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Historic Route 66
If you ever plan to motor west From Chicago to Los Angeles, Historic Route 66 carried travelers more than 2,400 miles until 1985, when the highway was decommissioned. Historic Route 66 received several nicknames over its nearly 60-year history, such as The Mother Road, The Main Street of America and the Will Rogers Highway. The highway was immortalized first by John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" that chronicled the plight and exodus along Route 66 of victims of the farming Dust Bowl in the 1930s. It was Steinbeck who dubbed Route 66 "The Mother Road" in his novel. In the 1940s, Bobby Troup's lyrics to the song "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66," originally performed by Nat King Cole, immortalized the highway in music. A television series, "Route 66," also paid homage to the highway in the early 1960s. Today, several groups continue preservation efforts to keep the highway from disappearing from the landscape altogether. Many of the old highway segments are still drivable thanks to their efforts. In addition to the states of Illinois and California, Historic Route 66 ran a diagonal path through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Want to know when this page is updated? Sign up for e-mail updates below.
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