Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Alternate meanings: New Jersey State Highway 66, Interstate 66 Route 66 was a United States highway that ran from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California (actually Santa Monica) a distance of 2448 miles. When it first opened in 1926, it was one of the first national arteries, although it was not completely paved until 1938. The route was not straight, but intentionally linked many small towns in the middle west. With its essentially flat course and favourable weather, the highway became popular with trucks, thus contributing to the growth of that industry. In 1940, John Steinbeck called the highway the Mother Road in Grapes of Wrath, his seminal novel about westward migration. In 1946, well-travelled band musician Bobby Troup wrote his song "Route 66" about the road. It goes: If you ever plan to motor west, Travel my way, Take the highway that is best -- Get your kicks on Route 66. It winds from Chicago to LA, More than two thousand miles all the way, get your kicks on Route 66! Now you go through St. Looey, Joplin, Misoury, And Oklahoma City, Looks mighty pretty. You'll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona, Don't Forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino. Won't you...get hip to this timely tip, When you make that California trip, Get your kicks on Route 66. The song goes on to list many of the towns and cities along the highway: Saint Louis, Missouri Joplin, Missouri Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Amarillo, Texas Gallup, New Mexico Winona, Arizona, the only town out of sequence in the list. It was east of Flagstaff, and is forgotten, except in this song. Flagstaff, Arizona Kingman, Arizona Barstow, California San Bernardino, California The highway also gave its name to a popular TV show, Route 66, seen from 1960 through 1964, which featured two young men in a Corvette looking for adventure along America's highways. Much of the show was filmed on location, but little along Route 66. The show's theme song, by Nelson Riddle, was also a hit. Much of US 66 was decommissioned in the 1980s, as most of the traffic traveled on wider, swifter interstates. Interstate 55, Interstate 44, Interstate 40, and Interstate 15 were built over the remains of US 66, as it did not seem so important that a highway from Chicago to L.A. have the same designation. Nevertheless, some highway historians want to put historic US 66 signs on US 66's former route. A Missouri state park commemorating Route 66 was built on the former site of Times Beach, Missouri, which was a small town 17 miles southwest of St. Louis that resided alongside Route 66. The town was the site of a massive dioxin cleanup in the 1980s and 1990s. See also: Highway 61, Winslow, Arizona. External Links Route 66 :: Web Resources Including photographs, travelogues and online references. National Historic Route 66 Federation California Route 66 Museum This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.