Route 66 - Tulsa, Oklahoma

Welcome to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the very birthplace of Route 66 and home of the one and only Route 66 Village. It takes its name from the name for 'old town' - Tallasi - in the language of the Lochapoka and Creek tribes who officially settled here in 1836 and were part of the so-called 'Five Civilised Tribes'. Descendants of the Mississippian culture societies were largely farming and agricultural communities. They appropriated many aspects of the colonising and displacing pioneers - although the absorption wasn't always peaceful or welcome.

Oklahoma still wasn't a state by the time of the American Civil War, but that didn't stop Tulsa from seeing its fair share of skirmishes and, later on, some of the more notorious outlaws of the Wild West, not least the Wild Bunch, and the Dalton Gang. In the 20th century, oil protected Tulsa from the worst of the Great Depression. The city's Greenwood neighbourhood was the home of what was termed 'Black Wall Street' - a highly successful and wealthy black community. Horrifying race riots - sparked by an alleged assault on a white 17-year-old girl - in 1921 led to the shameful massacre of hundreds of black residents; the neighbourhood was razed to the ground in the space of just a few hours. Those who survived and chose to stay rebuilt Greenwood, and it thrived. The massacre was rarely mentioned in history books or classrooms, and not in the press.

When Cyrus Avery, a local businessman, had the idea for a Chicago to Los Angeles road in 1925, little did he know that Route 66 would become world-famous. The Route 66 Village in Tulsa is a must-see transportation museum, complete with rail cars and other memorabilia from the town's early days.