Route 66 enthusiast and author Joe Sonderman said he recently acquired a DVD from an Albuquerque man of home-movie footage during a Route 66 trip in 1953 from Chicago to Los Angeles.
As Sonderman said on his Facebook account about the footage: “The Youtube quality doesn’t do it justice and it could stand some editing. But it is still freakin sweet.”
I agree.
I saw glimpses of the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield; Will Rogers Memorial; the Oklahoma towns of Yukon and El Reno; the steep descent to the South Canadian River valley in Oklahoma; the Pony Bridge near Bridgeport, Okla.; Boulder Dam in Nevada; the lights of the Las Vegas Strip; and Cajon Pass near Los Angeles.
If you see other sites that I missed, please add your piece in the comments section.
Wow! What a gem!
One thing that struck me was how different the billboards look!
I’m looking up “Ed Kirker” online and not finding much, but that sign after Cajon Pass clearly had his name on it. It looked to be in the Fontana / Rialto area from what I could tell.
Also, the mountainous scenery almost had to be the approach to Flagstaff, and I believe that after that piney look we saw the hill down to Ash Fork.
What an amazing video!! This kind of footage make my day…
Great stuff!
Super awesome footage, you’re so right wendyvee, gorgeous billboards (in a time when they were painted, had shape, style and in some cases even were landscaped), not to mention all those cool old cars. Nice stuff, would make a great clip in a Museum for all to see!
Wow. Yukon Flour looks much the same, according to this picture https://www.legendsofamerica.com/PicturePages/66OK-OKC-6-YukonBestFlour.html
I noticed that, too. Of course, few were brave enough to climb up there to alter it. 😉
Good stuff. Not much of these things around anymore.
One of my pet peaves are people using language to avoid saying something, my God, might offend someone or thing. Point here, I was looking for someone to say ‘back in the day’ vie, using that toxic and radioactive ‘back in the old days’ phrase.
If you check around, you don’t see ‘old days’ being used much if all. It’s as if your insulting some unknown age force out there ready to pounce on you. It’s funny how spoken English changes every generation as if that is what will always divide us as a nation, and as a people.
How does that tie into an old Route 66ish home movie? Guess because if the folks who actually were breathing the air then heard the English we’re using to detail the film they would probably not understand most of it.