As Route 66 shifts into its centennial year, preservation efforts accelerate

US Route 66 officially started on 11 November 1926 with the launch of the nation’s first federal highway system. With the spread of affordable automobiles after the Second World War, it became a destination. A unique vernacular culture formed along its almost 2,500 miles running through eight states from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, from neon signs enticing travellers to themed motels to roadside attractions with concrete and fibreglass sculptures.

Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, with the new highways bypassing its Art Deco service stations and mid-century diners. Now, 100 years after its debut, there are efforts across the country to preserve what survives from what was once the “Main Street of America”.

“We want to let people outside of Route 66 know that it’s more than what you think it is,” says Rhys Martin, manager of the Preserve Route 66 Initiative at the National Trust for Historic Preservation . “Most people think of ’57 Chevys and cheeseburgers and Marilyn Monroe, and there’s a lot of that, but there’s so much more. It ties together so many diverse cultures, from Native American to African American. In my home state of Oklahoma, it goes through the Asian District [in Oklahoma City], which sprung up around Vietnamese refugees during the war. In West Hollywood, Route 66 has a huge LGBTQ presence.”

Grants from the Preserve Route 66 Initiative reflect that range of history, which is often overlooked in the nostalgia for its Americana. There are structural repair needs, like at the Fanning 66 Outpost in Cuba, Missouri, which hosts a 42ft-high rocking chair (the world’s largest until 2015), as well as storytelling projects, such as mapping Native American experiences along the corridor, as it passes through many tribal and ancestral lands yet has had little representation of their voices. Care for the road extends to the scarce sections of its original pavement. Through local advocacy, what is known as the Ribbon Road in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, which has the last segment of a 9ft-wide design made for Model Ts, was partially protected from resurfacing this year.

“You might think a pavement’s not art, but when you get out and look at it, especially compared to what it is today, it is very different,” Martin says. “I have come to really appreciate it from a craftsmanship perspective, but also a longevity perspective. These are the same roads that the Model Ts went west on during the Dust Bowl to seek a better life, and the fact that I get to drive these same roads tells a story.”

Advocacy is under way to give National Historic Trail designation to Route 66, with a bipartisan bill introduced last year. Martin notes that Route 66 is now similar to how it was before 1926, when it was a loose network of roads, and this legislation would help bring together its fragmented parts.

“It gets people to sit at the same table, like the state Route 66 associations, the National Park Service and the Department of Transportation, so that we can find ways to work together for corridor-wide initiatives and to help elevate preservation needs,” he says. “The corridor continues to evolve, and buildings are threatened all the time with demolition or augmentation beyond recognition, and being designated as a National Historic Trail is not a roadblock. But it is something to say, this is important and we need to take care when the fabric of the road might be forever altered.”

Local groups, municipalities and individuals are stewarding Route 66’s relics. Martin is also the president of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, which is restoring a U-Haul painted by the late artist Bob Waldmire, who illustrated maps and postcards of the road’s built and natural wonders. The city of Catoosa in Oklahoma acquired the beloved roadside Blue Whale in 2020 from the family of Hugh S. Davis, who in 1972 sculpted the 80ft-long attraction from concrete as a gift for his wife. Last May, a new Blue Whale Visitor Center opened with retro illuminated signage.

The city of Albuquerque opened a Route 66 Visitor Center last April and its park features a collection of restored roadside signs. Among them is the first major project from the Friends of the Orphan Signs (FOS), an organisation that since 2010 has worked on revitalising abandoned signs, particularly in Albuquerque’s underserved neighbourhoods.

Lindsey Fromm, the executive director of FOS, says that many of these signs are for places that were razed during the city’s removal of derelict buildings: “There were areas of Route 66 with dozens of towering empty signs.”

Most Route 66 sign restorations return them to their former glory; FOS reimagines them as public art. Revivir (2012) at the new visitor centre was created with students who designed visuals responding to local nature that were bordered with purple neon.

“While artists lead these sign projects, they will collaborate with communities, archives, the surrounding environment, or will collect histories and stories to create the work that is displayed, so that it speaks to the immediate moment and surrounding community who live, work and travel by the sign,” Fromm says.

Projects like this are not just about preserving places for tourists but Route 66’s role in daily life. These grassroots and national efforts recognise that even though it is no longer a main thoroughfare, it is still a vital place of connection from the Midwest to the Pacific, for communities both urban and rural, and between the visitors and residents brought together on their journeys.