#route66 Was Named For Will Rogers, The “Cowboy Philosopher” of the Twentieth Century

The working-class hero’s death was mourned nationwide, and commemorated by naming the Mother Road for him.

by Rich Watson 

In the early twentieth century, Will Rogers was a major American celebrity, an actor in film and on vaudeville, as well as a syndicated columnist. Perhaps you’ve heard one of his famous quotes: “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

After his death in 1935, among his many tributes included renaming Route 66 after him.

About Will Rogers

Rogers was born in 1879 on an Oklahoma ranch within the Indian Territory of the Cherokee Nation, adjacent to the town of Oologah. Rogers himself had Cherokee ancestry.

He was immersed in the life of a cowboy. A freed slave taught him how to use a lasso. In time he learned tricks. His association with Natives and African Americans developed within him an affinity for them and a strong sense of brotherhood among humanity.

His experience in Wild West shows and carnivals around the country, and eventually the world, led to vaudeville, where he performed his rope tricks. They called him “the Cherokee Kid.” He’d also talk to the crowd while performing, amusing them. By 1918 he graduated to Broadway, as part of the Ziegfeld Follies. 

During the twenties and into the thirties, he wrote newspaper columns and appeared on radio. His down-home humor and storytelling ability not only endeared him to the public, it enabled him to speak on social and political issues.

He also appeared in Hollywood silent and talking motion pictures, working with, among others, producer Hal Roach and director John Ford. By 1934, Rogers became Hollywood’s highest-paid actor, second only to Shirley Temple.

He died in a plane crash in Alaska a year later.

After Rogers’ death

Rogers was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles. Nearly fifty thousand mourners viewed his casket. The New York Times’ tribute to him took up thirteen pages.

A national commission, including former President Herbert Hoover, Nelson Rockefeller, and Henry Ford, formed to created a memorial to Rogers in Oklahoma. It was dedicated in 1938 on his birthday, November 4. Six years later his corpse was interred there.

Many places and things were named for him nationwide. In Oklahoma, this included

• the airport in Oklahoma City,
• the turnpike on Interstate 44 between Tulsa and Joplin, MO, and
• thirteen Oklahoma public schools, plus the student union room at the University of Oklahoma.

His California home and land became a state park. His Oklahoma birthplace was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

And then there was Route 66…

Route 66 became the Will Rogers Highway 

Days after Rogers’ death, a group of Tulsa residents successfully petitioned Congress to rename Route 66 for Rogers. Among the related landmarks in the city include the Meadow Gold Sign, a neon sign for a dairy company. 

In 1952, Rogers’ son Will Jr. played him in a movie about Rogers’ life. As part of a promotional caravan along Route 66, bronze markers were installed at each state border along the road, with Rogers’ face and the name Will Rogers Highway.

Woody Guthrie wrote a song about it.

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Comic strips, beginning September 9.

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