Volume 12 , Issue 35

History of Route 66 (The Mother Road)

Here is another link that Homer sent us concerning Route 66 History.

As the short history of US "RT 66" goes, "U.S> Highway 66 evolved from a government sponsored wagon road program initiated just before the Civil War.

BUT first here is a Historic Route 66 website showing the the road trip from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California as it travels throughSt. Louis, MO; Tulsa & OKC, OK; Amarillo & Shamrock, TX; Tucumcari, Albuquerque & Gallup, NM; Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff & Kingman, AZ; Barstow & Santa Monica, CA.

In the 1900s America's infatuation with personal ability brought borward the notion of an all-weather, surfaced highway connecting Chicago to Los Angeles. Proponents joined a populist-based national cause known as the "Good Roads Movement."

What sets Route 66 apart from other roads is (1) it was America's first continuously paved link between Los Angeles and Chicago, gateway to the industrialized Northeast; and (2) it (along without he segments of interstate highway that replaced it) remains the shortest all-weather route between these two cities.

Its oiled surface etched a trail across the landscape by way of St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, San Bernadino, and Pasadena.

Route 66 is revered by hundreds of thousands of motorists as the model of the modern American highway and the emerging automobile culture it serviced.

U.S. Highway 66 had its origin in the wake of the nation's first trans-Mississippi migration. The official origin of Route 66 was the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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