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# Getting kicks on Route 66
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/getting-kicks-on-route-66/
- Published: 2007-11-05T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T03:49:30.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Pier, #archive-import, Homeless

“WHY DON’T YOU WRITE ABOUT Route 66,” Santa Monica Police Homeless Liaison Program officer, Josh Hall, asked me a couple weeks ago at the Santa Monica Police Department’s Pier Substation? “When we’re on duty, do you know how many people stop us and ask where the end of Route 66 is? It’s unreal.”

Hall and his partner, Steve Wong, think that Route 66 should be clearly designated with better signage and U.S. 66 historical route markers at the terminus. “There are a lot of tourists here looking for Route 66 and it should be better marked,” Wong says, referring to a small ground level “tombstone-style” plaque in Palisades Park at the end of Santa Monica Boulevard.

Just after our discussion, an older Englishman came into the substation and asked, “Do you know where the end of Route 66 is?" It turns out he and some friends wanted to rent Harley-Davidsons and follow it back to Chicago.

There’s something about the historic U.S. Highway 66 that fires people’s imagination, especially foreign tourists who visit the Visitors Center in Palisades Park or SMPD Pier substation looking for information. To many, it’s a symbol of the old west, adventure and wanderlust -— a trip back to a historic and nostalgic yesterday.

According to Hall and Wong, tourists drive on the pier, with maps in hand looking for the “end of 66.”

“There’s little literature available and without clearly marked signs, they ask lifeguards, harbor patrol staff and SMPD staff at the Pier substation,” says Wong. Although, maybe symbolically at the end of the Pier, in actuality, the real end of U.S. 66 is at one of two other Santa Monica locations.

U.S. 66 is no longer a designated highway having been decommissioned on June 27, 1985, says Wikipedia.com. Much of the original route still exists under various Federal or State highway designations in many of the eight states and 2,448 miles it traversed. It’s marked in many places by historic Route 66 road markers.

The eastern end of Route 66 has moved a few times. Originally, it began on Jackson Boulevard at Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois according to the Historic66.com Web site. "In 1933, the start and end was moved east onto reclaimed land for the Chicago World’s Fair to Jackson and Lake Shore Drive.”

There’s confusion as to where the western end of Route 66 is, too. On the California end, the original 1926 terminus of U.S. 66 was at Broadway and Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles. It was extended to Santa Monica in 1936\. A number of sources, such as roadtripusa.com, claim U.S. 66 ends, “Near where Santa Monica Boulevard dead-ends at Ocean Boulevard (sic). A brass plaque marks the official end of Route 66, the “Main Street of America,” also remembered as the “Will Rogers Highway.”

But, the real western end of Route 66 is not in Palisades Park after all. Rather, it’s at the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln boulevards. The historic66.com website says that the last leg of Route 66 from downtown Los Angeles “is on Santa Monica Boulevard and Lincoln where tourists are advised to turn left to Olympic." Wikipedia and Geocities claim “it terminated into what was at the time U.S.-101 ALT... (Lincoln at Olympic) a segment of California State Route 1.”

Route 66 is an international cultural icon. It was a key element in John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer prize winning book, “The Grapes of Wrath." Steinbeck referred to it as “the Mother Road.” It inspired classic songs such as the 1946 hit, “(Get your kicks) on Route 66" The popular 1960- 1964, hit CBS network television show “Route 66” featured two young men in a Corvette looking for adventure on the iconic highway. Numerous movies, songs and television shows have been set on or have paid homage to it.

I agree with Officers Hall and Wong that something more conspicuous and definitive than a brass plaque in Palisades Park is needed. I like Wong’s idea of a large sign on the Pier, near the Pier Substation and Bubba Gumps, that would provide a photographic backdrop for tourists and visitors. The sign could feature a map, a brief history of the road and direct people to Palisades Park or Olympic and Lincoln.

In addition to the plaque in Palisades Park, a larger “End U.S. 66” road marker would be appropriate on Ocean Avenue at Santa Monica Boulevard and/or possibly a secondary marker at Olympic and Lincoln — that’s unless the controversy of where the road really ends is resolved or the place “where the American dream begins and ends” is officially designated.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 5, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/110507.pdf?ref=smdp.com)