David M. Knudson

January 2, 1940 – August 31, 2026

My dad died on August 31 in Yucaipa, California.
He was 86 years old.

He was born in Nebraska and adopted by Gaylord and Ruth Knudson, who raised him in Berkeley, Michigan. From what I've heard, he was a spirited kid–mischievous enough that they eventually sent him to military school. That didn't tame him. Nothing ever really did.

After high school in 1957, he went to Ferris State University to study advertising and commercial art. Those were the things he loved–design, creativity, the visual world. From there he went to Midland, Michigan, to work as a commercial artist. That's where he discovered his passion for racing sports cars. That was his outlet, I think–the speed, the machines, the freedom of it.

In 1964, he moved to Los Angeles. He and my mom, Shelly Stevens, courted each other through letters. He convinced her to move west and marry him. My dad was working as a commercial artist for various clients in LA during those years.

In 1965, he bought the Morgan. That car was always important to him. But when I was born in 1969, reality set in. British sportscars aren't exactly baby-friendly, so they had to sell it.

In 1974, my parents divorced. That same year, he married Mary Lou Rozburski. He also co–founded the advertising firm Walker, Knudson and Campbell. That was his philosophy in a nutshell: when the conventional path didn't work, he made his own.

Years later, he purchased a DeLorean–a car that was completely on brand with his pioneering spirit. That car sparked something in him. In 1983, he and Mary Lou and a few others founded the DeLorean Owners Association–his first real act of preservation, though he didn't know it at the time. He was already drawn to saving things worth saving.

But Route 66 became his real life's work. In October 1963, before any of this, he and a college friend drove a red Triumph TR4 from Detroit to Los Angeles, taking Route 66 across the country with almost no money. It was adventure and necessity combined. Thirty-one years later, after my grandfather died in April 1994, he and Mary Lou drove that same road again in my grandfather's Ford Tempo. What they found devastated him. The highway he'd driven on as a young man was disappearing–bypassed, torn up, forgotten. They spent two weeks photographing what was left. By the time they got to Los Angeles, they'd decided to do something about it. He sold his shares in the advertising company. They were going to save Route 66.

In 1995, he founded the National Historic Route 66 Federation. Nobody was thinking nationally about Route 66 then. There were scattered state groups, but nobody was saying: we need to protect the whole thing. He was. He believed it mattered.

What followed was decades of work. He helped push the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Act through Congress in 1999. He wrote "The Mother Road: Route 66." He sat on the advisory council for the National Park Service's preservation program. For ten years, he hosted the Steinbeck Award banquet–honoring the people who'd actually kept Route 66 alive. He published Jerry McClanahan's EZ 66 Guide, now in its sixth printing and known as the "Route 66 Bible." Through the Federation's magazine and website, he became a resource for anyone who cared about the road. Travelers, historians, hundreds of Route 66 businesses. Tens of thousands of people found their way because of what he built.

People who knew him remembered him as a listener. He wasn't one to fill the silence. He had a dry sense of humor and an artist's eye. He understood that meaningful work doesn't follow a script, and he never pretended it does.

He leaves behind me, Andrew; my stepsister Cheri Fairchild; my stepbrother Roy Mumma; eight grandchildren; and four great–grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Yucaipa, California.

In lieu of flowers, please consider supporting a local Route 66 preservation campaign or writing a letter to Congress at savingplaces.org/preserve-route-66