ROUTE 66 : ‘I Stayed Disgusted for Years’ After I-40

SELIGMAN, Ariz. — Angel Delgadillo, 65, was born yards from Route 66 when it was dirt in summer, mud in winter.

As a child he chased sidewalk shadows thrown by the big trucks and tried to climb them, pretending to be hitching a ride west. He has seen the road filled by Dust Bowl refugees and young soldiers, railroaders and tourists and the big bands that hired his two brothers.

His dad was town barber here on Route 66. Delgadillo followed his father. Then it all stopped.

“Seligman was bypassed by Interstate 40 on Sept. 22, 1978, at 3 p.m. in the afternoon,” he remembers. “About 75% of the economy of Seligman disappeared. We lost four filling stations, two motels, two restaurants.

“I was angry, disillusioned, sad. My town was being killed because the federal government had said: ‘You sink or you swim.’ I stayed disgusted for years.”

Then, in the early ‘80s, tourists returned to Route 66 and Seligman. They had questions about the road. They wanted to hear Delgadillo’s memories, to see his old photographs, record this living history.

“They were looking for America,” he says. “I decided then that if we could preserve Route 66 and promote its history, we could preserve Seligman and other bypassed towns.”

So he founded the Historic Route 66 Assn. of Arizona. It has 800 members with representatives in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, England, Germany and Japan. And when tourists visit the Kingman Area Chamber of Commerce, 65% are interested in Kingman, 35% ask about Route 66.

“In the heyday of Route 66, any traveler could stop and ask for a glass of water,” remembers Delgadillo. He would ask: “You want to use the restroom? You want to sit on my porch in the shade while your car cools off?

“That’s what was lost when Route 66 went away. And that’s why people are coming back. To find out what it’s like to be treated right.”