Leave the old road alone

Terry Beck sent me this disturbing news from his site. Apparently a historic, several-hundred-foot section of the 9-foot-wide “sidewalk” highway of Route 66 near Afton, Okla., was being paved over with asphalt Monday near the Vo-Tech school.

In an entry titled “Sacrilege on Sixty-Six,” Beck wrote:

Imagine our surprise when the entrance off of the newer 66 to this wonderful old pavement was blocked by the county road crew.  Imagine even  more of a surprise that they were paving over some of the orginal 9 foot sections with the famous white curbs.  I asked the man in the van if we could go around the back way over the old bridge and he said yes, but they would be through paving in an hour if we wanted to come back.  I asked him about paving our beloved Mother Road and he said they were just going as far as the Vo-Tech school.

I drove around the other way and captured these rare photos of the sacrilege of Sixty-Six.  The fellow on the roller was not fond of my camera and I caught him in the middle-finger salute, maybe he was a bit ashamed of his actions.  Actually, I do not hold these guys to blame but it sure did hurt to see the damage done.  I remembered back to my first time to find this piece of history and how fun it was discovering it and following it down its’ length.

Here’s a couple of pictures Beck shot during the road work:

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Granted, there are still several miles of the original 1922 pavement left in the area. And although the sidewalk highway section near Miami, Okla., has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1995, apparently the section near Afton is not.

But even with the intact sections, I’ve personally seen local road crews use a blade to maintain the shoulders and ding up the original concrete curbs pretty badly.

Given the historic nature and the tourism draw of that old road, you’d think the local highway guys and the school would know better.

UPDATE: I received an e-mail on Thursday from Michael Taylor of the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. He is trying to contact local officials and preservationists to form a plan so that something like this won’t happen again.

(Photos courtesy of Terry Beck)