Today is Route 66’s 83rd birthday. The Santa Monica pier has been made the official Western terminus.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (KABC)

U.S. Highway Route 66 is one of the original highways in the country, and in its 83 years, it has undergone many changes. On Wednesday, its official western point was named the Santa Monica Pier.

It's a roadway so famous, it had its own song "Get Your Kicks on Route 66."

The original route stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, and later, it was extended to Santa Monica. But the Santa Monica Pier has always been where many travelers ended up after crossing the country. For a lot of people, it just made sense to put a sign up to officially name the pier the "End of the Trail."

"Now that the route is actually been decommissioned, it makes it a lot easier, and gives us the freedom to finally name something officially that everybody else has been doing all along anyway," said Dan Rice, a merchant on the Santa Monica Pier.

Moving the end of Route 66 to the Santa Monica Pier isn't just about rearranging history. It's also about business. Everybody is hoping that those who come to take a picture will also spend some money.

"Isn't that what it's all about? I recognize the past, but I'm living in the present and the future," said Jim Cronkle of Route 66 Alliance.

"All these places need to have business, and these people want to come here, and so that's what we're providing them," he said.

Official or not, if the sign says the pier is where the road ends, then for many, that's enough.

City officials are already planning events to commemorate the pier as the end of Route 66.

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And from the New York Times:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The question of where the old Route 66 officially ended in the West has been the subject of debate among history buffs and roadsters. On Wednesday it was resolved in a quintessentially American way, by placing the terminus in a place where it can best be monetized.

A sign and a parade, on Santa Monica Pier, marked the highway's 83rd anniversary.

A Route 66 sign embossed with “end of the trail” was dedicated at the Santa Monica Pier, a popular tourist destination, marking the 83rd anniversary of the road’s opening and what James M. Conkle, the chairman of the Route 66 Preservation Foundation, called the “spiritual,” if not precisely historically accurate, end of the famed roadway.

U.S. Highway 66 — coined the “Mother Road” by John Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath” and later popularized by Hollywood before becoming a casualty of the interstate system — opened in 1926, connecting Chicago to Los Angeles through hundreds of rural and urban miles of winding road in eight states.

Originally, the route terminated on Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles, but was then extended to the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln Boulevards in neighboring Santa Monica, an unattractive and extraordinarily busy corner where it would be impossible to stand and take a photograph.

Legend had it that at some point, an end-of-the-road sign was placed at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue as a prop for a movie shoot, and eventually disappeared, as did the highway designation itself (Route 66 was officially decommissioned by the federal government in 1985).

Given the pier’s proximity to that corner — and perhaps the fact that a place near the scenic Pacific Ocean where one can also buy some churros and a key chain while posing for a shot — the new “official” end seemed fortuitous.

Santa Monica tourism officials and the Preservation Foundation were both behind the idea, and the move required no approvals or permits. It is “like the power invested in me sort of thing,” Mr. Conkle said.

“It’s a myth,” he added, “but it is a myth added to all the other myths of Route 66.”