U.S. Route 66 (US 66, Route 66) also known as the Will Rogers Highway, was a major
United States Numbered Highway
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these hi ...
in the state of
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
from November 11, 1926, to June 26, 1985. US 66 covered a total of through Arizona. The highway ran from west to east, starting in
Needles, California
Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the Californian border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is a ...
, through
Kingman and
Seligman to the
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
state line. Nationally,
US 66 ran from
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
, to
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. In its height of popularity, US 66 was one of the most popular highways in the state of Arizona, sometimes carrying over one million cars a year.
In the early years, US 66 had to compete with other major U.S. Highways for construction and improvement funding. The highway also played an important role during the
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
as a means for refugees (also known as "
Okies
An Okie is a person identified with the state of Oklahoma. This connection may be residential, ethnic, historical or cultural. For most Okies, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Oklahoman. ...
") to escape the ruined farmlands of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
and migrate to California. Experiences of these refugees traveling through Arizona were largely detailed in
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...
's novel, ''
The Grapes of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
'', and the 1940
movie adaption that followed. During the mid-20th century, the highway became a tourist destination, spawning the existence of several new
motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries ...
s,
restaurant
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
s and other road-side businesses and attractions.
With the introduction of
Interstate 40 (I-40), US 66 began declining considerably, with some of the towns along the highway becoming
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
s. Following the completion of I-40, US 66 was completely
decommissioned by the
Arizona Department of Transportation
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, pronounced "A-Dot") is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's state highways, highway system, the agency is also i ...
(ADOT) in 1984, then retired nationwide the following year. Significant portions of the old highway remain, such as
State Route 66 (SR 66) between Kingman and the
Yavapai
The Yavapai are a Native American tribe in Arizona. Historically, the Yavapai – literally “people of the sun” (from ''Enyaava'' “sun” + ''Paay'' “people”) – were divided into four geographical bands who identified as separate, i ...
–
Coconino county line east of
Peach Springs
, native_name_lang = hu
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...
. Since 1987, other sections have been designated as Historic Route 66, which is both an
Arizona Historic Road and a
National Scenic Byway
A National Scenic Byway is a road recognized by the United States Department of Transportation for one or more of six "intrinsic qualities": archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic. The program was established by Co ...
.
Route description
US 66 was one of the main transcontinental highways in
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, serving as the main east–west highway through the northern end of the state. Nationally, US 66 ran from
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, to the
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, metropolitan area.
The highway in Arizona was over in its earlier years, between
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
.
The route originally went from
Topock through
Oatman to
Kingman.
Later, the route between Topock and Kingman was switched to an alignment going through
Yucca
''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flo ...
.
From Kingman, US 66 went northeast to
Peach Springs
, native_name_lang = hu
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...
before heading southeast to
Seligman.
Between Seligman and the New Mexico state line near
Lupton, US 66 traveled the same basic route I-40 takes today, through
Flagstaff,
Winslow Winslow may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish
* Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974
United States and Canada
* Rural Municipality of Winslo ...
and
Holbrook Holbrook may refer to:
Places
England
*Holbrook, Derbyshire, a village
* Holbrook, Somerset, a hamlet in Charlton Musgrove
* Holbrook, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, a former mining village in Mosborough ward, now known as Halfway
*Holbrook, Suffolk, ...
. Save for several city streets east of Flagstaff, most of US 66 has either been cut off, abandoned, destroyed or rebuilt into sections of I-40.
Notable exceptions include the original route through Oatman,
SR 66, multiple current and former
I-40 Business Loops and Townsend–Winona Road from US 89 to I-40 in Winona.
Several sections of the highway no longer part of the
Arizona State Highway System are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
(NRHP).
The following route description roughly follows the path US 66 would have traversed across Arizona in 1940.
California border to Kingman
![Rte66btwnOatmanAndKingman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Rte66btwnOatmanAndKingman.JPG)
US 66 entered Arizona from
Needles, California
Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the Californian border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is a ...
, on the
Old Trails Bridge
The Old Trails Bridge is a historic bridge over the Colorado River in San Bernardino County and Mohave County in the United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It has also been known as Topock Bridge and a ...
across the
Topock Gorge
Topock Gorge is a mountainous canyon and gorge section of the Colorado River located between Interstate 40 and Lake Havasu. The town of Needles, California, to the northwest, was named for the "needle-like" vertical rock outcroppings. The natu ...
and
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...
, within the
Havasu National Wildlife Refuge
Havasu National Wildlife Refuge is a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California. It preserves habitat for desert bighorn sheep, the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher, and other animals. The refug ...
, arriving in
Topock, Arizona
Topock ( Mojave: Tuupak) (pronounced ''/'Toe-pock'/'' by locals) is a small unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Mohave County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population within the CDP was 2. Topock a ...
.
The route headed northeast, where it crossed the path of present-day I-40 and the
BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
(formerly the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...
). The highway then curved east for less than a mile, before curving directly north on Mohave County Route 10 (also known as Oatman Highway), past present-day
Golden Shores through
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...
-managed federal lands. About north of Golden Shores, US 66 arrived at the foothills of the
Black Mountains, following the base of the those mountains for before entering them. Shortly afterward, the old highway arrived in the town of
Oatman, passing through the center of the old mining town. North of Oatman, US 66 turned in a generally eastward direction winding its way up and through the Black Mountains over treacherous curves.
US 66 passed through the small mining community of
Goldroad and the adjacent mine, before continuing on its winding path up the mountainsides.
Less than east of the Goldroad Mine, US 66 crossed over
Sitgreaves Pass
Sitgreaves Pass is a Gap (landform), gap at an elevation of 3,586 feet / 1,093 meters, in the Black Mountains (Arizona), Black Mountains of Mohave County, Arizona.
When Edward Fitzgerald Beale built Beale's Wagon Road over this pass, he named it ...
at an elevation of , making its slow winding descent towards the other side of the Black Mountains. The highway finally exited the mountains at Cold Springs Station, heading straight east before curving northeast again, away from the mountains.
As it headed northeast, US 66 entered the town of
McConnico, crossing the path of present-day I-40 again, before turning it turned north, and paralleled the Santa Fe Railway and curving through a small set of mountains. The highway and railroad then arrived in
Kingman; US 66 followed Main Street (now
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre Devine (October 7, 1905 – February 18, 1977) was an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films, including his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers in 10 feature fil ...
Avenue).
US 66 met
US 93 and
US 466 at a former highway junction, which is now the spot of Locomotive Park, the home of
Santa Fe Railway No. 3759, a 3751 class
4-8-4 Northern steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
. US 66 continued through town on Main Street, and curved northeast towards I-40 at the eastern end of Kingman. About northeast of Kingman, US 66 crossed under present-day I-40, and continued northeast through the present day Kingman metro area on what is now
SR 66.
Kingman to Seligman
![Oatman highway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Oatman_highway.jpg)
Between Kingman and
Seligman, I-40's more southerly and more direct path diverges from former US 66 by approximately , putting considerable distance between former US 66 and the current Interstate. SR 66 and Crookton Road comprise the route of old US 66 between Kingman and Seligman. The state highway designation currently covers just of a section east of Kingman.
As US 66 headed northeast from Kingman on SR 66 and paralleled the Santa Fe Railway, the highway made a gradual northeastern curve about from Kingman, and entered another mountain range, where it arrived at the town of
Hackberry.
From Hackberry, US 66 then curved northeast through the mountains, passing through the towns of
Valentine and
Crozier
A crosier or crozier (also known as a paterissa, pastoral staff, or bishop's staff) is a stylized staff that is a symbol of the governing office of a bishop or abbot and is carried by high-ranking prelates of Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholi ...
.
Upon entering a small mountain valley, the highway passed through the town of
Truxton before entering the mountains again at
Peach Springs
, native_name_lang = hu
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...
. Between Valentine and Peach Springs, SR 66 takes a later routing of US 66, which is straighter and has fewer curves. The older, less straight alignment, used through 1940, can be seen on either side of present-day SR 66.
A natural feature and tourist attraction called the
Grand Canyon Caverns
The Grand Canyon Caverns ( yuf-x-hav, Ŧathiil Ñwaʼa or , ), located just a few miles east of Peach Springs, Arizona, lie below ground level. They are among the largest dry caverns in the United States. Dry caverns compose only 3% of caverns ...
, just east of Peach Springs, are among the largest dry caverns in the United States.
![AZ State Route 66](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/AZ_State_Route_66.jpg)
Upon leaving Peach Springs, US 66 curved southeast into the
Hualapai Indian Reservation
The Hualapai (, , yuf-x-wal, Hwalbáy) is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Arizona with about 2300 enrolled members. Approximately 1353 enrolled members reside on the Hualapai Reservation, which spans over three counties in Nort ...
. Shortly afterwards, the highway left
Mohave County
Mohave County is in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United St ...
and continued east into
Coconino County
Coconino County is a county in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 census. The county seat is Flagstaff. The county takes its name from ''Cohonino'', a name applied to the Havasupai p ...
. Shortly after entering Coconino County, US 66 entered
Yavapai County
Yavapai County is near the center of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 236,209, making it the fourth-most populous county in Arizona. The county seat is Prescott.
Yavapai County comprises the Prescott, AZ M ...
. The route briefly entered Coconino County again for less than , before crossing into Yavapai County for a second time, where it remained for several miles.
This final crossing of the Yavapai–Coconino county line also serves as the present terminus of SR 66. From here on out, US 66 continued southeast as a county-maintained road (known as Crookton Road).
This segment was previously the easternmost of SR 66, until
ADOT
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, pronounced "A-Dot") is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's highway system, the agency is also involved with pu ...
retired this section and handed it over to Yavapai County in 1990 for maintenance.
Old US 66 continued in a straight southeasterly direction for , then made a long curve south and east around a large volcanic bluff. After curving around the bluff, US 66 continued into Seligman, becoming Chino Street (today part of the
Seligman I-40 Business Loop) into the center of town.
Seligman is the birthplace of the first
Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, established by local barber
Angel Delgadillo
Angel Delgadillo (born April 19, 1927) is an American barber and businessowner in Seligman, Arizona who has been dubbed the "guardian angel" of U.S. Route 66. He is the main founder of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, established i ...
in 1987. The association obtained the first "Historic Route 66" designation, which the state initially placed on the segment of US 66 between Kingman and Seligman.
East of Seligman, old US 66 diverged from the current business route. Where the business route turns south to return to I-40, US 66 headed southeast on Crookton Road. US 66 proceeded to follow Crookton Road through high desert towards
Ash Fork.
Seligman to Williams
From Seligman, US 66 continued heading southeast for on Crookton Road. At I-40 exit 139, the highway briefly took on the route of the present-day Interstate, but curved southeast less than a mile later onto the south
frontage road
A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. A frontage road is often used to provide access to private drivew ...
.
The
volcanic cinder asphalt road curved northeast from the Interstate and crossed over a small three-span concrete bridge, rejoining I-40 where the frontage road curves east.
In the same spot as present day exit 144, US 66 curved northeast, taking Pine Avenue into downtown
Ash Fork. US 66 continued straight onto 8th Street where Pine Avenue turned east, then made a right-hand curve onto Lewis Avenue.
Today, Lewis Avenue is a
one-way street
One-way traffic (or uni-directional traffic) is traffic that moves in a single direction. A one-way street is a street either facilitating only one-way traffic, or designed to direct vehicles to move in one direction. One-way streets typical ...
, heading westbound only. Traffic heading east through Ash Fork must take Park Avenue, one block to the south. Both Lewis and Park make up a
one-way pair
A one-way pair, one-way couple, or couplet refers to that portion of a bi-directional traffic facilitysuch as a road, bus, streetcar, or light rail linewhere its opposing flows exist as two independent and roughly parallel facilities.
Descriptio ...
carrying
I-40 Business through town.
![Route 66, Williams (25976796075)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Route_66%2C_Williams_%2825976796075%29.jpg)
At the spot where the I-40 Business Loop turns south to become
SR 89, there used to be an intersection where US 66 met at a junction with
US 89. US 89 shared a
wrong-way concurrency
A concurrency in a road network is an instance of one physical roadway bearing two or more different route numbers. When two roadways share the same right-of-way, it is sometimes called a common section or commons. Other terminology for a concurre ...
with US 66 between Ash Fork and
Flagstaff.
Both US 66 and northbound US 89 continued straight east from this intersection on to a highway alignment which no longer exists. The former highway straddled the north side of I-40, at times, often joining and leaving the present westbound lanes of the Interstate.
East of Ash Fork, the route left the high desert terrain and entered a mountainous area, covered with
Ponderosa pine
''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the ...
forests.
US 66/US 89 left I-40 around exit 149, heading northeast along an abandoned section of highway through the Monte Carlo truck stop. Approximately from the Interstate, the highway turned straight east for , then wound southeast for , crossing over the Interstate. The old highway made a broad curve less than southeast of I-40, then curved northeast, merging back into the route of I-40.
Today, part of this section of former US 66/US 89 is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
(NRHP) as
Abandoned Route 66, Ash Fork Hill.
Both US 66 and US 89 split from I-40 again at Bill Williams Loop Road near
McClelland Lake. The highway took the loop road for south of the Interstate before merging back into the route of I-40. At exit 161, US 66/US 89 curved northeast from I-40, then headed east on Historic Route 66 into downtown
Williams.
Parts of downtown Williams surrounding former US 66/US 89, including the roadway itself, are listed on the NRHP. The
Williams Historic Business District and
Urban Route 66, Williams, were added to the NRHP in 1984 and 1989, respectively.
East of town, US 66/US 89 met the Santa Fe Railway at an underpass, then curved southeast onto an abandoned road, which tied into Mountain Man Trail in front of the Bearizona Wildlife Park.
This was also the spot where US 66/US 89 intersected with the western terminus of
SR 64, which headed north towards
Valle
Valle may refer to:
* Valle (surname)
Geography
*"Valle", the cultural and climatic zone of the dry subtropical Interandean Valles of the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, and northwest Argentina
*University of Valle, a public university in Cali, Colombia ...
and the
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...
, while US 66 and US 89 continued east towards
Flagstaff.
Williams to Flagstaff
![Downtown Flagstaff (7177849494)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Downtown_Flagstaff_%287177849494%29.jpg)
US 66/US 89 continued east from the SR 64 junction outside Williams on Mountain Man Trail for , then crossed the present-day route of I-40 diagonally onto Deer Farm Road. Although the highway was paved in 1940, both Mountain Man Trail and Deer Farm Road have been downgraded to county maintained graded
dirt road
A dirt road or track is a type of unpaved road not paved with asphalt, concrete, brick, or stone; made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Dirt roads are suitable ...
s. The highway skirted the northern shore of Davenport Lake, then crossed present-day I-40 to the south side frontage road, known as Mountain Ranch Resort Drive. US 66/US 89 crossed I-40 a second time at the spot of the current exit 171 onto a road called "Old Route 66". Unlike Mountain Man Trail and Deer Farm Road, Old Route 66 is still paved. The highway then headed east, gently winding through small pine forests, until US 66/US 89 reached the town of
Parks
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
.
Small sections of Old Route 66 to the west and east of Parks are listed on the NRHP under the name
Abandoned Route 66, Parks (1921).
Just southeast of Parks, where Old Route 66 dead ends, US 66/US 89 crossed present-day I-40 diagonally to briefly parallel the Santa Fe Railway, before being subsumed into the route of I-40 once again. The old highway left I-40 again briefly along an abandoned graded curve on the south side of the Interstate just west of the Parks Rest Area. East of the rest area, US 66/US 89 split off a third time onto Bellemont Camp Road. The highway continued diagonally southeast through
Bellemont, then merged back into I-40.
The eastern end of Bellemont Camp Road (which can not be used as a through route by travelers today) is still paved in original concrete.
Heading southeast out of Bellemont, US 66/US 89 used the route of I-40 until reaching present-day exit 191. Here, the highway angled southeasterly on
I-40 Business into Flagstaff.
![Flagstaff-1926-depot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Flagstaff-1926-depot.jpg)
The former route through Flagstaff is officially named "Historic Route 66".
At Milton Road, US 66/US 89 intersected with
SR 79 at its northern terminus.
By 1941, SR 79 had been redesignated as US 89 Alternate (US 89A). US 89A, as its designation suggests, was an alternative, more direct route for US 89 traffic. US 89A provided a shorter travel distance between Flagstaff and Prescott, via
Sedona
Sedona is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2010 census, its population was 10,031. It is within the Coconino National Fo ...
and the mining town of
Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...
.
Today, US 89A is known as SR 89A.
US 66/US 89 continued north on I-40 Business from the junction with US 89A to underpass with the Santa Fe Railway. On the other side of the underpass, the highway curved right onto Santa Fe Avenue and passed through downtown Flagstaff, including the
Santa Fe Railway Depot. Just west of the depot is where current
US 180 joins I-40 Business, former US 66 and former US 89.
Heading southeast of downtown, paralleling the Santa Fe Railway, US 66/US 89 made two northeasterly curves along with the railroad.
At the intersection with Country Club Drive north of I-40 exit 201, current US 180 and I-40 Business split off, heading south to join I-40. This intersection also serves as the current southern terminus of US 89.
Just west of this intersection, a later routing of US 66 split off and paralleled the railroad towards
Walnut Canyon National Monument
Walnut Canyon National Monument (Hopi: Wupatupqa) is a United States National Monument located about southeast of downtown Flagstaff, Arizona, near Interstate 40. The canyon rim elevation is ; the canyon's floor is 350 ft lower. A long loo ...
and I-40 exit 204 (where the later routing joined the Interstate).
The earlier route of former US 66 (used through 1940), and current route of US 89, continue northeast from this intersection towards the Flagstaff suburb of
Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to:
Places United States
*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York
*Townsend, Delaware
*Townsend, Georgia
*Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town
** Townsend ...
.
Flagstaff to Winslow
![Winona Trading Post (NBY 435121)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Winona_Trading_Post_%28NBY_435121%29.jpg)
On the outskirts of the Flagstaff metropolitan area in Townsend, US 66 split from US 89.
US 89 heads north towards the
Glen Canyon Dam
Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, United States, near the town of Page, Arizona, Page. The high dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powe ...
and
Page
Page most commonly refers to:
* Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book
Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to:
Roles
* Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation
* Page (servant), traditionally a young mal ...
, while old US 66 took an abandoned gradual curve to the east onto Townsend–Winona Road.
The highway proceeded to wind through small pine forest wilderness, passing several small communities along the way, heading first east, then southeast near
Sunset Crater
Sunset Crater is a cinder cone located north of Flagstaff in the U.S. state of Arizona. The crater is within the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.
Sunset Crater is the youngest in a string of volcanoes (the San Francisco volcanic field ...
and several other extinct volcanic
cinder cone
A cinder cone (or scoria cone) is a steep conical hill of loose pyroclastic fragments, such as volcanic clinkers, volcanic ash, or scoria that has been built around a volcanic vent. The pyroclastic fragments are formed by explosive eruptions o ...
s of the
San Francisco Volcanic Field
The San Francisco volcanic field is an area of volcanoes in northern Arizona, north of Flagstaff, US. The field covers 1,800 square miles (4,700 km²) of the southern boundary of the Colorado Plateau. The field contains 600 volcanoes rang ...
. Shortly before reaching the current route of I-40 east of Flagstaff, US 66 passed through a small
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
called
Winona, made famous in the song "
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" is a popular rhythm and blues song, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. The lyrics relate a westward roadtrip on U.S. Route 66, a highway which traversed the western two-thirds of the U.S. from Chi ...
".
In Winona, US 66 crossed an abandoned steel bridge. Today, the modern road uses a concrete bridge built right next to the older structure. US 66 proceeded to cross over the Santa Fe Railway on an overpass heading out of Winona.
Where Townsend–Winona Road continues south to end at I-40 exit 211, US 66 continued east along the southern side of the railroad on Coconino County Route 394. Approximately southeast of exit 211, the county route dead-ends at the westbound lanes of I-40. US 66 continued on an abandoned highway grade southeast of this point (some of which has been overlaid by I-40), then zig-zagged northward, crossing a concrete bridge over a small gulch. North of the gulch, US 66 turned southeast, passing north of the abandoned
Twin Arrows travel center. The old highway continued on an abandoned roadway and part of the south frontage road, before gradually being subsumed into the route of present-day I-40. This is also the area where US 66 left the pine forest area which started near Ash Fork and re-entered high desert terrain.
![Canyon Diablo Bridge - Two Guns, Arizona](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Canyon_Diablo_Bridge_-_Two_Guns%2C_Arizona.jpg)
Near Exit 225, US 66 diverted from I-40 southeast on Buffalo Range Road. Around southeast of the Interstate, US 66 curved east on an abandoned highway grade to rejoin the route of I-40, where Buffalo Range Road turns sharply to the southwest. US 66 proceeded to follow I-40 east for , then split off again to head straight southeast, followed by a sharp curve to the north to cross the
Canyon Diablo Bridge over
Canyon Diablo into
Two Guns.
Two Guns, now abandoned, was a popular Old West-themed tourist attraction during the height of popularity of US 66. The most popular attraction at Two Guns was the
Apache Death Cave, the site where several
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
individuals were murdered by a group of
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
individuals.
Leaving Two Guns, US 66 made a broad curve to the southeast across present-day I-40 exit 230, heading away from the Interstate on an abandoned roadbed.
About southeast of exit 230, and after passing the access road heading south to
Meteor Crater
Meteor Crater, or Barringer Crater, is a meteorite impact crater about east of Flagstaff and west of Winslow in the desert of northern Arizona, United States. The site had several earlier names, and fragments of the meteorite are official ...
, US 66 curved northeast to cross I-40, then made a gradual curve to the southeast. Shortly afterward, US 66 crossed I-40 a second time, where the westbound Meteor Crater Rest Area sits today. Immediately after crossing I-40, US 66 curved northeast to cross over I-40 a third time along with the Santa Fe Railway, then made a sharp turn to the east, followed by a gradual curve to the southeast. At I-40 exit 239, US 66 took the abandoned roadbed back to I-40 and followed the route of the present-day Interstate. About southeast of exit 239, US 66 left I-40 again onto an abandoned roadbed between the current Interstate and the Santa Fe Railway heading southeast, eventually crossing into
Navajo County
Navajo County is in the northern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 106,717. The county seat is Holbrook.
Navajo County comprises the Show Low, Arizona Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Navajo County c ...
. Where the
I-40 Industrial Spur crosses the railroad, the abandoned roadbed, which carried US 66, tied into "Old West Highway 66", where the highway entered
Winslow Winslow may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish
* Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974
United States and Canada
* Rural Municipality of Winslo ...
.
At the intersection with current
SR 99 (former
I-40 Business), US 66 headed southeast into downtown Winslow onto Second Street. Through downtown, US 66 passed the Winslow Visitor Center and
Standin' on the Corner Park
Standin' on the Corner Park is a public park in Winslow, Arizona, opened in 1999, commemorating the song "Take It Easy" which was written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey and most famously recorded by the Eagles. The song includes the verse "''W ...
.
At the intersection with Williamson Avenue, where SR 99 turns south with southbound SR 87, US 66 met
SR 65 at its northern terminus.
From here, SR 65 headed south to its other terminus at the
Coconino National Forest
The Coconino National Forest is a 1.856-million acre (751,000 ha) United States National Forest located in northern Arizona in the vicinity of Flagstaff. Originally established in 1898 as the "San Francisco Mountains National Forest Reserve", th ...
boundary, while US 66 continued southeast on present-day northbound SR 87 out of town.
Winslow to Holbrook
![Harry Raab photo (NBY 434950)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Harry_Raab_photo_%28NBY_434950%29.jpg)
Heading east out of Winslow, US 66 split from SR 87 onto an old roadbed, and crossed the
Little Colorado River
The Little Colorado River () is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona, providing the principal drainage from the Painted Desert region. Together with its major tributary, the Puerco River, it drains an area of about in ...
over a bridge that no longer exists. US 66 rejoined SR 87 shortly before the current highway turns north towards I-40 exit 257 and
Homolovi State Park.
Just north of Winslow, Homolovi State Park preserves over 300
Ancestral Puebloan
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, an ...
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
sites.
Where SR 87 turns north, US 66 continued northeast, merging into I-40. Where I-40 curves southeast, US 66 continued northeast onto Hibbard Road, then made a sharp turn east onto an old roadbed from the Interstate. US 66 proceeded to make a gradual S-curve to the southeast and cross a tributary of the Little Colorado River on another no longer extant bridge. The highway continued straight southeast from the bridge crossing for , then made a sweeping curve south by southeast and crossed I-40.
On the south side of I-40, US 66 made another gradual curve back to the southeast, then a second curve to the east, and merged back into Hibbard Road. Where Hibbard Road ends, US 66 continued diagonally across I-40, then turned immediately south again, crossing I-40 a second time onto the south frontage road. Here, US 66 arrived at the
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
The Jack Rabbit Trading Post is a convenience store and curio shop located on former U.S. Route 66, five miles west of Joseph City, Arizona city limits off of Exit 269 on Interstate 40.
Description
It was founded in 1949, on the site of either ...
.
The trading post once posted signs up and down the highway for hundreds of miles between Arizona and Missouri. Today, one of the iconic billboards still stands next to the trading post. It is a wooden sign displaying a black jackrabbit on a yellow background with the phrase "Here It Is" spelled in large capitalized red letters on the left side of the jackrabbit. US 66 continued southeast from the trading post along the south frontage road, paralleling the Santa Fe Railway and Little Colorado River.
At the point where the south frontage road curves northeast to straddle the south side of I-40, US 66 crossed the Interstate becoming Main Street into
Joseph City
Joseph City (elevation 5,000 ft) is a Census Designated Place located in Navajo County, Arizona, United States. It is located on Interstate 40, approximately eighty miles east of Flagstaff and about thirty-five miles west of Petrified Fore ...
. US 66 through Joseph City is designated today as
I-40 Business.
East of town, US 66 curved southeast across I-40 onto the south frontage road close to the town post office. Where the frontage road makes a quick U-shape near exit 247, US 66 continued straight. In front of the
Cholla Power Plant
The Cholla Power Plant is a 1.02-gigawatt (1,021 MW), coal power plant near Joseph City, Arizona, United States. The plant is jointly owned by Arizona Public Service (APS) and PacifiCorp. The plant began operations in 1962.
History
The coal bur ...
, US 66 curved to rejoin I-40. US 66 followed I-40 southeast past a
reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
and
earthen dam
An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface and ...
. Where I-40 curves to the east, US 66 split off to the north side of I-40, becoming the north side frontage road. US 66 followed the north frontage road for a short distance, then rejoined I-40 momentarily at exit 283. Immediately after rejoining the Interstate, US 66 diverged, turning to the northeast, and rejoined the north frontage road. Where the frontage road makes a sharp curve to the north, US 66 continued straight east on an abandoned roadbed to I-40 exit 285.
At exit 285, US 66 crossed present-day I-40 into
Holbrook Holbrook may refer to:
Places
England
*Holbrook, Derbyshire, a village
* Holbrook, Somerset, a hamlet in Charlton Musgrove
* Holbrook, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, a former mining village in Mosborough ward, now known as Halfway
*Holbrook, Suffolk, ...
becoming Hopi Drive (today signed as US 180 and
I-40 Business).
Along the western section of old US 66 in Holbrook is the
Wigwam Village Motel, a motor court built to resemble a group of
tipi
A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan languages, Siouan, and in use in Dakot ...
s.
At the intersection of Hopi Drive and Navajo Boulevard, US 180 heads southeast towards
Springerville and
Silver City, New Mexico
Silver City is a town in Grant County, New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat and the home of Western New Mexico University. As of the 2010 census the population was 10,315. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,704.
History
...
, concurrent for a short distance with southbound
SR 77.
In 1940, this intersection was the western terminus of
US 260. US 260 followed the general path of present-day US 180 into New Mexico, where it ended in
Deming.
US 66 on the other hand, followed northbound SR 77 and I-40 Business on Navajo Boulevard.
Holbrook to the New Mexico border
Where SR 77 joins I-40 at exit 286, US 66 continued following I-40 Business and Navajo Boulevard north, then northeast, passing through the northeastern edge of Holbrook. At exit 289, US 66 took on the route of I-40, and split off again where exit 292 is today. US 66 followed an old roadbed on the north side of I-40 around the community of
Sun Valley, then rejoined the Interstate at the edge of the
Painted Desert. US 66 utilized a section of abandoned roadbed east of West Twin Wash, then crossed to a short section of roadbed and bridge on the south side of the Interstate at exit 300. US 66 rejoined I-40 and followed the eastbound lanes to the Painted Desert Indian Center, where the highway briefly split off onto the south frontage road. East of exit 303, US 66 rejoined I-40, where the frontage road curves to run parallel with the Interstate. US 66 diverged from I-40 where the south frontage road curves northeast and heads away from the Interstate.
![ROUTE 66 Painted Desert](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/ROUTE_66_Painted_Desert.jpg)
US 66 followed the south frontage road for , then diagonally crossed I-40 onto a now-abandoned roadway through the
Painted Desert, entering
Apache County
Apache County is in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. Shaped in a long rectangle running north to south, as of the 2020 census, its population was 66,021. The county seat is St. Johns.
Most of the county is occupied by part ...
.
Within
Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest National Park is an American national park in Navajo County, Arizona, Navajo and Apache County, Arizona, Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about , encompassin ...
, US 66 met at a junction with
SR 63, which acted as the main route through the southern end of the park. Today, SR 63 is no longer a state highway and is known as Petrified Forest Road.
US 66 continued northeast on the abandoned highway, which was located several miles north of I-40, through the heart of the Painted Desert. after the intersection with SR 63, US 66 arrived at the now-abandoned
Painted Desert Trading Post. About northeast of the trading post, US 66 crossed over to the south side of I-40 onto County Route 7385. US 66 followed County Route 7385 around the Navajo Trading Post and McCarrell Memorial Cemetery to exit 330.
At exit 330, US 66 diagonally crossed I-40 onto an abandoned road heading northeast into Chambers and crossed present-day
US 191. US 66 proceeded east on the frontage road from the intersection with US 191, then rejoined I-40.
Exit 339 in
Sanders
Sanders may refer to:
People
Surname
* Sanders (surname)
* Bernie Sanders, US presidential candidate and senator
* Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary and daughter of Mike Huckabee
* Colonel Sanders, founder of KFC (Kentuc ...
used to be an
at-grade intersection
An intersection or an at-grade junction is a junction where two or more roads converge, diverge, meet or cross at the same height, as opposed to an interchange, which uses bridges or tunnels to separate different roads. Major intersections a ...
where US 66 met its child route,
US 666. From the intersection, US 666 southbound followed present-day US 191 to Springerville,
Safford,
Willcox and
Douglas
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
, while US 66 and northbound US 666 ran concurrently northeast along present-day I-40.
Northeast of exit 341, US 66/US 666 followed Querino Dirt Road and crossed over Querino Canyon on the
Querino Canyon Bridge. At exit 346, US 66/US 666 rejoined I-40, and followed the Interstate through
Houck and
Allentown Allentown may refer to several places in the United States and topics related to them:
* Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California
* Allentown, Georgia, a town in Wilkinson County
* Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in T ...
. Immediately northeast of exit 354, US 66/US 666 followed the south frontage road alongside I-40 into the small hamlet of
Lupton. East of Lupton, US 66/US 666 merged back into I-40 and crossed into New Mexico, then continued east towards
Gallup.
History
US 66 is one of the most popular highways in the history of the state of
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
. It was also once one of the heaviest traveled highways in the state.
Often called the "Main Street of America", US 66 has been the subject of a popular song ("
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" is a popular rhythm and blues song, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. The lyrics relate a westward roadtrip on U.S. Route 66, a highway which traversed the western two-thirds of the U.S. from Chi ...
") and
television show
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
as well as several movies, including the 1940 movie ''
The Grapes of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
'' and the 2006 children's movie ''
Cars
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as t ...
''.
The history of the highway dates back to
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
expeditions during the mid-19th century and an
ancestral highway known as the
National Old Trails Road
National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, was established in 1912, and became part of the National Auto Trail system in the United States. It was long and stretched from Baltimore, Maryland (some old maps indicate Ne ...
, one of the original transcontinental highways in North America. US 66 itself existed between 1926 and 1985.
It was one of the original
U.S. Highway
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...
s in Arizona and, until the arrival of
US 60 in 1931, US 66 was one of only two primary transcontinental highways in the entire state (the other was its southern counterpart,
US 80).
US 66 was used as a means of escape by
refugees
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. from the
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, and became an extremely popular tourist highway during the 1950s. The highway was largely bypassed and replaced in the latter half of the 20th century by
I-40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west Interstate Highway running through the south-central portion of the United States. At a length of , it is the third-longest Interstate Highway in the country, after I-90 and I-80. From west to ea ...
, which lead to the eventual decommissioning of US 66 as an active U.S. Highway.
However, thanks to a preservation effort, largely kicked off by
Seligman-based barber
Angel Delgadillo
Angel Delgadillo (born April 19, 1927) is an American barber and businessowner in Seligman, Arizona who has been dubbed the "guardian angel" of U.S. Route 66. He is the main founder of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, established i ...
, US 66 has made a comeback and is once again a popular tourist destination for travelers from around the world.
Background
In 1853,
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
Lieutenant A. W. Whipple traversed the northern end of
New Mexico Territory
The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of ''Santa Fe de Nuevo México ...
to survey a route for a proposed transcontinental railroad. Lieutenant Whipple was followed by Lieutenant
Edward Fitzgerald Beale
Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale (February 4, 1822 – April 22, 1893) was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, ...
in the winter of 1858 and 1859. Beale created a second survey of the northern territory along the
35th Parallel, this time for a proposed wagon road. The wagon road was to start in
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...
, and travel to the
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...
on the
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
border. Beale returned later in 1859 with a group of men to construct the road. The outfit was complemented with 22 camels as well as tools and supplies needed to build the wagon road. Beale's men constructed a path wide by removing rocks and vegetation in the way. The new road became known as
Beale's Wagon Road
In 1857, an expedition led by Edward Fitzgerald Beale was tasked with establishing a trade route along the 35th parallel from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, California.
The wagon trail began at Fort Smith and continued through the New Me ...
, becoming a major artery for
westward expansion
The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independe ...
and immigration. The road remained a popular means of travel until 1883, when the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...
was completed through northern Arizona.
![National Old Trails near Holbrook](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/National_Old_Trails_near_Holbrook.jpg)
In 1914, the state of Arizona had finished reorganizing an earlier system of territorial roads into a new state highway system, managed by the Office of the State Engineer. Besides converting the two existing territorial maintained roads into new state highways, the Office of the State Engineer also acquired several roads not previously maintained by the state. One of the new acquisitions was Beale's Wagon Road. Now a state highway, Beale's Wagon Road was designated the Santa Fe Highway by the state. Santa Fe Highway started at the Colorado River in
Topock, extending north through
Kingman, then east through
Flagstaff to
Holbrook Holbrook may refer to:
Places
England
*Holbrook, Derbyshire, a village
* Holbrook, Somerset, a hamlet in Charlton Musgrove
* Holbrook, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, a former mining village in Mosborough ward, now known as Halfway
*Holbrook, Suffolk, ...
, where it headed southeast through
Springerville into New Mexico. Also in 1914, the
National Old Trails Road
National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, was established in 1912, and became part of the National Auto Trail system in the United States. It was long and stretched from Baltimore, Maryland (some old maps indicate Ne ...
, an early transcontinental
auto trail
The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the United States and Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in ...
, was designated over the Santa Fe Highway.
Outside Arizona, the National Old Trails Road ran from
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
, to
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. The National Old Trails Highway Association also had plans to construct a new road through
Lupton for a shorter more direct route to New Mexico. For a short time, the National Old Trails Road was partnered with a local auto trail known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, which acted as an alternate route going from the National Old Trails Road to
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
and
Yuma. Disagreements soon arose between the managers of both highways. The National Old Trails Highway Association preferred the main route be the highway to Topock, while the Ocean-to-Ocean Transcontinental Highway Association preferred the route to Yuma. Both organizations eventually ended their partnership and went in opposite directions.
In the early days, National Old Trails Road traffic crossing the river utilized a ferry crossing between Topock and
Needles on the California side of the river. The ferry, established in 1890, was used until 1914, when a river flood destroyed it. In response, the upstream
Red Rock Bridge
The Red Rock Bridge was a bridge across the Colorado River at Topock, Arizona, Topock, Arizona that carried the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. It was built in 1890, replacing a wooden bridge dating to 1883 that was repeatedly washed out during spri ...
, owned by the Santa Fe Railway, became the new river crossing for National Old Trails Road motorists.
The railroad had allowed cars to use the bridge so long as the drivers were willing to pay a toll.
Construction started on the
Old Trails Bridge
The Old Trails Bridge is a historic bridge over the Colorado River in San Bernardino County and Mohave County in the United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It has also been known as Topock Bridge and a ...
, a dedicated automobile bridge, on June 30, 1915, and was completed several months later on February 20, 1916. The bridge was paid for by the states of California and Arizona as well as the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...
at a cost of $75,000 (equivalent to $ in ). The bridge itself was a steel arch structure designed by
San Bernardino County
San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...
surveyor S. A. Sourwine.
Once construction on the Old Trails Bridge had been completed, National Old Trails Road traffic was moved onto the new bridge and the Red Rock Bridge became train only once again.
From 1916 to 1928, the Old Trails Bridge held the record of being the longest three-hinged
arch bridge
An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct ...
in the United States.
Between 1915 and 1922, the National Old Trails Highway was surfaced with gravel between Topock and
Oatman as well as between
Seligman and Holbrook. A small section just outside
Ash Fork was also reconstructed and realigned at this time, becoming the first road to ever be paved using
volcanic cinders. The highway was also paved through Flagstaff in 1921 using concrete. In 1921, the Arizona state highway system was reorganized again following the passage of the
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921
The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921, also called the Phipps Act (, ), sponsored by Sen. Lawrence C. Phipps (R) of Colorado, defined the Federal Aid Road program to develop an immense national highway system. The plan was crafted by the head of th ...
. The state no longer referred to the National Old Trails Road as the Santa Fe Highway, and instead re-designated Topock–Kingman–Ash Fork Highway and the Ash Fork–Flagstaff–Winslow–Holbrook Highway west of Holbrook. East of Holbrook, the original route through Springerville became the
Holbrook–Springerville–New Mexico State Line Highway, while the recently constructed new route through Lupton became the Holbrook–Lupton Highway.
U.S. Highway designation
Across the country, the numerous named auto trails began creating problems for motorists. Many auto trails had confusing alternate routes and were not always the most direct routes; also, multiple different auto trails often overlapped on the same roadway. During the annual meeting of the
American Association of State Highway Officials
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is a standards setting body which publishes specifications, test protocols, and guidelines that are used in highway design and construction throughout the United St ...
(AASHO) in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, in 1924, Minnesota state maintenance engineer A.H. Hinkle lobbied the organization to reorganize the nation's transcontinental highway system, suggesting a nationwide numbering system of well-located and direct interstate highways be implemented. AASHO agreed to Hinkle's ideas, passing a resolution on November 20, 1924, to develop a better organized interstate highway system. AASHO then sent a recommendation to the Secretary of Agriculture
Howard M. Gore
Howard Mason Gore (October 12, 1877June 20, 1947) was an American politician. He served as the 8th Secretary of Agriculture from 1924 to 1925, during the administration of President Calvin Coolidge, and he served as 17th governor of West Virg ...
to create a joint board between the
Bureau of Public Roads
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
and state highway officials from across the nation to develop a new organized system of numbered interstate highways. Gore acted on the recommendation in 1925, establishing the
Joint Board on Interstate Highways
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...
.
After intensive discussion, debating, and planning, the Joint Board submitted a mostly finalized proposal to the new Secretary of Agriculture,
William M. Jardine
William Marion Jardine (January 16, 1879January 17, 1955) was a U.S. administrator and educator. He served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1925 to 1929 and as the U.S. Minister to Egypt from 1930 to 1933.
Early life and educ ...
, on October 26, 1925. The new system would use signs in the form of a white shield with black outlines, displaying the name of the state in which the highway was traveling through, the letters "U.S." to symbolize the highway system being an interstate numbering system rather than a regional state system, and the number of the route below the letters "U.S." on the shield. The highways would also be numbered in an organized fashion with the highest numbers being in the northeastern United States and lowest being in the southwest. Even-numbered routes would travel east to west while odd-numbered routes would travel north to south. The major north–south routes would end with the number "1" as the last digit, while major transcontinental east–west routes would utilize the number "0" as the last digit. This proposed system would come to be known as the
United States Numbered Highway System
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these hi ...
.
Among the new proposed highways was a roughly crescent-shaped route named U.S. Route 60 (US 60). US 60 would run from
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, to
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. However, after a major disagreement and argument between proponents of the Chicago-to–Los Angeles route and dignitaries from the state of
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, AASHO moved the proposed US 60 designation was moved onto
a different highway between
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...
, and
Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...
. This was done to give the Kentucky proponents the benefit of having a route ending in "0" passing through their state. The future Chicago–Los Angeles route was first intended to be re-designated US 62, but was instead re-designated
US 66 at the request of the Chicago–Los Angeles route proponents. After some other alterations were made to the newly proposed U.S. Highway System, the system was ratified and approved by AASHO on November 11, 1926, making all the newly proposed routes official.
With this, a large portion of the National Old Trails Road through the southwestern United States, including Arizona, was designated as a section of US 66. The original route of the National Old Trails Road southeast of Holbrook through Springerville became the westernmost section of
US 70 (now US 180), making the junction of the old and new National Old Trails alignments the national western terminus of the new US 70.
The US 66 designation was recognized by the newly formed
Arizona State Highway Department
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, pronounced "A-Dot") is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's highway system, the agency is also involved with p ...
(sometimes abbreviated as ASHD) after the state highway system was reorganized on September 9, 1927. The reorganization entailed a transition from state-named highways to state- and U.S.-numbered highways.
Arizona now had two principal cross-country U.S. Highways across the entire state: US 66 served the northern part of the state, while the southern half of Arizona heavily promoted and focused on
US 80.
Proponents of US 80 in Arizona had given their highway the nickname "The Main Street Through Arizona". At the same time, the newly formed
U.S. Highway 66 Association
The U.S. Highway 66 Association was organized in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1927. Its purpose was to get U.S. Highway 66 paved from end to end and to promote tourism on the highway.
The organization was similar to many that existed before the creation of ...
dubbed US 66 the "Main Street of America", which may have been in response to the US 80 nickname. From 1927 onward, a friendly in-state competition existed between proponents of US 66 and US 80 within Arizona.
The early years
![Oatman AZ - Highway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Oatman_AZ_-_Highway_%22%22%22%2266.%22%22%22%22_%28NBY_434122%29.jpg)
The name "National Old Trails Road" was officially dropped from US 66 in Arizona by December 1927. Immediately, the counties US 66 traveled through in northern Arizona began campaigning for the highway to be fully paved. In the middle of 1928, numerous
bond issues passed by cities, states and the federal government were allocated to help begin paving work on US 66 across the nation, including a large portion of the route within Arizona. The total sum of the multiple bond issues was $41 million (equivalent to $ in ). To further supplement the cost of paving US 66, $150,000 was (equivalent to $ in ) raised by the U.S. Highway 66 Association on June 7, 1928. Extensive preparation work in the form of multiple aerial surveys and a detailed study regarding finances and local construction logistics was also undertaken to aid in paving through Arizona.
In 1928, almost none of US 66 was paved in Arizona, save for a stretch of highway between
Flagstaff and
Winona.
This section had been paved back in 1921 with concrete mixed with locally sourced
volcanic cinder.
The highway was given a non-paved secondary surfacing (another term for gravel surfacing) between the Colorado River and east of
Peach Springs
, native_name_lang = hu
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...
. A section of US 66 from
Crookton through
Ash Fork to
Williams was also paved in secondary surfacing. This section was approximately long. Secondary surfacing was also extant on a section of highway running from
Bellemont to Flagstaff, as well as a section between Meteor Mountain (just east of
Canyon Diablo) and Holbrook. The remainder of US 66 was graded, but had no improved surfacing of any kind.
The official 1929 Highway Department map depicted surfacing and road conditions along US 66 as being mostly unchanged since the previous year, although newspapers reported otherwise.
By December 1929, reconstruction was underway between Holbrook and New Mexico on completely rebuilding and realigning the highway. Similar work was being undertaken between Holbrook and
Winslow Winslow may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish
* Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974
United States and Canada
* Rural Municipality of Winslo ...
, including the construction of two new bridges. Paving work began between Flagstaff and Winslow as well as between Topock and Kingman. On December 29, 1929, the state highway commission reported $508,594.94 (equivalent to $ in ) had been allocated in state funds that year to rebuild US 66, with $305,982.79 (equivalent to $ in ) of said funds being spent to improve over of the highway by years end. Much of this work included grading and draining work, paving work, gravel surfacing and bridge construction.
By 1930, noticeable changes were made to the highway. The route between
Oatman and a point west of
Peach Springs
, native_name_lang = hu
, settlement_type = Census-designated place
, image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...
had reverted to an unimproved dirt road. However, the route was given a gravel surface between Williams and Flagstaff. Between Topock and Oatman, the highway was fully paved, as was the section between Meteor Mountain and Winslow. The highway had also been realigned and straightened between
Seligman and Crookton.
By 1931, all of US 66 between Flagstaff and Winslow was paved. Gravel surfacing was administered to US 66 from the New Mexico state line to an area southwest of Lupton.
By 1932, US 66 had been paved between Crookton and Ash Fork. Road surfacing also existed on the section of highway improved the year earlier, heading southwest from New Mexico through Lupton. Construction work was underway on US 66 between Seligman and Crookton, as was the highway between Oatman and
Kingman.
Despite the amount of work completed, a delegation of citizens representing towns along US 66 traveled to Phoenix on May 8, 1932, demanding the State Highway Commission to block funding for improvements to US 80 in favor of further improvements to US 66. Ultimately, the commission passed off the demands of the delegation and did not divert attention away from improving US 80.
On June 5, 1933, Arizona Governor
Benjamin Baker Moeur sent letters to state highway commissioners asking for selective amounts of state funding to be diverted from US 66,
US 89 and
US 260 instead be allocated to the construction of
US 60 near
Globe
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe ...
. Moeur further specified he wanted enough funding be left over for the other highways so as not to halt construction and maintenance operations. The request was met with controversy and protest, much of which came from the U.S. Highway 66 Association. On June 18, 1933, the association sent a train of 200 delegates from towns along US 66 and US 89 to attend a highway hearing the next day and hold active demonstrations against Moeur's requested budget change. The demonstrations included worded banners displaying support for the three affected U.S. Highways, marching and the demonstrators singing a song called "Sixty-Six the Main Street of Arizona" by a citizen from Holbrook.
One of the demonstration and delegation leaders explained to a reporter for the ''Arizona Republic'' newspaper, "We feel that Highway 66, Highway 89 and Highway 260 have not gotten a 'square deal' from the highway commission in the past five years... We are here to make a gentlemanly appeal to the highway commission to do the right thing by the northern part of the state."
The delegation included people from Kingman, Seligman, Ash Fork, Williams, Flagstaff and Holbrook as well as US 89 and US 260 supporters from
Concho
Concha and Concho means "shell" in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. The word can also refer to:
Places
* Concho, Arizona, a frontier town now functioning as a retirement community in Apache County
* Concho, Oklahoma
* Concho County, Texas
* ...
,
Adamana,
St. Johns and
Prescott.
Despite the demonstrations and strong opposition raised by the US 66 delegation, the highway commission ultimately decided in favor of Moeur's request on June 20. Approximately $145,000 (equivalent to $ in ) from the 1933 to 1934 budget was transferred from projects along US 66 to the construction of US 60.
![Valentine AZ - Along Highway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Valentine_AZ_-_Along_Highway_%22%22%22%2266.%22%22%22%22_%28NBY_432871%29.jpg)
By 1934, despite budget cuts to US 66, the construction work between Seligman and Crookton had extended to the previously paved section of US 66 northwest of Crookton. Construction work was also underway on US 66 between Ash Fork and Williams, part of the route from Williams to Flagstaff and the unpaved section of highway between Kingman and Peach Springs through
Hackberry. Most of the highway between Holbrook and Lupton through
Sanders
Sanders may refer to:
People
Surname
* Sanders (surname)
* Bernie Sanders, US presidential candidate and senator
* Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary and daughter of Mike Huckabee
* Colonel Sanders, founder of KFC (Kentuc ...
and
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
was also undergoing construction. Road surfacing work was complete on US 66 between Williams and Bellemont, on a small section going through Peach Springs, between Oatman and Kingman and a small piece heading a few miles northeast of Holbrook. At this point, most of US 66 through Arizona was paved or undergoing resurfacing.
The first known use of natural landscaping by the Arizona State Highway Department was performed along US 66 the same year.
By 1935, almost all of US 66 between Topock and Peach Springs had been paved. road surfacing had also been completed on all of US 66 between Crookton and New Mexico. The last unpaved sections of US 66 remaining were a section of heading west from Crookton through
Cedar Grove and a section heading northeast out of
Valentine. Although these two sections were not yet paved, they were surfaced with rock or gravel, meaning all of US 66 at least had improved surfacing.
Passage of the
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935
The Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed on April 8, 1935, as a part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It was a large public works program that included the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), th ...
by the United States federal government gave the Arizona State Highway Department the necessary provisions and funding to replace an at-grade railroad crossing in Winslow with an underpass in 1936.
The entirety of US 66 in Arizona was paved by 1938. This made US 66 one of the first highways in Arizona to be completely paved.
However, the title of first fully paved U.S. Highway in Arizona was taken three years earlier by the second incarnation of
US 70, which entered Arizona from California through
Ehrenberg and exited near
Duncan into New Mexico. Albeit the paving work had been completed long before the Ehrenberg–Duncan route had been designated as part of US 70.
On January 24, 1938, the entirety of US 66 between Los Angeles and Chicago was designated as the Will Rogers Memorial Highway by the U.S. Highway 66 Association.
US 66 also played a large role during the
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
era of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Refugees seeking a better life from drought and impoverished areas of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
states, often referred to as "
Okie
An Okie is a person identified with the state of Oklahoma. This connection may be residential, ethnic, historical or cultural. For most Okies, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Oklahoman. ...
s" (which started an insulting term used by long time California residents), extensively used US 66 as a means of escaping the heavily affected areas, looking for a better life in California. Western Arizona in particular provided a great obstacle for refugees traveling down US 66 to California: they would often have trouble crossing the Black Mountains on US 66 over Sitgreaves Pass.
Many of their trucks would end up wrecked at the bottom of the mountain slopes next to the highway due to failed axle
bearings.
Refugee drivers were among the earliest US 66 travelers to hire locals to drive their often overloaded vehicles over the pass for them. The grades on this US 66 would sometimes pose a large enough challenge to these vehicles that driving the trucks in reverse over the pass was often necessary.
After reaching the other side of the pass, the refugees would coast their vehicles down the other side to save gas. If the refugees needed gas, a man named Ed Edgerton ran a gas station complex known as "Ed's Camp" at the top of the pass. Most of the time, Edgerton was willing to barter with the refugees if they had little or no money. Sometimes, the refugees would trade or pawn valuable possessions to Edgerton for gas. Other times, Edgerton would have them work jobs at his station to earn their gas. Upon reaching the other side, the refugees would often establish camps along the Colorado River near Topock and Needles on the California side before continuing their journey.
The rest of the route through Arizona was also difficult for refugees, due to the extremes of the desert heat during summertime. Famed author
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...
would later go on to describe some of these experiences in his novel, ''
The Grapes of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
''. Part of the novel detailed the experiences of the Joad family, a fictional refugee family from
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
taking US 66 through Arizona to California.
In 1940, the novel was adapted by
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
into
a movie
''A Movie'' (styled as ''A MOVIE'') is a 1958 experimental collage film by American artist Bruce Conner. It combines pieces of found footage taken from various sources such as newsreels, soft-core pornography, and B movies, all set to a score ...
starring actor
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics.
Born and rai ...
as Tom Joad. Several scenes in the movie were filmed along US 66 in Arizona, including scenes where the family crossed the Arizona–New Mexico state line near Lupton and the Old Trails Bridge over the Colorado River in Topock.
The golden age
During the first three years of American involvement in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, civilian travel on US 66 declined greatly. In 1941, 17,600 cars a month were traveling westbound on the highway between New Mexico and California. By 1942, the number had decreased to 13,680 cars a month, then dropped to 7,040 cars a month by May 1943. This was largely because gasoline available to civilians was heavily rationed for the war effort and harder to come by.
However, military traffic heavily used the highway during this time as several military installations were located near US 66.
One such installation was the
Navajo Army Depot in Bellemont. The military often transported troops, weapons and supplies. Despite the decline in civilian travel, people leaving the east coast to find wartime work in California often took US 66.
At the end of the war, many of the people who had gone to California for work returned home to the east coast on US 66. The eastward migration caused US 66 traffic to increase from record low numbers to the highest volume of traffic the highway had seen up to that point. By October 1945, 700–800 cars a day were traveling down US 66 in Arizona and some cars had as many as 17 people inside them. At night, there were up to 137 cars parked on the side of the road, so the occupants could sleep during the night. Drivers often traveled down the highway at dangerous speeds or drove for long periods, becoming fatigued. This, in tandem with increasing traffic, caused the number of
fatal car accidents to rise exponentially. Between January and October 1945, 198 people were killed in car accidents on US 66. As a result, the
Arizona Highway Patrol
The Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) is a state-level law enforcement agency with a primary function of patrolling and enforcing state laws on Arizona highways. Director Heston Silbert was promoted from Deputy Director to Director in ...
had to greatly increase the number of patrolmen on US 66 to crack down on reckless driving.
In 1945, the Santa Fe Railway constructed a new rail bridge over the Colorado River in Needles and Topock, upstream from the Old Trails and Red Rock Bridges.
At the same time, California and Arizona had been looking to replace the Old Trails Bridge, as the structure had become insufficiently narrow and too weak for post-war truck and car traffic.
Highway engineers determined the retired Red Rock Bridge could serve as a more than adequate replacement. The Red Rock Bridge had previously been rebuilt and reinforced twice during the early 20th century to handle heavier and faster train traffic.
The railroad had planned on tearing down the Red Rock Bridge, but instead donated the structure to the states of California and Arizona along with of right of way on either side of the bridge. This was done partially due to the cost of converting the bridge into a highway crossing being less expensive than demolishing the veteran structure. Both states began surveying and planning to rebuild the Red Rock Bridge into a new Colorado River crossing for US 66. Once planning had been completed, the state governments of
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
agreed to split the cost of conversion.
The tracks were removed from the bridge and a concrete roadway put in its place. On May 21, 1947, the Red Rock Bridge was reopened to automobile traffic for the first time in 31 years, this time as a dedicated highway crossing. US 66 was immediately re-routed off the Old Trails Bridge onto the Red Rock Bridge. The Old Trails Bridge was originally to be demolished but was instead purchased by the
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...
and now carries part of a
natural gas pipeline
Pipeline transport is the long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas through a system of pipes—a pipeline—typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countr ...
between California and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
.
![Route 66, don't forget Winona - panoramio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Route_66%2C_don%27t_forget_Winona_-_panoramio.jpg)
In 1946, the Arizona State Highway Department began planning a major improvement along US 66 between Flagstaff and Winslow. The plan was to construct a new highway between Flagstaff and Winona to shorten the travel time and the overall distance between Winslow and Flagstaff. The project was estimated to cost around $1,300,000 (equivalent to $ in ). Originally meant to be a single contract construction project, the bypass was later divided into two separate contracts. Bidding for both construction projects were opened on January 9 the same year with a scheduled completion date of September 30, 1947. The Fisher Construction Company and Tanner Construction Company were both awarded the contracts, with Fisher to construct the first east of Flagstaff and the remaining to be constructed by Tanner. By May 10, 1946, 30 percent of the section being constructed by Fisher was completed.
By September 1946, both Tanner and Fisher had made substantial progress on their respective sections, with all excavation on the Tanner section completed, with preliminary paving work beginning. Both sections, however, were disconnected by the Santa Fe Railway which cut the new highway in half. At the time, planning for a railroad overpass was being undertaken by the State Highway Department. The H.L. Royden Company was awarded the contract for constructing the overpass. The new highway was opened to traffic in October 1947 and US 66 was re-routed onto it, bypassing the hamlet of
Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to:
Places United States
*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York
*Townsend, Delaware
*Townsend, Georgia
*Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town
** Townsend ...
between Flagstaff and Winona. The overall cost of the project ended up being $1,433,400 (equivalent to $ in ). Although the route between Townsend and Winona was removed from the state highway system, the section from Flagstaff to Townsend remained part of
US 89, which shared a
wrong-way concurrency
A concurrency in a road network is an instance of one physical roadway bearing two or more different route numbers. When two roadways share the same right-of-way, it is sometimes called a common section or commons. Other terminology for a concurre ...
with US 66 from Townsend to Ash Fork. Following the re-routing, the concurrency was shortened to an intersection between the old and new route in eastern Flagstaff.
In 1950, the State Highway Department began planning construction of a new alignment of US 66 through
Yucca
''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flo ...
. Construction was planned to start near Topock and head northeast through Yucca to connect with the existing highway near Kingman. At the time, the section between Topock and Kingman still followed the steep and winding path through
Oatman into the
Black Mountains and through
Sitgreaves Pass
Sitgreaves Pass is a Gap (landform), gap at an elevation of 3,586 feet / 1,093 meters, in the Black Mountains (Arizona), Black Mountains of Mohave County, Arizona.
When Edward Fitzgerald Beale built Beale's Wagon Road over this pass, he named it ...
.
This section was built across this rough terrain instead of following the more level route to the east adopted by the railroad because the road followed the National Old Trails highway which was for gold mining in Oatman and
Goldroad (now a ghost town).
It was fraught with
hairpin turn
A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend or hairpin corner) is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn about 180° to continue on the road. It is named for its resemblance to a bent metal hai ...
s and was the steepest along the entire route, so much so that some early travelers, too frightened at the prospect of driving such a potentially dangerous road, hired locals to navigate the winding grade.
By September 1950, the Oatman bypass was given priority on the state highway construction agenda, as US 66 was crucial to military defense traffic. The State Highway Department contracted the Phoenix-Tempe Stone Company to construct the first of the new route on September 15, 1950, at a cost of $262,152 (equivalent to $ in ).
By early 1951, the bypass was under construction.
Phoenix-Tempe was awarded a second contract on February 1, 1951, to build an overpass over the Santa Fe Railway in Yucca along with the approach roads to the overpass. In April 1951, a contract to construct of the new bypass was given to the W.J. Henson company for $234,872 (equivalent to $ in ). The Highway Department created another contract job in October 1951 to pave and construct a further of the bypass route, in hopes of speeding up the project. The Phoenix-Tempe company was again awarded the contract. Despite the highway's priority and rushed construction, the Yucca Overpass was delayed for several months due to a shortage of available steel. The steel was finally delivered to begin the overpass construction on January 25, 1951.
Construction of the bypass continued through late 1951 to the middle of 1952. By August 1952, construction on the bypass was winding down. By this point, had been completed with the final under construction.
The bypass was completed and opened to traffic on September 17, 1952. The overall construction of the bypass from 1950 to 1952 was done at record speed at the time, being the fastest major highway construction project within the state's history.
US 66 was rerouted onto the new bypass, removing Oatman from US 66.
The new route ran along level ground close to the railroad, from Topock to Kingman through Yucca.
The bypassing of Oatman lead to the town's decline and near abandonment, while Yucca enjoyed a small period of increased success from US 66 traffic.
Oatman Highway remained an undesignated state highway until September 2, 1955, when it was completely transferred to
Mohave County
Mohave County is in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United St ...
.
![Holbrook-Motel-Wigwam Motel-1930-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Holbrook-Motel-Wigwam_Motel-1930-1.jpg)
During the late 1940s and early to mid-1950s, the popularity of US 66 greatly increased. There was a great increase in postwar driving, with more people taking the nation's roads than in decades past. To meet the increase in postwar travel, the number of
restaurant
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
s,
gas station
A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel.
Gasoline ...
s and
motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries ...
s along the route grew. The number of creative attractions and landmarks also grew, in an attempt to attract further tourism, such as the
Wigwam Motel
The Wigwam Motels, also known as the "Wigwam Villages," is a motel chain in the United States built during the 1930s and 1940s. The rooms are built in the form of tipis, mistakenly referred to as wigwams. It originally had seven different locatio ...
in Holbrook, where every room was built to resemble a Native American
tipi
A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan languages, Siouan, and in use in Dakot ...
.
Other popular tourist attractions and stopping points along the highway included the
Two Guns, the
Twin Arrows Trading Post,
Painted Desert Trading Post and
Grand Canyon Caverns
The Grand Canyon Caverns ( yuf-x-hav, Ŧathiil Ñwaʼa or , ), located just a few miles east of Peach Springs, Arizona, lie below ground level. They are among the largest dry caverns in the United States. Dry caverns compose only 3% of caverns ...
.
American actor and musician
Bobby Troup
Robert William Troup Jr. (October 18, 1918 – February 7, 1999) was an American actor, jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He wrote the song " Route 66" and acted in the role of Dr. Joe Early with his wife Julie London in the television progr ...
composed the song "
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" is a popular rhythm and blues song, composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup. The lyrics relate a westward roadtrip on U.S. Route 66, a highway which traversed the western two-thirds of the U.S. from Chi ...
", while traveling down the highway with his wife in 1941.
This song was later covered by popular musician
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...
who made it into a best selling record.
US 66 travelers found useful advice through a guidebook, written by author Jack D. Rittenhouse, titled aptly, ''A Guide Book to Highway 66''. US 66 also became well known for the unusual advertisements placed along the highway by
Burma-Shave
Burma-Shave was an American brand of Shaving brush, brushless shaving cream, famous for its advertising gimmick of posting humorous rhyming poems on small sequential highway roadside signs.
History
Burma-Shave was introduced in 1925 by the Bur ...
, a popular
shaving cream
Shaving cream or shave cream is a category of cream cosmetics used for shaving preparation. The purpose of shaving cream is to soften the hair by providing lubrication.
Different types of shaving creams include aerosol shaving cream (also kn ...
manufacturer of the time. The era between 1945 and 1956 is often considered the height of popularity of US 66 travel.
The popularity of the highway led to the
Columbia Broadcasting System
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
(CBS), an American
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
broadcast network
A terrestrial network (or broadcast network in the United States) is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ...
, to air a television show called ''
Route 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...
'' in 1960.
The decline of Route 66
![I-40 (AZ 1957)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/I-40_%28AZ_1957%29.svg)
The Arizona State Highway Department had spent a total of $19 million (equivalent to $ in ) on US 66 alone between 1944 and 1954. This was largely due to the gigantic increase in traffic on US 66 through Arizona over the last decade. A Flagstaff-based newspaper once stated that US 66 carried the largest number of interstate travelers of any highway in Arizona. By 1954, more than one million cars a year were traveling down US 66 from New Mexico to California. The increased traffic had also led to a greater number of
car accidents and
traffic jams
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic de ...
, the latter of which earned US 66 the unfortunate reputation of being "The World's Largest Traffic Jam".
By 1956, at least one out of six deaths resulting from car accidents in Arizona took place on US 66. This helped the highway earn another negative nickname, "Bloody 66".
![Fort Courage water tower in Houck, AZ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Fort_Courage_water_tower_in_Houck%2C_AZ.jpg)
The rough shape, narrowness and safety issues along US 66 and similar highways in Arizona contributed to public sentiment towards rebuilding and improving safety along the state's highways.
In 1954, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
heavily endorsed the long-standing idea of constructing a nationwide network of four-lane divided superhighways. Originally proposed back in the 1930s, this system of nationwide freeways would have entirely controlled access through the entry and exit ramps, as well as grade-separated interchanges with other highways, roads, and railroads. The new freeways would also include smoother grades coupled with more gradual curves. These massive changes in highway construction were intended to help increase traffic flow and greatly reduce car accidents occurring on the national highway network. Eisenhower pushed the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
to accept the idea and appropriate funding for the new system. Congress finally approved the proposal with the passage of the
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was enacted on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. With an original authorization of $25 billion for t ...
, bringing into existence the
Interstate and Defense Highway System. Several U.S. Highways in Arizona were chosen to become the corridors for the new Interstates, including US 66, which was slated to be replaced by
I-40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west Interstate Highway running through the south-central portion of the United States. At a length of , it is the third-longest Interstate Highway in the country, after I-90 and I-80. From west to ea ...
.
By December 1960, approximately of US 66 had been rebuilt into the first section of I-40 to open in Arizona, and a further of US 66 was also undergoing conversion into I-40.
By October 1962, of US 66 between Williams and Flagstaff was being rebuilt into parts of I-40.
The new section was completed and opened to traffic later the same year.
In 1966, a new four-lane steel bridge was opened over the Colorado River, replacing the Red Rock Bridge. US 66 was moved onto the new bridge, running concurrently with the new I-40 across the river. The Red Rock Bridge was closed following the opening of the new bridge and sat completely abandoned for over a decade. Unlike the Old Trails Bridge, the Red Rock Bridge would never be repurposed. In 1976, the bridge was entirely dismantled. Today, only
concrete pilings remain where the bridge once stood.
By September 1967, over of I-40 had been constructed or rebuilt from sections of US 66, with another under way. I-40 around Flagstaff was completed and opened to traffic in 1968, bypassing US 66 and US 89 through town.
By 1971, almost all of US 66 east of Flagstaff had been rebuilt into I-40, save for the city streets through Winslow, Joseph City and Holbrook. I-40 had also been completed around Flagstaff and west to the junction between
SR 64 and US 66 east of Williams. Another section of I-40 was complete between Seligman and Ash Fork, with a tiny section completed just east of Ash Fork. Almost all US 66 had been converted into I-40 between Kingman and Topock as well, save for a section east of Topock and a section south of Kingman. A small section of I-40 had also been completed between Kingman and a junction with
US 93 about south of Hackberry.
![Historic Route 66 - Twin Arrows - NARA - 7719481](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Historic_Route_66_-_Twin_Arrows_-_NARA_-_7719481.jpg)
Controversy came with the construction of I-40. There was a
large opposition to freeway bypasses around the towns along the route. Much of the opposition came from town officials and businessmen, all too familiar with the decline of Oatman caused by the 1952 bypass. A large political effort was mounted across several towns along US 66 to block the construction of any further bypasses. The bypass revolts gained considerable attention in the Arizona State Government, with
state legislators considering the idea of banning freeway bypasses in Arizona. In the end, the movements did little to stifle the Interstate construction. However, the movement did give the many communities along US 66 some extra time. The state government agreed not to construct the bypasses until all other sections of I-40 had been completed, in hopes of giving the US 66 towns time to adjust to the upcoming changes.
In 1978, the I-40 bypasses were completed around Seligman and Kingman.
The Seligman bypass was followed by three bypasses around Ash Fork, Winslow and Holbrook opening in 1979. Despite being open to traffic, the Holbrook bypass would not be completed until 1981.
The Joseph City bypass was completed and opened in September 1980. The final bypass was opened around Williams on October 13, 1984, receiving a special ceremony.
By far the largest bypass was the section of I-40 constructed between Kingman and Ash Fork. Rather than follow US 66, which formed a roughly arc shaped path through Valentine, Peach Springs and Hackberry, this section of the Interstate went straight east, leaving several communities and a large section of US 66 several miles north of the new main highway.
This entire section was completed in 1978.
![Abandoned zoo cages -Two Guns, Arizona](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Abandoned_zoo_cages_-Two_Guns%2C_Arizona.jpg)
As I-40 replaced US 66, the old highway's popularity greatly declined. Business along the route began declining as fewer and fewer people drove through the old towns. Slowly, many towns declined or were outright abandoned and became
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
s, including tourist towns like
Two Guns. Many residents of the declining US 66 towns described the loss of business being instantaneous, happening right after the bypasses opened. The Interstate bypasses also meant the end of US 66 as an active highway, in conjunction with California concurrently removing its section of US 66 from the state highway system between 1964 and 1974, which moved the western terminus of the entire highway to the Colorado River in Topock, Arizona.
The same year, US 66 was also truncated in the east from Chicago to
Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in Jasper County, Missouri, Jasper and Newton County, Missouri, Newton counties in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bulk of the city is in Jasper County, while the southern portion is in Newton County. J ...
.
Despite California's lack of recognition of US 66 as an active highway, the
(AASHTO) recognized the new western terminus of the highway at
US 95 in Needles, across the river from Topock. The section of US 66 through Arizona remained unaltered until 1979, when AASHTO approved a request from California and Arizona to truncate US 66 from Needles to a junction with I-40 and
US 666 in Sanders. However, the
Arizona Department of Transportation
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, pronounced "A-Dot") is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's state highways, highway system, the agency is also i ...
(ADOT) continued to recognize the US 66 designation west of Sanders, establishing a signed western terminus at I-40 in Kingman.
Following the completion of the Williams bypass in 1984, ADOT approved a plan to deal with the remains of the highway in Arizona. All of US 66 in Arizona was no longer recognized as an active U.S. Highway. The sections of US 66 that were not concurrent with I-40 were re-designated as multiple
Business Loops of I-40 and the section of highway from Kingman to Seligman was re-designated
State Route 66
The following highways are numbered 66:
Australia
* Barkly Highway (Northern Territory)
* Riddoch Highway
Canada
* Alberta Highway 66
* Highway 66 (Ontario)
Finland
* Kantatie 66 ( Orivesi — Lapua)
France
* A66 autoroute
Germany
* Bu ...
. The section from Seligman to Crookton was abandoned to
Yavapai County
Yavapai County is near the center of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 236,209, making it the fourth-most populous county in Arizona. The county seat is Prescott.
Yavapai County comprises the Prescott, AZ M ...
. On June 26, 1985, AASHTO approved a request by the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri to retire the US 66 designation from the U.S. Highway System.
Historic Route 66
A
Seligman-based small business owner named
Angel Delgadillo
Angel Delgadillo (born April 19, 1927) is an American barber and businessowner in Seligman, Arizona who has been dubbed the "guardian angel" of U.S. Route 66. He is the main founder of the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, established i ...
had observed the impact that the decline of US 66 and establishment of the I-40 bypass had on his town. Delgadillo, a Seligman native, had been operating his privately owned barbershop since 1950. When I-40 had been completed around Seligman, the number of cars traveling through Seligman substantially decreased from thousands per day to only a handful per day. This also meant a great decrease in Delgadillo's business. By 1986, Delgadillo had been attempting for years to get former US 66 in Arizona designated as a historic route with little to no success. The same year, the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...
ended employee layovers in Seligman, decreasing Delgadillo's business even further.
![Route66](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Route66.jpg)
On February 18, 1987, Delgadillo organized a meeting of 15 small business owners with establishments along old US 66. Among the attendees was Delagdillo's older brother, Juan Delgadillo, who owned
Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In just down the street from Angel's barber shop. The businessmen met at the Copper Cart Canyon restaurant in downtown Seligman and agreed to form the
Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. The new association began lobbying and meeting with state level politicians as well as multiple chambers of commerce for support. Delgadillo even began selling US 66 themed merchandise at his barber shop to gather further support. The efforts of the new association paid off in November 1987, when the Arizona State Transportation Board designated several sections of old US 66 as Historic Route 66. The victory was marked by a ceremonial ribbon cutting for the new historic route in Seligman on April 23, 1988. This event was also the beginning of the first annual Route 66 Fun Run, an event where historic cars drive together down Historic Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman. The success of Historic Route 66 made Angel Delgadillo a popular figure among Route 66 enthusiasts around the world. Delgadillo has since been hailed as the "Guardian Angel of Route 66" and "Mayor of the Mother Road", among other nicknames.
The ADOT
Parkways, Historic and Scenic Roads program continues to recognize certain sections of former US 66 as Historic Route 66. The longest sections of the designated historic route follow the original US 66 between Topock and Seligman through Oatman and from
Flagstaff to
Winona. Other smaller sections of Historic Route 66 comprise former US 66 segments that are currently or were once designated as
I-40 Business. This is the case in
Ash Fork, Williams,
Winslow Winslow may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish
* Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974
United States and Canada
* Rural Municipality of Winslo ...
and
Holbrook Holbrook may refer to:
Places
England
*Holbrook, Derbyshire, a village
* Holbrook, Somerset, a hamlet in Charlton Musgrove
* Holbrook, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, a former mining village in Mosborough ward, now known as Halfway
*Holbrook, Suffolk, ...
. Flagstaff is the only city in Arizona where the Historic Route splits into two alignments, the first along the aforementioned route to Winona and the second taking a small section of later US 66 to a junction with I-40 immediately east of Flagstaff. The discontinuous sections of Historic Route 66 are all connected by I-40. As there are no designated sections between Holbrook and New Mexico, the Arizona historic route officially has its eastern terminus in Holbrook.
Former US 66 also has the honor of being designated part of the Historic Route 66 National Scenic Byway. The designation means the old highway is protected and preserved as both a
National Scenic Byway and All-American Road under the supervision of the
Federal Highway Administration
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
. There is also a museum dedicated to Historic Route 66 at the Powerhouse Visitor Center in Kingman. A further byway designation was granted to the original section of US 66 through Oatman, designated the Route 66 Historic Back Country Byway by the
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...
as part of the BLM's
Back Country Byways system.
The overall length of all combined sections of Historic Route 66 is . Until the addition of
Historic U.S. Route 80 in 2018, Historic Route 66 was the only route in the Parkways, Historic and Scenic Roads program to span multiple counties, and was the longest state-designated historic route in Arizona.
Similar to US 66,
US 80 was once a heavily traveled transcontinental U.S. Highway with an iconic car culture until Interstates bypassed and replaced it. Historic Route 66 is one of Arizona's four state designated Historic Routes, with the others being Historic US 80, the
Jerome–Clarkdale–Cottonwood Historic Road (Historic US 89A) and the
Apache Trail Historic Road.
Major intersections
This list follows the final non-freeway alignment in 1960.
Structures
Buildings
![Standin on the cornerpark](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Standin_on_the_cornerpark.jpg)
A
Desert Power & Water Co., Electric Power Plant built in 1908 closed in 1938, soon after the
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...
was completed; it now houses a visitor information office, Route 66 Museum and gift shop.
The
Schoolhouse at Truxton Canyon Training School in Valentine operated from 1903 to 1937 as a mandatory boarding school in which
Hualapai
The Hualapai (, , yuf-x-wal, Hwalbáy) is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Arizona with about 2300 enrolled members. Approximately 1353 enrolled members reside on the Hualapai Reservation, which spans over three counties in Nort ...
were separated from their families and put to work learning various trades. Long a symbol of forced assimilation, the historic building is now the property of the Hualapai Nation.
[ and ]
The
Peach Springs Trading Post, constructed in 1928 using local stone and logs, replaced an earlier 1917 trading post at Peach Springs. Its original role was to trade native crafts for foodstuffs, medicine and household goods. The building now houses Hualapai conservation offices.
Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark ...
, an astronomical observatory established in Flagstaff in 1894, is one of the oldest observatories in the United States and a designated
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
. The observatory is well known for being the location where astronomer
Clyde Tombaugh
Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was cons ...
discovered the
dwarf planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to p ...
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
on February 18, 1930.
Flagstaff's
Santa Fe Railway Depot, built in 1926, is currently an
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
station and includes a visitor information office. Flagstaff's 43-room
Hotel Monte Vista
The Hotel Monte Vista is a historic hotel near U.S. Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona.
History
Hotel Monte Vista was built in 1927 and is in the historic downtown district of Flagstaff. It has 73 rooms and suites on three floors. Many famous p ...
was established in 1927 and is believed to be a filming location for the 1942 film ''
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
'', starring actor
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film In ...
.
Historic districts
*
Kingman Commercial Historic District, Kingman
*
Seligman Historic District, Seligman
*
Railroad Addition Historic District, Flagstaff
*
La Posada Historic District
The La Posada Historic District is a historic district in eastern Winslow, Arizona, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Description
The district is located at 200 East Second Street and dates from ...
in Winslow, which dates from 1930, includes the
Winslow Santa Fe station as well as
La Posada Hotel
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
and Gardens, a
Fred Harvey Company
The Fred Harvey Company was the owner of the Harvey House chain of restaurants, hotels and other hospitality industry businesses alongside railroads in the Western United States. It was founded in 1876 by Fred Harvey to cater to the growing n ...
hotel.
Restaurants
Delgadillo's Snow Cap Drive-In in Seligman, was built in 1953 with scrap railway lumber by Juan Delgadillo. Following Delgadillo's passing in 2004, his children took over ownership and operation of the restaurant.
It continues to offer choices such as a "cheeseburger with cheese" and "dead chicken."
The
Galaxy Diner along the route in Flagstaff is a popular fixture. It had opened in the 1950s and retained the
small-town diner iconography despite popular franchises replacing many restaurants; it was refitted to better emulate its original era in the 1990s. The diner closed on August 2, 2019, then re-opened under new ownership in August 2020.
Camps, motor courts, and motels
The
Oatman Hotel, a historic two-story adobe building which opened in 1902 as the
Durlin Hotel and was rebuilt in 1924 during a local gold rush now houses a bar, restaurant and museum.
The
Wigwam Village Motel in Holbrook is distinctive for patented
novelty architecture
Novelty architecture, also called programmatic architecture or mimetic architecture, is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes for purposes such as advertising or to copy other famous buildings w ...
in which every room of the motel is a free-standing concrete wigwam. In
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...
's 2006
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
film ''
Cars
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as t ...
'', these are depicted as the
traffic cone
Traffic cones, also called pylons, witches' hats, road cones, highway cones, safety cones, channelizing devices, construction cones, or just cones, are usually cone-shaped markers that are placed on roads or footpaths to temporarily redirect traf ...
s of the Cozy Cone Motel.
The Pueblo Revival style
Painted Desert Inn
Painted Desert Inn is a historic complex in Petrified Forest National Park, in Apache County, Arizona, Apache County, eastern Arizona. It is located off Interstate 40 in Arizona, Interstate 40 and near the original alignment of historic U.S. Route ...
in
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
, constructed circa-1920 of wood and native stone, and purchased by the US
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
in 1935, is situated on a mesa overlooking the vast Painted Desert.
About from Kingman in
Antares, Arizona is the Kozy Corner RV park,
which features the 'Giganticus Headicus' attraction, a 14-foot tall homemade monument resembling the
Easter Island heads. The park is on Antares Point, the longest continuous curve (c. 2 miles) of any United States highway. The RV park is isolated, bracketed between the
Peacock Mountains
The Peacock Mountains are a small, 26 mi (42 km) long mountain range in northwest Arizona, US. The range is a narrow sub-range, and an extension north, at the northeast of the Hualapai Mountains massif, which lies to the southwest. The ran ...
and Route 66 and the
Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
, which run parallel; it began as a camp for railroad workers in the early 1900s. A local legend claims that
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series ''Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and ''Sta ...
stayed at the motel and named the Antares ship in ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' after its location.
Bridges
![Trails Arch Bridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Trails_Arch_Bridge.jpg)
*
Old Trails Bridge
The Old Trails Bridge is a historic bridge over the Colorado River in San Bernardino County and Mohave County in the United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). It has also been known as Topock Bridge and a ...
, Topock
*
Walnut Canyon Bridge, Winona
*
Querino Canyon Bridge, Houck
Road segments
* Various segments of old US 66 throughout Arizona, in various states of preservation, are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
See also
*
Keyhole Sink
Keyhole Sink is a canyon in the shape of a keyhole near Williams, Arizona. The canyon is best known for its petroglyphs, which were created about 1,000 years ago by the ancient Cohonina people, and the seasonal waterfalls that flow into the ca ...
*
Arizona State Route 66
State Route 66 (SR 66) is a surface road in the U.S. state of Arizona in Mohave and Coconino Counties. In 1914, the road was designated "National Old Trails Highway" but in 1926 was re-designated as U.S. Route 66. In 1985, U.S. Route 66 was dro ...
*
U.S. Route 80 in Arizona
*
U.S. Route 180
U.S. Route 180 is an east–west United States highway. Like many three-digit routes, US 180 no longer meets its "parent", US 80. US 80 was decommissioned west of Mesquite, Texas, and was replaced in Texas by Interstate 20 and Interstate 1 ...
*
Twin Arrows, Arizona
References
Further reading
*
External links
Route 66 through Arizona– Turn by turn directions
Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona– Official website
{{good article
Route 66 in Arizona
Route 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...
66
National Register of Historic Places in Apache County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Coconino County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Mohave County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Navajo County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Yavapai County, Arizona
66