Visiting the California Route 66 Museum, Victorville CA

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Do you get your kicks on Route 66? There are connoisseurs and nostalgic affection for the iconic highway linking Chicago to the Pacific in Santa Monica, California as immortalized in Bobby Troupe’s famous song. Some of the original highway can still be traversed and there are a number of museums dedicated to the highway along the route. In Victorville, an old lounge and restaurant has been converted into the California Route 66 Museum. Victorville is a desert town about two hours drive from Los Angeles and best known as a pit stop on the I15 to Las Vegas. The community was born in the late 1800s as a railroad telegraph station due to advantageous location on the Mojave River. Agriculture and commerce developed from there and that was pretty much it for Victorville and adjacent towns of Apple Valley and Hesperia until World War II. Las Vegas opened up following the war and Victorville derived much business from Vegas traffic on the two lane Route 66 going through downtown. Beginning in the late 1960s, the area gained notoriety as retirement home to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Today, the three towns are a fast growing area of a quarter million in population. The museum is located on D Street (Old Route 66 now State Highway 18) in Old Town Victorville. Like so many old downtowns cut off by interstates, Victorville’s former main drag is run down and no longer commercially viable. The museum is across the street from the Greyhound and Amtak stations. Parking is easy and admission free though donations are requested. The California Route 66 Museum is housed in the former Red Rooster, a joint once serving locals and travelers. The layout is one large hall crammed with memorabilia and two side rooms devoted to Victorville history. Everywhere you look on walls and rafters on the high ceiling are vintage signs ranging from “Route 66” plaques to collector prized porcelain petroleum company signs. Roadside service was vital to Route 66 and service station items including old fashioned gas pumps, oil cans and road maps are displayed. Tons of license plates are tacked up all over. There is a strange looking old sleeper trailer with just enough space to crawl into and back gate opening into a picnic table. Old photographs remind of those crazy post-war architectural wonders like the Wig Wam Motel where guests stayed in tee-pees. Ten Arrows was a motel distinguished by two giant arrows stuck in the ground. Numerous postcards remind of places and businesses long gone. One display case is generally devoted to the television series “Route 66” (1960-64) starring Martin Milner and George Maharis cruising for adventure in a Corvette. Another case features rows of matchbook covers including two from the Red Rooster. The 1950s were the heyday of Route 66 and that period flavor is recreated in a diner booth. Nearby is a vintage jukebox. Many of the objects on exhibit are not directly related to Route 66 but interesting to look at anyway. There are vintage radios and televisions, restored 1917 truck, front end of a 1960s VW hippy van and even an old steamer truck. An oddity on the back wall is the 12-foot high “Hula Girl,” a weather beaten old sign that stood in the desert for years. The Victorville exhibits provide a glimpse into the town’s development and what life was like in an obscure desert burgh with apple orchards and providing weary motorists with a brief respite from blazing summer heat. The front of the hall is given over to a gift shop. In back is a coffee bar next to a display to the area’s favorite couple Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The “King of the Cowboys” and “Queen of the West” once had their own roadside museum for decades in Victorville and it is now gone as they are. The museum has brochures providing directions to the final resting place of Roy and Dale at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Apple Valley.