London Bridge - Route 66 Side Trip

Before leaving Arizona, there was one more place we wanted to see - London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. It's not on Route 66, but only 54 miles from where we were in Oatman. I'm pretty sure we'll never get back that way again and since Momma-woman's momma is from England just outside of London, we had to make the side trip just to say we'd been there.

London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, AZ.

The London Bridge in Lake Havasu City is the 1831 London Bridge which spanned the Thames River. By 1967, the granite bridge was worn and no longer able to safely support the amount of traffic going across it. The city put it up for sale. About this same time over in America, the Federal Government gave some land and an abandoned military airstrip to the state of Arizona. Located smack dab in the middle of nowhere in a very hot and barren desert, not even the state was really interested in owning it. A lake had been constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1938, but it was not developed and was only used to store water for pumping into 2 aqueducts.

Along came Robert P. McCulloch, owner and chairman of the very successful McCulloch Oil Company, who had an idea. With the promise of developing the area around the lake, the state gave him the property for free.

Crossing London Bridge

Mr. McCulloch financed the building of roads and houses to sell to the public, but Mr. Robert Plumer, McCulloch's real estate agent and lead salesperson for the venture, was finding it almost impossible to get prospective buyers to go out to the property, much less buy a home there. He heard about the London Bridge being up for sale and, hoping to entice more prospects, he asked McCulloch to buy it for the property as a tourist attraction. After second and third thoughts, McCulloch finally agreed and purchased the bridge which had been deconstructed and stored in numbered blocks. Shipping the bridge to the site in Arizona was going to be very expensive, but then Plumer heard of a cargo shipping company who was bringing a newly built ship from England to America. The new ship was sailing empty so Plumer made a deal with the company to pay for all the operating expenses of getting the ship to America if the ship would bring the bridge with it. The blocks of granite were delivered at less than half of what it would have cost without the arrangement.

A new concrete bridge in the shape and size of the original London Bridge was constructed on land along the east shore of Lake Havasu. After completion, the granite blocks from the London Bridge were trimmed and used to clad the new bridge. The whole process took a little more than 3 years to finish. Once it was completed, a canal was dredged under the bridge and filled with water from the lake.

The bridge from the patio of a restaurant
located on one end.

McCullouch financed a big promotional push with the theme "come see the famous London Bridge!" and housing sales began to take off. Against all odds, Lake Havasu City was a success. With the land being given to him for free and with limited costs for the bridge, it wasn't long before Mr. McCullouch had made back his investment and was making a very nice profit.

I'm not sure what we expected before we got there, but I have to say it was a bit of a letdown. I mean, it's just a bridge. There's a couple of signs on the ends indicating it is London Bridge. There are gas stations and shopping centers and eating places and masses of humanity for several miles on both sides. Lake Havasu City doesn't seem to make much of a big deal about it. You drive across or walk across and you can say you've gone over London Bridge.

It was cool to be there; to actually see it; to actually touch it. I guess I'm glad we went. I thought, "Hmmm. Well, here it is and here we are." We sat on a low concrete wall around the outside patio of a restaurant on one end of the bridge and watched as several high-dollar speed boats loudly zoomed through the arches. Then it was just a number of cars driving over the bridge without fanfare. I took a few pictures and we got  back on the road, crossed over London Bridge and headed back to Route 66 before hitting the California border. We didn't even get a t-shirt.

Bye-bye Arizona. We had a blast!

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Route 66 - Oatman

The remains of Ed's Camp

A little over 1 mile west from Cool Springs is Ed's Camp. Lowell "Ed" Edgerton came to the area about 1917 to prospect for gold, but he figured out it was a lot easier to make a living serving the old Oatman Road  travelers than digging in the dirt. About 1920, he purchased some property along the road and opened a camp where the travelers could take a break, camp for the night, and buy some water.

The first building he constructed was for the Kactus Kafe where people could get a bite to eat. Eventually he also built a grocery store, gas station and souvenir shop. The buildings were all simply built from wood and items he found or acquired from other sites and re-used or re-purposed  For travelers who didn't have a tent or trailer, he charged $1.00 to sleep in their car parked on his property or, for the same price, they could sleep on a cot in his screened porch. If you didn't pay to camp or sleep, he charged by the bucket for water.

Kactus Kafe at Ed's Camp

The area around Ed's Camp became known as a rock hunter's paradise and Ed eventually became a widely known expert in the field of geology. Folks from all over the world came to hunt for precious stones and Ed made a good living just from charging people to hunt on his land.  Even after Route 66 was realigned and Ed's Camp was bypassed, he continued to make his living and kept his establishment open until his death in 1978. Today, most of the buildings still stand, but the site is on private property and fenced off. There's enough room for you to stop beside the road and take pictures though.

The scenery behind you as you near Sitgreaves Pass

Past Ed's Camp is where the road really gets interesting - steep, hairpin turns and sharp drop-offs with no guard rails. Watch out for animals and human drivers and bikers coming around those turns. We only encountered two other cars on our way up to Sitgreaves Pass, but one of them was coming around a blind curve and we came within about a foot of exchanging car paint. Providing even more encouragement to slow down and be careful at one point is the crumpled, rusted remains of an old auto which evidently didn't make a turn and crashed down the side of the steep hill.  Fortunately, upon reaching the pass, there is a small dirt flat where you can pull off the road and take pictures. The view back down the way you came is starkly beautiful.

Sitgreaves Pass

Oatman is an interesting place, but today it is really just a tourist draw complete with fake gunfights in the street and very docile "wild" donkeys looking for a hand-out. It began as a gold mining town named Vivian because most of the residents worked for the Vivian Mining Company. A post office opened under that name in 1903, but the name was changed to Oatman in 1909 to honor a young girl, Olive Oatman, who had been rescued a few years after being taken captive by Mohave Indians in the area and sold into slavery.  Eventually, Oatman became Arizona's largest gold-producing district and for a while had over 2,000 residents. The town's business district had a theater, a lumber company, restaurants, saloons, general stores, service stations and hotels. Upon completion, the Oatman Hotel became the first adobe structure in the county. In 1938, Clark Gable and Carol Lombard got married in Kingman and spent the first night of their honeymoon in the Oatman Hotel.

The town of Oatman, AZ.

The mines began to play out in the 1930's and the town began sliding to ghost-hood. The last mine closed in 1942 and Route 66 was realigned and bypassed the town in 1952. By the mid-1950's, nearly all the stores were boarded up and abandoned. With its rustic scenery and buildings, several movies were filmed in and around Oatman in the 1950's and '60's including How the West Was Won and Edge of Eternity.

More recently, Oatman has found new life mostly as a tourist town. There is a little mining activity that has resumed and the old buildings have been refurbished to sell paintings, do-dads, gewgaws, souvenirs, and antiques. The so-called wild donkeys, descendants of the burros brought in by miners back in the day, are accomplished moochers and will even try to push their mouth into your pockets if they think you have something tasty to give, but are holding out on them. None of them appeared to have missed any meals.

Youngest-daughter petting one of the many "wild"donkeys
walking around the town.

I was perplexed to see probably several hundred tourists walking around town when we had only seen a handful of cars on the road all the way in from Kingman. While Youngest-daughter petted the donkeys and fed them donkey food (which several stores sold for a fancy price), I stood there for a while thinking, "Where the hell did all these people come from?" We heard some shouting up the street a little ways and then some incredibly loud gun shots, but it was just the fake cowboy actors putting on a show. The white donkey my daughter had been feeding and petting didn't even twitch an ear at the commotion.

Gunfight actors standing around in front of the
Oatman Hotel waiting to excite the tourists.

I asked Youngest-daughter if she wanted to shop for a while and she shocked me when she said, "No, this place is just a tourist trap. It's not real. I'm ready to leave when you are." We were in the truck heading on down the road 3 minutes later and in the rear view mirror, I saw the white donkey mooching from the next person who had a hand full of food.

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Route 66 - Cool Springs

Leaving out of Kingman, any true Route 66 road tripper simply must take the old pre-1952 road through the Black Mountains to Oatman rather than the newer route which is boring, boring, boring Interstate 40. The only reason to stay on I-40 is if you are driving or pulling a large RV. The road to Oatman is a narrow, twisty, sharp turns mountain road with steep drops. No big deal for a car, but iffy for a big RV.

Continue on Andy Devine Ave. west to the outskirts of Kingman and the road will return to being posted as Route 66. You will parallel I-40 for a while and come to I-40's exit 44 where you will need to take a right on Shinarump Dr. Go under the interstate (this is known as the McConnico undercrossing) and take a left on Oatman Road. You'll go past a couple of little housing communities and then civilization is quickly left behind as you enter the Sacramento Valley.

Route 66 between Kingman and Oatman

This was the most feared section of Route 66 for travelers of yesteryear, especially during the Dust Bowl years when families had to navigate Gold Hill Grade up and over the mountains in their under-powered, prone to overheat vehicles which were often held together with nothing more than wire and make-do repairs. Most were so under-powered, even in 1st gear, they had to drive the curves and switch-backs up to Sitgreaves Pass in reverse. If something went wrong, they only had themselves to rely on or wait and pray for help from the next traveler.

As Youngest-daughter and I sat in the leather seats of our very comfortable, air-conditioned, 8-cylinder Ford pickup, we tried to imagine the trepidation and fear those drivers and families must have felt as they made their way across this sun-scorched road. All I had to do was go slow, watch out for animals on the road and when the road went up, push down the pedal on the right a little bit. If something goes wrong, there is always the cell phone to call, hands-free, for somebody to come save us. We were enjoying the drive. For those who came before us? Probably not so much.

About 20 miles out of Kingman on the eastern slope of the mountains, just before heading up the most difficult section of Gold Hill Grade, is Cool Springs. On Route 66, but in the middle of nowhere, it was built in the 1920's as a camp and service station. It served the west-bound travelers as an important stop to rest, fill up the car with gas and check for mechanical problems before tackling the drive to the other side of the mountains. For travelers coming from the west, it was a place to stop and calm the nerves after the heart-pounding drive.
 

Cool Springs station

In the 1930's, James Walker uprooted his family from their home in Huntington, Indiana to live in Cool Springs. He made improvements to the station and built 8 cabins. His wife and children ran the cafe. Before WWII though, Mr. Walker went back east and left the operation to his wife and kids. Mrs. Walker eventually remarried and her new husband, Floyd Spidell, moved in and helped to manage the place and did the maintenance work. Cool Springs continued to be a success and provided a good living for the family until the 1950's when a new straighter alignment for Route 66 opened. This new route, which is now basically the same route taken by I-40, bypassed Cool Springs and traffic on the old road dried up. Not long after, the former Mrs. Walker moved on and left Cool Springs to Floyd.

Restroom at Cool Springs

In 1997, a fellow named Ned Leuchtner came through and found the ruins fascinating. He eventually managed to buy the site in 2001 and, using old pictures of the station, he began the massive job of cleanup and restoration.  After more than 3 years of work by Ned and his business partner, Cool Springs re-opened as a gift and snack shop. It's a really nice spot to pull off, maybe buy a souvenir and get a cold drink, relax for a while and enjoy the beauty of the desert, the silence, and the fresh air. And know that, except for the modern cars we have now, nothing much has changed here in a long, long time.

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Route 66 - Kingman, Andy Devine & Other Neat Stuff

Promo pic of Andy Devine - I believe this was from
a Twilight Zone episode.

Coming into Kingman, Route 66 becomes Andy Devine Ave. If you are old enough, you may remember raspy-voiced Andy as Roy Roger's sidekick "Cookie Bullfincher" or as "Jingles P. Jones, " in the TV show, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok or in some of the more than 400 movies he had parts in or numerous radio show skits such as Jack Benny's Buck Benny Rides Again.  Andy was actually born in Flagstaff, but grew up in Kingman after he moved there with his parents when he was just 1. After he passed away due to leukemia in 1977, the city named Route 66 through town in his honor.

We stopped a few blocks into town at a gas station that had gas a couple of cents cheaper than several we had just passed. It had a large open-sided shelter with a lot of hay bales  behind the store. A nice older gentleman wearing overalls and a cowboy hat that had seen better days many days ago pulled in next to me in his beat up old pickup with all the windows rolled down and while getting gas himself, started a conversation about my new pickup. He walked over, gently ran his hand along the fender and softly said, "I sure wish I could afford one of these." It was easy to see he had lived a hard life and things probably were not going to get any better. If I had Bill Gates or Warren Buffett money, I would have said, "Here you go, old-timer. Take the keys and enjoy her." Unfortunately, I'm not rich and he's probably still driving that old pickup with the broken air conditioner.

I went inside the store and asked about a restroom. The girl behind the counter told me the bathroom was broke. I made a joking comment about the whole room being broke and without cracking a smile she said, "Not the room, just the toilet. It sprung a leak or something so the water is turned off."  There was a young guy behind the counter with her, standing there watching, waiting for another customer to come in and he looked at me and nodded his head to indicate she was telling the truth. I said I bet they would be glad to get that fixed, but they both chuckled and she replied, "I've worked here for 2 years and it was broke when I started." I asked, "So where do you guys go when you need to?" With no smile at all to show whether she was joking or not, she pointed outside to the hay shelter and said, "Over there behind some of those bales. You can go there too if you want." I waited for one of them to laugh or at least smile, but neither did. Well, OK then. Thanks, but I believe I'll just cruise on down the road a ways.

Sure enough, just a couple of blocks later, still on Andy Devine/Route 66, we came to a Jack-In-The-Box fast food place. The food was decent for fast food and the restroom worked and was fairly clean. Then one of those truly serendipitous, "what are the odds" road things happened. A little over 35 years earlier, I finished my hitch in the Navy and was discharged in San Diego, California. I had spent the last 3 years serving in the photo lab on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. I'm sitting there in a generic Jack-In-The-Box in Kingman, Arizona and in walks a gentleman wearing a U.S.S. Kitty Hawk cap. After he ordered his food and I had finished the last of my fries, I walked over to him, introduced myself and told him I had served on "the Kitty." For those who may not have had a military experience, especially a Navy ship duty, even though there may have been thousands of men (and a handful of women in the last few years) who served on "your" ship, as soon as you meet one, there is a connection, a blue-water sailor shared experience and easy conversation follows. During our talk, it turned out this guy had started his service on the Kitty Hawk shortly after I left. And out of hundreds of jobs and dozens of departments on-board our ship, what was his duty and where did he work? In the photo lab. Here it was 35 years later, out of thousands of sailors who served on my ship, both of us on vacation hundreds of miles from our respective homes, we both decided to grab a burger on the way through town and just happened to choose the same place at basically the same time in the afternoon several hours after the normal lunch rush and I chance to meet the guy who probably replaced me when I finished my enlistment and was discharged! The odds of that must be about a billion to 1, but it happened. Just one of the surprises of the road.

The Kingman Powerhouse Visitor Center

After saying goodbye to my new-found friend, we decided to take a little side trip before leaving Kingman - the Powerhouse Visitor Center. The Powerhouse was placed in business in 1907 to generate electricity for the city. It served in that capacity until 1938 when the Hoover Dam was completed and started providing all the electricity the city needed. The building sat unused for a few years until a group of citizens rescued it and turned it into a Visitor Center. It also houses several other organizations, including "The Historic Route 66 Museum." The Route 66 museum was interesting and worth a visit, but the real reason we stopped was because of a marker located about 12 feet up on the wall just to the right of the entrance door. That marker is exactly 3,333.33 feet above sea level.  No, as far as I know there is nothing magical or mystical about being 3,333.33 feet above sea level. It's just something different, another roadside oddity. Youngest-daughter couldn't figure out why we had to stop and get a picture of it. "You ask why, daughter of mine? Well, my dear, in the words of George Mallory, 'Because it's there."

Exactly 3,333.33 feet above sea level!

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Route 66 – Giganticus Headicus

Route 66 through Aubrey Valley leading away
from Seligman, AZ.

Enjoyable as it was, we put Seligman behind us and kept heading west, always west. From Seligman to the next good-sized town, Kingman, is about 80 miles and gas stations are few along the way and expensive so if needed, you should fill up before driving this stretch.

After passing under the I-40 overpass, Route 66 crosses through Aubrey Valley and a few small communities and ghost towns while crossing the Hualapai Indian Reservation. Don’t be in a hurry; it’s a nice drive. The buttes and mesas landscape will remind you of almost every western movie Hollywood ever made. We passed through Peach Springs, the center of the reservation and on to the mostly deserted town of Valentine.

Route-66 through the southern part of the
Hualapai Reservation

In Valentine, there stands a large, 2-story red brick school-house that was built in 1901. It was the school for the local Indian children and served as a boarding school for Apache,  Hopi, Navajo, Papago, Havasupai, and Mohave children who were often forcibly taken from their parents and homes and taught to be white. A different day school building was built for the local white children.  The Indian school closed in 1937 for a short time, but was re-opened and served until finally being closed in 1969. It wasn’t one of America’s finer moments.

Until 1990, Valentine had a small contract post office which would receive thousands of Valentine cards each year from people who wanted their cards re-mailed with the heart-shaped postmark used by Jacqueline Grigg, the lady who ran the post office. That stopped on August 15, 1990 when a man robbed the post office and shot Jacqueline. He removed the tags from the motorcycle he had been riding, hid it behind the building and stole Mrs. Grigg’s yellow 1979 Ford station wagon. He drove off with a little cash and a few blank money orders, leaving Jacqueline to die. Two days later, the 19-year-old man from Tennessee drove the yellow Ford into the parking lot of a Laguna Beach, California police station and  confessed the murder to a city employee. A policeman who happened to be walking by heard the conversation and took the murderer into custody. The following week, Jacqueline’s grief-stricken husband bulldozed the blood-stained Valentine post office and left town never to be heard from again.

Giganticus Headicus on Route 66

About 66 miles from Seligman, at the corner where Antares Road  meets Route 66 (N 35° 25.137 W 113° 48.481) is Giganticus Headicus, a 14-foot tall wood and stucco Polynesian Tiki head thing. It sits next to a convenience store at the Kozy Corner Trailer Court. It is one of those off-beat things you sometimes run across during a road trip; so off-beat that it has almost become legendary. It was built in 2004 by Gregg Arnold so it is not a nostalgia remnant of the Mother Road, but in less than 10 years, it has become firmly associated with taking a Route 66 road trip. People from all over the world stop here to get their picture taken in front of Giganticus Headicus. It’s just kinda cool.

The author, like many other people, just had to get his picture
taken with Giganticus Headicus!

Shortly after leaving Giganticus Headicus is the town of Valle Vista. No reason to stop here, at least not for this road trip’s purposes, as this is a town built around a golf course in 1972 as I-40 was being built. The only reason for note is because it is the newest community on Route 66.

After a nice drive of 80 miles west out of Seligman is the good-sized town of Kingman, birthplace of Andy Devine. With about 28,000 residents itself and another 38,000 or so living in the close by Butler and Golden Valley communities, there are a number of motels, eating places and service stations to choose from. If nothing else, you should top off your gas tank here as this is the last place to get “cheaper” gas; at least cheaper than California. From here, we’ll be heading over some rather remote sections to Oatman and the California state line.

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The Angel of Route 66

The famous Snow Cap Drive-in in Seligman, AZ.

In 1953, a resident of Seligman named Juan Delgadillo built right on Route 66 a drive-in diner he named The Snow Cap Drive-in. Not having much money, he built the place himself using scrap lumber from the nearby railroad yard. To advertise his diner, Juan cut off the top of a 1936 Chevrolet and outfitted it with painted writing, horns, brightly colored Christmas decorations and a Christmas tree sticking up out of the trunk. He drove it up and down Route 66 and when he wasn't driving it, he parked it in front of his little scrap-lumber diner. It wasn't long before business took off and The Snow Cap Drive-in has become such a success that it is now known around the world as a famous icon of Route 66.

Juan's 1936 Chevy that he cut the top off and drove up
and down Route 66 and in parades to advertise
 his quirky little establishment.

Juan had a great sense of humor which he built into the diner and even the menu which features "cheeseburgers with cheese," "hamburgers without ham," and "dead chicken sandwiches." The napkins and straws are advertised as "slightly used." The door leading into the diner has 2 doorknobs - one on each side. A glass door is locked with no doorknob and no way to unlock it - and then you notice there is no glass in the door so you can step right through. "Juan's Garden" is located in the rear - a collection of old cars, phone booths, signs, and oddly intriguing odds & ends.

Airplanes, tin-can robots, and assorted other interesting
 items adorn the Snow Cap grounds. 

Juan always had a lot of fun in life and he brought that same spirit to his business. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Juan Delgadillo passed away on June 2, 2004. His son John and daughter Cecilia now operate the business which continues to draw large numbers of visitors to this small town which seems to be wonderfully caught in a time warp. The business cards from all over the world which line the walls around the Snow Cap's counter area are a testament to the success of one man's vision, hard work, and spirit.


Juan's brother, Angel, was born in Seligman in a house on Route 66 in 1927. In 1947, Angel graduated from Seligman high school and soon opened a small barbershop in town right on the historic highway just a very short distance away from where his brother would later open his Snow Cap Drive-in. A few years later, he and his wife built on to the little barbershop building and opened the Route 66 Souvenir Shop. Some years ago, Angel retired from being a barber, but his wife Vilma and he still own the souvenir store and occasionally, Angel comes in to meet and greet visitors, pose for pictures, and give his signature to those who ask.

Angel's Barber Shop

By 1985, Route 66 was delisted as a highway from the U.S. Highway System and the railroad had closed the station and ceased operations.  Angel, a man who had grown up on Route 66 and lived and worked on the old road for almost 60 years wasn't willing to see his town die like so many other towns bypassed by the interstate. He enlisted the help of a few friends and founded the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. He tirelessly extolled the virtues of the road and initiated numerous events, including the acclaimed Arizona Fun Run, to help bring attention to the fading status of America's Main Street. Eventually, Route 66 associations were founded in all six states the road goes through and there are now Route 66 associations all around the world. Now almost 86 years old, with every one of them on the historic road, to say Angel has been a witness to Route 66 is a heck of an understatement. He has been interviewed by publications,  TV stations, and book authors more than 200 times and is at least mentioned in most every Route 66 book. He has been given titles of "The Mayor of Route 66," "The Father of The Mother Road," "The Guardian Angel of Route 66," and "The Ambassador."

John Lasseter interviewed him for the 2006 movie Cars while he was researching the history of Route 66. Angel told him how when the interstate was opened, traffic in the town virtually disappeared overnight. In the movie, Sally Carrera, the female Porsche character, told this story in a 3 1/2 minute monologue on the history of Radiator Springs, the fictional town which was loosely based on Seligman.

Angel & Vilma's Route 66 Gift Shop.

The day we stopped in Seligman, I became one of the lucky ones who got to meet Angel in person, talk to him for a while, get a picture and get his autograph on a postcard.  He was very friendly and open, easy to approach. I had heard of him, but never expected that I would actually get to meet him. He asked me where we were from, were we doing the whole Route 66 or just a portion of it. I felt like I was in the presence of living, breathing history. We had a wonderful little discussion, back and forth for a good 5 minutes and I was sincerely enjoying his company. We were standing together off to the side inside his store, just the two of us, and he was just starting to tell me a story about "something pretty funny" that happened on the road in front of his store at some time in the past, when a small bus of Japanese tourists pulled up and immediately after entering the store, about a dozen of them recognized Angel right away and started smiling and pointing at him. They made a bee-line straight for us with every one of their camera's clicking away. Angel smiled his big smile and his eyes took on even more of a twinkle as he looked around at each of them. He turned to me, placed his hand on my shoulder and said, "I better talk to these folks for a while. After all these years and I'm still surprised by all the attention people give me. I'll save my story for next time. Nice to meet you and thanks for stopping by!"

I went back to shopping for a refrigerator magnet and other souvenirs that I couldn't live without. For such a small store, it sure has a lot of stuff in it. I found a really cool looking magnet, a t-shirt and a couple of other items to bring back home with me. After paying for my goodies, I turned around to see if Angel was still there, but only a couple of the Japanese were still milling around and he was nowhere to be seen.

Thank you, Mr. Delgadillo for all you've done for us Route 66 fans. Take care and don't forget, you owe me a story!

Which door knob do you pull to open
 the door to enter the Snow Cap?

Interesting stuff behind the Snow Cap in
Juan's Garden..

Be careful of  the low-hanging overhead!

Take your time and read all of the posts in the
Snow Cap windows.

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Route 66 - Seligman & The Roadkill Cafe

I-40 between Williams and Seligman, AZ.

West of Williams, the land rather quickly goes from forested hills to flat and open with a low mountain range in the distance. Just past I-40's exit 139 begins 160 miles of Route 66, the longest single length of Route 66 still in use today. About 38 miles past Williams is Seligman, the town on which "Radiator Springs" from the movie Cars was based and probably the most fun and interesting community we came across during our whole Mother Road trip.

Town sign as you come into Seligman

Perhaps no other town on the route harks back to the glory days of Route 66, America's Main Street, more than Seligman. When the road came through in the late 1920's, tourist traffic, along with the railroad station in town, became the main source of income. On September 22, 1978 though, I-40 opened, bypassing Seligman and the town's roads became almost deserted over-night. In 1985, the railroad closed the station and the little community was on the verge of becoming a memory and just another ghost killed by the interstate.

I was sorry we had eaten lunch in Williams just before we
arrived here. We just had a coke this time.

Today though, Seligman is still alive and doing well on tourist business.  Coming into town is the famous Roadkill Cafe. Having already eaten lunch in Williams an hour earlier, Youngest-daughter and I didn't get to partake of what is consistently rated as really good steaks and hamburgers. Even though we were not hungry, the food sure smelled good. There are so many good places to eat along the route that you just can't eat at all of them in one trip! This place is definitely on our list for next time though. Who could resist a menu which lists Splatter Platter, Swirl of Squirrel, Big Bagged Stag, and Highway Hash?  Where the waitress may tempt you with, "It was real dark last night and all the animals are in heat and  crossing the road so we have a full menu today. Would you like something to drink while you wait for the Chef's Surprise?" Um, no thank you, not this time. Could we just get a coke? We'll catch it next time.

The Aztec Motel

If you need a good place to spend the night at a reasonable price, the Aztec Motel in the middle of town is strongly recommended. In addition to the friendly staff and comfortable rooms, the location can't be beat for spending the day walking around all of the shops and stores.

So after the interstate bypassed it and the railroad stopped stopping in town, how did this place manage to survive? The difference in Seligman and other towns who are now nothing more than ruins and memories is that Seligman had the Delgadillo brothers, Angel and Juan. Just down the road from the Roadkill Cafe is the internationally famous Snow Cap Drive-in, built by Juan in 1953, and the equally famous Angel & Vilma's Original Route 66 Gift Shop. Their stories are very interesting and worthy of a full blog entry all by themselves so that will be covered next week..

One of the murals excellently painted on the walls of
the Aztec Motel.

A mural depicting "Easy Rider" painted on the Aztec Motel



Route 66 through Seligman, AZ.

Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

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Route 66 - Red Garter and Twisters

After leaving Bellemont and the Pine Breeze Inn, we continued west on the I-40 frontage road for about 1 mile. This is actually the 1941 - 1963 alignment of Route 66. The original 1926 - 1941 alignment is a little further south. We were going to take the 1926 alignment for a few miles, but it is now just a dirt road in places and there were dark rain clouds on the horizon so when we got to the intersection with I-40 and had to decide on which of the alignments we would take, we decided to jump on the freeway. I-40 is actually the 1963 - 1979 Route 66 alignment so we were still technically driving the Mother Road.

The next time I drive this section, I hope to take the 1926 - 1941 alignment and take the Forest Service marked auto tour through Branning Park. Interestingly, mostly because of all the different alignments of Route 66 over the years, there are different opinions about the location of the highest point along the route. Some claim it is Forty-Nine Hill (which you can see on your left as you go through Branning Park) with an elevation of 7,415 feet. Others claim it is Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe (7,432') or the continental divide near Thoreau (7,263').  What is not in dispute however is that Forty-Nine Hill is the highest point on any of the Route 66 alignments in Arizona.

Driving west on I-40 for about 20 miles brought us to the exit for the beautiful town of Williams. If I had to live in Arizona, I would want to live in Williams. The whole town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's almost like being magically transported back to the 1950's. Called "The Gateway To The Grand Canyon," this town of 3,000 people is located in the heart of the Kaibab National Forest at an elevation of 6,770 feet. Williams has the distinction of being the very last town on Route 66 to be bypassed by I-40. It wasn't until October 13, 1984 that I-40 opened a few miles from town, but an exit on the freeway, the beauty of the community, plenty of varied outdoor recreation opportunities, and a nice tourism industry have kept the town alive and thriving.

 

The Red Garter Bed and Bakery

Coming into town on Bill Williams Avenue (Route 66), we stopped at the Red Garter Bed & Bakery. A former saloon and bordello built in 1897,  this 2-story Victorian building is right across the street from the Grand Canyon Railway train which takes visitors to and from the Grand Canyon every day. After a nice cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun, it was fun to browse the t-shirts and books for sale. One colorful t-shirt in particular caught my eye ("Best little Whorehouse on Route 66 - The Red Garter, but unable to think of a single place I could wear it, I didn't buy it. The books were interesting - "Bad Girls of the American West," "The Bedside Book of Bad Girls," "Soiled Doves," and "High Spirited Ladies" were just some of the titles. OK, yes, I did glance through them, but I didn't buy any books either.  I did, however, manage to find out some interesting history.

Red Garter t-shirt - "Best Little Whorehouse
on Route 66"

Built in 1897, the building had a saloon on the first floor and 8 cribs (bedrooms) upstairs - one for the madam and 7 for the "working girls." There was also a small parlor for the girls to wait for a client on a slow night or for gentlemen clients who might have to wait their turn on a busy night. Catering to cowboys, miners, lumbermen and railroad workers, the girls, when not engaged in entertaining a customer, would hang out of the 2nd floor windows, giving the passing men below a little glimpse of what they had to offer and enticing them to come inside for a drink or two and then to spend a few minutes upstairs.

Arizona outlawed prostitution in 1907, but enforcement of that law was not vigorous. As a matter of fact, the saloon and bordello continued to do a booming business until the mid-1940's. Fighting in WWII took away most of the Red Garter's customers and then, some poor guy was murdered on the stairs in the building. The murder led to a crackdown on saloons and prostitution in Williams and with the lack of available customers anyway, the Red Garter shut its doors.  A general store and a rooming house did business in the old building until it was purchased by John Holst in 1979. He leased it out to a variety of businesses until he decided to completely refurbish the building and open the Bed & Bakery himself in 1994. The 8 small rooms and parlor upstairs have been converted into 4 larger rooms, each with its own bathroom. With names like "Best Gal's Room," "Big Bertha's Room," and "Madam's Room,"  they are available for about $125 - $160 per night. Showing a wry sense of humor, the establishment proclaims, "Celebrating over 100 years of personal service."

Interesting and humorous t-shirts and books in the Red Garter

With this building's history, you will probably not be surprised to learn there is also a resident ghost that visitors have persistently reported. Footsteps in the hallway when nobody is there, doors slamming in rooms that nobody is in, and even indention's in the beds, like someone sitting on the edge of the mattress, that appear and then disappear have all been repeatedly reported to Mr. Holst. A few people have even claimed to see the ghost - an Hispanic girl with long dark hair wearing a white nightgown and holding something in front of her (nobody has been able to tell what she is holding). Her name is Eve or Eva and if you ask Mr. Holst, he'll show you a very old photograph taken inside the Red Garter. In the photo are members of the Mora family who owned the saloon for many years and a suspiciously smiling, mysterious dark-haired Hispanic girl in the background standing in front of a mirror. The only thing off is the girl's reflection - it does not show up in the mirror. I just may have added to my Bucket List. One of these days, I would really like to come back here, stay for a few days at the Red Garter and take the train to the Grand Canyon. Now I just have to decide when and which lady's room my wife and I will stay in!

Twisters 50's Diner

Just around the corner from the Red Garter was our next stop - Twisters 50's Soda Fountain. This is one of the closest things to a true 1950's diner that you'll find. From the Cherry or Vanilla or Chocolate flavored Cokes to old-fashioned ice cream soda's to charbroiled burgers, hot dogs and chili dogs, to the 50's music that continuously plays, the food and the atmosphere are definitely rooted in the past. Well, except for the steaks and beers and wine they serve at dinner. I don't recall any diner I remember from way back when serving microbrewery beer! This place has consistently been voted one of the top 25 restaurants in Arizona. Sounds like a great place for dinner after returning from a day exploring Grand Canyon. Adding details to that Bucket List item!

After cruising around Williams for a while, we headed on down the road. Next stop - the Road Kill Cafe and the famous and quirky little town of Seligman.

Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

Or go to the first entry of each state:

Illinois   Missouri   Kansas   Oklahoma   Texas   New Mexico   Arizona   California