Here's a video of not one, but two great old bridges on Route 66 in Oklahoma. One is the famed Pony Bridge over the Canadian River near Hydro. The other is the Lake Overholser Bridge near Oklahoma City. The music is great, too. UPDATE: The video's poster tells me the music is by the Pied … Continue reading Two great old bridges
Category: Highways
Preview: “A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway”
The Lincoln Highway is not Route 66. Instead of going from Chicago to L.A., it traverses the country from New York City's Times Square to San Francisco. The Lincoln is 1,000 miles longer. And it predates the Mother Road by more than a decade. However, Mother Road aficionados will find a lot to love during … Continue reading Preview: “A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway”
Portion of original National Road found
This isn't on Route 66, but still significant for lovers of historic highways. After all, we're talking about the granddaddy of the entire bunch. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: While excavating for construction of a new bridge overpass near the Brownsville Drive-In, PennDOT workers discovered what turned out to be a 200-year-old portion of the original … Continue reading Portion of original National Road found
So how much is the Illinois Route 66 plan going to cost?
The answer: no one knows. But the Chicago Sun-Times group attempts to fish for a few answers regarding an ambitious proposal to enhance the Route 66 experience in Illinois: ... Ambrose said they are continuing to seek state and federal funding. Most recently the group applied to receive a federal grant for $475,000 which would … Continue reading So how much is the Illinois Route 66 plan going to cost?
Preservation Conference tour heads into Kansas
The Joplin (Mo.) Globe ran into a group from the National Preservation Conference in Tulsa that was touring Oklahoma's eastern end of Route 66, plus the Mother Road in Kansas. Among the sights taken in were the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Okla.; Afton Station in Afton, Okla.; a stretch of the old 9-foot-wide highway, the … Continue reading Preservation Conference tour heads into Kansas
More of this, please
CBS4.com in Florida is reporting that a group is pushing for historic designation of U.S. Highway 1. The Florida Keys Scenic Corridor Alliance is a volunteer group that thinks the Key's portion of U.S.1 should be on the list of historic highways. CBS4's news partners at the Miami Herald report the group has spent more … Continue reading More of this, please
Leave the old road alone
Terry Beck sent me this disturbing news from his site. Apparently a historic, several-hundred-foot section of the 9-foot-wide "sidewalk" highway of Route 66 near Afton, Okla., was being paved over with asphalt Monday near the Vo-Tech school. In an entry titled "Sacrilege on Sixty-Six," Beck wrote: Imagine our surprise when the entrance off of the … Continue reading Leave the old road alone
Not just for reminiscing
Today, I found this story by the Southtown Star in Chicago about Route 66 historian David Clark, aka Windy City Road Warrior, and his presentation last week at the Tinley Park Public Library. Clark makes this important observation, the point of which seems overlooked through the rest of the story: "We look at Route 66 … Continue reading Not just for reminiscing
Blazing trails
Mark Muckenfuss of the Press-Enterprise has an interesting story about the history of the wagon and American Indian trails through the Mojave Desert and mountains that led to what became the Los Angeles metro area. When Route 66 was commissioned in 1926, it closely followed the Santa Fe rails through the western cities that pop … Continue reading Blazing trails
More of this, please
With the resurrection of Route 66, more people are researching the history of other historic roads. According to the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Mike Conlin is researching the original path of the Jefferson Highway. I'm not familiar with that highway, but it sounds intriguing: The highway was an early cross-country connector, built in the years … Continue reading More of this, please