{ "item_title" : "Route 66's Strangest Stories", "item_author" : [" Elias R. Westmarsh "], "item_description" : "Some roads carry traffic. Route 66 carried dreams. For one hundred years, its pavement witnessed families searching for work, soldiers heading toward uncertain futures, travelers chasing California sunshine, and small-town entrepreneurs building lives around the sound of approaching engines. Behind its neon signs, diners, motels, desert landscapes, and roadside attractions are stories filled with courage, hardship, humor, ambition, mystery, and survival. Route 66's Strangest Stories travels beyond the familiar postcards to uncover 100 true and forgotten tales from America's most legendary highway. Readers wondering what is Route 66 or where is Route 66 will discover not only its path from Chicago toward the Pacific, but also the people, communities, businesses, crimes, accidents, legends, and unexpected landmarks that gave the road its lasting character. Inside, you'll discoverHow political arguments almost prevented the highway from receiving its famous numberWhy early motorists crossed mud, narrow bridges, dangerous curves, and desert stretches with little help nearbyThe migrants who carried entire households west in overloaded automobilesThe experiences of Black travelers who relied on safe businesses and carefully planned stopsStrange roadside giants, concrete animals, unusual museums, caves, craters, neon motels, and forgotten attractionsThe rise and decline of communities along route 66 oklahoma, route 66 arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California, and the MidwestHow williams route 66 became connected with the final interstate bypassThe roadside collections preserved in a route 66 museum and a route 66 car museumDocumented crimes, disappearances, accidents, and mysteries without presenting rumor as factThe songs, automobiles, television programs, films, maps, signs, and souvenirs that turned rt66 into an international symbolHow interstate highways emptied once-busy streets and threatened family-owned businessesThe residents and preservationists who refused to let the Mother Road disappearHow the 2026 centennial brought new attention to a road removed from the federal highway system decades earlierThese stories reveal a highway that was never only about freedom and adventure. Route 66 also carried inequality, displacement, economic struggle, dangerous travel, and difficult choices. Its history belongs to motel owners waiting beside empty rooms, mechanics repairing cars after dark, families sleeping near the roadside, artists transforming discarded objects, and communities learning how quickly progress could leave them behind. Warm, carefully researched, and filled with unforgettable details, this collection invites history lovers, travelers, trivia readers, and curious families to experience the Mother Road through the lives that shaped it. The highway may no longer appear as one continuous official route, but its strange, moving, and deeply human stories still call travelers toward the next town.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/818/753/9798187539598_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "26.99", "online_price" : "26.99", "our_price" : "26.99", "club_price" : "26.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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