The blog entry below encompasses the entire run of my Route 66 Across Arizona articles, which ran in a local paper "The Noise" from 2010-2011. I have placed them in a slightly different order than they appeared - here we start at Winona, AZ and head east to NM border; from there, I focus on Flagstaff at the center, then west to the CA border. Not all of my article pics are used here, and a few that didn't appear are included. Note the observations and directions are based on my 2010-2011 trips, and may no longer be accessible. I present this here purely as entertainment and light information. There are a few factual errors I have discovered since these were originally published, but I have not corrected them for this presentation.
All content (aside from vintage photographs) copyright 2010-2011 J. Grumbo
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It ain't that big. The whole
United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There
ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor
together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat.--The Grapes of Wrath
It’s
probably an age thing. In my
mid-thirties, I’m not old enough to really remember the “hey-days” of this
entity – Route 66 – but I’m also not too young to be ignorant of it. So, as the car slowed to a stop on an old
patch of reddish pavement, erupting from within with weeds at the east end of
Winona, Arizona, I found myself seeking a certain mindset.
Winona
itself is a non-descript suburb of Flagstaff these days, with a local economy
that doesn’t rest on its quick mention in a Bobby Troupe song from way the hell
back. But there was something about the
bridge off the side of the modern road that intrigued me. I don’t know what it is; I just knew it is
part of the old route.
The
voluminous narratives I had listened to in recent weeks, replete with trivial
facts and presumably amusing anecdotes about the road, spring to mind but their
irretrievable corn left me wanting.
Granted, the nostalgia factor is a big foundation of this love affair
with a stretch of pavement. It brings
people from everywhere.
I
fiddled with the dials on my Nixon-era SLR and tried to figure the best place
to capture the sight. I stood
dead-center, my feet straddling the double-yellow lines,
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and imagined the countless automobiles that
would fly east and west along the forgotten stretch. Now, like a dark corner in some ramshackled
and forgotten museum, the bridge’s metal rusts and its paint fades. A car flew past along the modern road, the
young driver casting an uninterested glance at us, no doubt wondering why we
were piddling our time away on this tiny stretch of pavement that led nowhere.
The
kids ran across the bridge, peered over the sides, oblivious to the stories of
the “Mother Road,” as Steinbeck termed it.
In a way, maybe they’re better off than I am; they’re not trying to find
the meaning in it. Surely, this bridge
is not meant to be forgotten, or it would have been torn down by now. It is not meant to be remembered, either,
because there is no marker to beckon the occasional tourist over from the main
drag. I took a number of pictures and we
headed to the next port of call.
The
road, at least through Arizona, seemed to follow the railroad tracks in most
parts; personally, however, I remember the telephone wires along either
side. I watched them absently through
Arizona and New Mexico, before we turned north, during the interminably long
drives my family would take to Colorado or Minnesota when I was young. I didn’t have a nostalgic bone in my body in
those days, but I began to feel a sense of it all of the sudden. Nostalgia, of course, is not a single story
we collectively sigh about, but a deeply personal sense of appreciation, unique
to each.
Before
long, we were at the roadside stop of Twin Arrows, or at least the last
incarnation of it.
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Sometime in recent years, the nearly
collapsed pair of gigantic projectiles outside the trading post has been
renovated. Its shiny newness is in odd
contrast to the fading stucco of the rest of the main building – a trading post
and a Valentine diner. My son asks me
what a “malt” is and as I explain, he immediately sets it in his mind as a
necessity. I don’t even know if they
make them anymore, but I agree. A light
breeze blows and the old gas sign clangs quietly against itself while I try to
bring this place back to life in my mind.
I vaguely remember its last year, though I never actually entered the
place when it was open. I imagined the
road dust and the guttural sound of a ‘64 Mercury; it made up for the
rinky-dink Honda in which we had arrived.
I ruminated for a moment on the meaning of it all, and I suppose my
children might never be able to really understand; in their nostalgia, they’ll
look back upon Walmarts and Taco Bells and Starbucks. They’ll not appreciate what stood here. When you entered this café, you didn’t have
the menu memorized already.
Ironically,
though, a Valentine diner (but not the business within) was a pre-fab,
mass-produced model. A guy named Arthur
Valentine designed a line of eight to ten-seater diners that could be delivered
by truck. One either bought it straight
out for about $5,000, or financed it, leaving a $40 monthly payment in a safe
by the front door. If you failed to
maintain your payments, you may very well have watched your diner on a flatbed
being driven away. If you’re looking for
others still standing and operating in Arizona, try Dot’s Diner in Bisbee, the
Welcome Diner in Phoenix or the Route 66 Diner in Sanders.
As
the visit wound down, a couple in a blue GMC arrived and hopped the concrete
barriers. They were doing the same silly
thing as we were – following the small remaining vestiges of the old road. I told them what I knew of Twin Arrows, the
old bridge along Padre Canyon on the other side of I-40, and some trivial
factoids about Two Guns, which they had just left and, from what I gather, knew
nothing about whatsoever. I left with a
small satisfaction that I had done some good, though I am not really sure what
it was or why it matters.
The
pulse here finally flatlined in 2002, and its walls now preserve the political
agendas of some recent taggers. But
there is more: one has to take the dirt road alongside the railroad from Winona
– yes, this is Route 66 – all the way to edge of Padre Canyon. Along this bumpy, long-neglected road
skirting the canyon’s edge, you’ll find the original bridge, just two years
younger than the state itself. It’s been
irrelevant since 1937, when a newer one was built more along the lines of
present-day I-40. (Its foundations can
be seen beneath the current interstate.)
A leisurely walk over this 1914 bridge and up the northern hill leads
along the earliest stretch of the road, or at least the brief traces that
remain here. It quickly fades from site,
and you’ll have no choice but to return to the car and back to the modern route
for a while.
As
we headed east on the impersonal Interstate 40, I began to understand in some
small way what the whole thing was about.
I know I cannot really get it, not in the way previous generations
did. In these jaded early moments of
middle age, I have my own set of memories to reassess; Route 66 is not so
deeply entrenched in my definition of America, just as I cannot fathom the
nostalgic sensation that a Starbucks may someday give my children. I may scratch and claw at them to embrace
something simpler, something more wholesome about the culture. Ultimately, though, I end up as the 8-track
enthusiast wondering just what it is that makes CDs so great. I’m neither right nor wrong; this nostalgia
belongs to a specific era, and anything I get here is just a taste, just a hint
of what it was all about.
So,
with a whole lot more of the road ahead, I need to accept the plain truth – the
whole essence of Route 66 may not be available to me. I will just take in what it offers and hope I
wasn’t born too late. With this in mind,
we hit the road toward a little place called Two Guns.
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The
greatest difficulty of this strange compulsion to follow what was once the
“mother road”, Route 66, is the fact that much of what was on display is now
dust in the wind. This is particularly
true of the following sections of the road.
When
exiting the Twin Arrows site eastward, you can take the frontage road for some
short distance – about a mile down, to the right, was an old Texaco station and
trading post called “Toonerville.” This
section of the road was abandoned in the 1960s in favor of a more northerly
alignment – one resting beneath the current eastbound Interstate 40. There is a rough dirt road leading east,
roughly parallel to the interstate, at the point where this frontage road veers
south. A regular sedan is a wisp of a
car, so you’re better off not risking it on this unpleasant stretch. Instead, go back to Twin Arrows and catch the
freeway eastward.
Exit
225 is Buffalo Ranch Road, and south of the exit ramp you can find the old road
(unpaved) once more. A mile or so down
the way it merges briefly with the interstate – in other words, impassable
along this stretch – before arcing north, then south again. This section dates back to the 1930s. The bottom line is, without a high-clearance
vehicle and more than a modicum of patience, it is best to keep to the
interstate for the stretch between Twin Arrows and Two Guns. The old route is mostly visible from I-40,
along the south, so you are not far removed.
Anyone
unfamiliar with Two Guns may discern very little from its surface. The old KOA building and a gas station
stripped to the bones at the end of the 1990s are obvious, in the absolute last
gasp of this century-old collection of “nativesque” buildings. When you take exit 230, however, turn south
and then west onto the faded old pavement of 66.
The
town site itself is unpaved and requires a good deal of imagination. Where you see “Route 66” painted on the side
of a small white “storage closet”, look to the right. There stood a tremendous red structure
entitled “Two Gun Town” – a trading post, motel, tavern, gas station, repair
garage, and café.
(in the 1950s...)
The glass entryway’s
shattered remnants still lie, scattered liberally around its stone
supports. In the large, low square of
stones right across from this entrance stood an impressive sign declaring “Two
Guns, Arizona”. In 1971, just a few
years after Benjamin Dreher built this impressive complex, one of the gas pumps
exploded and burned it all to the ground.
The gas pumps have only recently disappeared from the site.
The
most commonly photographed ruin is marked “Mountain Lions” and dates back to a
man who went by such monikers as “Indian Miller”, “Chief Crazy Thunder”, and
“Two Guns Miller”. He resided in the
town for only a few years, his unscrupulous behavior and general lack of
popularity forcing him out in 1930. His
contributions to the curious story of the town are the stuff of Route 66
legend, however.
This
zoo wouldn’t pass modern safety standards, as Henry “Apache” Miller would
testify; he was attacked by his animals on numerous occasions. The cages at the back of the complex give a
vague idea of the lives of the various desert creatures once housed here. Whether or not Miller lived in caves along
the canyon as some have said, he certainly lived in a room off the entranceway;
here, in fact, he killed his landlord, Earl Cundiff, in 1926.
Continue
along the vague road to the east – past the southern turnoff to the bridge –
and continue to a gap in the barbed wire fence on the right. From here you can see a Hopi-inspired yellow
basalt stone structure (looking much the same as when it was newly built in the 1920s) and a red sandstone building to the right.
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In between these – and still accessible to the
brave or the foolhardy – is the Apache Death Cave, the site of a violent
confrontation between the Navajos and the Apaches in 1882. The short version of the story: Navajos
discovered a recent party of Apache raiders had been hiding in this underground
set of caves. The Navajos kept to the
upper edges of the canyon, rifles at the ready.
They burned dry brush and wood on the canyon floor, at the cave
entrance, to smoke the aggressors out.
When begging for surrender terms, the Apache negotiator hesitated just a
bit too long when Natani, the Navajo leader, demanded the three female
prisoners be released; by then they had all been tortured and killed. A barrage of bullets was unleashed toward the
cave entrance and the fires were renewed. When all was said and done, all 42
Apaches died in the smoke and, decades later, people like Henry Miller sold the
bones to tourists.
There
is no trace of the big signs or the electric lighting that once lined the
ruins; no sense of the typical Route 66 ambience. The ruins in this small section date to the
1920s, not antiquated native settlements as Miller would have had you
believe. But in some way, the spirit
behind them is Route 66 at its best: a curious collection of the strangeness
(and gaudy marketing) of America. Be
careful, however, you don’t step into any of the fissures in the earth, nor
talk yourself into spontaneous spelunkery; the tunnels underneath go many miles
in all directions.
Head
back toward the impressive concrete bridge to the west – a contribution of the
National Old Trails highway in 1914. The
road veers west, past the red ruins of the Cundiffs’ general store, along a
no-longer-paved section of 66. There is
an opening in the barbed wired fence several hundred feet down that allows
entrance to the main section of town.
Here you’ll find a four-seater outhouse, an old Texaco station (the
rounded building), and the horizontally impressive curio shop/zoo, all dating
from the 1930s on.
Go
back to 66 once more and turn left, following the dirt road to the fence. You can see where the road used to go, in the
form of a much less impressive concrete bridge from 1938.
Now,
to correct some misinformation: Two Guns is on Canyon Diablo, but it is not
Canyon Diablo town. There are ubiquitous
websites that seem to confuse the two.
Check out the link at the end of the article for the full story of both,
as well as a much expanded retelling of the Apache Death Cave story. If you’re curious about the remarkable and dangerous
town called “Canyon Diablo”, just two miles north, take the overpass from Two
Guns and continue on the old pavement, just north of the westbound entrance
ramp. The trail is rough, and you’ll
have to park on the south side of the railroad tracks and walk in – but don’t
go without reading the story of the town first.
For the railroad bridge, head west alongside the tracks to the canyon
rim. It’s quite a sight.
The
eastern stretch of the mother road exiting Two Guns is not immediately
accessible from the site, so you can take I-40, which covers the 66 alignment
dating from 1950s-1985. Heading east,
you will soon be able to see the earlier alignment, heading in a southeastern
arc and eventually alongside the current trading post off exit 233 (Meteor
Crater Road). Just south of the exit,
make a left onto the dirt path and follow it down to the red sandstone building
on the left. This 1938 ruin, built by
Daniel M. Barringer (whose moniker now labels the crater six miles to the
south), failed as an observation point, being along the highway but not
particularly close to the crater – and debts from its construction accumulated
faster than profits.
(1946 and 2008)
G.H. Nininger took over the building in 1946
and used it for his meteorite museum, taking advantage of the Route 66 crowd
until 1953. A large eagle’s nest
inhabits the tower, but like the old road, it has long been abandoned.
Route
66 continues east from here, curving north over I-40, then down again, then
north once more a mile and a half ahead at the Sunshine Overpass (where the
railroad crosses under the interstate.)
Route 66 then follows along the north side of I-40 as Red Gap Ranch
Road, which has a series of gates that are not necessarily going to be open for
travelers. West of exit 239 is the 1950s
stretch; east of the exit, the 1969 section.
The dirt route along the south side of the interstate was apparently not
66, but it was close enough for the tourists.
Meteor City was born in 1938; the large dome you see was originally
built of wood in 1979; it burned in 1990, and was soon replaced with the
less-flammable dome that stands now.
Lovers of crap cinema already know that 1984’s “Starman” briefly
transformed this locale into a restaurant for a key scene; modern tourists
delight at the voluminous kitsch available for sale here, including “Route
Beer,” gigantic rain sticks, and other unnecessary but amusing items.
If
you’re heading back to Flagstaff from here, look to the north as you pass exit
233. This was the site of Rimmy Jim’s trading post. He was enough of a character that he still
warrants references on modern maps. From
signs depicting the unhappy fate of salesmen who dared show their faces, to the
speakers under the outhouse seats, to the afternoon double-charging of regulars
who missed their usual morning stop, Rimmy Jim Giddings was the sort of person
that made the old road unique. I-40
killed the business, and perhaps that’s the greatest lesson we can take from
this odd obsession with the defunct highway; the direct route is not necessarily
the most interesting.
To
learn more than you ever dared to dream about Two Guns and Canyon Diablo, read
the book “Two Guns, Arizona” by Gladwell Richardson; the full and easy-reading
text is available at
http://www.hkhinc.com/arizona/twoguns/richardson.htm. Also, for a look at the modern eccentric
Billy Yeager and his upcoming independent flick, which includes several scenes
at Two Guns, check out
http://www.jesusofmalibu.com.
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Back in the day, I had always held a not-so-secret belief that the best part of visiting Winslow was the joy that it was to be able to leave it behind. Whether this assessment is fair or not is subjective, of course. After all, this was a booming city in the 1930s when the Fred Harvey company built the last of their great railroad hotel/restaurants. By the 1960s Winslow was the biggest of the northern Arizona cities, as the headquarters of the Santa Fe line and a plum spot on the great Route 66. Then, I-40 came along.
Of course, in 1972, Glenn Frey added a second verse to his friend Jackson Browne’s unfinished song, Take it Easy, and Winslow was assured a small measure of lingering fame that remains, long after much of its population has departed for greener pastures. This abbreviated song mention, lost on the newest generation of travelers, has spawned one of those oddball Route 66 sights that makes the interstate dull by comparison. But first things first.
Heading east on I-40, you enter town via Hipkoe Drive (exit 252). There are several old businesses and abandoned homes if you turn west at the bottom of the exit, such as Joe’s Café, the Delta Motel, and a barely readable sign for the Tonto Drive-In, which is all that remains of the movie lot. To get to town, however, you need to go east, past the gaudy yellow “Hillside Taco Stand.” Here Route 66 splits into eastbound and westbound, one block apart. Eastbound is called Second Street, westbound is Third Street. The eastbound lane has been Route 66 since 1926, and the National Old Trails (NOT) highway three years previous, and simply the main street of Winslow before that. The westbound split came along in 1951, and both remained as 66 until 1979, when the interstate made both obsolete. As a result, the most historic sites can be found along Second Street.
There is the Hubbell Trading Post, along the right just past the “Welcome to Winslow” sign, is one of 24 posts John Lorenzo Hubbell operated with his brother in Navajo country. A typical Route 66 traveler, however, bypasses this for colorful nonsense like the “Standin’ on the Corner” park – which is a park in the sense that there’s a bench or two – a couple blocks up on the left. There’s a statue of Glenn Frey – or is it Jackson Browne? – and the girl in her red Ford painted on the wall behind.
I hear the Eagles get a nickel every time someone poses with the statue, so my kids owe them two bits. Across the road is the Old Trails Museum, housing lots of baubles, knick-knacks, and wooly mammoth bones. The photograph of an old business called Wayne L. Troutner’s For Men Only, with a gigantic neon cowgirl, hints that Winslow may not have always been as stodgy and tired as it seems now. I’m willing to bet that the Chinese tunnels underneath the town would be a crowd-pleaser, if only some brave investor would give it a shot.
Further east down Second Street, along the left, you’ll recognize another red-and-white Valentine Diner, in somewhat better repair than the one in Twin Arrows.
It is certainly more infamous, having served in a scene in “Natural Born Killers,” as a passing Navajo woman pointed out. The interior is tight, and would probably not accommodate modern Americans, but there is hope that it will reopen in the future.
Across the street is the famous La Posada, which nearly met its end in 1994 when Santa Fe pulled their HQ out of town and the hotel was set for demolition. Local residents presented this, and initiated a restoration of old downtown – a clearly slow-going process. La Posada’s renovated innards and décor can only be described as deco-nouveau, or some other high-fallutin’ term. Tina Mion, owner and artist, can be seen on televisions throughout explaining her many and varied paintings here. The presidential wives theme of many of these works is a curious one, and perhaps that makes is Route 66 worthy by itself. Nowadays, the Harvey Girls have given way to regular people, but the roar of the train still cuts past the south side of the hotel at regular intervals, with the Southwest Chief stopping at the train station next door on occasion.
Heading east out of town, you’ll see an old Whiting Brothers sign and the station to go along with it, a modern “Navajo & Hopi Indian Arts and Crafts Center” (along the small stretch of Route 66/Highway 87 past the I-40 turnoff, and the old, abandoned Minnetonka Trading Post shortly thereafter. You can see the old Minnetonka billboard as you enter I-40, which you’ll have to do since Hibbard Road (both east and west), which served as Route 66 until 1958, is locked from access. The old routes (1923-1930s and 1930s-1958) follow along on the north side of I-40 for several miles before crossing over, roughly around exit 264, where you can go either way at the bottom of the exit to witness the various alignments. For the purist, I-40 between Winslow and Jackrabbit Road was known as Route 66 between 1958 and 1985.
Next stop is one of the most iconic symbols of Route 66. A guy named James Taylor bought an old snake farm in 1949 and let them all go. He repainted the building with Indian chiefs, symbology, and foot-long rabbits. Inside the door, a three-foot high mechanical rabbit that was a prime spot for posing the family. And then, the road signs – which could be found touting the rabbit all the way back in Missouri – also espoused the wares of his business partner’s “Wayne Troutner For Men Only” store in Winslow. Few of these signs remain, but the originals, across from the trading post, still stand and beckon the apparently road weary traveler to visit the big rabbit.
It stands outside now, and much taller than three feet, though the current manifestation is a fiberglass number from the mid-1980s. The gas station down the road, as well as the campground, has not fared so well.
Jackrabbit Road continues east for a while, but doesn’t allow access to the next stop – Joseph City – so you’ll have to take I-40 once again, which served as 66 from 1967-1985. At the north end of exit 274, you can head right into Joseph City, but two interesting sites to the west can be found, such as Howdy Hank’s Trading Post – now the apparently defunct “Old Historic Route 66 Hay Sales and Feed,” a whitewashed ramshackle with a faux-teepee on one corner. Just a bit further and to the left stands Ella’s Frontier, or indeed, what remains of it.
Ella Blackwell purchased it in 1955, stocking it with the usual western tourist kitsch – headdresses, rubber snakes, fake tomahawks, and so on. When I-40 bypassed this section of 66 in 1969, the business began to fade, but Ella Blackwell maintained a large international correspondence until her death in 1984. There’s gold in that thar kitsch as well, it would seem.
Joseph City is a quiet old town, vaguely aware of its Route 66 history, but resembling more the old Mormon town that it is. The feeling of the Mother Road one gets here is a muted one, and somewhat insincere in its manifestations – more the commercialized 66 than the authentic.
As you exit town, be sure to turn right on Westover Street, as the section eastward to I-40 was not Route 66 at all. Westover follows the Frontage Road and represents 66 from 1923-1969. Not far past Tanner Wash, the road has been blocked, so you’ll need to get back on I-40 – the post-1969 alignment – via exit 277. As you drive east, you may notice an old paved road running along Cholla Lake (with the massive power plant in the background). This was not an alignment of Route 66 at all.
Next along the way, heralded by ubiquitous vibrant billboards, is the Geronimo Trading Post. Outside is a small village of teepees and old wooden wagons, as well as an impressive collection of petrified wood – including the largest single piece in the world, if the hype is accurate. Geronimo Trading Post sits on a small section of the 1923-1969 alignment.
Just a couple miles east, you can exit I-40 on Hopi Drive, which holds yet another Route 66 icon, the Wigwam Motel. This is number six out of seven of these “villages” built, and one of two along Route 66. Chester Lewis used Frank Redford’s patented idea, building this locale in 1950 and paying Redford a royalty – every dime that a guest put in the co-op radios. A decline in business closed the motel in 1982, and Lewis died four years later; in 1988, his widow and children reopened and restored the property. Inside, the “wigwams” are modern and more spacious than expected; they attract people worldwide, months in advance. And how often have you said yes when someone asked “Have you slept in a wigwam lately?”
(Perhaps this is a little more polite than San Bernardino’s wigwams, which implore you to “Do it in a Teepee.”)
Across the street stands the Globetrotter Lodge (with a globe atop and a somewhat shabbily painted collection of non-caucasian folks on the sign); down the street, the remodeled Safeway with the old-style logo on the sign – which both of my kids knew was old, somehow; the Butterfield Stage Company Steakhouse, complete with stagecoach on the roof and long Route 66 map/mural across the street; Joe & Aggie’s Café; and the curiously big-city-looking Roxy Theater.
At the light (Navajo Boulevard), turn north to continue on Route 66. If you want to see large dinosaur statues – and who doesn’t? – turn south instead. Off to the right, the Indian Rock Shop, yet another seller of petrified wood. The dinosaurs here are curiously benevolent in expression; even the T-Rex, swallowing a large lizard, doesn’t appear mean. Adam Luna, the owner, decided that kids have enough anger around them, so from his first dinosaur in 1987 he has leaned mostly toward herbivores.
Meaner ones are found further down the road at the turn off toward the Petrified Forest, at Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood Company. The vast yard has a mind-numbing amount of petrified wood, and there’s some dinosaur fossils inside as well. If you don’t have time to get to the Petrified Forest, this is probably just as good.
In between these two dinosaur collections is Bucket of Blood Street. To the east, the NOT southern route; to the west, part of the 1923-1950s Route 66 alignment. South of Jim Gray’s, off McLaws Road, the pre-1923 NOT heading to Winslow.
North of the Hopi and Navajo intersection, up to Iowa Street, ran the NOT/Route 66 from 1926-1932. It went east on Iowa Street for a mile to the KOA. You can stay on Navajo northbound, however, as these two eventually meet up anyway, and since Navajo served as 66 up through 1979. Along the way, an ever-increasing amount of defunct old businesses give way to newer franchises, relying on interstate travelers more than Route 66 fanatics. Never was that more clear to me than when the kids and I settled into Kicks Kafe II (which leads me to believe there is a Kicks Kafe I somewhere) on a Saturday afternoon and had the restaurant entirely to ourselves for about a half-hour. Just up the street, near the interstate, Taco Bell was booming.
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To me, the eastern third of Arizona's Route 66 is an unknown quantity. In many ways, it is the least preserved – or, perhaps, the least recognizable. Most of it is still readily accessible, but to follow it through as much as possible, you'll have a good deal of backtracking. Many sections are now unpaved and some require high clearance. While a regular sedan seems competent to handle most of it, save your '57 Fairlane for the auto shows.
Heading east out of Holbrook, you'll have to take Route 66 to I-40 exit 289 and take the freeway for three miles, as the National Old Trails highway through 1965 lays buried beneath the westbound lanes of the interstate. The westbound route served as 66 from 1965-1985, so you're not exactly cheating. Exit 292 takes you on to State Route 77; just south of the exit, you can visit the “Museum of the Americas” as well as the Dinosaur Park. If you want to follow old 66, however, you'll see it north of the westbound entrance and exit ramps. This path arcs up through a dry lake bed and becomes Pima Road, which is easier to get to from Exit 294, Sun Valley Road. Lovers of decay may find Sun Valley an amusing little detour, but aside from the decidedly unromantic “Root 66 RV Park” there is little to indicate the old road existed here. Sure, there's a little pink Rambler there, and a small camper trailer that promises “Open Senior $16.00” - a great moment of amusement and speculation for us – but some maps comment that Route 66 visitors aren't welcome in Sun Valley. Whatever!
If you have a four-wheel drive with reasonable clearance, you can take Pima Road, which is parallel to I-40 and about half a mile north of it. This section, the NOT through 1965, meets up with – and is partially covered by – the current interstate, not far after the gate. The earlier manifestation of the road, used through the 1930s, goes through two washes, including Twin Wash, before crossing the current interstate around exit 300 (Goodwater Road). With our meager sedan, we made it as far as the first wash, then walked under I-40 through the gate to the south. And check out the cracks in the support walls of the overpasses; someday, you might be the lucky driver that finishes what neglect has started. Anyway, maps tell you this path under the interstate and east along the southern side is Coyote Road. It's not Route 66. To stay on 66, cross the wash (north of the overpasses) and continue east toward exit 300.
If you're not brave enough to try your sedan through the sandy washes, then you can get back on I-40 at exit 294 and take it all the way to Goodwater Road.
This is still Route 66, at least if you're in the westbound lanes, and it was so all the way up until 1985. Of course, for the real Route 66 experience junkie, don't head east from 294 without a brief stop at Ofelia's Knife City, just south of the exit. In the grand tradition of overzealous marketing, billboards for some distance have been beckoning you to come in and buy dangerous weaponry. That said, the collection of items is impressive; brass knuckles aplenty, some with Tony Montana's glaring countenance, ready to slam four square bruises into the throats of your enemy; swords everywhere, from Lord of the Rings merchandise to pole-axes; overpriced kitchen knife sets (actually four of the same knife in a package); ninja shuriken, blowguns, pocket knives large and small – there are countless instruments of death, for ridiculous prices. The problem with the shop is not its collection, but its employees' lack of any semblance of humor. I suppose when one is constantly surrounded by apparatus (apparati?) designed to draw blood in copious amounts, one becomes something of a sourpuss. Oh, and they got stink bombs too. Cool!
However you get to Goodwater Road, the NOT through 1961 crosses Little Lithodendron Wash just south of I-40. This little patch of road, and the old bridge, are the perfect spot to relive those vague “Road Warrior” movie memories.
Mel Gibson, long before he became 31 flavors of crazy, would have been at home here. None of this explains the red barrels on the wooden side posts of the old bridge, which appear to have been for vegetation of some sort.
This road leads alongside I-40, a bit bumpy and pavement-free, for about three miles. This was Route 66/NOT through 1961, and what is now I-40 in this area was 66 from 1961-1985. Just short of the Painted Desert Indian Center, at exit 303, is the bridge at Lithodendron Wash. Let it be stated here and now – if you decide to drive over this bridge, I will not be held responsible for the manner of death that you experience, nor any injuries you may sustain, nor any rude comments you may make while negotiating the remaining surface. If I were to compare the bridge to a cheese, it would be Swiss. Driving a car over it is madness. After all – on the other side, westbound, signs say “Dead End.” Curiously, this bridge is not blocked from either side. Interpret that as you will. Whatever the case, for the love of all that's holy, bring your car back to the interstate at exit 300 and take it east to exit 303.
South of the exit is the Painted Desert Indian Center, which has a small yard full of petrified wood for sale – they all have that out here – and a shop full of the usual kitsch. I bought some saguaro honey and a V-nickel, 1908, which is curiously paired in its packaging with an arrowhead. This is like buying a package of cheddar that includes a bonus 1987 Honda steering wheel.
The real excitement at this tourist stop is outside – a giant weather forecasting rock, colorful wooden teepees (another common site in this area), and several giant model dinosaurs. These are certainly not the benevolent ones from the rock shop in Holbrook; no, this big Rex has a bloodied triceratops under its claw, and a smile only an evil mother could love.
For more interesting dinosaurs, cross to the north side of the exit to Stewart's Petrified Woods. As you come up and around to the main yard, you'll see the somewhat comic green dinosaur with a half-dressed, half-bodied mannequin in its maw. It's even stranger when you consider the mannequin's almost benevolent expression. By the way, if you have a copy of “Weird Arizona,” this is the cover model.
Stewart's is another of those wonderfully wacky and unique Route 66 sights – a mix of elements that don't have any obvious connection but, somehow, feel perfectly natural together. Where else can one find female mannequins,
ostrich eggs, saber tooth tigers, fiberglass dinosaurs, polished petrified wood, no less than three Chevy Chevelles, an old school bus and teepees all in the same place? Check inside and get your free postcard (which is essentially free advertising for the company) and buy some food to give to the ostriches. And, if you have never seen an ostrich relieve itself, you are in for a disturbing surprise. I won't spoil the fun, but I think John Hurt's death scene in “Alien” would be an apt comparison.
Go back to the southern side of the exit and take the road east. Adamana Road, at least this part, was Route 66/NOT from 1923-1961. It crossed over what is now I-40 a few miles down, at a locked yard full of rusty old vehicles and defunct buildings once known as Rocky's Old Stage Station. Adamana Road continues south here, but you'll need to backtrack once more to exit 303, take I-40 east to the Petrified Forest Highway (either Highway 63 or exit 311). The NOT ran through here, somewhat parallel with I-40, until 1961. Not all of the pavement is accessible anymore, and to get on it heading east you'll have to pay an entrance fee to the park. By all means, visit; but the park route itself is not the old road. So, again, you must get on I-40 to exit 320 (Pinta Road). From the north end of the exit, follow Pinta Road through the barb-wire gate and turn immediately left, then follow the bumpy, half-dirt, half-paved, all-mottled NOT section a couple miles to the Painted Desert Trading Post ruins.
Though nothing remains inside but crumbling walls, hanta virus, and several very impressive (and presumably abandoned) raptor nests, the setting and the solitude of the spot is a great chance for reflection on this “Mother Road” phenomenon. Just to the west, ruined cars and an old bridge over Dead River; still further, the Painted Desert itself. In the pavement just out front of the store, a fading logo denotes the road is “Route 66.” In red letters on the whitewashed outer walls, enticements for curios, rugs, jewelry, and cold drinks.
When Dotch and Alberta Windsor opened this trading post in 1942, there wasn't a telephone and windmills generated their electricity. Dotch divorced Alberta and remarried in 1952; he and Joy ran the post until 1956. About that time, I-40 took over in the area; the trading post went under and was abandoned. No more gas pumps out front and no more road weary travelers, save the occasional Route 66 enthusiast who no longer dreams of the great opportunities to the west. The glut of standardized franchises and dollar stores, run by unfriendly people with scripted answers, makes one long for the humanity of the stops along this decommissioned old route.
As you stand at the Painted Desert Trading Post ruins, you'll see that the old pavement does indeed go further west over Dead Wash, but you’ll find it is blocked at the national park boundary - and even if you crossed this, the alignment disappears for a while. So, the only return path is east, back toward the gate you passed from Pinta Road.
Though old 66 does, in fact, continue east from here for a few more miles before crossing over the current interstate, we found that not only is the eastbound way blocked at the reservation border, but guides indicate all the way through Crazy Creek it is subject to washouts. So, you'll have to return to I-40 from Pinta Road again. Before you enter the interstate, though, take the southbound route of Pinta Road a short distance until you see some petroglyphs
on the rocks to your right. Ancient native symbols intermingle with not-so-ancient-yet-not-necessarily-contemporary additions, such as “Tom Scully 1920” and “Harry Cook Sep 9 1816” with a Masonic symbol, as well as simpler scrawl like “Fudd.” It's sad, yet fascinating as well.
Some of the oldest maps of Route 66 tell you that Route 66 followed the Pinta Road southern route from here to Adamana Road, up through at least the first few years of the road's official existence. Daylight was beginning to run short as we ran our hands over the old rock faces, so this backtracking was forgone for a future excursion. Whether this road actually makes it back to Adamana – and ultimately the alignment near Rocky's Stage Station –these days, I cannot say.
We returned to I-40, which for the next few miles conforms to Route 66 from 1961 through 1985. At exit 325 – the trading post stop of Navajo – you can find the National Old Trails (NOT)/Route 66 alignment, through 1961, running roughly parallel to I-40 in either direction, just south of the modern building. Eastward from Navajo, however, several miles fall along private land and are gated off, leaving you no choice but to return to I-40 again through exit 330. Those looking for atmosphere won't be at a loss, as nothing lies along this path anyway; at exit 330, the Rio Puerco service station sits to the south and Route 66 through the 1940s arcs a bit north from the interstate route. The frontage road is not it.
The easiest way to get to this is to go to exit 333, go north on Arizona 63 / 191, then go either west or east. Or you can exit the north side of the freeway and immediately turn west, following a 1950s alignment past the usual photographic subject – an old service station in Chambers. We took the east route (NOT through 1965) a short distance north of the exit, which very quickly joins alongside current I-40 (Route 66 from 1965-1979). This will take you all the way to exit 339 in relative comfort, with some battered and shuttered sights along the way, such as the Appaloosa Corral Bar at Navapache. Route 66, I-40, and the railroad remain parallel until the wisp of a town, Sanders.
At 339, exit south into Sanders and get your compulsory machine-made cappuccino and sugar-saturated pastry at the modern gas station. Ponder the old metal bridge from 1923
over the Rio Puerco. If the universe was in your favor, you'd be following Route 66 over this - but it is now blocked, so all you can do is dream. The stretch of NOT through 1930 that this bridge gives access to runs some 12 miles, all the way to Allentown, where a similarly old overpass leaps you over the river once more. Take heart, purists; the succeeding alignment, from 1930-1965, is easily available from exit 341 off I-40. On your way between exits, you're traveling a stretch of Route 666 as well, though the highway departments, sensitive to the medieval paranoia of modern drivers, no longer calls it that.
The accessible Route 66, north of 341, heads eastbound for five miles. About three miles down, it crosses a 1930 bridge
over Querino Canyon, and just to the left after the bridge you'll see a standing chimney and a good deal of debris littered over the land.
This is the old Querino Trading Post, which has clearly seen better days. The new version, a metal rectangle of eye-stabbing blue, is just down the road to the left. Past that, the Good News Indian Mission (now the Good News Church). Though the road is a bit rough (and is subject, on occasion, to some insidious pot-holes) it does continue alongside I-40, almost entirely uninterrupted, to the New Mexico border.
One exception – at exit 346, the old road lies beneath the I-40 westbound lanes for two miles. You're going to travel old 666 for a couple miles whether you like it or not. Blink-and-you-miss-it Houck lies south of exit 348, but its only redeeming feature for the Route 66 traveler is the Fort Courage Trading Post,
a frontier-style mock fort inspired by an old TV show called “F-Troop,” a curious endeavor considering the show lasted a mere two seasons, some forty years ago. That said, Fort Courage was home to all the usual Route 66 tourist trappings, which makes it a worthy photographic stop. The sheer volume of billboards leading up to it in either direction is mind-boggling on its own. The fort owners clearly subscribed to the time-honored Mother Road belief that you can never own enough T-shirts or Navajo rugs.
East from Fort Courage, take 66 / 666 a few miles to Allentown, where you’re invited to “Say Chee’s” at Chee’s Indian Store and Rock Shop. They’ve got ice cream, film, blankets, T-shirts, and all manner of things you hadn’t an inkling of desire to purchase when you first set off on the road. Otherwise, Allentown is a quiet little place. South of exit 351, you’ll see where the second 1923 bridge crosses Rio Puerco and would take you to Sanders, if you wanted to risk life and limb driving over the clearly defunct bridge. You’d have to turn back at the far end anyway, so don’t bother.
Route 66 through 1965 continues east from here, through an under-interstate tunnel just west of exit 354, then disappears briefly under I-40. South of I-40, a short section dating from 1923-1965 goes a small way to a branch of the Rio Puerco. After this point it becomes a frontage road and is not related to Route 66. To continue on, stay on the interstate through to Chief Yellowhorse’s Trading Post.
It’s hard to miss this bright yellow complex of buildings, since you’ll be staring at the remarkable backdrops already. All across the cliffs behind, various animals and wigwams and signage advertises sunglasses, an “Indian Village,” free Arizona maps, blankets, David Yellowhorse knives, Alvin and Bryon Yellowhorse’s contemporary Native jewelry, pottery, and of course T-shirts. Back in the day, Juan (“The Chief”) purchased the Cave of the Seven Devils – another set of false-Native ruins marketed by Henry “Two Guns” Miller after his ouster from his namesake town – and it became Fort Yellowhorse. Juan kept live “cave” buffalo, sold genuine Indian souvenirs, and many signs offered helpful encouragement like “We Take-Um Mastercard” and “We No Scalpum Pale Face, Just Scalpum Wallet.” And it was a roaring success. Not bad for a man whose father made money running moonshine during prohibition.
Juan died in 1999, but his family has run the store since. While the Chief had a big red stripe painted down the center of the store, supposedly delineating New Mexico from Arizona, the actual border is just east down the road. Depending on which way you come from, the Chief’s place is either a great end to your journey, or a great beginning. They probably take-um Visa, too, so what are you waiting for?
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Route 66 in Flagstaff
My mind wanders back to that odd conversation between a friend and I in 1995 at the Hong Kong Cafe, along Route 66 in old town Flagstaff. The talk revolved around egg yolks, Tabasco, and a metaphor that is surely unfit for polite society. As Earth-shattering as this dialogue turned out not to be, it is my only memory of a visit to the greasy spoon that now bears the name “Karma” and exudes an entirely different character, in what seems to me an entirely different city. In later years, friends and I would gather at Mary's Cafe, on the far north end of town along highway 89. Still, nothing quite trumps the inexplicable sense of freedom felt in a corner booth, next to a hazy window, with the thick traffic of the Mother Road groaning and honking a few feet away.
That feeling is less apparent these days, as Flagstaff has revitalized the downtown district and some old familiar stand-bys have disappeared for good. But I'm ahead of myself; to take this road all the way through town – a fairly easy path even today – start at the Walnut Canyon exit off I-40, five miles east of Flagstaff.
There are actually two distinct, drivable alignments that will bring you in from the east; to follow the older one – that is, the National Old Trails (NOT) alignment, used through 1947 – take exit 207 (Winona) and drive Townsend-Winona Road west (past the old bridge I detailed in the first article of this series) to Highway 89, then south past the Flagstaff Mall until it merges with the business loop of I-40 (at this point, the post-1947 Route 66).
From the Winona exit (#201) to Walnut Canyon (#204), Route 66 ran from 1947 until its decommissioning in 1985 under what are now the west and eastbound lanes of I-40. At Walnut Canyon, however, it splits northwest and enters Flagstaff south of the current mall. This branch of 66 was officially so from 1947 to 1968; after that, it conformed to I-40's eastbound lanes. The older alignment (from Townsend-Winona Road) and its successor converge at the recently renovated, slightly realigned meeting of Highway 89/180 and Route 66, near the I-40 overpass. An old section of road decorated with an artsy sign
and a set of picnic tables is available on a walking/biking path west of the new intersection. This section belonged to the post-1947 alignment.
The main road through Flagstaff, known as Route 66 as well as Santa Fe Avenue, is the NOT through 1968 all the way to Beaver Street. The first and perhaps most well-known of Flagstaff's 66 sites is the Museum Club,
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a large brown log-building with a single-forked pine trunk for an entrance and a series of obligatory ghost stories to accompany its 80-year history. Dean Eldridge opened the place in 1931, displaying a veritable carnival freak-show of genetically unfortunate farm animals, born with too few or too many limbs, eyes, or heads. Eldridge passed on, eventually, and his collection went with him. A fourteen-year dry spell ended when Prohibition was lifted, and the rebranded “Museum Club” brought a whole other clientele. Don Scott bought it in 1963, and it became a hoppin' place that drew big names from the country music world. 10 years later, Thorna – Don's wife – fell down the stairs to her death and Don only lasted two years before depression put a gun to his head, right in front of the fireplace. But it's not too late to meet them, as it's said they haunt the place - as poltergeists, nonetheless. Though business is still booming at the Museum Club, it's not the big draw that it used to be. Watch out for the flying beer bottles, which could be Don and Thorna having a wee bit of malevolent fun.
Some of the old Route 66 names still remain, such as the Howard Johnson's (though this was formerly the Crown Motel) and the accompanying Crown Railroad Cafe with the cursive script “Restaurant” sign the same as it was in the 1950s, as well the Best Western “Pony Soldier,” once simply the Pony Soldier Motel. Many to this day remain under their original titles, such as the El Pueblo Motor Inn, the Wonderland Motel, the Western Hills Motel, and so on. Some are rebranded – postcards from the late 1930s/early 1940s show the Arrowhead Lodge; in the 1950s, it's the Gaslite Motel; in the 1960s, it's the Twilite Motel; now, in the past few years, it's become the Arrowhead Lodge once more (and if owner Tom Schwerin has his way, it will also be a medical marijuana dispensary by the end of the year.) The Porter House became the Kings House (now with the subtitle “Flagstaff's Green Hotel”). In old town, Collins Irish Pub occupies what was once the Flagstaff Pharmacy, just a few doors west of what was the Commercial Hotel. Where the Santa Fe West Apartments now stand was the Vandevier Motel and Restaurant, offering fresh “Rocky Mountain trout” and “TV in your room”.
As you reach old downtown, you'll get a taste of that bumper-to-bumper traffic that ultimately spelled the demise of Route 66. Angel Delgadillo, in Seligman, will tell you about the days when it took 10 minutes to cross the street in that town, just due to the traffic; and, as Dom in Parks said, Route 66 was better called the “Blood Road.” If you try to sightsee while driving through this section, you may end up injured, so park the car and walk along what started as “Front Street.”
The giant mural on the Absolute Bikes building – once Joe's Place – reminds you that this is just as much a biking city as a Route 66 destination. The old Greyhound Station now houses audio peddlers (Arizona Music Pro) and Texaco stations and coffee shops gave way to the Flagstaff City Hall complex. There are two Route 66 alignments between Beaver Street and the Milton/Butler intersection; the newer one (1934-1968) is still called 66 and goes under the railroad; the older (through 1934) crosses the tracks at Beaver and turns west on Phoenix Street.
On the corner of Beaver and Phoenix stands the DuBeau Hostel
,
once the DuBeau Motel Inn, said to be Flagstaff's first motel. Now 82 years old, it was built by A.E. DuBeau with such fabulous amenities as indoor bathrooms and carpeting, for as low as $2.50 per night. As a hostel, along with the non-Route 66 “Downtowner” – a Nackard acquisition from the 1920s – just a block east, it caters to the backpacker crowd more than anyone else. I remember walking past the DuBeau back in 1995, with Chuck, and nearly being allowed in for a drunken toga party. Were it not for our sub-21 ages, I might very well have had a great anecdote for you here.
On Phoenix Street, west of Beaver and across from Biff's Bagels stands a guard rail from the original Route 66 bridge over the Rio de Flag. Westward and on the left, the stone building where Fratelli's resides – and where people deliver pizza on bike – was the post-realignment Coca Cola Bottling Plant.
Route 66 turns left along Mike's Pike and runs past a private residence once part of the B&M Auto Camp (site of a McGonigle home and, 20 years later, a store and tourist cabins); Our Lady of Guadalupe church, eight decades old and Roman Catholic in persuasion (and, incidentally, the oldest standing Catholic church in town); and KC's Auto Repair (once the Double Circle Garage from 1926). Mike's Pike now terminates at the Mobil station's namesake, the Five Points, where five roads once converged – though the Drury Inn and conference center now covers one of these paths.
If you want to take the newer alignment to Five Points, keep west on Route 66 past Beaver Street and follow the curve under the railroad. The exodus of people from the Midwest droughts caused severe traffic growth and necessitated this new routing, which allowed train and car to coexist more peacefully.
Along here you'll see Granny's Closet, which was originally the Paul Bunyan Cafe 50 years ago, and whose original statue - the first of the ubiquitous assortment of "Muffler Men" roadside advertising statues to come off a Venice, California factory line - now stands as NAU's mascot Louie, next to the Walkup Skydome at NAU. The Zanzucchis, owners of Granny's, donated the 20-foot fiberglass character after purchasing the property (by then, the Lumberjack Cafe) in 1973. The current wooden lumberjack out front, which replaced the fiberglass one, was refurbished in 2009 and, if stories are true, sports not only a bullet in the left leg but a time capsule in its back.
A little further down the road stands the Furniture Barn and its well-known wall-art, a giant cow (the building once housed the National Guard Armory); a Jack in the Box where Eddie's Drive-In stood; the L Motel, at 121 South Sitgreaves, became the Family Inn (and is now priced somewhat above 1949’s rate of $7.65 for a family of four); and the Barnes & Noble, blocking the view of the Peaks where, just 14 years ago, the decaying yet compelling ruins of Andy Womack's Flamingo Motor Hotel were finally demolished. This motel dated to the 1930s and, at least through the 1960s, did not have a personal name attached to the sign. In the early 80s, the 'o' in the neon burned out, so to night time travelers it was the “Flaming Motor Hotel.” Many other details can be found in online articles and message boards – that the sign’s design dates it to a transitional period in sign design from 1957 through 1960; that the demolition process took many years due to the high levels of asbestos; and that El Rancho Hotel Courts were an Andy Womack Enterprise, which would presumably include the famous Gallup, New Mexico Hotel/Motel, as well as the El Rancho on 66 in Williams. Some postcards from the 1950s list the Flamingo Motor Hotel at 601 Mike’s Pike; by 1964, the same building is shown as a Ramada Inn; and in other postcards, the Ramada Inn is clearly what is now the Super 8 motel west of the 66 & Milton merge. Take these extraneous details for what they’re worth, but to me, the mystery of Andy Womack deepens exponentially.
Route 66 veers west here and passes along both old and new, from 1995’s Galaxy Diner (previously a JB's which, if memory serves, once were known as the Bob's Big Boy) to the gaudy and wonderful “Saga Motel” neon.
Not far past Woodlands Village Boulevard is the Kit Carson RV Park, the Woody Mountain Campground and Pine Springs, all reminders of the days when this loop of road was far removed from Flagstaff proper. While Pine Springs (earlier known as the Yellow Freight Motel) stands rotting behind a state trust land fence, Kit Carson and Woody Mountain remain open, perhaps less lively than in their heyday but a continuing reminder of those old road trips that happily took forever.
--
I’ve
just finished my breakfast burrito from the Coffee Bean, a bloated but
delicious chunk of carbs, salt, and cholesterol and comment to my friend that I
should be good on sugars for the next week.
I swallow the last of my coffee.
It’s regular coffee, not that fru-fru fancy Italian wannabe stuff. I’ve been there and I know the
difference. The Americanized fru-fru is
good, mind you, without being authentic.
It’s an ironic start to a day dedicated entirely to an American
ideology.
We
hit the road toward Williams, exiting Flagstaff via old Route 66. As we pass Woody Mountain Road, I am briefly
reminded of an old friend who would have relished a trip like this, had he not
seen fit to shuffle off his mortal coil some years back, down that particular
road. I turn my attention back to the
business at hand, keeping the nostalgic mindset off in the wings for the
journey ahead.
Old
66 follows I-40, for the most part, all the way through to Bellemont. My friend and I engage in some idle banter
about the limited factoids my mind retains on the Mother Road. I speculate that Hitler is to blame for its
demise, which is met with an incredulous “What?” I go on to explain that when Eisenhower came
back from Germany, he noted the Autobahn and understood its significance in
moving military and supplies. “So, I’ll
go ahead and blame him.”
No
matter how many of these trips I take down Route 66, however, I always find
myself at some odds with the feeling I’m supposed to have. While I realized back in Winona that I
couldn’t ever really experience the same sensations as the Okies or the
cruisers of a bygone era, I was determined to get something from this whole
experience that I could keep with me. I
longed for an old, metal muscle car, bereft of seatbelts, air conditioning, or
reasonable gas mileage. Silently I
ponder the great day when full ties with Cuba can be restored so we can go down
there and buy back all our ’57 Chevys.
South
of the interstate, via exit 185, is a good stretch of 66. Here in Bellemont, most of the ruins left on
this stretch were removed in 2004, including the Whiting Brothers motel
rubble. However, a brief drive down the
east-bound stretch – called East Bellemont Road, predictably – reveals a little
building emblazoned with “Richfield” across the front and a rusted old red gas
pump out front, permanently stopped at 66 6/10 gallons.
Around
the east side, a brief scene from the movie “Easy Rider” transpired. For a moment I try to imagine my friend and I
as those sultans of counterculture, Billy and Wyatt, but a peripheral glance at
the old Honda we drove here in deflates the fantasy. Nonetheless, I decide to take the two along
with me in some small way. They
represent a “disconnect from conformity” that is necessary to truly experience
Route 66. I wanted it to continue
eastward for a thousand miles. I wanted
a drop-top ‘72 Continental with a radio that played only the blues. Wants aside, 66’s eastward trek ends very
quickly to the east in a barricade and barbed wire fence. Beyond, you can see where this 1941-1963
alignment merges into what is now I-40.
We
return to exit 185 after a brief foray down the westbound section of 66
(1931-1963), which meanders off into the woods for a while before ending in a
concrete barricade. North of the exit is
a frontage road – technical name, “Forest Service 171.” I put this rather unromantic moniker out of
my mind and turn up the radio, which is broadcasting the IPod playlist selected
specifically for this trip. All that’s
missing is commentary by Wolfman Jack.
The
road goes from pavement to dirt and becomes Brannigan Park road, or Forest Road
649, or the National Old Trails Highway, or Route 66 from 1931-1941; call it
what you will.
We stop in the middle of the road near an old
ranch and take in the view. I confess to
feeling somewhat giddy at the scenery. It reminded me of my home state,
Minnesota, which I haven’t stepped foot in for 23 years. I began to wonder just what else I was
missing by taking the quick route – the interstate – all the time. An egret, startled by our presence, leaps
from the nearby pond and stands behind a small hill at the other side,
stretching its neck up to vigilantly eye our every move, its sensibilities
ruffled by this rare intrusion. The
placidity of the place might be called a cacophony of silence. It is so quiet here, it screams at you. If there is any one sound distinguishable, it
is the light rustle of leaves in the distance, the proud stand of aspens along
the redwood barn on the south side of the road.
And, at 7,000 feet, the July breeze is perfect. I’m tempted to end the journey right here.
As
we continue west, the seesawing of the radio’s volume begins. My friend, bless his heart, generally prefers
music as a low drone in the extreme background, if at all; I insist on being at
least able to hear and distinguish changes in tone. To me, driving Route 66 without music is like
showering oneself clean without water; I defy that it is even possible. He does acquiesce to my boosting of volume as
Peter Gunn kicks in; this idyllic stretch
doesn’t seem appropriate to it, but I’m just happy to get to hear a song or
two.
West
of Brannigan Park, as we top Forty-Nine Hill, I remark that this is in fact the
highest point along the entirety of Route 66.
There is no sign to mark it, no fanfare.
Fact is, the road was moved south in 1941 to avoid the dangers of winter
through the pass. Part of what you must
get used to when following 66 nowadays is the fact that one era’s stretch may
transition into another with no warning.
There is not one particular spirit along it. The Joads would have passed through Brannigan
Park, whereas the flower children of the 1960s would have bypassed it
entirely. Yet there are stretches where
both saw the same backdrops, pondering the same silent questions of life.
We
pull off at the Autotour sign along the right side. From there, one can walk the trail along the
1931 alignment or the even less appealing 1921 route, both of which are bumpy
impressions in the landscape, hardly noticeable to even the most attentive. We continue driving along the pavement toward
Parks. This small stretch was designated
66 from 1941-1964.
Parks
in the Pines General Store dates to 1906, some two decades before Route 66 came
in to being, and nine years before its precursor, the National Old Trails
Highway. The store’s owner, Dom Rosso,
recently and to his chagrin took back control of the store after a buyer
crapped out in year 14 of a 15 year mortgage.
Dom clears up any romantic notions of the old
road. He refers to it as “The Blood
Road”, which is not in any way a reference to its arterial nature. No, it is a testimony to the real danger of
many big cars, many impatient people, and many even bigger trucks. Dom has been in Parks for two decades, and at
79, is perfectly willing to place the store in younger hands for a cool
$275,000. Rather less dramatically, we
purchase a couple cold drinks and head out on our way.
Down
the road a bit, on the left, is Maurice’s Motel-Café and Groceries. An old Standard Red Crown fuel pump sits at
the ready on the left end of the front walkway, a modern TV with a picture of a
deer in the wild taped to the screen on the right. As we peer in the windows, the property owner
pulls in to the driveway. Just as I
imagine we’re going to meet the same violent end as Billy and Wyatt, she simply
smiles and continues driving past. She’s
used to people poking around, she says.
Hillary and her husband raise turkeys, cattle, “ranch cats” and
vegetables here, in the shadow of this old Route 66 relic. People stop by all the time, often engaging
the two in hours of small talk. But I
cannot resist asking: the television, she explains, no longer works but it
never seems to find its way to the trash can, either, so she was compelled to
place one of her own photographs on the screen so at least it showed something. Hey, ask a silly question…
Route
66 continues west, this paved stretch a rare respite from the usual
graded/ungraded dirt sections common through the state. Parks Road eventually becomes Pittman Valley
road, ending just past a log cabin that Jack Rittenhouse, in his 1946 book,
refers to as the Wagon Wheel Lodge.
It’s
occupied now as a private residence, but it sports a “for sale” sign out front
so buyers – at the ready! We walked
around the property, eyed from an upstairs window by two very vocal
poodles. I note the box fan positioned
in an upstairs window and I declare “No air-conditioning… I’m outta here.”
Just
past the nearby interstate entrance is Deer Farm Road, which continues west and
transitions into the National Old Trails routing from 1931. A bit down the way, off to the south, modern
I-40 (whose westbound lane covers the 1964-1985 stretch of Route 66) cuts
through the center of what was once Davenport Lake; this 1931 road skims its
northern edge. An old ranch sits here
with the skeletons of cars that, no doubt, traversed this road frequently some
fifty years ago. In a way, this scene is
a metaphor for the whole trip. “Every time you see a
beautiful woman, just remember, somebody got tired of her.”
Not sure who said that.
The
road continues west until it becomes a frontage road and ends at freeway
entrance 167. You can cross this and
continue to a dead end along Mountain Man Trail, but we took the paved way in
to Williams. This is the last stretch of
Route 66 to be bypassed by I-40 in 1984.
Until then, traffic would diverge from the interstate to the west end of
town and connect back to I-40 at the Highway 64 interchange.
We
take the final loop of the trip, following the 1941 stretch down Rodeo Road to
Edison Street, then left on 2nd, across the tracks and into the heart of the
city. The trip ended with a cold beer
from the Grand Canyon Brewery, a plate of wings at Cruisers, and aimless conversation
with a waitress named Leann, who had a look that would have given pause to even
Billy and Wyatt. The brief respite from
the drive was satisfying, but I was getting itchy to hit the pavement once
more. Then I smile for a moment. I think
I might finally be starting to understand this whole thing, somehow.
--
It’s
fitting that our next stretch of 66 began at a 50s style diner in
Williams. For the casual tourist, the
colorful kitsch of Route 66 memorabilia – which comes in such varied and
oft-inexplicable forms as T-shirts, cookie jars, ashtrays, aprons, vanity
license plates and crisp new printings of books only vaguely related to 66,
such as “On the Road” – places like Williams or Kingman or Seligman are a
haven. They have great maps, stories,
romantic notions ad nauseum. But, of course,
there are many miles in between these bastions nowadays, and a good potion of
these stretches have been paved over and ignored. Some are difficult to find, even with a
map. And some just simply no longer
exist.
Of
course, I take these journeys down Route 66 not to get the plasticized version
of the thing, but because I want to really understand what it was like, in
whatever sense I am afforded 26 years after it was officially bypassed for
good. While the path of old 66 between
Bellemont and Williams is easy to find (and easy on the auto undercarriage) the
path from Williams to Ashfork is a bumpy and sporadic mess, for lack of more
colorful metaphor. This path takes time,
and we didn’t have a lot to work with.
Heading
south out of Williams on 4th street, past reservoirs, past the
turnoff to Dogtown Lake, past meadows full of sheep, we turn west on Bill
Williams Loop Road – or Forest Road 108 – we’re getting on to the 1932-1952
alignment of 66
that will take us 20-some miles all the way
to the Devil Dog Road exit on I-40. This
stretch of the road is a graded dirt road, primitive in some spots, but when
taken in the right light is a remarkably colorful swath of forest.
Around Coleman Lake, a small selection of
campers and their RVs were scattered through the woods. From their plastic chairs, the view of the
still, green, decidedly non-corporate world immediately around them must have
been compelling. Ironic, I realized,
that most had no clue or concern about the historical road upon which I was
bypassing them, remembered today almost entirely for its early franchises and
voluminous traffic, and the vague promise of a better life out west.
There
is a bumpier, 1920s segment of road – now with the snazzy name “Forest Road 45”
– that loops around and rejoins Forest Road 108 several miles later, if you’re
working with a higher clearance vehicle; if you’re in a sedan, as we were,
you’d best not test your tires any more than the 1932 route will. It is always hard to imagine these
dirt-grades as once hosting a constant shuffle of cars, particularly around the
winding, narrow switchbacks occasionally traversed on this alignment. If anything, I can’t argue the quiet, simple
beauty of it. While I-40 may allow
people to get “Somewhere” faster, this expeditiousness comes with a price.
Near
the end of this idyllic tract, before we turn to re-enter I-40 at Devil Dog
Road, we continue past Pine Springs Camp and under the interstate. The road seems to run out – this can’t be
right – so we backtrack a bit and find a bumpy trail heading up a hill to the
west, just on the south side of the first underpass. At the top, a barb-wire fence impedes our
progress, slicing across the center of a faded old patch of pavement. From this vantage point, it is clear the pavement
leads right to a cliff’s edge. No doubt,
when 66 was rerouted in 1952 underneath the current I-40 westbound lane, the
hillside was simply blasted away to make room for Eisenhower’s new artery. Romantic notions, 0 – Progress, 1.
South
of I-40 is a routing of the National Old Trails, circa 1952, which provided the
only failure of this expedition; while I could clearly see a road which
conformed to the route map I was using, we failed in spectacular fashion to
find a way to enter it. On a couple
occasions, Route 66 from 1932 diverges only slightly from this road, but
staying on I-40 gives a general idea of the path. From Devil Dog Road, it loops south of I-40;
a few miles down the road, past Ashfork Hill, it crosses over to the north
side.
We
exit the freeway on Welch Road (exit 151) and head north on the dirt road. A handy little sign off the side directs us
north along the National Old Trails road, and also indicates the location of a
1922 route (not worth driving in a rinky-dink Honda). We reached the fork of the road and stopped
for a photo-op.
From here, looking west, you see where
National Old Trails and Route 66 diverge for a couple miles. To the left – the road we just came in on –
National Old Trails from 1932. To the
right – Route 66 from 1932-1952. Either
path westward will get you to the same place – Monte Carlo truck stop.
The
chance to stretch and wander the spot a bit reveals a good collection of broken
pavement on either side. The comparison
has been made that 66 is an archaeological site of sorts. At any rate, it is a site in the making. I think back upon my walk down the Via Sacra
in the Roman Forum, with its stone road, rutted by chariot wheels, still intact
after 25 centuries. Of course, Route 66
is not meant to be sacred or eternal, yet the romance of it lives on like some
cut-rate tale from Homer.
Rather
than backtrack eastward to see what we missed between Devil Dog Road and Welch
Road, we opted to keep on task, driving west down the slightly paved route of
old 66. The road here is an eye-opener,
indeed; after the first big rut that bottomed out the car and bounced us about
a foot off of our seats, our eyes were locked wide open the rest of the
way. Translation:
low clearance cars – and indeed, any car – take this section slowly and
vigilantly. It runs about 2 miles. At the end, as Monte Carlo truck stop comes
into view, the pavement disappears a bit and we drove around the small buffalo
– errr, bison stable. I always have to correct myself. Buffalo exist in other countries, not
here. My travel companion harrumphs,
clearly expressing that most people wouldn’t bother clarifying that point.
Monte
Carlo truck stop – which now includes a repair shop, a defunct café and store,
and traces of a gas station – was as quiet and windswept as the remote towns in
low-rate horror movies. The garage doors
were open, there were vehicles within for repair, and the door to the old store
was cracked – but no sign of life at that moment, aside from voluminous
sunflowers and the occasional lizard.
Just to the south, cars flew past along I-40, none taking the exit to
this once booming place. As I stand on
the fading and shattered remnants of pavement in front of the café, I consider
the strange reality that not even a quarter-mile difference between this
alignment and the interstate made all the difference in the fortunes of this
place.
You
can’t leave Monte Carlo westward on 66 – not immediately, anyway. It’s blocked by a couple cement
barricades. We walked down this, looking
for the old bridge, until a barbwire fence cut us off once again.
If
you have a little time, a dirt road leading north off from the interstate exit
loops around an old cinder pit; this little diversion is a section of the
National Old Trails road from around 1915.
It doesn’t go very far anymore.
Back
on task, we headed west down the freeway a mile or so and exit on County Line
Road. This is National Old Trails/Route
66 from 1965, and unlike the sparkly shininess of places like Williams, County
Line Road’s exhibits are almost entirely rubble. Pictures from just a few years ago show the
County Line Café shuttered but standing; now, there is a great pile of
splintered boards. All that remains
standing is the entrance way and the shattered sign, as well as a long-defunct
motel.
The
yard immediately to the west, however, is chock-full of flagstone, sandstone,
mossy rock, you name it. Zane Levin has
operated his business here for over thirty years. He met his wife when she worked at the motel,
in fact; he knows little about the place, otherwise, and suggests that the
owner of the property is none too friendly, or likely to help us out
anyway. However, Zane knows a lot about
flagstone, and is willing to tell you everything about it, from cutting it out
of the rock, to the mass-sales techniques of “the big places” in Ashfork, to
the super-wealthy clients that he, on occasion, sells his product to; he’ll
even tell you about his high school football days in the 70s.
The
way westward from here to Ashfork crosses over the interstate, so the easiest
way to follow it is to just go back a bit and take I-40 west to exit 146. Ash Fork, though it is not apparent at a
first or even second glance, once was important enough to warrant mention in
movies from the 1940s. But Ash Fork has
been around a lot longer than Route 66, or even the National Old Trails
highway. It was a railroad town,
initially set up on the north side of the tracks until, in 1893, a fire leveled
the town. It was rebuilt on the south
side of the tracks afterward, since everyone knows fires only happen north of
the tracks.
Ash
Fork was bustling when Route 66 came through and split the town in two,
wreaking some havoc on the business and residential sections. If you’re traveling Route 66 through town,
Park Avenue heads west and Lewis Avenue heads east. (Of course, this inspired me to think “Park or
Lewis, can’t lose.” I am happy to say I did not vocalize it, and I have real
reservations about including in this article.
Oh well, damage done.)
Located
along 66 in town are many casualties of time, from the grand old Fred Harvey
hotel “Escalante” to a more recent death, the “Hi-Line Motel”
whereas places like the Copper State
Motel remain in business. A local museum
gives you a good history of the area.
But the whole town is otherwise quiet these days. The only activities apparent to the passer-by
are the mechanics catering to the interstate crowd or the flagstone miners and
transporters undercutting – pun intended – the likes of Zane Levin.
It
should be no surprise to learn that, in 1991, the producers of the film
“Universal Soldier” used some of Ash Fork’s ramshackle remains as the business
end of several explosion sequences. What
Hollywood didn’t do, nature did; fires in 1977 and 1987 destroyed much of what
stood in Ash Fork. Bypassing the town
via I-40 is merely the latest slow hammering of a nail into the proverbial
coffin.
As
you exit town to the west, note that south off exit 144, the oldest alignment
of the National Old Trails highway left town, heading southwest toward Chino
Valley (Jerome Junction at the time).
Unfortunately, we had no lead on exactly where it departed, so instead
we took I-40 to the Crookton Road exit.
If
you backtrack on the frontage road, from the southern side of the exit, two
miles down you’ll reach the Partridge Creek bridge from the 1920s (you can see
it from I-40). This road continues off
into some bumpy and muddy back roads and eventually emerges onto 89A several
miles north of Drake Road, but there is no longer a return route directly into
Ash Fork from here.
But
the place you really want to be is Crookton Road, heading westward – this is
the beginning of an uninterrupted stretch of old Route 66 all the way to
Kingman, passing through Seligman, Valentine, Peach Springs, Hackberry, and
others. But that’s for next month.
--
I
camped out in the car the night before I tackled Crookton Road west. The spot I picked for slumber was just off
the pavement of old Route 66, just a quarter mile or so east of the exit. I arrived there late, just in time to catch a
great big sky, devoid of lunar light, crackling and popping with the tiny
traces of a million distant suns. The
Milky Way split the sky from north to south, and aside from the low rumbles and
swooshes of the cars along the nearby interstate, all was remarkably
still. It occurred to me that, as
everyone on the fast track was only staring, for hours, bleary-eyed at the mass
of red and white tracers behind and before them. I had this particular patch of sky all to
myself, the simple beauty of this little glimpse of the universe more valuable
to me than the notion of “getting there quickly.” Why everyone is in such a hurry, I cannot
fathom, but they’re welcome to it.
Crookton Road, from whence a 90-mile
stretch of uninterrupted Route 66 begins, is an easy-driving and relatively
scenic by-way. In early September, the
sunflowers are still rampant so the scene is a vibrant collaboration of green,
yellow, blue, and, of course, the dark gray of the pavement. Before you know it, one of the most
recognizable of Route 66 creatures emerges from the green, just off the right
side of the pavement. You’d best keep
your eyes on it, too, if you want to discern its real purpose, for it is written
plainly across its red countenance.
The Burma-Shave signs.
‘Twould
be more fun/to go by air/if we could put/our signs up there/Burma Shave’
... as the
first batch says. The presence of these
signs along Arizona roads is an anomaly, actually, as the Burma-Vita company
didn’t actually advertise here — there wasn’t enough traffic. Overall, the signs were phased out in the
1960s when, as traffic speed increased, the staggered nature of the signs
became too distracting for drivers.
This
is a strange thought, considering how ubiquitous the signs for McDonalds, Taco
Bell, “Authentic Navajo rugs,” cable television companies, health insurance,
Planned Parenthood, politicians, Holiday Inn, and “Land for Sale” have become
along the interstates. Happily, there is
almost nothing corporate or capitalist along this small patch of road. Although Route 66 was greatly responsible for
the expansion and modernization of the west, as well as the birth of the modern
franchise, it remains a bastion for the “non-standard” to this day.
Route
66 through Arizona followed, for the most part, the earliest road called the National Old Trails Highway, dating
back to 1915. The early NOT left Ashfork southward to what is now Chino Valley and then back up to Seligman. An alternative, not-quite-ready-for-cars NOT
alignment followed the railroad tracks, looping from about exit 139
northwestward and rejoining Route 66’s 1937 route just alongside the Crookton
Overpass. Westbound along Crookton Road
— which, for the first 8 miles of this drive, served as Route 66 from 1926-79 —
you can witness what some maps call “The
Great Wall.” It took me a bit to
figure out exactly what this was referring to, and I was somewhat disappointed
to discover it is neither great, nor even a wall, really. It is a low-lying line of rocks, several
miles long, which from my view didn’t appear to serve any practical
purpose. It is anyone’s guess whether
marauding Celts lay beyond this modern-day Hadrian’s Wall, just waiting for
some weak spot in it to collapse, hastening a new human epoch. I expect the reality is somewhat less
dramatic.
The
presence of minor farming operations along the way reminded me more of the
Okies than the Cruisers. Indeed, the
migration from the Dust Bowl was no more than 20 miles per hour along this Ash
Fork/Seligman track; it was “unimproved” – save for the removal of boulders
along the dirt that threatened low-clearance cars — at Route 66’s birth in
1926. Over the change of the decade from
the 1910s to the 20s, auto ownership in America increased nearly one hundred
fold. Nonetheless, in 1925 only an
average of 338 cars per day passed along here, which kept much of the road
unpaved for another decade. Taking it
slow today, at a rate of 55 miles per hour and along the smooth pavement, the
miles pass by easily.
I
pulled off and looked down the northern slope, within site of the radio
tower. Just below, a small loop of dirt
road, accessible from the main drag on either end, represents part of the
original route until the 1940s. At the
west end, another loop begins — this one un-drivable — which shortly thereafter
joins the NOT path and leading right to the 1937 bridge at Crookton
Overpass. The fact is, Route 66 was
aligned and rerouted on occasion like any other road. Unless you have time and patience, you
shouldn’t indulge your anal retentiveness by trying to hit every single minor
section. For the most part, the
different alignments between this point and Seligman follow closely
together. The main paved road is a happy
medium that will keep you one step ahead of those marauding Celts — or possibly
Mongolians — just beyond the nearby Great Wall.
I
stopped at the 1937 bridge just where the road passes over the railroad
tracks. I parked off to the side, and
noticed the edge of the current alignment is not more than 10 feet away from
the overgrown reddening pavement of the 1937-47 alignment. From this point, the NOT route comes in from
the northeast, alongside the railroad tracks; the 1937-47 Route 66 comes in
from the southwest, parallel to the modern road. Westward, a 1926-32 section runs roughly to
the right and the 1937-47 section continues along the left of the current
road. The current path was Route 66 from
1947-79; after 1979, until its decommissioning, Route 66 lay under the current
westbound I-40. The NOT road continues
to follow the tracks, mostly, to the south.
Continuing down the road, you can see parts of the 1937-47 section just
to the left, as well as a much smaller car bridge.
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Both of these bridges are so close to the
current pavement that it seems pointless to have bypassed them at all. But all the routes – save for the NOT –
converge shortly after this bridge, as Seligman comes in to view.
To
enter Seligman via the oldest Route 66, take Railroad Avenue from Lamport to
Main. At this corner stood yet another
magnificent Harvey House, torn down
as recently as 2008. Now turn right and
follow Main to Chino (which is the current main drag renamed “Historic Route
66”). Left at this point and you’ve
followed both the NOT until 1926 and Route 66 from 1926-1933. The rerouting of 1933 had westbound traffic
entering directly at Chino.
It’s
on this aptly named “Historic Route 66” that one will find all the well-known
Seligman delights, such as the Rusty
Bolt and its curious-if-creepy outdoor mannequins;
the
World Famous Black Cat Bar;
Delgadillo’s Snow Cap, its outer yard
and walls replete with kitsch and memorabilia galore, as well as promises of “
Dead Chicken” and “
Creamy Root Beer.”
I arrived in Seligman at 8 or so in the
morning, while its tourist servants were still prepping for the inevitable
onslaught. As I’ve found myself thinking
on many occasions during my meanderings, it was very difficult indeed to
imagine the bumper-to-bumper gridlock back in the day that, supposedly, once
made a 10-minute exercise out of simply crossing the street.
Soon,
creeping in as they say on little cat feet, the buses arrived and from within
their collective air-conditioned maw emerged that great killer of leisure: the
tour groups. From what I could gather, European tour groups – a gaggle of
Romance-language speakers with leather vests and chaps, swirling to-and-fro
over the sidewalks and through the gift shop aisles like errant blood platelets
in a fan of capillaries.
They
bought posters, ashtrays, bandanas, pencils, postcards, T-shirts, mousepads,
videotapes — you name it, if it was branded Route 66, they were taking it home
to the Old World. I made my quick exit
and, pulling my unsexy 1991 Ford Tempo out through a maze of oblivious souls, I
headed to the far western end of town.
I
took a seat at the Roadkill Café,
only 14 years a resident of old 66, and had a salt-and-cholesterol platter
called “Guess That Mess,” having first ordered the “Splatter Platter” but being
denied due to an apparent lack of a certain ingredient. Looking back, I do not recall what the
components of the meal were, and perhaps that is okay.
The
Pixar “Cars” theme is relevant here, with Seligmaniacs claiming that the
fictional “Radiator Springs” is a loose translation of Seligman, while there are
Kingmaniacs that take the credit.
Whatever the reality, throughout town you will spot several vehicles
with eye-pupils painted on their windshields, such as the Paul Newman homage
behind the Snow Cap.
I
saw plenty of old cars along the strip as well — including the Rusty Bolt’s
beautiful curb-warmer and my future acquisition, a genuine Ford Edsel. There’s even another across the street …
surely they’d part with one? Anyway,
from just about anywhere in Seligman, the interstate is visible and the only view
many passer-bys get is a modern gas station franchise just off exit 121. The great big white ‘S’ at the base of the
Aubrey Cliffs is an unsubtle reminder that Seligman is still here, even if the
quickest among us no longer bother. But
there’s more to the story, of course; go visit Angel and Vilma at the gift
shop; they’ll give you the straight facts.
I
left town to the west, entering what I consider the most mysterious of all the
Arizona Route 66 sections, with my foot light upon the pedal. As I realized the night before, I’m in no
hurry. After all, as a set of
Burma-Shave signs reminds you on Crookton Road eastbound, “angels who guard you/when you drive/usually
retire/at sixty-five.”
--
As many of my long-suffering readers
will know, I have an inexplicable affinity for the phenomenon of the
"ghost town." I have a box in
my closet that weighs some 60 pounds, filled mostly with photos from my travels
over the past nine years. Most of these,
in turn, showcase the scant physical remains of the mining ruins of the
Southwest. What draws me to such
disarray, I cannot confess, but the collective fuel cost of these past nine
years is unthinkable.
Such a love of decay is a dangerous
attitude to take on a trip down Route 66, as the general idea in driving the
road is to find what presently remains vibrant.
In some small way, I am torn in half by my passions; I both want and do
not want a pile of rubble.
The next section of Route 66 on this
whirlwind journey turns up both sides of this coin, perhaps to the dismay of
the Route 66 aficionado. Taken in
contrast to the sparkly kitschy-opulence that is Seligman, the upcoming miles
inspire a whole other appreciation of this Route 66 phenomenon. Many open miles, not so many obvious sites,
but every inch of it the genuine experience.
One can easily breeze through these
miles, stop for a handful of shots at the obvious places, and make it back home
in time for Wheaties. One can impress
the relatives in Boise, who've never ventured farther than the grocery store,
with pics and stories of the 50s kitsch, the romance of a road that brought
fortunes westward, the days when being a franchise didn't carry an undercurrent
of "evil-empire."
These sensations may be lost — or
inaccessible — to the younger crowd today, but over and above all this Route 66
romance, there is a distinct humanity lurking along the miles ahead. If you've taken the road before, without
knowledge of its past, try it again and take more time.
Books and websites differ somewhat on
whether the entrance from Crookton Road,
just west of Ash Fork, is the start of the longest remaining uninterrupted
stretch of Route 66 still in use or not.
While the consensus is in general that it is indeed so, there are some
obsolete off-shoots from the paved route that are worth noting.
The first several miles of this journey,
after leaving Seligman westward, finds you on what was Route 66 from 1932 to
1979. To the right, and then the left,
you'll see on occasion the remnants of the National
Old Trails road — essentially Route 66 until 1932. Four miles down, roughly, the NOT from the
1920s splits even further off to the left (southwesterly), keeping close to the
railroad as it typically did.
The smaller settlements of Chino and Audley, railroad side notes, are no longer accessible, and by the
time Jack Rittenhouse wrote his
guide in 1946, they didn't even warrant a mention. A few miles down, and some distance to your
left, you'll see a couple large water tanks that mark the spot of Pica Crossing, a water station from the
defunct days of steam trains.
It was right alongside the tracks as the
NOT from 1913 to the 1920s, but to my dismay the abandoned buildings,
apparently standing just a few years ago, are now entirely gone
. Only a single small cabin stands on
the south side of the tracks, an area you can get to only if you agree to
trespass upon railroad property.
Southwest from this point, the early NOT headed toward
Nelson, through the canyon and into
Peach Springs.
Back to the paved road; around this
point, you're on a 1940-1979 alignment of road.
The 1932 alignment of 66 veered off toward the right a bit, crossing
over the 1920s-1932 stretch that follows you, on the left, halfway between Pica
Crossing and the current pavement. All
of these alignments meet by the time you reach the turnoff to Indian Road 8, so there's little to be
gained by attempting to find them all.
At milepost 117, to the right, sit the
ruins of Hyde Park and the Deer Lodge Cabins — on Hyde Park
Road, of all places. A stop worthy of
mention in Rittenhouse's book, it is now a curious ghost that may both
disappoint and fascinate the 66 fanatic.
A swimming pool full of garbage,
a
snaking sidewalk and steps to cabins that no longer exist,
rusted,
disembodied car parts and a palpable quietness.
And yet, at the east end of the pool, two chrome supports, presumably
for a diving board, shine as brightly as the day they were inset.
There is a great difficulty, when
witnessing a scene such as Hyde Park, in visualizing a day when such a place
was vibrant and alive. What personalities
lodged here? What newlyweds had their
honeymoons here? What children splashed
in the pool? What cars pulled alongside
the rustic little cabins, hot from a day's long travel through the blistering
Southwest? And how did it all come to
this?
Just a mile or so down, this crumbled
dream gives way to a splendid example of the Route 66 spirit: the Grand Canyon Caverns. The very name alone is marketing at its best:
the caverns below the ground have nothing to do with the Grand Canyon at all,
but travelers eager for a stretch were always game for a quick, cheap
adventure. In 1927, when Walter Peck realized his "lost
gold mine" was in fact nothing at all — save for a limestone cavern some
345 million years old — he was determined to make back money on his
investment.
For 25¢, visitors could be lowered
one-by-one via rope into the cave (and, if the tale is true, be brought back
out for 50¢). This turned out to be a
moneymaker, and in the years since, an elevator has taken place of the rope and
the price has, as expected, climbed considerably.
But there is more to this stop than just
a cave. There's the usual assortment of memorabilia in the gift shop, a cafe,
gift shop, horse-riding facilities, an assortment of classic cars, for a start.
What
is more important, perhaps, is that the Grand Canyon Caverns represents the
true essence of Route 66 — it actually seems oddly human, with people who don't
just read from a corporate script. This
is a vibrant reminder of what Route 66 used to be — it explains,
unapologetically, what underlies all this hoopla, just as much as any Seligman
Delgadillo or Kingman Powerhouse.
Down the road a couple miles, you'll see
the turnoff (on your left) to Indian
Road 9, also labeled Nelson Road
on some maps. While Nelson as a town no
longer exists — no doubt underneath the current Hydrated Lime plant — there is
a worthy stop just at the edge of the plant property.
Where you see the large sign with the
laundry list of rules to all who dare enter, look to the right and you'll see
the "Nelson Memorial
Cemetary"
(yes, it is spelled that way). A small
collection of graves, with crumbling cement saints and broken and neglected
tombstones, marks a town that is a virtual no-show on Google and is absent from
Rittenhouse's book. It existed along the
early NOT only; Route 66 bypassed it entirely.
The only readable grave in the "cemetary" is from 1952, and
there are probably only a dozen discernible plots, so it is a mute testimony to
the remoteness of the town and, perhaps, the value of a plum spot along an
arterial road.
I returned to the paved road, having no
interest in subjecting myself to the scrutiny of paranoid lime plant
employees. Apparently there is a route
leading all the way to Peach Springs from Nelson Road through Yampai Canyon. I cannot vouch for it, so if you take it,
feel free to send a "neener neeener neeeeeener" in my direction.
As you continue westward, you'll see a
1920s-1932 alignment — whose access point just past the county line is blocked
— as well as an extensive, low car bridge.
Peach Springs is the next
port-of-call along the road, with the oldest remnants of 66 rotting along the
road at the bottom of the hill. The old
service station
, closed only a few
years now, serves as an occasional parking spot for modern cars but has no sign
of life otherwise.
But Peach Springs is not dead by any
means: it is the headquarters of the Hualapai
Indian Nation and a rail-side town as well, though the trains simply
choogle on through these days rather than stop.
In 1946, Rittenhouse listed the town's population as 129, with "no
hotels, few stores, limited facilities."
Websites remark that by 1883, the town was home to ten saloons, but no
schools or churches.
For the Route 66 traveler, what perhaps
stands out the most is the lack of signage or neon indicating the Mother
Road. Peach Springs existed before the
roadways and survived its eventual decommissioning, a hat trick that many, like
Hyde Park, did not.
For fun, you can take Diamond Creek Road from Peach Springs to
the bottom of Grand Canyon, though I highly encourage you to read the following
website if you feel so inclined: takemytrip.com/desert/97a.htm …
I have not taken this road, so you’re on your own.
At about the point where
the modern hotel sits, along the left, all alignments — the pre-1913 NOT, the
1913-1920s NOT, the 1920s-1932 Route 66, and the 1932-1979 Route 66 — all come
together for a brief spell, heading westward toward Truxton, Valentine,
Hackberry and Kingman.
--
The
remaining 60 miles from Peach Springs to Kingman are quiet ones, but they are
not lacking in great visuals, the real heart of the modern Route 66
experience. Like the first half of the
loop that starts outside of Seligman, there is a fine mix of decay and rebirth,
peppered with both new hope and old skeletons.
The alternate and earlier alignments of the road don't vary greatly from
the current pavement, so for the most part you'll experience the same views and
landmarks those 1950s cruisers would have seen.
The
first mile or so west of Peach Springs, you can peer to the left, then right,
then left again - the paved and scattered patches you see are part of the 1950s
National Old Trails road (NOT), which was, for much of Arizona, rebranded as
Route 66 in 1926. By the time you pass Buck
and Doe Road (Indian Road 1), the NOT follows along at a reasonable distance on
your left, behind the Music Mountain school, rejoining the current stretch of
66 (through 1979) at Truxton.
Truxton
starts just as the Hualapai reservation ends, about milepost 96. If you are prone to weeping for the dead,
this is a good place to pull out a hanky.
While Truxton is by no means entirely dead, I couldn't help but imagine
that a strong wind might just carry most of its ruins away someday. Ashamed as I am to admit it, a thought echoed
through my head as I snapped a photo of the old cafe: What does gerbil think
of flypaper? It doesn't think much about
it at all. Where this thought came
from, I cannot guess, but it’s a good metaphor for Truxton. (Any thoughts on my strange and totally
random mental summoning of gerbils and flypaper can be directed to the letters
column next month.)
The
Frontier Motel's big gaudy blue sign
has a
couple appendages on the right that remind you that not only are you on
historic route 66, but also on the historic Beale Wagon Road, and a street sign
next to that says the "Will Rogers Hwy," no doubt historic as well,
intersects 66. So, indeed, this is not
just some poor Ugly Betty, stood up on prom night when the Interstate rolled on
in to the south; Truxton had a life before Route 66.
Actually,
no, it didn't. It started in 1951 as a
cafe and service station, now standing empty and decayed; only a few other old
businesses survive, such as the Truxton Station, the Frontier Motel and
Restaurant, the Orlando Motel, as well as a newer gas station on the west end
of town.
Of
course, more Burma Shave sign reproductions appear on the road ahead -
"Train Approaching/Whistle Squealing/Pause! Avoid That/Run Down
Feeling." This is all the more
curious as the railroad track is barely visible from the road.
Soon
you'll start to enter Crozier Canyon (or Truxton Canyon, whichever you
prefer). An earlier alignment from the
1930s is visible on the south side of the road, around milepost 89. The entrance to Crozier Canyon Ranch -
blocked as private - has a nice old concrete car bridge
leading past cabin ruins that are, sadly, not
visible from the road. In 1939, a flood
took out most of the small settlement of Crozier, so by the time Jack Rittenhouse
passed through in 1946, there was little to say about it all. The buildings you'll see on the left, just
ahead a bit, are remnants of the time.
Before
entering Valentine, you'll pass "Keepers of the Wild," a non-profit
animal park providing care to neglected and abused exotic animals, including
white tigers, capuchin monkeys, black leopards, mountain lions, wolves, and a
very talkative white parrot, among many other species. For a reasonable fee, you can support
Jonathan Kraft's work and also enjoy the newest Route 66 attraction along this
stretch. You can't miss the brightly
painted red, white, and blue truck out front, the bright green and pink
buildings and the green mesh lining the fence all around. Check them out online at http://www.keepersofthewild.org.
Valentine
is the next port-of-call, and it may be the quietest inhabited place on the
entire planet. Though its fortunes and
population declined with the abandonment of Route 66, its history stretches
back long before Henry Ford became a household name. The most prominent building in town is a
beautiful two-story red brick building,
dating
to 1901. The whole complex of buildings
here is labeled "United States Bureau of Indian Affairs Truxton
Division" (at 13067 East Highway 66, for the curious), making it all the
more interesting to learn that this old schoolhouse was built for the purpose
of assimilation - that is, the guidance of local Native youths into the
"white man's way." For some,
it was a boarding school; for others, a day school. (Non-Natives attended the "red
schoolhouse" from 1924, which lies south of the current paved road, about
a mile east). The Native building served
as a school through 1937, reopening later on through 1969. As I looked at this place, with the old drinking
fountain slowly dripping its water supply to the ground below, the boarded
windows, and a merry-go-round motionless and rusting, I thought of the old
Route 66 postcards showing white tourists and their sh**-eating grins watching
in amusement as Natives obligingly fashioned pottery and rugs to order, as if
performers in a circus-sideshow. In some
small way, the history of the Valentine school is a reminder that not all
hindsight is wine and roses; the fact that it lies along Route 66 - the Mother
Road - is ironic indeed.
Valentine
was also a point through which many love letters and cards would be directed in
February of every year - its heart-shaped postmark was popular - but with the
murder of clerk Jacqueline Ann Grigg in 1990, and her husband's closure/demolition
of the post office shortly thereafter, the postmark was taken over by Kingman.
The
rest of the town is drying up and blowing away.
In the time I was there, I saw only a couple tourists alongside the
road, reading their map from the safety of their air-conditioned modern sedan,
and three friendly dogs along the front porch of the Chiefs Motel. A '76' service station stands across the
road, overgrown and fenced off, yet still available for lease according to a
realty sign. Then there's Bert's Country
Dancing Bar, long abandoned, on the north side of the road.
Just
a few miles ahead is the oft-photographed Hackberry General Store, a veritable
sensory overload for the Route 66 nostalgic.
The owners, John and Kerry Pritchard, arrived in 1998 with their 1957
Corvette - the eye-catcher in front –
and bought the old store, built in 1935 and
abandoned since I-40 came along in 1978.
It is now covered, inside and out, with advertisements ranging from
Clabber Girl Baking Powder, Mobil Oil, Royal Crown Cola, Greyhound Bus Lines,
and more; signs from the National Old Trails highway, a tin lizzy in the back
garage, several classic and muscle cars - many for sale - and Burma Shave signs
to go
along with them. Inside, amongst the
photos of old-time movie stars and musicians and a phenomenal collection of
long-expired license plates, a wall painting depicts the entire path of Route
66. Essentially, in and out of the
store, you're witnessing John's personal collection of memorabilia from his
many years of traveling the Mother Road.
(And yes, he's on the web: http://www.hackberrygeneralstore.com).
There is so much to see here, you're likely to ignore the rest of Hackberry - a
ranching and mining town dating to 1874 that now boasts a population of some 15
hardy souls. If you cross the road from
the general store, a left turn will take you east along a brief early loop of
the NOT from the 1930s; if you turn right, you'll follow a dirt road that has
nothing to do with Route 66.
Heading
west along current 66 from Hackberry, you'll pass the old Antares Motel along
the right - now labeled the ‘Kozy Corner Trailer Park.’ One should stop, at least, to peer into the
barrel of "Baby Rattlers!" and to photograph the enormous
Easter-Islandish head "Giganticus Headicus" alongside the building.
Not
far after, the small community of Valle Vista - the newest community along the
road - sprung up around a golf course in 1972, just six years before Route 66
started turning into nostalgia. The
kitsch takes a break for a few miles as you head toward Kingman, a proud,
perhaps over-zealous member of the Route 66 crowd.
--
As any sensible, red-blooded television
watcher knows, Oprah Winfrey is the queen of stuff. Lots of stuff. So it was a no-brainer that we would have to
follow in her footsteps in whatever way possible as we started our final leg of
the western half of Arizona’s Route 66.
How does one follow in Oprah’s footsteps when starting a journey in
Kingman, Arizona?
This non-sequitir started at Mr. D’z Route
66 Diner, where the queen of stuff visited in 2006 and ordered a burger and
root beer. No, not paté de foie gras and Beluga caviar in a mother-of-pearl spoon
with a fine Chablis – no, Oprah’s one of us. So, we ordered said burger with cheese and
two root beer floats. The root beer at
Mr. D’z is “brewed” on the premises. The
queen loved it so much, she brought 17 cases of it with her for her audience. She didn’t ask for another burger, and to be
honest, we weren’t keen on the thing either.
But I gotta hand it to her – the root beer was pretty darn good.
Mr. D’z firmly ensconces itself in the
1950s mythos of Route 66, though it has existed in this form since just
2000. Its locale across from the Power
House (a moderately amusing Route 66 museum) solidifies its “tourist oasis”
status. The décor within is cruiser-era
and a bit insincere, sort of like the feeling one gets after one puts the menu
down at Flagstaff’s “Galaxy Diner” and starts to really look around. This is the newest sort of incarnation along
the Mother Road, the unintentional self-parody of an era much prettier in
hindsight. What separates a showpiece
like Mr. D’z from the Hackberry General Store is that not only is the Hackberry
store authentic, but it is filled with actual memorabilia that brings a
palpable sense of connection. Mr. D’z
seems to revel in what it would be, rather than what it is. I'd be curious to see if a 1930s themed
restaurant would feel quite as insincere.
Nonetheless, twenty or thirty years down the road (pun intended), this
place might fit more honestly into the mythos, once the sheen comes off and the
wear becomes true.
After a brief walk through the old
administrative center of the city, we paused for some shots of the revitalized
train station (expected to reopen as a museum)
and I recalled the curious story
of the 1887 theft of the county seat from nearby Mineral Park. Literally, in a midnight raid, the county
records were stolen and brought to the burgeoning railroad mecca. The trains still roll by, no longer stopping
at the station, just as cars today pass by, oblivious to the tattered grandeur
of the now-defunct Beale Hotel just across the way. If you want to follow the pre-1940s alignment
of 66, turn south on 4th street, cross the tracks, and right on Old
Trails. The succeeding alignment takes a
left past the Power House, on a road now called the Oatman Highway. This was Route 66 all the way to California
until 1952. After that, from Kingman to
California the road followed the current I-40 westbound path. This particular routing bypasses all the fun
stuff, so we stayed on the Oatman Highway, “convenience” be damned.
The initial miles through Cook Canyon are
a visual treat, geographically speaking, and the view really does not let up at
any point for the rest of the journey.
As infrequent as its human element may be, the backdrops are some of the
best in the entire state. While it may
have been gold that brought a road through here in the early days, it's nature
itself that draws me along this slow and meandering patch of crusty pavement.
At this point, I abandoned Jack
Rittenhouse's book (from 1946) as his description of Sitgreaves Pass doesn't
quite jive with the current reality of the road. Besides, there is really no way to get lost,
and everything to see is right along the side.
The first of these is the newly rebuilt Cool Springs station
–
now a Route 66 “memorabilia” shop (aren't
they all?). The two front posts and a
couple short walls were all that remained just a few years back; happily, they
have been left right where they stood and a reproduction of the original 1926
gas station stands atop them. When we
arrived, as the sun was an hour or so from retiring for the day, the Black
Mountains were awash in golden hues and the road was as quiet as could be. There was a curious feeling of both life and
loss, much as one might have experienced in 1952 when Route 66 was realigned to
the south. It had a short life as a poultry operation (“The Chicken Ranch”)
afterward, but in 1966, Cool Springs Camp entered a 35-year sleep. (The only interruption of slumber during that
time? Explosions by the “Universal
Soldier” crew in 1992, just as in its distant road kin Ash Fork).
Next along the westward route is Ed's
Camp,
a
small settlement of buildings set up by Ed Edgerton who came to the region nine
years before the establishment of Route 66 as a prospector. But the road's ever-increasing traffic
encouraged Ed to set his building foundations, then declare “To hell with the
building” and simply put a roof over it and formed an open-air trading post, as
you see today. The cafe and later
buildings – never any cabins – expanded with traffic, then slowly faded to
ruins as the traffic went away. The
budget traveler could pay to set up a tent or sleep in their car here, or for
another dollar could use a cot on the screened porch. Paying the rental fee also entitled you to
water without the usual per-bucket price tag.
Business began the inevitable decline after 1952. Ed died in 1978, and his famous camp has been
rotting away ever since.
As we continued west up the ever-rising
road toward the pass, I pictured those early pre-fuel pump era Model-T drivers,
who had to climb some of these winding hills in reverse, as this was the only
way to keep the fuel up at the level of the carburetor. The Good Ol' Days, huh? I think back on Dom's words at the Parks
General Store about the “Blood Road.”
The sheer drops, the rough grades, the searing Arizona heat, and the
unreliability of the early motor vehicle – all in reverse. Ahh, but what a view!
If you happen to see steps off to your
left, not far west of Ed's Camp, they'll lead you to Fishbowl Springs. Otherwise, the next point of interest, a
couple miles past the summit of Sitgreaves Pass and at a seven-hundred foot drop
in elevation, the ruins of Gold Road.
Originally a mining camp, it now serves the same function but without an
associated town. The original mine, like
many throughout Arizona, was declared non-essential to the war effort in 1942
and shuttered. Property owners torched
or tore down buildings on the property to save on taxes, another common
phenomenon. There is no sense of Route
66 remaining in Gold Road, and what is modern is open to employees only, so the
only worthy reason to stop is the remarkable view overlooking it.
Oatman – originally “Vivian” - predates
the highway system as well, but unlike Gold Road, the mine closures of 1942 did
not entirely kill this one-horse (actually, many-burro) town. Not even Route 66's 1952 realignment could do
the job, though it nearly did; a once thriving community of 10,000 dipped to
around 50 or so. The one demographic
that has never dwindled are jackasses.
Yes, indeed. The real charm of Oatman is not in the
shopkeepers – who, according to every guidebook and personal experience, are
not keen on their reliance on tourism.
And it's not the countless memorabilia shops or gunfight reproductions
or old-west portrait studios. Oatman's greatest
attraction is its burros.
Back
in the day, when the mines were booming, Oatman's workers were pulling literal
ass-loads of gold from them thar hills.
When the mines shut down, the burros were freed, but they stuck
around. These modern descendants now do
very little work, short of hassling tourists for food and dropping road apples
everywhere. If you're in to people
watching, you'll have a ball when you see an unsuspecting tourist, having been
talked out of a dollar by a local merchant for a small bag of sliced carrots,
suddenly surrounded by hordes of these pushy little beasts. They'll generally tolerate a scritch on the
nose or a short burst of baby talk before they move on to more appetizing
things than your empty hand. They do not
rend your hand from your arm or tear you apart with razor-sharp cybernetic
teeth, as some squealing city folk might make you think. If you want to co-exist in peace, either
don't hand-feed them, or just wait until night time. The locals will tell you – if you ask a stupid
question as I did, years back – where the burros go at night. “There's a great big hole out there in the
desert. The ass hole, of course.”
Oatman is awash in ass references, from
“The Classy Ass” to “Fast Fannie's Place” to Clark Gable's wedding night at the
Oatman Hotel in 1939 (then the Drulin Hotel).
The burros are, if anything, a more tangible pivot for the local economy
than, say, a passing reference in a 1970s song (I'm talking to you,
Winslow). If you remove the asses from
Oatman, you're left with a pseudo-western tourist trap where you can buy cactus
candy, bumper stickers, shirts with coyote/moonlight silhouettes, and an
absolutely stunning visual backdrop.
Like Sedona, Oatman is an average looker in a Versace suit. We caught the town at sunset, when the light
was perfect, the tourists were mostly gone, the jackasses had mostly dispersed,
and the dusty loneliness of its near-flatline of 1952 was most easily
visualized. Ultimately, for all of its
cheese, Oatman is exactly the kind of thing that Route 66 was about.
Just south of town, along the route, the
scant and quiet buildings of Old Trails remain,
set under vast and vibrant
wide-open desert skies. At the right
time, the colors that hang over the region are unreal. As the road continued through Topock and
Golden Shores to the old 1914 bridge over the Colorado,
the sky dimmed into night as our journey
along northwestern Arizona and Route 66 came to an end, and I became ever more
determined to take the slower route in the future, because traveling well is an
art – and a privilege.
I think back once more on the conversations I’ve had in the countless old icons of 66 that no longer remain, or at least have shaken off their old character for something new. This is where the nostalgia starts, the romantic notions of a yesteryear beautiful through the rose-tinted hindsight I develop more and more as I age. I had no idea at the time what I was going to be missing, but I think the journey across Arizona on this old road has taught me to take my time and just enjoy it.
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