Route 66: The Sundown Cafe: Holbrook, Arizona
PART 3: HOLBROOK, ARIZONA
Post card image of the Sundown Cafe on Route 66.
Driving east took the Louies into the lands of Southwestern Native people’s lands.
Puebloan people lived in the area now known as Holbrook for thousands of years, but in the 1870s, a settlement called Horsehead Crossing, which was a stage station, was settled, eventually becoming called Holbrook after Randolph Holbrook, who was associated with bringing the rail through the area.
Long a transportation stop, Holbrook quickly adapted economically to motoring traffic, building motels, restaurants and gas stations to support travelers. The Sundown Cafe and motor inn, opened in 1953 by Albert and Jack Ong was one such business. What little we know about the business is gleaned from postcards and matchbooks advertising it.
The building was a modest motel with probably no more than a dozen rooms and a cafe. The motel advertised having heat furnaces and air conditioning, and as a good spot to stop on West Route 66. The business doesn’t appear in Arizona newspapers, making it clear the business catered to travelers, not a local community.
Presumably, “Sundown” refers to both the location on the west side of the freeway and the association of stopping to rest at night time. But given the location in Arizona, which was known as a place with many “Sundown” towns–places where people of color were not allowed to sleep, the name is complicated. Notably, Holbrook does not appear on any confirmed lists of Sundown towns, unlike another Route 66 Arizona stop, Kingsman. El Moderno Auto Court and El Rancho Motel, both in Holbrook, appear in the Green Book, which was used by Black travelers to identify safe stops for food and lodgings. Whether or not there was intent behind the name of the motel, the name illustrates the complicated landscape that Chinese Americans navigated as business owners who were themselves racialized persons. The Sundown seems to have been closed by 2016, when travellers along the historic route noted it was closed and in a deteriorated condition.
https://www.nps.gov/maps/full.html?mapId=68beff0c-3eda-4c6e-89c1-8e48135c2e89
https://holbrookazmuseum.org/home/memories/early-holbrook/
