Ribbon Road / Sidewalk Highway

The Ribbon Road near Afton is one of the most unusual surviving pieces of early Route 66. The pavement is only about nine feet wide in places—roughly the width of a modern single traffic lane—because it was built before Route 66 and later incorporated into the federal highway system. Its narrow width earned nicknames such as the Sidewalk Highway. Drivers once had to negotiate passing traffic by placing wheels on the shoulders, a vivid reminder of how different early automobile travel was from modern highway driving. The roadway preserves the scale and engineering assumptions of the 1910s and 1920s far better than a widened or reconstructed road could. Today the old alignment is primarily a historic driving experience. Conditions vary, and travelers should proceed slowly and respect local traffic and property. For Route 66 enthusiasts, the Ribbon Road is especially valuable because the attraction is the pavement itself. It turns the abstract idea of an "old road" into something physically obvious the moment a vehicle enters the narrow strip.