December 5, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, what does it mean when a highway that no longer exists still carries more recognition than the roads that replaced it? Route 66 was born out of a practical need to move people across long distances, yet it quickly grew into something else entirely. Its motels, garages, and storefronts formed a line of small anchors through the heart of the country, each one shaping the rhythm of life along the pavement. Parts of old Route 66 have disappeared, but the imprint remains. Historian Jim Hinckley traces the winding tale of Route 66’s history, from its early promise to its quiet revival.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Today we're going
to dive into some of the history behind Route sixty six.
Jim Hinckley is a world traveler and Root sixty six enthusiasts.
Here's Jim on how this legendary highway came to be.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Route sixty six is a fascinating animal. It is not
our nation's oldest highway, it's not our most scenic highway,
but it's always had the best press in publicity from
its very inception in nineteen twenty six, and it has
morphed into an amazing situation where it now has an
(00:48):
international fan club, and it has come to serve as
a symbol for American freedom, the quint essential Great American
road trip. There's six associations in about a dozen countries
that organize events, festivals and tours. I work with several
tour companies in Europe, Australia and New Zealand that specialized
(01:11):
just in ROUT sixty six trips. But one of the
most amazing things about ROUT sixty six in the modern
era is the highway does not exist. In nineteen eighty four,
the last community, Williams, Arizona, was bypassed by Interstate forty.
In the following year, nineteen eighty five, Root sixty six
was decertified and removed as an official US highway, So
(01:34):
the most famous highway in America technically doesn't even exist.
Root sixty six connects Chicago to Santa Monica, California. Originally
the western terminus was in Los Angeles, and then in
the nineteen thirties it was moved further west out to
Santa Monica. And it was an evolutionary situation. President John
(01:54):
Quincy Adams originally had proposed a nationwide system of highways,
and it was kind of a stillborn project. The railroad
eclipsed to that, and so the idea kind of languished
for a while. And it's actually the bicycle. In the
late eighteen eighties, bicycles evolved. They went from the penny
(02:15):
farthing bicycles, the ones with the tall front wheel the
small back wheel, and became the modern safety bicycle. And
in just a few short years there was an absolute
national obsession with bicycles. We went from having twenty four
bicycle manufacturers in the United States in eighteen ninety to
several hundred bicycle manufacturers in eighteen ninety six. And so
(02:39):
an organization was established called the League of American Wheelmen.
They began petitioning and working with governments and lobbying for
the creation of a good roads movement, and with the
advent of the American auto industry in the mid eighteen nineties,
this morphed into the Good Roads Association, the formation of
(02:59):
True and other organizations. And there was a situation of
what they call named highways, the Lincoln Highway, the Dixie Highway,
the Jefferson Highway, the National Trails Highway, and they were
attempts to create a nationwide network of roads, but it
was still inadequate, and so over a period of about
(03:22):
fifteen years of political wrangling, we finally developed in the
mid nineteen twenties the US Highway system. Americans have always
had wonderlust, you know, Daniel Boone, the Cumberland Gap, people
moving west, So we've always been a restless people. A
modern road trip again goes back to the bicycle. We
(03:42):
had best selling books. Mister steff Ella named Stevens in
the late eighteen seventies did an around the world trip
on a bicycle, and that became a best selling book.
People were fascinated by the idea, and with the advent
of the automobile, the automobile first came to to being
in the United States. Ransom e Olds of Oldsmobile started
(04:04):
tinkering with this in eighteen eighties. The Durya Brothers actually
started producing automobiles for sale about eighteen ninety five, but
it was still a novelty. The Barnum and Bailey Circus
in eighteen ninety six gave a Durya motor wagon top
billing over the Albino, the Fat Lady and the Bearded Lady.
(04:26):
At the circus, Montgomery Ward said it was a fad
you should take your children to see before it passes.
Where people were interested in bicycle touring, now the automobilists
became all the raids. People were taking trips, people were traveling,
and with the advent of Root sixty six in the
US highway system, of course, this took on a new
dimension with the automobile. Interestingly enough, it still took time.
(04:51):
Even though we had a US highway system, Root sixty
six was not fully paved until nineteen thirty six. The
nineteen thirties, of course, the Great Depression and Route sixty
six and other highways became a road of desperation as
people fled to California in the West in hopes of
better opportunity. Nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty you had The
(05:12):
Grapes of Wrath, the book and the movie that proclaimed
Route sixty six as the mother Road. Then nineteen forty
six you had Bobby Troop's song about get your kicks
on Route sixty six sung by nat King Cole. And
then in the early sixties we had the television program
Ruth sixty six, the most popular television program of the time,
(05:33):
the Lucille Ball Show. There was a three part episode
where Desi and Lucy drove from New York to California
and a lot of this they took and they were
on Route sixty six. So the roads always had the
best press in publicity, and if you fast forward to
the modern era, I was very privileged to listen to
a fellow from the Czech Republic talk about Root sixty six.
(05:57):
And Zenik is the founder of the czechisvilckey in Rid
sixty six Association, and he talked about growing up in
a communist country, listening to radio Free American and watching
bootleg copies of movies like Easy Rider, which was filmed
on UD sixty six and Route sixty six. The motorcycle.
Harley Davidson's all came to symbolize a freedom and, as
(06:23):
he put it, for his generation, Root sixty six, the
road trip, the American road trip came to symbolize freedom
the way the Statue of Liberty had done for a
previous generation. Anywhere from sixty to seventy five percent of
the travelers on Road sixty six are from other countries,
(06:45):
and there's international association all along the road. For example,
in the little town of Elkhart, Illinois, there's a bank
that was built in nineteen oh nine and the town
is pretty much a ghost down It has one block.
This beautiful bank was acquired by Peter Neuhouse Kneehouse, and
he's a Dutch hydraulic engineer who lived in South Africa
(07:07):
for many years. He's a woodworker by hobby, and his
wife is a mural artist. They fell in love with
Rout sixty six. They bought this bank, they renovated it,
and they created the Wild Hair Cafe, a delightful little
place in king in Arizona, there's an old nineteen thirty
nine motel, the El Trovodor, and like many old motels,
(07:28):
it became a flophouse and a literal crack house, just
horrible place. And a gentleman from Israel, passionate about Rout
sixty six has bought and renovated the hotel. You have
people buying old motels and old cafes and renovating them.
You have a younger generation that's walking away from corporate jobs,
(07:48):
wanting more out of life, more quality, so they're opening
businesses on Root sixty six. There was one family in
They had a fairly decent job. He worked for an
oil company twenty six figures a year and it was
just a soul crushing job. And they took the Route
sixty six trip. Fell in love with the highway, the
(08:09):
culture of the people. He quit. He walked away from
it all, bought a nineteen thirty nine motel and too
can carry New Mexico. And he told me what During
an interview, he says, I've never worked this hard in
my life for so little money, and I've never been
this happy. He was meeting people from all over the
world and doing something he enjoyed. I've traveled the road
off and on since nineteen fifty nine. And most of
(08:32):
my life's been tied to this thing. But it's just
astounding what the road has become. A great example is
twenty eighteen, I was very privileged to speak at the
second European Festival at sixty six Festival in Zlynn, the
Czech Republic, and it was surreal. It was. It was
a quint essential small town American event, a ZZ Top
(08:54):
tribute band, and when the band wasn't playing, they were
playing country and music Hank Williams and Marty Robbins, and
he had a cruise night drive, people driving seventy Ford
pickups and fifty seven Chevies and it was an American celebration,
a read sixty six celebration, twenty thousand plus people from
ten countries including Brazil, and here I am and it
(09:16):
feels totally American, but I'm in a place where I
can't understand anybody read anything, and I have no idea
what I'm needing. It's just really astounding what this road
has become.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And thanks to Jim Hinckley for his work on the piece,
and you can find more of Jim's work at Jim
Hinckley'samerica dot com. And by the way, it's just a
story of so many things, but in the end, movement
and freedom and human freedom, and we're moving people. We
came to this country, many of our parents and grandparents
and great grandparents from other places. The story of Route
(09:50):
sixty six here on our American story.
And we continue with our American stories. Today we're going
to dive into some of the history behind Route sixty six.
Jim Hinckley is a world traveler and Root sixty six enthusiasts.
Here's Jim on how this legendary highway came to be.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Route sixty six is a fascinating animal. It is not
our nation's oldest highway, it's not our most scenic highway,
but it's always had the best press in publicity from
its very inception in nineteen twenty six, and it has
morphed into an amazing situation where it now has an
(00:48):
international fan club, and it has come to serve as
a symbol for American freedom, the quint essential Great American
road trip. There's six associations in about a dozen countries
that organize events, festivals and tours. I work with several
tour companies in Europe, Australia and New Zealand that specialized
(01:11):
just in ROUT sixty six trips. But one of the
most amazing things about ROUT sixty six in the modern
era is the highway does not exist. In nineteen eighty four,
the last community, Williams, Arizona, was bypassed by Interstate forty.
In the following year, nineteen eighty five, Root sixty six
was decertified and removed as an official US highway, So
(01:34):
the most famous highway in America technically doesn't even exist.
Root sixty six connects Chicago to Santa Monica, California. Originally
the western terminus was in Los Angeles, and then in
the nineteen thirties it was moved further west out to
Santa Monica. And it was an evolutionary situation. President John
(01:54):
Quincy Adams originally had proposed a nationwide system of highways,
and it was kind of a stillborn project. The railroad
eclipsed to that, and so the idea kind of languished
for a while. And it's actually the bicycle. In the
late eighteen eighties, bicycles evolved. They went from the penny
(02:15):
farthing bicycles, the ones with the tall front wheel the
small back wheel, and became the modern safety bicycle. And
in just a few short years there was an absolute
national obsession with bicycles. We went from having twenty four
bicycle manufacturers in the United States in eighteen ninety to
several hundred bicycle manufacturers in eighteen ninety six. And so
(02:39):
an organization was established called the League of American Wheelmen.
They began petitioning and working with governments and lobbying for
the creation of a good roads movement, and with the
advent of the American auto industry in the mid eighteen nineties,
this morphed into the Good Roads Association, the formation of
(02:59):
True and other organizations. And there was a situation of
what they call named highways, the Lincoln Highway, the Dixie Highway,
the Jefferson Highway, the National Trails Highway, and they were
attempts to create a nationwide network of roads, but it
was still inadequate, and so over a period of about
(03:22):
fifteen years of political wrangling, we finally developed in the
mid nineteen twenties the US Highway system. Americans have always
had wonderlust, you know, Daniel Boone, the Cumberland Gap, people
moving west, So we've always been a restless people. A
modern road trip again goes back to the bicycle. We
(03:42):
had best selling books. Mister steff Ella named Stevens in
the late eighteen seventies did an around the world trip
on a bicycle, and that became a best selling book.
People were fascinated by the idea, and with the advent
of the automobile, the automobile first came to to being
in the United States. Ransom e Olds of Oldsmobile started
(04:04):
tinkering with this in eighteen eighties. The Durya Brothers actually
started producing automobiles for sale about eighteen ninety five, but
it was still a novelty. The Barnum and Bailey Circus
in eighteen ninety six gave a Durya motor wagon top
billing over the Albino, the Fat Lady and the Bearded Lady.
(04:26):
At the circus, Montgomery Ward said it was a fad
you should take your children to see before it passes.
Where people were interested in bicycle touring, now the automobilists
became all the raids. People were taking trips, people were traveling,
and with the advent of Root sixty six in the
US highway system, of course, this took on a new
dimension with the automobile. Interestingly enough, it still took time.
(04:51):
Even though we had a US highway system, Root sixty
six was not fully paved until nineteen thirty six. The
nineteen thirties, of course, the Great Depression and Route sixty
six and other highways became a road of desperation as
people fled to California in the West in hopes of
better opportunity. Nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty you had The
(05:12):
Grapes of Wrath, the book and the movie that proclaimed
Route sixty six as the mother Road. Then nineteen forty
six you had Bobby Troop's song about get your kicks
on Route sixty six sung by nat King Cole. And
then in the early sixties we had the television program
Ruth sixty six, the most popular television program of the time,
(05:33):
the Lucille Ball Show. There was a three part episode
where Desi and Lucy drove from New York to California
and a lot of this they took and they were
on Route sixty six. So the roads always had the
best press in publicity, and if you fast forward to
the modern era, I was very privileged to listen to
a fellow from the Czech Republic talk about Root sixty six.
(05:57):
And Zenik is the founder of the czechisvilckey in Rid
sixty six Association, and he talked about growing up in
a communist country, listening to radio Free American and watching
bootleg copies of movies like Easy Rider, which was filmed
on UD sixty six and Route sixty six. The motorcycle.
Harley Davidson's all came to symbolize a freedom and, as
(06:23):
he put it, for his generation, Root sixty six, the
road trip, the American road trip came to symbolize freedom
the way the Statue of Liberty had done for a
previous generation. Anywhere from sixty to seventy five percent of
the travelers on Road sixty six are from other countries,
(06:45):
and there's international association all along the road. For example,
in the little town of Elkhart, Illinois, there's a bank
that was built in nineteen oh nine and the town
is pretty much a ghost down It has one block.
This beautiful bank was acquired by Peter Neuhouse Kneehouse, and
he's a Dutch hydraulic engineer who lived in South Africa
(07:07):
for many years. He's a woodworker by hobby, and his
wife is a mural artist. They fell in love with
Rout sixty six. They bought this bank, they renovated it,
and they created the Wild Hair Cafe, a delightful little
place in king in Arizona, there's an old nineteen thirty
nine motel, the El Trovodor, and like many old motels,
(07:28):
it became a flophouse and a literal crack house, just
horrible place. And a gentleman from Israel, passionate about Rout
sixty six has bought and renovated the hotel. You have
people buying old motels and old cafes and renovating them.
You have a younger generation that's walking away from corporate jobs,
(07:48):
wanting more out of life, more quality, so they're opening
businesses on Root sixty six. There was one family in
They had a fairly decent job. He worked for an
oil company twenty six figures a year and it was
just a soul crushing job. And they took the Route
sixty six trip. Fell in love with the highway, the
(08:09):
culture of the people. He quit. He walked away from
it all, bought a nineteen thirty nine motel and too
can carry New Mexico. And he told me what During
an interview, he says, I've never worked this hard in
my life for so little money, and I've never been
this happy. He was meeting people from all over the
world and doing something he enjoyed. I've traveled the road
off and on since nineteen fifty nine. And most of
(08:32):
my life's been tied to this thing. But it's just
astounding what the road has become. A great example is
twenty eighteen, I was very privileged to speak at the
second European Festival at sixty six Festival in Zlynn, the
Czech Republic, and it was surreal. It was. It was
a quint essential small town American event, a ZZ Top
(08:54):
tribute band, and when the band wasn't playing, they were
playing country and music Hank Williams and Marty Robbins, and
he had a cruise night drive, people driving seventy Ford
pickups and fifty seven Chevies and it was an American celebration,
a read sixty six celebration, twenty thousand plus people from
ten countries including Brazil, and here I am and it
(09:16):
feels totally American, but I'm in a place where I
can't understand anybody read anything, and I have no idea
what I'm needing. It's just really astounding what this road
has become.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And thanks to Jim Hinckley for his work on the piece,
and you can find more of Jim's work at Jim
Hinckley'samerica dot com. And by the way, it's just a
story of so many things, but in the end, movement
and freedom and human freedom, and we're moving people. We
came to this country, many of our parents and grandparents
and great grandparents from other places. The story of Route
(09:50):
sixty six here on our American story.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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