Horrors of Route 666

Route 666 was the sixth spur of Route 66 — a number assigned by federal highway bureaucrats in 1926 with all the drama of a zip code. But that number, borrowed by accident from the Book of Revelation, turned a remote two-lane highway through the Navajo Nation into the most infamous road in America. The Devil's Highway earned its reputation honestly: the New Mexico stretch between Gallup and Shiprock killed drivers at two and a half times the state average, its signs were stolen faster than crews could replace them, and its legends — phantom trucks, skinwalkers, Satan's Sedan — grew wilder with every retelling. What the legends obscured was simpler and worse: the road was dangerous because it was neglected, serving some of the poorest communities in America on pavement that hadn't been meaningfully improved since 1928. In 2003, Governor Bill Richardson pushed to rename it U.S. 491. Within days of the announcement, every Route 666 sign across three states was stolen — some cut down with chainsaws. The renaming brought $225 million in road improvements that actually saved lives. The curse brought the cure. Sources Richard F. Weingroff, "U.S. 666: Beast of a Highway?" — Federal Highway Administration, Highway History series (June 2003) Alysa Landry, "'Devil's Highway': Navajos Grapple With One of Most Dangerous Roads in US" — Indian Country Today (June 2015) Douglas C. Towne, "Devil's Highway" — Phoenix Magazine (May 2026) Jonathan D. Rosenblum, Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miners' Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America — Cornell University Press (1998) New Mexico House Joint Memorial 60 / Senate Joint Memorial 49, 2003 Legislature of the State of New Mexico Arizona Department of Transportation, "US 666: Revisiting the Devil's Highway" — ADOT Blog (October 2023)