There’s still a magic about Route 66 commissioned in 1926 — 2,448 miles extending from Chicago to Los Angeles. Despite the changes along the route, the romance of the road doesn’t go away.
You can still “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” like the 60s television show with Buzz and Todd on the road in a Chevy corvette. It remains a prominent theme with the service stations, blue plate specials, Native American festivals and other tourist destinations on the still traveled road.
The Will Rogers Museum in Claremore is one of the stop of an ultimate road trip along Route 66.
There have been a lot of names given the famous 80-year-old highway in it’s lifetime — one of them “ The Will Rogers Highway.”
Before footrace runs were a popular event, it was along this road that Andy Payne of Foyil ran — and won — the “First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race” or “Bunion Derby.” The race started in Los Angeles on March 4, 1928 and covered the entire length of Route 66 to Chicago, then on to New York Madison Square Garden, ending May 26, 1928.
In addition to his $25,000 prize, Will Rogers offered the 20-year-old homeboy $250 when he stopped in Claremore in April and was greeted by a crowd of well wishers. Will jokingly said he was concerned Andy Payne was taking his place as “Oklahoma’s favorite son.”
It was June 22, 1952, 17 years after Will Rogers’s death that a portion of the road was dedicated as Will Rogers Highway as part of the cross-country promotional tour for the movie “The Story of Will Rogers.”
Route 66 has figured in books like “The Mother Road.” In movies, the sign was portrayed as the Joad family migrated to California in “Grapes of Wrath.”
In 1952, Route 66 was rededicated as the Will Rogers Highway and a marker was placed near Texola (on the Texas-Oklahoma Border). It was one of the many ceremonies that took place on state lines of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. A booster caravan traveled from St. Louis to Santa Monica. The marker reads the highway “was the first road he traveled in a career that led him (Will Rogers) straight to the hearts of his countrymen.”
In Williams, Ariz., with I-40 completion in 1984, the route was replaced by Interstates.
But that wasn’t the end of Route 66. Along the original highways, Route 66 Associations have sprung up with the roads becoming destinations of their own to preserve the “Main Street of America” concept.
When the turnpike from Tulsa to the Missouri state line opened, it was named Will Rogers Turnpike — running almost parallel with Route 66 — in honor of the humorist, world traveler and native Oklahoman.
This year, the W ill Rogers Memorial Commission and the City of Claremore dedicated three median markers as reminders of the city’s history along Route 66 through downtown Claremore.