ST. LOUIS – Route 66 is America’s most famous highway and helped fuel the nation’s westward expansion and post-World War II boom. It’s been immortalized in print, song, and on film. It’s nickname, “The Mother Road,” bestowed by one of the nation’s best writers of the 20th century, made Route 66 a part of the national fabric as a symbol of opportunity and possibility.
Celebrations and memorials have marked the Route 66 centennial; 100 years of road trips and adventures from the Midwest through America’s Dust Bowl to the West Coast. And while it hasn’t been an official highway in more than four decades, it’s spirit never dead.
The historic highway opened on Nov. 11, 1926, spanning more than 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California. Approximately 292 of those miles ran across Missouri, from St. Louis to Joplin…