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Hi there. I'm sure that all of you have heard of one of America's most famous U.S. Highways, Route 66, a big route followed by many people from Oklahoma and Kansas throughout the Dust Bowl and Great Depression of the 1930s. The route began in Barstow, California, paralleling Interstate 40 all the way to Oklahoma City, and then at Oklahoma City turning northeast, and passing through Tulsa and crossing into Kansas for 13 miles, then entering Missouri near Joplin, passing by Springfield, then turning northeast through Rolla and eventually to St. Louis...the route from Oklahoma City northeast to St. Louis roughly parallels Interstate 44. At St. Louis, Route 66 turned more north-south and paralleled Interstate 55 to Chicago, where it ended. I am trying to determine the exact alignment of Route 66. THere are many historical markers for the route around the St. Louis area, but they seem to conflict. I-270 north of St. Louis I believe replaced the U.S. 66 Bypass route around St. Louis...the McKinley Bridge on the northern edge of downtown St. Louis claims to be a U.S. 66 crossing of the Mississippi, as does the bridge where the trains cross just south of the Poplar Street Bridge, which carries Interstates 70, 64, and 55 over the Mississippi. It then apparantly continues along Missouri Highway 100 all the way out to Grayton, Missouri...however, other signs on Lindell and Skinker Blvd., in central St. Louis, claim to be a U.S. 66 Historic Route as well. I guess I was wondering if somebody could give me any indication on the EXACT pavement to follow to truly travel U.S. 66 from Chicago to Barstow. Thanks.
Hi there. I'm sure that all of you have heard of one of America's most famous U.S. Highways, Route 66, a big route followed by many people from Oklahoma and Kansas throughout the Dust Bowl and Great Depression of the 1930s. The route began in Barstow, California, paralleling Interstate 40 all the way to Oklahoma City, and then at Oklahoma City turning northeast, and passing through Tulsa and crossing into Kansas for 13 miles, then entering Missouri near Joplin, passing by Springfield, then turning northeast through Rolla and eventually to St. Louis...the route from Oklahoma City northeast to St. Louis roughly parallels Interstate 44. At St. Louis, Route 66 turned more north-south and paralleled Interstate 55 to Chicago, where it ended. I am trying to determine the exact alignment of Route 66. THere are many historical markers for the route around the St. Louis area, but they seem to conflict. I-270 north of St. Louis I believe replaced the U.S. 66 Bypass route around St. Louis...the McKinley Bridge on the northern edge of downtown St. Louis claims to be a U.S. 66 crossing of the Mississippi, as does the bridge where the trains cross just south of the Poplar Street Bridge, which carries Interstates 70, 64, and 55 over the Mississippi. It then apparantly continues along Missouri Highway 100 all the way out to Grayton, Missouri...however, other signs on Lindell and Skinker Blvd., in central St. Louis, claim to be a U.S. 66 Historic Route as well. I guess I was wondering if somebody could give me any indication on the EXACT pavement to follow to truly travel U.S. 66 from Chicago to Barstow. Thanks.
ajf--I was fascinated by old 66 a few years ago and found several websites detailing the route, some even had pictures. One site had a 1930s WPA Writers Project description of the route through each state. RE: around St Louis, I belive there were several alignments to and thru St Louis. I belive the Chain of Rcks bridge was the last one before it was decommissioned, but before that it went across the railroad bridge closer to downtown. Check out the websites, I'm sure you'll find it.
Route 66 actually used to go into Los Angeles, or more precisely, Santa Monica. That's about 100 miles further west than Barstow. A lot of the original road still exists between Victorville, CA and Needles, CA. It mainly runs on a route that is approximately parallel to I-40. There's a lot of neat desert history along that road to the east of Barstow. The museum, run by the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association, in Goffs is (or at least, used to be) a great place to go to brush up on history of that area. Here's a link to it: http://www.mdhca.org/
in Jan of 1969, a couple months after I was set free from the US Army (3 yrs), 3 of us drove from Philly to SF
in IN, we picked up 66 and took it all the way to LA
the Texas panhandle & my first experience w/ tex-mex food
the Cowboy Hall of Fame in OK City
the painted desert in NM...and stars like wallpaper on the midnight sky
the crater of a meteor
the honky-tonk towns in AZ...and being stopped by the AZ Staties to check our draft cards- how good it felt to pull out my DD214...w/ a smirk on my face
a detour up to Vegas-those ghastly neon lights painting the black night like an ethereal bombardment of color
the signs welcoming us to CA, Barstow and the mojave
don't plan too much- there are maps out there you can find-just get on the road, become one of the ever growing legacy, decades of us, "to make the trip"
I see that this is an old blog, but I enjoyed reading it and have to chime in. While I was attending the police academy in Springfield, IL in early 1996, my wife and I stumbled upon a place called The Cozy Dog/Cozy Drive-in along old 66 (Business 55, 6th Street). This place is well known to dedicated Route 66er's, but we did not know that at the time. It just looked like a cool, old-school place to grab a good meal.
We just happened to be there when the late Tom Teague was there selling and signing copies of his book, "Searching for 66." We chatted with him for a few minutes and were saddened to learn that the Cozy was short for the world, soon to be replaced by a Walgreen's which resides there to this day. In any case, we got very interested in Route 66 from reading Tom's book and decided to spend our honeymoon on The Mother Road the following month. (That fit perfectly with our scant budget at the time.)
On the evening of April 21, 1996, the day after our wedding, we left Peoria in a rented Lumina to pick up Route 66 in Springfield. We had hoped to have a late meal at the Cozy before journeying on, but it had already closed for the day. We spent the next couple of days enjoying the feel of Route 66, taking photos, staying at old motels and eating at old diners along the way. We especially enjoyed The Lincoln Motel in Chandler, OK, which must have been in better shape then, based on recent reviews I see posted. We had also stopped at the Munger-Moss motel in Lebanon, MO. Although it wasnt the right time of day to stop and stay there, they had a very cool gift shop where we picked up some 66 souvenirs. (Three houses and four refrigerators later, we still have the Rt 66 magnet we bought there, holding up various school papers, etc.)
Using Tom's book as a guide, we found ourselves on an original 1926 stretch of the highway through west Texas and eastern New Mexico. This was no more than a gravel road with cattle gates every so often. We drove miles without seeing any lights, which was kind of scary as we were running low on gas! We made it safely to Tucumcari, NM and cashed in our chips for the night, again at another classic motor lodge. The next day we drove on past Albuquerque to an Indian reservation, then we had to turn off the Mother Road and head north for a couple days with friends in Denver.
As we now approach our 15th anniversary, my wife and I are already talking about revisiting 66 on our 20th, taking more time to do it right. Next time we will start at Chicago and follow it all the way to Santa Monica, although it sounds like it has all been cannibalized by Interstates beyond Barstow, CA. I fear that a good bit of what we saw in 1996 has or will, by then, given way to the ravages of time, neglect, and redevelopment.
A couple of years back, on the way to St. Louis, my wife and I ate at the new Cozy Drive-in, which sits on an adjacent piece of ground to the original. While it doesn't have the same feel as the old 1950 building, they have done a nice job with the atmosphere and the food is good and reasonable. I have very fond memories of our trip down about half of Route 66, and would recommend it to anyone thinking about it, the sooner the better. I would also recommend reading the motel reviews to help you plan as it sounds like some of the original spots along the Mother Road have fallen into disrepair.
I guess I was wondering if somebody could give me any indication on the EXACT pavement to follow to truly travel U.S. 66 from Chicago to Barstow. Thanks.
It is pretty straight-forward except where it was OBLITERATED to make way for the interstate. I did not read the directions on your post (sorry, wall of words thing). I'm sure there are many online resources that will give you the EXACT route, and possibly, even if you are a member of AAA, they will be able to help you out.
We did this trip several years ago (starting in Joplin, MO) . It was incredible. I recommend it highly for everyone
The last routing of 66 before it was decommissioned has a few longish stretches in Oklahoma (actually from Springfield MO to OKC), in Arizona (between Flagstaff and Kingman), and in California (between Needles and Barstow) that depart some distance from the interstate, so you'd get the real experience, somewhat, there.
From south of I-80 in IL to Springfield MO, interstaes 55 and 44 were either built on a widened, converted-to-freeway 66, or in some places, old 66 exists as a literal frontage road immediately next to the interstate. They just put tight loops around the towns. Same deal in the rural stretches from OKC to west of Flagstaff - there are a handful of spots in TX near the NM border where there are ranch roads that come out onto the interstate (technically a "violation" of interstate standards, as they are just rural intersections with little dirt roads), and that's a relic of the freeway-ization of the original route.
For what it's worth, pretty much the vast majority of the interstates west of the Plains are built straight on top of older, extinct (or truncated) US Highways. The states east of the MS River were very much against the decommissioning of US routes when paralleled by Interstates, but this was definitely not the case farther west.
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did it
