Headed to Winslow? Hop on I-40 and keep a-goin’ west

Dateline: WINSLOW, Ariz. 

The Los Angeles Times sent ace reporter Kevin Baxter in 2015 to write about “Standin’ on the Corner” Park and what it has meant to the economic revitalization of the Winslow community. 

The story pivots around the 1972 rock’n’roll song “Take It Easy,” co-written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frye. Baxter noted that the tune “paved the way” for a “fledgling L.A. band called the Eagles.” 

The Eagles became “the best-selling American rock group of all time,” Baxter said. “‘Take It Easy’ helped propel the Eagles and Browne into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame.” 

“But it’s been even bigger for Winslow,” he said, “with that one inexplicable lyric” – Well, I’m a standin’ on (the) corner in Winslow, Arizona.’” It gave the “hope of a renaissance to a town whose economy had taken repeated body blows over the years.” 

“Born as a railroad hub, Winslow was once the most important city in northern Arizona. When train travel declined after World War II, the town reinvented itself, becoming an important stop along U.S. Route 66,” Baxter said. 

Then came the Interstate 40 Bypass around Winslow in 1979, “diverting traffic away from the downtown and bleeding Winslow dry,” he said. 

Dr. Greg Hackler, a local chiropractor and community leader, doesn’t mince words. “We were just like Radiator Springs. We dried up.”

 

Radiator Springs is the fictional hard-luck Route 66 town in the animated film “Cars,” released in 2006. The movie follows a red race car named “Lightning” McQueen and “his misadventures on Route 66.”

After I-40 bypassed the historic Route 66 towns, traffic from the ‘Mother Road’ virtually evaporated overnight.” 

One journalist wrote: “For 20 years, Winslow remained frozen in time.” 

Dr. Hackler described the process of transitioning from the ice age to a community that is becoming hot-hot-hot. 

The idea for the corner park popped up in 1994. A core group of 15 community members formed the Standin’ On The Corner (SotC) Foundation. Contributions began trickling in, and the tide kept rising. 

Soon, the SotC had raised enough money to build its park…with faith that the people would come. The centerpiece is a 6-foot-tall bronze statue of a 1970s musician holding his acoustic guitar in “at ease” position, so it did not present a safety hazard to young or old. 

Behind the statue is a massive two-story funky mural, featuring an optical illusion of the girl from the song who is driving the “flatbed Ford.” 

The little park was dedicated in 1999, and people are continuing to come…in greater numbers. 

Winslow next added a two-day “Standin’ On The Corner Festival,” with nonstop music. It’s now an annual event in late September. 

Winslow residents grieved the death of Glenn Frey in 2016. He was 67. 

Almost immediately, a pair of radio DJs from Phoenix’s “Classic Rock” station KSLX, Mark Devine and Paul “Neanderpaul” Marshall, formed a movement to fund a second statue. 

It would pay tribute to Frey’s “everlasting impact on Arizona’s history,” Devine said. 

Their broadcasts reached out to people around the globe, and money came pouring in to fund a $22,000 sculpture of Frey. The image is pure 1972. Frey is shown leaning on a lamppost, just a short distance from “the corner.”

 

DJs Mark Devine and Paul Marshall at the Glenn Frey monument dedication event

It’s a far piece from Morehead City to Winslow – about 2,160 miles – but there are lessons to be learned. 

U.S. Routes 66 and 70 are next of kin. Both east-west roads were established as “federal highways” in 1926.