Was Route 66 as beloved and cherished when it was actually a functional highway, or did all that start as a nostalgia kick?
It had a pretty good reputation even when it was the only way west because it was the only way west. People going to California usually drove it to get there, and you ended up with a shared experience.
Well, not the only way west. But it was “America’s main street” – the highway that connected St. Louis and Los Angeles, linking the East with the big West Coast metropolis. So while Chuck’s statement is factually false, it is nonetheless true in a cultural sense – it was not the only way West, but it was iconically the way West.
It was certainly mythologized when it was a major route west from the 1930s to the 1950s. John Steinbeck referred to it as “The Mother Road” in The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The hit song (Get Your Kicks) on Route 66, sung by Nat King Cole, came out in 1946. And the TV series Route 66 ran from 1960-1964.
The decline of the route began in the 1950s with the initiation of the Interstate Highway System, and it was removed from the US Highway System in 1985. But it was recognized as being iconic during its heyday, not just afterward.
It was Chicago to Los Angeles.
True – but it did connect St. Louis and LA – I just didn’t get the northeast terminus right.