By the 1920's the cry for a standardized National Highway System was louder than ever before. The government knew that something would have to be done about the poor road system in America. The Federal Government finally stepped in and made a concerted effort to bring the various trail organizations and automobile groups together. In 1921, an amendment to the Federal Aid Road Act was passed, requiring states to designate primary roads to be included in a state highway system. These roads would be designated U.S. highways.

Cyrus Averya successful businessman from Oklahoma wanted to improve road conditions in his state. Avery, now known to many as the father of Route 66, was charged with establishing what would become the U.S. highway system, by plotting and mapping the most-important interstate roads in the nation. The Associated Highways of America developed a plan for the nation’s highways. They laid out a highway system, organized a maintenance plan for those highways, established a systematic numbering system that replaced the previous tradition of naming roads and a system of standardized, uniform directional, warning, and regulatory signs for the U.S. highway system. Cyrus Avery became one of the strongest supporters of the Chicago to Los Angeles route, a route that he wanted to pass through his home state of Oklahoma.

This 2,448-miles from Chicago to Los Angeles was designated U.S. Highway 66. Passing through eight states the route connected the small Midwestern towns of Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, with the big cities of Los Angeles and Chicago. On November 11, 1926 a bill was signed in Washington creating the American Highway System. Route 66 along with the rest of the early two-lane roads became a reality. Our country entered a new era. Great roads were to be built. Route 66 would become the most celebrated and famous of these two-lanes. Route 66 was about to become the "Main Street of America." Nicknamed the "Mother Road" by John Steinbeck, Route 66 defined a generation looking for adventure and freedom on the open road.

To many Americans, Route 66 represents more than just an official highway. According to cultural geographer Arthur Krim, it (Route 66) was the symbolic river of America moving west in the auto age of the twentieth century. For others, the well traveled public road was a commercial lifeline. From its inception in 1926, U.S. Highway 66 was designed to connect rural communities to their respective metropolitan capitals. In so doing, gas stations, motels, "Mom and Pop" restaurants, and grocery stores were built in the hope of servicing an increasingly mobile public. When bypasses and interstate freeways were introduced in the 1960's to increase speed and reduce travel time, the economic base stimulated by the appearance of Route 66 began to erode.

Route 66 is an excellent physical illustration of the method by which the nation's highways evolved. There was a strong government commitment to serve its citizens, who were becoming more dependent on highways for their livelihoods. Although it is only one of several notable highways in America, Route 66 is revered by hundreds of thousands of motorists as the model of the modern American highway and the emerging automobile culture it serviced.

The highway was established in 1926 and was eventually replaced by the Interstate highway system. Most of the travel on Route 66 was East-to-West, especially during the migrations of the Great Depression – the 'Dust Bowl' Era – and of World War II and the post-war boom. The route thus officially begins on Adams Street in Chicago IL and winds its way along 2,448 miles thru eight states to terminate at the bluffs in Santa Monica CA overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

When Route 66 was decommissioned in 1984 and its signs were removed, the ability of drivers to easily find Route 66 was lost. To help people locate the road, several states have installed Historic Route 66 signs along portions of the road. These signs do not typically appear on interstate highway exits, do not usually give directions, and are often stolen for souvenirs. Finding Route 66 can be an adventure and a challenge requiring a good sense of direction, several maps and guidebooks, a navigator, and patience to decipher the highway's various alignments.

The experience of Route 66 is formed by the travelers and the people, sights, sounds, and tastes they encounter. The surroundings are constantly changing, and there is a sense of mystery about what lies around the bend. Regional differences in rural landscapes and natural features figure prominently in the experience, as do small towns and cities. However, the Route 66 experience lies less in the individual scenes than in their association with the road.

Route 66 is many things to many people. Each individual tends to experience the road differently. There is a spirit, a feeling, that resides along this highway. The spirit of Route 66 lives in the people and their stories, the views and structures, and travelers' perceptions of them along the route. To gain an understanding of Route 66 and the spirit of Route 66, there is no substitute for driving the highway.

from Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State,compiled and written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Kansas, 1940.

US 66 crosses the MISSOURI LINE, 0 m., at a point 6 miles west of Joplin, Mo. entering the heart of the State's lead- and zinc-mining, a portion of the productive tri-state region of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The trees of this formerly heavily timbered area were cut in early days for mine timbering and log houses. Today, where mining operations have not encroached, a second growth is almost impenetrable. Lying in all directions from the highway are man-made white mountains of chert, residue from the mines, topped occasionally with gaunt black mills and separated by dusty roads, railroad tracks, and patches of rock and cinder-covered wasteland. The chert, or "chat," as it is more commonly known, is used in this region as railroad ballast, for road surfacing, and in concrete aggregate.

The GALENA SMELTER, 0.5 m., a great gray hulk surrounded by a maze of chat-covered roads and railroad tracks, is said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world; 200 tons of lead concentrates (ore as it comes from the mine) are smelted daily into 150 tons of pig lead (molded blocks of metal small enough to be handled and shipped to the manufacturer). Operating 24 hours a day, the smelter employs 250 men. Its buildings and yards cover 20 acres.

GALENA (Lat., lead ore), 1 m. (874 alt., 4,736 pop.), pioneer lead- and zinc-mining town, is surrounded by smelters, mills, and chat piles that have destroyed the original beauty of the country. The portion of town north of Short Creek has been undermined to such an extent that cave-ins are common and residents must constantly repair streets, damaged homes, and business houses.

This section was once Empire City, bitter rival of Galena in the early mining days. When lead was discovered in the vicinity in 1877, investors and workers flocked to this site. Galena, south of Short Creek, and Empire City, north of the creek, sprang up almost simultaneously. Each town took on the aspect of a frontier mining camp. Red Hot Street, the first business street of Galena which led down toward Short Creek, was soon lined with saloons and gambling houses. Most of the early mines were north of Short Creek and residents of Empire City built a timber stockade ten feet high and approximately half a mile long between the two settlements to prevent a direct route from Galena to the diggings. This was burned by residents of Galena soon after it had been completed.

Left from Galena on an improved road is SCHIMMERHORN PARK (swimming, boating, fishing, picnicking), 2 m., comprising 160 acres of wooded land along Shoal Creek. Rock ledges and caves along this creek once sheltered Quantrill, the Daltons, and other notorious badmen.

US 66 at 3 m. enters Spring River Valley. The large trees, deep grass, and wild flowers that cover its slopes contrast as sharply with the barren ugliness of the mining area as Spring River, a broad limpid stream that flows over a clean rocky bottom, differs from Kansas' usual brown muddy waterways. Many descendants of the Quakers who settled this valley still live on farms west and north of Riverton.

In RIVERTON, 4 m. (910 alt., 383 pop.), on the west bank of Spring River, is the EMPIRE DISTRICT HYDROELECTRIC PLANT, furnishing power to 30 communities in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Its brilliant lights are visible at night from the concrete bridge on which US 66 crosses the river.

Left from Riverton on an improved road, 0.6 m., the POWER DAM of the Empire District Electric Co. above the mouth of Shoal Creek causes the water to back up into both streams and forms 400-acre LAKE LOWELL. Public and private resorts line the river banks (boating, swimming, fishing; cabins at moderate rates); the region is the home of thousands of waterfowl.

BAXTER SPRINGS, 9 m. (842 alt., 4,541 pop.), surrounded by lead and zinc mines, has more homes beautified by interior decorators and more attractively landscaped lawns and gardens than most small Kansas towns. Several mine operators live in its shady residential district. It was named for A. Baxter, its first settler, who arrived in 1850 and built a shack and a sawmill beside the springs near the present town's northern limits. As stories of the water's curative properties spread, Baxter built a tavern to accomodate visitors and soon a few stores and a bank were added to the settlement.

In the 1860's Texas cattlemen drove thousands of longhorns to the fine pasture land around Baxter Springs. Especially large drives in 1867 and 1868 boomed the town. When the railroad was built in 1870 Baxter Springs became a wide-open cow town and shipping point so crowded with be-pistoled cowboys and cattlemen that it was called "the toughest town on earth."

By 1888 the railhead had advanced westward and Baxter Springs, having lost the cattle trade, concentrated on the expansion of her industrial, agricultural, and resort possibilities.

The SITE OF THE BAXTER SPRINGS MASSACRE is at the end of E. 7th St. On the morning of October 6, 1863, the Federal garrison of a small post here, consisting of one company of cavalry and 65 or 70 colored infantrymen, was attacked by Quantrill's men, while part of the garrison was away on a foraging expedition. After 20 minutes of disorganized fighting, the invaders withdrew. They had lost two men and killed nine Federals.

Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt, accompanied by his staff, a regimental band, and a detachment of troops, approaching Baxter Springs on his way from Fort Scott to his new command at Fort Gibson in Indiana territory, mistook the departing raiders for a welcoming escort, and was quickly surrounded by Quantrill's men who captured almost his entire detachment.

Although reports of witnesses state that Quantrill had already shot all his captives including the wounded, he sent a messenger with a flag of truce to the garrison to suggest an exchange of prisoners. This, according to Quantrill's own report, was to "see if we had any wounded there."

Blunt, who escaped with only seven or eight men, reported: "I soon discovered that every man who had fallen, except three, who escaped by feigning death, had been murdered, all shot through the head. The brigade band, teamsters, and all headquarter's clerks who were first captured were murdered the same way." Eighty-seven of Blunt's men were killed.