As businesses and cities along Route 66 prepare for the highway’s centennial in 2026, tour groups can celebrate the anniversary by getting their kicks on the Mother Road. Here are five must-see museums that highlight not only the history of the road, but also the cars and businesses that made it famous.
Arizona Route 66 Museum
Kingman, Arizona
Founded in 2001, the Arizona Route 66 Museum in Kingman, Arizona, features brilliant murals, photos and life-size dioramas showing scenes from Route 66, U.S. Army-led survey expeditions and North American trade routes.
Located in Kingman’s historic powerhouse, the museum recently received a grant from the Route 66 Association of Arizona to renovate the entire building before the centennial. The Mohave County Historical Society, which operates the museum, is working hard to update exhibits and add hands-on and digital components to make the stories more accessible.
New exhibits will tell the stories of Dust Bowl refugees traveling Route 66 as well as the Green Book experiences of Black travelers along the road. The Dust Bowl exhibit includes a 1930s-era truck set up to look as if it traveled the road during that time period. Another new exhibit will focus on the railroad and its impact on the road and the cities and towns along the way.
A new app is being developed to lead guests through the museum. When it is completed, it will be available in nine languages. Visitors will get to see vehicles from the 1950s and ’60s, a huge collection of postcards, a replica Conestoga wagon, and a Main Street USA exhibit with miniature storefronts that show items that would have been purchased in those stores.
The museum is also home to the Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum, which displays 28 electric vehicles, from a 1909 Elwell-Parker baggage tug to the Buckeye Bullet, the fastest electric vehicle in the world until 2018.
Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum
Sapulpa, Oklahoma
Sapulpa, Oklahoma, is a classic Route 66 town located about 14 miles from Tulsa. Its historic downtown district looks much the same as it did during the highway’s heyday. The Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum is a relatively new addition to the town, but it is hard to miss. Route 66 travelers inevitably find the museum because they are attracted to the 66-foot-tall gas pump that sits out front.
The museum was the dream of Richard Holmes, a Tulsa attorney and car enthusiast. He and some classic car aficionados wanted to open an antique car museum, but they couldn’t find the right spot in Tulsa. The city of Sapulpa offered them a decommissioned armory, which sits on a road that intersects Route 66.
The 10,000-square-foot armory was completely renovated, including the addition of three huge garage doors that allow cars to drive in and out of the museum. Thirty-four beautiful cars are on display. There is a space dedicated to Route 66, as well as an area that shows how the armory was used by the 45th Army Reserve.
The oldest vehicle in the museum is a 1905 Cadillac, but the most popular car in the collection is the Chip Foose-designed Impostor, a 2009 Corvette with the body of a 1965 Chevrolet Impala, which was shortened by 14 inches to make it fit the smaller vehicle.
The museum has applied for a grant from the Oklahoma Route 66 Centennial Commission to build a 5,000-square-foot expansion.
Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame and Museum
Pontiac, Illinois
Pontiac, Illinois, has a rich Route 66 history that is on display at the Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame and Museum. As part of the city’s Route 66 centennial celebrations, Centennial Plaza is being built behind the historic museum complex, where there is a large Route 66 Shield mural. The Bob Waldmire “Road Yacht,” a converted 1966 school bus, will soon be covered from the elements, and seating put in for people to gather and enjoy the space.
Waldmire used the bus as his art studio and home for many years as he traveled Route 66. If groups want to tour the bus, they need to make a reservation, as it isn’t always staffed. Several murals line Main Street in Pontiac, including many that highlight Waldmire and his legacy.
The Bob Waldmire Experience at the museum traces the artist’s impact on Route 66, showcasing his unique artistic style and how it evolved over the years. Waldmire’s Volkswagen van is inside the museum, along with a mural he painted over the course of several years. The van served as inspiration for the character Fillmore, in the Pixar movie “Cars.”
Memorabilia from the road’s glory days pack the exhibits, including photographs and stories that tell what life was like when Route 66 was the most important thoroughfare in the U.S.
The Pontiac-Oakland Automobile Museum features antique and classic cars that would have gotten their kicks along Route 66.
New Mexico Route 66 Museum
Tucumcari, New Mexico
The New Mexico Route 66 Museum in Tucumcari, New Mexico, is a bit hard to find but worth the visit. Located on the back side of the Tucumcari Convention Center, the museum features memorabilia from the road’s early days, including old gas pumps, classic cars on loan from private owners and Coca-Cola merchandise that was prevalent in Route 66’s prime. Most of the cars on display are from the 1930s to 1960s, when road-tripping along the route was prevalent.
The museum initially was founded to highlight photographs taken by Michael Campanelli, who drove Route 66 more than 75 times between Chicago and Santa Monica, California. The collection includes 166 photographs and is the largest Route 66 photo collection on display anywhere in the country.
The museum features a vintage diner display with a Rock-Ola jukebox, two restored neon signs from motels that went out of business long ago, a Route 66 guitar signed by Loretta Lynn and New Mexico history displays. There’s also a multimedia presentation visitors can watch to learn more about Route 66 throughout the state.
Tucumcari is well worth a visit, as several of its retro motels have been remodeled, including Roadrunner Lodge Motel, Motel Safari and the famous Blue Swallow Motel, with its original neon sign.
Travelers to the area can also visit Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum and Natural Science Laboratory, the Tucumcari Historical Museum and the Tucumcari Railroad Museum, which is in the town’s restored Union Station depot.
Route 66 State Park Visitor Center
Eureka, Missouri
Route 66 State Park is a small park that covers less than one square mile on the former site of Times Beach, Missouri, a town that was founded in 1925 as a vacation resort along the Meramec River. It became an actual community during the Depression of the 1930s. The city was evacuated in 1983 due to dioxin contamination and was officially disincorporated in 1985. All the town’s buildings were demolished at that time except for the historic Bridgehead Inn, a 1935 roadhouse that sat on the original Route 66, and remnants of the Highway 66 Bridge over the Meramec River between Eureka and St. Louis.
The Bridgehead Inn houses the park’s visitor center, which offers travelers a chance to learn more about Missouri’s Route 66 through newspaper clippings and memorabilia, including signs from now defunct Route 66 businesses. Another exhibit tells the history of Times Beach and why it became a ghost town.
Most of Route 66 through Missouri has been rerouted to Interstate 44, but some paved sections of the old road still exist, including a short section in Route 66 State Park. Visitors to the park can walk a small section of the original road as well as explore trails throughout the park. They can also use the boat launch on the Meramec River.
