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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 predominantly 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.
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n 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 thousands of unemployed male youths from
virtually every state were put to work as laborers on road
gangs to pave the final stretches of the road. 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
A
fter 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
Southwest and the 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. The popular
recording was released in 1946 by Nat King Cole one week
after Troup's arrival in Los Angeles.
Store owners, 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.
T
he 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. Many of these
cottages are still in operation.
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. Among the
most outstanding examples of the evolution of gas stations
along Route 66 are Soulsby's Shell station in Mount Olive,
Illinois; Bob Audettes' gas station complex in Barton, New
Mexico; and the Tower Fina Station in Shamrock, Texas.
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
uderwrite the cost of the national interstate and defense
highway system.
By 1970, nearly all segments of original 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 detectable,
illustrate the evolution of road engineering from
coexistence with the surrounding landscape to domination of
it.
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.
As the highway
looks forward to its 75th birthday in 2001, its
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 trails of the nineteenth
century, Route 66 helped to spirit a second and perhaps
more permanent mass relocation of Americans. We only hope
it does not meet the fate of these once-famous arteries.
Roadside Architecture
Reprinted with the permission of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona
www.ctaz.com/~azrt66
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