You might have heard that the fabled Route 66 officially turns 100 in November 2026. Towns along the famous highway have begun to celebrate with parades, festivals, and car shows.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, officially captured the Guinness World Record for thelargest classic car parade in history in May 2026, with a total of 3,596 classic vehicles completing the 5.5-mile Tulsa Route 66 Capital Cruise.
Thousands of people will be road tripping on the remaining sections of the highway to get a taste of what traveling on the Mother Road was like in its heyday. Even Hot Rod magazine got in on the act by running Route 66 on the 2026 Power Tour. Our own Paul Sakalas is riding shotgun with Summit Racing on the Tour; he’ll be posting stories from it soon.
To commemorate the milestone, we’ve gathered some history and cultural odds and ends about Route 66 and its contribution to the American experience. Read on and amaze the neighborhood with your Mother Road knowledge.
The More You Know
Meandering 2,448 miles from downtown Chicago to the Santa Monica Pier in California, Route 66 has seen a lot of history rolling over its asphalt. It’s seen Okies fleeing the 1930s Dust Bowl; servicemen heading west for Pacific duty during World War II; families exploring the West in the 1950s; and traveling salesmen, all-night truckers, and nomads wandering through the big cities and small towns along the highway.
The interwebs are full of information about Route 66. Here are some did-ya-knows we gleaned from the Route 66 Online Travel Guide’s trivia page:
- When it opened in 1926, only 800 miles of Route 66 were paved. It was all-pavement by 1938 thanks to Great Depression programs like the Works Progress Administration
- The first-ever McDonald’s opened in 1948 on Route 66 in San Bernadino, California. 15-cent hamburgers for everyone
- Phillips Petroleum had gas stations all along Route 66. They even tested a high-octane gasoline on the highway. The test car reached a cruising speed of 66 MPH, so the fuel was named Phillips 66®
- Actor and road racer James Dean was killed in a crash on U.S. 466 (now California State Route 46), a spur road off of Route 66, in 1955. Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder collided head-on with a 1950 Ford
- A World War II prisoner of war camp was located close to McLean, Texas, a town on Route 66. It housed over 3,000 German prisoners from 1943 to 1945
- Route 66 was nicknamed ‘Bloody 66’ due to the large numbers of fatal accidents that occurred along winding sections, sharp ‘dead man’s’ curves, hazardous bridges, and grade crossings
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Reading is Fun-Damental
If you’re looking for some reading material about Route 66, we think these two books best capture the highway’s lore.
The Grapes of Wrath
If you hated The Grapes of Wrath because your high school English teacher made you read it, you should really give the book another try.
John Steinbeck’s novel follows the Joads, a down-and-out Oklahoma farm family fleeing west from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. A lot of the book talks about cars like the migrants’ jalopies (the Joads have a 1926 Hudson Super Six sedan converted into a flatbed truck); shady used car dealers selling overpriced junkers; and well-off travelers in Packards and La Salles and Mercury Zephyrs passing everyone at sixty-five miles per hour.
Fun Fact: Steinbeck coined the term “The Mother Road” in reference to Route 66.
Route 66: The Mother Road
If you want to get into the weeds about Route 66, this book by Michael Wallis will take you there. Wallis grew up near the Mother Road and traveled it countless times. His book is filled with hundreds of stories and photos about the people, diners, motels, roadside attractions, and forgotten towns that defined it over 10 decades.
Fun Fact: Wallis was also the voice of Sheriff, the 1949 Mercury Club Coupe police car that patrols Radiator Springs and the surrounding Carburetor County in the animated film Cars.
There are many other books about the Mother Road—a list can be found on the American Writer’s Museum website.
Route 66 on the Big and Small Screens
Several films and one TV show reference or were shot on Route 66. The most famous one is the excellent 1940 adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath; it’s almost as good as the book but doesn’t have as much car-related stuff.
Here are others you might be familiar with.
Cars
If you were growing up in or had kids during the Aughts, you know all about the adventures of Lightning McQueen, his pals Mater, Doc Hudson, and Sally Carerra, and the rest of the denizens of Radiator Springs. The town is a metaphor for the once-bustling hamlets on Route 66 that were bypassed by the Interstate Highway System in the 1960s.
Fun Fact:Route 66: The Mother Road author Michael Wallis took the film’s animators on road trips along the highway to give them inspiration for designing Radiator Springs.
Easy Rider
The 1969 counter-culture film follows Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) as they take a substance-fueled trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Most of the initial road trip scenes were shot on portions of Route 66 in California and Arizona. The soundtrack is killer, too.
Fun Fact: The Captain America and Billy Bike choppers were designed and built by Ben Hardy and Cliff Vaughs, African-American custom bike builders who helped popularize the chopper style in the 1960s.
Two-Lane Blacktop
Back in the 1970s, every gearhead wanted to be like The Driver (James Taylor) and the Mechanic (The Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson). Who wouldn’t want to wander the country street-racing a big block Chevy-powered primer gray ’55, picking up cute hitchhikers, and racing a ’69 GTO for pink slips? Portions of the movie were filmed on Route 66 in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Fun Fact: The Two-Lane Chevys were repurposed as Bob Falfa’s black hot rod in American Graffiti.
Route 66
The popular 1960s TV show followed Todd Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdock (George Maharis) as they wandered the country in their Corvette, looking for adventure and doing good deeds. Despite the name, Todd and Buz rarely got their kicks on the actual Route 66. Episodes were filmed in 25 states and locations as diverse as shrimp boats, lumber camps, and the old Riverside International Raceway.
Fun Fact: Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie fame played Tod Stiles’ fiancée in the series’ final episode.
Route 66 Sing-Along
It took some digging, but we found some songs that talk about Route 66, directly or in spirit.
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66
Legend has it this song was written by Bobby Troup about a trip from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles. His wife, Cynthia, suggested he write the song and also coined the lyric, “Get your kicks on Route 66’. Nat King Cole did the first version (and the best—fight us), The song has been covered by many other artists including Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
Fun Fact: The song mentions the following towns: Saint Louis and Joplin, Missouri; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Gallup, Flagstaff, Winona, and Kingman, Arizona; and Barstow and San Bernardino, California.
Take It Easy/The Eagles
Written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, this song put The Eagles on the map and these lyrics in everyone’s head:
Well I’m a-standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona
With such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me
Fun Fact: Jackson Browne got the idea for the song when his car broke down in the middle of Winslow as he was driving on Route 66. The actual corner is at the intersection is 2nd Street and Kinsley Avenue.
66 Highway Blues/Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger
With the Dust Bowl fresh in their minds, folk singers Guthrie and Seeger wrote this little-known tribute to Route 66 in 1940 after a cross-country trip that included a stint on the highway. The lyrics will hit you in the feels.
Fun Fact: The best-known version was recorded by Seeger and Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie in 2001.
The Ghost of Tom Joad/Bruce Springsteen
The acoustic song from the 1995 album of the same name is not directly about Route 66, but it does use the character Tom Joad from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to relate the Dust Bowl era migrants with the issues faced by modern drifters and migrants. Springsteen got inspiration from Woodie Guthrie’s The Ballad of Tom Joad.
Fun Fact: The video for The Ghost of Tom Joad features stretches of Route 66 as it existed when the song was recorded.