Route 66: Now The Future

[drivetheost]

As the 25th anniversary of the deletion (yes, that's official term) of U.S. Highway 66 from the National Highway System approached, many roadies were asked what this meant to the future of 66.

 

From my perspective, there was no such thing historically as "Route 66"... but there is now, and so far it's alive and healthy but needing an update of its narrative and a revival of its icons--and soon.

 

This will take place, I predict in two ways:

 

First, looking backwards with the critical eye of scholarship to what U.S. Highway 66 really was--an honest-to-goodness history of 66, shorn of mythology and hype.

 

Instead of comparing 66 to itself--a huge flaw in historical scholarship, leading to unfounded claims of 66 as the "first paved highway," the prime emigration route to California, etc.--it must be compared to other highways to understand its role in the larger national transportation network; the non-sexy work of historians and grad students.

 

By doing so, stories and roadside resources will be "recovered" and ideally become subjecta of preservation efforts, such as the stolid work of State Historic Preservation Offices and the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.

 

This will add depth to the Route 66 story, refreshing and widening the narrative, and potentially delivering an economic boost to communities who hold rediscovered resources.

 

The other direction is to move fast-forward into the future to the "New 66," exemplified best by Pops in Arcadia, Oklahoma.

 

Pops is a place that takes its inspiration from the imagined Route 66, but in a direction of roadside hyperreality: a world of fantastic, over-the-top structures that never existed, but are the spirit of 66.

 

Pops, with its huge sculptural, cantilevered canopied gas station and 66-foot-high, rainbow-hued "bottle" sets the bar for future roadside eye candy.

 

(Interestingly, Pops has dispensed with the quaint, six-pointed "Route 66" shield, which through overexposure has wound up in the equivalent of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, joining the stamped John Deere and old-time Coca Cola signs).

 

In the brave new world of New 66, taking the highway to the end of the Santa Monica pier, will be not be divisive, but considered an innovative--if not obvious way--to maximize the fun of the highway.

 

My hope is these two movements, backwards and forwards, will extend the highway and its cultural vitality into the next 25 years and beyond. JWM