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Design Drawings For Signs On Route 66 To Be Preserved

AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan

Designs for signs that were advertising businesses along historic Route 66 have been found and preserved. Some of the route's history can be seen in a tiny corridor in Kansas.

Route 66 was one of the first highways in the U.S. It ran from east to west – Chicago to Santa Monica.

From 1926 until Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, the highway was a migratory path, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and much later as a touristy road to American sites for vacationers.

Along the road grew gas stations and restaurants and a motel that became popular.

Route 66 only passes through Kansas for 12 miles, but the corridor has Baxter Springs' Phillip 66 gas station – with its cottage style building and steeply sloping red roof -- the Brush Creek Marsh Arch Bridge, William's Store in Riverton and the Galena Viaduct.

Many of the design sketches for the highway's mostly neon signs will be preserved in Albuquerque.

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Aileen LeBlanc is news director at KMUW. Follow her on Twitter @Aileen_LeBlanc.

 
To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

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