America's Main Street

U.S. Highway 66 was once the busiest highway in the world and, as a result, was constantly being upgraded or re-routed. So there are many alignments of the highway for road buffs to explore.
  There are a literally scores of dead or dying towns along the fabled highway. On either side of the treacherous Jericho Gap are Groom and McLean, 30 miles apart. Seven miles west of McLean is Alanreed. Alanreed was never very big, about 150 people at its peak. Now it has about 45. Groom currently has about  550 people, but once had over 1,000. It is best known for two things. There is a 190 foot tall white cross that was built fairly recently, after the Route 66 days. It is one of the tallest crosses in the world and it stands in a field just to the south of Interstate 40, which bypasses Groom to the north. Groom is also known for a leaning water tower. It was a functioning municipal water tower at one time, but was de-commissioned by the town government in favor of a newer one. The owner of a local truck stop purchased it to use as a giant advertising sign for his truck stop. He cut two of its legs so they would be shorter than the other two. that is why it leans. He once said he did this "just to make people ask questions." And they certainly did and still do today even though the truck stop has been abandoned for many years. The truck stop was called
"Britten USA' and that is what it still says on the leaning water tower. This water tower is one of the most iconic images ofRoute 66 and appears in nearly every book about Route 66.
  Thirty miles east of Groom and seven miles east of Alanreed is McLean. This town has about 800 people but once had about 1,500. It is one of the more well known towns along the old highway. It was once very overbuilt because it had scores of businesses that catered to cross country travelers. Today, the majority of these businesses are abandoned. There was once a hospital in McLean that was built basically to take care of the carnage that occurred on Route 66 and, especially, the nearby Jericho Gap. The highway was also known known as "Bloody 66" because of all the wrecks, many of them head-on, that occurred on the highway.  McLean sort of looks like a movie set  that was abandoned after the movie was filmed. The abandoned Avalon Theater was once quite famous and was a very busy place in the evenings.
  For about eight miles in the Jericho Gap area between Groom and Alanreed, Interstate 40 straddles the boundary between Donley County to the south and Gray County to the north. The westbound lanes are in Gray County with the eastbound lanes in Donley County.