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 The
Beginning
Although entrepreneurs Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and John Woodruff
of Springfield, Missouri deserve most of the credit for promoting
the idea of an interregional link between Chicago and Los Angeles,
their lobbying efforts were not realized until their dreams merged
with the national program of highway and road development.
While legislation for public highways first appeared in 1916, with
revisions in 1921, it was not until Congress enacted an even more
comprehensive version of the act in 1925 that the government executed
its plan for national highway construction.
Officially, the numerical designation 66 was assigned to the Chicago-to-Los
Angeles route in the summer of 1926. With that designation came its
acknowledgment as one of the nation's principal east-west arteries.
From the outset, public road planners intended U.S. 66 to connect
the main streets of rural and urban communities along its course for
the most practical of reasons: most small towns had no prior access
to a major national thoroughfare.
The Formative Years
Route 66 was a highway spawned by the demands of a rapidly changing
America. Contrasted with the Lincoln, the Dixie, and other highways
of its day, Route 66 did not follow a traditionally linear course.
Its diagonal course linked hundreds of predominately rural communities
in Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas to Chicago; thus enabling farmers
to transport grain and produce for redistribution. The diagonal configuration
of Route 66 was particularly significant to the trucking industry,
which by 1930 had come to rival the railroad for preeminence in the
American shipping industry. The abbreviated route between Chicago
and the Pacific coast traversed essentially flat prairie lands and
enjoyed a more temperate climate than northern highways, which made
it especially appealing to truckers.
The Depression
Years and the War
In his famous social commentary, The Grapes of Wrath, John
Steinbeck proclaimed U.S. Highway 66 the "Mother Road."
Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel, combined with the 1940 film recreation
of the epic odyssey, served to immortalize Route 66 in the American
consciousness. An estimated 210,000 people migrated to California
to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl. Certainly in the minds of
those who endured that particularly painful experience, and in the
view of generations of children to whom they recounted their story,
Route 66 symbolized the "road to opportunity."
From 1933 to 1938 Federal work programs such as the WPA put thousands
of unemployed male youths from virtually every state to work as laborers
on road gangs paving the final stretches of Route 66. As a result
of this monumental effort, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway was
reported as "continuously paved" in 1938.
Completion of this all-weather capability on the eve of World War
II was particularly significant to the nation's war effort. The experience
of a young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who found his command
bogged down in spring mud near Ft. Riley, Kansas, while on a coast-to-coast
maneuver, left an indelible impression. The War Department needed
improved highways for rapid mobilization during wartime and to promote
national defense during peacetime. At the outset of American involvement
in World War II, the War Department singled out the West as ideal
for military training bases in part because of its geographic isolation
and especially because it offered consistently dry weather for air
and field maneuvers.
Route 66 helped to facilitate the single greatest wartime manpower
mobilization in the history of the nation. Between 1941 and 1945 the
government invested approximately $70 billion in capital projects
throughout California, a large portion of which were in the Los Angeles-San
Diego area. This enormous capital outlay served to underwrite entirely
new industries that created thousands of civilian jobs.
The Postwar Years
After the war, Americans were more mobile than ever before. Thousands
of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who received military training in
California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas abandoned the
harsh winters of Chicago, New York City, and Boston for the "barbecue
culture" of the American West. Again, for many, Route 66 facilitated
their relocation.
One such emigrant was Robert William Troup, Jr., of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Bobby Troup, former pianist with the Tommy Dorsey band and ex-Marine
captain, penned a lyrical road map of the now famous cross-country
road in which the words, "get your kicks on Route 66" became
a catch phrase for countless motorists who moved back and forth between
Chicago and the Pacific Coast. Nat King Cole released the popular
recording in 1946 one week after Troup's arrival in Los Angeles.
Storeowners, motel managers, and gas station attendants recognized
early on that even the poorest travelers required food, automobile
maintenance, and adequate lodging. Just as New Deal work relief programs
provided employment with the construction and the maintenance of Route
66, the appearance of countless tourist courts, garages, and diners
promised sustained economic growth after the road's completion. If
military use of the highway during wartime ensured the early success
of roadside businesses, the demands of the new tourism industry in
the postwar decades gave rise to modern facilities that guaranteed
long-term prosperity.
Roadside Architecture
The evolution of tourist-targeted facilities is well represented in
the roadside architecture along U. S. Highway 66. For example, most
Americans who drove the route did not stay in hotels. They preferred
the accommodations that emerged from automobile travel - motels. Motels
evolved from earlier features of the American roadside such as the
auto camp and the tourist home. The auto camp developed as townspeople
along Route 66 roped off spaces in which travelers could camp for
the night. Camp supervisors - some of whom were employed by the various
states - provided water, fuel wood, privies or flush toilets, showers,
and laundry facilities free of charge.
The national outgrowth of the auto camp and tourist home was the cabin
camp (sometimes called cottages) that offered minimal comfort at affordable
prices. Remains of these cottages still stand; among the better-known
examples is John's Modern Cabins in Arlington, Missouri. Eventually,
auto camps and cabin camps gave way to motor courts in which all of
the rooms were under a single roof. Motor courts offered additional
amenities, such as adjoining restaurants, souvenir shops, and swimming
pools. Among the more famous still associated with Route 66 are the
El Vado and Zia Motor Lodge in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In the early years of Route 66, service station prototypes were developed
regionally through experimentation, and then were adopted universally
across the country. Buildings were distinctive as gas stations, yet
clearly associated with a particular petroleum company. Most evolved
from the simplest "filling station" concept - a house with
one or two service pumps in front - and then became more elaborate,
with service bays and tire outlets. Route 66 enthusiasts have restored
outstanding examples of the evolution of gas stations along the old
“Main Street of America”.
Route 66 and many points of interest along the way were familiar landmarks
by the time a new generation of postwar motorists hit the road in
the 1960's. It was during this period that the television series,
"Route 66", starring Martin Milner and George Maharis drove
into the living rooms of America every Thursday. By today's standards,
the show is rather unbelievable but in the 1960's, it brought Americans
back to the route looking for new adventure.
Excessive truck use during World War II and the comeback of the automobile
industry immediately following the war brought great pressure to bear
on America's highways. The national highway system had deteriorated
to an appalling condition. Virtually all roads were functionally obsolete
and dangerous because of narrow pavements and antiquated structural
features that reduced carrying capacity.
Ironically, the public lobby for rapid mobility and improved highways
that gained Route 66 its enormous popularity in earlier decades also
signaled its demise beginning in the mid-1950's. Mass federal sponsorship
for an interstate system of divided highways markedly increased with
Dwight D. Eisenhower's second term in the 'White House. General Eisenhower
had returned from Germany very impressed by the strategic value of
Hitler's Autobahn. "During World War II," he recalled later,
"I saw the superlative system of German national highways crossing
that country and offering the possibility, often lacking in the United
States, to drive with speed and safety at the same time."
The congressional response to the president's commitment was the passage
of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which provided a comprehensive
financial umbrella to underwrite the cost of the national interstate
and defense highway system.
By 1970, nearly all segments of Route 66 were replaced by a modern
four-lane highway.
In many respects, the physical remains of Route 66 mirror the evolution
of highway development in the United States from a rudimentary hodge-podge
of state and country roads to a federally subsidized complex of uniform,
well-designed interstate expressways. Various alignments of the legendary
road, many of which are still in use today, illustrate the evolution
of road engineering from coexistence with the surroundings to domination
of the landscape.
Route 66 symbolized the renewed spirit of optimism that pervaded the
country after economic catastrophe and global war. Often called, "The
Main Street of America", it linked a remote and under-populated
region with two vital 20th century cities - Chicago and Los Angeles.
The outdated, poorly maintained vestiges of U.S. Highway 66 completely
succumbed to the interstate system in October 1984 when the final
section of the original road was replaced by Interstate 40 at Williams,
Arizona.
Route 66 still captures the imagination of people around the world.
The legendary highway’s contribution to the nation must be evaluated
in the broader context of American social and cultural history. The
appearance of U.S. Highway 66 on the American scene coincided with
unparalleled economic strife and global instability, yet it hastened
the most comprehensive westward movement and economic growth in United
States history. Like the early, long-gone wagon trails of the 19th
century, Route 66 helped to spirit a second mass relocation of Americans.
As modes of travel evolve in the years to come Route 66 will always
exemplify America’s love affair with the open road. |
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