The Story of Route 66 Told Where Route 66 Was Lived
In the northern quarter of Barstow, California, beyond the First Avenue steel bridge that crosses the BNSF rail yards, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum occupies the north wing of the magnificent Casa del Desierto — the 1911 Fred Harvey Company railroad hotel that is itself a National Historic Landmark. The museum was founded in 2000 to preserve the history of U.S. Route 66 and the Mojave Desert communities the highway created, sustained, and — when Interstate 40 replaced it in 1973 — left stranded in the desert. After 24 years of operation, the museum closed in June 2024 due to flood damage, and reopened on March 22, 2025 under new ownership in time for the Route 66 Centennial year of 2026 — the 100th anniversary of the highway whose story it exists to tell.
The museum is free to enter. It is housed in one of the most historically significant buildings in the California desert. It shares its building with the Western America Railroad Museum, an active Amtrak station, the Barstow Area Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, and the NASA Goldstone Visitor Center — making the Harvey House complex the single most content-rich destination in Barstow and one of the richest museum complexes on all of California’s Route 66 corridor. A visit to the Route 66 Mother Road Museum is not merely a visit to a museum; it is a visit to the building where the history on display actually happened — the desert hotel and railroad junction where Route 66 and the railroad shared the same Mojave Desert corridor, and where the story of American mobility played out over more than a century.
Where Is the Route 66 Mother Road Museum?
The Route 66 Mother Road Museum is located at 681 North First Avenue, Barstow, California 92311, inside the north wing of the Harvey House (Casa del Desierto) complex. Phone: (760) 998-1992. Email: [email protected]. Website: motherroadmuseum.com.
From Route 66 (Main Street) in Barstow: Turn north on First Avenue (formerly Route 91, the old north–south highway). Follow First Avenue over the old steel bridge spanning the BNSF rail yards. The Harvey House complex is immediately on the right after the bridge. The museum entrance is on the east side of the building, with free parking adjacent. From Interstate 15: Take the Barstow Road (Highway 247) exit and head north to Main Street (Route 66), turn left (west) through downtown Barstow, then right (north) on First Avenue to the Harvey House.
The Museum’s History: July 4, 2000 to Today
The Grand Opening: July 4, 2000
The Route 66 Mother Road Museum was dedicated on July 4, 2000 — a date chosen with deliberate patriotic symbolism for a museum celebrating the quintessentially American story of Route 66. The opening ceremony placed the museum in the north wing of the already-restored Harvey House, whose $8 million post-earthquake restoration had been completed the previous year. The date also marked the continuation of the Harvey House’s public purpose: where the building had once served railroad travelers, it now served Route 66 heritage travelers, researchers, and the growing international community of Mother Road enthusiasts who were discovering the California desert corridor as the Interstate Highway System generation gave way to a nostalgic revival of the original highway.
The museum was operated for most of its original 24-year run by Deb and Ken Hodkin, who managed the institution as a volunteer-run nonprofit and became beloved fixtures of the Barstow Route 66 community. Under their stewardship, the museum developed a reputation for genuine hospitality — a place where Deb Hodkin would answer questions ranging from Route 66 history to local restaurant recommendations to nearby desert hikes, and where free handouts including 100 Things to Do Within 100 Miles of Barstow and a Route 66 Victorville to Barstow Auto Tour map were available to every visitor. The museum ran on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. — limited hours that reflected its volunteer staffing model.
In May 2003, Hampton Inn Hotels designated the Harvey House Route 66 Mother Road Museum as one of their “66 Roadside Attractions” along Route 66’s 2,448-mile length — one of only 66 such designations along the entire route, making it a Hampton Inn-branded landmark on the Mother Road’s California segment.
Closure and Flood Damage: June 2024
In June 2024, after nearly 24 years of continuous operation, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum was forced to close when monsoon rains caused flooding that damaged part of the Harvey House facility. The museum’s longtime curator Deb Hodkin confirmed that only a few artifacts were damaged; the majority of the collection was safely distributed to partner institutions for temporary safekeeping. Items went to the Western America Railroad Museum (adjacent to the Harvey House), the Mojave River Valley Museum in Barstow, and the California Route 66 Museum in Victorville. The Hodkins retired following the closure, ending their long and beloved stewardship of the museum.
The closure coincided with another significant Barstow event: the demolition of the historic First Avenue steel bridge — the iconic structure that Route 66 travelers cross to reach the Harvey House from Main Street. The bridge’s demolition, necessitated by BNSF’s construction of the Barstow International Gateway, a $1.5 billion master-planned rail hub expected to create 20,000 jobs, drew protests from local historians who mourned the loss of the bridge as a piece of Route 66 infrastructure. The City of Barstow opened the bridge to pedestrians for a final symbolic walk on July 10, 2024, before demolition proceeded. A replacement bridge serves access to the Harvey House today.
The Reopening: March 22, 2025
The museum’s reopening was made possible by Brendan O’Brien — a new owner who purchased the museum property from the city and committed to reviving it in time for the Route 66 Centennial. O’Brien stated his belief that the museum needed to be part of the centennial celebrations, and expressed his admiration for the Harvey House as a building and a heritage site: “I love that Harvey House, and we’re blessed to be a part of the reopening. It needs to be a part of the centennial.” The reopening celebration was held on March 22, 2025, with the museum welcoming visitors under new management and with a revitalized collection that included artifacts returned from partner museums and new pieces sourced from local residents.
The new management team — operating as Conner Cruz Productions — has brought an energetic approach to the museum’s programming, expanding beyond static exhibits to include live events, special celebrations, private event bookings, and an expanded vehicle collection. The reopened museum reflects a determination to make the Route 66 Mother Road Museum not just a heritage destination for existing enthusiasts but a lively, accessible, and entertaining stop for the broader traveling public on its way through the Mojave Desert.
The Exhibits: What You’ll Find Inside
Automobile Classics: The Vehicle Collection
The centrepiece of the reopened museum’s collection is a classic car exhibit that anchors the Route 66 experience in the machines that made the highway possible and mythological. The show-stopper is a gleaming 1958 Edsel — Ford’s notorious commercial failure and one of the most celebrated symbols of mid-century American automotive hubris. The Edsel’s presence in a Route 66 museum is entirely appropriate: it was introduced the same year Route 66 was at the peak of its golden era, and its spectacular failure in the marketplace is as much a part of the Route 66 story as the successes.
Alongside the Edsel, the museum displays a 1923 Model T Doctor’s Coupe — a vehicle from the very earliest years of Route 66’s precursor roads, when automobiles were still uncommon enough that a doctor’s coupe was a marker of professional status. The Model T represents the generation of American motorist for whom Route 66 was built: people making the transition from horse-drawn travel to automobile travel, discovering for the first time the freedom and the dangers of the open highway. A 1929 Ford Model A completes the early automotive history represented in the collection, bridging the gap between the Model T era and the Route 66 golden years.
The museum also features what the new management describes as its “Barbie-pink classic” — a vivid, eye-catching vehicle that has become a popular photo opportunity and a symbol of the museum’s commitment to making Route 66 history accessible and fun for all ages. The combination of historically significant automobiles and visually striking display pieces reflects a curatorial approach that balances heritage value with visitor engagement.
The vehicle collection is not static. Under the new management, the museum has actively solicited donations and loans of historically significant artifacts from local residents who own items connected to Route 66’s history, and has been working to return some of the original collection’s distributed artifacts from partner institutions. Travelers interested in contributing a piece of Route 66 history to the museum are encouraged to contact the team at [email protected].
Route 66 Memorabilia: Signs, Postcards, and Roadside Artifacts
The Route 66 Memorabilia Exhibit brings the golden era of America’s Main Street to life through an extensive collection of vintage highway signs, classic motel postcards, roadside diner artifacts, and the visual ephemera of mid-century American road travel. This is the exhibit that most directly speaks to what Route 66 looked like and felt like at the height of its use — the neon signs of motor courts, the laminated menu cards of roadside diners, the promotional brochures of attractions that no longer exist, and the photographs that captured the highway’s character before the Interstate bypassed it.
Vintage highway signs — both period-original pieces and reproductions of significant Route 66 signage — line the walls, creating the visual experience of standing on the highway itself. Classic motel postcards from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s document the motor courts and roadside establishments that defined Route 66 culture during the highway’s golden era: the Wigwam Motels, the neon-lit diners, the swimming-pool-equipped motor courts that promised luxury in the middle of the desert. These postcards are primary historical documents — they captured what travelers were supposed to want and what business owners were proud to offer — and their accumulated imagery constitutes a visual history of American roadside culture.
Visitors have consistently noted the historic photograph collection as one of the museum’s most valuable holdings — images documenting Barstow’s Route 66 era, the communities of the Mojave Desert, and the travelers who crossed the desert between the 1920s and the 1970s. These photographs bring individual human faces and specific local places to a history that can otherwise feel abstract, and they are particularly valuable in the California desert context where many of the communities and businesses they document have long since disappeared.
The Harvey House Train History Exhibit
The Harvey House Train History Exhibit uses the museum’s extraordinary location — inside the 1911 Casa del Desierto itself — to tell the story of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway that preceded, shaped, and paralleled Route 66’s history. Through historic photographs of the Harvey Girls — the legendary waitstaff who civilized transcontinental railroad dining — the exhibit documents the specific role that the Barstow Harvey House played as the Fred Harvey Company’s premier California facility and as the junction point where passengers transferred between the mainline and the lines serving Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco.
The exhibit makes the connection between the railroad era and the Route 66 era explicit and comprehensible: the railroad brought Barstow into existence and defined its geography; Route 66 followed the same corridor and built on the infrastructure the railroad had created; and when both the railroad’s passenger traffic and Route 66’s commercial role declined in the 1970s, Barstow was left with the magnificent architectural legacy of both eras — the Casa del Desierto itself, the steel bridges, the rail yards — and the museums now housed within them. Visitors standing in the Route 66 Mother Road Museum are standing in the middle of a century and a half of American transportation history.
Photographs and Community History: The Mojave Desert Story
Beyond the highway-specific collections, the museum preserves community history specific to Barstow and the broader Mojave Desert region — the story of the people who built their lives along Route 66 in one of the most challenging desert environments in North America. Exhibits trace the development of the highway from the early pioneer trails that preceded it, through the railroad era that established the Mojave Desert’s transportation corridor, into the Route 66 golden years of the 1940s and 1950s, and through the decline and decommissioning that followed Interstate 40’s opening in 1973. The human stories — the families who ran gas stations and motor courts, the travelers crossing the desert during the Dust Bowl migration, the truckers who made Route 66 their livelihood — are as central to the museum’s mission as the iconic cars and signs.
Events, Private Rentals, and Special Programming
Under the new management that reopened the museum in 2025, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum has expanded significantly beyond its original scope as a static history display. The museum now actively programs live entertainment, seasonal celebrations, and private event rentals that make the Harvey House complex a genuine community venue as well as a heritage destination.
Live Shows and Entertainment
The museum hosts live musical performances, with featured acts including Ultra Mode (described as the quintessential Depeche Mode cover group) and other performers in genres ranging from Route 66-era Americana to contemporary entertainment. The museum also offers Americaraoke — an Americana-styled karaoke service using Route 66-themed music — for private and public events.
Seasonal Celebrations
The museum’s seasonal events calendar includes Halloween ghost-walk events under the name “Haunted Harvey Nights” — a program that explores the Harvey House’s own history of mysterious and unexplained events alongside the Route 66 ghost stories that are part of the broader desert corridor’s heritage. Christmas 66mas train-themed holiday décor and Summer ’66 block parties celebrate the seasonal character of Route 66 travel, when the highway’s golden era was most alive with vacationing families heading to the California coast.
Private Events and Venue Rental
The Casa del Desierto’s ballroom and function spaces are available for private events, with the Route 66 Mother Road Museum offering a unique vintage setting for birthdays, anniversaries, corporate gatherings, quinceañeras, retirement parties, and weddings. The museum can accommodate everything from intimate Harvey House receptions to roaring 1920s-themed birthday parties to full museum buyouts and classic car weddings. The combination of the 1911 building’s architectural grandeur and the museum’s Route 66 and railroad atmosphere creates an event venue unlike any other in the California desert. For event inquiries, contact [email protected].
The Harvey House Complex: What Else to See
The Route 66 Mother Road Museum is one of four significant visitor destinations inside the Casa del Desierto Harvey House. Planning for all four maximizes the value of a visit to what is one of the most content-rich heritage complexes in the California desert:
Western America Railroad Museum (East Wing): The companion museum to the Route 66 collection, focused on the history of railroads in the American West. Indoor exhibits include extensive Santa Fe Railway memorabilia, Harvey Girl photographs and artifacts, model train displays, and railroad tools and documents. Outside, retired rolling stock — locomotives, cabooses, and rail cars — is displayed beside the active BNSF Southern Transcon mainline, where modern freight trains still pass regularly. Free admission.
NASA Goldstone Visitor Center (Second Floor): An outpost of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Goldstone Visitor Center introduces visitors to the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Complex located in the Mojave Desert north of Barstow. Exhibits cover deep space communication, NASA missions, and the science of radio astronomy. Free admission; no reservations required for individuals.
Barstow Area Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau (Ground Floor): The city’s official visitor information center operates from within the Harvey House lobby, providing maps, guides, and local knowledge for travelers exploring the Barstow area and the Route 66 corridor. Staff can provide up-to-date information on museum hours and current conditions.
Amtrak Station (Active): The Casa del Desierto is a functioning Amtrak station on the Southwest Chief route between Chicago and Los Angeles — the same transcontinental route the Santa Fe Railway served when the Harvey House was built. Travelers interested in arriving or departing by rail, or in the experience of watching the Southwest Chief pass through, can do so from the same platforms where Harvey House guests boarded trains more than a century ago.
Barstow’s Route 66 Context: Why This Museum Matters Here
Barstow is not the most photographed stop on California’s Route 66 corridor — that distinction belongs to Roy’s Motel and Café in Amboy and its iconic Googie neon sign. But Barstow is arguably the most historically significant city on California’s Route 66 — the junction point where the highway met the Santa Fe Railroad, where the east–west desert crossing intersected with the north–south California transportation corridor, and where the infrastructure that supported all of California’s Route 66 traffic was concentrated.
The intersection of Route 66 and U.S. 91 in Barstow was described in its mid-century peak as one of the busiest highway intersections in the United States, with local gas stations dispensing more than 800 gallons of gasoline per day. Every traveler on Route 66 between Chicago and the California coast passed through Barstow. The Harvey House fed and housed them. The railroad connected them to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Barstow was, in the most literal sense, the gateway to California for the traveling public of the Route 66 era.
The Route 66 Mother Road Museum’s location in Barstow is therefore not arbitrary. It is housed in the building that served the very travelers whose story it tells, at the junction of the railroad and the highway that made the California desert crossable. That sense of authentic location — the exhibits displayed where the history happened — gives the museum a resonance that purpose-built facilities cannot replicate. Standing in the Casa del Desierto looking at photographs of Route 66 travelers in the 1940s, visitors are in the same room where those travelers ate, waited, and rested.
Practical Information for Your Visit
Address: 681 North First Avenue, Barstow, California 92311
Phone: (760) 998-1992
Email: [email protected]
Website: motherroadmuseum.com
Hours: Monday through Saturday 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Sunday 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Admission: Free. Donations are gratefully accepted. Purchases in the gift store are appreciated.
Parking: Free. Spaces available at the east entrance door and adjacent lot. Suitable for all vehicle sizes including RVs.
Accessibility: The Harvey House is ADA-accessible. Contact the museum for specific accessibility details.
Time Required: Plan approximately 30–60 minutes for a thorough visit to the Route 66 museum. Budget additional time for the Western America Railroad Museum, NASA Goldstone Visitor Center, and building exploration — a full visit to all Harvey House attractions typically takes 2–3 hours.
Best Time to Visit: Year-round. Barstow summer temperatures regularly exceed 105°F. The Harvey House complex is air-conditioned. Verify current hours before visiting, as volunteer-run museums occasionally adjust schedules.
NOTE: The museum closed in June 2024 due to flood damage and reopened under new management on March 22, 2025. Hours and programming have been updated; confirm current status by phone or at motherroadmuseum.com before planning a special trip.
Nearby Route 66 Highlights Along California’s Desert Corridor
Barstow Harvey House — Casa del Desierto — The full history of the magnificent 1911 Fred Harvey railroad hotel that houses the Route 66 Mother Road Museum. A National Historic Landmark, California Historical Landmark No. 892, and one of the finest surviving depot-hotels in the United States.
Bagdad Café, Newberry Springs — About 30 miles east on Route 66, the filming location for the 1987 German cult classic film of the same name. Europe’s most beloved Route 66 destination, drawing international visitors by the busload.
Amboy Crater — About 66 miles east on Route 66, the only volcano on the Mother Road — a free National Natural Landmark and one of the most dramatic hikes in the Mojave Desert.
Roy’s Motel and Café, Amboy — About 80 miles east on Route 66, the most photographed landmark on California’s desert corridor. The 50-foot Googie neon sign, restored in 2019, is an essential stop on the California Route 66 road trip.
California Route 66 Museum, Victorville — About 35 miles south via I-15, the free California Route 66 Museum in Old Town Victorville’s historic Red Rooster Café building offers a second, complementary Route 66 museum experience on the same California corridor.
The Wigwam Motel, San Bernardino — About 60 miles south via I-15, the iconic teepee-shaped motel has offered Route 66 travelers one of America’s most unusual overnight experiences since 1950.
Route 66 in California — Complete Guide — The full overview of California’s 314-mile Route 66 corridor from Needles on the Arizona border to the Santa Monica Pier, with every major stop.
Route 66 Centennial 2026 — The 100th anniversary of Route 66 is November 11, 2026. The Route 66 Mother Road Museum specifically reopened in 2025 to be part of the centennial celebrations. Check this page for California centennial events.
Route 66 — Complete Guide — The definitive guide to all 2,448 miles of the Mother Road, from the Begin sign in Chicago to the End of the Trail at the Santa Monica Pier.
