US Highway 66, colloquially known as the Main Street of America,
was established on November 11, 1926 as one of the original
federal highways. It ran 2,448 miles from Chicago through St.
Louis, Joplin MO, Oklahoma City, Amarillo TX, Albuquerque NM,
and Flagstaff AZ, before ending in Los Angeles. Route 66 served
as a major path for those migrating west, especially during the
Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression, and it provided major
economic support to the towns through which it passed. People
doing business along the route became prosperous due to the
growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later
fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing
threat of being bypassed by the limited access Interstate
Highway System conceived in the mid-1950s. Its importance was
first recognized in popular culture through Bobby Troup’s 1946
Top-40 hit Get Your Kicks on Route 66, as recorded by Nat King
Cole; fifteen years later, the popular 1960-64 television show,
Route 66 also did a lot to pop