This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
For nearly six decades, Americans motored east to west (and west to east) on Route 66, stopping to explore roadside oddities, gobble up fries and burgers at greasy spoons, and sleep the road off in quirky motels.
It's the motels that dotted the well-traveled highway that have caught the fancy of filmmaker and producer Simon Cantlon, who is hoping to get his project, "The Motels of Route 66" motoring. To help give his dream some gas, Cantlon is running a Kickstarter campaign.
Cantlon explains the goal of his documentary:
[The] project will capture the spirit of these motels, both the thriving and the forgotten, in film, photographs and oral histories. We will document the motel owners stories, the iconic neon signs, the mid-century architecture and the travelers who stayed there then and now.
To help illustrate just how vivid and rich (and unsung) the history of the highway's motels, from Chicago to L.A. ("You see Amarillo/Gallup, New Mexico/Flagstaff, Arizona/Don't forget Winona/Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino" as the song goes), Cantlon has, with the help of the Route 66 Postcards Facebook page and the site Postcards from the Road, a set of vintage postcards showing several of the old motor-courts and lodges.
We pulled out all of the ones we found that were in the Golden State for a trip down the SoCal memory lane that was Route 66.
More about Route 66 on LAist:
The Kicks Stop Here: Route 66 Decertified This Day in 1985
West Hollywood Unveils Neon Signage in Honor of Route 66
On the Mother Road: Preservation Group to Launch Study of Historic Route 66
