ROUTE 66

Two of the myths most associated with the United States and the American way of life are westward expansion (the eternal frontier) and the open highway. Both these myths helped to turn Route 66 into a legend.

By 1910, there were around 180,000 registered automobiles in the United States. The decade from 1910 to 1920 saw that number increase to around seventeen million. The rising automobile culture in the United States was clear to see, and automobiles need good roads. The idea of Route 66 can be traced back to two entrepreneurs, Cyrus Avery and John Woodruff, who sometime in the early 1900s conceived the idea of a single continuous road linking Chicago and Los Angeles.

Congress enacted a bill in 1916 to create public highways. More comprehensive legislation that was passed in 1925 approved the construction of a road from Chicago to Los Angeles and designated it U.S. Highway 66. The new highway was to run approximately 2,400 miles and was to follow a meandering course in order to connect as many rural communities as possible. It was to be a modern all-weather road. The lanes were to be noticeably wider and the road less curvy than was standard at the time.

Even before paving was fully completed, Route 66 was widely used, mainly by truckers, who were taking advantage of the road's shortening of the distance between the Midwest and the West Coast, and by farmers, who were seeking a broader market for their goods and took advantage of how the road connected many disparate rural communities.

The onset of the Great Depression changed many things for Route 66. Before then its construction had mainly been a state responsibility, but during the Great Depression the massive public works projects of the New Deal included work on Route 66. Paving of the Route was completed in 1938, and the economic impact of the project was huge. In addition, the Route's use changed during the Depression. John Steinbeck's harrowing 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath dramatized the real life predicaments of the approximately 210,000 people who traveled along Route 66 to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl. Most did not reach California, and most of those who did eventually returned, but Steinbeck's novel was based on fact, and his christening of Route 66 as the "mother road" continues to resonate. The escape from the Dust Bowl dovetailed nicely with America's emerging love affair with the open road and with the nation's frontier mythology.

As the Depression waned, Americans retained their romantic views of Route 66. The road spawned popular songs and a television series, and came to be associated more with pleasure and adventure than with escape. A kind of automobile culture sprang up along the Route, including motels, diners, and automobile repair shops.

As the Interstate Highway system was developed, Route 66 slowly fell into disuse. Eventually, it lost its designation, and its component stretches of highway were taken over by the various states it passed through. The road nevertheless retains a strong place in the American popular imagination.

ROUTE 66

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