Hospitality on Route 66, then and now
One hundred years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads created the first federal highway system in an effort to connect small, rural towns with the urban centers between them. The system included an east-west network of existing local, state, and national roads running almost diagonally from Chicago to Santa Monica, CA.
That 2,448-mile stretch of roads – spanning Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California – was officially designated as U.S. Highway 66, or Route 66.
In its early days, Route 66, coined the “Mother Road” by author John Steinbeck, served as a passage to opportunity as the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl sent economic and environmental refugees west in hopes of finding work in the region’s emerging industries. It made travel between rural communities and the industrial hubs in larger cities easier, and as automobile ownership grew among families, tourists set out to explore the American West…