Rescue Celebration held at Painted Desert Trading Post site

About 60 people attended Saturday what was termed a Rescue Celebration for the once-moribund Painted Desert Trading Post building on a remote stretch of Route 66 in eastern Arizona.

The Route 66 Co-op four years ago bought the long-abandoned property, which was in imminent danger of collapse, and shored up the building so it would stand for several more decades. Last weekend’s event was a celebration of the completion of the long-term preservation of the building.

A display inside the trading post details its history and rejuvination.

In addition to several fundraisers, the Co-op received a $20,000 cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program for the project.

Festivities Saturday included a custom hot dog roast and a slide show about the project by Jim Ross about the rise, fall and rebirth of the trading post. Frank Maloney’s “Sky Tour” of the constellations in the night sky didn’t happen because of cloud cover from nearby storms.

Mike Ward, a member of the Route 66 Co-op, wrote after the Rescue Celebration was over:

“To me, this was a rather bittersweet weekend as I realized that the days of the semi-annual work sessions were over and that I may not see a lot of my Route 66 friends for a while. But I can take pride in knowing that the members of the Painted Desert Trading Post Co-op, and the many, many volunteers that gave of their time and energy over the past four years completed a task that others thought would never come to fruition.”

More photos and videos from the event can be found on the Route 66 Painted Desert Trading Post page on Facebook.

People who worked on the new foundation wrote their names into the concrete.

The page also provides instructions to those on how to unlock the gate and access the site. Getting there requires a drive on one mile of dirt road, then another 2 1/2 miles on a very worn stretch of old Route 66.

Dotch Windsor and his first wife, Alberta, opened the Painted Desert Trading Post during the early 1940s. Even along U.S. 66 at the time, it was a remote outpost with no electricity or telephone service. Gravity pumps dispensed fuel.

The trading post closed by the late 1950s after being bypassed by a new alignment of Route 66.

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