On June 26, 1952, at this location, Route 66 was rededicated as the Will Rogers Highway during one of many ceremonies held at the state lines of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Oklahoma as a booster caravan traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to Santa Monica, California. The caravan was organized by the National U.S. Highway 66 Association, Warner Brothers Film Studio, Ford Motor Company, and the Route 66 Associations from those eight states. A bronze plaque placed here for the dedication honored Will Rogers as a humorist, world traveler, and good neighbor, and called Highway 66 the Main Street of America and the first road he traveled in a career that led him straight to the hearts of his countrymen.
