Route 66 Trivia | 48 facts about the renowned highway

Route 66 is one of the most famous highways around the world and the first national highway in the United States.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about this famous road.

1. U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the U.S. Highway System
2. It is also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the Main Street of America or the Mother Road
3. US 66 was established on November 11, 1926
4. With road signs erected the following year
5. The highway became one of the most famous roads in the United States
6. It originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before terminating in Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California
7. Thus covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km)
8. It was recognized in popular culture by both the 1946 hit song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the Route 66 television series, which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964
9. In John Steinbeck’s classic American novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), the road “Highway 66” symbolized escape and loss
10. US 66 served as a primary route for those who migrated west
11. Especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s
12. The road supported the economies of the communities through which it passed
13. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway
14. Those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System
15. US 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime
16. But was officially removed from the United States Highway System in 1985
17. After it had been replaced in its entirety by segments of the Interstate Highway System
18. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been communally designated a National Scenic Byway by the name “Historic Route 66”
19. Returning the name to some maps
20. Several states have adopted significant bypassed sections of the former US 66 into their state road networks as State Route 66
21. The corridor is also being redeveloped into U.S. Bicycle Route 66
22. As a part of the United States Bicycle Route System that was developed in the 2010s
23. Over the years, US 66 received numerous nicknames
24. Right after US 66 was commissioned, it was known as “The Great Diagonal Way” because the Chicago-to-Oklahoma City stretch ran northeast to southwest
25. Later, US 66 was advertised by the U.S. Highway 66 Association as “The Main Street of America”
26. The title had also been claimed by supporters of US 40, but the US 66 group was more successful
27. In the John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath, the highway is called “The Mother Road”, its prevailing title today
28. Lastly, US 66 was unofficially named “The Will Rogers Highway” by the U.S. Highway 66 Association in 1952
29. Although a sign along the road with that name appeared in the John Ford film, The Grapes of Wrath
30. This was released in 1940, twelve years before the association gave the road that name
31. A plaque dedicating the highway to Will Rogers is still located in Santa Monica, California
32. There are more plaques like this
33. One can be found in Galena, Kansas
34. It was originally located on the Kansas-Missouri state line
35. It was moved to the Howard Litch Memorial Park in 2001
36. US 66 has been a fixture in popular culture
37. American pop-culture artists publicized US 66 and the experience, through song and television
38. Bobby Troup wrote “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66”
39. The highway lent its name to the Route 66 TV series in the 1960s, which itself had a popular theme song written and arranged by Nelson Riddle
40. The Grapes of Wrath (novel) and The Grapes of Wrath (film) each depict the Joad family, the members of which have been evicted from their small farm in Oklahoma and travel to California on US 66
41. 66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there
42. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads
43. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight
44. The 2006 animated film Cars had the working title Route 66, and described the decline of the fictional Radiator Springs, nearly a ghost town once its mother road
45. US 66 was bypassed by Interstate 40
46. Former England cricket team captain Joe Root uses the number 66, a play on words of the famous road
47. On April 30, 2022, it is the 96th anniversary of the route’s numerical designation
48. Route 66 was honored with a video Google Doodle