Historic Route 66: Springfield Missouri to Tulsa

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Springfield Missouri

   Springfield, Missouri, calls itself the birthplace of Route 66, and the claim has a document behind it. On 30 April 1926 officials from Springfield sent a telegram proposing that the new highway from Chicago to Los Angeles be numbered 66, and the idea was accepted. The city of about a hundred and sixty-seven thousand grew up around the railroads and the highway, and many of the old motels and diners from the golden age still stand along St. Louis Street and College Street, with their neon signs and mid-century lines.

   Read the complete Springfield Missouri write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Springfield Missouri is where the day begins. Next is Galena Kansas.

2. 2. Galena Kansas

   Galena, Kansas, is the first or last town on the shortest stretch of Route 66 in any state, just thirteen miles in the south-east corner of Kansas, and the town makes the most of it. The name is Latin for lead ore, and the place was founded in the 1870s when miners struck rich lead and zinc deposits in the Tri-State District, which spread across Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The boom made it a rowdy town of thousands, and the legacy remains in the huge piles of mine waste, known as chat, which still stand on the horizon, and in the contaminated ground that has taken decades to clean up.

   Read the complete Galena Kansas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Galena Kansas comes up about 135 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tulsa.

3. 3. Tulsa

   Tulsa grew rich on oil, and it still carries the confidence of a city that once called itself the Oil Capital of the World. In the 1920s the fields around it produced fortunes, and the money went into buildings, so that the downtown skyline is one of the best collections of Art Deco architecture in the United States, with ornate towers and a church, Boston Avenue Methodist, that looks like a cathedral from the future. A seventy-six-foot statue of an oil driller, built for an exposition and known as the Golden Driller, stands on the fairgrounds with one hand on a derrick, and the locals love him.

   Read the complete Tulsa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 312 km.