1.Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember. This week, we go for a ride through the colorful history of Route 66, a road that has been called "The Main Street of America.
2 . ”The idea for Route 66 started in Oklahoma. Citizens there wanted to link their state with states to the east and west. By the nineteen twenties, federal officials wanted to connect state roads to provide a shorter, faster way across the country. So a plan was developed to connect existing state roads into one long nationalhighway.
3.United States Highway 66 was established on November eleventh, nineteen twenty-six. It was one the first federal highways. It crossed eight states. It was three thousand eight hundred kilometers long. .Route 66 became the most famous road in America. It passed through the center of many cities and towns. It crossed deserts, mountains, valleys and rivers.
4. In the nineteen thirties, people suffered through the Great Depression. In Oklahoma, many poor families lost their farms because of dust storms. So they traveled west to California on Route 66 in search of a better life. In nineteen thirty-nine, John Steinbeck wrote about these families in "The Grapes of Wrath."
5. In his book, Steinbeck wrote: "66 -- the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map ... over the red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.”
6. Steinbeck wrote: "66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land … 66 is the mother road, the road of flight."
7. In nineteen forty-six, the songwriter Bobby Troup and his wife drove across the country to Los Angeles. He wrote a song about traveling on Route 66. The song told people they could have fun, could get their kicks, on that drive. In Los Angeles, Bobby Troup took the song to Nat King Cole, who recorded it. It became a huge hit.
8. In the nineteen fifties, holiday travel brought more and more families out West to explore. Route 66 represented the spirit of movement and excitement. In the nineteen sixties, Americans watched a popular television series called "Route 66." It was the story of two young men driving across the country.
9. The show was filmed in cities and towns across America. Yet only a few shows were filmed on the real Route 66. In real life, people were getting fewer and fewer kicks on Route 66. By nineteen sixty-two, parts of the road were closed because they were in poor condition.
10. The federal government was building bigger highways. Cars and trucks could travel at higher speeds. People started driving on these new interstate highways instead of the old Route 66.
11. Finally, in nineteen eighty-five, Route 66 was officially removed from the national highway system. People have formed groups to save parts of the old 66 and many of the interesting places to eat, stay and see along the way.
12. Award-winning writer Michael Wallis is an expert on the historic highway. He is the author of "Route 66: The Mother Road." Michael Wallis was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, right off the highway. He has lived in seven of the eight states along its path. His Web site, michaelwallis.com, has information and stories about the history of the Mother Road.
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