by Nan C Avery

Created on: July 05, 2010

Route 66 heralded a new beginning for entrepreneurs.   Businesses, with their distinct and unique signatures grew along the highway of dreams. 

After WWII, the route was in need of repair.  It had been used heavily by the military.  There was a massive increase in traffic that forced the road to be widened and straightened. This gradually destroyed the small towns that no longer were on the main highway.  The improvement of the highway changed the direction of the original Route 66 and made a new system of highway crossing the country.

As the size of cars became bigger, the highway shoulders and bridges became too narrow for cars to pass.  The increase in traffic made the drive dangerous because of the curves.  By the late 1940s, it became known as “Bloody 66”.  Anecdotal evidence came from James Cook who relates, “With morbid fascination, we inspected mangled wrecks towed in from ‘bloody 66’.  Someone used to put a white cross at the scene of each traffic fatality; the shoulders of some dangerous intersections, like Cottonwood Wash east of Winslow (Arizona), looked like veterans’ cemeteries.”

In the 1950s, the U.S. Highway 66 Association participated in a demand for improved roads.  They wanted to make Route 66 into a four-lane highway.  The highway improvement changed the alignment of the route.  For example, in Illinois, the highway transformed to four lanes but because of lack of space, it was moved in the sections between Braidwood and Gardner and Staunton and Troy.  Established towns, with businesses depending on traffic, were bypassed by the upgraded route changes.  In Arizona, there was a winding road between Sitgreaves Pass through Oatman on the way to Topock.  It was straightened and widened in 1952.  This changed the course of highway.  The intent of the Highway 66 Association to improve roads was to repave and straighten.  The Association became upset with the unexpected turn of events.

Later, big businesses became involved with using the Route as a source of revenue. The engineers in the Department of Transportation explored revisions for road.  The political influence of powerful businesses pressured the engineers to “fix” the road to favor their business interests.   In fact, the 1953 “Nation’s Business” wrote about how roads needed to "move people and goods at reasonable

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