Category: Route 66

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Try it in Reverse!

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro is Spanish for “the royal road of the interior land.” An apt description, this 1,600-mile-long road between Mexico City and San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico was a significant Spanish Imperial and later U.S./Mexico trade route from 1598 to 1882. Its importance faded with the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad. Traversing some of the most arduous territory in the Southwest, the route snaked through deep canyons, sauntered across arid plains, and scrambled up steep mesas on its way to Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Pueblo. The mesas were the most difficult part of the journey; none more feared than La Bajada Mesa. Remote, rugged, imposing, the mesa soars 600 feet above the plains below. Presenting a steep cliff-like face to would-be travelers, ascending (or descending) the mesa required enduring a series of slow, steep switchbacks.

a map of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro
A map of the route of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Map courtesy of the National Park Service

Abandoned by anyone who could afford rail travel in the 1880s, the road lived on as a trade-route for local farmers and Native Americans. The rise of the automobile gave a portion of it a new life. Beginning in the early twentieth century, the portion of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro that ran from Santa Fe, New Mexico into Albuquerque was incorporated into the National Old Trails Road. This auto-touring route – a precursor to federal highways – ran from coast to coast following whatever local roads were available. In New Mexico, this put it on portions of the old El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and right over La Bajada Mesa.

It was here, on the mesa, that early automobile travelers ran into a problem. A Newton-sized problem. Early automobiles relied on gravity to feed fuel to the engine. With fuel tanks mounted higher than the engine, the force of gravity pulled gasoline out of the tank and down to the engine’s carburetor. This system worked adequately – as long as you were on a flat surface.

On a steep ascent, gravity pulled fuel away from the engine causing a stall. With most car manufacturers located in the Midwest, engineering for steep mesas and mountain ranges hadn’t been factored into the equation. Faced with a daunting climb like the one up La Bajada, early automobiles often stalled. Early automobile enthusiasts came up with a unique solution to this problem – driving up the mesa in reverse. This was a daunting task for even the most experienced driver. Enterprising locals soon began offering wary travelers cars reverse hill driving services for a small fee.

It would take until the 1920s for an engineering solution to the problem. The 1920s saw the introduction and widespread adoption of multiple automotive innovations including fully enclosed car bodies, all-steel-construction, safety glass, and four wheel braking systems. One of these innovations was the mechanical fuel pump. Liquid fuel pumps had been around since the mid-1800s, but mostly as large fixed-location devices used in mining or agriculture. Automobile manufacturers adapted this technology by shrinking the pump size and figuring out how to power the it off the rotation of the engine. 

AC, a division of General Motors, produced the first commercially available mechanical fuel pump in 1927

Automobile fuel pumps typically consisted of a small bell-shaped housing mounted on the side of the engine near the bottom. The housing contained a chamber where the volume of the chamber was increased or decreased by manipulating a flexible diaphragm. This diaphragm was flexed by a pump arm that was connected on one end to the diaphragm and on the other to a concentric lobe on the engine’s camshaft.

The camshaft was part of the rotating assembly inside the engine. As the engine internal assembly rotated, the lobe on the camshaft rotated moving the pump lever up and down. As the pump lever moved up and down, the volume of the chamber inside the pump increased and decreased. As it increased, it pulled fuel in from the gas tank via the fuel line; as it decreased it pushed fuel to the engine via another fuel line. Gravity was no longer involved. Driving up hills in reverse was no longer necessary.

Modern cars still use fuel pumps. Now they are electric, capable of much higher fuel pressure, and computer controlled. A mechanical fuel pump produced approximately 10-15 PSI of fuel pressure. Modern pumps produce over 200 PSI of pressure. Current cars sprint up mountainsides with nary a shrug. Yet it is doubtful the automobile would have assumed its ubiquitous place in contemporary American society without the adoption of the fuel pump. Images of Model-T Fords driving up La Bajada Mesa in reverse seem quaint. Interstate traffic attempting I-70 west of Denver in reverse would be unworkable.

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A Dust Bowl Tragedy in Three Acts

“And now the high mountains. Holbrook and Winslow and Flagstaff in the high mountains of Arizona. Then the great plateau rolling like a ground swell. Ash Fork and Kingman and stone mountains again, where water must be hauled and sold.”

– John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

A drought stricken farm in Dalhart, Texas in 1930 -
A drought stricken farm in Dalhart, Texas in 1930 – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

A descending dark curtain of drought brought an abrupt end to the first act of good conditions on the Great Plains in the summer of 1930. Curtain rise ushered in a long tragic second act of environmental disaster and human suffering. After a decade of fortunate environmental circumstances with plentiful rainfall and mild winters, the Great Plains entered an extended drought in 1930 – commonly known as the Dust Bowl. The Great Depression appeared on stage the previous year. The region would not exit drought conditions until 1941. For one family, the drought began a Dust Bowl tragedy in three acts.

The Lanier Family

Born at the height of Grange-era populism in Magnolia, Arkansas in 1893, Hosea Lanier moved with his parents from their failed cotton farm to make a new start in Cottonwood, Texas at the age of seven. Despite plentiful rainfall and fertile soil, farming on the Great Plains was a fraught affair. Global agricultural competition drove crop prices down. Farm failures like the elder Lanier’s farm in Arkansas were common in the 1920s. Cotton prices peaked at 28 cents a pound in 1923. From there it was mostly downhill with prices typically fluctuating between 15 cents a pound to a low of 12 cents a pound. 

Children picking cotton - A Dust Bowl tragedy in three acts
Children picking cotton near Waxahachie, Texas in 1913 – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

For Hosea, deteriorating crop prices were background to his childhood. On the Texas farm he grew to adulthood, worked the land with his father, and married his best girl, Loree. His son Jack was born shortly after the marriage in 1917. His father, John Lanier, died five years later. It was 1922. His daughter Fay was born the following year. By most accounts, the winter of 1929 was like all the others in recent memory – mild. Hosea’s mother died in the spring of 1929. Hosea inherited the farm – and the debt. In the spring of ’29, despite losing his mother, the future looked promising for Hosea’s family and his farm. Conditions were good. Cotton was almost 17 cents a pound. 

Fleeing the Dust Bowl

The exact motivations behind leaving the farm in 1930 are lost to the sands of time. The summer of 1930 was severely dry in Texas as the drought set in. It is likely Hosea suffered the fate of many farmers in the early drought years – a failed harvest, falling prices, mounting debts, and finally foreclosure. Cotton prices fell to 9 cents a pound in 1930 – by 1931 cotton farmers gave it away at 5 cents a pound.

A farm family flees the Dust Bowl - A Dust Bowl tragedy in three acts
A Texas farm family flees the Dust Bowl in 1936 – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Art often imitates life. Similar to Steinbeck’s Joad family, the Lanier family fled the emergent Dust Bowl in 1930. Like their fictional counterparts, the Laniers escaped down Route 66. The family settled first in Kingman, Arizona where Hosea found work as a clerk with the Central Commercial Company mercantile store. He was later transferred to the company’s new Seligman, Arizona location on Route 66 in 1942 serving as the store’s manager.[1] Rain had returned to the Texas plains the previous year. The price of cotton was now over 19 cents a pound.

Postwar Boom on Route 66

The Central Commercial Company’s store in Seligman sat right on Route 66. From his perch behind the large store window fronting Route 66, Hosea watched the growing traffic on Route 66 after WW2. He also had his eye on a large parcel of open land across the street from the Central Commercial Company. On February first, 1956, Hosea Lanier and his son Jack purchased 2.74 acres of land fronting U.S. Route 66 from the Arizona State Land Department. The purchase price was $7,272.72 to be paid in yearly installments of $191.38.[2] By 1956, several entrepreneurs had opened new businesses in Seligman capitalizing on the rising automobile traffic on Route 66. Juan Delgadillo, a local railroad laborer had opened the Snow Cap Drive In Restaurant in 1953 in a building he built from scrap lumber to huge success. Hosea figured he could go into business too.

Snow Cap Drive In - A Dust Bowl tragedy in three acts
Juan Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-in. This image was taken in approximately 1993. – Image from the author’s personal collection

In 1956, the Cold War was well under way. Americans were flocking to southern California brimming with defense jobs fueled by the Cold War military build-up. Route 66 provided the main route west and Americans jammed the road on their way to claim a portion of the southern California good life. Hosea Lanier, desiring to capitalize on the upswing in automobile traffic along Route 66, branched out on his own at the age of 63 and opened the Supai Motel.[3]

The Supai Motel - A Dust Bowl tragedy in three acts
The Supai Motel opened by Hosea Lanier in 1956 – Image from the author’s personal collection

When new, the motel boasted of individual air conditioners by Frigidaire, Franciscan-style furniture, tile baths, and carpeted floors. The Supai Motel claimed to be the newest and finest motel in town.[4] Of a motor court design, it was a contiguous U-shaped building with a small parking lot in the center. Entering from Route 66, travelers stopped at the office on the west side of the U to check-in. Then, large metal key in hand, they move their car to park in front of their assigned unit – one of twelve available. From the outset, the motel featured a large roadside neon sign sporting the name of the motel in green and pink script towering over the motel office. The sign was backlit by a parallelogram whose bottom bar housed the word “Vacancy” in bright red neon. Looping out of the top of the bright, boxy shape was an arrow that sprouted up and out toward the road before curving back in to point in the direction of the motel office. Blinking lights festooned the arrow moving in a pattern from the top of the sign toward the arrow’s pointer visually pushing the eye toward the motel. In 1956, the Supai Motel joined eight other motels competing for traffic in Seligman. Competition was fierce. Catching the motorists’ eye was essential.[5]

Tragedy is a Fickle Mistress

The motel was a success. It still operates today. Yet tragedy is a fickle mistress. It gives scarcely a thought to some. Others are the focus of obsession. Hosea enjoyed only a brief moment of his success. After being ruined by the onset of the Dust Bowl, fleeing with his family for the high-desert wilds of Arizona, toiling for years as a department store clerk, and finally reclaiming some financial independence as a business owner, Hosea died March 25, 1959 – two and a half years after he opened his motel. 

Tragedy once smitten with a family has a hard time letting go of its object of desire. Hosea’s son Jack stepped in after his father’s early death operating the business for his grieving mother. Just under a year later, 341 days after his father, Jack died on March 1, 1960. Loree sold the motel later that year. Loree and daughter Fay moved to Prescott. Loree did not remarry and lived to be 90 dying in 1987 – 28 years after Hosea. Fay never married or had any children. The curtain fell on the final act of this family of Dust Bowl refugees when Fay died eight years after her mother in Prescott in 1995.

[1] “1930 United States Federal Census,” (1930 United States Census, United States Government, Kingman, AZ, 1930). “1940 United States Federal Census,” (1940 United States Census, United States Government, Seligman, AZ, 1940). “Registration Card,” (Draft Registration Card, United States Government, Local Board Number 1, Yavapai County, Prescott, AZ, April 27, 1942).

[2] “Certificate of Purchase,” (Property Deed, Yavapai County Recorder’s Office, Prescott, AZ, 1974).

[3] “Funeral to be Conducted Today in Prescott for Hosea Lanier,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ), March 28, 1959.

[4] “Funeral to be Conducted Today in Prescott for Hosea Lanier,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ), March 28, 1959. Supai Motel. RT66-2116. 1956. James R. Powell Route 66 Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago. Accessed April 27, 2018.

[5] This description is based on my personal experience staying in the motel multiple times. Postcards from the late 1950s, however, show that the motel has changed little in appearance since 1956. See Supai Motel. RT66-2116, Postcard, 1956, James R. Powell Route 66 Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago. Accessed April 27, 2018.

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Stuck In The Mud – The Road to Better . . . Roads

Stick-in-the-mud. It’s a common turn of phrase. Its earliest known usage was in 1832. Its meaning refers to being old-fashioned and unwilling to change as in “don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud!” The stick in this case refers not to a literal stick but to the verb ‘to stick’ or, past tense, to be stuck. If you are stuck in the mud, you aren’t moving forward.

Although a figurative expression, in the early 1900s many country folk were literally stuck in the mud. Rural roads were often no more than dirt tracks scraped into the earth. Road construction and maintenance at the time was bush league. Farmers, trading labor for property tax, would hitch a team of horses to a large log and scrape it along the route. This “grading” would roughly level the path and clear it of debris. Later wet weather and traffic would then purée the road into a rutted impassable morass. 

Early simple dirt roads were susceptible to extensive erosion. Roads on slopes like this example were easily washed out by rain.

Early Modern Road Building

Beginning in the 1750s, engineers attempted bringing modern science into road building efforts. Early efforts echoed techniques used by the Romans on the famed Appian Way. Deep trenching, steep elevations, and layer upon layer of hard rock paving resulted. Yet, despite their impressive designs, all these early efforts met with limited success. The combined forces of water and road traffic led to rutting, potholes, and mud. Rural residents, often farmers, were stuck in the mud for weeks or months at a time.

Farmers’ plight was not all due to engineering failings. Farmers could be stubborn stick-in-the-muds. Resistant to change, they liked trading a little labor for the option to not pay property tax in cash. It took the wide scale adoption of trucks by farmers in the 1920s to change their minds about roads.

Enter Macadam

Nineteenth century Scottish engineer John McAdam made the first breakthrough developing a practical paved road. McAdam determined layers upon layers of rock and steep road crowns were unnecessary. All a road needed was a hard top crust protecting the soil underneath from weather and wear. McAdam built his roads as level as possible with the surrounding land. On McAdam’s thoroughfares, the road’s crown was only three inches higher than its edges. This slight crown allowed rain to run off the road into ditches on either side. McAdam defeated rain, the formidable enemy of roads, using a hard crust of small stones. The foundation of the crust consisted of stones smashed into five centimeter pieces. The top layer used stones no larger than two centimeters. Typical carriage wheels were ten centimeters wide. Paving the road with smaller stones prevented displacement of the surface stones. This ensured the surface remained intact protecting the road from weather and traffic.  

Gravel Roads to Paved Highways

These roads became known as macadamized roads and their surface as macadam. Building the protective crust from small stones eliminated expensive surface preparation. It also democratized road building. It allowed local communities throughout rural areas to build inexpensive macadam surfaced roads.

Later engineers built upon this road paving technique. Fast automobiles kicked up large amounts of dust on traditional macadamized roads. Engineers began spraying tar on macadamized roads to reduce dust. This technique became tar-bound macadam or tarmac. Growing use of automobiles fueled demand for smoother road surfaces. Before applying the final layer of stones, engineers mixed them with asphalt. Asphalt-bound macadam became known as blacktop. Construction of the first network of federal highways deployed much blacktop.

U.S. Highway 80
U.S. Highway 80 ran from Savannah, Georgia to San Diego California traversing 2,726 miles coast to coast. This section north of Florence, Arizona is a prime example of the blacktop paving technique.

Interstate Highways – A Blast from the Past

Macadamized road construction techniques prevailed through the end of World War Two. The passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956 forced changes. Road construction tilted away from the low-cost, democratic techniques McAdam pioneered. Interstates utilized complex engineering methods. Interstate highway specifications required excavating deep trenches, lining the roadbed with cast reinforced concrete, and building up the road surface with many layers of concrete. This construction technique allowed interstates to support heavier over the road trucks and military traffic including armored tank convoys. They also echoed McAdams predecessors’ mimicking of even earlier Roman techniques. As America took on a new post-war role as a neo-Rome attempting to enforce a Cold War Pax-Americana globally, it needed – or wanted – an imperial road system to match. 

A Neo-Appian Way

Abandoned Route 66 west of the Colorado River has withered into the desert. Without maintenance for over 50 years, it crumbled. Yearly rainfall run-off from the nearby mountains have washed it away. McAdam’s methods provided for a durable roadway that was easy to construct and maintain but made little permanent impact on the land. When no longer needed, the roadway could return to the earth. In Italy, portions of the Appian Way are still used. Often a layer of simple pavement covers the original Roman roadbed.

Standing on the remains of withered Route 66 looking east toward the Colorado, you can see I-40 and its massive bridge over the river. The deep road-bed channel cut into the earth lined with layers of concrete rival the river’s channel in depth and grandeur. As you stand in the desert taking in its sheer immensity, its contrast with the surrounding barren land is striking. One can imagine far-in-the-future travelers, echoing their medieval European predecessors, continuing to use I-40 ignorant of its origins.

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The Astonishing Hidden History of the Motel

“You Say Hotel, I Say Motel . . . ” For most of us, the words hotel and motel are interchangeable. Meriam-Webster still maintains a technical difference between the two words. According to Webster, hotels provide “lodging and usually meals.” In contrast, motels provide “lodging and parking.” The technical difference reflects the evolving history of hotels and motels in America. Hotel is an old word making its first appearance in the English language around 1687. In contrast, motel is less than 100 years old making its first appearance in English in 1925

The word motel is a portmanteau word. A Portmanteau is a word that results from blending parts of two or more words to form a new word. Lewis Carroll was the first to use the term portmanteau to describe a word created from parts of two other words in Through the Looking Glass in 1871.

Carroll’s character Humpty Dumpty, while explaining the meaning of the word ‘slithy’ from the nonsense poem The Jabberwocky says, “Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.” So, in a more familiar context, portions of breakfast and lunch combine to form brunch. “You’ll love it. It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch.” In the case of the motel, motor and hotel combine to make motel.

First There Were Hotels

The combination is significant. Hotels in the United States developed around downtowns and railroads. Railroads dominated travel in America from the early nineteenth century through World War Two. Cross country travelers arrived by train and then took a cab, trolley or walked to a downtown hotel. Once downtown, travelers walked everywhere else. Railroad depot hotels served travelers passing through and needing a night’s rest before changing trains. Many weary travelers found respite at Fred Harvey company depot hotels throughout the American West.

A photograph of the Fred Harvey Hotel in Chanute, Kansas.
The Fred Harvey House at the Depot in Chanute, Kansas – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

By the time automobiles appeared at the turn of the century, the railroad orientation of hotels was set. Nineteenth century hotels lacked accommodations for twentieth century cars. Most hotels lacked parking for automobiles. Yet, early cross-country automobile travelers were not bothered by the lack of parking.

Known as auto-tourers, early automobile travel enthusiasts were middle-class city residents wealthy enough to own cars. Concerned about the perceived ill-effects of their easy city living, they shunned hotels in favor of camping in the open countryside. Fancying themselves neo-pioneers, auto-tourers sought out hardship in the wilderness as a test of their vigor. 

A 1900s era automobile driving through the mountains on a rough road.
An early automobile driving on a rough mountain road in 1919 – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

That’s Not a Campground, It’s My Yard!

This neo-pioneering, however, brought many auto-tourers in conflict with local landowners. Most rural landowners were less than thrilled to have middle-class accountants and other urban professionals from the city camping on their land, playing pioneer, and making a huge mess. The conflict between farmers and auto-tourers led many counties and small towns to ban roadside camping and establish auto-parks where auto-tourers could camp legally.

Automobile tourists camping in the forest.
Auto tourers camping in the forest in 1923 – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Municipal camps as they became known were expensive for towns to maintain. Only larger prosperous towns could afford them. The growing popularity of auto-touring and inability of every town to provide services for these tourers created an opportunity for early automobile travel entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs began buying land at the edge of towns and opening for-profit auto camps. 

At first these auto-camps offered little more than camping spots and basic services like trash cans and well water. As the first private auto-camps garnered competition, auto-camp owners began adding services to lure automobile travelers to their camp. Hand-drawn wells turned into sinks with pumps. Simple sinks became enclosed bathrooms with toilets. Bathrooms gained showers. Camping spots graduated to cabins. Cabins gained garages and indoor plumbing. Camps added gas pumps, automobile grease racks, and other mechanic services. 

Hubert Clark’s auto camp near Williams, Arizona – Image courtesy of the Cline Library Special Collections at Northern Arizona University

Motels Arrive

As is often the case in evolving industries, the early auto camp operators had difficulty keeping up with newer establishments offering multiple services and more luxurious accommodations. As the brass-era of primitive automobiles gave way to more sophisticated cars and rough county roads gave way to new federal highways like Route 66, interest in auto-camping faded away.

By the 1920s, automobile travelers wanted hotel-like accommodations like railroad travelers enjoyed with the ability to accommodate parking their cars as well. Enter the motor hotel or by 1925, the motel. Early motor hotels offered private rooms, indoor plumbing, and an attached garage. In the first years of the 1920s, many of these rooms were still stand-alone cabin buildings. By the end of the decade, most configurations featured long rows of attached rooms.

An abandoned early motel in Seligman, Arizona. Note the garage next to each room. – Image by author

Beginning in the late 1930s, the motor-court made its appearance. Motor-courts were motels configured in a U-shape. Attached motel rooms surrounded a central parking lot on three sides. On one corner of the U near the street was the motel office. Due to the Great Depression, motel operators built only a handful of motor-courts in the 1930s. After 1940, World War Two building supply restrictions paused new motor court construction.

The Supai Motel motor-court in Seligman, Arizona – Image by author

The Postwar Motel Golden Age

The postwar boom fueled an explosion of automobile sales, automobile travel, and motor-courts. Across the United States, but particularly along highways like Route 66, motor-courts proliferated serving the ever-increasing postwar automobile traffic. Competition between motor-courts in the 1950s was fierce inspiring ever larger and more fanciful signage festooned with neon lights to entice weary travelers to spend the night.

With automobile traffic increasing exponentially year over year, motor-courts grew from 10–12-unit modest affairs to double and triple decked motor-courts with hundreds of rooms. Motor-court amenities grew too with pools, game rooms, convenience stores and attached restaurants becoming standard features.

The El-Ray Motel in Wildwood, New Jersey – Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Interstate Highways and Evolving Lodging Tastes

Interstate highway construction signaled the beginning of the end for motor-courts. As new interstate highways bypassed small towns, the older motels struggled for business. Many went out of business. Now abandoned, their decaying ruins littered once prosperous small towns across America.

The final nail in the motor-court coffin came from rising crime in the 1970s. The configuration of most motels allowed anyone to walk right up to the motel room door. Many travelers began feeling unsafe in motel rooms with doors facing an open parking lot. New competing motel chains captured these nervous travelers by blurring the lines of motel and hotel. They offered travelers an enclosed building with rooms accessed by interior hallways. Unlike older hotels, these new interstate hotels provided generous amounts of parking. 

A modern motel – Image courtesy Choice Hotels

Which brings us to today where most of us use the words hotel and motel interchangeably. With passenger rail fading shortly after WW2, hotels lost their railroad orientation. Many travelers fly now rather than driving cross-country. Most typically rent a car at their destination.

Since modern travelers now arrive by car at interstate highway motels and downtown hotels alike, all motels and hotels accommodate automobiles. In transportation modality, architecturally, and semantically, the distinction between the hotel and the motel faded when travel by car became ubiquitous. So now we have the hotelmotel – not quite a hotel, not quite a motel, you’ll love it.  

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Google Doodle Propagates the Route 66 Myth

A Route 66 Gift Shop

On April 30, 2022, Google’s doodle sported a Route 66 theme. The doodle, an animated Route 66 road trip, is set to a jazz version of “Get Your Kicks on Route 66.” Google Art Director Matthew Cruickshank created it. He based it on his sketches made during a Route 66 road trip. The doodle proved popular, becoming the number one trending video on YouTube that day. The doodle also propagates the Route 66 myth.

“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” songwriter Bobby Troupe performed the jazz version used in the doodle. It’s likely many viewers were unfamiliar with Bobby Troupe’s 1964 performance of his popular song. Although written by Troupe, cover versions by Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, and others made the song and the road famous. Much of the iconic allure of Route 66 is due to media productions about Route 66. 

The Route 66 Myth

Yet, the iconic stature of Route 66 is based in myth. The whole idea of getting your kicks along a highway like Route 66 connects into folklore about road trips, nostalgia for supposed simpler times, and culture-war themes about Route 66 representing a better, more authentic version of America. The Route 66 myth is steeped in romantic visions about the freedom of the open road and its endless possibilities. It resonates with idealistic dreams of travel on Route 66 leading to personal transcendence in the wilds of the “real America.”

Google’s doodle leans heavily into the myth of Route 66. In discussing its doodle, Google describes the highway as the way to take “the ultimate road trip” mentioning awe-inspiring scenery, retro diners, and quirky motels. When asked what message he hoped people took from his Route 66 doodle, the creator, Matthew Cruickshank replied, “That life in the slow lane can be incredibly worthwhile.”

This vision of Route 66 as a slower, better way to travel that connects travelers to a more authentic America of yesterday is the core of the Route 66 myth. It is a myth since the reality of traveling Route 66 was one of congestion and danger with wildly divergent travel experiences dependent on race. 

Route 66 Reality

The decommissioning of the Route 66 in 1985 made traveling on abandoned sections slow and carefree. When it was a functional highway, it thronged with traffic. Utilized well beyond capacity with few engineered safety features, Route 66 garnered the dark nickname “bloody 66.” The high number of traffic fatalities along the road made travel anything but carefree.

While Google correctly notes that millions of Americans traveled the road postwar, missing from their description is any mention of the disparate experiences Black and White travelers experienced on the road. Doodle creator Matthew Cruickshank mentioned New Mexico as one of his favorite parts of Route 66 from his road trip. Yet, Black traveler guides from when Route 66 was operational show only a handful of businesses willing to service Black motorists. White travelers faced no such limitations. 

Route 66 Tourism Propagates the Route 66 Myth

Modern Route 66 tourism encourages the Route 66 myth. Tourism promoters often create “never was” Route 66 destinations for tourists. Many of the quirky roadside attractions that fuel the Route 66 myth, and productions like Google’s doodle, were actually created after Route 66’s demise. Google’s write-up on their doodle mentions Cadillac Ranch – a supposed Route 66 roadside attraction featuring several generations of Cadillac automobiles buried nose-end in in the ground in Amarillo, Texas. An art group called the Ant Farm created it in 1974. However, road maps from 1969 show Route 66 replaced by Interstate 40 for several miles east and west of Amarillo. Maps from 1975 show all of Route 66 in Texas replaced by I-40. With Route 66 completely replaced in Texas before the creation of Cadillac Ranch, it is actually an Interstate 40 roadside attraction.

Similarly, in many towns claiming Route 66 heritage, numerous gift shops, diners, and quirky motels date from after Route 66’s decommissioning. These faux Route 66 businesses offer up a “never was” version of life along Route 66 for tourist consumption. Many feature an idealized version of the 1950s as a better time in America despite the numerous issues that confronted America mid-century. Some authentic Route 66 businesses remain, but the reality for most small towns and businesses bypassed by interstates was bankruptcy. 

The Problem with Celebrating Route 66

Google’s Doodle, like Bobby Troupe’s song and the other media celebrating Route 66, is part of the Route 66 myth. A myth that holds up Route 66 as emblematic of a better, more authentic America without specifically defining what makes it better. Given the heavy “back to the fifties” tones infused in the Route 66 myth – a decade when America just began to address its long overdue issues with racial discrimination – Americans embracing the Route 66 myth should closely examine exactly what they are celebrating. 

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The Other Southwestern Highway

As the song goes, “get hip to this timely tip, when you make that California trip. Get your kicks on Route 66!” First recorded by Nat King Cole in 1946, Bobby Troupe’s song exhorted travelers use Route 66 to get to LA-LA Land and multitudes did. Route 66 served as the main motorway west from its inception in 1926 until its obsolescence after the completion of Interstate 40. However, during the heyday of the old federal highways, there was another route west to California, Route 80.

U.S. Highway 80
U.S. Highway 80 ran from Savannah, Georgia to San Diego California traversing 2,726 miles coast to coast.

Route 80 began as an auto-trail route called the Dixie-Overland Highway. The Automobile Club of Savannah, Georgia conceived it as an all-weather coast-to-coast auto route in 1914. In 1926, the highway became part of the new federal highway system, losing its earlier name for its new moniker Route 80. Its number ending in zero indicated a coast-to-coast route as specified by the United States Numbered Highway System.

Its better known rival Route 66 was originally slated to be labelled Route 60 since western state highway officials thought a coast-to-coast route number would attract more traffic and benefit their states. Eastern state highway officials objected since the western highway did not run coast-to-coast, and they wanted the number 60 for a true east-to-west highway. The federal numbering system specified Route 66 should be numbered 62, but Oklahoma’s state highway commissioner Cyrus Avery stepped in lobbying for a catchier number. He liked the “ring” of 66, the other highway officials relented, and a national icon was born.

Since its near-brush with obscurity, Route 66 became as close as a highway could to a celebrity. Yet, its less flashier western counterpart Route 80 rivaled Route 66 for traffic volume. Almost as many Americans chose Route 80 to travel west as Route 66. Many motorists preferred Route 80 since its mostly flat, non-winter-weather route made it easier to drive. There were even a few years when Route 80’s traffic volume exceeded Route 66.

As a pre-interstate federal highway, Route 80, like all federal highways of the era, became main street when it arrived at a town. Travelers on Route 80 often frequented main street businesses, particularly the numerous gas stations and motor-court motels of the era.

Route 80 becomes Main Street in Florence Arizona
U.S. Route 80 became main street in each town it connected. Here, Route 80 runs through downtown Florence, Arizona.
Motor Court motels like the Blue Mist Motel in Florence Arizona were found all along federal highways like Route 80 in the pre-interstate era.

Route 66 obtained its celebrity status through numerous cultural productions including songs, movies, and television shows. Route 80 was never as showy as its glitzier cousin, but did have a brief, yet tragic, brush with fame.

Tom Mix was an American film actor and star of many early westerns. His portrayal of numerous cowboy characters in silent films greatly influenced the western film genre in the early days of American movies. Originally from Pennsylvania, Mix used his film-star wealth to purchase a ranch in Prescott, Arizona.

On October 12, 1940, after visiting the Pima County sheriff in Tucson, Mix headed north on Route 80 towards his home. 18 miles south of Florence, Arizona, Mix encountered construction barriers on the highway. Driving fast and unable to stop, Mix rolled his car while swerving. He died at the scene. A roadside memorial marks the location of the accident on old Route 80, now Arizona Highway 79. No longer a coast-to-coast highway, Route 80 was decommissioned in the western U.S. The portion from Savannah, Georgia to Dallas, Texas remains in use.

Monument commemorating 1930s cowboy film star Tom Mix.
A Route 80 roadside monument commemorating cowboy film star Tom Mix.
Plaque on Tom Mix monument
The plaque on the Tom Mix Memorial monument.

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Route 66 and Muscle Cars

A 1964 Pontiac GTO.
The 1964 Pontiac GTO. Image courtesy GM Heritage Center

When senior Pontiac engineer John DeLorean slipped a 389 cubic-inch V8 engine into the mid-sized Pontiac Lemans Sport Coupe in the fall of 1963, he almost singlehandedly ushered in the muscle-car era. Muscle cars captivated the American imagination and became symbolic of 1960s prosperity and American dominance internationally. These cars are often associated with Route 66 as a symbol of a simpler time of fast cars, fun road trips, and the American good life. However, Route 66 and muscle cars are not as closely related as current American Route 66 nostalgia would make it seem.

The muscle car as a thing almost did not happen. In 1963, GM banned corporate participation in racing events, and large displacement engines as standard engines in smaller cars. While evaluating prototypes for the new 1964 model line, DeLorean and a group of senior engineers noted that a large displacement V8 would fit into the new mid-sized Pontiac Lemans. There was only one problem: the corporate large displacement engine ban. Undeterred, DeLorean found a work-around by making the engine optional. The GTO performance package option, first available on 1964 Pontiac Lemans Sport Coupes, placed the large displacement 389 cubic-inch V8 and a four speed into the relatively light Lemans and the muscle car was born. The formula would be copied by Ford in the summer of 1964 when they unveiled the Mustang and ushered in the first pony car. GM would follow suit in 1967 with pony cars of their own, the Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro. By the late 1960s, all American automobile manufacturers were offering muscle cars with the 1969 to 1971 models representing the peak of muscle car performance and style.

A 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge.
By 1969, the GTO was its own model with a new high-performance option package called “The Judge.” This option made the already muscular GTO even more powerful. Image courtesy GM Heritage Center.

A number of factors brought the muscle car era to a rapid close in the early 1970s. Rising concerns about pollution led to a ban on leaded gasoline. Beginning in 1972, all new cars were required to be able to run on unleaded fuel with the complete phase out of leaded gasoline for new cars planned for 1975. The elimination of lead, an engine knock suppressor for high-compression engines, led to a drastic reduction in engine fuel compression ratios and horsepower. It also became increasingly difficult to insure muscle cars as most major automobile insurance companies began requiring expensive muscle car riders on automobile policies. However, the oil embargo of 1973 and subsequent gas shortage probably did the most to hasten the end of the muscle car, as a now low-performance, big engine car that got bad fuel economy became particularly unattractive.

Image of gas shortages in 1973.
Gas shortages, long lines for gasoline, and complete unavailability in some areas became common during the oil crisis of 1973. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian.

Despite the relatively short run of classic muscle cars from 1964 to 1971, the muscle car has become closely associated with Route 66 nostalgia. The highway itself came into existence in 1926 and had been a federal highway for almost 40 years before the first muscle car arrived, and yet Route 66 nostalgia does not often traffic in automobiles from the 1920s or the 1930s. Another simple fact makes the muscle car association with Route 66 even more questionable. By the time the first muscle car arrived in 1964, interstate highway construction had been in full-swing for eight years and large portions of Route 66 were already gone. By 1969, arguably the height of the muscle car era, Route 66 was almost completely eliminated in many of the states it used to run through. The eastern half from Illinois to Missouri had been the first part to be replaced. Even in the southwest, by 1969, Route 66 was largely gone in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The portion through northwestern Arizona and the Mohave desert in California was the largest section remaining.

The association between muscle cars and Route 66 nostalgia may have more to do with nostalgia itself than with any actual association between muscle cars and Route 66. Nostalgia for Route 66 began developing in the late 1980s after the road was completely replaced and decommissioned. This was around the same time the oldest Baby Boomers were entering middle-age. The association may be more a conflation of different elements of postwar Anglo-White memory melding into nostalgia for a “never was” version of Route 66 where unencumbered powerful muscle cars freely roamed down the open road.

The reality of postwar Route 66 was a narrow highway jammed with too many cars resulting in slow and dangerous travel. Route 66 garnered the stark nickname “Bloody 66” due to the high volume of serious traffic accidents on the road, particularly in the American West. After all, there was a reason the United States spent billions of dollars building the interstate highways. Ironically, on the few remaining abandoned but drivable portions of the old road, motorists in classic muscle cars can live out the “never was” nostalgia version of Route 66 since all the other motorists are duking it out on the interstates.

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What if You Became a Product?

A postcard called colorful Indians.
“Colorful Indians,” from the postcard pack titled All Along Route 66 sold throughout Route 66 postwar. Postcard from the author’s personal collection.

The rise of social media led to a concurrent rise in concerns about personal privacy. As social media companies sought to monetize their platforms, they took the personal information and activity of their users and “productized” it into advertising algorithms worth billions. As alarming as this modern phenomena was, the commercial process of turning the personal into the commercial is quite old.

As Erika Marie Bsumek documented in Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868–1940, while the reality of American policy towards Native Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was one of destruction, the American public, particularly in the east, were often disconnected from this harsh reality. In northwestern Arizona, the Hualapai had been forcibly relocated after the Hualapai Wars in the late 1870s to make way for railroad construction and white settlers. This cleared the way for development of Kingman, Arizona’s mining resources and capturing the water supplies at Peach Springs, Arizona. Rather than developing an understanding of the reality of American policy towards Native-Americans like the Hualapai, eastern middle and upper class Americans became fascinated with artifacts of supposedly “authentic” Native American culture. This “authentic” indigenous culture, however, often took the form of synthesized cultural productions and objects that were often highly inaccurate but catered to the majority culture’s nostalgic conception of what Native American culture was like. [1] 

As the “Colorful Indians”postcard indicates, this process did not stop after 1940. Many Navajo, including the well-known Code Talkers, served with distinction in WW2. After the war, economic necessity prompted many to take part in the same commercialized displays of Native American culture that late-nineteenth century middle and upper class Americans had demanded. No longer facilitated by eastern promoters or railroads, in the postwar period this commercialization of person and culture took on a decidedly local flavor with some help from national postcard companies.

A post card called colorful Indians.
This postcard depicts members of the Navajo Nation from Gallup, New Mexico. The brightly colored dress is not accurate to traditional Navajo cultural dress. Postcard from the author’s personal collection.

The ” Colorful Indians” postcard was printed by a national publisher and sold to motels and gift shops throughout Route 66. The postcard depicts the Navajo participants in dress that is not part of their culture. Largely an amalgam of Plains Indians and Hollywood “never was” depictions of Native American dress, the image was sold to middle class automobile tourists from the east reinforcing their preconceptions of what Native Americans were like. This was also reflected in the intense, stylized roadside attractions built by local boosters to lure in travelers off of Route 66 and get them to spend their money in town. The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook serves as a stark example with each motel room built in the form of a teepee – a style of housing not utilized by the Navajo.

Wigwam motel in Holbrook, Arizona.
The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona. The native Navajo did not use teepees as a form of housing. Postcard courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As alarming as digital invasions of privacy can be, they are at least somewhat avoidable. Participation on Facebook, Twitter, or InstaGram is not required. One can carefully curate what information about themselves they release online. For the marginalized, however, majoritarian cultural appropriation can be difficult if not impossible to resist. For many Native Americans, the majority culture both actively engaged in indigenous cultural destruction and demanded sanitized versions of that same cultural for commercial consumption. While postcards like “Colorful Indians” may no longer be printed, the Wigwam Motel and other examples of problematic cultural appropriation remain actively in use. Often represented as fun harmless nostalgia, these objects and places raise a troubling question. What exactly are we being nostalgic for?

[1] Erika Marie Bsumek, Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868–1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Shepard, We Are an Indian Nation, 1-55.

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The Santa Fe, Fred Harvey Company, and Southwestern Tourism – Oh My!

The Santa Fe railroad and their hotel partner The Fred Harvey Company gave railroad tourists free postcards when they stayed in a Fred Harvey hotel along the line. Passengers used them to jot a quick note home and unintentionally promote travel by rail on the Santa Fe line.

Railroads were instrumental in developing the modern domestic tourism industry. A particular focus of transcontinental rail lines was enticing tourists to visit the American West. The Santa Fe railroad was no exception and almost singlehandedly developed and promoted the allure of the American southwest that still lingers in the American tourist mind to this day.

The Atlantic and Pacific railroad built the first rail line through the desert southwest in 1882. Never particularly successful, the Atlantic and Pacific went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. A subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad, the line lay dormant for a few years until its parent company arranged new financing to revive the line. Restarting operations in 1897, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe reorganized the failed Atlantic and Pacific as the Santa Fe Pacific railroad – later known simply as the Santa Fe.

With the line dormant for so long, the new railroad had to rebuild many of its facilities and much of the line itself. With many of the old stops consisting of nothing more than a siding and a few locally-grown businesses of questionable quality, the railroad was tasked with how to provide services to railroad passengers along the line. This was an undertaking made particularly difficult by the remote, difficult desert terrain much of the line crossed in the desert southwest.

A Fred Harvey Company dining room. Fred Harvey facilities became known for good food, great service, and clean facilities regardless of whether a passenger dined in the formal dining room or at the depot lunch counter. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Enter one Fred Harvey. Receiving his first contract to take over the restaurant at a stop in Kansas, Fred Harvey remade the operation into a model of high-quality food, excellent service, and spotlessly clean facilities – often difficult to come by in the American West. This prompted the Santa Fe Railroad to enter into a partnership with Fred Harvey. The Fred Harvey Company became the exclusive operator of railroad station hotels and restaurants along the entire Santa Fe line. In the desert southwest, often the Fred Harvey hotel and restaurant were the only traveler hospitality services available in the remote region.

Postcards like this one promoted the American Southwest, particularly Arizona and New Mexico, as a place of natural wonder every American must see.

Realizing they could sell more rail tickets, hotel reservations, and restaurant meals if they gave rail passengers a reason to linger in the desert, the Santa Fe and the Fred Harvey Company began promoting the desert southwest as a unique, natural wonderland full of sites that could only be visited through traveling on the Santa Fe line and staying in a Fred Harvey Company hotel. Enlisting the help of architect Mary Colter, the Santa Fe and Fred Harvey Company built a series of iconic hotel and food service buildings. Destinations like the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona, the Escalante Hotel in Ash Fork, Arizona, and Hopi House and Phantom Ranch at the Grand Canyon became destinations in their own right.

The Fred Harvey Company Hotel Escalante in Ash Fork, AZ. Image courtesy of the University of Arizona.

Many of these once great facilities are now gone. The Escalante Hotel and the Havasu House were both demolished in the early 2000s after being abandoned for half a century. Mary Colter’s buildings at the Grand Canyon benefitted from being inside the national park and being designated a National Historic Landmark. It is, however, still possible to get a taste of travel in the desert southwest during the heyday of the Santa Fe and the Fred Harvey Company. The La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona, considered by Mary Colter to be her masterpiece, was restored in 1997 to its former glory and operates as a hotel again. The rail yard behind the hotel is still in active use by the BNSF railway, the successor to the Santa Fe, allowing visitors to dine and rest to the sounds of trains in the distance.

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Interview Featured in Arizona PBS Magazine Article

I gave an interview to Arizona PBS for an article in their subscriber magazine. The article focused on the history of tourism in Arizona. The article delved into the development and marketing of the “Arizona allure,” and how reality on the ground in Arizona often differed widely from how the state was marketed to tourists. I spoke to how the development of the Santa Fe railroad and Route 66 influenced the development and marketing of tourism in Arizona. I also spoke to the impact of tourism on indigenous people – particularly on their interactions with tourists from outside Arizona.

Access the article here.