Standin’ on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona



“Well, I’m a standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,
And such a fine sight to see,
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford,
Slowin’ down to take a look at me”

The town of Winslow will live on because of the 1972 song, “Take it Easy”, performed by the Eagles.  The song is about an unhappy singer with woman troubles. 

Winslow is in the heart of Navajo County where around 10,000 people call it home.  There are two gentlemen the city could have been named after.  Edward F. Winslow who was the president of St. Louis and San Francisco was one of the men, and Tom Winslow who was a prospector and lived in the area.  In 1930, the Harvey House (the La Posada Hotel) opened its doors and was designed by Mary Colter.  In 1957, the hotel shut down and the building was used by the Santa Fe Railroad for offices.  Winslow was one of the stops along U.S. Route 66, but fell on hard times when Interstate 40 was built in the 1970’s.

When “Take it Easy” came out in 1972 there were renewed interests in the city.  A mural was painted on a side of a building near the corner and depicted the famous line.  On October 18, 2004, the building with the mural was overtaken by fire and almost completely destroyed.  They were able to save the painting and keep it preserved.  After the city of Winslow bought the land where the building once stood, they made a park, with a statue and the mural was back on display.  To keep the Eagles song alive, the city added a billboard along Interstate 40 with the words, “Winslow, Arizona says ‘Take it easy’”.

Comments

  1. I love how your posts bring us all back to a historical place.
    Gives us the feel and the atmosphere of then, with the creep/intersting factor of the now.

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  2. Funny how sometimes the history gets lost and we're not even sure who it's named after. Sounds like a creepy (but fun) place to visit.

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  3. Winslow received an economic shot in the arm (or maybe the butt) when AZ built a prison complex there in the mid-1980s. I was thinking at the time about transferring there because I like all the space around the town, but Mrs. Stone nixed that idea. Ah well, still plenty of space around the Phoenix metro area, though you have to drive further to get to it nowadays. And there's still South Mountain here, the nation's largest municipal park. Very much btw, did you know that tumbleweeds were inadvertently imported from Russia in the late 19th century? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbleweed

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  4. Thanks, I did not know that about tumbleweeds.

    ReplyDelete

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