Route 66 is big tourist draw

By Mike Marino
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Heritage tourism is the newest tool in the travel arsenal. It includes everything from the Queen of England visiting Jamestown on the East Coast, to tours of Wild West towns, and road tours across the country on Route 66, America's Main Street. The Mother Road is of extreme importance to the history and growth of the nation, and New Mexico is certainly a large part of that historic automotive heritage.

The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program has funded field-inventory surveys to determine which historic transportation related properties are still in existence along Route 66, and has secured their placement on the National Register of Historic Places. The program was funded by an in-house National Park Service grant provided to the Preservation Program.

The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program is staffed by two individuals and is headquartered in Santa Fe, with responsibilities to groups and programs in the eight Route 66 states.

Kaisa Barthuli of the preservation program said, "We work hard with all of our partner organizations to generate interest in promoting and preserving the heritage of Route 66."

Heritage tourism is popular with the vacationer who is looking for an educational experience as well as a fun one. Among the most popular heritage destinations include civil war battlefields, historic American cities such as Jamestown and Boston, and of course, Route 66, which attracts a curious and devoted fan base of travelers. Visitors from overseas, especially Japan, Germany, England and Norway, as well as tourists from across North America plan road trips from the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago to Santa Monica Boulevard in California, where the Mother Road ends its east to west trek. Along the way, these road trips bring the faithful through the Route 66 towns, such as Grants, Gallup and Albuquerque to stay at classic motels, dine at real Route 66 eateries, participate in Route 66 festivals and buy souvenirs of the road.

Properties chosen by the program for inclusion in the National Register must be significant to American history, and their inclusion often changes the way communities perceive their historic places. There are also financial benefits including tax credits, loans, grants and other incentives for preservation work on a property.

The impact of heritage tourism in generating business on Route 66 is important, but some of the old icons of the Mother Road such as the West Theater in Grants does well year-round. Roy McDowell, manager of the West movie theater said, "We do get some stragglers from the motels who happen to come through town because of Route 66, but most of the time it's the locals that keep us going after all these years."

The neon of the West Theater fills the sky with color as it illuminates Santa Fe Avenue, old Route 66, every night as it has since it opened it's doors in the 1950's.

On the Net
National Register Information System: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr