From the Barstow Base Site.
As part of American history, the War Department, now named the Defense Department, determined the need for improved highways for rapid mobilization during wartime and to promote national defense during peacetime.
At the start of American involvement in World War II, the War Department singled out the West as ideal for military training bases, in part because of its geographic isolation, and especially because it offered consistently dry weather for air and field maneuvers.
Completion of the improved I.S. Highway 66 (Route 66) with all weather capability on the eve of the war, was particularly significant to the nation's war effort.
In 1942, Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow started construction alongside route 66. Critical troops, equipment and supplies were transported on Route 66 to military bases across the country thereby helping to facilitate the single biggest wartime troop mobilization in the history of the nation.
--Road66
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