What is route 66?
Route 66 was the 2448 mile stretch of highway linking Chicago, IL with Los Angeles, CA via Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Established in 1926, Route 66 underwent many changes to the original alignment before being officially removed from the US highway system in 1985. US Route 66 was founded on a pre-existing network of roads, passing through both rural and urban areas, and has become known as “the main street of America”, Will Rogers Highway, and “the mother road” (based on a quotation from the John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath”). During the depression of the 1930’s Route 66 was a major path for migrants heading west to escape the dust bowl. It came to be seen as the pathway to opportunity and prosperity, with small-town businesses thriving on the passing trade. This was given a further boost during World War II due to further migration west to the war-related industries of California. Over the following few decades, as Route 66 was celebrated in po
Route 66 is a 2,500-mile heritage corridor that runs through eight states, from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Route 66 corridor’s surviving motels represent three decades of American commercial architecture, in forms ranging from conventional U-shaped motor inns to the eccentric “wigwam” motels of the southwest. Both the structures themselves and their associated neon signage have come to define American roadside architecture, despite the decades of neglect, abandonment, and demolition that have destroyed nearly half of the corridor’s original motels. This abandonment is a consequence of the federal decommissioning of Route 66 in the 1970s and 80s and the construction of the Interstate Highway System, which redirected the stream of commercial traffic away from Route 66 and toward the Interstate’s new and inexpensive chain motels. WHAT MAKES ROUTE 66 MOTELS INTERESTING? Ask this question of Route 66 aficionados, and you’ll hear a million different answers. Chief among these is the fact ve
