muirkirk, Maryland, as well as several post cards a traveler sent back to his future wife while touring the route.
Museums and monuments in Oklahoma Elk City, Oklahoma has the National Route 66 & Transportation Museum, which encompasses all eight states through which the Mother Road ran.
Clinton has the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, designed to display the iconic ideas, images and myths of the Mother Road. A memorial museum to the Route's namesake,
Will Rogers, is located in
Claremore, while his birthplace ranch is maintained in
Oologah. In
Sapulpa, the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum features a replica gas pump, the world's tallest.
Tulsa has multiple sites, starting with the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza, located at the east end of the historic
11th Street Bridge over which the route passed and which includes a giant sculpture weighing called "East Meets West". The sculpture depicts the Avery family riding west in a Model T Ford meeting an eastbound horse-drawn carriage. In 2020, Avery Plaza Southwest opened, at the west end of the bridge, which features a "neon park" with replicas of the neon signs from Tulsa-area Route 66 motels of the era, including the Tulsa Auto Court, the Oil Capital Motel and the famous bucking-bronco sign of the Will Rogers Motor Court. Future plans for that site also include a Route 66 Museum. Also, Tulsa has installed "Route 66 Rising", a sculpture on the road's former eastern approach to town at East Admiral Place and Mingo Road. On Tulsa's Southwest Boulevard, between W. 23rd and W. 24th Streets there is a granite marker dedicated to Route 66 as the Will Rogers Highway which features an image of namesake
Will Rogers together with information on the route from
Michael Wallis, author of
Route 66: The Mother Road; and, at Howard Park just past W. 25th Street, three Indiana limestone pillars are dedicated to Route 66 through Tulsa, with Route 66 #1 devoted to Transportation, Route 66 #2 devoted to Tulsa Industry and Native American Heritage and Route 66 #3 devoted to Art Deco Architecture and American Culture. At 3770 Southwest Blvd. is the Route 66 Historical Village, which includes a tourism information center modeled after a 1920s-1930s gas station and other period-appropriate artifacts such as the
Frisco 4500 steam locomotive with train cars. Elsewhere, Tulsa has constructed twenty-nine historical markers scattered along the 26-mile route of the highway through Tulsa, containing tourist-oriented stories, historical photos and a map showing the location of historical sites and the other markers.
Museum and Hall of Fame in Illinois The Route 66 Association of Illinois maintains their Museum and Hall of Fame in
Pontiac. This free museum contains memorabilia and artifacts relating to Route 66, particularly in Illinois, as well as displays relating to the members of the Hall of Fame. Among items on display are the VW Microbus and "land yacht" belonging to the late
Bob Waldmire. ==Route description==