The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Route 66 Postcard Road Trip has been selected as one of eleven finalists in the Humanities category for the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps competition. The Route 66 Postcard Road Trip was selected from over 570 submissions from student and professional storytellers who were invited to “build stories about the world they want to see.” The competition drew submissions in at least 10 different languages from 58 countries around the world. The public is invited to explore the competition finalists and vote for their favorite on the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition "Community Choice" hub, which is open through March 12, 2025.

The National Trust’s submission to the StoryMaps competition explores the evolution of Route 66 through maps and place-based data. The National Trust for Historic Preservation launched this series through its Historic Route 66 GIS & Crowdsourcing Campaign, as part of its broader Preserve Route 66 initiative leading up to the Route 66 Centennial in 2026. Made possible with generous support from David and Julia Uihlein, the campaign aimed to map historic places and stories along the entire Route 66 corridor within a single comprehensive geospatial resource. With a goal of identifying and mapping more than 2,000 historic sites along the route by its 100th anniversary in 2026, this project will inform and inspire preservation action to save America’s main street as more elements of this iconic roadway are lost each year.

The Route 66 Postcard Road Trip is organized into three parts, beginning with a StoryMap that takes viewers on a virtual road trip across the 2,400+ miles of Route 66 with historic “stops” viewed through the lens of twelve vintage postcards from the Newberry Library’s James R. Powell Route 66 postcard collection. Vivid photographic views from the past are geolocated onto modern satellite imagery, along with short historical vignettes to reveal a profound story of change, survival, erasure, and rebirth. The second part of the Road Trip showcases the preliminary mapping of 1,000 postcards. (Later this spring, the National Trust plans to map and release the full digitized collection of over 3,000 postcards along Route 66.) The third part encourages the public to submit their own images of iconic and memorable places along Route 66 as part of its national crowdsourcing campaign: Share Your Route 66 Story.

“Route 66 is a journey through America’s 20th century,” said Rhys Martin, manager of the National Trust’s Preserve Route 66 program. “This mapping project ties the past to our present in a vibrant, interactive way. People from all over the world seek out Route 66 to experience America; the Postcard Road Trip StoryMap highlights how that experience continues to evolve. It will inspire tomorrow’s roadside explorers to spend time on The Mother Road as it approaches its Centennial in 2026.”

The National Trust will continue to produce the rest in a series of StoryMaps exploring Route 66 themes including electrification, economic development and community investment, and legacy businesses.

To learn more about the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s StoryMap series ROUTE 66 REMAP, check out: https://arcg.is/1489j51