Angel Delgadillo

Well, um, I think it's easy to write that off as just nostalgia, but, um, another way to think of it is that it's memory, and memory is powerful and important, you know, in our history and feeling like you're part of a, a story, an American story.

And, you know, Angel Delgadillo is the barber in Seligman, Arizona, who is credited with launching the historic Route 66 movement.

He's the one that first stood up and petitioned the State of Arizona to mark the highway historic after his town was bypassed and almost turned into a ghost town.

And this is, this is how he told me that he got the idea.

The last stretch was bypassed in Williams, Arizona, when I-40 opened a few miles away and the entire road was federally decommissioned in 1985.

Not long after, Angel Delgadillo, a barber and sealingman in Arizona, helped form the Historic Route 66 Association, which persuaded the state to erect Historic Route 66 signs to draw tourists back to the towns.

The other seven states along the road followed suit.

It worked.

In fact, there's a real guy who was largely the inspiration for the Cars movie.

His name is Angel Delgadillo, and as of the release of this episode, he is exactly one year younger than Route 66 itself.

The living 99-year-old Arizona man is known as the father of the Mother Road and the guardian angel of Route 66.

He saw it all, the farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl, the changes to America during World War II, and the wildly popular days of Route 66 in its prime.