History and heritage gather along the Mother Road

John Steinbeck proclaimed U. S. Highway 66 the “Mother Road” in his classic 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath. With the 1940 film recreation of the epic odyssey, Route 66 was immortalized in the American consciousness.

It is estimated that 210,000 people trying to escape the conditions brought on by the Dust Bowl migrated to California. For those who endured that particularly painful experience, Route 66 symbolized the “road to opportunity.”

Legislation for public highways began in 1916, with revisions in 1921, but 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. The officially designated U.S. Highway 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 its inception, U.S. 66 was intended to connect rural and urban communities. Most small towns at that time had no prior access to a major national thoroughfare. Route 66 enabled farmers to transport grain and produce for redistribution. Route 66 diagonal layout was particularly significant to the trucking industry, which by 1930 had grown to rival the railroad in the American shipping industry.

From 1933 to 1938 thousands of unemployed men from virtually every state were hired as laborers to pave the final stretches of the road. As a result, the Chicago to Los Angeles highway was reported as “continuously paved” in 1938.

After the war, Americans were more mobile than ever before. For many, Route 66 facilitated their relocation. One such emigrant was Bobby Troup, an ex-Marine captain and former pianist with the Tommy Dorsey Band penned a lyrical road map of the now-famous thoroughfare in which the words, “get your kicks on Route 66” became a catchphrase for the throngs of 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. It was during this period that tourist-targeted facilities were well represented in the roadside architecture along Route 66 and other national arteries.

Along the way, auto camps and cabin camps (cottages) were replaced in the traveler’s favor by motor courts in which all of the rooms were under a single roof. Motor courts offered additional amenities, such as 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. Early concepts in service stations would congregate near the auto camps, later called motor-hotels, and then shortened to “motels”. Each of the service-based businesses vying for the American adventurer’s dollar.

After the war, Americans were more mobile than ever before. For many, Route 66 facilitated their relocation. 

The growing U.S. population, with their increasing mobile travel habits, contributed to a national call for faster, larger byways. Mass federal sponsorship for an interstate system of divided highways markedly increased with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second term as President. Eisenhower had returned from WWII Germany very impressed by the strategic value of Hitler’s Autobahn. Eisenhower recalled seeing 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 Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 would underwrite the cost of the national interstate and defense highway system and effectively sounded the death knell for smaller rural highways like Route 66. By 1970, nearly all segments of original Route 66 were bypassed by a modern four-lane highway.

With the changing needs of the ever-expanding US, Route 66 was replaced with larger, faster highway  options. The outdated and 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 bypassed by Interstate 40 at Williams, Arizona.

Route 66 once symbolized the spirit of optimism that the country shared after surviving the economic devastation brought about by the Great Depression and the horror of the Second World War. Route 66 linked remote and under-populated regions with two vital cities – Chicago and Los Angeles. The spirit of the road still calls some. The travel and exploration of exciting unknown areas of our country are a strong and the multi-lane super-highways and turnpikes can speed you there. But there is something to be said about winding your way through the rural townships which offer unique sights, sounds, tastes, and experiences if you are willing to take them in along the way to your final destination, which can be the best part of any journey.

There’s something magical about having a car show along a part of the Mother Road, U.S. Route 66. There is the sense these vehicles are following in the tire treads of the millions who traveled this once main artery that wound through town and mountain range from Chicago to end in Santa Monica, California.

Growing U.S. population and their increasing mobile travel habits contributed to a national call for faster, larger byways. 

Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion is a Southern California weekend celebration of America’s love affair with the automobile and its world-famous highway, Route 66. Two days of cruisin’, contests, live entertainment, fabulous food, and revelry make it one of the best events of its kind. Held annually each September along historic, tree-shaded Euclid Avenue in Ontario, California.

The event brings a huge variety of classics, hot rods, muscle cars, lowriders, VWs, trucks and vans that line Euclid Avenue. They cruise the cordoned off loop that passes by spectators, vendors, live music performances, and many Ontario businesses along the way.

Plenty of paint and chromed eye-candy for fans who want to take in the static and rolling examples of the gleaming variety of vehicles present at this spectacular event.

There’s something magical about having a car show along a part of the Mother Road, U.S. Route 66.

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