Arizona Corner Lands on the Musical Map

Nearly 30 years after the Eagles made standin’ on a corner here a lifelong goal for their fans, the town has removed all doubt about which corner they should be looking for.

The band put Winslow on the map of rock ‘n’ roll folklore with the song “Take It Easy,” which contains the lines:

Well I was standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

Such a fine sight to see

It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford

Slowin’ down to take a look at me.

This fall, a volunteer group put a bronze statue of a guitar-toting man on the corner of an empty store lot and dubbed it the “Standing on the Corner” park. The statue faces the street, presumably looking for that girl in the flatbed Ford.

The park’s builders didn’t actually include figures of the girl or truck, but their images are “reflected” in a mural of a store window on a wall behind him.

“This is one of the biggest things to happen to Winslow in a long time that the whole community can enjoy,” said Marie LaMar, one of 14 members of La Posada Foundation, the group responsible for the statue.

Town leaders hope the park will bring in tourists, something Winslow has been hard pressed to do since the introduction of interstates diverted travelers from the fabled Route 66, which runs through the town.

“I think it’s a great thing to put that much into a song that a lot of people didn’t listen to at the time,” said Winslow resident Brian Waters, who brought his children out to the corner recently.

It seems people are always standing on the corner now, taking pictures, said Waters, a church maintenance man who lives within walking distance of the corner of Old Route 66--now 2nd Street--and North Kinsley Avenue.

Most pose next to the man, who is wearing jeans, shirt and vest and holds his guitar on the toe of his boot. The sculptor, Ron Adamson, of Dayton, Nev., said he modeled the statue after his son but made up the man’s face.

The blond girl smiles from the pickup behind him. Paintings of windows are arrayed above her, one half open to reveal the lower torsos of a man and woman caught in an embrace.

Before the park was created, corner-seekers used to take photos outside the post office to show they were in Winslow, said Postmaster Larry Pane, another park organizer.

“There are fewer now, but they still come by,” he said.

The park, designed by Winslow architect Loren Sadler, is the brainchild of a volunteer group formed in 1994 to revitalize downtown.

LaMar said that once Interstate 40 was built, businesses sprouted up along the highway and Winslow’s downtown fell asleep.

The group focused first on the restoration of a 1930s hotel, La Posada, and then moved on to preserve Winslow’s musical legacy using federal grants for historic preservation, donations and money from the sale of inscribed bricks in the park.

A member of the Eagles who insisted on anonymity donated $2,500 to get the project going, she said.

About 5,000 people--nearly half the town’s population of 11,000--showed up for the tiny park’s dedication last September.

Its small size belies its pull, LaMar said.

She said the site has a history as a gathering spot. A moviehouse and a drugstore once occupied the lot. The last business, a Western store, burned down about 10 years ago, and the site had stood vacant since, she said.

Now it helps people create new memories, some of them set to music.

With some cajoling, the staff at Roadworks, a store across the street that sells Route 66 memorabilia, can be persuaded to set the shop’s speakers outside and blast “Take It Easy” for park visitors.

Some of them dance and sing along.

“It was always a happy place,” LaMar said.