There are faster routes between Chicago and Los Angeles, but Route 66 has never depended on speed. For its 100th anniversary, the highway continues to pull people from around the world to follow what the Associated Press described as the “Mother Road” — a trip associated with neon lights, kitschy motels and roadside attractions, and with a cultural history that stretches beyond the asphalt itself.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the AP said different communities have long read the same road through different lives. To John Steinbeck, Route 66 led poor farmers from Dust Bowl desperation to sunny California; the route also served as a “economic boon” to Native Americans along the way, as it offered sanctuary for Black travelers during segregation, and as a stop for music fans chasing their “kicks.” Sebastiaan de Boorder, a Dutch entrepreneur who helped renew The Aztec Motel in Seligman, Arizona, said “It’s an essential part of American culture and history,” and added that “The historical aspect is just a very big important part of American culture, with its influence and its character.”
Route 66’s creators built it with both purpose and symbolism. The highway runs for roughly 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers) from Chicago through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before ending in Santa Monica, California. The AP reported that it was stitched together a century ago from a collection of Native American trading routes and old dirt roads, with the goal of linking the industrial Midwest to the Pacific coast.
In the story of the road’s promotion, the AP highlighted Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the “Father of Route 66.” Avery saw Route 66 as more than an efficient way to cross the country, describing it as a chance to connect rural America and create new pockets of commerce. Avery also understood that “the number 66 would be ripe for marketing,” a logic that the AP said helped Route 66 become immortalized in movies, books and music, including Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which served as an anthem for post-World War II optimism and mobility.
The highway’s centennial also sits inside a migration narrative. Since its November 1926 designation as one of the nation’s original numbered highways, Route 66 has been portrayed as a path of hope for migrants escaping drought-ravaged farms and poverty during the 1930s Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and, during World War II, as a route used to move troops, equipment and workers out West. The AP said that the postwar boom of the 1940s and 1950s made it a popular vacation road as cars became more affordable and disposable income increased.
Jim Hinckley, an author and historian, described that pull in terms of personal motion: “People generally have a sense of adventure, a sense curiosity. And you can find that on Route 66. This is the road of dreams.” Along that road, roadside diners and motels thrived, with businesses built to attract motorists and keep them stopping — from neon-heavy displays to themed attractions like diners known for signature foods. Springfield, Illinois, for example, was described as home to the Cozy Dog Drive In, famous for its breaded hot dogs on a stick since 1949.
As the AP reported, the highway was also an engine of exchange that brought prosperity and transformation — and left damage behind. Route 66 crossed through Indian Country, where it could be an economic boon, but it also left scars, including through eminent domain across tribal land. The AP said more than half of the highway crossed through Indian Country and that vendor signs sometimes made casual references to tipis and feathered headdresses: symbols that could be used for marketing even when they did not represent the distinct cultures along the route. At Laguna Pueblo west of Albuquerque, restaurants and service stations sprang up, with some run by military veterans from the pueblo, while Pueblo women adapted too by turning pottery vessels into works of art.
The AP also said Laguna leaders have long considered Route 66 — or “he-ya-nhee’” in Keres — as “the corridor of commerce,” and identified businessman and tribal member Ron Solimon as describing its potential. According to the report, the tribe has built a multimillion-dollar business empire that includes casinos, burger stands and other ventures. At the same time, the AP said Route 66 presented dangers for some travelers, particularly during the Jim Crow era, when Black travelers had to rely on guides like the Green Book to find safe lodging and services.
Matthew Pearce, state historian for the Oklahoma Historical Society, said “Especially for long-distance travel, segregation was a fact of life,” and added that “And so Black motorists needed to know a safe place to go.” The AP cited a specific example: the Threatt Filling Station near the central Oklahoma community of Luther, described as not listed in the Green Book but serving as a safe haven between two sundown towns, with the station offering barbecue and even baseball. Edward Threatt, whose grandparents opened the station around 1933, said in the AP story, “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.”
Over time, the road’s status changed and local efforts filled the gap. The AP reported that President Dwight Eisenhower’s vision for a modern interstate highway system helped lead to Route 66 being decommissioned as a federal highway in 1985, and that some towns along the route died afterward. In places where the federal highway disappeared, the AP said it fell to local governments, state historical societies and private businesses to preserve sections.
A driving force in that preservation, the AP said, was Angel Delgadillo, a barber who lobbied the Arizona Legislature to designate the road as a historic highway, saving Seligman from turning into a ghost town and setting a preservation standard in other places. In New Mexico, the AP said original sketches for neon signs have been preserved and that Route 66-themed murals and restored motor lodges appear along the longest urban stretch of the road still intact.
The AP also pointed to parts of the route that remain drivable and accessible for travelers, including that more than 90% of the road is still drivable in California. It described the Texas Panhandle’s Cadillac Ranch and a walkway or biking route across the old Chain of Rocks Bridge near the Mississippi River. More than 250 buildings, districts and road segments along Route 66 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the AP said, but it framed the fascination as more than bricks and asphalt.
Jim Ross, an author and historian, summed up the experience in terms of social chance rather than just sights: “Some of the most interesting and fun things that happen to people when they travel the route is running into somebody they know or some happenstance thing that comes totally unexpected,” he said. “And that’s a great part of the Route 66 experience.”