Winslow, Arizona, didn’t make it into Bobby Troup’s original Route 66 hit list, but the town more than made it a generation later with the Eagles tune “Take It Easy,” which begins, “Standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,” a line that has caused more people to turn off in search of the place than anything else.
In between I-40 and Route 66, the funky Old Trails Museum (closed Sun.; 520/289-5861), at 212 Kinsley Street, sells a range of “Standin’ on the Corner” T-shirts, and displays a few reminders of Winslow in its heyday. Down the block, on 2nd and Kinsley, a little sign stakes a claim to being the corner the Eagles sang about; in 1994, Eagles songwriter Don Henley donated $2,500 to help beautify the spot with an appropriate monument.
Chain motels and fast-food franchises stand at either end of town around the I-40 exits, but in between is a great landmark of Southwest style: the elegant La Posada Hotel ($90 and up; 928/289-4366) at 303 E. 2nd Street. Designed in the late 1920s for Fred Harvey by architect Mary Colter, who considered it her masterpiece, the hotel was closed for 40 years before being restored and reopened in 1998.
