had been killed, but there were an almost unimaginable 230 road accidents and many injuries.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: IT’S A GIFT
For an idea of early 1930s cross-country auto travel, watch one of the funniest of the W.C. Fields comedies, It’s a Gift (1934). The scenes with Fields and his family camping out along the roadside in auto camps are a pretty accurate representation of a trip from New Jersey to Los Angeles on one of the early U.S. routes of the period, where motels and restaurants along the way were a convenience that couldn’t be counted on.
So, the federal government decided to get in the road-building business. A young officer on the trip, Dwight Eisenhower, never forgot his battle to cross “Darkest America.” Later, as a famed general during World War II, he saw firsthand the Autostrade in Italy and the Autobahn in Germany, the great European “superhighways,” and he wanted something similar for the United States.
Getting scientific
Between 1926 and 1956, the United States went on a 30-year road-building binge, creating the United States Numbered Highway System (sometimes referred to as Federal Highways or U.S. Routes). By the end of it, the infamous two months it had taken to cross the country fell to just two weeks.
You’d think people would appreciate all that work. But the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the agency of state highway engineers who cooked up the system, was flooded with complaints. Newspapers began weighing in, grousing that numbered highways sounded cold and indifferent and didn’t have the charm or easy shorthand of names like the Dixie Highway. Over the years, people clung to calling them by the old names. Highway 80 remained the Dixie Highway, and U.S. 30 was still and forever the Lincoln Highway.
But there was one road from the period that didn’t need a name. It had nicknames like the Mother Road or the Main Street of America, but you didn’t hear them much at the time. It managed to create a mystique with two numbers on a plain black-and-white sign (see the nearby sidebar).
GET YOUR KICKS ON ROUTE 66
In October 1960, the TV show Route 66 premiered on CBS, a loose anthology about two Beat Generation guys on the road to find out about Life. Its jazzy instrumental theme by Nelson Riddle, and its ride, a Corvette convertible, made it the definition of cool. It was shot on location across the country, unusual for its time, and dealt with all the hot-button social issues of the day, with a good deal of violence thrown in, guaranteeing a hit.
Route 66 ran from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, cobbled together out of three of the old auto trails. In the ‘40s and ‘50s, it became a major artery moving people from the East to the sunshine and economic opportunity of the Golden West. By 1960, Route 66 was already a legend, and it already had its own catchy tune, “Get Your Kicks on Route 66.” CBS didn’t want to pony up to actor and jazz pianist Bobby Troup to use his popular song in the show. But Nelson Riddle’s tune became one of the first TV-show themes to hit the Billboard charts, while sales of Corvettes zoomed to more than 10,000. It’s ironic that, from the day of the premier, the road they were on, Route 66, was already on its way out, and its days were numbered.
Today, the so-called Historic Route 66 is an RVer’s Holy Grail, and it’s still the mother lode of roadside attractions. But seeing it can be sort of catch as catch can. After the famed highway was decertified in 1985, efforts began to save the unique cultural heritage of Route 66. Eventually, Congress passed a bill to match funds for historical preservation projects. Restored, neon-lit motels, cafes, and gas stations began popping up or reopening all across the old route.
President Eisenhower and the Interstate Highway System
“Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past… . I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on, all day, all night. Soon, where Toontown once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships, and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it’ll be beautiful!”
—Judge Doom, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
This was Judge Doom, the bad guy ’toon of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, with his evil plot to kill the Los Angeles Red Car streetcar line in favor of highways and automobiles. This was the vision of the men who built the Interstate Highway System, the massive, federally funded project started in 1956, and finally declared complete in 1992. It was a remarkable achievement, and it was vitally needed. But there’s no question it changed the nation in ways we’re still trying to understand.
The most important thing to understand about all the old U.S. highway systems, including Route 66, is that these were essentially stretches of highway linking towns in a chain, going through the towns. In fact, the highway usually ran right down Main Street.
By contrast, the newfangled engineering idea with the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was “controlled access,” with no intersections, no way on or off the road apart from strategically placed exit ramps miles apart. Depending on where you go, the interstate was called a freeway, an expressway, or a throughway.
Eisenhower’s planners designed a system that bypassed all major cities, to keep traffic moving. But he eventually caved on this under pressure, and we ended up with something nonsensical: a highway that bypassed the little towns, yet plowed right through the heart of all the major cities with an asphalt assault and, ironically, made traffic in cities even more congested from the start. In rural areas, that word, bypassed was the death knell for little towns when the interstate passed them by for the sake of efficiency.
Battles went on for years, with “freeway revolts” fighting the system. One of the most famous was in Tucumcari, New Mexico, a town Route 66 had put on the map. We drove across I-40 in the late ’70s, when the eternally unfinished interstate abruptly ended and detoured you off through the town on the old Route 66. But in July 1981, the new bypass was finally dedicated. When the interstate routes were completed, motels and cafes in the town started closing soon after, just as they had in so many other towns.
This is the reason for the nostalgia around Route 66, with its fun vibe of America in its prime. As little towns folded their tents, decaying from the economic blow, the interstate became a symbol of progress rolling over the small, mom-and-pop businesses, and the relentless sameness of the chain hotels and restaurants.
The Road Less Taken
There’s an unofficial motto of RVers: “What’s your hurry?” That’s why so many of us like stargazing, because we like to be where we can still see the night sky and then take the time to do it. The interstate is great, but RVers love to take the scenic route. If you ask
