Route 66 in Amarillo

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every great road has a nickname, and some roads earn two. Route 66 picked up a pair that stuck hard: the Main Street of America and the Mother Road.

Not bad for a stretch of pavement, not bad at all. This was the first paved transcontinental highway in the United States, running all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, coast to coast, promise to promise. And if you were driving that route through Texas, you had yourself 177 miles of panhandle country spread across seven counties before you were through.

Seven counties. The land out here has a way of making you feel both free and very, very small. Route 66 was popular with automobile tourists, and you can imagine why.

There was something about having a road, a real paved road, that just invited people to go. Now, along that entire Texas stretch, Amarillo stood alone as the only large urban city on the route. The only one.

So when travelers came rolling through, Amarillo was the place, the stop, the exhale. And the road left its mark. Sixth Street and the San Jacinto area in Amarillo grew and developed with Route 66 running right through the heart of things.

In 1994, that area was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and it's become the focus of local preservation efforts ever since. Some roads, when they're gone, they're just gone. But the Mother Road has a way of hangin' on.

What the marker says

Commonly called the "Main Street of America" and also the "Mother Road," Route 66 became the first paved transcontinental highway in the U.S. spanning from Chicago to Los Angeles; the route in Texas crossed 7 panhandle counties over 177 miles. Route 66 was popular with automobile tourists. The road was important in the development of Sixth Street and the San Jacinto area in Amarillo, which was the only large urban city on the Texas route. In 1994 the area was listed in the National Register of historic places, and has become the focus of local preservation efforts. (1996)