Before the United States Department of Transportation adopted the federal numbered highways system in 1926, major roads were identified by names. The first transcontinental highway across northern Arizona was the National Old Trails Road which closely followed the route that would later become US Highway 66. Where the two routes diverged, however, was at Holbrook. There, the National Old Trails Road left the Santa Fe Railway and went south to St. Johns, Springerville and into New Mexico. The above map shows the route in 1913 before it had been named National Old Trails Road. At that time it was often referred to as the Ocean to Ocean Highway, a name that would soon be adopted by the southern cross-country route that would be numbered US 80. The National Old Trails Road would follow the "new direct road" on the 1913 map that bypassed Woodruff and went through Petrified Forest National Monument boundaries. As one can see, the boundaries of the National Monument encompassed a much smaller area in those days.
There was also a road from Holbrook to Gallup, the route which would become US 66 in another 13 years. It closely followed the railroad and was in poor condition, sandy in places and rough. Most cross-country travelers followed the better maintained National Old Trails Road into New Mexico.
(Map is from Arizona Good Roads Assoc. Tour Book originally published in Prescott in 1913 and reprinted in 1987 by Arizona Highways magazine.)
By 1932, when the above map was published, Route 66 was well traveled and this portion of the National Old Trails Road had been numbered US 260. The numbered highway system avoided some of the competition for similar marketable names, and simplified the way routes were marked by signs. In recent years, named scenic highways have returned to the roadmaps. Petrified Forest National Monument has more than doubled in size on this 1932 map, but it is still all south of Adamana, lacking the Painted Desert region north of Route 66. (Map was published by Automobile Club of Southern California)
