Route 66

It was not originally paved all the way through. When the highway was first officially commissioned in 1926, it was basically just a loose network of existing local dirt and gravel roads, and it actually took twelve full years before the entire route was continuously paved in 1938.

An Oklahoma businessman is the true father of the highway. Cyrus Avery, a visionary from Tulsa, aggressively championed the specific Chicago to Los Angeles diagonal route, knowing it would bring massive economic opportunities straight through his home state.

John Steinbeck gave the road its most famous nickname. In his classic novel The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck perfectly captured the desperation of the era and forever immortalized the highway by dubbing it the Mother Road.

It was a lifeline during the devastating Dust Bowl. During the severe droughts of the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of displaced farming families packed everything they owned into rattling jalopies and used the route to migrate toward the promise of agricultural jobs in California.

The famous song was written on an actual cross-country drive. In 1946, songwriter Bobby Troup penned the lyrics to Get Your Kicks on Route 66 while driving out to Hollywood, creating an absolute smash hit that was famously recorded by Nat King Cole.

It completely revolutionized small-town economies. Practically overnight, isolated and sleepy desert towns were transformed into bustling neon-lit hubs filled with auto mechanics, gas stations, and motor courts specifically catering to the endless stream of passing tourists.

Business owners invented wild novelty architecture to grab your attention. Because drivers were zipping past so quickly, roadside entrepreneurs built massive, kitschy structures like giant twin arrows, enormous blue whales, and towering dinosaurs just to get families to pull over and spend money.

You can actually sleep inside a concrete teepee. The legendary Wigwam Motels offered road-trippers an incredibly unique overnight experience in individual, teepee-shaped rooms, and a few of these quirky historical locations are still beautifully preserved and accepting guests today.

It played a massive role in the birth of the fast-food industry. The very first McDonald’s restaurant opened right along the route in San Bernardino, California, perfectly capitalizing on the booming, car-centric culture of post-war America.

The Green Book was absolutely essential for Black travelers. During the era of strict segregation, African American families relied heavily on The Negro Motorist Green Book to safely navigate the highway and find welcoming motels, diners, and gas stations along the deeply divided route.

The route crossed three different time zones and eight states. At its absolute longest, the continuous highway stretched for nearly two thousand and five hundred miles, crossing Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

A president’s love for German engineering killed the highway. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was deeply inspired by the efficiency of the German Autobahn during World War II, leading him to champion the massive Interstate Highway System in 1956, which slowly bypassed the charming two-lane road.

It was officially erased from modern maps in 1985. After the massive new interstates completely absorbed all the cross-country traffic, the federal government officially decommissioned Route 66, taking down the legendary shield signs and leaving many small towns to completely fade away.

Preservationists successfully brought it back from the dead. Passionate historical societies, authors, and local business owners refused to let the road disappear, successfully lobbying to have large surviving stretches officially designated as a National Scenic Byway to protect its incredible legacy.

The road physically moved several times over the decades. Because the highway was constantly being realigned, straightened, or rerouted to bypass growing city centers, there are actually multiple different historical alignments, meaning you have to carefully piece the map together to drive it today.