Route 66

This engaging look at the "Mother Road" takes 75 locations along its 2,297 mile route from Chicago to Santa Monica and shows them first during their halcyon heydays through black-and-white photographs and period postcards, then on the facing page as they appear today.

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For several decades, Route 66 was the nation's main east-west thoroughfare, pointing Middle America toward all the promise California seemed to hold at various times, whether permanent refuge from the Dust Bowl or a temporary escape from the drudgery of everyday life during more prosperous times. As such, America's Main Street once teemed with activity...bustling centers of commerce that evaporated into the vast American landscape like the jet contrails overhead and the heat rising from the Interstate asphalt. This engaging look at the Mother Road takes 75 locations along its entire 2,297 miles between Chicago to Santa Monica and shows them first during their halcyon heydays through black-and-white photographs taken for period postcards, then on the facing page as they appear today, from the exact same angle and also with black-and-white photographs. Each two-page spread is accompanied by a detailed 150-word caption tracing the locale's rise and fall, as well as an inset map pointing out its location along Route 66.