A sign at the Santa Monica Pier marks the western terminus of Route 66 — the historic highway that ran 2,448 miles from Chicago's Lake Shore Drive to this point on the California coast. The road was decommissioned as a US highway in 1985 but remains one of the most romanticised roads in American culture, associated with westward migration, postwar road trips, and the mythology of the open road.
The sign is modest and there is no formal monument, but people come specifically to stand here and photograph it — the symbolic endpoint of a cross-country journey that has inspired songs, films, and novels. The pier location adds the satisfying logic of a journey that ends at the ocean, with nowhere further to go.