Route 66 Turns 100, But It Was Almost Route 60

Claim

Route 66 turns 100

Catch

THE SPARE NUMBER

Verdict

America's most famous road number was the spare

Route 66 turns 100 on 11 November 2026. It is the most famous number on any American road: the "Mother Road" of songs, motels and neon. The way it got that number is less romantic. The road was first given 60, lost it to Kentucky, was briefly 62, and ended up with a number nobody had planned to use.

Names, then numbers

In the early 1920s, America's long-distance roads were mostly known by names, not numbers: the Lincoln Highway, the Dixie Highway, dozens of rival "trails" marked by their boosters with painted signs on telephone poles, barns and rocks. In 1925 the Secretary of Agriculture, at the request of the state highway officials' association (AASHO), appointed a Joint Board on Interstate Highways, made up of officials from the federal Bureau of Public Roads and the states, to replace the names with a single numbered system.

The plan gave the great east-west routes numbers ending in zero. A committee of five, which included Cyrus Avery of Oklahoma and B. H. Piepmeier of Missouri, gave 60 to a road that curved from Chicago down through Missouri and Oklahoma to Los Angeles. The federal highway agency's own history points out that this broke the plan's logic, since 60 should have gone to a coast-to-coast route, and that three of the five committee members came from states on the road.

Kentucky objects

Kentucky's governor, William J. Fields, was furious. On 8 December 1925 he announced that Kentucky would ignore the new numbers, vowing to "fight this proposition of isolation." When he met the Bureau of Public Roads chief, Thomas MacDonald, in Washington on 25 January 1926, he made what MacDonald later called "the one logical argument": Kentucky was the only Mississippi Valley state without a route number ending in zero. The officials agreed to give 60 to the road from Newport News, Virginia, through Kentucky to Springfield, Missouri. Chicago to Los Angeles would become 62.

Missouri and Oklahoma were outraged. Piepmeier protested that Missouri had already printed and distributed 600,000 maps showing the original numbers. Avery wired that "we shall insist on Route Sixty from Chicago to Los Angeles." Compromises such as "60 North" and "60 East" were offered, and turned down.

A spare number

On 30 April 1926, Avery met Piepmeier in Springfield, Missouri. According to the federal account, Oklahoma's chief highway engineer, John M. Page, noticed that the number 66 had not been given to any route, and the two men telegraphed MacDonald: "We prefer sixty six to sixty two." Kentucky agreed in July, and on 11 November 1926 AASHO adopted the national numbering system, Route 66 included.

Springfield's local histories tell the meeting a little differently: they place it at John T. Woodruff's Colonial Hotel and include Woodruff, a Springfield businessman and road booster, among the men present. The federal history does not name him. Both agree the telegram went from Springfield, which is why the city calls itself the Birthplace of Route 66.

The catch

The number that became an American icon was not anyone's first choice. It was a leftover, picked to settle a fight over 60, and Kentucky kept the number it had fought for. Route 66 itself did not last forever either: the National Park Service notes that Interstate 40 at Williams, Arizona, replaced its final stretch in October 1984, and the highway was officially decommissioned in 1985.

Verdict

America's most famous road number was the spare.

Sources

• Richard F. Weingroff, "From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System," Federal Highway Administration, Highway History (updated 27 June 2017), based on AASHO and Bureau of Public Roads records.
• National Park Service, "Demise and Resurgence of Interest in Route 66," Travel Route 66 essay series.
• National Park Service, "Researching Route 66" (2023), which lists AASHO's 27 June 1985 notice "The Road Ends for Route 66."
• KY3 News, "Why Springfield, Missouri, is named the Birthplace of Route 66" (18 September 2025).

The images in the video are AI-generated illustrations, not archival photographs.

SOURCES

1. Richard F. Weingroff, "From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System," Federal Highway Administration (from AASHO and Bureau of Public Roads records)
2. National Park Service, "Demise and Resurgence of Interest in Route 66," Travel Route 66 essay series
3. National Park Service, "Researching Route 66" (2023)
4. KY3 News, "Why Springfield, Missouri, is named the Birthplace of Route 66" (September 2025)

AI-generated illustrations. No archival footage used.

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