To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, we’re cataloging 25 objects that define the country’s history.
Long before interstates stitched the country together, there was “The Mother Road.” Route 66 crossed through eight states from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif. It brought customers to gas stations, trading posts and roadside attractions that breathed life into hundreds of small towns across America.
Fully paved in the 1930s, it became a Depression-era migration route for poor farming families fleeing the Dust Bowl for a new start in California. It’s featured in novels like John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” And it inspired that 1946 song made famous by Nat King Cole: “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.”
Kathleen Franz, lead curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, unpacks the enduring legacy of “America’s Main Street.”
4 questions with Kathleen Franz
Why did Route 66 become so famous, and who came up with the idea for it?
“It became the most famous highway because of the advertising push that got people out of their houses, into their cars and onto that highway over the long course of its history.
“Americans, especially in smaller towns, did not always have access to paved roads. But nevertheless, the U.S. was growing quickly. And people needed to move goods between towns and cities or take to the open road for the pleasure of it.
“This effort in particular was led by Cyrus Avery, who was a businessman and interested in developing good roads in Oklahoma. And he was part of a road commission already working on these things and thought, ‘Well, let’s string together all of these small existing routes, pave them, and make it a major road.’”
What was the highway like during its heyday?
“If you were to drive on the road when it first came together in the late 1920s, some pieces were paved, but some pieces were not paved. It ran through every downtown of every small town. So there were lots of starts and stops. It had a lot of squirrely turns through mountainous areas in New Mexico and further West. Eventually, those things get smoothed out, but it put many people in touch with locations and small businesses.
“It was very different from later in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and beyond, where Route 66 became bypassed by freeways that had less on and off ramps and became filled with big-name, national brands.”
For many white Americans, Route 66 has symbolized freedom and the open road, but what was the road like for some minorities?
“African American drivers, Latino drivers and some Indigenous drivers were not treated equally on Route 66 and had very different experiences. Black middle class drivers often relied on ‘The Green Book,’ Victor Green’s guide, to avoid the places that would be more hostile to them, find Black-owned businesses along the route and stop where it was safe.”
What do you think about when you think about Route 66 and the story of America?
“I think about the regional diversity of America. That’s somewhat about the people and communities along the route, but it’s also about the architecture of the roadway. The Park Service and others started taking that seriously in the 1980s and 1990s to preserve some of the very local architecture and landscape along Route 66.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Walkey also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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