route 66, the interstate that stretches from chicago to los angeles.
thats where the yanks get their kicks.
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It was the main route to get from the midest to the west coast. It was THE route people took. There were many attractions and stylistic diners along the route, providing income for a lot of small towns.
During the cold war, it was decided that America needed wider interstates in the event that troops and munitions had to be moved (esp. in the event of nuclear war). Once the interstates were built, Route 66 was used less and less.
US Route 66 was one of the original federal highways (it wasn't an interstate) created on November 11, 1926. Due to promotion by the US Highway 66 Association created the following year, it received much publicity and became the first federal highway paved from end to end. The Depression caused it to be the main (but not only) "road of flight" used by destitute farmers looking for agricultural jobs in California, this being used as the basis for John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" (the nickname "The Mother Road" came from this book). US 66 was a good road to travel due to its missing most of the higher mountains of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and further north; US 66 itself passed through New Mexico and Arizona.
It wound up being a major military road during World War II. Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri was near the highway, and much military traffic followed it to the Pacific.
During the 50s, it became a golden road for WWII veterans taking families on vacations to California and many wanna-be actors heading to Hollywood. Many mom-and-pop restaurants, motels, tourist traps, etc. sprung up along the highway, some of them still around.
The popularity of the highway was it's own undoing, though. It's been called a 2500 mile long traffic jam, resulting in multi-lane divided highways being built to bypass many of the cities and towns. With Eisenhower's interstate plans, a set of interstates (I-55, I-44, I-40, I-15, and I-10) wound up replacing the highway. It was decertified in 1985.
In 1990, it received a rebirth. Arizona and Missouri both declared the highway in their state "historic", an act that has now happened in the other six states that US 66 went through. It was, in essence, the California Trail of the Automobile Era. References : Much personal research and travel along the "Main Street of America".
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