Backers hope Route 66 historic designation can drive tourism

WASHINGTON — Anyone who doubts the lure of Route 66 should talk to Winslow Chamber of Commerce CEO Bob Hall, who said that capitalizing on the historic highway was key to revitalization of the historic downtown.

“Fifteen, 20 years ago the population was dwindling and we decided we had to do something,” Hall said. “We decided to fix our historic downtown, which is Route 66 — and we really saw the difference.”

Lawmakers in Washington hope to repeat that success with a bill that would put Route 66 on the road to becoming a National Historic Trail.

The bill, heard Wednesday by a House Natural Resources subcommittee, would put the more-than-2,400-mile road under the care of the National Park Service, returning signage to the road and letting it appear on maps as a historic road, among other changes.

Bill Thomas, chairman of the Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership, told the committee that the road, sometimes called

the “Mother Road,” has an important place in 20th century U.S. history.

“In the 1920s, it exemplified freedom and movement,” Thomas said after the hearing. “In the 1940s, it was the primary military convoy to ship troops . and it became the destination for everyone’s favorite two-week vacation.”

When it opened in 1926, the road from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., was the first all-weather road connecting the Midwest and the West Coast, Thomas said in his testimony. It was celebrated in songs and movies and came to represent

typical mid-century roadside Americana.

But the road was gradually eclipsed by the interstate highway system and now exists only in limited stretches like the one through Williams, the last section of the road to be bypassed by an interstate.

Thomas said one advantage of the bill is that it would restore “all of the blackand-white iconic Route 66 highway shields” that originally lined the road.

“One of the biggest challenges of people traveling Route 66 today is simply making sure they’re on the road,” he said.

The plan was welcomed by tourism officials in northern Arizona towns served by the road, and it got the support of the National Park Service at Wednesday’s hearing. Sue Masica, acting deputy director of the National Park Service, said the only change the service wants in the bill is that a “thorough description and map” of the road be added.

Cronkite News is the news division of Arizona PBS. The daily news products are produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.