Springfield: The beloved birthplace of Route 66

Chicago and Santa Monica might be Route 66's iconic endpoints, but Springfield is where the legendary name was born.

There's little in this unassuming corner in downtown Springfield, Missouri, to suggest that it's where one of the US's greatest road stories began. There's no grand monument or notable sign. In fact, you need to look carefully to spot the modest plaque marking the site of the long-demolished Colonial Hotel, where, in 1926, a group of highway officials convened in order to name the brand-new Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway.

A century on, the resulting two-digit moniker has become synonymous with American road culture.

The number fight that created a legend

To understand why Springfield matters, you have to go back to the creation of the US Numbered Highway System in the mid-1920s. Federal and state officials were trying to replace a confusing patchwork of named auto trails – routes with grand titles like the Lincoln Highway and the National Old Trails Road – with a standardised national network. The proposed Chicago-to-LA road, which would run through Springfield, was important: it would connect the Midwest to the Southwest and California, linking big cities, farming regions and small-town main streets across the country. Crucially, the new route would be marked with a number, not a name; part of a broader push to make cross-country driving easier to follow.

The trouble was the number. Cyrus Avery, the Oklahoma highway commissioner and one of the route's chief backers, originally wanted the road to be called US 60, a zero-ending designation that would have marked it as a major east-west highway. But Kentucky interests wanted that number for a different route that would run from coastal Virginia west to Springfield. As a consolation prize, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route was offered US 62. Avery hated it as the number lacked the status of a transcontinental route.

With the numbering dispute holding up the wider federal plan, Avery met on 30 April 1926 with Missouri highway official B H Piepmeier and others at Springfield's Colonial Hotel. Looking over the remaining options, the group settled on 66, an unassigned number they found more memorable and appealing than 62.

A telegram was quickly sent from Springfield to the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington DC. It read: "Regarding Chicago Los Angeles Road if California, Arizona, New Mexico and Illinois will accept sixty-six instead of sixty we are inclined to agree to this change. We prefer sixty-six to sixty-two."

The designation was approved on 11 November 1926 as part of the national highway map, and a legend was born.

Springfield's Route 66 essentials

What to do: Start at the History Museum on the Square to learn more about Springfield's role in the naming of Route 66. Don't miss Guy Mace's private collection of classic cars at the Route 66 Car Museum that brings Springfield's roadside story to life. Gary's Gay Parita is a recreated service........

© BBC