• Effective January 1, 1936, US Highway 66 in Missouri was re-routed over the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis, famous for its 24-degree bend in the center. The Chain of Rocks Bridge handled Route 66 traffic until 1970, when it closed permanently for repairs. In 1999, Gateway Trailnet, Inc. reopened the bridge as a recreational biking-hiking trail, linking Missouri & Illinois.

• It was 1938 before all 2,448 miles of Route 66 were under pavement. The last stretch to be paved was in Oldham County, Texas between Adrian & Glenrio.

• Amarillo, Texas held a huge celebration in August, 1938 to celebrate the completion of paving of US 66 - and the road was formally dedicated as the “Will Rogers Highway.”

• John Steinbeck released “Grapes of Wrath” in 1939, followed by a movie of the same name in 1940. The story chronicles the flight of the Joads, a family of “Okies” fleeing the dustbowls of the Midwest in the 1930’s via Route 66 to what they anticipate will be a better life in California. The book is now considered an American classic. Route 66 also earned the nickname “the Mother Road” from these Midwesterners traveling it west.

• In 1946, Bobby Troup releases a hit song, “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”, which he dictated to his wife who wrote it on a cocktail napkin as they traveled from Chicago home to California, via 66. The song immortalizes 66, and remains to this day, one of the most consistently recorded and recognizable songs of all time.

• Also in 1946, the now famous Jack Rittenhouse book “A Guide Book to Highway 66” that describes gas stations, diners and things to see along 66 was published for the first time.

• In 1956, Congress passed the Federal Aid Highway Act that establishes the Interstate Highway System. Route 66 begins to be decommissioned in 1963, but the final stretch is not decommissioned until 1985.

• In 1960, the television show “Route 66” featuring the 66 travels of Buz and Tod hit the airwaves. The show lasted 116 episodes over the years of 1960 - 1964, and has a huge following both in the USA and abroad.

• In 1990, then Governor of Missouri John Ashcroft signed House Bill 1629, designating Old U.S. Highway 66 as a Historic Highway in Missouri and allowing the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) to post appropriate signs along the right-of-way in Missouri to mark the historic route - but no state funds could be used to pay for the signs.

• On July 3, 1991 the first Missouri Historic Route 66 sign was installed at the comer of Kearney and Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri. A joint project between the newly formed Route 66 Association of Missouri and MoDOT resulted in over 300 Historic Route markers being placed along 66 In Missouri.

• In 1999, HR66 passes in the 106th Congress. This bill is designed to preserve cultural resources along Route 66 and allow the Secretary of the Interior (National Park Service) to provide assistance. President Clinton signed the bill into law.

• Also in 1999, the Route 66 State Park at Eureka, Missouri
opened to the public. The park sits on the site of the former City of Times Beach, a community that the Federal government bought out and cleaned up after it was discovered dioxincontaminated oil had been sprayed on the streets there to keep dust down.

• In 2001, after 75 years, Route 66 celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.

• In November 2005, Route 66 is declared a “Historic By-Way” in the state of Missouri, one more step in Route 66 becoming designated as a Federal Scenic By-Way. Work continues towards this designation in other states through which Route 66 travels.

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In April, 1926, a pivotal meeting was held in Springfield, Missouri between Cyrus Avery, an oilman from Tulsa, Oklahoma and Chairman of the Oklahoma Department of Highways, and B.M. Piepmeier, Chief Engineer of the Missouri State Highway Commission, among others, regarding the naming of a new east-west highway which was to run from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California.

There had been months of debate preceding this meeting about the naming of the new highway infrastructure that was proposed by the Joint Board on Interstate Highways and accepted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in 1925. It had been decided that all east-west highways would carry an even number designation and all north-south highways an odd-number designation. Fouling up the naming of things was the fact that certain roads were already known by certain numbering, creating a conflict.

The Chicago to Los Angeles road that would become known as Route 66 was originally proposed to be named “60” or “62” - but those numbers had already been designated to routes originating in Virginia and Kentucky, one of which ironically runs through Springfield, MO. At this April, 1926 meeting, Avery & Piepmeier proposed that the new Los Angeles to Chicago highway be named “66.” They wanted a prominent number that did not have any connection to any other route and which fell within the numbering guidelines for being an east-west highway. Research by the Chief Engineer of Missouri showed that the designation of “66” had not yet been used anywhere. A telegraph would be sent from their meeting at the Colonial Hotel in Springfield (which ironically was located on 66) to the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington D.C. on April 30 1926, stating: “Regarding Chicago to Los Angeles Road: If California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Illinois will accept sixty-six instead of sixty we are inclined to agree to this change. We prefer 66 to 62.”

Avery & Piepmeier signed the telegraph. It would be August 11, 1926, before the state highway departments of the eight states that “66” runs through were officially notified that the designation of “66” was accepted by the Bureau of Public Roads. And it would be November 11, 1926, before the whole concept of the Federal Interstate Highway System would be approved by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, thus formally commissioning Route 66, a 2,448 mile highway linking Chicago to Los Angeles.

The idea behind Route 66 was originally to link the main streets ofmany small towns together to form this interstate highway. Hence, the coining of the nickname “Main Street of America” in 1927 when the U.S. Highway 66 Association was formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma - with Springfieldian John T. Woodruff as its first president. Woodruff was an enterprising local entrepreneur who built the famous Kentwood Arms Hotel (which opened in July, 1926) and the Woodruff Building - both along Route 66 in Springfield and still visible today as a testimony to the city’s place in the birth of Route 66!

• Route 66 was extended from its original termination point in downtown Los Angeles to the now famous termination point with Highway 101 at the Santa Monica pier in 1935.