Route 66's timeline includes W.C. Rogers becoming the last elected Cherokee Chief in 1903, 1916 legislation for public transports, the 1926 birth of U.S. Highway 66 as the first highway to link the Midwest and Pacific Coast, the route's complete paving with asphalt in 1938, Bobby Troup's 1946 trip on U.S. 66 that inspired "Get Your Kicks On Route 66," Dwight D. Eisenhower taking office as the thirty-fourth President of the United States in 1953, a 1960–64 weekly TV show that revived nostalgia for the old two-lane sensation, the replacement of most of Route 66 by the modern interstate highway system in 1970, the official decommissioning of U.S. Route 66 by the Highway Department in 1985, the 1998 "Run to the Heartland" as the first reunion of Route 66 enthusiasts since the 1960s, and the route's seventy-fifth anniversary in 2001.
