Indian tribes will launch Route 66 tourism project

A Native American tourism group and the National Park Service will meet in New Mexico later this month to formally launch the “American Indians and Route 66” project, reported Indian Country Today.

The initial meeting of the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association is set for Route 66 Casino west of Albuquerque.

Tribal lands and tribes are located along the entire length of Route 66 from Chicago to California, yet very few tribal connections and stories have been documented to date. AIANTA received a grant from NPS to coordinate this project, which is intended to produce an American Indians and Route 66 Guidebook, sharing the history of tribal homelands and tribes along the route while encouraging tourists to visit these tribal destinations.

“With more than 27 federally recognized tribes along Route 66, we are thrilled that we will finally be able to share these under-told histories connected to the famous highway,” said Virginia Salazar-Halfmoon, AIANTA’s Public Lands Partnership Coordinator and Route 66 Project Coordinator. “We hope that with this project we can provide tangible connections with Tribes along Route 66 and encourage people to visit and learn about the history and connections of tribal nations along the route.”

The project will also include entry of cultural attractions, Indian-owned destinations and accommodations on AIANTA’s Indian Country destinations website, which is currently in its development stage. […]

The guidebook will provide travelers with educational information about sites of significance and share compelling historic information that will attract travelers to destinations identified by tribes along Route 66.

The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program announced in July the awarding of a $24,000 grant for such a project.

I’m glad to see this. American Indians played a vital part in the rise of Southwest tourism and culture, even before U.S. 66 came into being. Their story has long been overlooked or ignored.

UPDATE: Apologies for the coding issues that showed earlier on this story today. A former advertising partner made changes in how content was delivered, and it was messing up links in stories.

(Image near Grants, New Mexico, by Pam Morris via Flickr)

One thought on “Indian tribes will launch Route 66 tourism project

  1. Exciting news. There must bethousands of stories along the 400 miles of Route 66 in Oklahoma. Statehood and the end of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories was in 1907, less than 20 years before the birth of Route 66. We could begin the list right now with the Will Rogers Memorial and Museum in Claremore and of course, the Andy Payne statue in Foyil–two Cherokee stories right there!

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