Tuesday April 23, 2019

Road video and map – Williams, AZ to Henderson, NV

The final day of this road trip was, again, mainly driving as I journeyed back to the Las Vegas area in readiness for an early flight home tomorrow.

I made a couple of stops along the way. The most interesting was the Route 66 Museum in Kingman, AZ. Although small, this was a great find and detailed the “Mother Road” from its roots as Beale’s Wagon Road in 1857 to the family road trip of the 1960s. Fascinating historical maps of the route showed the hazards likely to be faced by families as they migrated west in the 1920s and 30s before the route was fully paved. The influence of the route on local communities, and the growth of local businesses and roadside attractions was documented and compared with the uniformity and blandness of today’s Interstate travel.

A bonus that I had not known about before entering the museum was that it also includes the only US museum of electric vehicles. Although EVs are considered the vehicle of the future this museum had them dating from 1907.

My other stop was to visit the walkway across the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge that offers great views of the Hoover Dam. The bridge was built to cross the Colorado River after 9/11 due to the security concerns of traffic driving over the dam. You can see the bridge in the video in my post of April 5.

The Route 66 Museum reflected the birth of a road west with Beale’s Wagon Road in 1857

to the peak of family travel along almost the same route in the 1960s.
This1930 Detroit Electric Model 60 on display in the EV museum had a range up to 200 miles on one charge, albeit with a top speed of just 20 mph.
There was also this 291 mph electric land speed record holder built by students at Ohio State University
The constant presence of railroads running parallel to Route 66 was represented by this Santa Fe Railroad locomotive just across the street from the museum.
The view of Hoover Dam from the new bridge.