The Texas Route 66 Digest - Prototype

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The Beginning

Although entrepreneurs Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri deserve most of the credit for promoting the idea of an interregional link between Chicago and Los Angeles, their lobbying efforts were not realized until their dreams merged with the national program of highway and road development.

While legislation for public highways first appeared in 1916, with revisions in 1921, it was not until Congress enacted an even more comprehensive version of the act in 1925 that the government executed its plan for national highway construction.

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designation came its acknowledgment as one of the nation’s principal eastwest arteries.

From the outset, public road planners intended U.S. 66 to connect the main streets of rural and urban communities along its course for the most practical of reasons: most small towns had no prior access to a major national highway.

Route 66 was a highway spawned by the demands of a rapidly changing America.

Contrasted with the Lincoln, the Dixie, and other highways of its day, route 66 did not follow a traditionally linear course.

Its diagonal course linked hundreds of predominantly rural communities in Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas to Chicago; thus enabling farmers to transport grain and produce for redistribution.

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The diagonal configuration of Route 66 was particularly significant to the trucking industry, which by 1930 had come to rival the railroad for preeminence in the

American shipping industry.

The abbreviated route between Chicago and the Pacific coast traversed essentially flat prairie lands and enjoyed a more temperate climate than northern highways, which made it especially appealing to truckers.

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In his famous social commentary, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck proclaimed U. S. Highway 66 the “Mother Road.”

Steinbeck’s classic 1939 novel, combined with the 1940 film recreation of the epic odyssey, served to immortalize Route 66 in the American consciousness.

An estimated 210,000 people migrated to California to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl.

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particularly painful experience, and in the view of generations of children to whom they recounted their story, Route 66 symbolized the “road to opportunity.”

From 1933 to 1938 thousands of unemployed male youths from virtually every state were put to work as laborers on road gangs to pave the final stretches of the road.

As a result of this monumental effort, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway was reported as “continuously paved” in 1938.

Completion of this all-

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weather capability on the eve of World War II was particularly significant to the nation’s war effort. The experience of a young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who found his command bogged down in spring mud near Ft. Riley, Kansas, while on a coast-tocoast maneuver, left an indelible impression.

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The War Department needed improved highways for rapid mobilization during wartime and to promote national defense during peacetime. At the outset of American involvement in World War II, the War Department singled out

the West as ideal for military training bases in part because of its geographic isolation and especially because it offered consistently dry weather for air and field maneuvers.

Route 66 helped to facilitate the single greatest wartime manpower mobilization in the history of the nation.

Between 1941 and 1945 the government invested approximately $70 billion in capital projects throughout California, a large portion of which were in the Los Angeles-San Diego area.

This enormous capital outlay served to underwrite entirely new industries that

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created thousands of civilian jobs.

After the war, Americans were more mobile than ever before. Thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who received military training in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas abandoned the harsh winters of Chicago, New York City,

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and Boston for the “barbecue culture” of the Southwest and the West.

Again, for many, Route 66 facilitated their relocation.

One such emigrant was Robert William Troup, Jr., of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Bobby Troup, former pianist with the Tommy Dorsey band and ex-Marine captain, penned a lyrical road map of the now famous cross-country road in which the words, “get A production of Alamodoso Connections. Email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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your kicks on Route 66” became a catch phrase for countless motorists who moved back and forth between Chicago and the Pacific Coast.

The popular recording was released in 1946 by Nat King Cole one week after Troup’s arrival in Los Angeles.

Store owners, motel managers, and gas station attendants recognized early on that even the poorest travelers required food, automobile maintenance, and adequate lodging.

Just as New Deal work relief programs provided employment with the construction and the maintenance of Route 66, the appearance of countless tourist courts, garages, and diners promised sustained economic growth after the road’s completion.

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If military use of the highway during wartime ensured the early success of roadside businesses, the demands of the new tourism industry in the postwar decades gave rise to modern facilities that guaranteed long-term

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Jericho, Texas – Stuck in the Mud

This was once the first section of the infamous Jericho Gap that, during Route 66‘ heydays, trapped numerous travelers on its 18-mile swath of muddy black soil. Bypassed in the 1930s, the road’s original stretch is now missing segments and is partly on private property.

Locals often benefited from the many stranded vehicles on this stretch of the Mother Road, pulling stranded cars out of the quagmire to such a degree that there were rumors that some locals watered down the road to increase their business.

Beyond Johnson Road (exit 132), old Route 66 continues paved for a while before turning to gravel, turning paved again, and back to gravel for about two A production of Alamodoso Connections. Email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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miles. At that point, it becomes a rutted dirt road and enters a private ranch.

Jericho’s old site can be accessed by taking exit 124 south on Highway 70 about one mile. Here you can see the endings of both the Jericho-Alanreed and Groom-Jericho sections of the Jericho Gap at County Road B. The area that would become Jericho was first inhabited when a stage stop was established in the late 1880s along the stage route that carried passengers and mail from Saint’s Roost (modern-day Clarendon) to Fort Elliott (today’s Mobeetie). There was little here when the station was composed of just a dugout, and drinking water had to be hauled in from a nearby spring.

When the Indians were removed to reservations, more people began to settle the area, and in 1894, when an unusual outbreak of Malaria killed several settlers, the Jericho Cemetery was established.

When construction on the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Texas Railroad began through the area, even more people settled there. The town was officially established in 1902 when the railroad built a station there. A post office was founded that same year, and

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the town was named for the biblical city in Palestine.

In no time, the small town began to grow as cattle were shipped from here and passengers could take the train to the area. When Route 66 was established through Jericho, it brought several gas stations, stores, and a motel. It was then that the town gained its infamous reputation as the Jericho Gap helped the locals to prosper.

Jericho peaked in the 1930s when it boasted a population of about 100 souls, a post office, three stores, a grain elevator, a tourist court, a service garage, and a filling station.

However, Route 66 was moved one-half mile north, bypassing the town, and by 1939, its population had dropped in half to just 50 people. The post office was discontinued in 1955, and by the 1980s, little remained at the townsite.

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Glenrio A Route 66 Casualty

Straddling the border between Texas and New Mexico is the forgotten ghost town of Glenrio. Once a monument along the boom and bust highway of Route 66, it now remains home to only the critters and the blowing tumbleweeds of the vast prairie.

In 1901 the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad came through the area and two years later Glenrio was born. The name Glenrio, which stems from the English word “valley” and the Spanish word for river, is neither in a valley or along a river.

In 1905 the region was opened to small farmers, who settled on choice 150acre plots and a year later the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway established a station at Glenrio. The settlement began to bustle with cattle and freight shipments. I A production of Alamodoso Connections. Email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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initially, the area was primarily populated by large cattle ranches but as time passed much of the surrounding land was planted in wheat and sorghum and the farming expansion was responsible for most of the growth of the area population.

A post office was first established on the New Mexico side of the community, but, the mail arrived at the railroad depot located on the Texas side.

Sitting in its precarious location crossing Texas and New Mexico, Glenrio became the subject of a long battle between both states for tax rights.

By 1920, Glenrio had a hotel, a hardware store, and a land office, as well as several grocery stores, service stations, and cafes.

A newspaper, the Glenrio Tribune, was published from 1910 to 1934. There were no bars on the Texas side of the community since Deaf Smith County was dry, and no service stations on the New Mexico side because of that state’s higher gasoline tax.

During the prosperity of the 1920s politicians and entrepreneurs decided that America needed a national highway system, and a decade later Route 66 was born. In 1938, just months after the final pavement through Llano Estacado (the Staked Plains) terrain of A production of Alamodoso Connections. Email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Route 66 was finished, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was filmed in Glenrio for three weeks.

At the midpoint between Amarillo, Texas and Tucumcari, New Mexico, and 10 miles from the Chicago-LA midpoint of Route 66, Glenrio became a popular stopping place for Route 66 travelers and a “welcome station” station was built near the state line.

Somewhere along the line, a new post office was built on the Texas side of Glenrio.

In the 1940s, the highway quickly became a supply line for a nation at war. In the post-war boom of the 1950s, Route 66 became “America’s Main Street” as families piled into their chrome-laden two-tone Impalas, traveling to exotic vacation spots like the Grand Canyon and Disneyland.

Though Glenrio’s permanent population never rose over about thirty people, the town survived with its tourist-based businesses catering to the many travelers along Route 66. In 1955, the small town suffered a severe blow when the Rock Island Depot was closed. But, the town was doomed to extinction when Interstate 40 was built, bypassing the small community.

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The Ehresman family, who operated a combination grocery store, filling station and tourist shop pulled up roots and moved their business to Endee, New Mexico, five miles to the west. Endee, now too, is an abandoned town. Charles Jones moved his cafe and filling station north to the bypass in Oldham County, Texas.

By 1985 only two residents remained in the small town and the Texas post office was the only business open. It too has long since closed.

Today, the town is only visited by those travelers wishing to relive the history of old Route 66. The ghost town remains home to the long-closed Little Juarez Cafe, that looks like a bricked over old Valentine Diner, but, is really just a similar-looking building.

The dusty collection of empty buildings also includes the old motel, a gas station, and the post office.

Glenrio’s old main street, which still stands intact, continues on to old Route 66, a dirt road following the old Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad right of way. Alternatively, you can return to I-40, where you will see an old gas station at the exit to Endee.

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"Get Your Kicks On Route 66"

If you ever plan to motor west Travel my way Take the highway that's the best Get your kicks on Route 66 It winds from Chicago to LA More than two thousand miles all the way Get your kicks on Route 66 Now you go through St. Louis Joplin, Missouri And Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty You'll see Amarillo Gallup, New Mexico Flagstaff, Arizona

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Don't forget Winona Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino Won't you get hip to this timely tip When you make that California trip Get your kicks on Route 66 Won't you get hip to this timely tip When you make that California trip Get your kicks on Route 66 Get your kicks on Route 66 Get your kicks on Route 66

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Conway: Home of the Bug Ranch

Sixteen miles west of Groom, Texas is the ghost town of Conway. The last town on the Mother Road before reaching Amarillo, Conway began as a very small sheep and ranching community in the late 1800’s. In 1892, the Lone Star School, said to be the first rural school that endured in the Panhandle, was established for the children of area ranchers and homesteaders.

The settlement changed and grew when the Choctaw Route of the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad came through in 1903. A post office was established the same year and the town was named for former Carson County Commissioner H. B. Conway. The town was platted in 1905 by brothers, Delzell and A production of Alamodoso Connections. Email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

The Texas Mother Road Digest19 P.H. Fisherin and one of its first businesses was a store run by Edward S. Carr, into which the post office moved in 1907. A railroad depot, a grocery store, and a blacksmith shop were soon added, and a steam-operated threshing machine served area wheat farmers. An interdenominational community church was erected in 1912.

During the 1920s, agriculture in the Texas Panhandle boomed and the oil industry boosted the local economy. That same decade Conway formed a community club and began an annual community fair. In 1925, Conway’s population was just 25 residents.

In 1926, Route 66 was designated through the Texas Panhandle, but in Carson and Potter Counties east of Amarillo, the route remained in dispute and wasn’t finalized until August 1930, at which time, the Amarillo Daily News declared the “U.S. 66 Highway Tangle Solved.” Federal officials then approved the highway between the town of Conway to the Potter County line along a route north of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. Local residents were jubilant over the announcement as the dispute over its location had delayed the paving of a ten-mile section of roadbed. Before, the end of 1930, it had been paved and was opened to Amarillo.

After Route 66 was completed through the area, Conway soon responded with various services for travelers including tourist courts, restaurants and service stations. In 1930, a new brick school was built in the town and by 1939, Conway had grown to about 125 people.

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