The Road That Built America's Mythology
Few roads carry as much cultural weight as U.S. Route 66. Commissioned in 1926, decommissioned in 1985, and relentlessly celebrated ever since, it is simultaneously a real highway and a powerful symbol — of freedom, migration, reinvention, and the open road. Understanding its history helps explain why millions of people still seek it out nearly a century after it was first paved.
The 1926 Commissioning
Route 66 was officially established on November 11, 1926, as part of the newly created U.S. Highway System. Cyrus Avery, an Oklahoman businessman and highway advocate, lobbied hard for the diagonal route that would connect Chicago to Los Angeles. He wanted a highway that served the American heartland — not just the coasts. He succeeded, and Route 66 became the first highway to run continuously from the Midwest to the Pacific.
In its earliest years, only portions of the highway were paved. Travelers on the western stretches often navigated dirt or gravel, and the trip could take weeks. By the early 1930s, the road was fully paved end-to-end.
The Dust Bowl and the Great Migration
Route 66 gained its deepest historical significance during the 1930s Dust Bowl. As catastrophic drought and economic collapse devastated the Great Plains, hundreds of thousands of families — many from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas — loaded everything they owned onto battered trucks and drove west toward California. Route 66 was their road. John Steinbeck immortalized their journey in The Grapes of Wrath (1939), calling it "the Mother Road" — a name that has stuck ever since.
The migration was harsh and often deadly. Route 66 towns saw an influx of desperate families, and the highway became associated with both suffering and hope — a tension that gives it much of its emotional depth.
Post-War Golden Age
After World War II, Route 66 entered its golden era. A booming middle class, cheap gasoline, and the new American car culture made road trips fashionable. Motels, diners, drive-ins, and roadside attractions sprang up along every mile. The iconic neon signs of Tucumcari, the Wigwam motels, the souvenir shops of Williams, Arizona — all built during this era to serve travelers chasing the California dream.
The 1960 TV series Route 66 and Bobby Troup's 1946 song "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" (famously covered by Nat King Cole and later the Rolling Stones) cemented the road's pop culture status.
The Interstate and the Decline
The Interstate Highway Act of 1956, signed by President Eisenhower, ultimately spelled the end for Route 66. The new interstates — I-40, I-55, I-44 — were faster and straighter, bypassing the small towns that had depended on highway traffic. Town by town, the businesses that had thrived for decades shuttered. The last segment of Route 66 to be bypassed by an interstate was in Williams, Arizona, in 1984.
On June 27, 1985, Route 66 was officially removed from the U.S. Highway System.
The Revival: Historic Route 66
The decommissioning didn't kill the road — it transformed it. In 1987, Arizona became the first state to re-sign portions of the old highway as "Historic Route 66." Other states followed. Preservation groups, state tourism boards, and a groundswell of nostalgia-driven travelers began driving the route specifically because it had been bypassed — because it was slow, quirky, and full of genuine American character that the interstates had erased.
Today, the Route 66 Alliance and national preservation efforts work to protect remaining structures and maintain the historic designation. A movement is underway in Congress to have Route 66 recognized as a National Historic Trail, which would provide formal federal protection.
Why It Still Matters
Route 66 endures because it tells a story that no interstate can — about who Americans were, where they were going, and what they hoped to find. Every rusted motel sign and hand-painted diner menu is a piece of that story. The road invites you not just to travel across America, but to travel through its history.