Reading Colorado Boulevard This Fall, as Route 66 Turns a Century Old

At Colorado Boulevard and Vinedo Avenue in East Pasadena, Poo-Bah Record Shop sits beside Colorado Bar, and an original Denny's stands across the street. The Denny's dates to 1963, the bar to 1964 and the record shop to 1971. Route 66 was commissioned in 1926 and stayed on the map until 1985. That makes this corner a product of the highway's later decades, and it is the kind of stop Pasadena's centennial season points people toward.

Route 66 turns 100 on November 11. Colorado Boulevard marks 150 years since a general store and post office opened at Fair Oaks Avenue in 1876. Pasadena has spread these anniversaries across a fall of walking tours, a long-running museum exhibition and one parade, and no single festival carries them. That spread fits the material. The Route 66 that survives in Pasadena is small, mid-century and easy to overlook from a moving car.

The Route 66 Boulevard Is East of the Parade

The Colorado Boulevard on television every January is the Rose Parade route, and it runs through the middle of town. Muralist Victor Ving's self-guided guide to the highway alignment starts at the eastern edge, at Rosemead Boulevard, and works west. It finds the road's remaining character in a run of independent businesses and signs.

Some of what he lists:

• Vinedo Avenue: the Poo-Bah, Colorado Bar and Denny's cluster. Poo-Bah has occupied a few locations around Pasadena and specializes in underground hip hop and experimental music.
• Motel signs: the guide points to vintage motel signs on the boulevard, including the Hi-Way Host Motel, built in 1957, and The Pasada Motel, built in 1959.
• Glatt's Firewood, at Madre Street: a hand-cut wooden sign marks a business that has occupied its original location since 1935.
• 911 E. Colorado: the three-story building known as the New Home of Liebergs went up in 1926 to house a dry goods store, the same year the highway was commissioned. It turns 100 this year too.
• The Foothill Boulevard Milestone, at Holliston Avenue: a small concrete marker on the sidewalk in front of the McDonald's, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is Mile 11 of a system of markers set out in 1902, measured from the old Los Angeles courthouse. This one was installed in 1906, when the road was still dirt, two decades before Route 66 existed.

The same guide also records losses. A December 2025 update reports that the operators of one of those motels changed its vintage sign. A 1993 mural at 1292 Colorado, titled "Communication Not Separation," has been painted over.

Ving is also adding to the boulevard. According to ColoradoBoulevard.net, his Route 66 motorcycle mural at Villain Custom Cycles, 2762 E. Colorado Blvd., was unveiled on November 10, 2025. It is painted in the style of an Art Deco travel poster and includes a life-size map of the highway's historic path through Pasadena. For the Colorado Street Bridge, which was the city's original Route 66 gateway, he painted the Beaux-Arts lamp posts and chose them over the familiar image of the bridge itself. The shop's owner, Jose Morales, has run the business since 2004. A National Trust Saving Places grant paid for the work. Ving has also hand-painted small Route 66 badges along the boulevard at his own expense.

Anyone taking the stretch in for the first time this fall is reading a thin layer of surviving details, and some of them change year to year. That is the case for seeing it soon.

What the Museum Adds: A Road That Started Mostly Unpaved

The Pasadena Museum of History, at 470 W. Walnut St., supplies the longer frame. Its exhibition "Where History Meets the Road: Celebrating Route 66 & Colorado Boulevard" opened June 13 and runs through January 24, 2027. The centerpiece is a 70-foot-long, five-foot-high canvas scroll from Claremont Graduate University's Center for Humanities in Practice, tracing the California leg of the highway from Santa Monica to Needles. Its design draws on 1915 road-map booklets from the Southern California Automobile Association. Pasadena Now describes the scroll as an invitation to slow down and read a road the rest of the country was built to speed across.

The baseline for that comparison comes from Visit California. When Route 66 opened in November 1926, only about a third of its roughly 2,400 miles were paved. The rest was dirt, gravel or wooden planks. Colorado Boulevard was already 50 years old by then. Pasadena Now's timeline of the street lists the railroad resort, the Red Car suburb and the Route 66 automobile city as successive eras on the same mile-long stage.

Pasadena Heritage contributed four oral histories about life along Colorado Boulevard to the exhibition. The museum's galleries are open Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $9 general and $7 for seniors, free for members, students and visitors under 18, and parking is free in the lot off Walnut Street.

November 11 falls on a Wednesday this year, so the galleries will be closed on the centennial itself. Plan the visit for the weekend before or the Thursday after.

The Fall Calendar

The dates below come from the museum, Walktober, the Light Bringer Project and the Visit Pasadena Route 66 hub. Walktober says most of its events require advance registration and that times and locations can change, so confirm before you go.

• Saturday, October 17, 9 a.m.: "99 Years and 11 Months of Route 66," a Walktober walk. Walktober is in its ninth year, is free and is sponsored by the city, with registration through WalktoberPasadena.org. The Rose Bowl also hosts UCLA against Wisconsin that day with kickoff still to be announced, so it is worth checking the game schedule before choosing a parking spot.
• Museum walking tours, dates to confirm: Curator Julia Long leads a two-part "Exploring Pasadena on Foot: Route 66 Series." Part 2, on Route 66 and car culture in the Playhouse Village, meets at 585 E. Colorado Blvd. in front of Pasadena Presbyterian Church and ends at Colorado and South Lake Avenue. Tickets are $25 general and $20 for members, reservations are required, and space is limited. The museum's event page has the current schedule. Playhouse Village developed as a commercial district in the 1920s as car ownership climbed, and many of its buildings mark milestones in car culture.
• Wednesday, November 11: Route 66's hundredth anniversary. The Visit Pasadena Route 66 page collects local listings for the season.
• Sunday, November 22: the Doo Dah Parade in Old Pasadena.
• January 24, 2027: the exhibition closes.

The Parade That Uses the Same Street

Since 1978, Pasadena has had an irreverent second parade on this same road. The Doo Dah Parade began in 1978, conceived at the Loch Ness Monster Pub as an irreverent alternative to the Rose Parade. LAmag describes the early marchers as artists who came together to march down Route 66, and the parade's founder said it pokes fun at the town's most sacred institution without being mean-spirited. The formal boulevard has the Rose Parade, and the Doo Dah has the same road for anyone who prefers a shopping cart drill team.

The 46th "Occasional" Pasadena Doo Dah Parade is set for Sunday, November 22, in Old Pasadena, according to organizer Light Bringer Project. It skipped 2025. The nonprofit cited the Eaton fire's effect on thousands of local residents and uncertain funding, and said the pause would help protect its arts education programs for underserved youth. Instead of a parade last year, fans held a "Doo Dah Takeover" at Dog Haus with an after-party at Old Towne Pub. This year's date falls eleven days after the centennial, well before the museum exhibition closes in January.

Putting a Weekend Together

For a full pass, start in the east and work west. On a Saturday morning, park near Vinedo Avenue and look at the Denny's, Colorado Bar and Poo-Bah, then walk or drive to the Villain Custom Cycles mural at 2762 E. Colorado Blvd., and stop at the Foothill Boulevard milestone in front of the McDonald's at Holliston. On a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon, take the scroll at the Pasadena Museum of History. Reserve a museum walking tour once dates are posted, and register for the October 17 walk before it fills.

Weigh the walking tour and Walktober dates against Rose Bowl game days. On Saturday, October 24, UCLA plays Michigan State at the Rose Bowl, kickoff to be announced, and October 31 brings Nevada.

Have a favorite stretch of Colorado Boulevard that this calendar missed? Sabena Sarma and The Sarma Group would like to hear about it. Let's Work Together.