An Arizona building displays a map of
hallowed Route 66, which extends west
from Chicago to Los Angeles.
thoroughfare spurred the development of a
city that had, Avery would later recall, "no
electric lights and pigs running on the
streets" in the early 1900s. A few years ago
the city of Tulsa purchased 0.8 hectares of
blighted land near the Cyrus Avery Memorial
Bridge spanning the Arkansas River and built
a plaza and skywalk. But the centrepiece of
the $10-million-plus project will be a
Route 66 museum and interpretive centre,
still in the planning stages.
The last time I travelled the road, crossing
the open range and Painted Desert of
northern Arizona in 1995, Winslow was a
dying town. Route 66, which had become
2nd and 3rd streets, was a shambles of closed
shops and nasty-looking bars. The
magnificent La Posada, last of the famous
Fred Harvey hotels built between Chicago
and Los Angeles for rail and Route 66
travellers, had been closed in 1957 and
converted into offices for the Santa Fe
Railway. The Posada's splendid murals,
depicting desert flowers and Southwestern
landscapes, had been painted over. The
soaring timbered ceiling had disappeared
under tiles fitted with fluorescent lights. The
lobby was turned into a dispatch centre for
trains and the ballroom partitioned into
cubicle offices. The original museum-quality
furnishings, designed or selected by the
building's creator, Mary Elizabeth Jane
Colter, regarded by many to be the
Southwest's greatest architect, had been
auctioned off or given away. In 1992, even
the Santa Fe Railway gave up on the place,
reportedly offering it to the city for $1.
Winslow said no thanks.
Raymond Forbes/Masterfile
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