In March of this year my wife and I were returning to Madisonville from our trip to Phoenix, Arizona and decided to stay a night at the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona. Members Don Clayton and Wallace Henderson had recommended this lovely place to me and I value their judgment because of their vast experience in traveling.

This hotel was built about 1930 and was a stop on the Santa Fe Railroad. Food and lodging were available to travelers using the Santa Fe’s route between Chicago and Los Angeles. The present building replaced one that burned down in the 1920s and is thus, the latest one built. Food was provided by the Fred Harvey Company which worked with the Santa Fe in many of their hotels. The company employed many young women in a hope that this would civilize, not only the hotel, but the surrounding area which was inhabited mostly by males a century ago. These women came to be known as the Harvey Girls and they did help civilize the area and married many of the local men.  Hollywood even made a very good movie called “The Harvey Girls” starring Judy Garland containing a good story and good music showing the life of these hardworking and capable women. It also has some nice shots of Santa Fe steam engines and trains in it.

The hotel was designed by a lady architect, Mary Coulter, who worked on many projects for the Santa Fe and many of these are still standing such as the El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon. The Southwest architecture is quite well done. There are several gardens and the grounds are very comfortable and provide a good place to rest.  There are as many as 140 trains a day going by and the hotel even provides comfortable rocking chairs trackside to observe the action. There is an adjoining Amtrak station where trains such as the Southwest Chief stop. Winslow has a small rail yard and is a crew change point on the modern BNSF Railway which provides a nice opportunity for train watching as the trains stop for a few minutes before continuing their journey.

There are many things to see here such as the intimate gardens, a museum of modern art, the surrounding city with it’s historical buildings, and an excellent restaurant in the Hotel. The Turquoise Room has hosted many famous people over the years and they have a great photographic collection on the walls showing some of them such as Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, and Harry Truman to name a few. The guest rooms are named for these travelers and we stayed in the Carol Lombard room overlooking the tracks. She was an actress and was married to Clark Gable and died in an airplane crash near Las Vegas in 1942 while on a War Bond tour for the Nation’s war effort.

There are two old passenger cars parked next to the Amtrak station that have been preserved and converted into permanent residences. One is pictured here and is a beautiful Pennsylvania Railroad car that is used by a local doctor as his residence. It has four nice bedrooms in it and you can even see the satellite dish mounted on the end of the car for television.

If you are looking for a nice place to stay in Northern Arizona with a lot of history, good food, nice rooms, lots of trains, gardens, art, and is right on Historic Route 66 you might wish to try out La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona.