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CNN Saturday Morning News

Weekend Marks Route 66's 75th Anniversary

Aired July 21, 2001 - 09:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: For years millions of Americans got their kicks on Route 66 as they made their way west across the country.

BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Mother Road, as it was known, linked Chicago and Los Angeles. And this weekend marks Route 66's 75th anniversary.

Dan Monaghan of affiliate KOAT looks back along the famous roadway across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN MONAGHAN, KOAT REPORTER (voice-over): The Route 66 signs these days are actually historic markers. The fabled highway was decertified in 1985, a victim of high-speed interstate travel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you know, the Route 66 folks like to boast that it took five interstates to replace one highway.

MONAGHAN: David Kammer is a professor of pavement, an expert on the asphalt that was Route 66.

The twisting roadway cut into the steep climb is still visible to the west of what is now I-25. While the rutted and rugged roadbed is now suited to little more than lizards, it is loaded with history.

(on camera): As if these 26 switchbacks up a steep hillside weren't difficult enough already, many a motorist faced an extra unusual challenge here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It had such a steep incline that the fuel pumps in the early automobiles were such that some folks actually found themselves backing up La Bajada.

MONAGHAN (voice-over): A few miles to the south is another pair of historic marks in the earth. That is Little Cut. Big Cut is above what is now Casino Hollywood. The notches in the hillside were engineering marvels in 1909, allowing travel along a road above the sandy flood plain.

Route 66 is loaded with these trivia tidbits, and it is a road romanticized by almost everyone who speaks of it. But why? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sort of represents our collective dreams of the freedom of the road, of automobility, of movement from the industrial heartland to the Pacific shores, to Hollywood.

MONAGHAN: It was 21 feet wide, hundreds of miles long. Kammer calls it "a linear community," a huge step in actually uniting our states.

Dan Monaghan, KOAT, Action 7 News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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