The end of the road

Replaced, then decommissioned

The official highway did not fade in one day. Interstates ate it piece by piece, and then the number was retired.

Five new interstates — I-55, I-44, I-40, I-15 and I-10 — incrementally replaced U.S. 66 between the 1950s and the 1980s. [source]
The 1984 bypassing of the last section of U.S. 66 by I-40 led to the official decommissioning of the highway in 1985. [source]
In 1985, U.S. Highway 66 was decommissioned as a federal highway. [source]
The Bureau of Land Management dates the removal from the U.S. Highway System to June 1985. [source]
The Illinois Digital Heritage Hub records the date as 27 June 1985. [source]
In 1999, President Bill Clinton signed a National Route 66 Preservation Bill that provided for $10 million in matching fund grants. [source]

The neon-and-paint façade of the Route 66 Motel in Barstow, California, under a blue desert sky — The Route 66 Motel in Barstow, California, 31 July 2012, on the highway’s run across the Mojave toward the Pacific.Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress · public domain

Decommissioning ended the official number, not the road. Historic alignments, motels and state “Historic Route 66” signs kept the line on the map, and the preservation bill of 1999 put federal matching money behind what communities had already begun to save. [source]

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