Historical Society to Host Route 66 Program Wednesday Night
Scott Piotrowski, president of the California Historic Route 66 Association, will present a PowerPoint talk about the legendary highway on Wednesday, September 18, at 7 p.m. in Pierson Playhouse on Haverford.
The Pacific Palisades Historical Society will host this free special event. All audience members will be eligible for a drawing to win the organization’s Palisades Centennial Blanket (a $100 value). Visit: www.pacificpalisadeshistory.org.
PPHS board member Libby Motika, a former Lifestyle editor at the Palisadian-Post, provides historical context with the following article.
Route 66: ‘The Mother Road’ from Illinois to California
Route 66, now Main Street, passing through the business district of Barstow, circa 1948. This busy downtown district was bypassed when the 15 Freeway was completed in 1958.
By LIBBY MOTIKA
Circling the News Contributor
It’s safe to say that Route 66 needs no further identification. Freighted with memory and myth, the two-lane highway traversed 2,400 miles across eight states, connecting Chicago and Santa Monica. More than an artery of transportation, for travelers it opened a panorama of varied and vast landscapes, remnants of the past, and for many, a path to a new life.
Route 66 had its official beginning in 1926 when the Bureau of Public Roads launched the nation’s first Federal highway system. Cobbling together existing roads, the highway, which became one of the most famous roads in the U.S., ran from Chicago through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before terminating in Santa Monica. It was originally constructed so that farmers and truckers could transport their goods more easily between small towns and big cities. However, it wasn’t fully paved until 1938, the result of a New Deal initiative that hired unemployed workers to finish the job during the Depression.
As “America’s main street” became busier and more accessible with roadbed improvements, people doing business along Route 66 became prosperous–especially those offering fuel, lodging and food. Ironically, during the Depression, the vast migration of destitute people fleeing their former homes increased traffic along the highway, providing opportunities to many mom-and-pop businesses.
While civilian traffic decreased during World War II, Route 66 became an invaluable transport corridor for moving troops and supplies from one military post to another. Men and women flocked to California, Oregon and Washington in hopes of finding a job in the defense plants.
After the war, car ownership grew dramatically, and with more leisure time, families headed west on Route 66 to places like the Grand Canyon, Disneyland and Southern California beaches. The grim images of the downtrodden seeking relief from the Dust Bowl in John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” gave way to the joy and adventure promised on the highway. “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” hit the top of the radio chart, and the television series “Route 66” epitomized the thrills awaiting travelers.
When Route 66 opened in 1926, the highway ended in Santa Monica at 7th St. and Broadway downtown—and the nearby restaurant, Clifton’s, became a hit when it opened in 1932. The five-level restaurant and nightclub was notable during the Depression for offering pay-what-you-will pricing and, in the 1940s and 50s, for welcoming people of all races (earning it a mention in the historic “Negro Motorist Green Book”).
By the mid-1930s, the official end of Route 66 extended a little farther south, to the corner of Lincoln and Olympic, where the Mother Road intersected with California’s Highway 1. The End of the Trail sign, placed in 2009, stands nearby.
For years, Route 66 was known as the Will Rogers Highway. To understand this, it is important to remember how prominent Rogers became after building his ranch in Pacific Palisades in the late 1920s. The thinking around naming the highway connected Rogers coming west from his Oklahoma, just as Route 66 does. What started as trick roping in the circus and vaudeville grew into a lucrative film career, lecture tours, newspaper columns, radio broadcasts, and even political influence. By the 1930s, he was arguably the most famous person in the world.
After Rogers died in a plane crash in 1935, many people wanted to pay tribute to Will’s memory, especially in his native Oklahoma. It didn’t take long for people to rally around the idea, and on December 9, 1936, the US Highway 66 Association formally designated Highway 66 the Will Rogers Highway.
Years later, as improvements in road construction accommodated increased automobile travel, the Eisenhower administration introduced the interstate highway system which saw portions of Route 66 slowly bi-passed by wider four-lane highways that streamlined truck and automobile convenience.
For the modern traveler, Route 66 retains a certain nostalgia as we imagine the West as the land of open possibilities, adventure and landscapes opening to grazing lands, red rock mesas and imposing peaks.
Crammed to the brim with kitsch, Gary’s Gay Parita in Ash Grove, Missouri recreates a once-destroyed Sinclair station. Many consider this station to be a must-see stop along Route 66.
