Showing posts with label Joseph City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joseph City. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2020

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 7c, Jack Rabbit and Holbrook, Arizona (2019)

Jackrabbit Trading Post, Joseph City, Sep. 4, 2019 (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera, polarizing filter)
 We will continue our drive east through Arizona. Near Joseph City, not much remains of Route 66, just the frontage road to I-40. West of town proper was the famous Jackrabbit Trading Post. A billboard with the logo "HERE IT IS" may be one of the best known Route 66 sights. Hundreds of tourists pose in front of the sign or sit on a big jackrabbit on the other side of the interstate. For the photograph above, I waited for some people to take their pictures and leave, and caught a BNSF train thundering through.
Room with a view, Joseph City (Fuji X-E1 digital file)
The terrain around Joseph City is a bit severe. I stopped in Joseph City during my 2016 trip but totally missed the Jackrabbit sign. The town has some urban decay material.
Dinosaur, 2214 Navajo Blvd., Holbrook, AZ (Kodak TMax 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm planar lens, polarizing filter)
Holbrook was another old-time Route 66 town. There was not much of interest on Business 40, and I completely missed the Wigwam Village Motel. Fortunately, I visited a sister Wigwam Motel on Foothills Blvd. in Rialto, California, in 2016 (see Mother Road article 1). Here in Holbrook, I was pleased to see dinosaurs in town. The truck was sort of interesting, as well.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66 - Part 7, eastern Arizona

We continue our trip on Route 66 through Arizona. Heading east, once you reach Seligman, Arizona, Route 66 follows I-40, with some sections of old pavement and some sections along the frontage road.
Ash Fork is a tired old railroad and quarrying town, once said to be the Flagstone Capital of the World. The town was founded in the 1880s, and the name Ash Fork may be from the ash tree where outlaws were hanged. It is at elevation 5144 ft, but my car did not yet noticeably bog down in the thin air. Route 66 splits, with the eastbound following one main road through town and the westbound on another road. Flagstones decorated the front of the Oasis Lounge on Park St., which is the eastbound path.
I was surprised to see a shotgun shack. I thought this was an style mainly used in the US southeast and did not know they were built in the west, too.
Huge flagstone form sidewalk steps, evidence of the former quarrying output.
The Emmanuel Trinity Methodist Church at 47243 N Fourth Street has a stone veneer replacing the former windows of this shop. Note the unusual bas-relief statues.
The church bus had seen better days, like most of the town.
Not a bad Chevrolet wagon. Old cars don't rust here in the dry high altitude air.
The political message on the old shipping container was a bit (well, very) obscure.
I pressed on eastward on I-40 because I was short on time. I had lunch in Flagstaff but saw nothing there of Route 66 interest. Flagstaff is touristy because of its access to Grand Canyon National Park, and much of the downtown has been rebuilt. I found a gasoline station with ethanol-free fuel and continued east. I pulled off at Joseph City, which was founded by Mormon settlers in 1876. Today, there is not much city here, and the Old Historic Route 66 Hay Sales & Feed was closed.
I processed these two in color to show the subtle colors. The painting on the teepee proves that aliens have been here.
Downtown Joseph City was rather depressing. So many of these small towns are just drying up.
My last stop in Arizona was in Houck. At one time, Fort Courage was a replica of the fort used in the doofy 1960s television show F Troop. As far as I could tell, Fort Courage was closed permanently, as was the adjoining Pancake House, with its huge teepee holding up the sign.

This is the end of my travels on the Mother Road in Arizona, and the next article will be in New Mexico. Photographs taken with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, with some files processed in PhotoNinja software.