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At the Texas–New Mexico line, a motel once welcomed travelers as the first stop in Texas or waved them off as the last. In Arizona, a rusted Studebaker sits beside a highway that has all but disappeared. And in Illinois, an early stretch of the Mother Road survives beneath a ribbon of red brick.
Route 66 changed course many times between Chicago and Southern California. When a new alignment or an interstate took over, some communities lost the traffic that had built them. Others held on to a single garage, bridge, or café. Across all eight Route 66 states, these 20 places reveal what happened to the road after the traffic moved on.
1. Glenrio, Texas–New Mexico
On the open plains at the state line, the old highway runs past the shuttered Little Juarez Diner and the remains of the Texas Longhorn Motel. The border once shaped where people spent their money. Gas stations clustered on the Texas side, where fuel taxes were lower, while bars operated on the New Mexico side because the Texas county was dry. A recently recreated First Stop in Texas / Last Stop in Texas neon sign brings back a little of the town’s roadside glow. The old buildings are best viewed from the public road.
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2. Two Guns, Arizona
Stone walls cling to the edge of Canyon Diablo at one of the strangest former roadside stops in Arizona. Two Guns once drew motorists with a trading post and a roadside zoo. Its most enduring structure is the concrete bridge, built in 1915 and later incorporated into an early alignment of Route 66. The ruins are on private property, so check posted signs and get permission before entering. The crumbling buildings and cave are best left alone.
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3. Roy’s Motel & Café in Amboy, California
A towering neon sign rises above a low row of motel cottages in the middle of the Mojave. That contrast is what makes Roy’s such a striking sight, especially when the sign lights up against the blue desert sky. Roy’s began as a service stop in 1938 and grew into a place where drivers could eat, refuel, and spend the night. The gas station serves travelers again, while the old cottages remain the backdrop to one of the road’s most photogenic stops.
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4. The Lost Roadbed in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
A weathered 1932 Studebaker sits near a line of old telephone poles, and at first it’s hard to see what they’re marking. Follow the poles with your eyes and the faint rise of the old roadbed comes into focus. This is where Route 66 crossed what is now Petrified Forest National Park. The car is part of an outdoor exhibit, and the pullout along the park road makes it easy to see how little of a highway needs to survive for you to trace it across the landscape.
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5. Cuervo, New Mexico
East of Santa Rosa, a church, a stone schoolhouse, and crumbling adobe walls sit within sight of Interstate 40. Route 66 once brought motorists into this former railroad community. Today, thousands of drivers pass close enough to see it and fast enough to miss it. The church is the most recognizable landmark, but the scattered walls give a better sense of how much of the town has disappeared. View the buildings from public roads and respect private property.
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6. The Jericho Gap, Texas
Before pavement reached this part of the Panhandle, the dirt stretch between Alanreed and Groom could turn to mud after rain. Drivers who had crossed miles of open country could suddenly find themselves stuck within sight of the next rise. Parts of the old alignment survive, though Interstate 40 interrupts the historic route. A guided tour can take you along surviving stretches and explain how a road that looked straightforward on a map earned such a bad reputation.
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7. Devils Elbow Bridge, Missouri
Route 66 feels unexpectedly secluded in this corner of the Ozarks. A steel truss bridge crosses the Big Piney River beneath the wooded Hiawatha Bluffs, where the road squeezes between the hills and the water. The bridge opened in 1923, before this stretch was designated Route 66. From the riverbank, the scale of the bluffs makes it easy to see why roadbuilders followed the valley and why drivers remember this bend long after they leave it.
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8. Texola’s One-Room Jail, Oklahoma
Near the Texas border, a small stone building with a barred opening stands at the western end of Texola. The town’s one-cell jail dates to 1910, so it was already here when Route 66 arrived. It’s an unusually compact reminder that the highway ran through places with their own history long before motorists came looking for gas, coffee, and a room for the night.
9. Spencer Station, Missouri
The general store, garage, café, and barbershop at Spencer are close enough together to take in from one spot. The store opened in 1926, followed by the garage and then the café and barbershop. Standing beside the old road, you can imagine how easily a stop for a repair could turn into lunch and a haircut. The buildings are being restored, with interiors generally open on weekends. The storefronts are worth the detour even when the doors are shut.
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10. The Bridgeport Pony Bridge, Oklahoma
The first few steel trusses give little hint of how many are still ahead. All 38 repeat across the wide South Canadian River, creating one of the most distinctive views from behind the wheel on Route 66. The bridge reopened after rehabilitation, with the historic trusses put back in place on a modernized crossing. The best way to appreciate the rhythm of the structure is to drive across it.
11. Goffs Schoolhouse, California
This one-room Mission-style schoolhouse looks remarkably formal against the open Mojave landscape. Built in 1914, it doubled as a library branch and a gathering place where residents held dances. An early alignment of Route 66 passed nearby, when Goffs was still part of the road trip through this stretch of desert. The restored schoolhouse now serves as a museum, and its community history offers a rare glimpse of what life was like between the filling stations and motels.
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12. The Former Town of Times Beach, Missouri
At Route 66 State Park near Eureka, the most surprising thing about the former town of Times Beach is how little of it you can see. Residents were bought out after dioxin contamination, and the site eventually became a state park. Start at the visitor center, housed in the former Bridgehead Inn, a 1935 roadhouse. Its exhibits help you picture the community that once occupied this stretch of the Meramec River.
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13. Rainbow Bridge Near Baxter Springs, Kansas
Two pale concrete arches rise over Brush Creek a few miles north of Baxter Springs. Built in 1923, the bridge is the last surviving example of its distinctive Marsh Rainbow Arch design on Kansas’s stretch of Route 66. A newer crossing carries most local traffic. That leaves the old bridge quiet enough to notice the curve of the arches, the low railings, and just how narrow a road once carried travelers across the country.
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14. Old Ludlow, California
In Ludlow, three generations of desert transportation sit within a short distance of each other. Freight trains still use the railroad corridor, Interstate 40 carries modern traffic, and the old Route 66 strip holds the remains of the cafés and service stations that once caught passing drivers. The faded roadside buildings are the reason to take the old road through town. From there, the geography explains the story without much help from a historical marker.
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15. Lucille’s Service Station Near Hydro, Oklahoma
At Lucille’s, the upstairs living space projects over the service bay, so the building itself shelters the pumps. Lucille Hamons lived and worked here for nearly six decades, keeping the business going even after Interstate 40 drew away much of the traffic. The historic station still stands beside the old highway, where its unusual shape tells you how closely home and work could overlap for a family making a living on Route 66.
16. The Auburn Brick Road, Illinois
At Snell and Curran roads near Auburn, red brick curves between farm fields where you’d expect an ordinary paved lane. The most interesting detail is easy to miss. This corridor carried Route 66 early in its history, but the brick surface visible today was added after the highway designation shifted east. What survives is a record of two different road projects in one short drive.
17. McLean’s Phillips 66 Station, Texas
McLean was home to the first Phillips Petroleum station in Texas. Opened in 1929, the little filling station looks more like a cottage than the sprawling fuel stops that now serve the interstate. A few streets away, the Devil’s Rope Museum pairs a collection devoted to barbed wire with Route 66 exhibits. It’s an unexpected combination that makes sense in a Panhandle town shaped by both ranch country and the highway.
18. Budville Trading Post, New Mexico
The low building at Budville was once the kind of place a driver remembered when something went wrong. Bud and Flossie Rice started with a garage and service station in 1928, then expanded into a store and trading post. Bud also ran a towing service, a valuable business on a long stretch of highway with few places to get help. The trading post is closed, but its roadside exterior still marks where travelers once found supplies and repairs.
19. Odell’s Standard Oil Station and Pedestrian Tunnel, Illinois
Odell’s restored 1932 filling station has the pitched roof and front canopy of a small house. The less obvious stop is at Hamilton and West streets, where the entrance to a former pedestrian tunnel recalls how busy Route 66 became. People used the passage to get beneath the highway near St. Paul’s Church. Seeing the station and the tunnel entrance on the same visit gives you both sides of the story, from the motorists passing through to the people who had to cross their road.
20. El Garces in Needles, California
With its long colonnade and formal façade, El Garces looks grander than you might expect from a stop in a desert railroad town. It served as a Santa Fe depot and Harvey House, feeding rail passengers as well as motorists traveling the roads that preceded and became Route 66. The Harvey House closed in 1949, and the city later acquired the building after a local preservation campaign. Its scale is the thing to see. It belongs to a moment when a stop in Needles could mean a proper meal served on china.