Oklahoma Route 66

Oklahoma is where East and West collide on Route 66, where the rolling hills that reach across its borders from Missouri and Arkansas give way to red earth and Big Sky Country. It is a land of agriculture, oil, and Native America. Route 66 stamped itself into the landscape here in 1926, extending from the state's northeast corner through Tulsa and Oklahoma City to the Texas Panhandle in the west. It was Oklahoma Highway commissioner Cyrus Avery, now known as the "Father of Route 66," who originally championed a major route stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles. Today, its pathway in Oklahoma is rich with small-town ambiance and landmarks, including many of the route's most popular attractions. From the magnificent Coleman Theatre in Miami to the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton, the Mother Road across the Sooner State is an explorer's feast.

This guide to road-tripping along Route 66 presents the highway's very best stops--and it's the only guidebook with a fully integrated app.

It was the way out. Invented on the cusp of the depression, Route 66 was the road out of the mines, off the farm, away from troubled Main Street. It was the road to opportunity. Between 1926 and 1956, many people from the southern and plains states trekked west to California on Route 66, the Mother Road. Some never reached California. Instead, they settled along the road, building restaurants, tourist attractions, gas stations, and motels. The architecture of each structure reflected regional building traditions and the difficulties of the times. The designs of buildings and signs served as invitations for passing travelers to stop, fill their tanks, have a bite, and stay the night. Along Route 66 describes the architectural styles found along the highway from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, and pairs photos with stories of the buildings and of the people who built them, lived in them, and made a living from them. With striking black-and-white images and unforgettable oral histories of this rapidly disappearing architecture, Quinta Scott has docomented the culture of America’s most famous road.

Tells the story of the legendary road, Route 66, begun in the early 1920s that covered 2400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles.

In this engaging biography of a remarkable man, Susan Croce Kelly begins by describing the urgency for “good roads” that gripped the nation in the early twentieth century as cars multiplied and mud deepened. Avery was one of a small cadre of men and women whose passion carried the Good Roads movement from boosterism to political influence to concrete-on-the-ground. While most stopped there, Avery went on to assure that one road—U.S. Highway 66—became a fixture in the imagination of America and the world.

Begun in 1926 to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, Route 66 was the country's first major east-west thoroughfare. By 1930 it was an important route for both truckers and travellers alike, and in 1939 it became known as 'The Mother Road' thanks to John Steinbeck's classic The Grapes of Wrath. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Americans travelled this great road from those heading west during the Great Depression to postwar families taking road trips across the country – but by the 1970s four-lane highways, expressways, and tollways had largely supplanted it, and Route 66 fell into disrepair. In this book, authority David Knudson traces the fascinating story of The Mother Road from origins to decline, including the roadside attractions and cottage industries it spawned and the efforts to save and restore it.