A Seligman-based small business owner named Angel Delgadillo had observed the impact that the decline of US 66 and establishment of the I-40 bypass had on his town. Delgadillo, a Seligman native, had been operating his privately owned barbershop since 1950. When I-40 had been completed around Seligman, the number of cars traveling through Seligman substantially decreased from thousands per day to only a handful per day. This also meant a great decrease in Delgadillo's business. By 1986, Delgadillo had been attempting for years to get former US 66 in Arizona designated as a historic route with little to no success. The same year, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway ended employee layovers in Seligman, decreasing Delgadillo's business even further.