A New Blanket

Pendleton commemorates America’s first completely paved highway with our Route 66 blanket.

The Mother Road

Route 66’s 2448 miles of two-lane highway fired the American imagination for sixty years.  John Steinbeck referred to it as “the Mother Road,” the path out of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. It was the route of countless family road trips after the automobile took hold of American society in the 1950s. In 1953, it earned another unofficial name, “the Will Rogers Highway.”  Thanks to countless references in books, music and film, Route 66 became a genuine American icon, even inspiring its own TV series on CBS.

Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, a casualty of the nation’s improved freeway system. On our blanket, the highway’s path still rolls across America with classic roadsters, retro road signs, rest stops, motels and diners. These quaint roadside attractions of Route 66 helped earn it the nickname, “America’s Main Street.”  You can read more about Route 66 in this excellent piece by TIME magazine: Route 66