Hooker Cut

The new Route 66 alignment built between 1941 and 1943 to improve the safety and eliminate the congestion along the "old" alignment through Hooker and Devil's Elbow had a straight alignment instead of winding around the hills, it went through them. This required a great cut through a high ridge east of the Big Piney River: Hooker Cut.

The engineers at the Fred Weber Construction Co. of St. Louis developed a new technique that is still in use today: they terraced the rock walls to keep falling rocks from hitting the highway or the vehicles on it.

The 90 foot-deep cut was the deepest road cut in America for many years.