Route 66 Sidewalk Highway

A few miles south of Miami, the old alignment of Route 66 narrows to a single strip of concrete barely nine feet wide running through farmland. This is one of the few surviving stretches of the original "sidewalk highway" — a thrifty 1920s engineering compromise that has somehow outlived the wider, faster roads that replaced it.

Drive it slowly. The asphalt is patched but the concrete itself is mostly the original surface. The old strip runs roughly between Miami and the village of Narcissa; it is signposted from US-69 as a Route 66 historic alignment.

things to do sight
A story
When Ottawa County built its piece of Route 66 in 1922, money was so tight that they paved only nine feet of width instead of the standard eighteen — leaving a single concrete strip with dirt shoulders. Drivers passing each other had to pull off into the dirt to let the other car by. A nine-mile stretch of this 'sidewalk highway' still survives south of Miami.