History
Up until the 1960s, Winslow was a thriving town in northern Arizona just off Route 66. Construction of the $7.7 million bypass around Winslow began soon after 1977. When I-40 bypassed the community many local businesses disappeared, tourism being among the hardest hit. While some local jobs remained (as Winslow is the base of operation for a thousand railroad workers), the local downtown was badly hurt by the influx of national chains (such as Walmart and McDonalds) along the new Interstate highway to the north of the town. Twenty years passed and Winslow was stuck in a commercial rut.
""Winslow was the next to last town to be bypassed... We would watch hundreds of trucks roll by day and night. Then one morning, they opened (I-40) and everything stopped. For about 20 years, nobody knew what to do." —Diane Patterson, Winslow-born owner of Roadworks Gifts and SouvenirsIn 1997, the La Posada Hotel (a former Harvey House on the Santa Fe Railroad, long at risk for demolition) was restored and reopened. Listing of La Posada Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places would serve as a first step toward re-awakening the town.
The Standin' on the Corner Foundation was formed to create a renaissance of Winslow. Determined to build on tourism, the Foundation took advantage of the town being mentioned in the song "Take It Easy" by the Eagles. From 1997–1999, the Foundation was busy finding donors and planning design concepts. On September 10 and 11, 1999 the park was opened to the public.
The 2006 release of animated film Cars brought renewed attention to the efforts to save local U.S. Route 66 main street businesses in towns long bypassed. While Winslow itself is not depicted on-screen, the movie's credits list both La Posada Hotel and Diane Patterson's souvenir shop at Standin' on the Corner Park among the many Mother Road locations at which Pixar studio personnel conducted exhaustive interviews as part of extensive research for the film.
In 2007 there was a fire at the Standin' On The Corner Park while the face of the building and the actual corner survived, the rest of the building was burned down. As of 2011, an attempt to restore downtown Winslow tourism is booming.
Read more about this topic: Standin' On The Corner Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)