Thirteen miles. Kansas only gets thirteen miles of Route 66 — and every one of them counts.
It's the shortest state stretch on the whole highway, a quick diagonal cut through the southeastern corner near Galena and Riverton. But those thirteen miles carried their weight. The towns along that sliver held on through the dust and the depression and the decades when the interstate bypassed everything and left the Main Street signs swinging in an empty wind. They're still there. Still proud. In a place that brief, every mile means something.
