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Begin your virtual tour of Historic Route 66 by clicking on any of the above entry points,
and follow roads or trails through a network of linked images.
U. S. Highway 66 was commissioned in 1926, running 2,448 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. At that time, only 800 miles of the road were paved, and it was in 1937 that the surfacing of the entire route was completed. Interstate routes gradually replaced sections of route 66 and it was officially decommissioned in 1985.
As one the earliest automobile routes across the west, route 66 has become symbolic of these early days of automobile travel. Small towns sprouted up all along the route, supplying the needs of motorists -- gas, food and lodging -- in a home-town, old-fashioned style arising from the rustic, do-it-yourself nature of the times.
John Steinbeck christened Route 66 "The Mother Road" in his novel The Grapes of Wrath, a nickname which it is still called today. The decommissioning of the route in 1985 evoked a great deal of nostalgia, and most of the route is now marked as "Historic Route 66".
Due to realignments of the highway over the years, some sections have multiple routes, while other sections are not extant, having been torn up in the construction of Interstate routes.
UntraveledRoad's virtual world allows you to travel significant portions of the old road. Currently these segments are available:
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