Highway of Dreams
Podcast: 100 Years Route 66
For more than a hundred years, Route 66 has been more than just a road.
As a three-episode Podcast “Highway of Dreams” explores Route 66 as a cultural, social and political space — tracing forgitten histories, myths, contradictions, and shifting ideas of America.
Episode 1: The Promise
Chicago to Kansas. Chicago to Kansas. The birth of Route 66 and the idea of the American Heartland. Epsode 1 begins where Route 66 once started, and follows the road westward through Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. It explores why Route 66 was created, how it connected small towns across the Midwest, and how mobility once promised opportunity and a better life for millions. From early planning decisions to places like Branson, Missouri, the episode asks what the American Heartland meant then, what it means now — and what remains of that promise along Route 66 today.
Episode 2: The Fault Lines
In Oklahoma the cracks beneath the surface become visible. Episode 2 moves deeper into the history of Route 66 as it passes through Oklahoma, a region once known as Indian Territory. A promotional race across America — won by an Indigenous participant — opens the door to a broader conversation about Native America and its often-overlooked role in American history. From a contemporary pow wow to the legacy of the Dust Bowl migration and John Steinbeck’s „The Grapes of Wrath“, the episode traces social and historical fault lines that run through Oklahoma along Route 66. In Oklahoma City, a survivor of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building reflects on trauma, extremism, and memory — drawing unsettling parallels to later acts of political violence. Episode 2 ends in Erick, Oklahoma, where a self-made roadside stage echoes both the performative spirit and the contradictions of Route 66.
Episode 3: The Dream on Display
From the Texas Panhandle to the Pacific Ocean the dream becomes an exhibit. Driving through the vast openness of the Texas Panhandle, this episode enters the iconic landscapes many associate with Route 66. At Cadillac Ranch, the road turns into art — and into spectacle. In New Mexico, the journey shifts toward Indigenous continuity and resilience. A visit to Acoma Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America, connects past and present in powerful ways. A Navajo trans woman shares her life story: growing up on a reservation, facing violence and rejection, and still feeling drawn back to the land that defines her roots. Her voice embodies the tensions between belonging and exclusion that run throughout the series.
Episode 3 continues through Seligman and Oatman, Arizona — Route 66 tourist towns where nostalgia is carefully staged, donkeys roam the streets, and the road itself becomes a performance for visitors. Before reaching Santa Monica, Route 66 in California emerges as a final promise on display. At the edge of the Pacific, the series reflects on Manifest Destiny — and how its logic may not have ended at the shoreline, but continues to shape ambitions far beyond it today.