Route 66

A hundred years ago, Congress authorized the creation of an uninterrupted highway that stretched for 2400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. And for 100 years, Americans have hit Route 66 in search of adventure, romance, and even the hope of a better life. As we mark its centennial this year, we look back at how this road came to be so much more than just a road.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This week, we thought we would kick off our show with a special guest, a musical guest. And who better than Nat King Cole, the legendary singer, pianist, and band leader? He recorded this song in 1946, and well, why listen to me when you can listen to him?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

If you ever plan to move the west. Travel my way.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

This year marks the 100th birthday of Route 66. Now it hasn't been an official highway since it was decommissioned in 1985, but Route 66 isn't just a road. No, it was hope and commerce and adventure and romance, all in those fabled numbers. And we're taking that road trip right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

We choose to go to the moon! The Rum Tum Tugga is a curious cat. Hundred billion other galaxies. Right now, don't like me.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Welcome to Five Minute Trivia, where we're making the world smarter five minutes at a time. I'm your host, R. M. Zuberi. If you wanted to take a cross-country road trip prior to 1926, you would have had to have been, at least partially, out of your mind. Because there were no highways, there was no one road, all you had was this patchwork network of privately maintained local roads called auto trails. It was up to you to just kind of connect them together until you got where you needed to go. Because, again, you were nuts. You see, a lot of these roads didn't have signs. Some weren't paved, and some weren't even real. Like unscrupulous locals would throw some lines on a map to drum up business, and then travelers would get stuck in their towns. So something had to be done. In 1925, Congress authorized the creation of a national highway system. Now this was not the interstate highway system, we'll talk about that. No, this was a numbered highway system. A businessman named Cyrus Avery pushed for the creation of a continuous highway that stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles. He called it Route 60, but that was already taken. He was offered 62, but didn't like that number. 66 was available, and he did like that, so that's what it became. Avery didn't just propose the highway, he really promoted it. He created a cross-country foot race called the Bunyan Derby. He sponsored an ad campaign to get people to drive to the 1932 Summer Olympics in LA and now that there was a real paved road, you didn't have to be clinically insane to do it. Okay, so now you have a road. There's lots of roads, right? Like what's so special about Route 66? Well, part of it was timing. Just a few years after its construction, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl hit and people took Route 66 and traveled west to escape poverty and famine. It was seen as a literal road to prosperity. John Steinbeck immortalized that idea in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

66 is the path of a people in flight. Refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these, the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks, and the rutted country roads. 66 is the Mother Road, the road of flight.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Because of his novel, the Mother Road has become the official, unofficial nickname for Route 66. In the Grapes of Wrath, the Jode family gets kicked off their land and hits the Mother Road from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life.

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Where should I get to California? I'm gonna reach up and pick me orange whenever I want it. Some grapes.

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Now the depression eventually came to an end, as did World War II. And an America flush with hard-earned victory and newfound prosperity, bought cars and hit the road to see their country. Sunny Pacific beaches and the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert. With all that travel, businesses sprung up to accommodate car traffic. Hotels, restaurants, roadside attractions, a trip from Chicago to Santa Monica, where Route 66 terminated, became as much about the journey as the destination. It was the quintessential American road trip. Weirdly enough, its popularity is what led to its downfall. It was great for people who enjoyed the journey, but sometimes you really do just want to get to your destination. As Route 66 and the other numbered highways got more congested, authorities took to widening the roads and creating bypasses, but in 1956, Congress authorized the creation of the Interstate Highway System. These were bigger, faster, limited access roads, like there were no traffic lights or intersections and you couldn't just set up shop by the side of the road. It was vigorously opposed by lots of businesses that depended on Route 66, but there was ultimately no stopping it. And the Interstate Highways did do exactly what local civic leaders feared. Whole towns were bypassed, and their businesses just dried up. If you've ever seen the Disney Pixar movie Cars, the town of Radiator Springs is modeled after a bunch of small towns that were just barely hanging on after the interstate was built. One of those is the town of Seeligman, right here in my home state of Arizona. Seeligman sits at one end of the longest uninterrupted stretch of Route 66 that exists, 158 miles from Seeligman to Topak. It's known as the birthplace of Route 66, and John Lassiter, the director of cars, visited the town before making the movie. Having been there myself, I can tell you that it looks like the movie set brought to life. It's a living, breathing museum of a bygone era with vintage diners, eclectic stores, and locals that love their town. If you've never traveled Route 66, this year is a great time for it. Beautiful mountain vistas, great little towns, and an old west that will never die. This journey is a destination. That's our show this week. Join us next time, and thanks for listening.