21. Birthplace of Historic Route 66, Seligman, Arizona

Seligman, Arizona, is known as the birthplace of Historic Route 66. Angel Delgadillo is widely credited with the town earning that designation.

A native of Seligman, in fact, born in 1927 in his family home right on the newly designated U.S. Highway 66, Angel left town to study to become a barber. He returned to his natal town to open his shop on Route 66 in 1950, in the same building his father had a barbershop and pool hall.  When Route 66 was realigned in Seligman, Angel moved his shop, the current one (which also originally included a pool hall), onto the new alignment in 1972.

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The others seven states through which Route 66 passed followed suit, forming their own Route 66 associations. And a worldwide, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Route 66, the National Historic Route 66 Federation, was founded by David and Mary Lou Knudsen.

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One of the Arizona organization’s achievements is the successful petitioning of the Arizona legislation to designate Route 66 as a historic highway and to rename it Arizona Historic Route 66, to capitalize on the history and nostalgia of Route 66 to bring in more tourists.

Today, Arizona Historic Route 66 is the 159 miles between Topock, Arizona, on the California border, and Exit139, eight miles east of Seligman, five miles west of Ash Fork, Arizona. In the meantime, Angel and his wife Vilma had begun selling Route 66 memorabilia out of Angel and Vilma’s Barber Shop and Pool Hall in Seligman.  Today, the pool hall has been replaced by a very popular visitor’s center and the first ever Route 66 gift shop. The place is now known as Angel & Vilma Delgadillo’s Route 66 Gift Shop & Visitor’s Center.

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