Why Missouri Claims to be the ‘Birthplace’ of Route 66

Route 66 wasn’t the longest or oldest or most scenic road in the United States, but it’s easily the most famous. Running through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles, the 2,400-mile Route 66 was born during the creation of the numbered highway system in 1926.

A century later, Springfield, Missouri, still touts itself as the birthplace of Route 66 thanks to a small business meeting that ended with a historic telegram.

By the 1920s, automobiles were becoming more affordable in the United States, but the nation’s highways consisted of a rough patchwork of state and local roads, many of them unpaved. In 1921, Congress updated the Federal Highway Act with a new initiative to connect some of those smaller roads into paved interstate highways, as Michael Wallis wrote in his book Route 66: The Mother Road.

Federal and state highway planners came up with a naming scheme: Roads running east-west would get even numbers, and roads running north-south would get odd numbers. The longest and most important interstate routes crossing from coast to coast would be multiples of 10, like 40, 50 and 60.

As routes were chosen for the new highway system, two different parties lobbied for Route 60. Wallis recounted in Route 66 that a group led by an Oklahoma-based highway official named Cyrus Avery wanted to use Route 60 for a major highway running from Chicago to Los Angeles, while another group claimed the name for a road connecting Virginia and Missouri. Avery lost out.

As a consolation prize, Route 62 was proposed as the name for the Chicago-Los Angeles roadway, but Avery didn’t care for it. On April 30, 1926, Avery met with two other state highway officials at the Colonial Hotel in Springfield, Missouri, to see which numbers were still available. The men agreed that 66 was “catchy” and immediately sent a telegram to the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington, D.C.:

“Regarding Chicago Los Angeles Road if California, Arizona, New Mexico and Illinois will accept sixty six instead of sixty we are inclined to agree to this change. We prefer sixty six to sixty two.”

That 1926 telegram is why many people consider Springfield the “birthplace” of Route 66 and Cyrus Avery the “Father of Route 66.” The residents of Springfield commemorate the event every August with the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival.

Route 66 became official on November 11, 1926, when a committee of federal and state highway officials met in North Carolina and approved the interstate map for all 48 states. The newly minted U.S. Numbered Highway System replaced the confusing web of named trails that had grown exponentially starting in the 1910s. Because Route 66 was composed of existing state highways and roads, it was open to travelers immediately, but the 2,400-mile road didn’t have signs until 1927 and wasn’t completely paved until 1938.

Route 66 linked large cities and small towns across eight states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. In his book, Wallis explains how Avery promoted the new two-lane road in postcards and billboards as “The Main Street of America” and the shortest route from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast. John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, and Nat King Cole’s 1946 hit song “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” sealed its fame.

Highway officials decommissioned Route 66 in 1985 after its entire route was bypassed by modern four-lane interstate highways like I-40.