In his 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck called it "The Mother Road." U.S. Route 66 guided roughly 200,000 people out of the depressed mid-section of the country to the promised land, California, in the 1930s. Angling across the western half of the United States from Chicago, it passed through eight states and three time zones before ending at the foot of the Santa Monica pier in California.
When Route 66 -- dubbed the Main Street of America -- was officially designated in 1926, barely 800 (1,288 kilometers) of its 2,448 miles (3,941 km) were paved. By 1938 it was complete, but 20 years later the federal Interstate Highway System began tolling the death knell for the historic route.
Message Board Tell us about your road trips! The highway's end didn't come quickly -- it was decommissioned in 1985, replaced by four-lane highways meandering in the same general direction as their famous predecessor. But Route 66 had already been immortalized -- by Steinbeck, by Martin Milner and George Maharis in the 1960s TV show "Route 66," and by the Bobby Troup ditty urging travelers to "get your kicks on Route 66."
Today, bits and pieces of the famed roadway remain, although the intrepid traveler must do some detective work to follow the trail. It's worth it -- bits and pieces of Americana still live on the backroads and by-ways that once bore that proud designation, along with some of the characters who have long called Route 66 home.
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