Route 66 dedicated as National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in Chicago
The historic Route 66 was recognized Wednesday with a special dedication at Navy Pier.
The American Society of Civil Engineers dedicated the highway as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark at the event Wednesday morning. The group said it will recognize how the road impacted the development of modern America through commerce and tourism.
"This recognition honors not only extraordinary achievement, but also the vision and ingenuity that transformed a road into an enduring part of the American story," Nora Gainer, executive director of Civic Relations and Partnerships at the Art Institute of Chicago, said at the dedication ceremony.
American Society of Civil Engineers president Marsha Anderson Bomar, Assistant Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Tom Carney, and Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner William Cheaks Jr. also all attended the dedication ceremony.
There are only three other National Historic Civil Engineering landmarks in Chicago — one commemorating the event of the Reversal of the flow of the Chicago River in 1900, one honoring the Chicago water supply and its Lake Michigan intake system as designed by engineer Ellis Chesbrough, and one celebrating the Cortland Street trunnion-bascule drawbridge, which was the first of its kind, and which is now closed for a complex restoration effort.
The iconic Route 66, born officially as U.S. Highway 66 in 1926, ran more than 2,000 miles — connecting the West Coast to the Midwest by road for the first time. The Illinois portion stretches 301 miles, from Chicago to the Mississippi River.
Illinois was also the first state to complete its section of Route 66, Carney said at the event Wednesday.
The original route started along Jackson Boulevard in downtown Chicago. When Jackson Boulevard was made one-way eastbound in 1955, the Chicago path of Route 66 was split between that street and Adams Street a block to the north, starting and ending near the Art Institute of Chicago at Michigan Avenue.
To celebrate its centennial this year, the symbolic starting point of Route 66 was extended north and east to Navy Pier. The idea was to create a pier-to-pier connection for the highway, with Santa Monica Pier right outside of Los Angeles serving as the other terminus.
In Chicago, Route 66 goes on to follow Ogden Avenue through the city's West Side and near west suburbs, and heads southwest through downstate Illinois before crossing into Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before terminating in Southern California.
During the highway's glory days, Route 66 was a muse. "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" has been part of the American songbook since Nat King Cole first released it in 1946. Chuck Berry, a native of the Route 66 city of St. Louis, released a cover version in 1961.
In the literary realm, Route 66 is a powerful symbol in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath," representing a pathway to hope from the Dust Bowl.
Route 66 was decommissioned as a federal highway in 1985.
The National Historic Civil Engineering landmark dedication ceremony was set to be held at 10 a.m.
