Route 66 Hauled to Smithsonian

December 20, 2000 10:38 AM, EST

In a twist of fate that finds the road riding the truck instead of the truck riding the road, three flatbed trucks carried sections of old Route 66 from Oklahoma to the nation’s capital.

	Peter Harpin
	A section of Route 66 is loaded onto a flatbed trailer, beginning its long trek to Washington, D.C. More info on Truckline.

A two-mile stretch of historic roadway, cut into 8-by-11-foot sections, was delivered Dec. 13 to the Smithsonian Institution’s facility in Silver Hill, Md., as part of a transportation exhibition planned for 2003.

U.S. Highway 66 — more popularly known as Route 66 — was one of the earliest paved highways to cross a significant portion of the United States. Its lore is embedded in the nation’s culture, said Andrew Heymann, the Smithsonian’s project manager. Associations have sprung up nationwide, dozens of state and national Web sites are devoted to the road and songs, books and TV shows glorify it, he said.

The exhibition will include transportation in America since the mid-1870s with a special section dedicated to Route 66, Heymann said. “Having artifacts like the pavement would add to the exhibition’s authenticity.”

For the full story, see the Dec. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.