Route 66: America's Longest Small Town

INTRODUCTION

Route 66 is firmly rooted in the nation’s historic roads and trails that were born of our insatiable quest for greener pastures and curiosity about what was over the next hill. The Pontiac Trail and Wire Road, Ozark Trails Highway and Santa Fe Trail, Spanish Trail and National Old Trails Highway, Beale Wagon Road, and Mojave Road are the foundation for what is, arguably, the most famous highway in the world.

However, unlike these roads and trails that became historic footnotes after being rendered obsolete by the nation’s evolving transportation needs, Route 66 remained relevant. It has also continued to evolve even though, technically, it no longer exists as a US highway.

From that perspective, it is rather fitting that Route 66, in the twenty-first century, has transitioned into a living, breathing time capsule. Though certification of US 66 occurred in 1926, there are tangible links to centuries of American societal evolution along the highway’s corridor from Chicago to Santa Monica.

It is America’s longest attraction. Museums, festivals, scenic wonders, neon-lit landmarks, and classic tourist traps entice travelers from throughout the world to travel the storied highway where the past, present, and future intersect seamlessly.

In 1927, a marketing campaign branded US 66 as the Main Street of America, a descriptor that is still fitting even though the highway officially ceased to exist in 1984. John Steinbeck referred to it as the Mother Road in The Grapes of Wrath a decade later. Then, in 1946, Bobby Troup penned the highway’s anthem, and Nat King Cole had most everyone in the country singing a tune about getting your kicks on Route 66.

However, as exciting as the glory days of Route 66 in the 1940s and 1950s were, at least for the segment of American society not restricted by prejudice and segregation, in many ways they seem pale when compared to the era of the highway’s renaissance. Today, there is a tangible, infectious enthusiasm found all along the route of the old highway and in the international Route 66 community.

Intertwined along the Route 66 corridor are ghost towns and abandoned truck stops, somber Civil War battlefields and dynamic cities, recently renovated motels and cafés, and businesses that have been under the same management for decades. When driving Route 66 today, you are almost as likely to meet travelers from Australia, Germany, or Japan as you are to meet someone from Alabama, Alaska, or Arizona.

From its inception, Route 66 was a road in a near-constant state of evolution. That trend continues today.

Electric vehicle charging stations share a place with vintage gasoline pumps at renovated historic service stations that now serve as information centers or gift shops. The Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum, the first of its kind in the world, opened in Kingman, Arizona, in 2014. Formerly abandoned segments of highway with picturesque steel truss bridges are repurposed as bicycle corridors.

However, it is the travelers and business owners, the preservationists and the visionaries who make this highway truly unique and special, and who give it a sense of infectious enthusiasm. With animated tales of adventure, the people who travel Route 66 fuel its ever-growing international popularity, and Route 66 today is a linear community, the nation’s longest small town.

This book is not merely another guide to iconic Route 66, an almost magical highway. It is a cultural odyssey. As we travel from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Pacific Coast, I will introduce you to some of the people who are at the heart of the highway’s renaissance, as well as the places that ensure a journey along this highway is a memorable one.

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAND OF LINCOLN

With the advent of the automobile, the nation’s historic wanderlust was unleashed as never before. The exploits of daring automobilists garnered headlines and sold newspapers, their stories became bestselling books, and the great American road trip was born.

In 1903, Dr. Horatio Jackson of Vermont became the first person to make a transcontinental journey by automobile. Six years later, Norwegian-born A. L. Westgard, a former railroad surveyor, mapped thousands of miles of automobile roads, including the Trail to Sunset that linked Chicago with the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway at Yuma, Arizona.

In 1915, during the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, more than twenty thousand people attended the event from outside the state of California. More than half of these traveled by automobile, including twenty-one-year-old Edsel Ford who also visited natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon on his western adventure along the National Old Trails Highway, predecessor to Route 66.

In the previous year, legendary racers Barney Oldfield, Louis Chevrolet, and other drivers followed the course for the last of the Desert Classic automobile races, derisively labeled as the Cactus Derby, along the National Old Trails Highway (Route 66 after 1926) from Los Angeles to Ash Fork in Arizona. Two years later, Emily Post chronicled her coast-to-coast adventure in a bestselling book, By Motor to the Golden Gate.

In Chicago, the path of Route 66 is through a manmade canyon that represents more than a century of urban architectural evolution. Rhys Martin, Cloudless Lens Photography

In 1915, Edsel Ford, then twenty-one years old, joined thousands of Americans on a grand adventure along the National Old Trails Highway. In 2015, the Historic Vehicle Association re-created his journey.

The seeds for the good roads movement sown in the national bicycle mania of the late nineteenth century and the establishment of the Wheelmen blossomed into a national obsession by the dawning of the new century. In 1902, nine auto clubs in the Chicago area joined to form the American Automobile Association, the AAA.

In 1912, a Daughters of the American Revolution initiative to knit a series of historic roads and trails into a coast-to-coast highway became manifest as the National Old Trails Highway, which followed portions of the Trail to Sunset. Fourteen years later, US 66 followed Westgard’s pioneering road west through the heart of Chicago. These initiatives were the cornerstone for the US highway system.

US Highway 66 was the latest incarnation in a series of historic trails and highways at the time of its certification in 1926.

A common thread in the narrative about the infancy of a road network developed specifically for use by automobile owners is the fact that as with the railroad that preceded it, these roads linked the nation’s cities. The benefit to rural America was tangible and dramatic, but for highway planners this was largely a secondary consideration. There is a certain irony in this.

At its inception and for decades to come, the cities were usually the primary destination for a journey on US 66. The towns and villages where Route 66 channeled traffic through town on Main Street were merely stops along the way, as were attractions such as the Grand Canyon or Painted Desert. Today in the era of the Route 66 renaissance, there is a reversal of roles. Small-town America is often the destination and cities are merely stops along the way.

Two of the nation’s most dynamic metropolitan areas, cities filled with cultural diversity, historic sites, stunning architectural landmarks, and even scenic wonders, anchor Route 66 on the east and west. Yet the urban centers along the Route 66 corridor are among the least explored by enthusiasts, and these cities are primarily the communities that are slowest to capitalize on the potential for economic development and revitalization that the renewed interest in this historic highway offers.

Traffic congestion, parking, expense, misconceptions pertaining to crime, and related issues are in part to blame. Anemic or nonexistent Route 66–specific marketing is another problem. Chicago serves as an excellent example.

More than 80 percent of Route 66–specific travelers begin their adventure in Chicago. However, the majority pause for a photo stop at the eastern terminus of the highway, take in a few of the attractions in the immediate area such as Grant Park or the Navy Pier, visit Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant (a favored Route 66 stop that opened initially in 1923), and then jump on the interstate highway for a speedy exit.

That is a rather sad state of affairs, as the theme for the entire Route 66 adventure is set amongst the architectural treasures, landmarks, and societal milestones that line the Route 66 corridors in Chicago and neighboring communities. Time-capsuled restaurants, forlorn abandoned relics from the era of I Like Ike buttons, historic sites, museums, and vestiges from more than a century of American societal evolution cast shadows over Route 66 in this metropolis; they are largely overlooked here. As Route 66 enthusiast and collector Mike Ward notes, "In any case, any ‘re-interest’ from the larger metropolitan areas has been mostly left behind when compared with the smaller communities. That problem is particularly depressing to me as cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles has [sic] a massive amount of history relating to Route 66 due to more Route 66 alignments."

For many Route 66 enthusiasts, a quick photo op is the only stop made in Chicago before setting out on an adventure along the Main Street of America. Rhys Martin, Cloudless Lens Photography

In Chicago, sites not associated with Route 66 garner more attention than those along the highway corridor for many enthusiasts. Joe Sonderman

David Clark, a renowned author, historian, and Chicago-area tour guide who specializes in Route 66, says, I hear it all the time—so many folks set out to ‘do the route,’ but instead of spending a little time in Chicago, they start their trip in Willowbrook at Dell Rhea’s Chicken Shack. If they do come to Chicago, they eat at Lou Mitchell’s, and perhaps they take a drive past the ‘Route 66 begins’ sign at Adams and Michigan for the ubiquitous touristy photo op. Then they go on their merry way. The excuses range from saying there is ‘nothing else to see on 66 in Chicago’ to ‘we just do not want to fight the traffic.’

Clark further noted, I do give tours to groups of visitors as well as families who want to know the real story behind why Route 66 ‘winds from Chicago to L.A.’ However, statistics indicate that many more folks explore the rural and small-town stretches of the Mother Road and virtually ignore the urban portions.

For those who take the time for a bit of urban exploration along Route 66 in Chicago beyond the classic stops, I doubt if they will be disappointed. I am also rather confident that it will enhance the overall adventure.

David Clark, in Route 66 in Chicago, says that the Route 66 journey begins in Chicago for reasons historic and contemporary, and commercial and utilitarian. It is time to get our kicks on Chicago’s Route 66.

Historian and author John Weiss in Traveling the New, Historic Route 66 of Illinois expands on that thought: Many people who do Route 66 are anxious to hit the road and discover small-town America. But to really enjoy your Historic 66 tour, you should experience everything about the highway. You are starting at one of the greatest cities in America.

The urban gem that is the Berghoff Restaurant is but one example of the wonders awaiting discovery during a Route 66 odyssey in Chicago. The oldest continuously operated restaurant on Route 66 first opened its doors at State and Adams Streets in 1898. During the era of Prohibition, the owners relocated the restaurant a few doors down to its present location.

Housed in buildings built in 1872, one year after the Great Chicago Fire, the delightful restaurant is a revered landmark. Still managed by the founding family, traditional German dishes remain the institution’s trademark.

A breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s, in business since 1926, is the traditional place to begin a Route 66 odyssey. Rhys Martin, Cloudless Lens Photography

In 1953, the rerouting of westbound Route 66 funneled that highway’s traffic past the Art Institute of Chicago building, built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. This was just one of several realignments of Route 66 in Chicago. Initially, in 1926, the eastern terminus was located at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard. Within a few years, realignment moved it to Jackson Boulevard and Lake Shore Drive, and then when Jackson Boulevard and Adams Street received designation as one-way streets, westbound Route 66 followed Adams Street.

As a result, Route 66 passes through the historic heart of the city’s business district, the legendary Loop. Lining that corridor are buildings that represent more than a century of architectural change.

The Rookery Building is one example. Built in 1888 at the corner of La Salle and Adams Streets, this building features an atrium remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907. Another architectural landmark is the Railway Exchange Building built in 1904 that once housed the offices of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, Chicago & Alton Railroad, and numerous Chicago-based railroad companies.

The Berghoff that opened in 1898 is the oldest continuously operated family-owned restaurant on Route 66. Joe Sonderman

Another is the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, the tallest building on Route 66 and once the tallest in the world. For a truly unique view of this highway, try the transparent-floored observation platform.

Numerous apps and services are available to enhance the adventure, but enlisting the services of a knowledgeable guide is your best investment. In Chicago, David Clark, who bills himself as the Windy City Warrior, has researched the city and the Route 66 corridor through Chicago and the neighboring communities for years, and has shared his discoveries as a guide.

Leaving the city, Route 66 courses through some gritty commercial areas peppered with overgrown vacant lots, landmarks, intriguing architectural studies such as the Castle Car Wash building that dates to the 1920s, and an occasional hint that some neighborhoods are on the cusp of rebirth. There is even a detour necessitated by the undermining of the old highway by a quarry operation.

The neighboring communities of Cicero, Berwyn, and Lyons, as with Chicago, have yet to fully embrace the Route 66 renaissance or harness the power of resurgent interest in the highway. However, the colorful kiosks and light-blue Berwyn Route 66 banners attached to light poles on street corners leave little doubt that there is a growing awareness.

Still, interesting landmarks, restaurants, and