In the early 1940s, Dotch and Alberta Windsor opened the Painted Desert Trading Post on a deserted stretch of old Route 66 in Arizona. It was a favorite stop for travelers, selling souvenirs, food, drink, and gasoline, until the Interstate bypassed the site in the late '50s.
The Windsors split up around 1950, and Dotch married Joy Nevin. The two continued running the Trading Post until it closed. A street in nearby Holbrook is named after Joy Nevin.
The Trading Post is the most remote and abandoned Route 66 site I've yet visited. Even when it was in operation, there was no electrical or telephone service; gasoline was dispensed from gravity pumps, and the appliances ran on wind power. The 21st century hasn't brought civilization any closer, with the notable exception of the Interstate passing in the distance.
This stretch of Route 66 is completely abandoned. It hasn't seen use or maintenance in decades, and is crumbling to pieces in the desert. This is not a site for casual travelers to visit.
To get there, I drove a mile or two off into the desert on an unmaintained dirt track – I hesitate to call it a “road” – to reach the old highway. From there, it's a couple more miles over the crumbling asphalt that was once Route 66. The shell of the building is tagged with graffiti from visitors who don't care, but is still standing. No relics from the past can be found inside.
Many Route 66 enthusiasts cite the Painted Desert Trading Post as their favorite site, and it's no mystery why: with no modern buildings in sight, no highway passing by, it's easy to imagine how travelers saw it back in the day, and there's no one to question your presence or encourage you to move along. The other side of that coin, of course, is that there is no one to stop people from vandalizing the site. What would possess someone to spray-paint “Route 66” on a building like this is beyond me.
If you're brave enough to want to visit the Trading Post, Pinta Road is the I-40 exit you want. Go north, then west. The dirt track is soft, but passable without four-wheel-drive when dry. Route 66 itself is worse, the broken-up asphalt making tire damage a real possibility. Drive very slowly, as this is not the place where you want a flat tire. Bring water: if you have car trouble, you're walking back to the highway, and there is nothing at all at the exit other than the occasional trucker stopped for a rest break.
There is a bridge over a dry river bed just past the site. It would probably be a bad idea to drive over it, and there is nothing else to be seen anyway.
Rumor has it the Navajo want to build a casino at the exit. What that will do to the Trading Post's accessibility is anyone's guess, but it will certainly destroy the natural ambience of the area.
And please, leave the spray paint at home.
I've tried to spot this from I-40 using google maps street views with no luck.
Is this possible ? One problem is that street views are not all that sharp in the first place and also they seem to have been made with a wide angle lens which makes distant objects even smaller and more indistinct.
Posted by: JNB | 17 August 2012 at 07:30 PM
No, you can't see it that way. You actually can see the building from the highway, but only barely unless you have binoculars or a telephoto camera lens. In order to spot it from that distance you have to already know exactly where it is and what you're looking for, because it just looks like a dot on the horizon.
Posted by: Jeremy | 17 August 2012 at 08:23 PM