Text by Tammie

    Steven Richie talks about eating on Route 66. Greg Laun talks about hitchhiking on Route 66. David Johnson talks about staying safe on Route 66. All three are part of the dozens of people who share their memories of Route 66 via touchscreen TVs in the new “Miles of Memories: Stories of Route 66” exhibit at the Illinois State Museum, 502 S. Spring St., in Springfield, Illinois. The “Miles of Memories” exhibit dovetails with the museum’s online “ Route 66 Oral History Collection .” " Miles of Memories” will be displayed through April 4, 2027. Admission is free, and the museum is open daily. More here .    

    Courtesy Rocio Abrego on Unsplash Route 66, the “Mother Road,” convincingly “speaks for herself” in Crystal Sershen’s new book “Dust & Dreams: Roadmap of the American Soul (A Memoir of the Mother Road, in Her Own Words).” The Mother Road is 100 in 2026, so it’s a perfect time for her to narrate her own experiences. "Dust & Dreams" is “fiction inspired by history.” “I echoed the paths of wagon trails, stagecoach runs, the Native American footprints laid down millennia before them – and my destiny was to connect the vital organs of the country with a new lifeblood that would transform it into one body, one nation, one people,” “Dust & Dreams” says. “I wasn’t to be just a road. I was to be a bridge between past and future, between ruin and rebirth.” More is here .

    Route 66 State Park in Eureka, Missouri, is the product of ruins. Ruins of a beach, a road and a bridge.   n   The town of Times Beach, established in 1926 on the beach along the Meramec, doesn’t exist anymore.   n   Route 66 Meramec River Bridge, completed in 1932, is no longer a vehicular bridge.   n   Route 66, rerouted through Times Beach in 1933, is decommissioned.   More information is available here .  

  An author who has spoken about women workers on Route 66 has put her research into writing.   Author Cheryl Eichar Jett has released her book “Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66.”   In the book, Jett profiles dozens of women:   n   Like Ruby Angel Denton, owner and operator of the Golden Spread Grill in Groom, Texas.   n   Like Ola Soulsby, owner and operator with her brother of Soulsby Service Station in Mount Olive, Illinois.   n   Like Lillian Redman, matriarch of the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico.   There’s more here .  

  The symbolism of westward expansion is marked on the road in the U.S.   The Gateway Arch, the tallest man-made monument in the U.S., is along the most popular highway in the U.S. – Route 66.   The Gateway Arch has symbolized westward expansion for over 60 years with its stainless-steel structure that curves up at 630 feet on the riverfront in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.   The Gateway Arch is an iconic stop on the 100-year-old Route 66, a major road that follows a southwest diagonal arc of approximately 2,448 miles from Illinois to California. “The vision of renowned architect Eero Saarinen, the Arch commemorates Thomas Jefferson and St. Louis’ role in the westward expansion of the United States. Along with the Old Courthouse, it makes up Gateway Arch National Park,” the Gateway Arch’s Fact Sheet says. More is here .  

  The 500-pound fiberglass “Muffler Man” known as the Gemini Giant has moved along Route 66 in Wilmington, Illinois. In 1965, the 28-foot-tall Gemini Giant was at the parking lot of The Launching Pad restaurant at 810 E. Baltimore St. in Wilmington. It was located there for some 60 years. Today, the green Gemini Giant is at South Island Park entrance, 201 Bridge St., in Wilmington. South Island Park is along Route 66, now known as Route 53. The Gemini Giant remains a photo stop for Route 66 travelers. More about that here .