Group Hopes to Keep Getting Kicks From 66

Route 66, the eight-state stretch of highway that opened up the West, has been a measure of the nation’s economic and cultural climate for more than half a century.

In 1939, John Steinbeck called it “the path of people in flight,” which he dramatized in “The Grapes of Wrath,” a novel of a family escaping the bleakness of Dust Bowl Oklahoma for the verdant fields of California.

After World War II recharged the economy, songwriter Bobby Troup reflected a far different mood in his jazzy “I Get My Kicks on Route 66,” which was recorded by Nat King Cole.

A generation later, counterculture icons Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady ushered in the rebellious 1960s with their book “On the Road,” and Martin Milner and George Maharis used the highway to film the television series “Route 66.”

Replaced by I-40

Today, Tom Snyder, an Oxnard hypnotherapist, is attempting to preserve the memory of a highway mothballed by the progress that gave way to Interstate 40.

“One of the sad things about this country is that people don’t seem to miss anything until it’s gone,” said Snyder, who founded the Route 66 Assn. three years ago.

In its prime, Route 66 extended 2,448 miles from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Pacific and tied together Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Interstate 40 turned much of the highway into a frontage road, leaving only about 1,000 intermittent miles that are drivable, Snyder said.

Signs Removed and Sold

In 1985, the road suffered the indignity of decertification by a state highway association, unleashing the sale of Route 66 markers and threatening its ultimate demise, the same as many of the towns that flourished along its path.

Snyder took leave from his practice 2 1/2 years ago and, with the two other founding members of his association, began traversing the highway, first to remap it and later to enlist the assistance of like-minded conservationists.

Their aim is not to turn back the clock, but to preserve the memory of a road that links generations.

Snyder first saw Route 66 in 1947 when he was 8 years old, traveling with his family from Michigan to a vacation in California.

World Opens Up

“It opened my eyes to world,” he said. “Until then, I thought of my world in relationship to my life. After that, I began thinking of my life in relationship to world. It happened that way to other people, no matter how old they were.”

When it was designated in 1927, Snyder said, Route 66 was a “patchwork of old, farm-to-market roads” built by states before the federal government began constructing interstate highways.

After it became the nation’s first paved cross-continental highway in 1934, a group of civic leaders formed the Highway 66 Assn. consisting of established cities like St. Louis along with newer cities like Tulsa, Okla., and Albuquerque, N.M.

“They created the sizzle to go with the steak,” Snyder said, referring to the association’s promotional efforts.

Snyder and his all-volunteer association of about 30 members nationwide has identified 75 towns where they are conducting a grass-roots effort to raise money to post new signs on the highway.

“Everyone we talk to, who can remember traveling along it, gets misty-eyed,” he said. “We don’t need to establish any attractions along the highway. The highway is the attraction.”