Total attendance at the just-completed Birthplace of Route 66 Festival in Springfield, Missouri, not only broke a record, but shattered the old mark.
The Springfield Business Journal reported total attendance over the past weekend was 53,000, which exceeded last year’s record of 38,000 by an astonishing 40 percent.
The newspaper reported:
During the event celebrating Springfield’s historical connection to the Mother Road, 451 classic cars were on display along with 2,900 motorcycles. The event, free to attendees, collected $9,000 in car-show registration fees to benefit the city’s West Central neighborhood encompassing most of downtown, Scott said. Officials were unable to provide an economic impact estimate by deadline.
The majority of the crowd — 32,000 people — came out on Saturday for the event that closed down a large portion of downtown, including Park Central Square. The festival included 72 vendors, including Civil Kitchen, Sun Solar and Gene’s Gallery, and 32 musical acts, such as Three Dog Night and Big & Rich.
The festival, which just completed its seventh year, has grown quickly in popularity. The city, no doubt influenced by the steady stream of Route 66 tourists, has embraced the Mother Road in recent years.
The festival takes its name from a 1926 meeting of transportation officials in downtown Springfield in which the number “66” was accepted for the fledgling Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway.
(Downtown Springfield, Missouri, during the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival by City of Springfield via Facebook)
Over the weekend, during the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, the City, in collaboration with MO State U. and the Route 66 Association of Missouri, unveiled a new sign commemorating the actual site of the location — the Colonial Hotel — where the telegram was sent to DC proposing the number 66 for the proposed national highway from Chicago to LA.
Glad to see my hometown get behind this. And i’m glad to see all the out of town & out of state Route 66 fanatics invade the town!