Route 66: The Highway and Its People

Quinta Scott and Susan Croce Kelly pay homage to Route 66, the "great diagonal highway," in images and words that sharply evoke the past and flesh out the legend the highway has become. The two-lane blacktop--traveled in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, Bobby Troup's ever-popular postwar jazz tune, and a filmed-on-location television series of the '60s--is recalled in duotones of motels, cafes, gas stations, and trading posts, along with many of their owners. Interviews with the proprietors and the travelers they served, along with people like sign painter Jack Fuss and cave promoter Lyman Riley, provide much of the color.