Historic Route 66 runs through Seligman, Ariz.

How did U.S. towns get cars off the Interstate once their communities were bypassed by super highways? Not by twiddling their thumbs or just wishin’ and hopin’. 

Communities that were once connected by the “Mother Road” – U.S. Route 66 – wrestled with this challenging question when Interstate 40 was extended from middle America to the West Coast in the late 1970s. 

Folks in Seligman, Ariz., figured it out. The community has not only survived, it is beginning to thrive as a cultural and heritage tourism hot spot.

 

As background, Seligman was smack dab on the original Route 66, built in the late 1920s. 

Most local communities failed to anticipate how much the new super highways would revolutionize transportation in this country…and how harmful they would be to local economies. 

Celebrating livestock, the Santa Fe Railway, the Seligman High School antelopes ...and Route 66!

Seligman’s elder statesman, 94-year-old Angel Delgadillo, is a visionary. He said: “I-40 gets you from Point A to Point B the fastest way. You just drive. You don’t talk to people. You don’t see anything. You go around towns, not through them.”

Delgadillo is a respected businessman in Seligman. He was the town’s barber and pool hall proprietor (three tables). He and his wife, Vilma, had a little souvenir stand on the side. 

Today, Angel Delgadillo is revered as the honorary Mayor of the Mother Road, the fellow most responsible for getting Route 66 classified as “Historic Route 66” in 1987…and back on the map of Americana. 

“I think people go looking for Route 66 because they want a slower pace that has disappeared from their lives,” Delgadillo said. “They’re looking for something, just like all those people who drove it during the Depression. Those people were on a highway of hope. Now it’s a highway of dreams.” 

It’s surprising how much Seligman, Ariz., resembles Radiator Springs, the fictional town in the animated movie “Cars,” which was released in 2006. It could be due to the fact that Delgadillo spent many hours talking with John Lasseter, the film’s director, about the historical significance of Route 66. 

Listen to a prominent character from the movie named Sally Carrera, a 2002 Porsche 911. She shared with the audience her perception of the way things were before the Interstate: 

“Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way. Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.” 

When the Seligman bypass opened on Sept. 22, 1978, Delgadillo said he “remembers feeling that it was the day the world forgot about us.” 

One of the businesses that was severely impacted was owned by Angel Delgadillo’s older brother, Juan. Known as Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-In, the quirky restaurant was built in 1953, using scrap lumber.

 Lunch specials included “dead chicken sandwiches” and “cheeseburgers with cheese.” These items are still on the menu, thanks to “retro tourism,” as championed by the Delgadillo family. 

Seligman’s local chamber of commerce is “the voice of business, tourism and economic development.” Its current president is John Delgadillo, a son of Juan. He took over management of the Snow Cap after his father died in 2004. 

At the Snow Cap, John has assumed the role of “clown prince of condiments.” Be prepared for a squirt from a plastic squeeze container of ketchup or mustard, blasting you with a skein of red or yellow yarn. 

The old barber shop and pool hall is now known as Angel and Vilma Delgadillo’s Route 66 Memorabilia & Visitor’s Center.

 

Now, that’s progress.