They’ll be rockin’…‘on the corner in Winslow, Arizona’

Winslow, Ariz., is one of the most popular communities on Route 66.

 

The whole town (population 8,365) and then some are expected to participate in this year’s “Standin’ on the Corner Festival,” a two-day event on Sept. 25-26 to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the legendary highway Route 66.

Just to jog your rock’n’roll music memory, in the early 1970s singer-songwriter Jackson Browne experienced car trouble and had to layover in Winslow until mechanics at a local garage could fix his vehicle. 

So, he wrote about his stay.

Well, I’m a standin’ on (the) 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….

Browne’s good friend Glenn Frey was credited as co-writer of the song “Take It Easy.” Frey had just formed a new band named the Eagles.

 

“Take It Easy” became the Eagles’ first recording in 1972. A smash hit, the single peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

A large “Route 66” emblem is painted on the pavement at the intersection of 2nd Street and Kinsley Avenue in downtown Winslow.

 

Local community leaders created a public attraction known as “Standin’ on the Corner Park,” which was dedicated in 1999. 

The centerpiece is a 6-foot-tall bronze statue of a young, floppy-haired, denim-clad troubadour holding his acoustic guitar. 

The sculptor is Ron Adamson of Libby, Mont. He named the monument “Easy,” and his son Dustin was the model.

 

The backdrop is a magnificent, two-story mural that was painted by artist John Pugh of Truckee, Calif., who maintains a studio in Ashland, Ore. 

It’s titled “Slowin’ Down to Take a Look,” a tribute to the Eagles band. Pugh is one of America’s premier muralists, employing an illusionary three-dimensional technique that “fools the eye.”

His Winslow mural features a girl driving a 1960 model red flatbed Ford. She appears as “a cleverly cool” window reflection. 

(To add even more realism, the community foundation has parked a genuine red 1960 flatbed Ford truck nearby.)

 

A second statue was added to the park in 2016, a likeness of the Eagles’ Glenn Frey, who died earlier that year at age 67. Its sculptor is Dee Jay Bawden of Provo, Utah.

 

Winslow was established in 1880 as a division point on the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. Division points had large rail yards and were important during the steam era. Trains would run from division point to division point where they would change engines and crews and switch cars.

The town was named after railroad executive Gen. Edward F. Winslow (shown below), or maybe it was old Tom Winslow, a wily prospector and hermit. (Locals are about evenly divided.)

 

The western portion of the Atlantic & Pacific was absorbed by the legendary Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. It became known as the Santa Fe Railroad in 1897.

 

This led the Fred Harvey Company to select Winslow as the site for development of a major hotel and restaurant complex that opened in 1930. Harvey built and ran all the hotels and restaurants of the Santa Fe Railway, eventually controlling a hospitality empire that spanned the continent.

“Winslow was the next to last Arizona town to be bypassed by Interstate 40,” said Diane Patterson, who once owned a downtown gift shop. “We used to watch hundreds of trucks roll by day and night.”

 

The festival revolves around music, and the impressive 2026 lineup of performers includes:

“One of These Nights,” an Eagles tribute band, as well as the “Josh Roy Band,” “High 90’s,” “Tommy Dukes,” “Pure Prophet,” “Chris Kane Trio” and “Ninth and Ash.”

One of These Nights

 

Josh Roy Band

High 90’s

Tommy Dukes

Food trucks, vendors and adult beverages will be available. Enter horseshoes and cornhole competitions. For more information, contact the Winslow Chamber of Commerce at winslowarizona.org.

Route 66 visitors may want to ‘lay over’ at Adrian, Texas

What else is there to do in Adrian, Texas, the midway point on Route 66 that runs from downtown Chicago, Ill., to the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles?

 

After having enjoyed a delicious home-style cooked meal served with a smile at the MidPoint Café, visitors may want to sashay over to the Dream Maker Station Route 66 Souvenir & Gift Shop and meet the owners Jason and Kelly Snyder.

 

They are described as being “super friendly and welcoming to all Route 66 road trippers,” offering refreshments appropriate for the season. The store has a complete line of nostalgic Route 66 gifts and souvenirs, including T-shirts, coffee mugs, shot glasses, patches, pins and much more. 

Play the pinball machine inside or sit outside and enjoy watching the Route 66 traffic passing by…and the ever-changing West Texas weather.

The historic building was originally Dub’s Enco-Humble Service Station, owned and operated by Dub Edmunds.

Dream Maker Station organizes and hosts an annual Route 66 Car Show, a popular event in the Texas Panhandle area. This fun event features classic cars, food trucks, vendors, raffles, door prizes and a music DJ.

 

For overnight accommodations in Adrian, book a room at the Fabulous 40 Motel on Route 66, which promotes itself as “the first and last motel in Texas.” The proprietors of the 20-unit motel are Roy and Ramona Kiewert. 

(The original plan called for 40 rooms, hence the name...but things changed.)

 

The place appeals to people who are in no rush to move on. In fact, the local chamber of commerce invites folks to linger long, basking in the glory of “no smog, no crowds, no lines.”

 

Adrian began to take form in 1900 when a Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway survey team, working west of Amarillo, Texas, identified it as a future site of a station and shipping point.

The town was named for Adrian Cullen, an early farmer in the area. Its official founding date was 1909, when the railway was completed through that portion of the Oldham County.

Learn more about the history of Adrian and Oldham County at the Julian Bivins Museum, located nearby at Boys Ranch, an unincorporated community on the site of the original county seat at Tascosa.

 

Once a raucous pioneer town, Tascosa was known for gunfights and barroom brawls.

The place was occupied and ruled in 1878 by 19-year-old Henry McCarty, known as “Billy the Kid,” and his gang, the Regulators. They were notorious horse and cattle rustlers.

 

The origin of Boys Ranch in an interesting story involving the “life and times” of Cal Farley. He arrived in Amarillo in 1923 to play second base with the Amarillo Gassers, a minor league baseball team. (Farley is the second from the right in the photo below).

 

Farley was an exceptional athlete. As a professional wrestler and World Welterweight Champion during the 1920s, Farley won 225 straight matches.

In Amarillo, he established a network of Wun-Stop-Duzzit tire shops, reviving several B.F. Goodrich dealerships.

In 1934, Farley started an after-school program for boys in Amarillo, sponsored by the Rotary Club. Interest grew. In 1938, rancher Julian Bivins (shown below) donated about 120 acres of land, about 30 miles northeast of Adrian, for Farley to establish Boys Ranch.

 

The facility opened in 1939 with nine boys in residence. The idea was to provide education and support for “the boy nobody wanted,” giving him “a shirttail to hang onto.”

Today, Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch is still in operation as a residential community open to at-risk children ages 5 to 18 (both boys and girls). About 300 children live in small cottages at Boys Ranch during the year.

 

Strong agricultural and spiritual components anchor the educational curriculum.

‘Required pit stop’ along Route 66 is Adrian, Texas

One of the most popular destinations for motorists to gather to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of U.S. Route 66 in 2026 is the little town of Adrian, Texas, located in the Panhandle region near the top of the state.

Visitors can grab a bite to eat at Adrian’s legendary MidPoint Café and Gift Shop. 

The establishment is aptly named; the town is famously situated “at the geo-mathematical midpoint” of Route 66 – 1,139 miles from both Chicago, Ill., and Los Angeles, Calif.

 

Adrian’s town motto is: “When you are here, you’re halfway there.”

 

The 138 folks who live in Adrian like the feeling; it makes them special. (A few have moved elsewhere since they put up the green city limits sign, noting the population as 166.)

Business is good at the 54-seat MidPoint Café, according to owner Brenda Hammit, 62, She started as a cook at the restaurant in 2013 and took over ownership in 2018.

 

Hammit is doing her level best to carry on the café’s proud traditions that were established by the late Fran Houser, a former owner. 

Houser “was the inspiration” for the character of “Flo” at “Flo’s V8 Café” in the fictional town of “Radiator Springs,” which is featured in the 2006 Pixar animated movie “Cars.”

Flo is a light turquoise/green-colored 1950s General Motors Motorama show car. 

She is not based on a single production model, but is a custom, one-of-a-kind vehicle inspired by GM concepts of that era, featuring elements from the 1951 Buick LeSabre and 1951 Buick XP-300.

 

Also, the “Mia and Tia” twins that appear in the film were based on two MidPoint Café servers – sisters Mary Lou and Christina Mendez.

 

Mia and Tia are red Mazda Miata twins with black roofs.

             Over the course of the film, they display a variety of Lightning McQueen stickers.

In the film, Flo’s, “as a drive-in restaurant for anthropomorphic cars,” boasted that it served “the finest fuel on Route 66.”

Shane McAuliffe, who hosts “The Texas Bucket List,” a weekly, nationally syndicated television program, recently dropped by the MidPoint Café to order a triple-decker cheeseburger.

 

Hammit told him to be sure to save room for a piece of her “Ugly Crust Pie.” It’s a slice of Americana – a specialty dessert that was introduced by Joann Harwell, who formerly served as Midpoint Café’s pastry chef. 

Using her grandmother’s pie recipes, Harwell would lament that her crusts never measured up to perfection.

“The main ingredient in any recipe I have is the love that goes with the attempt. I don’t make a perfect pie crust, but I’ve come to see that there’s more to life than being perfect,” Harwell said.

Writing for Chron.com, based in Houston, Rebecca Treon said: “Today, Hammit herself makes roughly 20 pies per day – sometimes starting at 3 a.m. – and they almost always sell out.”

“Coconut cream is MidPoint’s most popular flavor, but Hammit also makes an Elvis-inspired pie that has chocolate, peanut butter and banana.” 

“There’s also the MidPoint version of a Derby pie, with Tennessee whiskey, chocolate and pecan, plus more common flavors, like apple and lemon meringue.”

Treon said: “The rest of the menu includes amped-up American diner classics: burgers almost too big to get your mouth around, BLTs with 10 pieces of bacon and a quarter-pound hot dog. But there are no French fries, because MidPoint doesn’t have a fryer; instead, they serve chips, coleslaw or potato salad. Hammit coordinates with tour buses in advance.”

 

“MidPoint’s decor has evolved organically over time, thanks to its customers,” Treon wrote. “The walls are lined with license plates, and the register displays currency from around the world. The dining room has brightly hued, vintage diner tables and Naugahyde booths, and the walls are covered with 1950s, Route 66 and Coca-Cola memorabilia.”

 

“This is probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done,” Hammit says. “I love meeting people. I’ve made so many friends. It’s not about the money – I’ve just had a blast in here, it’s just amazing.”