There is little doubt that some communities, some sections of the highway corridor will survive and even thrive during the crisis as well as into the centennial and beyond. However, without the unified sense of purpose and of community made manifest in the U.S. Highway 66 Association, Route 66 itself can not survive. Simply put, we can no longer afford the luxury of myopia or a self serving focus. 

With the luxury of a half century of hindsight I can now see that the quest began in the summer of '69. That was when I began trading hours of my life for money. That was the summer that I began working for Ed of Ed's Camp on a long abandoned alignment of Route 66 in...

Organized in early 1927, the U.S. Highway 66 Association was similar in nature to many organizations and businesses established before the creation of the federal highway system to promote roads such as the  Lincoln Highway and the National Old Trails Highway. The association had two primary goals; lobby to have U.S. 66 fully paved from Chicago to its western terminus at Seventh and Broadway in Los Angeles, California and the development of marketing initiatives to promote tourism on the highway.