Chicago, Launch Point for Historic Route 66 — Video Dispatch

/ / Published in Dispatches from the Road
Clay visits the eastern takeoff point for historic Route 66 in downtown Chicago. Begun in 1926, when the Bureau of Public Roads began the nation’s first federal highway system, Route 66 winds some 2,400 miles from the shores of Lake Michigan, eventually reaching Los Angeles, California. Now largely superseded by the Interstate Highway system, Route 66 still looms large in American history and mythology.

Historic Route 66

Beginning in the east in Illinois, Route 66 winds through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, eventually reaching California. Route 66 was cobbled together from existing local, state, and national roads. The highway quickly became a popular route, advertised as “the shortest, best and most scenic route from Chicago through St. Louis to Los Angeles.” (NPS- Wikimedia)

Discover more on these topics at Listening to America

John Steinbeck Colorado Connemara Books Illinois Canada Minnesota Cuba native Amerians Missippi California John Adams Hopi Idaho Native Americans Hawaii England Missouri Navajo Florida Colorado River Montana Edward S. Curtis Holidays Atomic West Alaska Great Plains Lewis and Clark histor Humanities Holiday John Wesley Powell Carl Sandburg Airstream Arizona Massachusetts Nebraska Maine Hemingway National Parks America at 250 Iowa Louisiana Mississippi Civil Rights
Tagged under: , , ,