The retro of today was the modern of yesterday. When the famed Route 66 highway was commissioned in 1926 and fully paved in 1930, it ran through small towns and booming cities southwest of its Chicago starting point through Amarillo’s wild west and Native American reservations and pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona, westward to the glitz of Los Angeles and Hollywood. The road beckoned to wanderers, sometimes seeking fame and fortune by choice or by necessity. John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath called it the Mother Road, carrying desperate people during the Great Depression to jobs in California, and the route became “The People’s Highway” during the 1930-1940s Dust Bowl period.
With the advent of the automobile and truck, travel was faster, and Route 66 became Americans’ favorite east-west throughfare. A Tulsa, Oklahoma, businessman and chairman of that state’s highway commission, Cyrus Avery, is credited with dubbing the highway “Route 66” and helping to lay out all even-numbered federal highways to run east and west and all odd-numbered federal highways to run north and south. Cyrus also founded the U.S. 66 Highway Association and promoted the highway as the “Main Street of America.”
The desperately poor packed up their few belongings and camped along the route, finding temporary work when money ran thin in the Depression and Dust Bowl days. However, Fred Harvey of The Harvey Girls fame opened hotels and restaurants in cities boasting highway and railway stops for wealthier travelers.
The 1940s brought WWII troupe and supply movement along the road. Leisure travel was suspended mostly due to gas and food rationing. However, travel courts sprang up to accommodate families finding work in defense plants and needing weekly/monthly accommodations near military posts. Personal vehicles could be parked beside the units in carports. Since they were hotels for motorists, the term “motel” was born.
When veterans returned following the war’s end, the economy boomed. Rationing was lifted. Most families had at least one car. Disneyland opened, and westerns were popular on television and in the movie theatres. All of this made travel to the Southwest enticing. With the Grand Canyon National Park and Southern California’s beaches beckoning, the desire to get out of the cities and experience sites veterans had seen was evident on Route 66. Folks were “getting their kicks” as the popular song written by Bobby Troup and sung by Nat King Cole stated. Indian trading posts, tourist courts with restaurants, movie theaters — all with their distinctive architecture and neon signs — sprang up along the road. Hospitality venues touted air-conditioned rooms, swimming pools and TVs in each room, all newly available to attract hot travelers who still might not have AC in their vehicles.
In 1956, a congressional law passed, creating the interstate system, which would spell Route 66’s demise as the Mother Road. It took five interstates (I-55, I-44, I-40, I-15 and I-10) built over three decades to replace Route 66. Businesses, such as the famed Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo, Texas, with its towering neon cowboy sign, moved from its Route 66 location to a new home on I-40 as traffic counts moved. Mom-and-pop businesses died as chain operations opened along the interstates.
Route 66 was officially decommissioned in 1985. By 1990, the National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program was created, recognizing the significance of the road in American history. Today, parts of the road still exist and are marked, such as Amarillo’s Route 66 Historic District. Businesses are being restored all along the route, and travelers can experience the glory of a desert sunset with a neon sign in the distance flashing a welcoming Vacancy!
Photos by Virginia Riddle, LLC, unless otherwise noted.
Sources:
1. Bender, Andrew, et al. Route 66. Lonely Planet Road Trips, Ft. Mill, South Carolina, 2018.
2. https://americanhistory.si.edu.
3. https://www.nps.gov.
Written by Virginia Riddle
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