The Mother Road runs through here.

When the highway was commissioned in 1926, Foothill Boulevard was already old — the Sycamore Inn’s site had been feeding travelers since the 1840s, and the vineyards the road passed were the largest wine district in America. Route 66 stitched this valley into the national story: Dust Bowl migrations, war-time convoys, the great postwar vacation.

Most of the route through the Inland Empire has been paved into anonymity. Rancho Cucamonga kept more than its share: a c.1915 service station restored into the route’s only original-design survivor in California, a neon Aladdin lamp that still throws real flame, and dinner houses that predate the interstate that killed the road.

For the centennial, the City is running “Cruisin’ Through Time” — a year of events along the corridor. Klatch, the hometown world-champion roaster, even cut a Centennial espresso for the occasion. This page and the driving tour are your map to all of it.