Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western
Los Angeles County,
California, United States. The city is named after the Christian saint,
Monica. Situated on
Santa Monica Bay, it is bordered on three sides by the city of Los Angeles –
Pacific Palisades to the north,
Brentwood on the northeast,
West Los Angeles and
Mar Vista on the east, and
Venice on the southeast. Santa Monica is home to many Hollywood celebrities and executives and is a mixture of affluent single-family neighborhoods, renters, surfers, professionals, and students. The
Census Bureau 2010 population for Santa Monica is 89,736.
Partly because of its agreeable climate, Santa Monica had become a famed
resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core, significant job growth and increased tourism.
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| La Bellagio outdoor café with delicious Panini |
U.S. Route 66 (
US 66 or
Route 66), also known as the
Will Rogers Highway and colloquially known as the
Main Street of America or the
Mother Road, was one of the original highways within the
U.S. Highway System. Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year.
[4] The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from
Chicago,
Illinois, through
Missouri,
Kansas,
Oklahoma,
Texas,
New Mexico, and
Arizona before ending at
Santa Monica,
California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).
[5] It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" and the
Route 66 television show in the 1960s.
Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the
Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new
Interstate Highway System.
