Illinois
157
It winds from Chicago
to L.A. Over 2,000 miles
along the way.
Get your Kicks on Route 66!
A
-Bobby T
roup, 1945
Continued Page 33
Produced & Printed In The USA • Keeping You On The Mother Road • 2012-2013
31
STATE MAP - ILLINOIS
s the song says, Route
66 begins in Chicago. However,
the song does not say why, nor
does it tell us an important fact:
without Chicago there would be
no Route 66! To tell the story
of how Route 66 was born,
we need to look much further
back—to 1834, when Chicago
was incorporated as a village
with a population of 350.
Back in 1834, Chicago
was little more than a swamp,
but its namesake river was
to become part of a chain of
waterways linking New York
City with the American frontier.
A canal was to be built linking
the Chicago River—that flowed
into the Great Lakes via Lake
Michigan—to the Illinois River, a
tributary of the Mississippi River
system. To the east, the Erie
Canal and the Hudson River
connected NYC to the Great
Lakes. Chicago was the transfer
point between lake traffic and
the vast reaches of the western
half of the continent. With the
promise of great future wealth in
mind, people flocked to swampy
Chicago in search of a dream of
better days.
The Illinois & Michigan Canal
opened in 1848, and that same
year saw the completion of
Chicago’s first railroad. While
the canal was the reason for
Chicago’s existence, it was
the railroad that led to the
city becoming the Gateway to
the West. Twenty-three trunk
line railroads radiated out of
Chicago like spokes from a
wheel hub. All eastern railways
terminated in the Windy City,
where passengers could board
western trains bound for the
frontier and the Pacific Coast.
Many of those—the Chicago
Northwestern, the Rock Island,
and the Acheson, Topeka &
Santa Fe—promised by the
early 20th century to deliver
passengers
from
Chicago