50 Fun Facts About Route 66

U.S. Route 66 was established on 11 November 1926 and ran from Chicago to which western terminus?

Originally it ended in downtown Los Angeles; the 1936 extension took it to Santa Monica and a junction with US 101.

How long was Route 66 from end to end?

That is 3,940 km; the road crossed eight states and three time zones.

How many states did Route 66 pass through?

Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California; Kansas got only about 13 miles of it.

Which state had the shortest stretch of Route 66, about 13 miles?

The road clipped the state's southeast corner through Galena, Riverton and Baxter Springs.

Which Tulsa businessman is known as the 'Father of Route 66'?

He sat on the federal board that created the numbered highway system and made sure the Chicago-Los Angeles road ran through his home state.

Which number did promoters originally want for the Chicago-Los Angeles road, before Kentucky objected?

Oklahoma highway engineer John M. Page found that 66 was unassigned, and the catchy double digit stuck.

Which novelist gave Route 66 the nickname 'the Mother Road'?

In The Grapes of Wrath the Joad family flee the Oklahoma Dust Bowl along it; the book won the Pulitzer Prize.

The U.S. Highway 66 Association promoted the road under which nickname?

Its official designation was the Will Rogers Memorial Highway, after the Oklahoma humorist.

By 1938 Route 66 had achieved which milestone before any other US highway?

Much of it had been gravel or dirt; the New Deal put thousands to work finishing the surface.

In which year was Route 66 officially removed from the US Highway System?

Interstate 40 and its cousins had absorbed almost all of it; the last stretch to be bypassed was at Williams, Arizona.

The 1928 'Bunion Derby' footrace followed Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago before finishing where?

Andy Payne of Oklahoma won in 573 hours over 84 days, averaging six miles an hour; promoter C. C. Pyle ran it again in 1929.

Who won the 1928 Trans-American Footrace along Route 66, finishing in about 573 hours of running?

The part-Cherokee farm boy from Oklahoma used the prize to pay off his family's mortgage; Salo won the 1929 edition.

Who wrote the 1946 song '(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66'?

Troup wrote it while driving west to Hollywood; Nat King Cole's trio recorded it first, and Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones followed.

Which British band put a version of 'Route 66' on their 1964 debut album?

They followed Chuck Berry's 1961 recording; the song has since been cut by everyone from Depeche Mode to John Mayer.

In the CBS series Route 66 (1960-64), Martin Milner and George Maharis roamed America in what car?

Chevrolet supplied a new Corvette each season; Nelson Riddle's jazzy theme became a hit in its own right.

Cadillac Ranch, near Amarillo, Texas, consists of how many Cadillacs buried nose-first in a field?

The Ant Farm collective built it in 1974 with money from eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh 3; visitors are now encouraged to spray-paint the cars.

What are visitors to Cadillac Ranch encouraged to do to the cars?

They have long since lost their original colours under decades of graffiti; the artists consider the vandalism part of the work.

Pixar's Cars (2006) is set in Radiator Springs, a Route 66 town whose trade dried up when what happened?

Route 66 historian Michael Wallis led eleven Pixar animators down the real road in rented Cadillacs to research the film.

Which Route 66 town's barber Angel Delgadillo founded the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona in 1987?

Delgadillo met John Lasseter during research for Cars, and Seligman's story of losing its traffic overnight to Interstate 40 fed straight into Radiator Springs.

In which state is Galena, where the rusty tow truck that inspired Cars' Mater sits outside a Kan-O-Tex station?

The store is called Cars on the Route; Galena sits on the state's brief 13-mile stretch of the highway.

Which Route 66 character in Cars was inspired by artist Bob Waldmire's orange 1972 Volkswagen Microbus?

Pixar wanted to call the character Waldmire, but the artist refused to sell his name for Happy Meal toys.

The Art Deco U-Drop Inn, built in 1936 in Shamrock, Texas, appears in Cars as which character's business?

The tower-topped gas station and café is one of the most photographed buildings on the road and was restored with a federal grant.

Wigwam Motels with tipi-shaped rooms still operate on Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona and which California city?

Frank Redford began the chain in the 1930s; Sally's Cozy Cone Motel in Cars is a direct tribute.

Hugh Davis built the concrete Blue Whale of Catoosa, Oklahoma, in the early 1970s for whom?

Zelta Davis got a concrete-and-iron whale on the family swimming hole; it became one of the road's best-loved landmarks.

Lester B. Dill, who opened Meramec Caverns to tourists in 1935, is credited with inventing what?

He also painted the caverns' name on barn roofs across the Midwest and rented out what he called the world's only underground billboard.

According to local legend, which outlaw used Meramec Caverns as a hideout in the 1870s?

Historians find scant evidence for it, but Dill leaned on the story hard in his advertising.

The Gemini Giant, a 30-foot fibreglass 'Muffler Man' in Wilmington, Illinois, is dressed as what?

He stood outside the Launching Pad Drive-In from the 1960s and was moved to a town park in 2024.

The Chain of Rocks Bridge once carried Route 66 over the Mississippi. What structural quirk is it famous for?

The kink was needed to line up with the riverbed; today it carries only walkers and cyclists and doubled as the '69th Street Bridge' in Escape from New York.

How big is the steak Amarillo's Big Texan Steak Ranch gives free to anyone who finishes it in an hour?

Plus a roll, baked potato, shrimp cocktail and salad; failure costs $72.

Oatman, Arizona, a Route 66 stop, is best known for what wandering its streets?

They descend from the prospectors' pack animals; the Oatman Hotel also claims, incorrectly, to have hosted Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's honeymoon.

Which Arizona Route 66 town built a 'Standin' on the Corner' park after the Eagles' 'Take It Easy'?

The park has a mural and statue; the town's other jewel is La Posada, Mary Colter's 1930 Harvey House hotel.

The Blue Swallow Motel, with its "100% Refrigerated Air" neon, is a Route 66 landmark in which New Mexico town?

Built in 1939 and open by 1941, the 12-unit L-shaped court has been on the National Register since 1993.

The El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico, opened on Route 66 in 1937 mainly to house whom?

John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, Ronald Reagan and Humphrey Bogart all stayed while shooting in the red-rock country nearby.

Roy's Motel and Café, with its 1959 boomerang neon sign, is in which Route 66 desert town?

Business vanished literally overnight when Interstate 40 opened in 1972 several miles to the north.

The 1987 film Bagdad Cafe earned an Oscar nomination for which song?

Jevetta Steele sang Bob Telson's ballad; the film was shot at the Sidewinder Cafe in Newberry Springs, California.

How many miles of Route 66 ran through the Prairie State, from Chicago to the Mississippi?

His son Bob Waldmire became the road's best-known artist, mapping it from a VW bus.

Company lore says Phillips 66 got its name partly because a test car reached 66 mph on what?

The story goes that a Phillips executive remarked the car was doing 66, and someone replied that they were on Highway 66 too.

What federal designation do signed 'Historic Route 66' segments carry?

The road ran parallel to the railroad through the Painted Desert; a rusting 1932 Studebaker now marks the alignment.

Which Arizona national park preserves a small grassy section of the old Route 66 roadbed?

The road ran parallel to the railroad through the Painted Desert; a rusting 1932 Studebaker now marks the alignment.

In Cars, who voices Doc Hudson, the town judge revealed as a legendary racing Hudson Hornet?

Newman, a real-life racer, made it his final major film role; Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen.

Which president signed the National Route 66 Preservation Act in 1999?

The act funded restoration of historic features along the road, and the National Park Service followed with its Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.

How did the US Postal Service mark Route 66's centennial in 2026?

Google also marked the hundredth anniversary, with a Doodle on April 30, 2026.

A 1932 Saturday Evening Post campaign urged drivers to take Route 66 to which Los Angeles event?

The U.S. Highway 66 Association ran the ads; it had been promoting the road since 1927 and only disbanded in November 1979.

Beale's 1857 wagon road, parts of which became Route 66, experimented with which pack animals?

Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale built the road along the 35th parallel for the War Department, and the route's alignment later fed into US 66.

Which UNESCO World Heritage Site did Route 66 pass near East St. Louis, Illinois?

The Illinois stretch ran 301 miles, passing the State Capitol in Springfield and the towns of Pontiac and Gardner on the way to Chicago.

Red's Giant Hamburg, billed as the world's first drive-thru, sat on Route 66 in which city?

Missouri's 292 miles of the road also passed through Carthage, Lebanon, Waynesville, Devils Elbow and Rolla before St. Louis.

Which Arizona town was the last Route 66 community to be bypassed by an Interstate?

Arizona held about 401 miles of the road, which closely paralleled what is now Interstate 40 from Topock to the New Mexico line.

Which Texas Panhandle town is noted as the midpoint of Route 66?

Texas had just 178 miles of the road, running east-west between Glenrio and Texola.

Before ending at Lake Shore Drive from 1938, Route 66 terminated in Chicago on which street?

The road entered Chicago itself along Ogden Avenue after passing through the suburbs, originally via Joliet and later Plainfield.

Which Oklahoma highway engineer spotted that 66 was an unassigned number in 1926?

Alternatives had included numbering the Chicago-Los Angeles road US 62 or splitting US 60 into several branches.