U.S. Route 66 in Kansas U.S. Route 66 in Kansas U.S. Route 66 (US 66, Route 66), the historic east–west US highway between Chicago, Illinois and Santa Monica, California, passed through one brief segment in the southeastern corner of Kansas. It entered the state south of Baxter Springs and continued north until it crossed the Brush Creek, from where it turned east and left the state in Galena. After the decertification of the highway in 1985, this road segment was numbered as US-69 (alternate) from Quapaw, Oklahoma north to Riverton, Kansas and as K-66 (Kansas highway) from Riverton east to Route 66 in Missouri. The
History of Grant County, Kansas claims outside its present state borders. The Territory of Kansas was organized in 1854, including this area, along with all of Colorado to the Rocky Mountains, and reaching north along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. The city of Denver, Colorado was founded in what was then Arapahoe county, Kansas, and was named for the territorial governor. Incredible as it now seems, when state boundaries were fixed in 1861, a total of 44,509 square miles of land, including the gold fields in the Rockies, was rejected as unfit to be part of the state of Kansas. Only because