Throwback Thursday: Winslow over time
Throwback Thursday: Winslow over time
By now, we all know the song and lyrics from the famous Eagles song.
“Well, I'm standin' on the corner in…”
Good job, I can hear you humming and singing the rest of the song. You sound great! Now “Take it Easy” and read on for some fun facts about, you guessed it, Winslow, Arizona.
The photo above was taken in 1975 on a yet-to-be-paved Interstate 40 at the Hipkoe Drive overpass in Winslow.
The origins of Winslow's name are unclear. Local Prospector Tom Winslow claimed in 1920 that the town was named after him. Though it’s more likely that president of the St. Louis & Southern Railroad and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, and Civil War veteran, General Edward Francis Winslow was the town's namesake.
I-40 was paved in Winslow in the late 1970s while construction and paving for the entire interstate was completed in 1984.
As I-40 travels through much of northeast Arizona, it goes right on top of the old Route 66 alignment except when traveling through the towns of Joseph City, Holbrook and Winslow. That’s because the interstate was too wide to run through these downtown areas and is why I-40 curves around these towns on a map. The old Route 66 still exists as local roads and business routes of I-40 through those towns.
After I-40 was completed in Arizona in 1984, US 66 was officially decommissioned nationwide the next year.
The Mobil gas station in the photo is now a 76 Gas Station, but the view mostly remains the same, as you can see in this overlay photo:
