Perhaps the most famous highway in the country, U.S. Highway 66 once spanned nearly 2,500 miles of road between Chicago and Los Angeles. Officially designated on November 11, 1926, "Route 66" had its road signs erected the following year. One of the first paved high- ways in the nation, it was given many nick- names, and underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime. "The Great Diagonal Way" originally traversed 2,448 miles across eight states including Illinois (301 mi.), Missouri (317 mi.), Kansas (13 mi.), Oklahoma (432 mi.), Texas (186 mi.), New Mexico (487 mi.), Arizona (401 mi.), and California (314 mi.). Even though its signage was in place for more than a decade, the highway was not fully paved from end- to-end until 1937. Route 66 travelers, both then and now, owe a debt of gratitude to Cyrus Stevens Avery (1871-1963) from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fondly nicknamed the "Father of Route 66," Avery was born in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania. However, his family moved to Missouri in 1881, where Avery was raised on his family's farm until he went off to William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. Graduating four years later, he soon married Essie McClelland, a fellow Missourian. In 1902, the new couple moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they resided for most of their lives. During his early years in Tulsa, Avery began a realty firm and a coal company. Eventually acquiring oil leases, this successful businessman's zeal for developing roads & highways naturally followed. In fact, Avery’s lifelong dedication to the local good roads movement in Oklahoma instilled within many others a desire to create national highways stretching across the continent. Believing that well-planned and maintained roads and a system of interstate highways would bring prosperity to his town and his state, Avery joined and avidly promoted several transcontinental road associations during the first 2 decades of the 20th century. He desperately desired a route passing from the Midwest, connecting cities and bringing prosperity to the West, and more specifically, his hometown of Tulsa. Along with John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, Cyrus Avery stridently promoted the idea of an interregional link between Chicago and Los Angeles. Their lobbying efforts paid off when their dreams finally merged with the improved, comprehensive national program of highway & road development that was enacted by Congress in 1925. Afterwards, it is said that Avery was adamant that the new highway have a round number & that he originally preferred the number "60" for the long stretch of new highway. When controversy erupted, however, he purportedly settled for the as-yet unassigned double-digit number of "66," believing that "Route 66" would be easy to remember as well as pleasant to say and hear.
This collection of color coordinated fashion fabrics is from Vogue Fabrics By Mail Transition 2011. Order a subscription for home delivery of the entire catalog, or order individual fabrics on-line.
This collection of color coordinated fashion fabrics is from Vogue Fabrics By Mail Transition 2011. Order a subscription for home delivery of the entire catalog, or order individual fabrics on-line.
