Route 66 marks 100 years of hardship and hope with road-trip revivals

Route 66 is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and even without the status of a nation’s main artery, the road still draws visitors seeking neon lights, kitschy motels and classic roadside food. In Albuquerque, the Associated Press described Route 66 as a highway that has long carried meanings that vary by who traveled it and what they needed—whether that was escape, work or a place to feel safe.

Across the 2,400-mile journey, Route 66 runs from Chicago through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before ending in Santa Monica, California. The AP story traces the highway’s origins to a network assembled a century ago, built with the idea of linking the industrial Midwest to the Pacific coast.

The highway also became a cultural symbol. The Associated Press said Route 66 was “immortalized” in movies, books and songs, including John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, as well as Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which the article describes as an anthem for post-World War II optimism and mobility.

For people running businesses along the route, the anniversary has reinforced the road’s staying power as a destination in itself. Sebastiaan de Boorder, a Dutch entrepreneur who helped breathe new life into The Aztec Motel in Seligman, Arizona, told the AP that Route 66 is “an essential part of American culture and history,” adding that the “historical aspect” is “a very big important part” of that influence.

The AP account also describes Route 66 as a literal path of hope during waves of migration. It points to the 1930s Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a period when the road offered a route for farmers escaping drought and poverty, and it describes World War II as another era when Route 66 helped move troops, equipment and workers to the West.

During the road’s postwar boom in the 1940s and 1950s, the AP said cheaper cars and increased disposable income helped make Route 66 a popular vacation route. Author and historian Jim Hinckley said in the AP story, “People generally have a sense of adventure, a sense curiosity. And you can find that on Route 66. This is the road of dreams.”

The Associated Press also described Route 66 as a “divided highway,” emphasizing both opportunity and harm along the way. It said more than half of the route passed through Indian Country, bringing tourists as well as leaving scars through eminent domain across tribal land and perpetuating stereotypes in marketing—where vendor signs could refer to tipis and feathered headdresses while not always reflecting distinct cultures.

At Laguna Pueblo west of Albuquerque, restaurants and service stations sprang up, including some operated by military veterans from the pueblo, according to the AP story. The article also said Pueblo women adapted too by making pottery vessels that tourists sought out, and it described Laguna leaders as viewing the road—called “he-ya-nhee’” in Keres—as “the corridor of commerce,” with businessman and tribal member Ron Solimon describing the significance.

For Black travelers, the AP said Route 66 could mean segregation and the need for information about safe lodging during the Jim Crow era. Matthew Pearce, state historian for the Oklahoma Historical Society, told the AP that “segregation was a fact of life” and that Black motorists needed to know a safe place to go.

The AP story cited places that served as havens despite that landscape, including the Threatt Filling Station near Luther, Oklahoma, which it said was not listed in the Green Book but offered barbecue and even baseball between “two sundown towns.” Edward Threatt, whose grandparents opened the station around 1933, recalled a difference between what the route’s reputation promised and what Black travelers experienced, saying, “By and large, the Black traveler didn’t get a lot of kicks on Route 66,” and, “And if they got some kicks, it wasn’t the kind you would think of.”

The Associated Press said President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vision for a modern interstate highway system eventually contributed to Route 66’s decommissioning as a federal highway in 1985. Some towns along the route declined, and it fell to local governments, state historical societies and private businesses to preserve sections of the road, with Angel Delgadillo—an Arizona barber who lobbied the Arizona Legislature—described by the AP as a driving force for historic preservation that helped save Seligman from becoming a ghost town.

Preservation efforts continue through restored motor lodges, surviving neon sign sketches and Route 66-themed murals along segments of the route, the AP reported, and it highlighted additional remaining attractions from stretches in California to the Texas Panhandle and sites near the Mississippi River. The AP said more than 90% of the road is still drivable in California, and that more than 250 buildings, districts and road segments are listed on the National Register of Historic Places—evidence that the highway remains both a physical path and a continuing story.