Found an old 1960s road atlas that still showed Route 66 as the main highway through Arizona

I was clearing out my uncle's garage last month and stumbled on a 1963 Shell road atlas. The crazy part is that it showed Route 66 as the main artery from Kingman to Needles, even though the interstates were already being built by then. My uncle wrote little notes in the margins about gas stations and motels that are long gone now. I spent a good hour comparing it to Google Maps and you can literally see how towns like Oatman just dried up once the highway shifted. The map even had some town names that don't even exist anymore, like a place called Goldroad up near the California line. Has anyone else found old road maps that show totally different versions of highways compared to what's actually on the ground today?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee.lucas9d ago

Buddy of mine out in Tucson found his dad's old Mobil gas map from like '58 at a yard sale. He made the mistake of driving his kids out to find a town called Swansea that was on it. They spent two hours bouncing down a dirt road near nothing before a park ranger flagged them down and told them the whole town got torn down in the 70s after the mine closed. His kids were so mad they made him stop at a Denny's on the way back. Now he hangs it in his garage just to remind himself not to trust old paper maps for real navigation.

kim.emma3d ago

My buddy tried finding Goldroad with his phone GPS last year and it just showed a blank patch of desert.