Driving Route 66 Across Arizona

Driving
Route 66
Across
Arizona

Standing on the Corner Park in Winslow, Arizona, Christmas 2007.

1951 roadmap shows Route 66 across Arizona when it was two lanes of concrete or blacktop and the main street through every town. In 1953 a new alignment from Kingman to Topock via Yucca bypassed the withering mining towns of Goldroad and Oatman.

You Can Drive Many Surviving Miles of Old Route 66 Across Arizona
by Robert Lucas

     More miles of original Route 66 pavement have been preserved and are driveable across Arizona than any other state through which the Mother Road winds its way from Chicago to LA. From the California border to the mountains of the Colorado Plateau, Route 66 is a two-lane blacktop ribbon that is easily driven by car. The highway is maintained and well used to reach those small towns bypassed by Interstate-40. But beginning west of Flagstaff and continuing past the cities of Winslow and Holbrook, Route 66 is broken up into many small sections, alternately presenting a short easy drive in the family car or a safe but adventuresome series of treks for a high-clearance vehicle.
     Beginning at the California border at Topock, leave I-40 at Exit number 1 to drive Route 66 toward the recently established recreational community of Golden Shores along Topock Marsh. You may want to take a closer look around the Colorado River crossing before heading north. The first highway bridge at this location, built in 1916, ten years before the number 66 would be applied to the route still spans the Colorado. Trails Arch Bridge now carries natural gas pipelines across the river whereas it used to give passage to Model T Fords on the National Old Trails Road, ancestor of US66.
     The present railroad bridge at Topock was completed in 1945, replacing a cantilever structure built in 1890 at a site between the freeway bridge and Trails Arch. Soon after World War II, the Arizona Highway Department acquired Red Rock Bridge from the railroad and laid two lanes of blacktop for vehicles. It served well until it was replaced in 1966 by the present I-40 bridge. The steel trusses were dismantled for scrap in 1978.
     Historic Route 66 through Golden Shores is called Oatman Road and is maintained by Mohave County. It climbs out of the river valley in the shadows of prominent landmarks like McHeffy Butte, Boundary Cone and Battleship Mountain.

OATMAN and GOLDROAD

Gold Road summit about 1942 is pictured in this postcard by Gallup studio of Chloride, Arizona. A view of Arizona,
Nevada and California could be seen from the viewpoint pull-off at the top of the hill. All cross-country truck traffic on
US 66 had negotiate the steep grades and haripin curves through Gold Road and Oatman until a bypass opened in 1953.

     The first town is Oatman, one of those Arizona “ghost towns” that is still very much alive. About 25 miles from Needles, California, 25 miles from Bullhead City and 25 miles from Kingman, Oatman is still in the middle of things, in this region of played-out gold mines. Don’t miss the opportunity to feed the wild burros on Main Street.
     Leaving Oatman, Route 66 begins a winding journey across the Black Mountains through Sitgreaves Pass. The next town, Gold Road, is more ghostly. Evidence of once great mines now abandoned is everywhere. And after Gold Road the two lanes of cracked asphalt become steeper and the curves tighter over the 3,523-foot summit of Gold Road Grade. These are the steep climbs and hairpin switchbacks seen briefly in the classic movie The Grapes of Wrath, slow going in the early days and still challenging for motor homes.
     Some have wondered why Route 66 took such a tortuous route. But highways were built to connect important towns, providing a path for commerce and the goods people need living in the mountains. From 1906 to 1942 the mines around Oatman produced more than $36 million in gold, swelling the town to a population of 12,000 during the boom. The Gold Road Mine produced $7.5 million from about 1902 to 1931. That money drew the highway into the mountains, until the cash flow finally dwindled.   ADOT relocated Route 66 in 1952 to follow the railroad down the wide valleys from Kingman to Topock. That newer alignment was eventually rebuilt as the interstate and the old pavement is now gone.

KINGMAN to SELIGMAN

     Route 66 from Oatman meets I-40 at Exit 44, McConnico, a few miles south of Kingman and then leaves it again at Exit 53 on the east side of town. Business loop I-40 through the historic district on Andy Devine Avenue is the most recent vestige of Route 66, but it is also possible to drive an earlier alignment on Old Trails Road. Several miles of perfectly straight highway leave Kingman and pass the airport in the alkali flats of southern Hualapai Valley. Had you passed this way right after World War II, you would have seen the valley filled with rows of mothballed bombers and fighter planes. Many thousands of them were flown into Kingman Army Airfield back then to await disposal.
     The 112 miles from Kingman through Hackberry, Valentine, Truxton, Peach Springs and Seligman to Ash Fork is the longest remaining driveable stretch of old Route 66. Don’t think you have entered a time warp if you pass a ’54 Hudson Hornet or a ’56 Chevy convertible. And no, you haven’t been sucked into a TV re-run just because you happen to be following two guys in a 1960 Corvette. Lots of collectors who cherish vehicles that came off the assembly line before they were born like to get their kicks by driving Route 66.
     Peach Springs is the access point to visit Hualapai Skywalk, if you like to get your kicks by walking on glass a few thousand feet in the air. Grand Canyon Caverns, east of Peach Springs offers an elevator ride down 21 stories into a limestone cavern for a tour of the delicate stalactites and stalagmites. And don’t miss Juan Delgadillo’s Snowcap in Seligman.
     The giant concrete dinosaurs at Grand Canyon Caverns, the mannequins on the roof in Seligman and confounding doorknobs at the snowcap give you some idea of the weird and wonderful, tacky and tasteless architecture of tourism that greeted travelers on old Route 66. Every small business felt it had to have some striking trademark to catch the eye of passing motorists. Families could stop to buy a coke and see a two-headed goat, or a meteorite museum, the largest petrified tree stump, or browse a rack of postcards of Bill Williams Mountain Men, Hopi Kachinas and jackalopes. They could sleep in a concrete wigwam for the night, buy moccasins “made by real Indians,” eat lunch at the “Motoraunt” in Holbrook or have their picture taken in the saddle on the back of a giant jackrabbit. Some of these places are gone now, but the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook is still open and the jackrabbit is still happy to give you a ride just west of Joseph City.

ASH FORK to WILLIAMS

     Route 66 rejoins I-40 at Exit 139 for the short distance into Ash Fork, “Flagstone Capital of USA,” where you will see a 1950s DeSoto parked on the roof of DeSoto’s Beauty & Barber Shop. With those big tail-fins it looks ready to fly. There is a short segment of the old road going east from Exit 139, including a concrete bridge with a tree growing out of it across Partridge Creek, but the blacktop dead-ends at the railroad before reaching Ash Fork.
     Another, longer, perfectly straight stretch of the old highway can be driven east of Ash Fork from Exit 149 (Monte Carlo Road) to Exit 151. Then return to the Interstate to climb Ash Fork hill, noting the evidence of old “dugways” cut into the side where unpaved switchbacks once carried automobiles to the top of the Colorado Plateau in the 1910s. A segment of Route 66 at Pine Springs (Exit 157) is driveable both east and west. From this point to a point east of Flagstaff, Route 66 was paved with concrete for most of the way, but driveable segments have now been topped with asphalt, leaving little evidence of the jointed slabs that used to produce a slap-slap of tires for miles. From Exit 161, east into Williams you drive a modern two-lane highway of asphalt where well-worn concrete pavement existed not too long ago.
     Between Williams and Flagstaff are numerous surviving alignments from 1926 to 1965 and older dirt portions of the National Old Trails Road that survive as well-traveled Forest Service roads. Mountain Man Trail (off Exit 167 via Garland Prairie Road) is a 1926-1931 alignment. The north side frontage road from Exit 167 past the Deer Farm is a 1932-1964 alignment. South of I-40 at exit 171, Ponderase Road heading east is a pre 1931 alignment. Wagon Wheel Road and Parks Road use a 1931-1964 remnant of Route 66. Leave the freeway at Exit 178 for Parks. Old alignments are easy to find around Bellemont, accessible at Exit 185.

FLAGSTAFF . . .and don't forget WINONA

Winona bridge across Walnut Creek (1925) has been bypassed but preserved as a relic of an old
alignment of Route 66 east of Flagstaff along what is now Camp Townsend-Winona Road. Photo
by Leslie Connell.

     Taking the first exit for west Flagstaff (Exit 191), Route 66 is the main street through the downtown. At the shopping mall in east Flagstaff, you can continue to drive old Route 66 east to Exit 204, where the 1947-1964 alignment is incorporated into the Interstate. But as the Nat King Cole song reminds us, “don’t forget Winona!” The pre-1947 route is Camp Townsend-Winona Road, still heavily traveled from Highway 89 in east Flagstaff to Winona. A 1925 through-truss, steel bridge on Route 66 has been taken out of service but preserved at Winona.
     If you have a fairly rugged vehicle, instead of going back to the Interstate at Winona, you can drive Route 66 east to Twin Arrows, it’s the blacktop highway between the freeway and the railroad just east of Exit 211. It is still well-used and much of the asphalt has been covered with gravel and cinders. When the cracked and broken asphalt pavement is obliterated by the freeway, a dirt road continues to the left down into Canyon Padre. This is a remnant of the National Old Trails Road that preceded Route 66. You can drive across the canyon on the 1914 bridge, a 140-foot “luten arch,” apparently named after a well known design near Chatham, Kent, England. The railings are crumbling on the Canyon Padre bridge but the concrete deck is probably still safe.
     You can rejoin I-40 at Twin Arrows (Exit 219), or drive a mile or so of old Route 66 East on the south side of the freeway. Attached to the gas station, now closed for nearly 10 years, is an example of one of several identical 1930s diners that used to feed hungry travelers along the Mother Road.

This 1940s remnant of Route 66 heads west toward the snowcapped San Francisco Peaks. It has been preserved
as a frontage road near Twin Arrows along Interstate 40 (at right).

CANYON DIABLO and METEOR CRATER

     After Twin Arrows, remnants of the old highway are visible along the south side of the Interstate but not really driveable until Winslow. There is another, smaller luten arch bridge across Canyon Diablo at Two Guns (Exit 230), where Indian Miller and then Chief Sakiestewa maintained a zoo for many years and also gave tours of the “Apache Death Cave.” The busy gasoline station exploded in flames one day in 1966, halting traffic on the freeway nearly all day as it burned, but no one was hurt.
     The “devil’s canyon” is probably just an unlucky spot. After Navajos massacred Apaches in the shallow cave, the railroad came in 1881 but was delayed six months building a bridge across the chasm. Meanwhile, the work camp (about 3 miles north of I-40) turned into a notoriously violent street of saloons. Eight years later, bandits held up the train and made off with the currency shipment. Unfortunately for them, they were caught and most of the money recovered. The year Route 66 was created, Indian Miller shot and killed the owner of the other store at Two Guns. He was acquitted in self defense but later mauled by one of the mountain lions at his zoo. He survived and moved to Lupton soon after.
     The privately owned Meteor Crater natural landmark, probably the best preserved meteor crater in the world, can be visited a few miles south of I-40 off Exit 233. Two miles east of the exit is a modern rest area and just beyond you can see the old alignment of US66 on the south side of the eastbound freeway lanes where it crosses a gully on a concrete bridge. Two more miles is the overpass above the railroad, and then two miles further is the curio store at Meteor City Road (Exit 239). Its claim to fame is the “world’s longest map of Route 66” and the largest dream catcher in the world.

WINSLOW

     To drive old highway 66 again, leave the freeway at Exit 252, Hipkoe Drive and enter Winslow, “a city in motion.” The economy of Winslow was transportation dominated until recent years. It was founded in 1882 as a railroad division point with a roundhouse and shops. As the automobile supplanted rail travel Winslow became an important service stop on the National Old Trails Road and then Route 66. And when Charles Lindbergh needed a stop for Ford Trimotor passenger planes in the mid-1930s, he came to Winslow and designed a large airport. It became a refueling and maintenance stop for Transcontinental and Western planes, later TWA, and is still an important base for fire fighting slurry bombers.
     Winslow is a good place to see some of the history of transportation, including Route 66, at Old Trails Museum, 212 N. Kinsley Avenue, less than a block from Standin’ On the Corner Park. The old J. C. Penny’s-Rasco building burned in 2004, endangering the artwork of muralist John Pugh and sculptor Ron Adamson. But the wall was saved and stabilized and the site cleaned with a grant from Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Standin' On the Corner Park, named for the song by the Eagles, reopened in September of last year, and a Route 66 Plaza and event center will be built within the standing walls.
    Like most of the communities along Route 66, Winslow is still a railroad town, though no longer a division point. Along with Needles, Kingman, Seligman, Ash Fork and Williams, Winslow offered travelers on the Santa Fe Route a Fred Harvey Eating House and hotel, run by those Harvey Girls. In 1929, Fred Harvey company built a new hotel in Winslow called La Posada, designed by the noted Grand Canyon rustic architect Mary Jane Colter. For this design she chose southwest Spanish themes, laying out the building like a huge hacienda. Completely restored from its days as a railroad office, it once again offers some of the finest dining and lodging along Route 66.
     You can also spend the night or dine at the restored Fray Marcos, once a Harvey house in Williams, and now also the site of the Arizona state railroad museum and starting point for the Grand Canyon Railway to the south rim. Or, tour the recently restored Painted Desert Inn within Petrified Forest National Park east of Holbrook, a former Harvey house situated on Route 66 rather than the railroad. The Winslow Harvey Girls, a group of volunteers dedicated to keeping their namesake’s memories alive, often give tours or historical demonstrations at La Posada and Painted Desert Inn. Harvey houses have not survived in Kingman or Ash Fork, but the fine buildings in Needles and Seligman are slated for restoration.
     Before the freeway, the highway passed through Winslow on Second and Third Streets, each street carrying one-way traffic. This one-way scheme was also used to convey Route 66 through downtown Ash Fork and Williams. The historic route continues past the freeway entrance at Transcon Lane (Exit 255) to become State Route 87 to Homolovi Ruin State Park and the Hopi communities beginning at Second Mesa. Old US66 and I-40 cross the Little Colorado River at Milepost 257, where construction crews had great difficulty building a new freeway bridge in the 1970s due to flooding.
     Beyond that point Route 66 is cutoff by the freeway as the former alignment crosses to the north side. Parts of the old road are driveable from Exit 257 east across Cottonwood Wash to Exit 264, Hibbard Road. Jackrabbit Trading Post has been selling curiosities since 1949 on the south side of Exit 269. An abandoned alignment of Route 66 is on the north side of the freeway but not easily driveable until near Joseph City.
     Taking the first Joseph City exit on the west (Exit 274), you can turn west and travel a mile or so of the old highway past what used to be Ella’s Frontier curios and RV park, or turn east and drive the old highway into Joseph City as its main street. You have to return to the freeway at the Love’s truck stop (Exit 277) and continue to Perkins Valley Road (Exit 283) before driving again on Route 66. The old alignment goes past Cholla Ready Mix on the north side of the freeway, and is now named Boyse Road.

HOLBROOK

Hopi Drive in Holbrook about 1948 by Frashers Fotos of Pomona

     Leaving the Interstate on the west side of Holbrook (Exit 285), old Route 66 runs east through the middle of town along Hopi Drive until the traffic light, then makes a 90-degree left turn to follow Navajo Boulevard up the hill. At Holbrook, the National Old Trails Road crossed the Little Colorado River and went southeast to St. Johns, Springerville and into New Mexico. But when the numbered US highway system was adopted in 1926, US Highway 66 replaced much of the Old Trails Road but continued to follow the railroad past Holbrook, arriving at the New Mexico border 24 miles west of Gallup. It was a sandy, often muddy, dirt road at the time, and motorists usually stayed on the Old Trails route until US66 was paved east of Holbrook in the early 1930s.
     Holbrook is another railroad town, historically a shipping point for cattle and wool. Downtown used to be along Front Street with the railroad track running right down the middle of the street, wild saloons, peaceful homes and thriving mercantile buildings on either side. The street was renamed Central but is now considered two streets, Joy Nevin Avenue on the north side of the tracks and Bucket of Blood, named after an infamous saloon, on the south.
     After 1900, the business district gradually moved to safer ground away from the saloons and the flooding river, to line Hopi and Navajo. Many of the historic buildings remain and there is a fine museum and visitor center in the 1898 courthouse. Holbrook is also a perfect location to see many of the neon signs and kitsch designs of roadside architecture that characterized Route 66. The ultimate, Wigwam Motel on West Hopi Drive at 8th Street is not to be missed. It has been listed among the Top 10 Quirkiest Hotels in the World by TripAdvisor. Be daring and “Sleep in a wigwam tonight!”
     Holbrook had one of the earliest Fred Harvey Eating Houses, until it moved to Winslow in 1888. But just east of Holbrook, one of the few Harvey houses off the railroad is in use as a visitor center for the Painted Desert. It can be seen only by entering Petrified Forest National Park but it is worth the detour and the entry fee. Painted Desert Inn began as a private guest lodge constructed of broken pieces of petrified wood, overlooking the colorful clay hills of the Painted Desert. It was acquired and rebuilt by the Park Service when park boundaries were expanded to reach north of Route 66 in 1936. Mary Jane Colter gave it a new look and new elegance in 1948 after it became a Fred Harvey inn and restaurant.

The prolific Bob Petley of Phoenix published this postcard view of a truck on Route 66 east of
Holbrook and near Petrified Forest in the early 1950s.

PAINTED DESERT and PETRIFIED FOREST

In those days, the inn was located about a mile north of the highway along the Painted Desert Cutoff, now simply called “park road.” The old US66 roadbed is still visible following a line of abandoned telephone poles.
Starting at Holbrook, you have to enter the freeway at the north end of Navajo Boulevard (Exit 289) and go east to Sun Valley before you can again drive old Route 66. Taking Exit 294 and going north of the freeway, the old highway is easily identified running a few miles east. After it ends at the Interstate fence, you will have to turn around and come back to the freeway and head east to the next driveable segment.
Take Exit 303 and get on Adamana Road running south of I-40 to the east and you are again driving old Route 66 for about four miles. When Adamana Road almost meets the freeway and makes a 90-degree turn at Nyal Rockwell’s wrecking yard, you can see where the old US66 right-of-way crosses the freeway and continues into Petrified Forest National Park.
Again, you will have to back-track, return to the freeway and enter the National Park (Exit 311) to trace the Mother Road. You can’t drive it through the park, but you might have your picture taken standing next to a 1931 Studebaker wreck or a dismembered 1957 Cadillac bumper in the middle of the old right-of-way.

to NEW MEXICO

     East of Petrified Forest at the Pinta Road interchange (Exit 320), an abandoned segment of US66 runs on the north side of I-40 about a mile away, and is rough but possibly driveable for a few miles in both directions. For the first time, the old alignment enters Navajo Indian Reservation land. The abandoned roadway crosses the freeway to the south side just east of Crazy Creek Bridge and continues to the railroad section point called Navajo where the first territorial government of Arizona officially took control in 1864. You can’t drive the alignment across the freeway. Instead go back to I-40 at Pinta, head east and take Exit 325 at Navajo. You can drive old Route 66 along the south side of I-40 from Navajo to the McCarroll Road interchange (Exit 330).
     East of Navajo, at Exit 330, old Route 66 is now McCarroll Road east into Chambers on the north side of I-40. It is a well-maintained two-lane paved highway paralleling I-40 on the north side from Chambers to Sanders. Old buildings that once served gasoline, refreshments and curios to motorists are recognizable along the way. Now, as in the old days, services for motorists are available at Trading Posts along the highway. Some of these establishments really don’t “trade” goods for blankets woven by Navajos like the Trading Posts away from the highway. They just sell blankets and jewelry, gasoline and food to tourists and local residents alike. Most, however, are still “trading posts” in every sense.
     From Sanders to Houck, Route 66 is still on the north side of the freeway and driveable as Cedar Point-Big Arrow Road. Access is at Exits 341 through 348, starting east of the Sanders Inspection Station. Fort Courage Trading Post at Houck offers sustenance and fantasy. There is a surreal and silly replica of the home of F-Troop of sixties TV fame that will interest kids who weren’t born when Capt. Parmenter, Sgt. O’Rourke and Corporal Agarn bumbled every sortie. But the kids may have seen the re-runs. From Houck to the New Mexico border the most recent remnants of Route 66 have been rebuilt as a frontage road serving Trading Posts or one of the freeway lanes.
     And that’s Route 66 across Arizona. Once a dangerous and slow highway connecting the main streets of railroad communities, sawmill towns and mining camps. Now a tattered but much beloved National Scenic Byway, with enough history to exhaust the indefatigable.

Save this page on your computer. Print it out, or view it on a laptop as you drive Route 66 across Arizona.
There are many other sources on the internet tracing Route 66 across Arizona. Some trace routes of the National Old Trails Road before there was a numbered highway system, and before roads were paved. Most of the routes traced in this article can be easily driven in an ordinary car. A few can't be reached by car. Exercise caution when driving back roads. Respect privacy and preserve property. Prepare for summer heat and winter snow, and long and lonesome stretches between services.

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Arizona Highways magazine began publication in 1925 as the official journal of the Arizona highway department. By the 1930s it published mostly scenic photographs and articles of interest to tourists and "zonaphiles" (i.e. Arizona affectionados). In the 1940s it became a well-known venue for artists, especially landscape photographers. It is still published every month.
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