Page 28 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021 - Online Magazine

TRA VEL
Main Street
of America
Route 66
by Bob Lile
“If you ever plan to motor
west, travel my way, take the
highway that’s the best, Get
your kicks on Route 66”.
yrus Avery of Tulsa wrote
a letter to E. W. James
Cat the Federal Bureau
of Public Roads in July 1926.
In it he stated, “The only objective
we of Oklahoma have had was to
have a continuous route number
from Chicago to Los Angeles ... we
assure you that it will be a road
the U.S. Government will be proud
of.” Cy Avery is known as “The
Father of Route 66” and spent many
years promoting Route 66 and other
highways in Oklahoma and across
the nation.
Author John Steinbeck gave Route
66 the name “Mother Road” in his
novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about dust
bowl Okies taking flight to California. business. As he and his wife were
Route 66 was commissioned in 1926
and was pieced together from Indian
trails, the Ozark Trail, and other
primitive unpaved routes of dirt
and gravel. It took eleven years to
get pavement of asphalt or Portland
cement down in all eight states.
During World War II, the road was
used to transport military equipment
28 Amarillo Senior Link
and troops across the country. song “Route 66” has been recorded
After the war, the USA bounced by countless recording artists
back. Jobs were plentiful; everyone including Chuck Berry, Asleep at the
could get credit. The housing Wheel, Glen Frey, Depeche Mode,
and automobile businesses were the Pied Pipers, the Andrews Sisters,
booming. Americans were travelling Perry Como, and the Rolling Stones.
the country in droves.
The road of flight during the dirty
A young Marine Corps captain by thirties became the road of dreams
the name of Bobby Troup returned in the late forties and early fifties.
from the South Pacific in 1946. His Americans love to travel, and when
parents wanted him to help run their Walt Disney opened Disneyland
music business in Pennsylvania, but in 1955, everyone wanted to go to
he had other ideas. He told them he California to experience his spectacle.
was going to California to seek fame
and fortune in the entertainment General Dwight Eisenhower saw
the federal highway Autobahn in
travelling down Route 66 toward the Germany at the end of the war. He
west, she leaned over and said, “Get was very impressed and thought
your kicks on Route 66.” He wrote the U.S. should have a series of
the song on the way to Los Angeles. interstate superhighways connecting
After they arrived, they met Nat King the country. Construction was
Cole, and Bobby sang his new song authorized by the Federal Aid
for him, accompanying himself on Highway Act of 1956. Our interstate
the piano. Nat loved it and recorded highway system now includes almost
it, and it became an instant hit. The 47,000 miles.