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1 week ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
AMARILLO, Texas — Two other men had come before him that Thursday night in June. Both failed. But 37-year-old Clint Gee of Lawton, Oklahoma, was confident heading into The Big Texan Steak Ranch’s 72-ounce steak challenge. Contestants in this six-decade-long culinary quest are seated at a rectangular table on a stage in front of the restaurant’s open kitchen, with its grill covered in sizzling meat.
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1 week ago | 
chicagotribune.com | E. Jason Wambsgans |Jonathan Bullington
As the 100th anniversary of Route 66 approaches in 2026, join Pulitzer Prize winners Jonathan Bullington and E. Jason Wambsgans as they spotlight the stops and people who live along America’s highway. Route 66 was created to connect us, a fused chain of existing roadways many unpaved that stretched 2,448 miles across eight states and three time zones, starting steps from Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago and ending near the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica’s famed fishing pier.
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1 week ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — This probably isn’t the Route 66 that most people imagine. Here, there are no restored 1950s diners or art deco gas stations-turned-gift shops. Here, homeless encampments occupy an entire city block, and it is not uncommon to see people openly injecting drugs while sitting on a curb. This neighborhood that surrounds this roughly 2-mile stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico’s largest city goes by two names.
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2 weeks ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
SELIGMAN, Arizona — They came suddenly and in numbers, cars and trucks weighed down with their owners’ worldly possessions. Angel Delgadillo was a boy when those hundreds of thousands of Dust Bowl refugees drove through his tiny hometown on Route 66, heading for California and the promise of work on farms so fertile, it was said, that fruit fell from the trees.
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2 weeks ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
HACKBERRY, Arizona — The mayor stretched on the couch under the air conditioner in the Hackberry General Store and looked slightly annoyed at the tourist who woke him from his nap. In addition to his duties as the unofficial leader of the unincorporated former mining town’s 334 residents, Charlie the 10-year-old cat is also the store’s night security guard and its exterminator. “He was dropped off as a kitten,” remembered store clerk Eva Rodriguez, 66. “He was feral, just a mess.
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2 weeks ago | 
yahoo.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
HACKBERRY, Arizona — The mayor stretched on the couch under the air conditioner in the Hackberry General Store and looked slightly annoyed at the tourist who woke him from his nap. In addition to his duties as the unofficial leader of the unincorporated former mining town’s 334 residents, Charlie the 10-year-old cat is also the store’s night security guard and its exterminator. “He was dropped off as a kitten,” remembered store clerk Eva Rodriguez, 66. “He was feral, just a mess.
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2 weeks ago | 
bnd.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
AMBOY, Calif. - Water is the key to the future of Roy's Motel & Cafe, the lone survivor in a Route 66 town that, at its peak, boasted 200 residents, three gas stations, three motels, two cafes, a post office, a school and a church. Then Interstate 40 came a half-century ago and offered travelers a faster way through this remote stretch of the Mojave Desert in eastern California. "It was like they turned off the cars," said Roy's manager, Ken Large.
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2 weeks ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
KINGMAN, Arizona — There is a roughly 8-mile section of Route 66 at the western edge of this state that is considered to be one of the most scenic and white-knuckled drives this country has to offer. It’s known as the Arizona Sidewinder, or to locals, simply, The Sidewinder. Eastbound Route 66 leaves California and crosses the Colorado River into Arizona, where it unfurls like a ribbon of pavement approaching the Black Mountains.
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3 weeks ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
AMBOY, Calif. — Water is the key to the future of Roy’s Motel & Cafe, the lone survivor in a Route 66 town that, at its peak, boasted 200 residents, three gas stations, three motels, two cafes, a post office, a school and a church. Then Interstate 40 came a half-century ago and offered travelers a faster way through this remote stretch of the Mojave Desert in eastern California. “It was like they turned off the cars,” said Roy’s manager, Ken Large.
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3 weeks ago | 
chicagotribune.com | Jonathan Bullington |E. Jason Wambsgans
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Our Route 66 road trip began at the end, at the famed fishing pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. On a breezy Sunday afternoon, the first day of June, a steady stream of visitors waited their turns to pose with one of the pier’s most popular attractions: a Route 66 sign, perched on a pole 12 feet above the wooden planks, advertising the spot as the “end of the trail.”Except, it’s not really the end.
