Route 66: Dishing out kicks for many years
It winds from Chicago to L.A., more than 2,000 miles all the way.
Route 66 is just something that you can’t really explain, says Rich Henry, owner of Henry’s Rabbit Ranch on Historic Route 66.
“You just have to experience it for yourself,” he said. “A small taste of it is all you need. Go through it like a candy sampler with all the different types of candies in it. With ’66’ there is a piece that appeals to everyone. The taste of ’66’ is a unique blend of its own.”
Henry grew up along Route 66, and owning his information and souvenir shop is almost like stepping back in time, every day he enjoys going back.
“If you don’t get out and travel it today you will miss something by traveling it tomorrow,” Henry said. “A year from now there will be less to see because the people that were there for the birth of it, the people that ran the gas stations and mom and pop diners, the people that made 66 what it is, will be gone. We are losing out on history because the witnesses are dying.”
He said time is of the essence.
“Take a lot of pictures of the people and the places because sooner or later it’ll be torn down for progress,” Henry said.
Many different types of people travel Route 66.
He said, one type just wants the nostalgia of what they grew up with. Route 66 was the “Mother Road of the U.S.” for years when times where simple and things were not so complicated.
Foreign travelers carry the excitement of one of the last new frontiers with them when they visit. Route 66 was one of the last
frontiers.
“It is something so different from anything else,” Henry said.
The last type is the accidental discoverer. Henry says they will see the historic “66” signs and start to follow them and become lost in the road and its
history.
According to www.route66.com, the numerical designation 66 was assigned to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway in the summer of 1926. With that designation came its acknowledgment as one of the nation’s principal east-west arteries.
Henry said it was the road to the land of milk and honey, California. Unemployed families poured into Arkansas and Oklahoma. They maybe would get no further than 100 miles and they would just stay where they broke down.
The route became heavily used during and after the war, Henry said. The first stretch of the road was put in by Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
“Route 66 helped to facilitate the single greatest wartime manpower mobilization in the history of the nation,” according to the Web site.
Henry said after the war soldiers were returning home and people wanted to travel and see more of the United States, the highway’s glory peaked in the mid to late 50’s. Highways and interstates began to replace the old road and in 1984, Route 66 was finally bypassed by interstate.
“Route 66 is one of the few roads that still maintains it’s mysticism,” Henry said.
The businesses and lives that were established along it made it uncommon to any other highway. It offers a completely different feeling.
Henry has talked to very few people that have not liked traveling Route 66.
“From Chicago to Santa Monica there is something different every mile down the road — different geography, different layout,” Henry said.
Henry said Route 66 is one of the best attractions the United States has left.
–kassrobison@cc.usu.edu