Where Route 66 still runs (Hunker down in Holbrook )

In the early dawn outside my Holbrook hotel, a trucker told me that he arrived late and needed to know where to catch 40 eastbound. I pointed to the interstate, easily visible from where we stood and told him he couldn’t miss it. 

Holbrook, Arizona does not have the benefit of a famous rock song reference. That lies another 100 miles down I-40. Yet this little town west of Petrified Forest National Park bears heavy influence of Route 66, enough that parts still feel steeped in the peak era of the famous cross-country route. Holbrook sits along the Little Colorado River, which will join the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon 200 miles away. 

The area drew a visit from one of Coronado’s expeditions (given his reputation, I don’t want to imagine how he treated the locals). It has been inhabited for millennia. Like many western towns, it owes its name to the railroad, in this case a forgotten chief engineer for an early transcontinental railroad. Give it a few generations and no one will remember even that much. 

The I-40 business loop corresponds to 66 in many places, even as the interstate cuts through the town. I passed the Sahara Inn, the Route 66 Inn and the El Rancho Hotel, and it was simple to imagine earlier iterations of those hotels, surrounded by the bulky, stylish cars of pre-interstate times. 

In the morning I jumped at the chance to drive through town and see what survived the decline of Route 66. Day’s first light hit the high point of Holbrook, its water tower, the town name glowing while shadows still dominated its main streets. 

 The kitsch of roadside America still had a foothold. Concrete dinosaurs flanked a barber shop. More dinosaurs surrounded a rock shop touting its geodes near the crossroads that formed downtown Holbrook. 

Old automobiles surrounded a modern coffee shop, while inside a car from the 1950s had been chopped up to serve as part of the front counter. Other new businesses took up old buildings. Mr. Mustard’s, a hot dog place, occupied an old service station. 

The town boasted several old-school Chinese restaurants, an Italian place with a sports lounge attached, and other restaurants that harkened back to Route 66’s halcyon days. 

Had I remembered the Wigwam connection, I would have stayed there. Only three Wigwam hotels remain – Holbrook, plus Cave City, Ky. and San Bernadino, Calif. The Super 8 did just fine for a night. But I could feel the history of Route 66 all around. With my morning coffee, I stopped in a little park at the crossroads of Holbrook. Locals mostly used it for dog-walking. 

Across the way, the vintage train station still stood along tracks busy with commercial traffic. No sooner did I cross than the gates fell and a train, several hundred cars rumbled west. Beyond the railroad bridge Holbrook disappeared into endless waving grasses punctuated only by petrified wood shops and empty lanes. 

The remnants of Route 66 would always have a place for travelers crossing northeastern Arizona or stopping between national parks. Holbrook would endure.