Native America Calling: Route 66 changed tribes’ connections and culture

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Native America Calling: Route 66 changed tribes’ connections and culture

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

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Route 66 changed tribes’ connections and culture

Long before it was fully paved, the road that became Route 66 from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, was designated as one of the nation’s original numbered highways, some 100 years ago.

Crossing vast stretches of Native American land in places like Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona, it eventually delivered a steady stream of mobile customers to enterprising Native merchants selling everything from trinkets to fine jewelry and textiles to frybread. The signature eye-popping billboards and kitschy neon signs that defined Route 66 are mostly gone, but a few hold-out examples of 50s road-trip culture remain.

And a number of new businesses are expecting to cash in with renewed interest in an old highway.

Classic cars are seen at the Wigwam Motel, a non-Native owned business in Holbrook, Arizona. Photo: Alan English CPA

Guests on Native America Calling

Ron Solimon (Laguna Pueblo), owner of Solimon Business Development and Strategy, a board member for the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, and chair of the Laguna Community Foundation

Delene Santillanes (Diné), marketing and projects coordinator for the City of Gallup tourism department and a new board member of the New Mexico Route 66 Association

Dr. Troy Lovata, professor of archaeology in the University of New Mexico honors college