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Each State Had a Different Approach
How did this happen
- Route 66 operated as a federal-state partnership starting three decades before federal highways became a thing. The federal government designated the route while individual states managed construction, paving, and alignment. This patchwork approach meant segments were completed at different times, often connecting existing roads and evolving through local rerouting to connect small towns and, later, bypass them.
How States Managed Their Own Approaches:
- Construction & Paving: States were responsible for building their own sections, leading to inconsistency in quality and timing, with the entire route not fully paved until 1938.
- Alignment Discrepancies: While forming a single highway, each state controlled the specific path, resulting in numerous relocations over time that usually shortened the road (e.g., removing a loop through Santa Fe in 1937).
Unique Regional Roles:
- Illinois/Missouri/Kansas: Focused on connecting rural Midwest commerce.
- Oklahoma: Cyrus Avery, an Oklahoma official, heavily lobbied for the route’s formation, creating strong initial development.
- Texas/New Mexico/Arizona: Managed challenging terrain and long stretches of initially, unpaved terrain.
- California: Focused on aligning the highway to handle high traffic
entering the state, especially during military mobilization.
Today, travellers have resources for every state
These resources include government agencies, although we found that a number of preservation organizations and private groups provide useful information for travellers. We leaned heavily on these organizations to begin to put together our plan for the journey, allowing us to organize our schedule:
https://www.route66navigation.com/
How did we take advantage of this
The short answer is that we have put many hours over the last 6 months into understanding where the road can be found, what the attractions are, where to stay along the journey, and what is right for our version of this trip. I think that last part is important, it has become obvious that there many potential things to see, multiple routes through some places, and no matter how many days you've scheduled you're not going to see it all in one go. So we have chosen our potential list, and hopefully we'll see all those plus some more things - we will let you know as we travel. Even now as we are down to the last two weeks of planning I'm tripping over new pieces of the road and things to see.