The Grapes of Wrath: Oklahoma to California

The novel opens just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, convicted of homicide though he insisted he acted in self-defense. From here he hitchhikes home to Oklahoma farm country. The Oklahoma State Penitentiary, nicknamed "Big Mac", opened in 1908 with 50 inmates in makeshift facilities, and the 1940 film was shot partly in McAlester. Woody Guthrie's "The Ballad of Tom Joad" was based on the book.

Hitchhiking toward his home near Sallisaw, Tom meets the former preacher Jim Casy, and together they reach Tom's childhood farm. They find it deserted, and neighbor Muley Graves is still around. With the crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the family has defaulted on its bank loans and the farm has been repossessed. The Joads load what they have into a Hudson sedan converted into a truck and head west.

Precisión del lugar: The novel places the farm near Sallisaw without an exact spot, and its fictional setting differs from the real town; the pin marks Sallisaw.

Traveling west on Route 66, the Joads find the road crowded with other migrants, and the family dwindles: Grampa dies of a stroke and they bury him in a field. Steinbeck called the highway "The Mother Road", and the name stuck. The novel does not fix this stretch to one place, so the pin uses Santa Rosa, New Mexico, where John Ford shot the film's train scene. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) watches a freight train steam over the Pecos River railroad bridge, into the sunset.

Precisión del lugar: The novel doesn't tie this long stretch of road to one place; the pin marks Santa Rosa, where the 1940 film shot its train scene.

Needles was the town that marked the Dust Bowl migrants' arrival in California, and in the novel the Joad family stops here when they enter the state on Route 66. Carty's Camp appears briefly in the book. It is now a ghost tourist court, its remains behind the 1940s-era 66 Motel. The city is still lined with motels and shops from that era, and the 1940 film also shot scenes in Needles.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks Needles near the 66 Motel; the exact spot of Carty's Camp is not given.

Para el visitante: The city is lined with motels from the Route 66 era; the camp's remains are behind the 66 Motel.

After the hostile camps, the Joads reach Weedpatch, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps run by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency. As a federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by local deputies. Steinbeck dedicated the book to camp administrator Collins, who was the model for the character Jim Rawley. The real camp was built south of Bakersfield in 1936, and several of its historic buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places on 22 January 1996.

Para el visitante: The camp lies south of Bakersfield, near Arvin and Weedpatch; check access to the historic buildings before you go.