Southern California’s car culture is bound up with the mystique of Route 66, which turns 100 years old this year.
Celebrations have been taking place for the last few weeks and will continue for the next few weeks, according to the centennial’s website, route66centennial.org.
On Sunday, July 12, there will be a four-hour parade from the Petersen Automotive Museum at 6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, to the Santa Monica Pier. It will feature “50 carefully selected vehicles representing key moments in automotive history,” according to the centennial website, and will start at 7 a.m., when the cars arrive.
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The history of the Mother Road began in 1926, when the Bureau of Public Roads launched a federal highway system and began numbering highways. Route 66 got its name and number on April 30, 1926, according to Visit California, and the system was officially authorized on Nov. 11.
Route 66, as we know it, didn’t immediately come into existence. It was created out of existing roads, and a lot of them weren’t paved in the 1920s.
While initially praised as the fastest way to get to the West Coast, the growth of the freeway system from the 1940s on eventually rendered Route 66 obsolete. It was decommissioned in 1985.
The legend of Route 66 began with Woody Guthrie songs like “66 Highway Blues” and John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” about migrant farmworkers.
The message got happier in Bobby Troup’s 1946 song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” which was a hit for Nat “King” Cole and has since become a standard.
Also see: Route 66 is celebrating 100 years of history in 2026
As Troup reminds us, it winds from Chicago to L.A. for more than 2,000 miles. It passes through eight states, and the last 315 miles are in California, according to travel websites. It originally stopped short of the Pacific Ocean, but now the Santa Monica Pier is considered the end of the trail.
Route 66 is known for diners and motels that served motorists during its heyday. Some still exist and are getting a boost from the centennial.
“I get tourists all year long, but I am getting a few more this year,” said Shawna Gentry, owner of Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Cafe in Victorville.