Legendary Route 66

Legendary Route 66 was not the nation’s first highway. But it was in the first group of roads to receive a US highway designation. At that time, it was designated US 60. The official change to US 66 came on November 11, 1926.

The transition from highway to icon with an international fan club began in the early spring of 1927. The US Highway 66 Association established by Cyrus Avery, a Tulsa businessman that had played a key role in establishment of the US highway system, and a group of visionaries, began lobbying to have the highway paved. The association also developed marketing campaigns that were centered on promoting Route 66 as the Main Street of America.

Working with the organizers of the Trans-American Footrace, the association put Route 66 on the front page of newspapers throughout the world. In 1932, the association then took out full page ads promoting Route 66 as the road Olympics in Los Angeles. Then came The Grapes of Wrath, the book and movie, and crooner Nat King Cole putting a little tune about getting your kicks on Route 66 at the top of the charts.

In the early 1950s a four-part series on I Love Lucy, the nation’s most watched television program, put Route 66 in households throughout the country. That was followed by the groundbreaking program Route 66, and the counterculture classic movie Easy Rider that was filmed along Route 66. Route 66 wasn’t just the Main Street of America, it was the stage where the American story unfolded.

Fast forward to the Route 66 centennial. Even though the highway was decertified in 1985, and officially no longer exists, it is more popular today than at any time in its history.  
It is viewed by legions of enthusiasts as the ultimate American road trip. There are Route 66 associations in Czechia, Germany, the UK, Netherlands, Japan, and Canada. Companies that specialize in Route 66 tours are based in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Germany, Czechia, Norway, and Italy.

But it is not just a century of marketing and publicity that makes Route 66 unique. It is the highways foundation, old trade routes and historic roads. And it is also the blurring of the line between past and present, the string of time capsules where the entire American story is preserved. Few places are more evident of this than along the highway corridor than in western Arizona and in the Mojave Desert.   

Peel back the layers of Route 66 here and you will find the National Old Trails Road and the railroad. Dig deeper and you find that these were built on the Beale Wagon Road, the first federally funded road in the southwest, that built on a centuries old Native American trade route.

In the rugged Black Mountains, the National Old Trails Road built in 1913 through Sitgreaves Pass was a marginally improved version of a wagon road built a decade previously. The 26% grades on the west slope of the pass could only be avoided by following the “Valley Cutoff”, a sandy track from Kingman through Yucca to the ferry on the Colorado River.

Deemed an engineering marvel, a new road was cut through Sitgreaves Pass in 1921. During construction traffic was routed through Yucca. That new road in the Black Mountains would be designated Route 66 in 1926. It would carry traffic until 1952 when Route 66 was realigned over a new highway built over what had once been the Valley Cutoff. Decades later this would be the course for I40.

Route 66 through the Black Mountains is often proclaimed to be the most scenic section of the highway between Chicago and Santa Monica. Tangible links to history are found I every turn.

Oatman and Goldroad blossomed at the dawning of the 20^th century with the last gold rush in Arizona. Ed’s Camp is located at Little Meadows, an oasis on a Native American trade route where Father Garces camped in 1776. Lt. Beale and other American explorers camped here as well.

Cool Springs is a landmark on Route 66. It was built in 1925 by N.R. Dunton. Dunton operated a garage and towing service in Golroad, and in 1946 established Dunton Motors, now Dunton Motors Dream machines in Kingman. N.R. Dunton’s nephew, Roy, and his son Scott, purchased the 1940 Kimo Café and transformed it into Mr. D’z Route 66 Diner.

Regardless of route selected before 1916 there were but two ways to cross the Colorado River. One was by ferry. The second option was to use the 1897 Red Rock Railroad Bridge planked for automobile usage.

 The graceful arch of the National Old Trails Bridge that now carries pipelines across the river opened in 1916. That bridge appears in the film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath and Easy Rider. It carried Route 66 traffic until completion of a new railroad bridge, and the 1897 bridge being rehabbed for highway use.

Initially Route 66 followed the National Old Trails Road west from Needles on a sweeping curve to the summit of the pass at Goffs, junction with the Arrowhead Highway and a railroad water stop. When the highway was realigned in 1930, Goffs became the first Route 66 community to be bypassed.

Route 66 from its origins to its renaissance is a truly American story. And in its centennial year it has become a destination for legions of international enthusiasts.

For more stories about the Colorado River Valley as America celebrates the 250th anniversary, check out The River 250.

Written by Jim Hinckley of Jim HInckley’s America