Barber made sure ‘people will come’ by making Route 66 historic highway

When the 10 Freeway was completed in the 1950s it was then a marvel of high-speed travel for visitors heading across the Inland Empire to Los Angeles.

But it had a significant negative effect of idling local tourist businesses along Route 66 — mostly Foothill Boulevard west from San Bernardino. The flow of visitors was suddenly greatly reduced at area businesses like San Bernardino’s Wigwam Motel or the Richfield gas station near Archibald Avenue in Cucamonga and other travel services along the way.

Such was the story for many other towns from Chicago to Santa Monica when the interstate highway system freeways sliced Route 66 into little pieces mostly going nowhere.

This change was never felt any more painfully than by Angel V. Delgadillo, a barber who watched business nearly die in his northern Arizona hometown of Seligman after the last stretch of Highway 40 opened between Ash Fork and Kingman.

“We had 9,000 vehicles coming through our town each day but that ended at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 22, 1978 as the 40 opened,” explained the 98-year-old Delgadillo. Suddenly, no one drove through town for gas or to eat, or even get a hair cut.

“We were forgotten. There weren’t even any signs put up along the highway by the county. The town was simply ignored and abused for the next 10 years. It was so tough that it reminded me of the Great Depression,” said Delgadillo, born in Seligman in 1927 and, except for six months at barber college in Pasadena, has spent his entire life there.

Angered by these economic setbacks, Delgadillo eventually launched a program to revitalize John Steinbeck’s “Mother Road.” His determination soon helped change the forgotten highway into an historic and popular piece of Americana.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the “creation” of Route 66 in 1926 when the federal government first designated its major highways with numbers. And Seligman — population of about 500 — will be an epicenter of that centennial on April 30. That’s when a huge celebration will honor the work of Delgadillo and others to help communities bypassed by interstates will celebrate an important piece of our history.

This year’s centennial will also come with some bleak memories for Delgadillo, reminding him of those years when the main street of Seligman was an empty piece of pavement. Adding to the loss of tourist dollars came the closing of the Santa Fe Railroad division point center in Seligman in 1985.

“To think about it is demoralizing for me,” he recalled in a recent phone interview. “At first I was very sad but then I got angry at the state government because it just forgot about us.”

RELATED: Cucamonga Service Station is one stop for historic caravan along Route 66

But it wasn’t quite as hopeless as it seemed. An occasional motorist would drop into town for gas or just to see what the place looked like. Some chatted with Delgadillo.

“Over and over, these people in their 60s and 70s talked about how their parents had traveled on 66 on their way to California — there were a half million of them,” he said. He admitted it took a while for him to fully appreciate their memories.

“I finally realized they were all looking for an America of yesterday, an important  part of their past.”

(My immediate reaction to his words reminded me of a similar message delivered by actor James Earl Jones in the film, “Field of Dreams” who also noted that so many people were longing for reminders of earlier times. That film’s Iowa ballfield and baseball were “part of our past. It reminds us of what was once good and can be good again.”)

Similarly, in Seligman, Delgadillo said the visitors’ recollections gave him the idea of how to help bring people back to his town and to every other communities — ideas that echoed Jones’ words: “People will come.  People will most definitely come.”

Delgadillo realized there would be value in having Arizona designate the existing 83 miles of Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman as an historic highway. Highlighting the heritage of the highway could help spark car shows, souvenirs, museums and other ways to highlight how the road was an important part of each town’s history. Travelers would have a reason to turn off the interstates to explore those towns, and even help revitalize them.

When he first talked-up this idea, the few remaining business people in Seligman couldn’t see much gain from it, but Delgadillo found more support in Kingman.

Thirty-nine years ago this month, he held a meeting bringing together those interested in his plan. It was there, the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona was founded and began attempting to pressure state officials to accept the historic highway plan. That idea at first was pretty much ignored at the state capital in Phoenix.

“But when you grow up during the Depression years, you learn you just didn’t give up,” he said. “Eventually we won.”

That stretch of Route 66 received historic highway status in Arizona in November 1987. It is now the nation’s longest uninterrupted stretch of the old route, now 159 miles from east of Seligman to the Colorado River southeast of Needles. Today, all eight states crossed by the original route have their own Route 66 association, including the California Historic Route 66 Association.

More than 300 miles of Route 66 remain in California, though in pieces. The longest surviving portion of the route runs from west of Needles to Victorville (though part of it is closed for repairs). Beginning at the Cleghorn Road off-ramp of the 15 Freeway in Cajon Pass, it’s possible to continually follow the streets of its route through the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles to the highway’s finish at the Santa Monica Pier.

Today, many Route 66-themed events are planned to celebrate the centennial, including the Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion in Ontario on Sept. 18-19 and Rendezvous Back to Route 66 in San Bernardino on Oct. 10. Other local Route 66-themed events are planned in Los Angeles, Amboy, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Barstow, Monrovia, Newberry Springs, and Victorville.

Find a list of planned nationwide activities here.

The April 30 event at Seligman will be on the grounds surrounding the building that Delgadillo’s father built in 1922 to house a barber shop and pool hall on the original Route 66. The event begins at 10 a.m. with an opening ceremony followed by a band, dancing, food trucks, beer garden, author book signings, and vendors. There will be a fun run the next day.

Updated schedule information for Selgiman events will be posted closer to the date at route66giftshop.com. That’s also where you can order a copy of Delgadillo’s autobiography, “The Road to Happiness. My Life On and For Route 66,” published last year.

And the ceremony April 30 will likely also honor Vilma with whom he has been married for 66 years (an appropriate number of years), and note Angel Delgadillo’s 99th birthday just 11 days before the Seligman event.

He will tell you that he doesn’t think about being 99.

“I always believe I am still 36 years young,” he says. “That way I can keep doing what I want to do.”

Tour plans

The Historical Society of the Pomona Valley has scheduled tours of two of its historic sites.

Tours of the Phillips Mansion, 2640 Pomona Blvd., Pomona, will be held from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8 at a cost of $15. On Feb. 15, four tours will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. at  Casa Primera, 1569 N. Park Ave., Pomona. Tickets are $5.

Tickets must be purchased in advance at PomonaHistorical.org.

Volunteers are still needed to assist in local school tours at the Palomares Adobe. To participate, contact the society at PomonaHistorical@verizon.net.

Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at joe.blackstock@gmail.com or on X @JoeBlackstock. Check out some of the past articles at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IEHistory.