![]() “It doesn’t have to be Victorian” to be worth saving, Harlow believes. “You might call it Foothill Boulevard on the Thomas map, but it’s still Route 66,” said Harlow, who explained that many civic leaders aren’t sold on the need to save such landmarks. Where the slogan for the 19 stucco tepees was once “Sleep in a Wigwam, Get More for Your Wampum,” the marquee was later changed to read “Do It in a Tepee.” The Wigwam Village Motel in Rialto, a classic example of roadside architecture, is a case study in what has happened to many of the old businesses. Some are already gone and some have gone out of business others have slipped a notch or two since the highway’s heyday. The association also hopes to build ties with groups in other states for a large-scale interpretive program.Īnd then there’s the political angle: saving the buildings along the old route. Once the group gets more firmly established, projects will include raising funds for an office and museum in a restored ‘30s gas station it hopes to buy (the group now operates out of the home of its secretary-treasurer in La Verne). “Right now, we’re just trying to gain strength and support,” he said. The group now has about 300 members, a figure Harlow hopes to raise to 1,000 by year’s end. He first revamped the organization’s newsletter, then took over as president at the group’s annual dinner in March. Harlow’s involvement with the nonprofit California Historic Route 66 Assn. “It’s not supporting either of us yet,” said Harlow.Įven though they’ve gotten orders from as far away as Wisconsin, both of the men are far from giving up their day jobs: Harlow runs his graphics business out of his home, and Huffnagle is a park ranger for the county. He and Huffnagle have made an effort to ensure that their merchandise is manufactured in the United States, and they turn over 10% of their profits to the state historic group. “There’s at least one in every state” along the route, Harlow said, and there is proprietary bickering among some of the companies. It’s not the only business specializing in Route 66 memorabilia. They decided to join forces and create a mail order business, working with various artists to create T-shirt and poster designs. Four years ago, he joined a Route 66 association in Arizona.Ībout then, he met Huffnagle, who had started a small side business selling Route 66 merchandise at swap meets. ![]() It was on the old 66’s 13-mile run through Kansas that he first realized that the highway “was still there physically,” though the old 66 signs had been taken down. After his marriage in 1982, he and wife Sheila, both photographers, began traveling back roads together, from California to Maine. Harlow says he remembers hitting Route 66-”at least once with my thumb out”-after his return from Vietnam. The road became enshrined in popular culture, first in Troup’s oft-recorded song and later in a weekly television series about a couple of guys cruising America’s back roads.īut the new interstates began to bypass parts of the old route, turning some of the tourist stops into ghost towns and slowly turning Route 66 into a crumbling memory. Weird and wonderful tourist traps sprang up all along the way, from hotels shaped like tepees to plaster dinosaurs. Passing through eight states, it became the path West for many during the Great Depression (such as the fictional Joad family in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”). The first highway to connect Chicago with Los Angeles, the two-lane Route 66 was commissioned in 1926, although parts of the road weren’t paved until 1932. Said Willis: “You don’t realize sometimes that you have a gem to protect until somebody wants to take it away.” “We’re questioning ourselves, and we’re looking back at what America was, to see if America’s still there.” “We have a lot of ambivalent feelings as Americans,” said Harlow. Huffnagle, who traveled the highway several times as a child, attributes the resurgent interest to a combination of domestic nostalgia and international interest in Americana. There have been books about the highway, group tours along the old route, and the growth of state groups committed to saving some of the old roadside landmarks along the way. ![]() Since then, even as parts of the old highway have fallen into almost undriveable ruin, interest in the road has continued to climb. Ironically, nostalgia for Route 66 was just taking hold as the last stretches were being decommissioned in the mid-’70s.
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