This story is part of KNAU’s series Unmapped Route 66, which chronicles the people and places of the Mother Road’s past and present during its centennial year.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Route 66, a documentary filmmaker hit the Mother Road to showcase its comeback.
It’s John Paget’s third film about the communities along the highway, which was bypassed by the interstate system decades ago.
KNAU’s Chris Clements spoke with Paget about the film, “Route 66: The Main Street of America.”
CHRIS CLEMENTS: Talk to me about this latest film of yours about Route 66. What inspired you to make another documentary about the road after your other two?
JOHN PAGET: I think what's changed is that there's a new generation of people living and working along the highway who are pouring their lives and their hearts into restoring different landmarks and legacy businesses along the highway. You know, 30 years ago, there were a lot of people that had survived being bypassed by the interstate and were barely hanging on. And this film is more of a contemporary portrait today, taking you from Chicago to L.A. and looking at the people who are out there today, living and working on the highway. A lot of them have bought small towns or bought old motels that were in rough shape, and have managed to revive them and bring them back to life, and give them a second life, and I think that's really the story of the road today.
CLEMENTS: Could you give us a taste of just one person or a group of people who you encountered, you know, in the process of creating this film that sort of stands out to you?
PAGET: In Tucumcari, New Mexico, there's a whole group of different people who, kind of of their own, kind of separately, they left the corporate world behind and bought an old motel in Tucumcari, the Roadrunner Lodge, the Blue Swallow Motel, Motel Safari, or have all been taken over by people who moved there and kind of left another another life behind and have moved into the road in Holbrook, Arizona. You have Atsuo, who is a sake maker and is making the world's greatest sake right there in Holbrook, making the best sake made outside of Japan.
In Kingman, Arizona, you have two folks who have taken a derelict property downtown and renovated a bunch of Airstream trailers and created Tin Can Alley. [They] renovated a couple older buildings that were basically going to be demolished and turned them into a coffee shop and an ice cream shop. So there's just tons of examples of people since the '90s, since my last trip on the road, who have managed to, as I said, revive important landmarks along the road that are part of our heritage.
CLEMENTS: I’m curious about your first experience traveling across the highway, and what jumped out to you, [as] someone who's not originally from along that road?
PAGET: I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so I don't have a real personal connection or memory of traveling Route 66 in my childhood. So for me, it wasn't the nostalgia of the road; it was the comeback story of the road, the underdog story. And as a storyteller, that captivated my imagination, specifically the story of Seligman, Arizona, and the barber Angel Delgadillo, who is credited with reviving historic Route 66. In the ‘80s, when his little town was bypassed, he got angry and then he fought and got the route marked historic, and that kind of is what started it all. It started the revival of Route 66, and just the idea that a barber in a small town can change the course of history.
CLEMENTS: What do you feel like you learned by going back and making another piece about Route 66.
PAGET: Generational families are a big part of what drives people to stay on Route 6, stay working at it.
CLEMENTS: Thanks very much for chatting with me, John.
PAGET: Thank you. Thanks for the conversation.
