Now Russell Olsen’s best-selling collections featuring Route 66 filling stations, main streets, motor courts, cafés, campgrounds, honky-tonks, truck stops, and barbecue joints as they appeared both in their heyday and today is available in one package. For more than 30 years, Route 66 was America’s main east-west artery, pointing the nation toward all the promise that California represented. To serve these travelers, Route 66 boasted bustling commercial hubs, many of which remain today, many more of which crumbled long ago. All of the sites included here—150 in all—are shown both during their mid-century heydays and as they appear today. Taken together, the marvelous visual and descriptive elements assembled here—period postcards and imagery, specially commissioned maps, and Olsen’s own photography and capsule histories of the sites featured—comprise a unique, state-by-state look back at America’s Main Street.

Reorganized, updated and expanded ed. of earlier work with same title proper.

The ultimate guide to America’s most famous highway. The Route 66 Encyclopedia is the complete resource on the history, landmarks and personalities that have made the USA’s most iconic highway. Stretching over two thousand miles from Chicago to Santa Monica, Route 66 journeys directly to the heart of the United States. An encyclopedia with a twist, The Route 66 Encyclopedia presents alphabetical entries on everything from Bobby Troup's anthem "Route 66" to The Grapes of Wrath, illustrated with hundreds of photos of the highway and its sights. With references to the old (including the history of the U Drop Inn Café in Texas) and new (a section about the recent Cars movie), The Route 66 Encyclopedia provides a sweeping look at a highway that has become more than just a road. An atlas with 25 current and historical maps will guide your journey from the Abbylee Motel to Zuzax, New Mexico, taking in all of the essential landmarks along the way.

Begun in 1926 to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, Route 66 was the country's first major east-west thoroughfare. By 1930 it was an important route for both truckers and travellers alike, and in 1939 it became known as 'The Mother Road' thanks to John Steinbeck's classic The Grapes of Wrath. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Americans travelled this great road from those heading west during the Great Depression to postwar families taking road trips across the country – but by the 1970s four-lane highways, expressways, and tollways had largely supplanted it, and Route 66 fell into disrepair. In this book, authority David Knudson traces the fascinating story of The Mother Road from origins to decline, including the roadside attractions and cottage industries it spawned and the efforts to save and restore it.

Moon Route 66 Road Trip reveals the ins and outs of this iconic highway, from sweeping prairies and retro roadside pit-stops to the stunning vistas of the Southwest. Inside you'll find: Maps and Driving Tools: 38 easy-to-use maps detail the existing roads that comprise the original Route 66, along with site-to-site mileage, driving times, detailed directions for the entire route, and full-color photos throughout Eat, Sleep, Stop and Explore: With lists of the best hikes, bites, roadside curiosities, and more, you can admire extraordinary landscapes like Acoma Pueblo or Joshua Tree National Park, explore big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, or wander abandoned ghost towns. Immerse yourself in classic Americana with outsider art and kitsch masterpieces, find the most Instagram-worthy retro motels, and sample the breadth of regional cuisine, from deep dish pizza to carne asada Flexible Itineraries: Moon Route 66 Road Trip covers Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Drive the entire original Mother Road in two weeks, or follow strategic routes for shorter trips to Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Santa Fe, and the Grand Canyon, plus side trips to Taos, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree, and Santa Monica Expert Perspective: Jessica Dunham has driven thousands of miles along the famed highway and provides cultural insight, insider tips, and critical history of the route Planning Your Trip: Know when and where to get gas and how to avoid traffic, plus tips for driving in different road and weather conditions and suggestions for international visitors, LGBTQ travelers, seniors, road-trippers with kids, and accessibility With Moon Route 66 Road Trip's practical tips, detailed itineraries, and tried-and-true expertise, you're ready to fill up the tank and hit the road. Looking for more great American road trips? Try Moon Pacific Northwest Road Trip or Moon California Road Trip.

Hit the Road with Moon Travel Guides! Moon Route 66 Road Trip reveals the best of this iconic highway, from sweeping prairies and red rock mountains to the glittering Pacific. Inside you'll find: Maps and Driving Tools: 37 easy-to-use maps keep you oriented on and off the highway, along with site-to-site mileage, driving times, and detailed directions for the entire route Eat, Sleep, Stop and Explore: You'll know exactly what you want to do at each stop with lists of the best hikes, views, and more. Wander transcendent landscapes like Acoma Pueblo or Joshua tree. Immerse yourself in classic Americana with roadside attractions, outsider art, and kitsch masterpieces. Explore metropolitan icons like Los Angeles or Chicago, or stop for a drink at an authentic soda fountain Itineraries for Every Traveler: Drive the entire original route in two weeks, or follow strategic routes for one- to two-days in Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Santa Fe, and the Grand Canyon, plus side trips to Taos, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree, and Santa Monica Expert Perspective: Historian and Route 66 connoisseur Candacy Taylor provides critical insight into the history of the "Mother Road," including the women of Route 66, car culture, and the untold stories of the Green Book, which enabled African Americans to travel west safely Planning Your Trip: Know when and where to get gas, how to avoid traffic, tips for driving in different road and weather conditions, and suggestions for LGBTQ travelers, seniors, and road trippers with kids With Moon Route 66 Road Trip's practical tips, detailed itineraries, and insider's view, you're ready to fill up the tank and hit the road. Looking to explore more of America on wheels? Try Moon California Road Trip! Doing more than driving through? Check out Moon Grand Canyon, Moon New Mexico, or Moon Utah.

Tom Cotter is barn picking along Route 66! Motorbooks' newest collector car title records his journey and incredible automotive finds.

“You’ll never understand America until you’ve driven Route 66—that’s old Route 66—all the way,” a truck driver in California once said to author Rick Antonson. “It’s the most famous highway in the world.” With some determination, grit, and a good sense of direction, one can still find and drive on 90 percent of the original Route 66 today. This travelogue follows Rick and his travel companion Peter along 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles as they discover the old Route 66. With surprising and obscure stories about Route 66 personalities like Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), the Harvey Girls, Mickey Mantle, and Bobby Troup (songwriter of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66”), Antonson’s fresh perspective reads like an easy drive down a forgotten road: winding, stopping now and then to mingle with the locals and reminisce about times gone by, and then getting stuck in the mud, sucked into its charms. Rick mixes hilarious anecdotes of happenstance travel with the route’s difficult history, its rise and fall in popularity, and above all, its place in legend. The author has committed part of his book’s proceeds to the preservation work of the National Route 66 Federation.

From its designation in 1926 to the rise of the interstates nearly sixty years later, Route 66 was, in John Steinbeck’s words, America’s Mother Road, carrying countless travelers the 2,400 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. Whoever they were—adventurous motorists or Dustbowl migrants, troops on military transports or passengers on buses, vacationing families or a new breed of tourists—these travelers had to eat. The story of where they stopped and what they found, and of how these roadside offerings changed over time, reveals twentieth-century America on the move, transforming the nation’s cuisine, culture, and landscape along the way. Author T. Lindsay Baker, a glutton for authenticity, drove the historic route—or at least the 85 percent that remains intact—in a four-cylinder 1930 Ford station wagon. Sparing us the dust and bumps, he takes us for a spin along Route 66, stopping to sample the fare at diners, supper clubs, and roadside stands and to describe how such venues came and went—even offering kitchen-tested recipes from historic eateries en route. Start-ups that became such American fast-food icons as McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Steak ’n Shake, and Taco Bell feature alongside mom-and-pop diners with flocks of chickens out back and sit-down restaurants with heirloom menus. Food-and-drink establishments from speakeasies to drive-ins share the right-of-way with other attractions, accommodations, and challenges, from the Whoopee Auto Coaster in Lyons, Illinois, to the piles of “chat” (mining waste) in the Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, to the perils of driving old automobiles over the Jericho Gap in the Texas Panhandle or Sitgreaves Pass in western Arizona. Describing options for the wealthy and the not-so-well-heeled, from hotel dining rooms to ice cream stands, Baker also notes the particular travails African Americans faced at every turn, traveling Route 66 across the decades of segregation, legal and illegal. So grab your hat and your wallet (you’ll probably need cash) and come along for an enlightening trip down America’s memory lane—a westward tour through the nation’s heartland and history, with all the trimmings, via Route 66.