Unless you’ve access to a time travel machine, there’s no chance to see Route 66 (officially, Highway 66) as it was. Other than visiting its scattered remnants here and there, we’ll do the next best thing: take a quick sightseeing tour of the highway in its 1950s glory days with the help of vintage postcards. A collection of open road views, downtown throughfares, and lodgings found on this once-vital road that crossed the nation.
Our opening image is at Grants, New Mexico.
Flagstaff, Arizona.
Williams, Arizona.
Highway 66 bridge across Rio Grande, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dickman’s Wayfarer Inn, Rolla, Missouri.
Highway 66, through Grants, New Mexico.
El Rancho Motor Hotel, Barstow, California.
Gas station in Topock, Arizona.
Town House Motel (on Highway 66, six blocks from Highway 54), Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Rolla 66 Motel, Rolla, Missouri.
Flagstaff, Arizona.
Tucumcari Travelodge, Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Highway 66-Interstate 40, entering Shamrock, Texas.
Lovely ;
-Nate
In 1962 we went from Indy to California on route 66. It was a great way to see the country on mostly two lane roads. As I was 13 in New Mexico we stayed at a motel where the owners were going to lose everything to the interstate being constructed nearby. Of all the economic changes the US has gone through the building of the interstates was a biggie. Corporations could afford the high prices of land by the exits and built there leaving mom and pop operations in the dust.
As an aside, in “Psycho” Anthony Perkins mentions to Janet Leigh how traffic has died off due to the interstate being built, which bypassed his little roadside motel. A sign of those times…….
Lots of Arizona and New Mexico with a dash of Rolla, Missouri, sprinkled in. I enjoyed all of this.
If memory serves, the Wayfarer was still there in the early ’90s when I moved to Rolla. I recognized it immediately when seeing the picture. It is now gone (the address was 1505 Martin Springs Drive), with a Quality Inn now sitting nearby. This part of town (which is now along the south outer road, facing I-44) has seen abundant redevelopment the last fifteen years. Other nearby landmarks, such as Zeno’s Steakhouse, are now also gone.
The Rolla 66 Motel is a bit tougher to find information about (Google thinks I want to say Motel 6, which is nearby), but I can tell you it sat along what is now US 63, just south of the interchange with I-44. There is a building at 1901 Old 66 (address as per Google) that was built in the same general aesthetic, but appears to have been seriously revised if it is indeed one of the original buildings. It is now a pizza place. I remember other stone faced buildings in this location from years ago; I’m thinking one may have had a Chinese buffet I ate at a time or two. Like with the other location, a lot of redevelopment has taken place in this location.
Rolla appears to be a much more populated place than it truly is. The services, activity, and general feel of the town don’t give the impression of it having a population of only 20,000.
I believe the Rolla 66 motel was in the area of that stone building at 1901 Old 66, though I’m not sure that existing building was part of the Rolla 66 or another business.
The clue to the location is the building in the background in the vintage postcard, which appears to be the Pennant Hotel (image below). The location of that old hotel was about where the Days Inn is now – on Old 66 just north of I-44. That building would have been visible from the current pizza place location, and the topography matches up as well.
I was not aware of the Pennant! It’s hard to tell exact location, but the Pennant appears to be sitting just north of what is now the US 63/I-44 interchange. The terrain is the big tell. There are still hotels located in this general vicinity.
Interestingly, there had been a rather sizable car museum and restoration facility quite close to where the Pennant sat, but it closed some years ago and is now a tire shop and health food store.
One more random thing – the Rolla 66 Motel was known as the “Trav-L-Odge Motor Court” prior to 1955:
Nice to see. That said, I really miss that era.
“Gas station in Topock, Arizona.” I would love to have that red pickup.. International I think.
Enjoyed the postcards. Made me think of the original Cars movie and the town of Radiator Springs. Lessons learned from highway bypasses and their effects on the livelihoods of many of these Route 66 communities. It is nice to see a few survivors that are thriving today like Williams, AZ.
I think the same thing (Cars Movie) every time I see (or hear) a reference to Rt 66.
Not a lot of post cards covering the portion between Barstow and Needles through the Mojave Desert. US 40 and 66 tend to parallel, in places, and can be seen from US 40 easily. Yet there is a section where they don’t al all. US 40 takes the logical straight shot to Needles. Looking at the map one wonders what they were thinking and I suspect those incredibly small towns, like Amboy were located, so let’s go through them. Then after passing Amboy it starts back north to Ludlow which is also where it runs into US 40, or Needles Freeway, or The Blue Star Memorial Freeway.
Roy,s, in Amboy, from Gem City for the great picture. US 40 opened in 1972 pretty much killing off everything along 66 .Of course, since a total of four lanes, instead of two not interstate quality lanes, and a shorter distance. By the way there is an extinct volcano crater in Amboy.
Multicolored stone houses and buildings were all around the 66 parts of Missouri and Oklahoma, not just on the highway. Grandpa lived in one, and I rented one in OKC with an oil well in the back yard. Can’t get more Okie than that!
Parts of Rt.1 still look like vintage Rt. 66. Increasingly few parts though.
Spring of 1985 we were taking the grand tour of Arizona. We stayed overnight in Winslow, Arizona, in a Motel 6. The Jackson Browne statue was not erected yet.
Were you standing on a corner when a girl, my Lord, in a flat bed Ford, slowed down to take a look at you?
Speaking thereof (photo taken in March 2007):
Wider view (with the girl in a flatbed Ford reflected in the window):
See two Ford dealerships in Arizona photos.
Ford had 7,928 dealers in 1960 vs 2,832 today.
Is that a leprechaun at the bottom right of the last photo of Shamrock, Texas?
I can feel the heat coming off those postcards.
Phew…
Very evocative. A ‘picture book’ of the whole route might have been a thing, but probably impossible now.
Born and raised in Southern California. As a boy, my folks would take vacation time in mid August. Park our ‘56 Fairlane in the garage, pull our ‘53 Chevrolet pickup into the driveway, load up the camper, us boys and off we drove to visit family in central Kansas. Highway 66 most of the way.
These postcards are great reminders of that era.
I’m the only one left alive now so these pictures bring back some nostalgia.
Thanks for posting!
I am very familiar with the gas station at Topock having spent seven wonderful summers about the length of a football field away behind it on Topock bay, which connects right there to the Colorado River.Former next door neighbors and my parent’s best friends started inviting me there in the summer of ’59 to be Huck Finn their “Tom Sawyer” son who was my best friend growing up in the playpen together until they moved away from southern California. We were both 9 in ’59. That was more than a gas station. ( By the way , I was blown away seeing that image!). Besides a gas station , it was a little general store plus a bar with a jukebox. Sometimes Ritchie and I would hang out with Jack’s two sons and watch the cars come in. In 1959 air conditioning was a real luxury. You would see a car wheez in with Texas or Oklahoma plates for instance with burlap water bags hung on the mostly closed windows. July and August were ” the miserys”- so hot- that an open window would be like a blast furnace on you. The water in the burlap bags would spritz the passengers I guess. Facing the gas station, and to your left, route 66 would come to a bridge in a few hundred feet or so and on the other side of that bridge , over the Colorado River, is California.Right across the street was a little grammar school, a post office and a cafe. I’ll leave out the names of the Cafe owner and family. But I remember them very well. When the movie Grapes of Wrath was made in the late ’30s, Henry Fonda and the family paused at that bridge( even less traffic than in ’59) and they contemplated crossing it into California. It was cinematically smart, since in the background rose the striking”Needles Peaks” a beautiful red rock formation down river.
Well that’s all folks!
P.S Those childhood memories in Topock were priceless. The people I was privileged to know there have always been cherished in my memory.
My husband and I traveled the full length of Route 66 (from water to water) in 2010 when we were both 66. One of the best trips we’ve ever taken!