INSPIRED BY ASPHAULT
Route 66 History and Route 66 Mysteries
Each book in The Route 66 Ranch Hotel Mystery Series is dedicated to a different business or person along Arizona's Route 66.
The history book, Seligman, Arizona: Birthplace of HISTORIC Route 66 is dedicated to Luz Delgadillo-Moore, the only other person to have written a history book about the Arizona Route 66 town of Seligman.
Book Dedications
Book 1
Dedicated to
Angel Valadez Delgadillo,
for his lifelong dedication to spreading love, joy, and encouragement to everyone he meets.
(And that whole saving Route 66 thing is pretty cool too.)
Book 2
Dedicated to
La Posada, the crown jewel of Arizona Route 66 historic hotels.
To Mary Colter for envisioning this masterpiece,
and to all the people who painstakingly refurbished this treasure to its former glory.
Book 3
Dedicated to
The Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona,
for over 37 years of dedication to the preservation, protection, and promotion of the people and places along Arizona’s portion of Route 66,
and for decades of annual Fun Runs celebrating Arizona’s 159-mile stretch of Historic Route 66, the longest remaining intact portion of Route 66 left in the country.
Book 4
Dedicated to The Grand Canyon Railway and Hotel
for reconnecting Route 66 to the Grand Canyon by rail,
for preserving the historic charm of the trains and hotel accommodations,
and for keeping alive the fun and romance of train travel.
Book 5
Dedicated to Lowell Observatory.
Only a heartbeat from Flagstaff’s Route 66 atop a hill named Mars,
this wooded sanctuary offers stellar resources for learning and an astronomical wealth of history which includes the 1930 discovery of Pluto.
Book 6
Dedicated to
Keepers of the Wild
for thirty years of providing forever homes to wildlife in need.
On Route 66 in the serene remote area near Valentine, Arizona, this 175-acre sanctuary is dedicated to caring for abused, neglected, and abandoned wild animals. Lions, wolves, tigers, foxes, and bears who had nowhere else to go have all been welcomed to happily spend their lives at Keepers of the Wild.
Book 7
Dedicated to the Oatman Hotel.
On Arizona’s wildest stretch of Route 66 lies an old 2-story adobe building that surprisingly lays historic claim to silver screen glamor and romance. Among wild burros and gunfight shows, the Oatman Hotel is proud to have had Clark Gable and Carole Lombard as guests during their honeymoon in 1939.
Book 8
TBD
Book 9
TBD
Book 10
TBD
Seligman, Arizona: Birthplace of HISTORIC Route 66
Dedicated to
Luz V. Delgadillo Moore
1922-2024
Seligman Harvey Girl and town historian
Just as Luz commemorated the centennial of Seligman with her history book Seligman Pictorial in 1986,
with this book I commemorate the 2026 centennial of Route 66 and Seligman’s special place along those 2,448 miles of America.
A Brief History of Route 66 in Arizona
In 1926, U.S. Highway 66, a.k.a. Route 66, was assembled from local roads throughout Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Travel became easier and the country became more unified as traffic on the 2,448-mile highway started flowing through previously isolated farm, ranch and railroad towns.
In the 1950s, increasingly mobile Americans started touring the country in their cars. Residents of Route 66 towns erected new businesses and services for travelers. Motels, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations, and automobile service stations occupied the towns and hummed with business.
When the interstates slowly but surely by-passed the small towns on Route 66, lonely stretches of roads replaced the bustling, and admittedly dangerous, parade of cars. Without the commerce of the traveling public, many of these small communities withered away. The residents of the towns that remained learned to live on very little. U.S. Highway 66 was officially decommissioned in 1985.
To the delight of many, Route 66 found a new life as “Historic Route 66”, a designation that started in Arizona. In 1987, Angel V. Delgadillo, the barber of Seligman, Arizona started a small grassroots organization called The Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. The group was dedicated to bringing back Route 66 as a historic highway. The goal was to encourage tourism for the benefit of the small struggling communities along the old road. Not only did the group succeed in Arizona, but afterwards, each of the seven other old Route 66 states followed their lead. Gradually, Historic Route 66 became a tourist destination for travelers from all over the world looking for a good old-fashioned road trip on “America’s Main Street.”
To read more of this story and learn more about what makes Seligman a special Route 66 town, get your copy of Seligman, Arizona: Birthplace of HISTORIC Route 66.
Northwestern Arizona boasts the longest remaining stretch of Historic Route 66 left in the entire country. The beautiful landscapes on the eastern section of this drive are the inspiration for the fictional location in the Route 66 Ranch Hotel mystery books.