Winslow, AZ - Standing on the Corner

We began today with donuts and a drive by the famous Wigwam Motel in Holbrook.

One of the iconic images of old Route 66. Maybe here is a good time to explain the difference between a wigwam and a teepee. A teepee has poles forming a circle at the bottom and tied together near the top. A wigwam is domed at the top and made with branches and covered in various materials depending upon where it was built such as grass, brush, bark, rushes, mats, reeds, hides or cloth. Now, tell me, is the Wigwam Motel aptly named?

Then we drove on to Winslow, Arizona, which has become a tourist stop ever since the Eagles song about standing on the corner came out.

‘Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by

Standing on the corner, giving all the girls the eye…’

Oops, wrong song, wrong generation, wrong activity. Here’s the song written by Jackson Browne and Glen Frey that we in this generation all remember and can quote:

‘Well, I'm running down the road tryin' to loosen my load

I've got seven women on my mind,

Four that wanna own me, Two that wanna stone me,

One says she's a friend of mine

Take It easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy

Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see

It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me’

This is the song that the German couple at Canyon de Chelly and countless others can sing word for word.

Poor Winslow, in its early history and up until the 1960’s, was the largest town in northern Arizona and a prominent stop first on the railroads and then on Route 66. Thousands of well-off tourists took the railroad to Winslow, stopped, stayed a few days in a hotel, La Posada, commissioned by Fred Harvey of restaurant fame and designed by Mary Colter in 1930, who also designed several buildings at the Grand Canyon. Later route 66 also brought tourists to Winslow to eat, to stay overnight and to visit.

Fred Harvey was not just a restauranteur, he had a vision of what ‘civilized’ travel should look like: linen table cloths, silverware, china tableware and crystal and used this vision to develope some amazing hotels. Harvey developed and ran all the hotels and restaurants of the Santa Fe Railway. But, his finest hotel was to be the La Posada. Costing over $1,000,000 for the construction and over $2,000,000 for the grounds and furnishings, it was to be his masterpiece. And, with Mary Colter at the helm of the construction, the decoration and the ambiance, it was one of the best.

Many luminaries from many fields stayed in La Posade and ate in its dining room, the Turquoise Room, in its heyday: Hopalong Cassidy, Shirley Temple, Charles and Anne Morrow LIndberg (on their honeymoon while he was designing the local airport commissioned by Howard Hughes), John Wayne, Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, The Crown Prince of Japan, Gene Autry, Bob Hope and many others.

It opened in 1927 and stayed open until 1957. Then, as happened to many small towns, the Interestate system was born with the goal of getting people from one place to another very fast. And small towns along the highways with their quirkiness and hominess gave way to the sterility of the Interstate. Winslow was one of these towns. The Turquoise Room gave way to MacDonalds. Tourism died, businesses closed, people moved and this small town lost its prominence. When La Posada closed, the furnishings were auctioned off and the interior was gutted to make offices for the Santa Fe Railroad employees. Ouch, isn’t it amazing what we do to some national treasures?

Then in the 1990’s some people took an interest in the small town that the Interstate passed by.

La Posada was put onto the endangered list for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and in 1994 Allan Affeldt took an interest in the hotel, purchased it after much wrangling and has restored it to its original prominence.

The second piece of the puzzle for Winslow was developing a park in its downtown designed around the notoriety brought to the small town by the Eagles song: ‘Take it Easy.’ Here you can see a statue of what I think looks like Jackson Browne, a trompe-l’oeil with a brunette waving at you from a window in a building and a flatbed Ford off to the side.

Across the street is a store devoted to Winslow tourism selling t-shirts, purses, key chains, etc. And, then, next to this is a marvelous small museum, where you can meet the curator whose mother was a bonafide Harvey Girl. The Harvey Girls were young single women of good character,with at least an 8th grade education, good manners, who were neat and articulate. Harvey interviewed himself and hired to work in his restaurants. When hired they were given a rail ticket to their place of employment, a uniform, good wages and room and board. They could not date nor marry any of their customers while there were working there but, when they quit, many did. Surprise, surprise. The uniform on the left below was the official Harvey Girls uniform while the one on the right is the one used in La Posada, more in keeping with the Southwestern decor.

We visited this neat small museum devoted to the history of Winslow. When it opened it had one small clown exhibit but residents and former residents began to deluge the museum with artifacts. Today, their archives are full and they are looking for larger quarters.

Today, you can not only stay in the elegant La Posada and eat in its renown Turquoise Room but you can also stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. You can also visit this unique museum.