Along Route 66

By Quinta Scott

Book Overview

It was the way out. Invented on the cusp of the depression, Route 66 was the road out of the mines, off the farm, away from troubled Main Street. It was the road to opportunity. Between 1926 and 1956, many people from the southern and plains states trekked west to California on Route 66, the Mother Road. Some never reached California. Instead, they settled along the road, building restaurants, tourist attractions, gas stations, and motels. The architecture of each structure reflected regional building traditions and the difficulties of the times. The designs of buildings and signs served as invitations for passing travelers to stop, fill their tanks, have a bite, and stay the night. Along Route 66 describes the architectural styles found along the highway from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, and pairs photos with stories of the buildings and of the people who built them, lived in them, and made a living from them. With striking black-and-white images and unforgettable oral histories of this rapidly disappearing architecture, Quinta Scott has docomented the culture of America's most famous road.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806132507
• ISBN13: 9780806132501
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.9" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

A review of her own book from the author

This book is a great read-along guide book of stops on the highway. Take it with you and you will learn about the places on the highway and the people who built them.

Route 66 personified...

While in a different vein than her previous book about Route 66 (Route 66: The Highway and Its People) Quinta Scott has successfully captured the feeling and vision of what Route 66 has become to many -- the soul of America. Her black and white photographs, some taken in the early 1980s, some taken in the late 1990s, depict an essence of nostalgia toward "The Mother Road" that is just now being widely realized amongst a cross-section of America. State Route 66 Associations have been working together to preserve and protect this long ribbon of a historic monument, and Quinta Scott's book can aid in those efforts. This is your history, America. Read it, look at it, and remember it!