From the Archives: Jack and Gladys, in love with a road

President’s Note: I’ve been spending some time going through our archives at the Oklahoma Route 66 Association. As I find things of interest, either to newer Route 66 fans or folks that have been here since US Highway 66 was the only way west, I’ll post them for the community to enjoy. Thanks for reading!

Originally published in the Clinton Daily News on June 24 2007 by Gerald Green.

It began as a fund-raising job. Soon it became a labor of love. A love that took Jack and Gladys Cutberth back and forth across the country many times, and to exotic lands across the ocean.

Jack died May 30, 1978, and with him so did the Main Street of America Association. The highway he loved so dearly had essentially died a decade before, replaced by massive tongues of concrete called interstates.

Gladys continued to live on North Fourth Street in Clinton for approximately two more decades, and the same house she and Jack had resided in for most of the 55 years they were married. Ironically, it was razed not long after she died to make way for another highway - the expanded US 183 through the north part of Clinton.

At the time of her death on February 11th, 2001, at age 96, Gladys was living in the United Methodist Healthcare Center. Until moving there, she still received mail addressed to the Main Street of America Association, or the US Highway 66 Association, or to some other less official organization.

“Regardless of what it has on it, it still comes to my house,” she said in a 1997 interview, politely and pleasantly obliging yet another inquisitive reporter wanting to hear first-hand about her and her husband's life together on the road promoting Route 66. “I still answer it to this day,” she said of the mail delivered to her door. “I answer all of it. Whether it's an organization or an individual, I give him some sort of answer. At my own expense, but that doesn't matter.”

For nearly a quarter century Jack Cutberth was the executive secretary of the US Highway 66 Association, or the Main Street of America Association as it came to be known in its final years. That made him the only salaried employee of the group, formed in 1927 to promote the highway and then reactivated in 1947 following a period of dormancy during World War II. His labors earned him the title of “Mr. 66.”

But working right alongside him was his willing and understanding wife. Their office was their home, or their car.

Gladys remembered one trip to New York when it was definitely the car.

As executive secretary, Jack supervised the publication and distribution of brochures, maps, and other literature about the highway and the towns along it. The brochures were twelve pages thick and, at the height of Route 66’s is popularity, as many as 250,000 copies were printed each year. They were updated annually, and this time a new shipment had just arrived from the printer in New Mexico. Jack planned to distribute 10,000 of them in the state of New York.

The day before he and Gladys were to leave, the phone rang. It was someone from Amarillo, a major Highway 66 town and a rabid supporter of the association. Had Jack seen the new brochures, the caller wanted to know. No, he just received them and hadn't had time to check them.

“They've left out Amarillo, " the caller exclaimed, horrified.

Jack didn't have time to send the brochures back and have them redone, so he went to the local printer Harold Linderer and told them he had to have a rubber stamp immediately with the word Amarillo on it. “I stamped Amarillo on 10,000 of those brochures between here and New York state,” said Gladys. “I never looked up. I got to where I could open the brochure to the page Amarillo was on without looking, just by feeling the thickness of the pages.”

After that the association changed printers.

When the Cutberths were home, their house truly was their office. “You're sitting in the national headquarters of the Highway 66 Association,” Gladys told the reporter. “Our basement was the national headquarters. It was easy for me to help Jack here, and there was no rent to pay and no light bill to pay.”

Jack and Gladys both grew up in the Butler area, some 20 miles northwest of Clinton.

During their school years they “traveled in different circles,” as she put it. After graduation he went to barber college and she, denied her wish to attend a full-scale academic college, went to business school. Eventually a courtship began, followed by a marriage. “We were in Oklahoma City together and we eloped,” said Gladys. That was December 7th, 1923. They lived four years at Stratford between Paul’s Valley and Ada before moving to Clinton.

For years Jack operated a barber shop in the 700 block of Frisco Avenue. It was torn down in 1993 to make way for the Clinton Public Library expansion. After living a year and a half in the back of the shop, the Cutberths moved into the neat, red brick house on North Fourth Street where they would occupy for the rest of their marriage. Four and a half blocks south lay US 66.

“Jack and I have lived within five blocks of Highway 66 for 65 years,” Gladys said in the 1997 interview, speaking as if he were still with her. “We moved here in December of 1929. "

Although US 66 ran along Frisco Avenue in front of Jack's Barber shop, Gladys recalled that it was his talent for fundraising and not his love of the highway they got him into the promotion business. “If there was any collecting to do, they always called on Jack,” she said. “He was very good at that. He even did a lot of work for the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.”

In 1947 the US Highway 66 Association and its Oklahoma branch were reactivated after being dormant through the war years. Clinton postmaster Frank Smith was president of the Oklahoma unit, and he invited Jack over for the reorganization at the Biltmore Hotel in Oklahoma City.

“Jack was very good at raising money, so Frank offered him the secretary's job of the Oklahoma association,” explained Gladys. “He was to work on the membership list. It takes money to operate anything successfully, and the source of their revenue was the membership list.”

In February of 1948, Jack was promoted to executive secretary of the state association. In May of ‘54 he became executive secretary of the national association as well. That was followed in January of '58 by appointment as executive secretary of the Oklahoma Innkeepers Association.

“So he had a full-time traveling job,” said Gladys. “He stayed busy the year-round, and he loved every minute of it. He had to work all over the state. Then when he became national executive secretary, he worked from Chicago to Santa Monica, California.” While Jack was doing the promotion work, she kept the books. “I used to make out four annual reports,” she said, speaking of the three organizations plus their own personal tax statement.

And they traveled. My, how they traveled!

Gladys remembered that they made the trip from Chicago to Los Angeles, down the entire length of US 66, at least once a year and sometimes twice. One year they made it three times. “Jack always left loaded with literature,” Gladys recalled. “Sometimes I didn't know if there would be room in the car for me or not.”

Cover of the Drive US 66 brochure that the National US Highway 66 Association printed and distributed

Hired as a fundraiser, Jack soon grew to love his work and the highway. “The love developed,” said Gladys. “He became a 66 man from the top of his head to the end of his toes.” And she became a 66 woman, though not as quickly.

“I couldn't understand Jack's interest in the highway when he first went in,” she said. “He worked at it every day of the year. I grew into a gradually.”

Thumbing through a few remnants of the reams of literature that once filled her basement, Gladys was reminded of different sights up and down the highway. “I can remember when we first started to travel,” she said. “Every time we made the trip there would be more things added. Then the interstate killed off so many of the businesses. Before, they were right on the road.”

Her eye hit on Williams, Ariz., and she brightened.

“Oh we did have fun in Williams,” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “That was a big party town. Williams and Tucumcari. Tucumcari - there wasn't much there, but they always entertained us highly.”

“London Bridge at Lake Havasu City was 20 miles off the highway, but it drew a lot of traffic,” she continued. :And of course there were the Cadillacs out of Amarillo.”

“And I remember going to the Grand Canyon when there wasn't anything but high, high weeds. You should see it now. They've developed it into a wonderful playground.”

Occasionally their promotional travels took the Cutberths away from the highway, to cities in other parts of the country. And sometimes farther than that. Gladys counted Japan, England, Germany, and Denmark among the foreign countries they visited. But it wasn't all fun, not by a long shot. There was work to do, some of it unpleasant.

Asked about Lady Bird Johnson's crusade to rid the highway of what she considered unsightly billboards in the mid-60s, Gladys declared, “We had quite a fight over that. Through the fighting we retained grandfather billboards, but they destroyed most of the signs. It was detrimental to the traveling public. The billboards are big help when you travel.”

Highways, like people, have personalities. Gladys said that as the years went by, 66’s personality became stronger and stronger. “The road improved ... the motels improved,” she said. “And I don't care where you were - you always felt different when you got back to Highway 66. It was like you were back home again.”

But good-natured, lovable old 66 had a mean streak too. Susan Croce Kelly says in her book, “Route 66”, that it was known across the country as "Bloody 66” because of the many horrible accidents that occurred on its narrow, 18-foot-wide, two-lane driving surface. Gladys said the safety of the road itself actually improved as the years went by.

“As time went on, they straightened out a lot of the crooks and turns and bad curves,” she said. “In the beginning it was just a country road.” But improvements in the road were offset by changes in the automobiles traveling it, and by an increase in the number of autos. The trucks grew bigger, the cars faster and more powerful, the crashes more violent.

Yet in all their travels, Jack and Gladys never had an accident. In fact, they never even saw a serious one. They were also fortunate not to have breakdowns. “Jack had one flat,” said Gladys.

If it hadn't been for the interstates, she said 66 would eventually have been four-laned. “That was the association's next major project,” she said.

But the interstates did come, just as everybody knew they would. Resigned to that, the US Highway 66 Association and the businesses it represented tried at first to coexist with the bigger roads. Between Oklahoma City and L.A., they attempted to preserve their identity by having Interstate 40 named Interstate 66.

“Everyone realized the interstate was here to stay and we didn't have anything to sell,” said Gladys. :Sixty-six was dissolved. But if they (her husband and the people he represented) could have had Interstate 66, they would have been happy. But by then we had lost our strength in Washington. They always felt if Senator Kerr (Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma) had been alive, he could have gotten that done.”

The last brochure produced by the Association substituted the Interstate 40 shield on the front for a US 66 shield that had graced the cover for nearly three decades. Gladys said that was one of the hardest things she and Jack ever did. “That really did hurt, to put that 40 up there were 66 had always been.”

Actually, the association did win one battle over the interstate, and it was a big one.

“When the interstate system was planned they figured on bypassing all the towns and cities,” said Gladys. “They had planned to miss Clinton by around 10 miles. The National Highway 66 Association vigorously opposed this system and was instrumental in getting the policy reversed.”

Although the interstate basically wiped out his highway, there was no room for bitterness in Jack Cutberth. “He was disappointed in not getting it named Interstate 66, " said Gladys. “But bitter? No, no he wasn't.” In fact, she said he always worked closely with the state highway departments and even helped the Oklahoma Department of Transportation win over one of the final holdouts so I-40 could be built west of Clinton.

“One farmer wouldn't give up his ground,” said Gladys. “They finally called Jack up and said, 'We want you to see Mr. So-and-So. We can't do a thing with him.' Jack knew the man, and he just sat down with him like he was his next-door farmer buddy. The next thing you know, Jack had him signed up.”

That was the way her husband always did business, said Gladys.

“Jack took things in stride, and an easy manner,” she said. :The first thing you'd know, he'd have them won over. In the 55 years we were married, I never saw him angry and explode like other men.”

With her red hair, she said it was easier for her to get her dander up. Especially when their highway was involved. Picking up a picture she'd taken of the 39th Street bridge, built in 1919 on what would become US 66 across the North Canadian River west of Bethany, she said, “I love that old bridge. When they were talking about destroying it, I thought I'd go over there and be red-headed again. I adore that old bridge.”

Asked what her husband would have thought about the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum opening in Clinton the weekend of the interview, Gladys didn't hesitate. “I think he'd be very pleased,” she said. “I think he would thoroughly enjoy the museum because that represents his life's work, and when it comes down to it, there's not very many people who have their life’s work displayed in a wonderful new museum.”

She showed her support by donating virtually her entire collection of memorabilia to the museum, saving only a few items for herself. Her only stipulations were that the memorabilia be kept locally and returned to her or her family if the facility ever ceases to be Oklahoma's official Route 66 Museum.

The Friends of the Museum, a local support group, reciprocated by presenting her membership Number 1 in their organization. They figured that was the next best thing to Number 66, which will never be issued.

Gladys Cutberth in 1992; photo from the Oklahoma Historical Society. Both Jack and Gladys Cutberth are members of the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame and have plaques on display at the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton.