Standing on Main Street

Route 66 is America's 2,400 mile Main Street. Since its inception as one of the country's first all-weather highways in 1926, Route 66 has become one of the most famous roads in the United States. In its hundred-year history, songs have been dedicated to it. Hundreds of thousands of people have traveled it by car and on foot. Movies, television shows, and books have been inspired by it.  The Route runs diagonally from Chicago to Los Angeles, covering eight states and three time zones. 

Elise Zoller, a classically trained realist painter, has spent the last several years standing on streets along the Route, painting what she saw, and recording the stories of the people who visited with her while she was working. She met bartenders, traveling buskers, school teachers, theater directors, hair dressers, paranormal experts, drug dealers, ranchers, tattoo artists, international travelers, and the occasional fellow painter. She made 48 paintings.

A metaphor for our country and our attempt to unify wildly different cultures, Route 66 was cobbled together from muddy tow paths, rutted wagon routes, pre-existing toll highways, and new roads cut through fresh terrain to connect the old roads.  American Indians have lived on the land for tens of thousands of years and European settlers for ten generations. Each state through which the Route passes has its own history and cultures, interwoven with triumphs and defeats.

This is a book that explores the history and the people of Route 66 through paintings and stories begun on its Main Streets and finished in Elise's studio.

Route 66 celebrates its 100^th birthday in 2026. Its history is a testimony to American creativity, grit, ruthlessness and chutzpah.