Eagle Rock Was Route 66's Detour. The Detour Is Hosting the Centennial.

At 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, November 7, the Eagle Theatre at 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. will show John Ford's 1940 adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. The building took the Eagle Theatre name in 1937. In that same decade, Route 66 traffic ran past its front door.

Eagle Rock carried Route 66 for only a few years in the 1930s, and for part of that time the highway was passing through because its permanent route was still under construction somewhere else. A gas station, a motel, a movie house and a city hall still stand on that short stretch, and they now hold the neighborhood's part of the national 100th anniversary. The boulevard also starts its next rebuild in November, the month of the centennial.

How a detour put Eagle Rock on the map

Between Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles, Route 66 moved several times. The first route used Huntington Drive. In 1931 it moved to Figueroa Street through Highland Park. Eagle Rock's turn came after that, according to the federal Route 66 documentation on file with LA City Planning.

The timeline shows how brief the arrangement was. Once the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened in 1940, Route 66 had a dedicated road between Pasadena and downtown. The parkway was renamed the Pasadena Freeway in 1954. Colorado Boulevard went back to being Eagle Rock's main street. The buildings that went up for the passing traffic stayed.

Four buildings from those years, still on the neighborhood's main streets

The Route 66 sites in Eagle Rock sit along streets residents already use. Arranged by address, here they are:

1. Islander Motel, 1460 Colorado Blvd. The Eastsider's roundup of Eastside Route 66 landmarks describes the Islander as a 1937 Streamline Moderne building. It was one of several motels on Colorado Boulevard that drew travelers with neon lights, parking lots and low rates.
2. Jay Risk Standard Oil Co. Service Station, 1659 W. Colorado Blvd. This one-story building between Mt. Royal Drive and Vincent Avenue was built in 1919 in Standard Oil's "House with Canopy" style. Jay Risk moved it to Colorado Boulevard in 1931, and it served as an oil station until 1939. After that it was a fruit and vegetable market, and from 1947 a plumbing office. The city designated it Historic-Cultural Monument #1286 on May 23, 2023. The city's staff report notes that its stretch of Colorado Boulevard served as part of Route 66 beginning around 1934.
3. Former Eagle Rock City Hall, 2225 Colorado Blvd. Completed in 1922, the building became Historic-Cultural Monument #59 in 1969. The Center for the Arts Eagle Rock uses this address, and the Historical Society keeps its archives in the building.
4. Vidiots at the Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. The theater opened as the Yosemite in May 1929, was renamed in 1937, and showed films for 70 years before closing and becoming a church in the early 2000s. Vidiots now runs it as a 271-seat theater with 35mm and DCP projection, plus a smaller second room, the MUBI Microcinema.

Each of these buildings outlived its first purpose. The service station had become an office by 1947. The theater spent part of its life as a church. City Hall stopped being a city hall and became an arts center. Eagle Rock's Route 66 history survives because the neighborhood kept finding new uses for these buildings, and two of them are running the centennial programming.

Where the 100th anniversary happens this month

The Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society, founded in 1961 and holding an archive of photographs, local stories and old newspapers, opened Eagle Rock's centennial on October 19 with a presentation on Route 66 in Eagle Rock at 2225 Colorado Blvd. The rest of the calendar runs through the buildings listed above:

Tickets for both Saturday screenings are sold through Vidiots, which presents them with the Historical Society. The two films come at Route 66 differently. Vidiots' centennial notes describe the route as a key path west for migrants during the 1930s Dust Bowl and as a popular vacation route in the 1950s. Pee-wee's Big Adventure is the theater's pick for the lighter side, a cross-country chase after a stolen bike.

According to Vidiots, the Chamber festival will include live music, food, a vintage car show and a film festival presented by the Vidiots Foundation. The Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce is the place to check for the day and the location.

The Open Archives on December 5 is the most hands-on event on the list. The Historical Society asks visitors to bring questions, old photos or addresses. Anyone whose house or block has a story from the 1930s can bring it to the same building where the centennial talk was held.

The boulevard's next big change starts the same month

In the late 1930s, Colorado Boulevard carried traffic while the region built a faster road nearby. Starting this month, the boulevard is the construction site.

Metro's North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project broke ground in April 2026 and is in its construction phase. It will run zero-emission electric buses in dedicated lanes, with all-door boarding and upgraded stations, and Metro expects it to be finished before the 2028 LA Olympic Games. Streetsblog Los Angeles reported in September that the line is a $409 million, 19-mile project with 22 stations and about 20 lane-miles of new bus-only lanes across Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Los Angeles.

Pasadena went first. Its station work started in April 2026 and is scheduled to wrap up this November. Metro's current timeline puts Eagle Rock's construction at November 2026 through April 2028, and notes that schedules can change. Work in each city moves in phases near the future bus stations, so the effects will shift along Colorado Boulevard over that period.

Metro has scheduled two community meetings to cover project updates and current and upcoming construction impacts. Both will present the same information:

• Virtual meeting: Wednesday, November 18, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
• In-person open house: Thursday, November 19, 6 to 7:30 p.m., Herrick Memorial Chapel, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Rd. Free parking is available in the lot near Campus Road and Alumni Avenue and near Campus Road and Armadale Avenue.

The open house falls eight days after Route 66's 100th anniversary. In the 1930s, the road brought motels and a service station to Eagle Rock. The bus lanes now being built on the same road are the next change it will bring.

If you own a home on one of these streets, it may have its own chapter in this history: a 1930s build date, an early owner, a block that faced the passing traffic. At Mark Mintz, telling a home's story is a core part of how we market it, and a home's history can shape how buyers value it. When you're ready to see what yours means in today's market, start with What's My Home Worth?