Route 66 turns 100 on November 11, 2026, and the celebration is not waiting for its birthday. Flagstaff's centennial calendar runs all year: a concert series under the Orpheum's marquee, a classic car show on the downtown blocks, documentary screenings and the anniversary itself. This guide keeps the dates in one place. Every date below was checked in July 2026 against the Orpheum Theater calendar and the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona's centennial calendar; confirm with the venue before you build a trip around any single night.
Still ahead in 2026
July 18: Route 66 Centennial EV Ride and Drive
Electric vehicles take over the same historic downtown blocks the Model Ts once idled along. The association's centennial calendar lists the ride and drive in Flagstaff's historic downtown, a one-day preview of what the road's second century might drive.
August 7, 8, 21 and September 5: The Music of Route 66 Concert Series at the Orpheum
The Orpheum Theater, itself a landmark two blocks off the road at 15 W Aspen Ave, hosts the Music of Route 66 Concert Series: the Nolan McKelvey Band with Pilcrowe on August 7, an evening with Honeygirl and The Sundusters on August 8, and The Grant Brothers on August 21. All three August shows are all ages, with tickets running $10 to $14. The association's calendar shows the series continuing on September 5 with an evening with UNION32, a date the Orpheum's own calendar confirms. The association also lists an August 1 series date that had not appeared on the venue's calendar as of this writing, so check the Orpheum's listings before planning around that one.
August 15: Mother Road Classic Car Show
Classic cars fill the parking lots and streets around City Hall and Wheeler Park, at the west end of downtown Flagstaff, for a free show that raises money for local Flagstaff charities. If you want the road's machinery and its architecture in the same photograph, this is the day they pose together.
September 25 and 26: Standin' on the Corner Festival in Winslow
About an hour east of Flagstaff on Interstate 40, Winslow throws two days of live music, food and drinks around the corner the Eagles made famous. It pairs naturally with a Flagstaff base: the festival by day, the neon and an evening walk back home.
October 10 and 11: Route 66, The Main Street of America at the Orpheum
The documentary Route 66, The Main Street of America screens twice at the Orpheum Theater: an evening show on October 10 and a matinee on October 11. The film then continues along the road itself, with screenings listed in Holbrook on October 12 and Kingman on October 15.
November 11: the road turns 100
The centennial itself. Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926, which makes November 11, 2026 the road's actual hundredth birthday. Expect the year's biggest crowds on the pavement, and expect Flagstaff to mark it the way it marks everything: on a main street that never stopped working.
Already happened this year
The centennial year started early, and the spring calendar has already rolled past. If you caught these, you watched the year take shape; if not, the list above still has plenty of road left.
- April 30: the Seligman Centennial Bash opened Arizona's celebration in the town that helped save the bypassed road.
- May 1 to 3: the annual Route 66 Fun Run, the association's signature cruise along western Arizona's stretch of the highway, ran with a centennial banner over it.
- June 6: the Flagstaff Route 66 Centennial Celebration filled downtown with a free, family-friendly day of nostalgic reenactments, a classic car show and streetscape chalk art.
Make it a centennial evening
Events give you a date. The road fills in the rest of the evening. The Route 66 Centennial Walking Tour covers both the 1926 and 1934 alignments in 90 minutes, meets at Heritage Square at 6 PM, and finishes as the neon comes on. Tickets are $29 for adults, $25 for students and $22 for children, and it is the only Route 66 walking tour in the USA. The tour is made possible with partial funding provided by the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona, and the research shows.
On the tour's own TripAdvisor listing, guests rate the walk 4.9 out of 5 across its first 13 reviews. Book on the tour page above, or through the tour's centennial page on flagstaffroute66.com, which keeps its own running list of dates and stop previews. The company behind it carries 1,000+ five-star reviews. Best of Flagstaff three years running.
For the daylight hours, the Flagstaff Mural Art Tour covers the walls where Route 66 keeps turning up in paint, including the Mother Myth of Route 66 mural on the Southside. And if the old motor courts are what pull you down the road, our guide to the historic Route 66 motels of Flagstaff walks through what still stands.
Questions people ask
When exactly is the Route 66 centennial?
November 11, 2026, one hundred years after the road was established on November 11, 1926. Programming runs through the whole year, so any month of 2026 counts as centennial season, but the anniversary itself lands in November.
How many trains pass through Flagstaff each day?
Close to 100 freight trains roll through downtown on a busy day, most of them BNSF container trains on the Southern Transcon, plus Amtrak's Southwest Chief in each direction. The horns are part of the soundtrack of any evening downtown, and the depot those trains pass turns 100 the same year as the road.
How did Flagstaff get its name?
On July 4, 1876, a scouting party stripped a pine tree and flew a flag from it to mark the nation's centennial. The bare pole became a landmark for travelers on the wagon road, and the name stuck. Fifty years later the highway arrived, which means the town's flag story and Route 66's birthday are both centennial tales.
What real Route 66 town is Radiator Springs based on?
Seligman, Arizona, about 75 minutes west of Flagstaff on Interstate 40, is the town most often credited. The filmmakers behind Cars spent time there with the barber who led the fight to save the bypassed road, and the fictional town's near-death and revival follow Seligman's own story closely.
Where does the Route 66 walking tour meet?
At the flagpole in Heritage Square in downtown Flagstaff, with departures at 6 PM. Arriving 15 minutes early keeps things simple, and our downtown parking guide covers the closest lots and garages.
