Hop in: We’re taking a pop culture road trip on Route 66

Route 66 is celebrating 100 years as the nation’s most celebrated highway, an enduring symbol of American culture.

As the iconic route winds through eight states — from Chicago to Santa Monica, California — its allure lies in the open-road experience, traveling across plains, prairies, canyons, and deserts. Beyond big cities and cow towns, the highway offers motels, retro diners, and quirky tourist attractions that capture the spirit of the journey.

Like any great road trip, Route 66 has an unforgettable soundtrack, beginning with the classic anthem performed by Nat King Cole (and later by his daughter Natalie).

If you ever plan to drive West, take the road that knows the best/
Get your kicks on Route 66…

Bobby Troup, then an aspiring songwriter and jazz pianist, wrote that 1946 song during a road trip to California. Over the years, numerous artists have recorded their own versions, including Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters.

It winds from Chicago to L.A/
More than 2,000 miles all the way/
Get your kicks on Route 66…

The famous thoroughfare was established in 1926, and three years later the Great Depression struck, followed by the Dust Bowl — when drought and dust storms devastated farmland.

A family in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, was compelled to evacuate their home in June 1938 due to a severe drought affecting the region.

Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images

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“The Dust Bowl forced thousands of families to abandon their farms in the Midwest and Southwest,” said Jim Ross, the author of nine books about Route 66. He resides on an original section of the highway. “Most of them headed for California, believing that was where the jobs were.”

For the Farm Security Administration Project, Dorothea Lange photographed displaced families as they traveled West. The migrants drove in enclosed vehicles, hitchhiked, and walked barefoot with their possessions along the roadways.

Route 66 expert Michael Wallis describes their journey as heartbreaking — “Following the scent of citrus out to California to rebuild their lives, they clung to that old dream, the land of milk and honey, which ultimately let them down.”

Writer John Steinbeck chronicled the migration along Route 66 — which he named “The Mother Road” — in The Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck’s 1939 novel received a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a classic film. It starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, an ex-con traveling from Oklahoma with his sharecropper family.

“Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can’t eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad,” he declared in a monologue that later inspired songwriters Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen.

Route 66 legends evolved with the changing times.

After World War II, automobiles and Route 66 tourism were heavily promoted. Families began embarking on road trips nationwide. By the early 1960s, their adventurous spirit was captured by rock musicians Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones.

It passes through St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri/
and Oklahoma City looks so beautiful./
You’ll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico/
Flagstaff, Arizona, don’t forget Winona/
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino…

Route 66 was also celebrated by a television series of the same name, featuring a theme song by composer and arranger Nelson Riddle. The show follows two young adventurers traveling across trans-American highways in a Corvette convertible.

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Route 66 was also the scenic route in the 1969 film Easy Rider. It featured Henry Fonda’s son Peter, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson as counterculture wanderers traveling by motorcycle.

“All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut,” Hopper’s character states in one scene, referring to some haters.

“Oh no,” Nicholson’s character responds. “What you represent is Freedom.”

Into the 21st century

In 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned as a federal highway. Yet its allure persisted. Two years later, the English electronic band Depeche Mode released a music video about it.

Won’t you get hip to this timely tip?/
And you’ll make that California trip/
Get your kicks on Route 66

The documentary Depeche Mode:101 followed a group of fans traveling across the country on a tour bus. It inspired reality television shows in the 1990s: The Real World and Road Rules.

Route 66 was also celebrated in Pixar’s 2006 animated film Cars. With John Meyer’s version of the classic as its theme song, Cars is set in a fictional town along Route 66: Radiator Springs. The film’s popularity and a sequel led to a theme park attraction at Disneyland’s California Adventure.

A 2012 handout photo provided by Disney Parks depicts the Radiator Springs Racers attraction.

Paul Hiffmeyer/Disney Parks via Getty Images

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Paul Hiffmeyer/Disney Parks via Getty Images

Author Michael Wallis consulted for the Disney Imagineers and the Pixar filmmakers. He also voiced the animated sheriff in the movie — the 1949 Mercury Club Coupe police car.

Wallis co-founded the Route 66 Alliance, and sits on the highway’s Congressional Centennial Commission. The 81-year-old says the road has stirred his imagination since childhood.

“There’s a sense of adventure,” he said. “If you’ve never been into a pie palace or greasy spoon on the Mother Road, you don’t know what to expect.”

Wallis’ bestselling 1990 book The Mother Road is credited with reigniting interest in Route 66.

“It’s the path connecting two major cities across two-thirds of the continent,” he said. “People rented rooms, sold cheeseburgers, and got a glimpse of the desert. A dream. An illusion. That’s what it’s all about.”

A cat passes Route 66 signs at the El Rancho Motel, a notable Route 66 landmark in June 2007, Barstow, California.

David McNew/Getty Images

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