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The Slow Decline of Route 66

The demise of Route 66 was not a sudden event, but rather the result of a long, gradual process that spanned decades. In its prime, from the 1930s to the early 1960s, Route 66 was the primary highway connecting Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, carrying countless travelers, migrant workers, and vacationers through eight states. However, by the mid-20th century, America’s transportation priorities began to shift. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 set the stage for the Interstate Highway System, a massive network of high-speed, limited-access roads designed for efficiency, safety, and defense purposes. These new freeways often bypassed small towns entirely, diverting the steady stream of travelers that once relied on Route 66. Without that traffic, the mom-and-pop motels, diners, and service stations that had thrived along the Mother Road began to close their doors.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as sections of interstate replaced more and more of Route 66, the highway’s identity started to fade. State and federal transportation departments would often reroute drivers onto new four-lane divided highways, leaving behind quiet, nearly deserted stretches of old blacktop. The bypasses hit small-town economies particularly hard. Communities that had once bustled with cross-country tourists found themselves struggling to survive when traffic disappeared almost overnight. This economic downturn was especially devastating in rural towns whose livelihoods depended entirely on the road—places where gas stations, souvenir shops, and motels had no alternative customer base.

The official death knell came in 1985 when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) formally decommissioned U.S. Route 66. This meant that the road was no longer part of the U.S. Highway System and would no longer appear on official maps. By that point, Interstate 55, Interstate 44, Interstate 40, Interstate 15, and Interstate 10 had absorbed nearly all of Route 66’s path. While much of the original pavement remained, the removal of its federal designation erased its status as a single, continuous highway. For many Americans, the announcement symbolized the end of an era—a farewell to the romantic notion of the open road, neon-lit motels, and the slower pace of mid-century travel.

Yet, even as it was officially retired, Route 66’s cultural legacy only grew stronger. Preservationists, local business owners, and nostalgia-driven travelers began to rally for its survival—not as a primary transportation artery, but as a historic and tourism-based attraction. While the interstate system made cross-country travel faster and more direct, it also stripped away the personal, small-town character that Route 66 embodied. In this sense, the demise of Route 66 was less about the disappearance of asphalt and more about the transformation of the American road trip from a journey filled with serendipitous roadside encounters to one dominated by uniform rest stops and predictable exits.

Historic Hackberry General Store