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The idea of a national highway was probably thought of first by Cyrus Avery. Cyrus Avery, better known as "Cy," is now known as the "Father of Route 66."  Without Avery, it is highly unlikely that Route 66 would have ever become a reality.

Avery was born in Stevensville, Pennsylvania in 1871.  He grew up near what is now Oklahoma on a farm near Indian country.  He graduated from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.  Soon after his graduation, he married Essie McClelland.  They moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Avery spent the rest of his life.

After World War I, the family built an inn and service station seven miles  from Tulsa.  This service station became a landmark for many Tulsans and visitors as well.

Cy was determined to see that better roads and highways were built across the country.  He was elected president of the Associated Highways Associations of America.  During his term of office, the organization had a major impact on both state and national highway legislation.  In 1923, he was appointed State Highway Commissioner of Oklahoma.

Avery also became the leader of another important organization, the American Association of State Highway Officials.  It was in this committee that major decisions regarding the future of federal highways such as Route 66 were made.  In a short, to-the-point request from the AASHO, they asked for a creation of a board to take action over the nation's proposed federal highways.

"This Association hereby requests the Secretary of Agriculture, in cooperation with the several states, to underwrite immediately the selection and designation of a comprehensive system of through interstate routes and to devise a comprehensive and uniform scheme for designating such routes in such a manner as to give then a conspicuous place among the highways of the country as roads of interstate and national significance."

Because of this request, the Secretary of Agriculture formed a board that would ultimately decide on a road linking many towns from Chicago to Santa Monica known as US Route 66.

By the time the highway was made official in 1926, almost 800 miles of 66 had been paved.  The unpaved portion was either dirt and gravel, asphalt over brick, or just wooden planks.

The highway was constructed at an astonishing rate for a highway it's size.  Nearly every unemployed boy in the states the road was to pass through was hired as a road worker to aid in completion of 66 from 1933 to1938. By 1938, the road was completely paved.