When the federal government began planning Interstate 40 in the late 1950s, the routing decisions it made would determine which Route 66 towns survived and which ones didn’t. The general principle was efficiency — the new highway should be as straight as possible, which meant bypassing the curves and detours of the old road.
Flagstaff, Arizona, was large enough and important enough as a regional hub that the interstate was routed through it rather than around it. But many of the smaller towns between Flagstaff and Albuquerque were not so lucky, and some of them didn’t survive the transition.
What makes Flagstaff interesting in the Route 66 story is what happened to it after the interstate came. The city could have abandoned the old alignment of Route 66 entirely and let it become another anonymous stretch of commercial frontage road. Instead, parts of the old route through downtown were preserved, maintained, and eventually celebrated. The Weatherford Hotel, built in 1900, still stands on the old alignment. The Orpheum Theater, built in 1917, still operates.
Flagstaff also has Northern Arizona University and the Lowell Observatory, where Pluto was discovered in 1930, which gives it an intellectual weight that most Route 66 towns lack. It sits at 7,000 feet elevation, which means it gets snow in months when the lower desert is warm.
If you drive Route 66 through Flagstaff slowly and look at the right things, you can see three or four distinct versions of the same town layered on top of each other — the frontier town, the Route 66 town, the college town, and the outdoor recreation destination — all coexisting in a way that most American cities never manage.
The road runs through all of them at once.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
BY ENTERING THIS WEBSITE YOU MUST BE AND CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE OF LEGAL DRINKING AGE IN THE COUNTRY THAT YOU ARE IN AND LEGALLY PERMITTED TO VIEW THESE PAGES.
This info is all part of our commitment to responsible drinking.
