U.S. Route 66 (US 66 or Route 66), also known as the Will Rogers Highway and colloquially known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road, was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. Highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 – with road signs erected the following year. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before ending at Los Angeles, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.
Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.
Route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, and it was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985 after it had been replaced in its entirety by the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name “Historic Route 66”, which is returning to some maps. Several states have adopted significant bypassed sections of the former US 66 into the state road network as State Route 66.
The first Route 66 associations were founded in Arizona in 1987 and Missouri in 1989 (incorporated in 1990). Other groups in the other Route 66 states soon followed. In 1990, the state of Missouri declared Route 66 in that state a “State Historic Route”. The first “Historic Route 66” marker in Missouri was erected on Kearney Street at Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri (now replaced – the original sign has been placed at Route 66 State Park near Eureka). Other historic markers now line – at times sporadically – the entire 2,400 mile (3,860 km) length of road. In many communities, local groups have painted or stencilled the “66” and U.S. Route shield or outline directly onto the road surface, along with the state’s name. This is common in areas where conventional signage for “Historic Route 66” is a target of repeated theft by souvenir hunters. Many preservation groups have tried to save and even landmark the old motels and neon signs along the road in different states.
In 2008, the World Monuments Fund added Route 66 to the World Monuments Watch as sites along the route such as gas stations, motels, cafés, trading posts and drive-in movie theaters are threatened by development in urban areas and by abandonment and decay in rural areas. The National Park Service developed a Route 66 Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary describing over one hundred individual historic sites. As the popularity and mythical stature of Route 66 has continued to grow, demands have begun to mount to improve signage, return Route 66 to road atlases and revive its status as a continuous routing. The U.S. Route 66 Recommissioning Initiative is a group that seeks to recertify Route 66 as a US Highway along a combination of historic and modern alignments. The group’s redesignation proposal does not enjoy universal support, as requirements the route meet modern US Highway system specifications could force upgrades which compromise its historic integrity or require Route 66 signage be moved to Interstate highways for some portions of the route.
The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has a section on U.S. Route 66 in its “America on the Move” exhibition. In the exhibit is a portion of pavement of the route taken from Bridgeport, Oklahoma and a restored car and truck of the type that would have been driven on the road in the 1930s. Also on display is a Hamons Court neon sign that hung at a gas station and tourist cabins near Hydro, Oklahoma, a “CABINS” neon sign that pointed to Ring’s Rest tourist cabins in Muirkirk, Maryland, as well as several post cards a traveler sent back to his future wife while touring the route.