66 Motel

How to Get There

From Needles, California: Travel east on Broadway Street toward Desnok Street, then continue to the historic motel property located at the corner of Desnok Street and East Broadway in the original Route 66 corridor.

Overview

Built in the years immediately following World War II, the 66 Motel represents a fading but evocative chapter in the story of American road travel. During the heyday of Route 66, thousands of travelers crossed the Mojave Desert on their way to California, stopping at modest motor courts like this one for rest before continuing west. Its compact layout, simple architecture, and roadside orientation reflect an era when independent family-operated motels formed the backbone of long-distance automobile tourism across the Southwest. Today, the property remains one of the surviving physical reminders of the historic highway's influence on desert communities and the travelers who passed through them.

The motel stands on a corridor rich with transportation history, near the Colorado River crossing that made the community one of the first California stops encountered by eastbound and westbound motorists. Over time, the construction of Interstate 40 redirected traffic away from the old route, a change that affected countless businesses built to serve Route 66 travelers. While no longer functioning as a traditional tourist motel, the site continues to attract Route 66 enthusiasts, preservation supporters, and history-minded visitors interested in seeing an authentic survivor from the golden age of the American road trip.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles and official historic tourism resources for the 66 Motel, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0.