Route 66: Main Street America

it was America's first span of paved highway through eight states and three times it's amazing how different it looked in the 20s and even in the 30s it was always changing crossing grasslands mountains and deserts I could look at a cow and tell you how much milk she had come in the next morning things like that you can see for route 66 where's its Exodus you know I Drive with windows down as fast as I can you know just went through the hair loving life you know route 66 is the road of flight freedom and the big second chance I think one of the big doors to route 66 is that it's an American icon just like you would go to Memphis to see Elvis you've come this way to see route 66 hi i'm peter fonda join me on the ultimate road trip down route 66 they call it the mother road to hear it sing all you have to do is aim at the heart and soul of America step on the gas [Music] it begins here in Chicago from the Husky balling city of Big Shoulders route 66 takes you to the land of dreams California too much of the world route 66 is America limitless horizons wide open spaces the black top boogie to a new life on 66 an ever-changing landscape close by the comfortable suburbs of Illinois in Missouri the farmland of Kansas Oklahoma's Great Plains harsh panhandle of Texas ancient Indian land in New Mexico Arizona's mountains and finally California's Mojave Desert and the blue Pacific [Music] but today the Mother Road is hurting busted torn up and beaten down wasn't hard enough though and you can still hear her song [Music] in 1946 a little-known musician drove west across America and tinkered with a tune his wife wanted him to call route 40 but then Bobby Troup had a better idea get your kicks on Route 66 troops first song turned out to be his biggest hit and an early anthem for the cool and the hip get your kicks on Route 66 has been recorded by that king called the Rolling Stones and Depeche Mode amongst many others in 1960 a new TV series went on the air making millions want to travel the Mother Road the premise was simple two guys in a Corvette seeking adventure and finding trouble why don't you go away why are you still ahead don't crowd me boy got a message [Music] the show helps shape the image of route 66 has a place for people who don't like rules regulations or limitations danger violence and the outlaw spirit part of the open road part of our image of it in fact those themes were part of my film Easy Rider [Music] drive six miles west of Chicago and you find the town of Cicero once ruled by mobster Al Capone until Eliot Ness and his Untouchables put him away route 66 was always fast good road to outrun the cops Bonnie and Clyde stopped off along it to wash the blood from their hands and when Pretty Boy Floyd wasn't robbing banks he was enjoying the ladies who turned tricks 160 666 coming out of Joplin Missouri was a great road for those little whiskey peddlers bootleggers to quench the thirst of Kansas and Oklahoma [Music] [Applause] the bootleggers are gone but you can still get some history with your hash browns at the Dixie truckers home in MacLean the local institution since 1928 it gives you a taste of what used to be that's fine with travellers like Steve Bellinger who have long memories Steve's one of the Cowboys of the highway a long-haul trucker he sometimes heads for the old route just to remember the old times we used to get home cook food basically I guess that's why they used to always say if you want to eat somewhere good either stop where the truck drivers go well now it's just a we stop there because they have parking that's as simple as that it's a lot of a choice you can't go anywhere else it seemed like now everybody wants to drive 100 miles an hour to get wherever they're going but it's like we need to go from here to there and we we have so many days to do it and they're not really stopping and looking and then I seen anything and that's kind of sad because there's a lot to see in this country they're missing a lot they're missing America [Music] if you want to do route 66 right you can't pass through Springfield Illinois without stopping at a local institution the cozy drive-in home of the cozy dog people come here because they want my fries or my dogs or they want to talk to me or they just want to come to the cozy dog because we've been here so many years they remember that their mom and dad had ever had trance brought them here as little kids to get a cozy dog I can remember cozy dog when I was a kid it's just always been here [Music] a little less than 300 miles from Chicago to get to st. Louis Missouri the biggest city on the route you might want to try what they call the concrete at Ted grew his custard stand it's a milkshake so thick well you get the idea [Music] 163 miles more you reach Lebanon Missouri the Munger mosque Motel is the place to stay [Music] Lebanon also has its own Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson tales of his hometown have haunted him and his plays four years after grandmother died uncle Lewis burned down the house for insurance it was just a farm house it was the oldest house in Lebanon and it meant so much to me and I still wonder where is that teapot shaped like an elephant with a little rider on the top what did you do I hope did you take that out before you burn down the damn house you know the house is still there for me there must have been something or I still must feel there's something wonderful about Lebanon or I wouldn't be writing three plays I wouldn't have written three plays that took place there when things are not right it don't make sense to me and I get mad and I got mad Lebanon is where Howard fuller took on City Hall he didn't like it much when the local government tried to take away his favorite road we wanted route 66 as an address and they didn't recognize it as a road mystic so we got into a kind of an argument with them I guess I was pretty honored you show me what route 66 was on out of the road you see it after a day called out a road this I thought in 1991 you said you put the route 6040 for our we had to start a petition well you start a petition you go door-to-door just knocked on the doors you go to the Walmart parking lot in January and you wear out a pair of boots stopping traffic and the parking lot getting signatures and we got them by the thousands [Music] the route skims the bottom of the state of Kansas for about a dozen miles one of the reasons why was that to give individuals a little bit different choice you know you've got more and more of these places like cafe on the road popping up and I applaud that it's great because it gives us a little more diversity another choice another option but the thing that links it the ties it all together is this ribbon of asphalt and concrete that we call 66 [Music] the little towns on the road like Baxter Springs benefit from new businesses route 66 has to fight to stay on the map welcome to Oklahoma in the Choctaw Indian language land of the red people [Music] 843 miles from Chicago you find one of the last original stretches of route 66 in Gary Oklahoma it runs right through the lives of people like Jim Ross this particular road was paved in 1932 just on the eve of the Dust Bowl the depression was already in full swing this is the exact same road surface that the flippers and the flatbeds and the jalopies that migrated to California passed them the exact same Road it's got a place in history and it deserve to stay I believe this is going to be very detrimental to the state of Oklahoma to tear up the longest piece of route 66 in existence the truck traffic here has decided that this piece of this highway is a shortcut rather than going down i-40 which you can see in the valley and making an eight mile round they just make the three-mile jump and that's that's really the only reason this is being changed it's a safety hazard the old road can be like an old friend and with its destruction people here feel the past slipping away highway where the constructions going on hoping that we could cite that 466 personally for me it is it is personal collection that's a family history down there just hate to see something happened to it the existing lanes are too narrow they don't meet the safety standards of our current roads oklahoma state highway commissioner near McCaleb is on the other side of the road he wants to sacrifice this part of route 66 he came by that opinion the hard way since his family has deep roots in the old road my father participated in the design and construction of major portions of 66 my dad is deceased now the only real traces of him that I see are the bridges that he left behind there's some pain in it there's some pain in progress take the freeway and you missed the blue whale and fit to sulking over 30 years ago it was an anniversary of present from you Davis an African Explorer to his wife Zelda and animal lover [Music] the round barn in Arcadia Oklahoma got its shape because as the story goes the devil can get you in a corner in a round bond home to generations of fiddle players and revelers it's been restored by the pennies and dimes of route 66 travelers after the bus left Chicago the farmlands of Missouri and Kansas the cattle farms and oil fields of Oklahoma you come to the biggest state on route 66 Texas in groom you'll find the largest cross in North America reaching 190 feet above the Prairie and in Amarillo there's the landmark that requires a texas-sized appetite to be fully appreciated route 66 is a ribbon of emotion and memory stretching halfway across America but the ribbon is faded and frayed [Music] today the interstate is eating away the old places the places with character often ghosts are all that remain ghosts remembered by those with the passion for the old road like writer Michael Wallace I was born near route 66 I grew up near route 66 was where I saw my first cowboys and Indians where I saw my first oil pump Jack's where I stole my first kiss it means a lot to me before Road 66 America's interstate highways were little better than dusty trail motorists clambered for a better way to get from here to there the solution came from Cyrus Avery head of the American Association of state highway officials he campaigned for a safe and fast two-lane highway from Chicago to Los Angeles which just happened to dip into his hometown of Tulsa Oklahoma [Music] in 1926 route 66 officially opened the foot race was organized as a promotional ploy to draw traffic to the new road within two years we put route 66 when everybody's mapped with his brake foot race from LA to Chicago and then on the on route 66 to New York to Madison Square Garden and it was won by a little Oklahoma farm boy named Andy Payne he won $25,000 he beat out world class runners he crossed the Mojave he ran through the altitudes he ran through the wheat fields and it was really inspiring in this age when people were eating goldfish wearing raccoon coats and sitting on flag poles and doing marathon dances it took a stunt but it put route 66 in the map [Music] if you travel my way take the highway bats invest get your kicks on Route 66 it one is from Chicago to route 66 skims the top of the Lone Star State in summer you can fry here in the Panhandle but there's something else cooking at the Big Texan steak house in Amarillo this place is as American as a 72-ounce [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] salad shrimp cocktail baked potato and bread if they do this in an hour they'll become the newest members of Texas most exclusive club not far from the Big Texan out in an open field you'll find Cadillac Ranch the hood ornament of route 66 in 1974 an entrepreneur named Stanley Marsh three commissioned at the ant farm design group to bury ten Cadillacs nose down in concrete out here in the whip for dinner man we like to pull our wagons in the circle sometime those wagons our Cadillac today washing Courage's visitors to add their own mark [Music] route 66 I think embodies so many icons and I'm talking about everything from James Dean and automobiles we idolized the road and we idolize those big cars the heavy engine and fins and chrome Cadillac Ranch is an abstract vision of a lost America on the road of trees but for some the road was a nightmare [Music] I asked my mother what is the oldest talk about people going to take a trip and go away and leave this place she said well that's what a lot of people are doing there's no work here for profit of mine we were in the back of this truck with a seat and I cried you know tears rolled down my face because I thought well this is goodbye forever [Music] when I the helm was a little girl than the early 1930s drought ravaged the Great Plains thousands of families set out westward on route 66 for what they hoped would be a better life in California it was the largest migration in United States history the term okie was more or less a derogatory name you know for people and they were looked down as trashy people the children suffered from the name-calling from being pokies and being looked down on and not having maybe the clothes that the other kids had and my brothers that were younger than me they didn't take it very easy because they would punch him in the nose you know I mean it was it sometimes became fights and little gang fights we started paying our dues on route 66 the depression the Dust Bowl hope was as scarce as the rain water and people took to the road the busted tenant farmers the people from Arkansas the are Keys from southern Missouri from Oklahoma from the panhandle of Oklahoma out of no-man's land from Texas they took to the road and they looked to rebuild their lives to mend their dreams to find some hope we as children would laugh at the poor okie because he only had one on the top of his car and we say oh boy here comes a rich okie he's got two mattresses it was a tough time for America how silly John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath told the story of this desperate time the book focused on a family called the Joads and their journey on route 66 and they come in 266 from the tributary side roads from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads 66 is the mother Road the road of flight in 1940 Hollywood made a movie based on the novel it starred my father Henry Fonda as Tom Joad the role made him famous and won him a place in the hearts of movie fans around the world the old road threads its way through American history to the depression the Dust Bowl many of the towns left behind by interstate 40 became ghosts [Music] the railroad was here we had to no Depot and stockyards across the street from the Texaco station we would like to go over there and look the animals sometimes and I know we have a hard time crossing the road it was so easy I love those ghost towns I think they're just as important to route 66 as the bustling towns as the thriving towns and I look at those derelict buildings staring back at me with those empty windows and doors and I think of what had been there the old highway has seen artists and troubadours some fade into the landscape others become legendary [Music] Brad Paisley a young country music artist remembers those who traveled the road before him I know for a fact that Hank Williams had to come right by here and a Cadillac so did Billy Walker and Bill Anderson and Porter Wagoner and little Jimmy Dickens and all these people that are now you know heroes and some friends of mine and they would take route 66 [Music] and what an incredible experience to be crammed in a Cadillac five of you with a bass fiddle and a bunch of guitars in the trunk taking your music across to the various honky tonks right along that highway and the inspiration to me is with the common man and what's the everyday life and you see it from that road and you miss it on the interstate [Music] I see so many colorful faces I mean you've got Dean who can twist his feet all the way around backwards but he's one of those small town with colorful Andy Griffith characters almost that are getting lost in the big cities of today [Music] [Applause] [Music] the old road listened with an unbiased ear it carried jazmine country-western corners and read the moon glows artists that took them from Chicago to st. Louis to Los Angeles and back as they searched for fame fortune and the perfect gig musicians and entire musical styles came of age in route 66 bluesman Buddy Guy remembers one long strange trip early in his career with the king of the slide guitar and more James before james died we left here on it and he was driving a station wagon he told me and said well we're down to the last three dollars and for $2 $4 for gas in the car we got to drink this buy a bottle of whiskey for the other than we were almost six to 16 and he said cuz my guys don't drive good unless they be drinking I'm like sitting back there praying because I 1,400 miles west of Chicago a long way from the Windy City you might find a lone man on a lonely road he is in the contest of his life the cheering crowd may only be in his head but as he trains along a part of route 66 that used to be an old Indian Trail hello Castillo believes he can go the distance I used that route 66 to train for speed and track when I was accustomed to running on a track we didn't have a track here Phillip a member of the Akamai tribe is training for the Olympics a dream born from generations of struggle the Akuma lived here before the white men began to record time before there were cars what would become route 66 was called the old Trail [Music] American Indian Labor helped build 66 and the road brought tourists to the reservation when interstate 40 came through the tourist affected to the fast road the Akuma were all but forgotten the village that survived a thousand years could become another ghost town like Glen Rio but then the tribal elders found a way to fight back it was literally a gamble to the casino the casino they built helped fund a new school and Senior Center fellow Castillo's community now has new hope and a new hero in terms of traditional running within my culture it's very very popular and it's always been an integral part of our history I hope that a lot of Indian people will see me run on TV and not and I hope that I'll inspire a lot of young Indian kids to pursue running as well route 66 you can chase your dreams on his twists and turns and open your heart to its vistas but some people say if you want to feel the adrenaline you just got to cut loose and let the road fly by if you [Music] whether you floor it and let the scenery turn into a blur or stop at every town route 66 makes you want to appreciate the moment it wise is from Chicago to no other Road in America can offer you such a rich tapestry of nostalgia emotion history route 66 is a road you feel ken Kemper is riding it on an electric bike to find inspiration for his novel I plan on getting stories from different people along the route about all the things that have happened to them in their lives on 66 2,400 miles in the Sabbath that's a fine goal for an 18 year old but ken is 60 something his passion is taking him on a classical journey inspired by The Grapes of Wrath and he's collecting stories to write the Great American route 66 novel when I come into town the motorhome follows me it goes ahead of me to let him know that I'll be in that town in about two hours and then he sets up and then we start letting people come and give us their stories and tell us all the things that they've done on highway 66 they'll come across the street to meet you and sit down and talk to you or even have a cup of coffee with you against your kicks on Route 66 t6 like talking to people on route 66 [Music] Wickham who study too much TV I did it Philippe like here is a tour guide from Paris who has done the route dozens of times on his Harley can you poor thing I think that we French people fit pretty well here we get a good reception at first there was a bit of surprise because people wonder why we came from so far away to drive out a cycle then pass a surprise there is a form of respect that pretty quickly evolves into friendship we make friends on route 66 so we'll all go home actually I had the image of very busy people extremely work oriented but to the contrary I found much more relaxed and very friendly people when we were on the road and the motorcycle

Channel: stevebel18

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Id: KfJba6IZC74

Length: 30min 42sec (1842 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016