The Show for for Sept. 7, 2026: Revisiting conversations about Route 66

The Mother Road turns 100 this year. We’ll hear about some of the more complicated history of Route 66. Plus, what’s behind the revival of motels in the Southwest?

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

Good morning and welcome to this Labor Day edition of The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I am Lauren Gilger. Coming up, we’ll hit the road and listen back to some of our favorite conversations about Route 66 on its 100th anniversary. We’ll hear about some of the more complicated history as well.

And first up this morning, motels are back in a big way across the Southwest. What were once cookie-cutter, sometimes not-so-nice quick stays on a road trip are now boutique properties. Developers are taking often run-down, abandoned motels that might have otherwise been torn down and turning them into hip, stylish destinations with retro flair and a focus on community. Think the High Country Motor Lodge in Flagstaff or Trailborn Grand Canyon in Williams. Longtime Arizonan and travel writer Jeff Atwell scoured the state for this motel revival for Visit Arizona, and he told me it used to be that these motels were very no-frills.

JEFF ATWELL: When they were in their heyday, all it took was like a neon sign and the promise of light, color TV and air conditioning to get people to pull over. It was just just basics for people to have a crash pad for the night.

LAUREN GILGER: Then, in the decades since, many of them fell into disrepair — especially along Route 66, where the interstate bypassed so many towns that were once buzzing with traffic along the Mother Road.

But developers are finding them. The trend has even caught the attention of global travel publications like Roadbook. Here’s their digital editor Mhairi Mann, who noticed the trend all the way from Scotland.

MHAIRI MANN: I think hoteliers are seeing the potential in these buildings, in terms of their layout and their structure, and then they’re transforming them into these really cool boutique stays that still honor their original design codes of the buildings.

LAUREN GILGER: She told me, anywhere in the world, the Americana sense of a Route 66 Motel transcends.

MHAIRI MANN: Their typography and their design does translate globally. So no matter whether you’re in the U.S. or Scotland or Europe, they are instantly recognizable. And this kind of new breed of motels are taking the codes of the original ones and translating them for a modern audience.

LAUREN GILGER: Mann says motels represent a simpler time, one of spontaneity and nostalgia.

MHAIRI MANN: They are the antithesis of contactless check ins and AI-driven, faceless operations.

LAUREN GILGER: And, according to Atwell, it’s all because of who is behind these renovations.

JEFF ATWELL: People in the community wanting to preserve their community or even make their community better kind of thing. Rather than seeing these old, dilapidated buildings, let’s do something with them.

LAUREN GILGER: I spoke with him more about this motel revival in Arizona — and some of his favorite spots to visit.

ATWELL: It’s so cool to see community leaders getting the grants, getting the money, finding the local investors to, at the very least, bring these places back to what they used to be. And the one that really comes to mind is the town of Seligman, which when I-40 bypassed that, it could have completely gone away, except for the Delgadillos and other folks in that town who said, “No, we’re going to preserve it.”

And with that came, even in recent years, hotels like the Aztec and the Postcard. The trend itself is to really embellish these things into massive experiences. But in these small towns, there’s not a whole lot of room to do that. There’s not really enough traffic to do that. So what they’re doing is taking like an old motor court and bringing it back to life.

And towns like Seligman, who have such pride in what they used to be, they really are more intent on bringing them back to what they used to be.

LAUREN GILGER: Let me ask you, Jeff, when you started noticing this starting to happen. Do you remember a moment when you were like, “Oh, that old motel is looking pretty hip these days?”

JEFF ATWELL: Yeah, I think it really happened in Flagstaff, and it was with the High Country Motor Lodge. You couldn’t miss it. It was like, whoa, they’re taking an old Travelodge or a Howard Johnson’s — I’m not really sure what it was. They’re taking like a 200-room, big-brand hotel and doing something completely different.

So I think I think Flagstaff’s always kind of on the forefront of Route 66 trends, at least, in preservation and bringing back to life. But then when you saw that, whoa, this place is going to have a Nordic spa, and it’s got this massive communal area. And those kinds of things, that’s different than what it used to be. And it’s totally different than reviving the small mom and pop kind of thing.

There was also one in Prescott that I noticed just passing through, the Prescott Motor Lodge, where that one is one of those time capsules. And it really just took new owners who have such pride in their hometown to love on the place.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So I mean, these are kind of the coolest places to stay across the Southwest right now. I mean, we’re seeing them not just in those smaller towns like Flag or Prescott, but they’re in Santa Fe. There’s one in Phoenix here. There’s some in Tucson.

I wonder what you think is behind this. Like, what do you think is happening in the culture right now in the travel world right now that people are looking for? Is this more about nostalgia?

JEFF ATWELL: I don’t think it’s so much nostalgia because these places are so bright and shiny and new, especially in the big cities. When we look at Tucson, they have the McCoy and the Tuxon, and those places don’t feel nostalgic at all. They feel slick.

And so I think that the trend is really travelers want and experience. Travelers want to leave a city feeling like they learned something about that city, and they understood the vibe of Tucson. And and if you stay in the Tuxon, you get it. And it’s very purposeful and intentional from the people who open that up to put jalapeno popcorn on your pillow at night. That screams Tucson. … You love this place.

LAUREN GILGER: The common thread here, it sounds like that you’re pointing out, is that all of these places are really kind of inspired by the communities that they’re in.

JEFF ATWELL: Very much. And the people that own these places are generally locals. They love where they live. They want to share where they live.

The ones in Flagstaff are so cool. And the Americana just opened up, I think last year, following the High Country Motor Lodge trend. Here’s another massive old Travelodge that is now a like a 100-room boutique hotel, and it’s very Flagstaff and that they honor the Dark Sky community, they’ve got telescopes in the courtyard, and people are just drawn to these communal spaces that are built for people to just mingle again and for people to get to know other travelers kind of thing. It seems like that’s what people are traveling for.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, absolutely. OK, so before I let you go, Jeff, tell me about one of your favorites. I mean, you’ve mentioned several here that you like, but is there one that really stands out to you?

JEFF ATWELL: I think I think my new favorite has got to be the Americana in Flagstaff. It’s directly on Route 66. It’s down the street from iconic places like the Museum Club. So you’ve got all these cool neon signs for the Museum Club and Miss D.’s Diner. All those things are there. So it automatically feels captured in time. And Flagstaff does such a lovely job with honoring its Route 66 legacy.

But what I like so much about the Americana is it’s purposely funny, like Flagstaff as as the first International Dark Sky City with Lowell Observatory and all of their lunar legacy that Flagstaff has. The folks at the Americana put a like statue of a guy in a NASA space suit right out front.

And I think that’s cute. And then I think that might even be the place that has a disco ball in every room? So it’s just it’s like purposefully quirky. It’s got like super geometric, tacky-as-could-be carpeting.

So in some of these places, they just just buy into this kitsch — that I guess does get to the nostalgia part — but this kitsch that people really just feel kind of unburdened by. It’s like this is fun. This is like, purposefully fun.

But then others — I was just in Williams a couple of weeks ago — and that Trailborn that you would never know was a Travelodge or a HoJo, whatever it was before. And they purposefully did not try to go in with that like neon, “Jetsons” kind of motif. Again, honoring their community and honoring their city, they went woodsy and they went Western. And it’s leather and it and it feels like Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And it fits Williams. It fits this rugged gateway to the Grand Canyon where people go outside as much as they can and the pine trees are huge and people love it.

And that too, is a motor lodge revival. This place, they’ve taken such care to fit in with its surroundings. People like more than like a vacation rental, more than a chain hotel. They want to feel like they are staying somewhere that has local vibes and people who love where they live. And each one of these places captures its surroundings.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. Well, we’ll leave it there for now. You’re making me want to hit the road, Jeff! Jeff Atwell, a longtime Arizonan and travel writer here joining us to talk more about motels and motor lodges coming back in Arizona. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it very much.

JEFF ATWELL: My pleasure. Thank you, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: When we think about Route 66, most of us think about that song, or the iconic sign, maybe Americana memorabilia, the Mother Road. Route 66 has long been a symbol of American opportunity and Western expansion, nostalgia. But our next guest says for many people of color who made their lives along the historic route, it was a different story. Not a bad one necessarily, but a different one.

Ricardo Guthrie is an associate professor of social justice at Fisk University and the former director of NAU’s Ethnic Studies program in Flagstaff, which sits along the Mother Road. In 2023, he and his colleague Gretchen McAllister received a nearly $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture to launch a project called “Racialized Spaces on Route 66.” With it, the team created a professional development program for K-12 teachers to help them reframe the way we think about and teach about Route 66. I spoke with Guthrie more about it back in 2023.

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Route 66 is an enduring narrative or story that we like to tell ourselves. And I think for Black, Indigenous folks, Native American, or however we’re going to talk about ourselves, people of color used Route 66 as a place for reexamining their relationship to society. Meaning they were there for the work, they were there for restaurants and recreation for the white travelers.

LAUREN GILGER: Route 66 was an economic opportunity for lots of people of color, it sounds like.

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Yes, absolutely. And so in that way, you build communities based on the economic exchange. But it really wasn’t, "I’m traveling on Route 66 to have a vacation." "I’m traveling on Route 66 to see if I can make some money supporting these visitors and tourists to the towns."

LAUREN GILGER: So what were some of the businesses that popped up like that that were supported by this kind of tourism industry and where people of color found a way to create community?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Well, for African Americans, it was like boarding houses, restaurants, night clubs, juke joints, and jazz clubs, where the visitors would come to be entertained. For Native Americans or American Indians, there were trading posts. And so they had all these crafts and artifacts that they could sell to visitors who found it fascinating and very lucrative for the Native Americans. And I think we could say the same thing for Mexican Americans. Lots of restaurants and specialty foods that most tourists would not see if they didn’t ever live in the Southwest. So those are all three strong ways in which the Route 66 experience created these economic and community-building opportunities that are quite profound.

LAUREN GILGER: So how did that shape the towns that we think of along Route 66, like the ones listed in the song, right? Did we see a lot of communities of color pop up along it?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: No, you got it absolutely right. Most of these communities were accidental in terms of, "This is where we’re going to put the Mexicans," "This is where the Black folks will live," "This is where the Native Americans are," they come off the reservation. But because they were spending so much time along Route 66, these accidental communities became real neighborhoods that were more multicultural, more diverse racially and ethnically, and the cultures really worked together as a mosaic. So that’s what people are really attracted to, I think, on Route 66 from San Bernardino up to Chicago, and all the way along the way. I really think that that was one of the things that was enduring and exciting about being on Route 66.

LAUREN GILGER: So interesting. But there was also racism that people faced, right? Like Green Book communities, redlining, things like that?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Absolutely. So for African Americans in particular, they said, "Well, I’m not going to travel on Route 66 at night because there’s certain sundown towns where the sun is not allowed to set on my back," and they used other words. But the Green Book said, "Well, there’s some places you can go along the way, rooming houses, boarding houses, etc., where you will be safe, so that when you’re on the road again in the day, it’ll be all right." And not only for Black folks, but everybody was welcome. That was the exciting part, I think, about the Green Book experience.

LAUREN GILGER: Was the Green Book sort of driven by those African American-owned businesses like you mentioned before?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: I think it’s a collaborative, some give and take, so that there may have been some rooming houses and boarding houses and pool halls that were set up for all the Southern transplants who came to the Southwest to work on the railroads and the lumber mills. But then after a while, there were some businesses that were attracted, "Hey, what about the eateries? What about the restaurants? Where can I get some Southern cuisine?" And so they would set up those restaurants, Mexican foods, etc., along Route 66.

LAUREN GILGER: You said that these were sort of accidental communities in a way, and that they were able to, it sounds, turn some of the racism that they faced into community, like into congregation. What did that look like?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: So the accidental communities would be, "I’m coming to work for the lumber mill. I’m only going to be here for a little while during the season, then I’m moving on." Well, moving on turned out to be one or two years, and some people stayed for decades. So those accidental communities where you would stay within shouting distance of the lumber mill or the restaurant became real communities that had to have sidewalks and infrastructure, churches, business locations. There were several Elks Clubs. And in Flagstaff in particular, there were four Black churches in a 1-mile radius. So you don’t do that on purpose unless you’re forced to live south of the tracks like most African Americans were. And they had plenty of neighbors who were Mexican and Hopi and Navajo, and some white workers as well, who enjoyed being part of a cultural mosaic.

LAUREN GILGER: It sounds like this in general, the diversity that this sort of created on accident, is maybe what made Route 66 so rich.

RICARDO GUTHRIE: I agree with you. It was rich because, well, they expected to do one thing, to get from point A to point Z. And they got stuck in point F, right? When you’re stuck in Flagstaff and Winslow. And these are very small towns, but very enduring towns because you could get to know your neighbor, and you could get to enjoy a slice of America that typically is not on the radiowaves or the airwaves in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. But you could see it up front in the jazz clubs, the pool halls, the restaurants, and places like that, all along Route 66.

LAUREN GILGER: So you’ve gotten this grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and you’re going to do some of this research and teach people about this new lens, this way of looking at Route 66 in a different way. What do you hope to achieve in that?

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Well, this is the fun part. We know that teachers are always desperate for something interesting and exciting to show their kids from K-12 to even high school and beyond. And we think that the Route 66 story besides cars and travel has this rich undercurrent that needs to be put front and center. Namely, does racial diversity and ethnic diversity help build communities? Our answer is resoundingly, "Yes!" And if you’re a teacher, however, how do you teach that when that’s not really part of the curriculum? That’s our strategy: to get people in, to learn something exciting, to tell the stories that are there that people might like about cars and travel — I mean, who wouldn’t? — and then add to it this other story of resilience, right? So there may be racism, yes. I may be excluded, yes. But I’m going to show my culture actually as being successful and very beneficial to everybody who gets encountered. We’re having fun.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’ll leave it there. Ricardo Guthrie is an associate professor of social justice at Fisk University, formerly director of NAU’s Ethnic Studies program here in Flagstaff. Ricardo, thank you so much for coming on and teaching us about this. It’s been really interesting.

RICARDO GUTHRIE: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, the atomic history of Route 66.

But first, let’s take a moment to live vicariously through a man who is never without a good trail to hike. Roger Naylor is a longtime Arizona travel writer, and at the end of last year, he sat down with me in our studios to talk about his year in hiking and road tripping and what he looked forward to in 2026.

ROGER NAYLOR: A lot of hiking to begin with, a lot of driving, a lot of road trips. The Route 66 Centennial is coming up in 2026, so I was making a lot of trips there as I was finishing up a book project. So it was nice, those old-fashioned road trips. You know, just driving with the windows down, pulling off, stopping for a burger here and there, and enjoying ... Brings back a lot of vivid memories.

But I had, you know, a few adventures as well. I did something I'd been wanting to do for a couple of years. I went up to Lake Mead National Recreation Area in the Lake Mojave, that section of it at Willow Beach, and kayaked to Emerald Cave. Which is a very popular Instagram, kind of famous stop, because it's a good photograph.

So I knew, you know, I kind of knew what to expect. I knew it wouldn't be secluded. I knew it's a small little cave and stuff. And I'm always a little nervous on water because I'm more of a hiker. I don't swim ... but it was flat water, it was easy, very accessible and beautiful.

And what I didn't know at that time, you know, I booked on a Monday. And Monday, Tuesday, that section of the river, the 30 miles south from Hoover Dam, are no motorized boat. So it was very peaceful. So it was just a whole bunch of kayakers out, kind of paddling up the river and then paddling back.

We waited our turn to go into Emerald Cave. And you kind of have to back in and, you know, snap your little photos and if you get there at the right time of day, the reason it's called Emerald Cave is because the sun comes in and it just turns the water this brilliant green, you know, all around.

So it was really, really lovely.

LAUREN GILGER: A standout moment in your year, for sure.

ROGER NAYLOR: Yeah, I enjoyed it. So —

LAUREN GILGER: So what about along Route 66? You spent a lot of the year writing this book that just came out on Route 66, the Centennials coming up, as you said. Are there moments you had in reporting that or writing it or driving along there that stand out for you?

ROGER NAYLOR: Well, I always do with the book that I wrote, Arizona Route 66, road trip. I really wanted to focus on not just the history of the road, but what's available right now. I wanted people to have a chance at an old-fashioned road trip. Not an interstate road trip, not a place where you just stop at the first fast food place you come to and stuff.

So I really focused on mom and pop restaurants, mom and pop hotels, that still had that same feel, that two-lane road, that pulling off at a place I didn't know anything about. "Oh, that looks good. I like their sign. I'm gonna pull in here and try here." And sometimes, man, you just have such a wonderful meal or you come across a place with a great decor.

I stopped in Kingman at this little place called Grandpa's Kitchen. And how can you avoid that? And I mean, it's packed with places. The food was really good, and it's big portions and it's all bustling. But one table gets up to leave and the guy goes, "All right, see you tomorrow." And then another table gets up and leaves and goes, "OK, see you next week."

And so it's like, not only are there regulars, but the staff knows their schedule. They're so regular. It's nice to know those kind of places still exist. We forget about that sometimes. I stopped out at Kingman Airport Cafe and had one of the best burgers I'd had in ages. Just, you know, and the walls are surrounded with all this old memorabilia.

Because Kingman has an incredible aviation history. During World War II, it was turned into this Army airfield where they trained B29 gunners. People like Charles Bronson, Clayton Moore trained there and stuff. So there's all this wonderful memorabilia and photos, and I'm just eating this burger that's just out of this world. This is what road trips are all about.

These little tiny moments that you hold on to.

LAUREN GILGER: Discovering something you probably wouldn't have otherwise.

ROGER NAYLOR: Exactly.

LAUREN GILGER: I gotta ask about the Cleater Yacht Club, because this is such an, such an odd place and such a cool one. You went there this year?

ROGER NAYLOR: I did. You know, I wanted to write a story for the Arizona Republic about it. I wanted to head up to Crown King, up in the mountains there. But one of the stops along the way, because you take off on this dirt road and a few miles up Crown King, you're climbing an old railroad track.

So it gets a little dicey sometimes four-wheel drive is needed. But the first few miles still out in the open desert, out in the middle of nowhere is the Cleater Yacht Club ... It's just an old watering hole with a porch. But the backyard is just full of old boats and surfboards and, you know, all this, you know, very beachy. It's like a tiki bar, almost kind of feel to it.

LAUREN GILGER: But dry as a bone, right?

ROGER NAYLOR: If Jimmy Buffett had grown up in Phoenix, this is where he would go drink. You just feel like it. And so Buddy and I went out and, you know, we head up to Crown King, had our burger and did that. On the way down, we stopped at the Cleater Yacht Club and going for a cold beverage out in the middle of nowhere with a few regulars.

I think there were more dogs than there were customers. There were about three just kind of wandering around, just big sweethearts. And sitting out on a surfboard, having a cold beer in the desert, looking at the cactus. I think, yeah, I'm in Arizona. ...

LAUREN GILGER: One of the big things that happened this year in your world, right, was just the big changes and cuts that came to public lands. I mean, national parks, national monuments being, first of all, attempts to scale back, but just massive budget cuts, staffing cuts, et cetera. What do you think about that?

Like, have you heard from folks in the parks and how they're kind of handling all this?

ROGER NAYLOR: I have, and it's very unfortunate. I had just written my book, "Arizona National Parks and Monuments." It came out the end of last year, and I was starting to do promotions and presentations and talks. And that's when the hiring freeze hit and the cuts came. And all of a sudden they couldn't even promote a lot of the presentation stuff.

Then staff cut back. So, yeah, I've been in touch with a lot of them and managers, and, you know, behind the scenes. They're holding on as best they can, but it is really a struggle, especially some of the smaller parks. That's where they were housed. That's, you know, where they lived, out in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden, not only were they without a job, but they were without a home and, you know, sent packing.

And I had a couple of parks managers tell me that if they lost one more person, they were going to have to close. I mean, they were just hanging on by a thread. So it was very difficult. And then the government shutdown came at really awful time, on top of that. There's going to be damage, there's going to be degradation.

The national parks, the state parks, all this, all the public lands, this is what makes Arizona so special. Is that, you know, we have these green spaces, we have open country around us at every level. Arizona is very good about setting land aside. And if we're starting to lose any of that, it affects communities, affects way of life.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So some concerns from 2025, I'm sure lingering into 2026. But let's end on a positive note. What are you looking forward to next year as we roll into the new year here?

ROGER NAYLOR: Well, obviously, the Route 66 Centennial is going to be a very big deal in Arizona, especially because we're the state that saved Route 66. We're the one — this is where the preservation movement began, where the tide of history turned. So a lot of — it's just going to be a great opportunity to get out and explore again.

I'm kind of overdue. There's a couple of state parks I haven't been for a while. Lyman Lake over in the White Mountains and Oracle State park down north of Tucson, I want to get to. And you know, there's always places, you know, that there was a time in Oracle Park I still remember I was hiking this trail, and it's a wildlife refuge, too.

And I stopped on this trail and this deer was just a few feet away from me and stopped. And we just stared at each other for the longest time. And I mean, I've seen a million deer on the trail and stuff, but we just had this quiet little moment. And I kind of reached for my camera and then it bolted.

I'm going, ah, I knew better. I'm no tourist. That was just one of those trail moments that I got to share that only I get to experience. So, you know, those little tiny moments, they just add up. They're important. And that's why we have these kind of open lands, these kind of parks there for us to enjoy, to experience.

LAUREN GILGER: I’m sure many more in your future as the year kicks off here. All right. Roger Naylor, longtime Arizona travel writer joining us. Roger, thanks so much. Appreciate it as always.

ROGER NAYLOR: It’s absolutely my pleasure.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

Route 66 is known for its history. It’s a cultural touchstone that represents the expansion to the West, vintage cars and diners, and Americana trinket shops.

But our next guest is the director of a short film that documents another, more troubling history of Route 66: its atomic history.

In it, Katrina Parks profiles some of the women from the Red Water Pond community on the Navajo Nation. Community organizers there have been working to get uranium tailings removed from their land for decades.

But theirs is just one of the stories Parks unearthed as part of this project. Back in 2024, she told me it all started for her with her first documentary series on Route 66 about women on the Mother Road.

KATRINA PARKS: The film series was finished, so I was actually doing presentations, and someone in the audience asked if I had ever considered the effect of atomic testing on women’s lives, and specifically if I knew about the Downwinders and how many communities along Route 66 were impacted. And I drew a blank, and luckily Arizona state historian Marshall Trimble was there in the audience, and he certainly counts family members among the Downwinders. And he explained that that’s the name used to refer to people who experienced radiation as a result of the atomic testing at the Nevada test site, which didn’t end until 1962, and that there are in fact many communities along Route 66 like Kingman, Seligman, Winslow, Gallup, where there are clusters of Downwinders. So that was intriguing to me. And then when I started to do more research, I realized that the Route 66 region has really faced a triple impact. Not only are the communities impacted by atomic testing, but also I would say by the development of nuclear industries and specifically uranium mining.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. OK. So zoom in for us on Red Water Pond and the people that you profiled there, because they’ve been working for decades, it sounds like, to get uranium tailings removed from their land, and have faced a lot of challenges in doing that. Remind us of the history here. You said this goes back quite a long time.

KATRINA PARKS: Yes. So uranium mining really was propelled by the Cold War. After World War II, the United States really wanted to find a domestic source of uranium, and the Colorado Plateau region happens to be very rich in it. So under this need to develop more weapons, this huge rush to exploit uranium took place, and there wasn’t much thought given to the health and safety of the workers. And that’s something that when you talk to people at the Red Water Pond community really becomes clear. Edith Hood, one of the women that I interviewed in what is now a short film, but will hopefully become a longer project, she actually worked in a mine, and she talks about how the physical hazards of mining were explained to miners, but the long-term consequences of exposure to radiation were not explained at all. And so it’s something that she along with many others have had to deal with over the decades.

LAUREN GILGER: What are the health implications for these communities? Because these impacts, as you said, which began so long ago, are still being felt today.

KATRINA PARKS: Yeah, I mean, the most obvious health impact are clusters of cancer, but I think it’s also the impact on traditional lifestyles, particularly when you’re talking to people from the Red Water Pond community, that is something that becomes very clear because they can no longer have, for example, livestock in the way that they had for centuries on that land. I was very lucky to collaborate with three amazing women from the Red Water Pond Community Association who are leading this effort to remove this uranium tailings pile from their homeland. But I also interviewed, for example, a uranium miner, a woman whose father was involved in testing at the Nevada test site, and a nuclear scientist. So my interest is in kind of uncovering these hidden stories of the nuclear legacy and trying to give it a human face, but from many different voices and experiences.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So I want to know more about the women from the Red Water Pond community who you mentioned there. I mean, why has it been so difficult for them and taken so long to get rid of these tailings?

KATRINA PARKS: Well, as I understand it, the issue now is that the surrounding communities don’t want the tailings pile moved through their communities. So the uranium tailings pile, what it contains is not uranium. It’s something much less radioactive. And the damage to the community has taken place because of their exposure over a long-term exposure to these tailings. But the communities around them are concerned about 20,000 whatever number of truckloads it is of this material going through on its way to a landfill.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. You mentioned Edith Hood and the fact that she used to work in the mine, which was true for so many people in this part of the state, particularly people on Navajo land. This was also a source of jobs, right?

KATRINA PARKS: Yes, it certainly was. And I interviewed a miner who worked at the Haystack Mine, and he talked about, he was excited to have the job. It was a way that he could build a better future for his family. He grew up facing a lot of discrimination in Winslow, and he really worked his way up, and he paid a very high price for that work. So I guess it’s kind of humbling, they’re humbling stories to listen to because you can feel — you understand the choices people made and why they made them. It was a good job, and there seemed to be a path upward mobility within the industry.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, right. So complicated, so human. Let me ask you, Katrina, just what struck you most in the making of this project so far? I mean, this is obviously complicated, there are so many personal stories involved. What do you think about when you think about this most?

KATRINA PARKS: Well, I think about how history sadly is repeating itself because we have, in Arizona in particular, there’s the reopening of the Pinyon Plain Mine, which has caused a lot of controversy because of the impact on Indigenous lands and people again.

LAUREN GILGER: But this is also going on today in a different way, right? Because there is pressure on lawmakers in Washington to reauthorize and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act before the end of the year, which is coming up rapidly here. What kind of difference would that make for the Downwinders that you profile here?

KATRINA PARKS: It would make a big difference, and I, of course, hope that Congress will do that.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Katrina Parks, the director of the documentary film "The Atomic Legacy on Route 66" joining us. Katrina, thank you for coming on, thank you for talking about this. I appreciate it.

KATRINA PARKS: Thanks so much.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

If you’ve stopped in at the El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon, you may have seen the Fred Harvey exhibit there. Or if you’re a fan of musicals like me, you might remember the classic Judy Garland film, “The Harvey Girls.”

Those are the creations of the Fred Harvey Company, and this year marks its 150th anniversary. Earlier in the year, events were held at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and the famous La Posada Hotel in Winslow.

The so-called “Frediversary” celebrates the date in 1876 when the Fred Harvey Company made a fateful partnership with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the railroad that first brought travelers from the East Coast to the Southwest.

The Harvey Company became their hospitality company, running their hotels, restaurants, and dining cars. And it all coincided with the centennial of Route 66, which has a good stretch that runs along the Santa Fe Railroad.

Stephen Fried is author of a book all about the intersection of Fred Harvey, fine dining, and the Wild West called “Appetite for America.” And he is a self-proclaimed “Fredhead.” I spoke with him earlier this year more about the anniversary and Fred Harvey’s influence on the West.

STEPHEN FRIED: Fred Harvey came to America in the 1850s, he learned the restaurant business in New York City, and he ended up in St. Louis. He lost his restaurant in St. Louis during the Civil War, and he reinvented himself in Kansas in the 1870s. And this is when railroads only went to Kansas.

And as the railroads expanded beyond Kansas all the way to California, they didn’t have dining cars in the West because they were too heavy to carry. So there had to be trackside restaurants everywhere, and in most places because they figured they would only see you once and never see you again, they were all horrible.

And so Fred Harvey decided that whatever railroad decided to have good food along their railway, people would take that train because back then, trains were like planes: you could take a variety of railroads to different locations. So the Harvey Company started out in Eastern Kansas, and then continued its way west.

But it really its main expansion and when it became a real national phenomenon was honestly in New Mexico and in Arizona. And Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon especially … and Albuquerque were really the centers of the Fred Harvey Company. And the company was the largest hospitality chain in America for decades.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. So you wrote a book about Fred Harvey and the food, and I should say, you hired me when I was a student to help do some of the research here in Arizona.

STEPHEN FRIED: I did. I did.

LAUREN GILGER: I remember going to NAU’s library and copying old Fred Harvey menus for you for this book. But they were fascinating to look at, the food that was served. Tell us about that and sort of the spread of this type of cuisine.

STEPHEN FRIED: Well, I mean, keep in mind, these places they had originally a restaurant every 100 miles. Then trains got faster, and there were fewer of them. But they they ran up to 80 restaurants between Chicago and Los Angeles and between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico.

So they had to really be on top of what the menus would be and they organized everything and they also would get fresh fruit, like if if there was a ton of cantaloupes being farmed somewhere, they would buy them all and send them out on the train.

So it was a it was an empire that — I mean, we now have companies like this, but this, this all happened before telephones. You know, this was being done mostly by the telegraph, but it was amazingly organized, it was amazingly diverse, and most people in the West say that the Fred Harvey Company taught them how to eat well.

Of course, it’s also the 100th anniversary of Route 66. The restaurants that originally opened onto the train tracks and people came to them off the trains, they opened second entrances to them for for people coming off Route 66.

The Americana aspects of Route 66 perfectly dovetail with Fred Harvey, and for many years the best restaurants on Route 66 were these Fred Harvey restaurants which had been around for a long time.

But what this all becomes is just a great celebration of travel in the West. And, you know, Western travel is about trains, it’s about cars, it’s about getting out and seeing America in that big way that you can’t see when you fly over it.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So there is a link obviously between the histories here between Fred Harvey and Route 66. And eventually, right, like one leads to the other in a way, like you see railway travel in America give way to automobile travel and Route 66 and that car culture, right?

STEPHEN FRIED: Yeah, although what’s interesting is of course the trains thought that they would always be in control. So when they had the opportunity to invest in cars, they were like, “Oh no, we just do trains.” So that’s how the car companies built up themselves, and the plane companies as well.

The Harvey Company was one of the few companies that invested in both. The Harvey Company also was involved in the early days of the airlines. But look, the history of travel in the West is a huge, important thing because it is the main economy for many parts of this.

And of course Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon and all places in between, these are amazing places that grew up a lot after the First World War. Because during the First World War, nobody could go to Europe anymore. So all of a sudden people had to experience the West, and it just so happened that the first Western world’s fairs were in 1915.

So all of a sudden people from all over the world were coming to the American West, to the world’s fair in San Francisco, to the world’s fair in San Diego, and then they traveled through the Southwest. That was the beginning of what we now know as tourist Southwest, and I think that so much of it is still wonderfully preserved and you get in your car and go and it’s still just as great.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I mean, so one of the things I have to ask about Fred Harvey before we finish this is about the Harvey Girls, right? Like I mentioned Judy Garland and the sort of the famous outfits they would wear and just bringing women out to this side of the country, right? This was a legacy, he believed.

STEPHEN FRIED: Yeah, so the Harvey Company, first of all they were fighting racism against African American waiters in the Southwest, which was pretty bad during the late 1800s after the Civil War. They decided they would bring in single women and have them be the waitresses at all the restaurants from Chicago all the way to California.

This was the first opportunity for most single women to be able to travel and see the world and be independent, and many of them stayed in the towns that they worked in and got married and ended up building up small and large communities. Some of them went to the Grand Canyon, and their stories are amazing. Some of them went to really little towns and lived there.

But the Harvey Girls existed. Over 100,000 women had the experience of working for Fred Harvey, at least for six months. And if you worked for six months, you got a free ticket anywhere on the railroad.

LAUREN GILGER: Six months and a free ticket. Yeah.

STEPHEN FRIED: This was an amazing phenomenon. And they were also incredible waitresses with pinpoint abilities. They had rules for everything, codes for everything. Because you wanted to get everyone in and out in 30 minutes. And so they had to be able to serve a complete gourmet meal in 30 minutes. And the way you do that is you cut every second out of it you can.

And also the Harvey Girls were very impetuous, smart women. When you meet former Harvey Girls and their families now, you can tell they are different. They are people who came to the West and had guts and determination. A lot of them turned out to be very interesting.

LAUREN GILGER: One hundred thousand. Wow. Let me ask you lastly, Stephen, just about, I mean on this 150th anniversary and the centennial of Route 66, what do you think Fred Harvey’s legacy is today? I mean, what do you think his work and innovation say about the spirit of the West?

STEPHEN FRIED: Well, interestingly, of course, the food and of course the hospitality and the restaurants, but I think what’s equally important is that the Fred Harvey Company at the turn of the last century really discovered Native American art and wanted to make sure that people understood that this was a true American culture. Much of the Native American art in museums now was originally purchased by the Fred Harvey Company, and they also went into business with Native American artists.

Part of what we’re going to be doing for the anniversary celebration in Arizona is doing an event at the Heard Museum. The Heard Museum both has the Fred Harvey Fine Arts Collection.

But what was interesting for the Harvey Company was not only to make sure that you got good food and you stayed in a beautiful hotel. It was that you appreciated American history. You appreciated the Southwest in all its cultures. The kind of multiculturalism that people just started talking about over the last two decades, the Harvey Company was preaching to tourists in the 1910s, in the 1920s.

So I think their legacy — besides the restaurants, besides the hotels — is also just a way of talking about American history in a way that is authentic, accurate and appreciates the amazing art forms of the country.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. Quite a legacy. All right, that is Stephen Fried, journalist, professor at Columbia and U Penn, author of “Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West.” Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time.

STEPHEN FRIED: Thanks so much, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.