When it was still operational, the highway running from Los Angeles, California to Chicago, Illinois by way of Texas and Oklahoma was called “Main Street of America,” and one of the oldest interstate roads in the country. First proposed by Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery, it connected major population center and crossed many others. Numerous small mom-and-pop shops, convenience stations and hotels grew up around it to cater to the motorists, marathoners and tourists going along it. Thus did Route 66 become part of the folklore.

On this day, June 27, in 1985, after newer highway systems alternately bypassed and incorporated parts of the Route 66, the road as a whole was officially decommissioned American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Unofficially, while you can no longer travel the route uninterrupted between Chicago and Los Angeles, some careful planning can still take you through most of it. Route 66 Associations in every states took measures to preserve stretches of the road where possible, and Missouri designated it a “State Historic Route.” If you travel by the road between Springfield, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, you will be able to see the road as was at its original: one lane, eight feet, a “sidewalk highway.”