HistoWhy

US Route 66 was commissioned in 1926 and ran about 2,400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles across eight states. Dust Bowl migrants traveled it west in the 1930s, and John Steinbeck called it 'the Mother Road' in The Grapes of Wrath. Postwar road trips filled it with diners, motels and neon. But much of it was two lanes through town centers. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act created the Interstate system, and interstates such as I-55, I-44, I-40 and I-15 gradually bypassed it. Route 66 was removed from the US Highway System in 1985; many sections survive as Historic Route 66. Sources: National Park Service, Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program; Federal Highway Administration. Narration is a synthetic voice. Characters are cartoon illustrations. Some outlines and lines are simplified. Music: "Sneaky Snitch" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Map data: Natural Earth (public domain). Terrain: Mapzen / AWS Terrain Tiles. #route66 #roadtrip #ushistory #usa #maps #shorts