The First Peoples of the Southwestern Colorado Plateau

Long before rails or highways, the Little Colorado and its tributaries drew people to this stretch of the Colorado Plateau. The ancestors of the Hopi and Diné farmed the floodplain, traded along its corridors, and left villages and rock art across the watershed. Winslow sits at nearly five thousand feet on ground that has been a crossroads of exchange for a very long time, a fact its later railroad and Route 66 fame tends to obscure. The first chapter of this place belongs to the peoples who learned to read the river and stayed.

What the plaque says

Journeys to Winslow. Winslow sits almost 5,000 feet above sea level on the southwestern Colorado Plateau and within the watershed of the Little Colorado River, a tributary of the mighty Colorado. The Winslow area has long been at a crossroads of commercial and cultural exchange. People have traveled area trails, roads, railways, highways, and airways for trade, religious freedom, economic opportunity, and adventure. Long before the railroad arrived, the Little Colorado and its tributaries sustained the ancestors of the Hopi and Navajo peoples.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Winslow — steps away
  The town an Eagles lyric made famous — and the home of La Posada, the last great railroad hotel and Mary Colter's finest work, at the southern doorway to Hopi and Navajo country.

More markers nearby

• A City in Motion: Modern Modes — steps away
• Standin' on the Corner Park — steps away
• La Posada Hotel — steps away
• Toth Whispering Giant — 0.3 mi