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THE BACKSTORY

Eastern Arizona's high desert, serene in its silence, is a colorful but wind-scrubbed, harsh environment. Yet it is here that Dotch Garland Windsor (1896-1964) and his wife Alberta brought cattle from New Mexico in the late 1930s. A Texas native and a cattleman by trade, he had a brother, Erastus, in Holbrook, just thirty miles west of the site he chose for his ranch next to the Dead River. Bordering US 66 on the fringe of the Painted Desert and only 2.5 miles east of the Petrified Forest National Monument boundary, the land was vast and desolate. The Windsors settled in, occupying a ranch house on the west side of the river.

The story may have ended here had Dotch not acted on the realization that there was money to be made from the tourist traffic navigating this barren stretch of highway. Around 1940 he opened a trading post, (the exact date remains unknown), and they moved into the living quarters of their new business, aptly named "Dotch Windsor's Trading Post." They sold Gulf gasoline, Indian rugs and jewelry, petrified wood, and sundries. The name was later changed to Painted Desert Trading Post to capitalize on the nearby park, and then changed again, lastly, to Dotch Windsor's Painted Desert Trading Post. This was done, presumably, to distinguish their location from the Painted Desert Park, the Painted Desert Inn, and Painted Desert Point, all on the same ten-mile stretch of highway. The Painted Desert Tower joined that mix when it was built in 1953.

With no services available, the Windsors relied on the technology of the time. A wood stove was used for heat, and desert air breezing through a sleeping porch helped cool summer nights. They had a well, and used a windmill to power a generator for electricity and to pump water, which was dispensed through a gravity-fed tank. Propane powered the kitchen stove. The bathroom had a small shower stall and flush toilet. An outside privy was available for customers.

Dotch had married Alberta Buckland in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1930. They divorced in 1948, and Dotch attempted to sell the trading post, but no buyers bit on the $30,000 asking price, and he stayed. In 1950, at age 54, he married 26-year-old Joyce "Joy" Withington Nevin (1924-1998), a striking young woman twenty-eight years his junior. Joy had come to Arizona from rural Rhode Island, where in 1943, at age 19, she had been engaged to marry dashing Navy pilot Elton Wayne Cooke, 24. Their fairy-tale romance came to a sudden and tragic end when Cooke's plane disappeared on a training mission out of Alaska. Neither he nor his aircraft were ever seen again. Though in mourning, Joy signed up for and completed pilot training in W.A.S.P., the military's Women's Air Service Pilots, but the program was shut down before she was activated after the deaths of thirty-eight women pilots, some during training. Joy then planned to join the Navy WAVES, but with the war winding down she instead returned to school at Bryant College in Rhode Island.

Having come from a farming family, Joy was well suited for her future adventures, in spite of being stricken with polio following WWII. While recovering, she took to the road, ending up in Heber, Arizona, where an acquaintance gave her a job as a ranch hand. She still had trouble walking, but could ride as well as any cowboy. A few years later she launched Stockman's Supply Service, selling products to ranchers from her truck, which doubled as her home. It was only a matter of time before her sales route led her to the doorstep of the older but ruggedly handsome Dotch Windsor, whom she married in 1950.
 

In 1952, Addilade "Dee" Windsor was born, completing the family. In addition to the trading post business, they had a few horses, eighty head of cattle, and a dog named Navajo. Life moved along nicely, but it wasn't long before an irreversible downward spiral began. The highway there, paved in the early 1930s, was badly in need of upgrading. The Petrified Forest National Monument, in a long-standing feud with the owners of the nearby Painted Desert Park tourist trap, lobbied to have the road relocated in that area in order to starve them out. How much influence that generated is unknown, but in 1954 plans to do just that were unveiled by the highway department. In 1955, Joy separated from Dotch. Their divorce became final in 1956. Within a few years, Dotch would be forced to close and abandon the trading post, leaving a forsaken but indelible thumbprint on the Route 66 landscape.

It remains unclear exactly when Dotch's section of US 66 lost its traffic, but records point to the summer of 1958 (see the BYPASS page). As the new 2-lane roadway was being completed, it was adopted as the westbound half of emerging I-40, which was by then on the drawing board. Once the 2-lane bypass was complete, access to the Painted Desert Trading Post was cut off.

Dotch Windsor subsequently moved to Holbrook. According to his daughter Dee, who now goes by Adela, he loved to rodeo and tame wild horses. While in Show Low in 1964, he died from injuries received when he was thrown while breaking a horse. His body was returned to Holbrook and he was buried in the city cemetery.

Joy lived back east from 1957-1970. She remarried twice, first to Harold Crandall in Rhode Island, and later to Ray Tankersley for a few years after returning to Arizona. Over time Joy became one of Holbrook's most civic-minded citizens, and now has a street bearing her name. Her daughter Adela presently lives in New Mexico. Her mother Joy's ashes were scattered on a family ranch there after her passing in 1998.

What became of Dotch's first wife Alberta is unknown. As for the trading post's nearby competitors, only the Painted Desert Inn remains standing. The 1950s bypass cut the road to the trading post seven miles to the east at Navajo, and nine miles to the west, where the new highway intersected the existing road at the site of Rocky's Old Stage Station. Today, old US 66 westward from the trading post ends at the two-and-a-half-mile mark, where it encounters a fence defining the Petrified Forest National Park's property. There is no record that the trading post ever operated again as a business.

The Painted Desert Trading Post today is considered one of the crown jewels of Route 66 landmarks. This is due primarily to its isolation, its desolate but scenic setting, and the fact that, while the land changed hands over the years, the building was never repurposed. In 2017, nearing collapse from the ravages of time and damage by cattle, the property was purchased by the Route 66 Co-Op, a group of preservationists who established a non-profit organization for the express purpose of ensuring the trading post's continued presence on the landscape and managing access for visitors.

PDTP TRIVIA

              

 
 
The Sleeping Porch
 
Even in the high desert, summer temperatures can be brutal. The only relief is provided by the nearly ever-present wind, which at times reaches gale force, scouring everything in its path with fine desert sand. Seeking relief from the heat, the Windsors added a sleeping porch to the rear of the building, a makeshift affair featuring large, screen-covered windows. Tarps on the outside could be lowered when needed as a barrier to the sand. Initially, entrance to the porch required crawling through a window in the back room living quarters. Quickly tiring of this inconvenience, the window was soon converted into a door opening.
 
 

Wrong Location

Given that the Painted Desert Trading Post, the Painted Desert Park, the Painted Desert Tower, and the Painted Desert Point were all on the same ten mile stretch of US 66, there were bound to be errors when newspapers reported notable incidents occurring at one or another of these roadside establishments. Here is just one example: The Arizona Republic reported on 8-1-1948 that "Murder charges had been dismissed against Charles Osborne, operator of the Painted Desert Trading Post on U.S. Highway 66." The piece goes on to explain that Mr. Osborne acted in self-defense in killing his son Lee, age 30, with a rifle when the younger man attempted to hit him with a bar stool. This allegedly happened at the trading post, reported as being 20 miles east of Holbrook. In fact, Mr. Osborne operated the Painted Desert Point trading post.