Route 66

Interstate highway running for a distance of some 3,640 km/2,260 mi between Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Monica, California. Designated in 1926, it has long been called the ‘Main Street of America’. It is famous as the route taken by the poor Oklahoma migrants of John Steinbeck's 1939 novel Grapes of Wrath and as the subject of a popular song, written by Bobby Troup and recorded by numerous artists.

In Illinois Route 66 passes through Joliet, Bloomington, Normal, and Springfield; nowadays Interstate 55 runs beside it. From St Louis, Missouri, to Oklahoma City, its route is now parallelled for the most part by Interstate 44. It runs through Rolla, Springfield, the Ozarks, and Joplin, then through the far southeastern corner of Kansas, and in Oklahoma through Claremore and Tulsa. West of Oklahoma City, its route is today roughly that of Interstate 40 all the way to Barstow, California. On the way, it passes through El Reno and Weatherford, Oklahoma; Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle; Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Albuquerque, Grants, and Gallup, New Mexico; Holbrook, Flagstaff, and Kingman, Arizona; and Needles and the Mojave Desert, California. From Barstow it cuts southwest (now parallelled by Interstate 15) to the Cajon Pass and San Bernardino, then west (today's Interstate 10 route) to Los Angeles and Santa Monica.