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Route 66

Route 66

Before the Interstates passed the highway by, America got its kicks on Route 66. Back when the Model A Ford was America's ticket to ride, it must have seemed that half the nation was heading west on Route 66. In fact, the late songwriter Bobby Troup penned Get Your Kicks on Route 66 during his own trip west on that legendary highway just after World War II, not only launching a songwriting career but also placing the road in the mythos of America. Those who took to the highway in the 1930s to escape drought in the Midwest and cross the desert to California might have been more inclined, if you'll allow me a complete anachronism, to hum a few bars of the hard-rock classic Highway to Hell. What it was, more accurately, was a highway from hell, with the hope of a paradise at the western end of a paved rainbow.

In today's age of major four and six-lane thoroughfares to and from just about everywhere, it's not easy to conceive just how powerfully one stretch of two-lane highway could grip America's collective imagination. This country has historically looked west for a better tomorrow — Daniel Boone and his fellow woodsmen headed for the setting sun as soon as they could see three or four cabins from their homesteads. So when Henry Ford began producing affordable cars, and the Federal Highway Act of 1921 led to the linking of rural roads, a great convergence took place. The Way West, once a rigorous and dangerous passage by covered wagon, was even in the age of the Model T not a trip to be taken lightly. But it became far less daunting when Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a state highway official, and businessman John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, got the bright notion that there ought to be, in Avery's canny catchphrase, a "Main Street of America." The proposal to merge countless state roads into a true national artery was approved by Congress in 1926; the project was completed six years later.

Almost as soon as it opened in 1932, Route 66 fueled America's wander lust and beckoned to travelers to head west for milk and honey.

Headed west in 1945 (top). A cut section of Route 66 (right).

Though not the first paved highway in the United States, Route 66 is the most storied, and quickly became a metaphor — the fabled two-lane blacktop — for this country's restless, rolling romanticism. (In fact, the road was sometimes dark asphalt, sometimes light-colored concrete.) So if ever a chunk of roadway belonged in a museum, it is the 40-foot-long, 20-foot-wide concrete section of Route 66 that will be displayed as part of the "America on the Move" exhibition at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), which opens November 22. This piece, representing the entire 2,448 miles of a road — now buried under or bypassed by Interstates — that once connected eight states, was taken from a two-mile section near Bridgeport, Oklahoma. According to curator Steven Lubar, he and his colleagues were looking for artifacts of travel when they contacted historians who specialize in the history of Route 66. The NMAH researchers learned that, in Oklahoma, a section of the old highway was about to be replaced by a new interchange and was scheduled to be removed. "It seemed," says Lubar, "the best artifact of all."

click image to enlarge Coral Court, St. Louis MO What a beaut: the office alone is lovely. "Exclusive but not expensive." Here's the text on the card: "We are anxious to get out of the city. Packard is just about the right size for us. Smog, traffic, and people just like Los Angeles. Keven likes it. David doesn't want it. The Browns." Sent to Rural Route 2 in Iowa. The Coral Courts was renowned as a place where a fellow could stay for a while with no questions asked (in fact, each of the beige tiled units had its own garage, so no car would be left indiscreetly in view of those passing by on Route 66). The Coral Courts was built in 1941 by John Carr, a man long rumored to be mob-connected and who had run a posh brothel in St. Louis for years. In 1953 Carl Austin Hall was arrested at Coral Court. He had kidnapped, ransomed, and murdered six year old Bobby Greenlease.

Moving the Mona Lisa from the Louvre to a museum in another country may be more nerve-racking than shipping concrete slabs to Washington, D.C., but logistically it might just be a lot easier. Instructors at a truck driver school in Oklahoma volunteered for the job. The section of highway, originally 50 feet, was cut into 12 pieces and loaded onto flatbed trucks, then rejoined on a steel framework in the Transportation Hall at NMAH. "I tend to worry about things that can go wrong," Lubar admits, "so I was thrilled when the trucks arrived and the road was actually here."

Almost from its official opening, Route 66 fired imaginations. Ernie Pyle, later to become the most famous correspondent of World War II, was hired by the Scripps-Howard newspapers to journey across America and write about his experiences along the way. The assignment turned into an epic. Pyle traveled Route 66 from 1935 until 1940, crossing to Los Angeles and back 20 times, wearing out two cars and five sets of tires. "I have no home," he wrote. "My home is where my extra luggage is, and where my car is stored, and where I happen to be getting mail this time. My home is America."

Route 66 served most famously as an escape route for farm families driven off their land by the Great Depression and its infernal natural ally, the Dust Bowl drought that dragged on through most of the '30s. In The Grapes of Wrath (and later, the motion picture), John Steinbeck placed his desperate refugees on the highway, heading to further hardship in California. It became the road to a new beginning for many down-on-their-luck farm families who abandoned drought-ravaged homes and headed west in search of a better life. In the early '50s, Route 66 took a turn as part of the seemingly endless — some might say interminable highway in Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

The intrigue and allure of The Mother Road inspired dozens of other books, songs and even a television series. The wanderer-behind-the wheel theme hooked a national audience in 1960, when the hit television series Route 66 — charting the existential odyssey of characters Tod Stiles and Buz Murdock crossing the United States in a Corvette convertible — began a four-year run.

The legend of the highway had away of seeping into family lore. I remember vividly my parents returning from a wartime car trip from New Jersey to L.A. via Chicago and back again. My father proudly showed his home movies of their desert crossing (as if he and my mother had Pioneered the route themselves) with canvas bags of water draped over side windows to provide a primitive form of air conditioning.

With its bare-bones "motor courts" — precursors to motels — restaurants, souvenir shops and trailer parks (filled with gleaming Airstreams), the highway had a culture all its own. Country singers and writers established the idea of a home away from home for what quickly became a nation of drivers. Even today, when fewer and fewer of us have experienced America's Main Street, the ghost of the great road lingers. Cabaret performers sing its glories; a beverage company in Charlottesville, Virginia, markets a root beer called — you guessed it — Root 66.

In 1956, Congress passed legislation to create the Interstate System, a vast, efficient network intended to facilitate strategic transportation during the Cold War and link the nation's cities. By the '70s, Route 66 was history "Not many people look down as they walk through a museum," says curator Lubar, "so I'm curious to see how visitors respond to finding Route 66 under their feet. I hope they'll be surprised."

click image to enlarge Glass House, Vinita, OK "Beautiful place to eat," Hazel wrote on the back of the card. America! The Future! Dining on an overpass! How modern! Pictures like this tell you why modernism had such a long run in America - who wouldn't want to live in a future that looked like this? Great cars, spacious roads, and - who-hoo - see-through restaurants. We should have these places every 40 miles on every freeway. It's a McDonald's today. Sigh.

America's Main Street

For those whose goal isn't just reaching a destination, but rather enjoying the journey itself, U.S. Route 66 was — and still is — the consummate remedy for the urge to roam. From its official beginning on November 11, 1926 through the heyday of auto travel in the 1950s and '60s, Route 66 was explored by families, vagabonds, dreamers and untold others — fueling thousands of restaurants, hotels, motels and tourist attractions along the way. U.S. Highway 66 stretched from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. Some 2,400 miles coursed through eight states and three time zones, influencing lifestyles and spawning a culture that earned it the nickname Main Street of America.

Route 66 was more than a cross-country passage for early auto travelers. It exemplified the open road, beckoning adventurers with the promise of freedom! It carried people through bustling cities and into neon-lit small towns in the heart of America, and to places where telephone poles and train tracks were all that broke the scenery for miles. Scattered in between were mom-and-pop truck stops, roadside diners and motor courts with refrigerated air

Americana at its most intriguing can be found along Oklahoma's Route 66, where memories from the glory days of automobile travel abound. Dozens of cities along Route 66 boast a diverse assemblage of restaurants and shops featuring antiques, collectibles and Route 66 memorabilia. Rekindled community pride is evident. Movie theaters and building facades are being restored to the splendor of a time past, businesses have returned to downtown districts, and Main Street programs are thriving.

Route 66 nostalgia is rich in Oklahoma, and those who remember The Mother Road during its heyday — or who simply appreciate the indelible mark it left on American culture proudly embrace its heritage. So load up the car, bring an Oklahoma road map, a reference book or two, and let the old road take you to places that are now far from the beaten path — places that echo a bygone, treasured era.

Owen Edwards. Antique Road Show. . November 01, 2003.

The Lincoln Highway

America's first transcontinental highway - offers the deliberate traveler a fine opportunity for backroads adventure, historical exploration and just plain dawdling. First off, the road spans some 3,300 miles from New York City clear to San Francisco; second, it crosses some extraordinary American geography along the way; third, much of the Lincoln Highway follows long-established earlier paths that just reek of history; and fourth, a lot of it is still around for you to explore.

If you plan to travel the whole 3,300 miles, have somebody water the plants at home; it will take a couple months if you stop every time you see something interesting. Watch for antique stores, jackrabbits, diners in the East, cafes in the West, interesting small-town main streets, mountain laurel and ample evidence of the likes of the Lancaster Pike, the Oregon and California trails, and the hoof tracks of the Pony Express. Watch as well for narrow roadways and early bridges that identify what was once the most famous road in the country.

While the eastern and western portions of the road bring the best mountain scenery, the center portion, between Indiana and Wyoming, provide some of the main streets, roadside architecture, early narrow roadways and picturesque bridges. Here's a state-by-state list of a few good bets along the road from the Midwest to the edge of the West. But keep your eyes open; these are but a few of a thousand great places to explore along the Lincoln Highway.

Drake Hokanson is a writer, photographer and the author of Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America. Lincoln Highway. Home & Away Magazine.

Route 66 Lost & Found: Ruins and Relics Revisited Route 66: Lost and Found conveys the spirit and the times, not quite like any other book. Arizona Daily Sun For several decades, Route 66 was the nation's main east-west thoroughfare, pointing Middle America toward all the promise California seemed to hold at various times, whether permanent refuge from the Dust Bowl or a temporary escape from the drudgery of everyday suburban life in prosperous postwar America.

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