HistoricSiteMarkers

Illinois → Texas → California → North Carolina → Arizona

Westward & American Wonders

Gold, flight, frontier, and the Mother Road

From a pre-Columbian city on the Mississippi to the spark of the Gold Rush, the first powered flight, and the birthplace of the Route 66 revival — the restless American story of moving on.

5 stops · roughly 6,770 miles end to end

The itinerary

  1. 1

    Cahokia Mounds

    Collinsville, Illinois

    The Mississippian people built a sophisticated urban center of plazas, mounds, and a solar calendar of timber posts. Cahokia was larger than London at the time before declining by 1350.

    Native American History
  2. 2

    The Alamo

    San Antonio, Texas

    For 13 days a small garrison held the former mission against a far larger Mexican force. Their deaths rallied Texas; weeks later Sam Houston's army won independence at San Jacinto.

    Westward Expansion
  3. 3

    Sutter's Mill — Coloma

    Coloma, California

    Marshall's discovery drew some 300,000 'forty-niners' to California within a few years, reshaping the West, accelerating statehood, and devastating Native communities.

    Westward Expansion
  4. 4

    Wright Brothers National Memorial

    Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina

    On the windy dunes of Kill Devil Hills, the Wright Flyer lifted off for 12 seconds and 120 feet — the first of four flights that day. The brothers had solved the problem of controlled flight.

    Innovation & Flight
  5. 5

    Seligman — Birthplace of Historic Route 66

    Seligman, Arizona

    When Interstate 40 bypassed the town, barber Angel Delgadillo organized to save the 'Mother Road.' His effort revived Route 66 as a nostalgic travel corridor across the Southwest.

    Transportation