Route 66, known as America’s Main Street, was officially paved and opened in the Helendale area in 1926. The National Old Trails Road Association, whose president was Harry S. Truman in 1925-26, devised a program to create a national highway system following the old national trails developed by Indians and wagon trains of the 1800's. Before it was paved and numbered, Route 66, the Mother Road, was officially known as the Santa Fe-Grand Canyon-Needles National Highway. Nicknamed the Trail of Padres, this highway lasted until 1914 and carried passengers between Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Several early trails and roadways, including the Mojave Trail, the Old Spanish Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Sanford Freight Road, all passed through the Helendale area. During the 1920s and 1930s, countless dust-bowlers traveled this roadway in search of better opportunities in California, and John Steinbeck immortalized these travelers in The Grapes of Wrath.
