{"id":43,"date":"2026-05-25T04:08:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2026-05-25T04:08:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:08:54","slug":"the-forgotten-history-of-bloody-66-and-how-public-memory-helps-perpetuate-traffic-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"The Forgotten History of ‘Bloody 66’ And How Public Memory Helps Perpetuate Traffic Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A century ago, businessmen, automobile clubs, and politicians came together to form the U.S. 66 Highway Association. Unlike the congestion-obsessed highway-builders of today, they wanted<\/em> traffic, which they saw as synonymous with a burgeoning, mass-motoring public who would spend money in their towns. They even advertised Route 66 as \u201cMain Street of America.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read more Op-Ed: Summer in Berlin Changes Perspective on Cars<\/a><\/p>\n

Known as an \u201call-year-all-weather-road\u201d and the \u201cMother Road,\u201d Route 66 was 200 miles shorter than any other transcontinental railway or highway at the time, making it the speediest route between Chicago and Los Angeles, the Association bragged. It was also touted as an economic engine, generating new jobs for men to lay asphalt across the country. More importantly, though, it was an opportunity to mythologize an enduring new idea: America\u2019s \u201copen road.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as with all myths, many people are left out of frame. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t really the fun, happy place we think of when we look back at the \u2018good ole days,’\u201d wrote Barry Duncan in his pictorial book Route 66: A Trail of Tears<\/em>, which compiles the work of car crash photographer and Carthage, Mo. mayor William Carl Taylor. \u201cMany were maimed or killed during the existence of Route 66.\u201d <\/p>\n

The title of Duncan\u2019s book may be an insensitive reference to the forced displacement of American Indian tribes from the South and Southeast, but there\u2019s no doubt that Route 66 has a long and violent history of its own. The author served in the Carthage, MO police force between 1977 and 2009, and claims to have witnessed over 2,000 wrecks personally, in addition to curating Taylor\u2019s grisly collection in his book. <\/p>\n

And that collection speaks to those tragedies stark terms. Fender benders stand next to piles of unrecognizable rubble. Cabs are literally flattened. Dozens stand around overturned vehicles. A service station entrance is smashed. Civilians help carry stretchers to ambulances. Police officers stare at cars from a distance and write on notepads. A girl cries.<\/p>\n

One crash that particularly haunted Duncan involved a family called the Ruminers. In 1957, they were traveling Route 66 from Washington State to their relatives\u2019 home in Mississippi for Christmas. On their way, they were crushed in a Ford sedan by an oncoming truck. The 28-year-old parents and their six-year-old twins were killed, leaving one child to survive with a fractured pelvis and foot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the media circus for Route 66\u2019s centennial celebration this year, though, these kinds of stories remain mostly hidden \u2013 and the road\u2019s once well-known nickname, \u201cBloody 66,\u201d is almost nowhere to be found. <\/p>\n

At the Missouri History Museum\u2019s Route 66 festival, for instance, ten pristine vintage cars line the front drive. A rockabilly tune fills the main lobby. Neon signs make a dark room glow. Placards trace the origins of \u201cthe concrete ribbon to adventure,\u201d its local landmarks, and the challenges it posed to Black, queer, and Jewish travelers. You learn about the first McDonald\u2019s west of the Mississippi, the birth of the Phillips 66 gasoline brand, and motor cottages. <\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t learn nearly as much about Route 66\u2019s bodycount. In 1941, for instance, a single short stretch of the Mother Road near the Army training installation of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri claimed the lives of 54 people in just nine months, including 19 American soldiers. <\/p>\n

The National Museum of Transportation in suburban St. Louis, too, highlights local landmarks associated with the highway while largely ignoring its bloodshed. On display is a replica of the silver steamer S.S. Admiral, <\/em>which travelers may have seen bridging the Mississippi. Drive-in theaters are featured, as \u201cthey symbolized freedom of the open highway, mid-century American design, community gathering spaces, and the romance of the open road.\u201d <\/p>\n

In another building, an exterior wall of the Coral Court Motel, impressively reconstructed, stands in a corner. Ten cars, one for each decade, face viewers as they might have once in a dealer\u2019s window.<\/p>\n

Read more Friday\u2019s Headlines Are in Decline<\/a><\/p>\n

To some, the story of Highway 66 is the story of a lost America. Route 66 represents a simpler, slower time before the Interstate, nostalgia for cross-country motoring in proximity with tree canopy, town squares, rivers, and diners. It represents postwar prosperity and adventure too; as Missouri History Museum Curator Sharon Smith says, \u201cIt is about finding hope in the west for the early years and excitement of Midwesterners traveling to the coast of California.\u201d <\/p>\n

The images Duncan published, though, present a shadow narrative. Greyhound buses and youngsters with bikes, generally left out of Route 66\u2019s frame, enter it. The Studebaker is dented. The ambulance looms underneath the Phillips 66 sign. <\/em>The girl is crying. <\/p>\n

Americans aren\u2019t supposed to die on Main Street.\u00a0But many did \u2013\u00a0and still do. <\/p>\n

The year Highway 66 opened 23,400 US residents died in motor vehicle crashes, more than 20 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the National Safety Council. In 1953, fatalities ballooned to 37,956, or 24 deaths per 100,000 in the U.S. <\/p>\n

So what responsibility do the stewards of public memory have to account for the scale of automobile violence on America\u2019s most iconic highway? And how does that responsibility shift when motorists are still killing nearly 37,000 people per year on US roads today \u2014\u00a0and when the automakers and oil companies who continue to fuel that killing still have their advertisements reproduced in centennial retrospectives? <\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the Missouri History Museum\u2019s exhibit offers at least one anecdote of an \u201caccident,\u201d and Smith assures that the perils of the road were addressed in a fuller exhibit in 2016. But overall, these stories are footnotes amidst what otherwise seems like a glowing tribute to automobility. <\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to look far to find evidence of Route 66\u2019s dark side \u2014\u00a0or the many human lives it\u2019s claimed. One Sedalia news article reports that First Lieutenant George Orchard of Richmond, VA died in a head-on collision on Highway 66 in 1941; he was the 21st soldier to be killed by cars within a year in the vicinity of Fort Leonard Wood, which the highway serves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Widening the frame of Route 66 matters, too, because of how deadly legacy highways remain to this day. <\/p>\n

For instance, on Gravois Avenue in St. Louis \u2014 which includes a portion of Historic 66 \u2014 22 people were killed and 1,000 injured in car crashes between 2020 and 2024 alone. Meanwhile, the US Department of Transportation has rescinded a memorandum outlining how to improve legacy highways through Complete Streets, a toolkit that can keep humans safe in and outside of cars.<\/p>\n

As DOT Secretary Sean Duffy calls for a \u201cGolden Era\u201d of transportation that coalesces around the \u201cFreedom to Drive,\u201d public memory plays an even greater role in confronting the deadly costs of \u201cfreedom\u201d on the open road. We owe it to the dead not to forget. <\/p>\n

Read more Spirit\u2019s Shutdown Exposes America\u2019s Fragile Affordable Travel System<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Centennial events downplay the violent history of one of America’s most “iconic” highways, and obscure how that violence persists to this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Forgotten History of ‘Bloody 66’ And How Public Memory Helps Perpetuate Traffic Violence - Urban Atlas Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=43\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Forgotten History of ‘Bloody 66’ And How Public Memory Helps Perpetuate Traffic Violence - 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