GETTING AWAY

Takin’ it Easy

It all started with a line in a song. In the 1972 hit “Take It Easy,” The Eagles refer to a young man standin’ on a corner when a girl in a flatbed truck slows down to check him out. For a long time, people would drive to Winslow, Arizona, just to stand on the fabled corner.

However, they were never sure which corner to stand on because there were no markings. So, some farsighted local residents created an official Standin’ On The Corner In Winslow Arizona Park right on the corner of Kinsley Avenue and old Route 66 where anybody can find it. It’s a small park, but large enough to hold a life-size bronze statue of the young man and his guitar, and a mural depicting the girl in the truck. There’s also a real flatbed truck permanently parked at the park. Anyone can go there, and there’s no fee for standin’. 

The park is 30 feet wide and 134 feet long, and was dedicated in 1999 on the site of an old pharmacy that had burned to the ground in 1992. Much of the funding came from the sale of memorial bricks, and from a member of the Eagles who asked for anonymity.

The mural was painted on the east side of a building that once housed a JC Penney store then later a five-and-dime store. That structure was destroyed by fire in 2004, but the mural wall survived so the park was saved. It took three years to shore up the wall with concrete buttresses to make it safe. The lot on the other side of the wall is being converted into another park that will feature a bandstand and display area for antique cars, and an archway will be cut through the wall to join the two.

— Sam Lowe

If you go

Standin’ On The Corner In Winslow Arizona Park

Corner of Kinsley Avenue and old Route 66

928-289-3434

standinonthecorner.com or winslowarizona.org