PHOENIX
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANE LUITJENS
• ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDREW DEGRAFF
BY ELIZABETH L. BLAIR
ROUTE 66 ROAD SCHOLARS
GET YOUR KICKS—AND A HISTORY LESSON— ON ARIZONA’S ROUTE 66.
ROUTE 66 has a long history, dating back to 1926 when a project began to connect Chicago, Los Angeles and all the towns in between. By 1938, the road was continuously paved through eight states. The “Main Street of America” was a route of refuge for Midwesterners escaping the torments of the Dust Bowl. Diners, motels, gas stations and shops popped up along the Southwestern route, and the businesses thrived as they served the millions of travelers passing through. • By the mid-’50s, however, the need for a safer and more effective highway system was apparent. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System emerged, and by the mid-’70s, nearly every Route 66 segment was bypassed or paved over. Drivers now had a quicker avenue to their destinations, and the towns that had relied so heavily on Route 66 traffic began to decline. • In Arizona, there is still, however, the longest remaining “alignment” in the west and intermittent, drivable sections off I-40 in the east. And all along the road, many original attractions—possessing the nostalgic, uniquely American culture of the thoroughfare—still stand.
Here is a taste of what you’ll find, from west to east.
START THE DRIVE IN HACKBERRY , located in western Arizona, where you can find one of the most nostalgic Route 66 stops: Hackberry General Store (928-769-2605). This location opened in the 1930s as a common shop for locals. When the Interstate Highway System bypassed the town, the store closed, but was subsequently transformed into a museum now stocked with eclectic “Mother Road” memorabilia.
Vintage gas pumps and a shiny red 1957 Chevrolet Corvette sit in front of the museum while Burma-Shave, Coca-Cola and Greyhound signs embellish the storefront.
Moving east to Seligman, an Old West railroad town that came to rely on Route 66 for its survival, stop at Angel Delgadillo’s Route 66 Gift Shop & Visitor’s Center (www.route66giftshop.com), where you can pick up a Walking Tour Guide to Historic Seligman. On the same side of the street is the famous Snow Cap Drive-In, which was owned by Delgadillo’s brother Juan; Angel took it over after Juan passed away in 2004. Don’t leave without ordering a burger and a malt.
Between Seligman and Topock, drivers will find 159 unbroken miles—the longest remaining stretch. Sean Evans, a Northern Arizona University librarian, says part of the joy of this stretch is that drivers can see the evolution of the road’s construction from 1926 to the end of a faded era.
Farther east, Williams was the last town to be bypassed by Interstate 40, and it’s one of the most authentic Route 66 towns in Arizona. At
Twister’s Soda Fountain (520-635-0266), for example, you can step back in time with authentic red-and-white vinyl booths, a black-and-white checkered floor, and ’50s music playing in the background. In the same building is Route 66 Place (www.route66place.com), a gift shop teeming with vintage memorabilia, Coca-Cola themed gifts and Route 66 items.
After exploring the town of Williams—and working up an appetite—satisfy your hunger at Rod’s Steak House (www.rods-steakhouse.com; 928-635-2671). This stop has been open since 1946, and if these walls could talk, they could probably tell some fascinating stories of the Route 66 glory days.
A visit to these parts isn’t complete without a visit to the Grand Canyon. Take the journey—’20s style—on the Grand Canyon Railway (www.thetrain.com). The restored 1923 Harriman-style Pullman cars depart daily from Williams. The ride, just more than two hours, meanders through ponderosa pine forests to the dry high desert. Be prepared for an exhilarating 1,500-foot vertical drop along the way.
Flagstaff is in the center of Arizona’s Route 66 drive and is home to a number of worthy attractions, including the Route 66-themed Galaxy Diner (928-774-2466). It’s a blast from the past, with photos of glamorous ’50s and ’60s film stars embellishing the walls, oldies tunes playing on the jukebox, and a menu loaded with food reminiscent of times past, like Monster Mash Hash, Judy Garden Burger and Chubby Checker Triple Decker.
Meteor CraterPast Flagstaff, learn about Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto in 1930 at Lowell Observatory (www.lowell.edu), one of the oldest man-made attractions in the Southwest.
As you drive, keep an eye out for a neon guitar and neon-lined building. It’s The Museum Club (www.museumclub.com), a 1931 roadhouse and dance club, where you’ll find taxidermy decorating the walls, petrified trees protruding from the wooden dance floor, chandeliers made from antlers, and an 1880s mahogany backbar. During Route 66’s heyday, this was a popular place for musicians to stop and perform. Today, it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
Part of the splendor of central Northern Arizona is the natural beauty of its jagged mountains spires, formed by 600 volcanoes ranging in age from about 1,000 to 6 million years. Sunset Crater Volcano (www.nps.gov/sucr) is the baby of the group: Its last eruption was in 1100 AD. Today, visitors can hike the 1-mile Lava Flow Trail loop, which has cooled down quite a bit since.
Sunset Crater
More than 150 meteor craters are scattered across the Earth’s surface, but the best-preserved impact site is located east of Flagstaff and was created about 50,000 years ago, when a fiery giant meteor mass weighing several hundred thousand tons and moving 40,000 miles per hour created a crater 4,000 feet across and 550 feet deep. Meteor Crater (www.meteorcrater.com) has four observation areas with telescopes that allow for excellent viewing, while the indoor visitor center provides a variety of displays.
Emblematic of Route 66’s kitschy character is the town of Winslow’s Standin’ on the Corner Park (www.standinonthecorner.com). Inspired by the Eagles’ “Take it Easy” lyrics, the park has a two-story mural, a bronze statue of a young man dressed in ’70s-style clothing with a guitar perched on his foot, and—as per the lyrics—a bright red flatbed Ford truck parked on the corner.
LONG BEFORE flying was the most convenient way to travel, there was the railroad. In 1929, Fred Harvey commissioned the talented architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter to design Winslow’s La Posada Hotel & Gardens (www.laposada.org; 928-289-4366) for the comfort of Santa Fe Railway passengers. Closed in 1957, it was purchased in 1997 by Allan Affeldt, who renovated the rooms—named for former guests like Clark Gable, Shirley Temple and Amelia Earhart—and reopened the hotel for business.
Another lodging option—especially if you have ever dreamed of sleeping in a teepee—is The Wigwam Motel (www.galerie-kokopelli. com/wigwam; 928-524-3048) in Eastern Arizona’s Holbrook. It’s one of seven Wigwam Villages in the US, but the only one listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Each of the 15 teepees stands 32 feet high and has a diameter of 14 feet, and offers standard motel accommodations.
The Wigwam MotelThe last stop on the trip, Petrified Forest National Park (www.nps.gov/pefo), contains one of the world’s largest occurrences of petrifi ed wood and fossils, dating back 225 million years. There is an exhibit honoring Route 66, which once went through the park, complete with a 1932 Studebaker. Petrified Forest National Park is within the Painted Desert, which contains more than 93,500 acres of gorgeous scenery extending from New Mexico to the Grand Canyon. It’s a spectacular end to a road trip unlike any other.
While many of the historic towns along the original 2,448-mile stretch exist only in memory, today’s visitors continue to help keep the magic of Route 66 alive, whether it’s by eating a stack of syrup-drenched pancakes at a nostalgic diner, gazing in awe at a gigantic meteor crater, or simply watching through an open window as the timeless scenery whizzes by.
SAVED BY AN ANGEL
When the Interstate Highway System replaced Route 66 as the main cross-country thoroughfare, it left locals like Angel Delgadillo in the dust. With the decline of travelers, many businesspeople had to hit the highway themselves—but not Delgadillo. In Seligman, where he grew up, raised his family and manned his barber chair, he inspired the revival of Route 66. By 1987, this “Guardian Angel” had united other towns to form the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona(www.azrt66.com), which has preserved much of what remains of this classic road today.