The voters have spoken. Route 66 is your inaugural champion of ASCE Civil Engineering Landmark Madness.
True to form, Route 66 carved a path all the way across the bracket, earning 54.1% of the votes in the championship match to outpace the Transcontinental Railroad’s Joining of the Rails.
Not a bad way to celebrate its centennial.
“Route 66 was a part of a system of 96 routes when it was established in 1926,” said Seth Chalmers, P.E., M.ASCE, chair of the Arizona Section History and Heritage Committee. “It wasn’t a road that was built. It was a road of various pieces, but we didn’t have the route system then. So, the Bureau of Public Roads and AASHTO got together and developed a route system to make it a network.”
Chalmers and ASCE History and Heritage Committee Chair Jonathan Upchurch, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, played key roles in securing Historic Civil Engineering Landmark status from ASCE. They cited 15 civil engineering features of historical significance, including the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River, the Bridgeport Bridge over the Canadian River in Oklahoma, the Old Trails Bridge over the Colorado River, and the Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles.
“If you really look at it from the lens of civil engineering – especially me as a traffic engineer, the technology and standards that were developed with Route 66 during this time are just amazing,” Chalmers said.
But, of course, Route 66 also carries a cultural cachet that few pieces of infrastructure can match.
Route 66 played a crucial migration role in the 1930s Dust Bowl, captured in The Grapes of Wrath (both John Steinbeck’s novel and John Ford’s film adaptation). Then there's the “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” Nat King Cole song, the famous Route 66 TV show, and even the more recent influence on Pixar’s Cars movie franchise.
“There are stories all over the place,” Chalmers said. “Route 66 is just something that has caught the public’s imagination.”
Civil Engineering Landmark Madness is a celebration of the Society’s Historic Civil Engineering Landmark program, and a perfect way to set the tone for the upcoming commemoration of ASCE’s 175th anniversary in 2027.
The ASCE History and Heritage Committee built the inaugural bracket featuring a “Sweet 16” of railways and roadways with plans to feature a different kind of infrastructure in a new tournament each March.
While Route 66 won the championship, each landmark in the field is iconic in its own right. Tellingly, Chalmers while talking with excitement about his research into the history of Route 66, couldn’t help but acknowledge his favorite roadway’s rival in the Landmark Madness finals.
“You know,” Chalmers said, “there’s a very strong argument that can be made for Transcontinental Railroad, too.”
Revisit the 2026 ASCE Civil Engineering Landmark Madness, and get ready more madness in 2027.
