Route 66 Then And Now

The ‘Mother Road’ or the ‘Will Rogers Highway’ has been open since 1926. Its heyday was the WWII and post-war era and many roadside structures sprang up to cater for the "tin-can tourists" making the journey from East to West. Gas stations, motels, and diners all had to compete for business and what better way to attract attention than with a wacky feature such as a wigwam motel, an iceberg cafe, or a whale-themed diner.Route 66 Then and Now revisits some of these bizarre (and not-so-bizarre) structures to see what’s left before time takes its toll. Some, such as the Magnolia Service Station in Kansas, have been preserved on the National Historic Register; others, such as the Aztec Motel in Albuquerque, are still doing a thriving business; while others have simpy vanished from the landscape.Starting in Chicago, Route 66 Then and Now takes in the motels, cafes, gas stations, roadside attractions and key towns and sites along the route. From the Blue Whale in Catoosa, past Angel Delgadillo’s store in Seligman, Arizona, to the end point in Santa Monica, Route 66 historian Joe Sonderman takes readers on the 2,500-mile trip, illustrated by his fabulous postcard collection.Includes: Illinois: Chicago, Joliet, Dwight, Pontiac, Logan County. Missouri: St. Louis, Lebanon, Springfield, Joplin. Kansas: Galena, Baxter Springs. Oklahoma: Catoosa, Tulsa, Sayre. Texas:Shamrock, Amarillo, Glenrio. New Mexico: Santo Domingo, Gravel Hill, Albuquerque. Arizona: Holbrook, Winslow, Two Guns, Flagstaff, Seligman, Kingman. California: Needles, Amboy, Barstow, Cajon Pass, San Bernadino, Pasadena, Santa Monica.

It started in the heartland and originally ended in Los Angeles (not, contrary to myth, at the ocean). It carried truckers crossing the country, Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, vacationers seeking the sun. It was Americas Main Street, the Mother Road, the Will Rogers Highway, and, at its dangerous curves, Bloody 66. Get your kicks on Route 66 with this wonderfully illustrated tribute to the best-loved highway in this car-loving nation. Michael Witzel shares his expertise and wealth of personal, archive, collector, and contributing photographer images in these pages, offering a nostalgic tour of the charms and oddities of this road through American cultural history. Starting in Chicago and running to Santa Monica, this book highlights the sights along the highway with historic and current photos in then-and-now pairings, and includes Route 66 postcards, road signs, trinkets, maps, brochures, and advertisements. Here we see Route 66 as it was in its heyday and as it is now, the neon glamour of yesterday versus the ghost towns of today. Witzel and his wife, Gyvel Young-Witzel, recount the highways history, its role in popular culture, and its demise, as well as the individual stories of famous sights. Several profiles of those with close ties to the Mother Road, including the woman who played Ruthie Joad in the The Grapes of Wrath film, are included.

“You’ll never understand America until you’ve driven Route 66—that’s old Route 66—all the way,” a truck driver in California once said to author Rick Antonson. “It’s the most famous highway in the world.” With some determination, grit, and a good sense of direction, one can still find and drive on 90 percent of the original Route 66 today. This travelogue follows Rick and his travel companion Peter along 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles as they discover the old Route 66. With surprising and obscure stories about Route 66 personalities like Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), the Harvey Girls, Mickey Mantle, and Bobby Troup (songwriter of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66”), Antonson’s fresh perspective reads like an easy drive down a forgotten road: winding, stopping now and then to mingle with the locals and reminisce about times gone by, and then getting stuck in the mud, sucked into its charms. Rick mixes hilarious anecdotes of happenstance travel with the route’s difficult history, its rise and fall in popularity, and above all, its place in legend. The author has committed part of his book’s proceeds to the preservation work of the National Route 66 Federation.

Here We Are . . . on Route 66 explores America’s fabled “Mother Road,” following Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica and offering an expert look back at vanished attractions—and sites still drawing thousands each year.

Join Route 66 expert Jim Hinckley as he tours more than 60 ghost towns along the Mother Road, rich in stories and history! The quintessential boom-and-bust highway of the American West, Route 66 once hosted a thriving array of boomtowns built around oil mines, railroad stops, cattle ranches, resorts, stagecoach stops, and gold mines. Illustrated with gorgeous sepia-tone and color photography by Kerrick James, this book tours dozens of ghost towns in: Illinois (Braidwood, Braceville, Gardner, Dwight, Bloomington, Funks Grove, Springfield) Missouri (Rolla, Dootlittle, Springfield, Halltown, Paris Springs Junction, Avilla, Carthage, Joplin) Kansas (Galena, Riverton, Baxter Springs) Oklahoma (Narcissa, Afton, Tulsa, Warwick, Bridgeport, Foss, Elk City, Erick, Texola) Texas (Shamrock, McLean, Alanreed, Jericho, Amarillo, Glenrio) New Mexico (San Jon, Tucumari, Montoya, Newkirk, Cuervo, Dilia, Tecolote, Santa Fe, Thoreau, Gallup) Arizona (Lupton, Chambers, Two Guns, Flagstaff, Truxton, Hackberry, Kingman, Goldroad, Oatman) California (Needles, Goffs, Essex, Cadiz, Chambless, Amboy, Ludlow, Newberry Springs, Daggett, Barstow) This edition also includes directions and travel tips for your ghost-town explorations along Route 66, as well as a fold-out map of the Mother Road. Explore the beauty and nostalgia of these abandoned communities along America's favorite highway!

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.

The Road Awaits! Explore the historic "Main Street of America," from cosmopolitan Chicago and quirky St. Louis, through the deserts of New Mexico, to sunny Los Angeles. Excerpted from Road Trip USA Mile-by-mile highlights celebrating the best of Route 66, including The Grand Canyon, Cadillac Ranch, Tinkertown, and London Bridge, as well as the parks, diners, and kitschy favorites along the way Driving maps covering the entire historic route Vintage snapshots, full-color photos, and beautiful illustrations of Route 66 both then and now in a slim, portable guide Local history that reveals the unique personalities of small towns and big cities along the route, plus roadside curiosities and worthwhile detours Expert advice from road-warrior Jamie Jensen, who has zoomed along nearly 400,000 miles of highway in search of the perfect stretches of pavement Road Trip USA: Route 66 celebrates the great American road trip, and gives you the tools, resources, and inspiration to make it your own. Hit the Road! Want more road trips? Criss-cross the country on two-lane highways with the 11 routes in Road Trip USA.

From its designation in 1926 to the rise of the interstates nearly sixty years later, Route 66 was, in John Steinbeck’s words, America’s Mother Road, carrying countless travelers the 2,400 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. Whoever they were—adventurous motorists or Dustbowl migrants, troops on military transports or passengers on buses, vacationing families or a new breed of tourists—these travelers had to eat. The story of where they stopped and what they found, and of how these roadside offerings changed over time, reveals twentieth-century America on the move, transforming the nation’s cuisine, culture, and landscape along the way. Author T. Lindsay Baker, a glutton for authenticity, drove the historic route—or at least the 85 percent that remains intact—in a four-cylinder 1930 Ford station wagon. Sparing us the dust and bumps, he takes us for a spin along Route 66, stopping to sample the fare at diners, supper clubs, and roadside stands and to describe how such venues came and went—even offering kitchen-tested recipes from historic eateries en route. Start-ups that became such American fast-food icons as McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Steak ’n Shake, and Taco Bell feature alongside mom-and-pop diners with flocks of chickens out back and sit-down restaurants with heirloom menus. Food-and-drink establishments from speakeasies to drive-ins share the right-of-way with other attractions, accommodations, and challenges, from the Whoopee Auto Coaster in Lyons, Illinois, to the piles of “chat” (mining waste) in the Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, to the perils of driving old automobiles over the Jericho Gap in the Texas Panhandle or Sitgreaves Pass in western Arizona. Describing options for the wealthy and the not-so-well-heeled, from hotel dining rooms to ice cream stands, Baker also notes the particular travails African Americans faced at every turn, traveling Route 66 across the decades of segregation, legal and illegal. So grab your hat and your wallet (you’ll probably need cash) and come along for an enlightening trip down America’s memory lane—a westward tour through the nation’s heartland and history, with all the trimmings, via Route 66.