One of Many Route 66 Museums

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In addition to the “national” Route 66 Museum, that is devoted to the entire 2,450 mile route, there are several museums that are state specific (or even town specific). Not too far up the road from the National Route 66 Museum is the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. Oklahoma has the distinction of being the state with the second-longest stretch of the Mother Road (four miles shorter than the 380 miles in New Mexico) and home to three museums. The Oklahoma Route 66 Museum is in Clinton, Oklahoma and has some amazing artifacts from not only the history of Route 66 but cross-country driving…and driving in general in those days. If you look at the lower left photo you can see one of the displays showing just how horrible roads were before the advent of the federal highway system and paved roads. (Oh, for the record, they still have lots of unpaved roads in Oklahoma: the El Reno memorial is on one such roach, and is reached by driving two other gravel roads. But they were in better shape than the road in that picture!) We joke about the conditions of our roads, true; however, even pothole-laden streets are better than an unpaved, muddy trail that the early drivers had to endure. The bottom right is one of those silly “roadside attractions” that would lure people off the highway and into the store. “Baby rattlers” (notice how rattler is misspelled)? Open the lid, and it’s a bunch of baby rattles. One of the hallmarks of Route 66 was the roadside diner. The photo in the upper right is one such diner. Although it’s not operational (if you remember when I was in Illinois last year I ate at the Cozy Dog, which dated back to the Route 66 days and is still serving food!), you can see what the typical diner looked like in those days. Then there’s the VW microbus (upper left). The joy of 60s hippies everywhere, it was the ultimate travel machine. This one on display was painted like many of the hippie microbuses were then: psychedelic or tie-dye patterns and peace symbols. (Editorial comment: VW now has an electric “ID Buzz” to try to recapture the glory of the old microbus. Doesn’t work for me!) For the “conservative” families, they also had part of a station wagon, the “minivan of the 60s.” I have enjoyed going through all of these Route 66 museums. Many are similar, but the uniqueness of each one shows how unique things were in each town the Main Street of America passed through. PHOTO COLLAGE: (Top left) VW Microbus on display (Top right) Typical diner from the Route 66 days (Bottom left) Photo of the terrible roads in the 1910s and 1920s (Bottom right) “Baby ratlers” (sic) joke barrel from one of the stores