A Guide Book to Highway 66: A Facsimile of the 1946 First Edition

by Jack D. Rittenhouse

Book Overview

This is an exact facsimile of the first guidebook of its kind to the full length of the famous Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was first published in 1946. Route 66 is part of American history now, and this guide is useful for those who wish to follow the old road in lieu of driving on the interstate highways that have replaced it. The book is divided into nine sections, corresponding to the journeys between stops by the average motorist...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826311482
• ISBN13: 9780826311481
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.6" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A window to the past you travelling

First off, this book is not a map. It's a guidebook to Route 66 written in 1946. However, it's something you WILL want on any Route 66 trip. Why? Because you'll be passing ruins and dried-up blown-away towns, and this book was there before they blew away. This book will tell you what you're seeing now though the eye of "then". Team this book up with the "Route 66 Adventure Handbook (3rd Ed) by Drew Knowles, and you'll really add something to your trip. We used the "Adventure Handbook" to tell us what's in each town now, then referred to the Rittenhouse to see what each town used to offer many years ago. It was facinating! Some towns offered so much back in '46, and today there's nothing there, or very little. Other towns seem to not have changed much in 60 years. I give it 5 stars for the history it will impart to you along the way. It's a cheap addition to anyone's arsenal for travelling Route 66, and one you really will be glad you had when you're done.

Fun historical kitsch guide

The road out west from Chicago to LA can be tedious at times, and this cheap and fun little guide was a great way to pass the time. It's an exact reprint of the 1946 first edition about HIghway 66. I was able to call out towns and gas stations that were now in a shambles or abandoned on the side of the road. Fun book, right price, and it made my trip more interesting.

Wonderful artifact of the dawn of automobile travel

This reproduction of the original 1946 guide to Route 66 is an invaluable companion for any trip on the Mother Road. Not only does it give you a feel for what the road was like at the dawn of America's love-affair with automobile traffic, but it gives you a feel for the psychology of those pioneers who attempted to drive the Route.While we're now accustomed to well-marked Interstates with easily located on and off ramps, early cross-country routes were less highway and more stitched and patched collections of local roads, filled in with connectors and dotted with small towns. The map was, in essence, the route itself. Following these early routes was not trivial, and drivers had to take caution not to find themselves stranded without food, lodging or fuel.Rittenhouse's guide was the first comprehensive effort to assuage fears of long-distance car travel, and provide a mile-by-mile guide to services and sights along Route 66. While most of the sites (and most of the services) he documents are long-gone, the sense of wonder that is Route 66, and the thrill of coasting into the cities through which it threads, remains fully intact. No one should drive Route 66 without a copy of this in the glove box. Doing so would rob your of a good deal of the road's history.Note to West Coasters: though the book is arranged from Chicago to LA, it can just as easily be read backwards for the Eastbound trip.

A fabulous read and a better drive!

This book reads like a good fireside friend, or an uncle, or even Tom Snyder in his famous Roadside Companion. It's a wonderful spin back in time to the period just before "Getting your kicks" became the American pastime, and provides a postcard view of the towns, cities and countryside that was America not so long ago. As an 8-time veteran of Route 66 roadtrips (and all within the last 5 years), I have to admit I'm chomping at the bit to get back out on the road and try to find traces of some of the landmark places and hamlets Rittenhouse has recorded in this highly usable travel guide. Kudos to the U of New Mexico Press for reissuing this book as a facsimile of the original (no updates save for a warm intro to the new edition by the author himself!), and doing so at a very accessible price point. A must have for any 66 roadie's collection.

An excellent source of "how it was" circa 1946

I picked up Jack Rittenhouse's book in the gift shop at Little America in Flagstaff. Although you would be hard pressed to make reservations at the Palace in Winslow, it gives an idea of what the traveler had for choices. Most of all it gives you a close up of the highway and its countryside.