THE ENDURING LEGACY OF A ROAD THAT SPANNED ACROSS THE HEART OF AMERICA.
To many, Route 66 recalls carefree summer days spent with memories behind and adventure ahead. But it was never meant to be named so. The route originally planned from Chicago to Los Angeles and connecting St. Louis on the east to Joplin on the west in Missouri was named Route 60. However, this ruffled the feathers of Virginia and Kentucky representatives, who had also planned a Route 60 from Virginia Beach to Los Angeles. The new Missouri route was eventually given the double-digit designation, and Route 66 was approved on April 30, 1926, in the Colonial Hotel in Springfield, making Springfield the birthplace of Route 66.
Route 66 would ultimately cover 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica in a diagonal path across the central states leading into the southwest. The path avoided a more traditional linear course; it aimed to link rural communities in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois to Chicago. The route quickly became a boon to the early trucking industry.
Because Route 66 was so accessible to small towns, it was the first avenue of retreat when the Dust Bowl consumed much of Oklahoma with severe dust storms. Reportedly, as many as 210,000 people took Route 66, searching for opportunity in California. John Steinbeck’s classic 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath (and the 1940 film), brought national attention to what the author called “the Mother Road.”
By 1931, Route 66 had been completely paved in Missouri, though the rest of the highway wouldn’t be complete until 1938. During the years of World War II, most of the traffic along Route 66 was either military or military families going to visit loved ones. Traffic near Fort Leonard Wood became so heavy that a stretch was expanded into a divided highway.
Happier days for Route 66 would come shortly after the end of World War II. The post-war economic boom, more leisure time, and the increasing popularity of the automobile drove more and more families to the road.
From the 1940s to the early ’50s, the destination seemed less important than stops along the journey. Hotels, motels, restaurants, gas stations, and roadside attractions grew along the road that by this time had been dubbed, “America’s Main Street.” In 1946, Nat King Cole released Bobby Troup’s song “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66.”
Then in 1955, a new attraction in Anaheim, California, changed everything. Disneyland made the destination important again. For a few more years, Route 66 would benefit from middle-class families taking their children west to see the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, and other attractions along the road to the Magic Kingdom.
The television program, Route 66, premiered on CBS on October 7, 1960, telling the story of two friends searching for America in a Chevrolet Corvette. To this day, Route 66 and the Corvette have become synonymous in the American consciousness and symbolic of the freedom of the road. The program ran until March 20, 1964. But by then, Route 66’s days were already numbered. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had created the Interstate Highway System, based on his war experience with the German autobahn network. With higher speeds, fewer stops, and more convenience, the interstates would soon cannibalize Route 66 and its innocent charm. In 1985, the last stretch of highway bearing the Route 66 designation, in Arizona, was decommissioned.
Fortunately, nostalgia for Route 66 was just beginning. Missouri had led the way for the creation of Route 66 in the early part of the twentieth century.
To read the rest of the Route 66 history in Missouri, grab a copy of our 2025 Route 66 Guide by clicking here. The guide is free—you just pay for shipping!
This article was originally published in Missouri Life’s 2025 Route 66 Guide.
