Leupp Corner

Index to this page

• About Leupp Corner
• Weather
• Hotels
• Map of US 66 through Leupp Corner
• What to see and do

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About Leupp Corner, Arizona

Facts, Trivia and useful information

Elevation: 5,073 ft (1,547 m). Population: none (2020).
Time zone: Mountain (MST): UTC minus 7 hours. Summer (DST) no DST⁄ PDT (UTC-7).

Leupp Corner (it is pronounced "Loop"), is a place lcated at the junction of Arizona Highway 99 and U.S. Route 66. It is in Coconino County, in central Arizona.

A view of Leupp, near "Leupp Corner" in Arizona, close to Route 66

For the early history of Leupp and Leupp Corner, please see the History of Winslow.

The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, later Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) laid their tracks through this part of Arizona in 1882, the stations of Moqui and Dennison were 3 miles east and west of Leupp Corner. The Navajo Reservation and the Hopi Reservation are both just north of Leupp Corner.

The town of Leupp was established in the Navajo Reservation in 1907.

The corner was a quiet spot on a cart trail and track that linked Leupp to Winslow. But Route 66 was routed through the area in 1926 and that brought a steady flow of travellers. The Hopi House Trading Post catered to their needs in the 1940s.

Getting to Leupp Corner

To the east are Winslow and Joseph City, To the west lie Winona (33 miles) and Flagstaff (48 miles). Drive along I-40 to reach Leupp Corner.

Where to Stay, find a hotel near Leupp Corner

There is no lodging on Route 66 in Leupp Corner, but you can find hotels nearby in Twin Arrows and Winslow:

>> Book your Hotels in Winslow or Twin Arrows

Lodging Near Leupp Corner along Route 66

Book your hotel nearby, in Winslow

Weather in Leupp Corner

Weather widget for Winslow, the town nearest Leupp Corner

Location of Leupp Corner on Route 66

The climate of Leupp Corner is dry, temperate and arid. Relative air humidity is low and this leads to wide variations beween night and day temperatures all through the year, causing hot dry summer days but cool summer nights and cold winter ones.

During summer (Jul), the average high temperature is around 94.5°F (34.7°C) and the average low is 61.9 °F (16.6°C). In winter the average high (Jan) is 49.5°F (9.7°C) and the average low is about 20.8°F (-6.2°C), well below freezing pont.

As expected for an arid area, rainfall is scarce: 6.99 inches (178 mm) yearly and about half of it falls from July to September (3.1 in. - 79 mm). Snowfall is also light, with only 6.4 inches (16.3 cm) per year, between Oct. and April.

It is sunny in Leupp Corner, only 53 days per year are days with precipitation.

Tornado risk

There is almost zero tornado risk in Leupp Corner: Coconino County has no Tornado watches. The area west of the Rocky Mountains has virtually no tornado events at all.

Tornado Risk: read more about Tornado Risk along Route66.

Map of Route 66 through Leupp Corner Arizona

The original Route 66 alignment from 1926 till 1965 ran along what are now the eastbound lanes of the Interstate, this Alignment map shows the course of the highway. There is another missing segment as it approaches Winslow, see the yellow line in our custom map with missing segments.

Leupp Corner, Arizona, its Sights and Attractions

A place where once stood a Trading Post...

Historic context, the classic Route 66

In 1946, Jack DeVere Rittenhouse published his "A Guide Book to Highway 66" and described the road and its attractions and services for the travellers. He wrote the following about the segment west of Winslow:

Moqui

8 miles from Winslow was Moqui (location map) to the south of the Eastbound lanes of I-40. It was another place described as a "town" on the maps, but actually was only "a railroad siding with a few yellow board shacks".

Moqui or "Moki" was a name given to the Hopi people, it means "dead" in their language, but may have been applied to them by their neighbors, perhaps the Keresan speaking Pueblo people.

This name was recorded by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s: Espejo noted it down as "Mohace" and "Mohoce" in 1583, and by Oñate in 1598 as "Mohoqui".

Leupp Corner, is 11 miles from Winslow and the only building in the area by Route 66 was the Hopi House, which Rittenhouse described as a service station with an "affable, experienced" trader with "a fairly extensive stock". There were some Navajo hogans near it.

4 miles west of Leupp was yet another "town", Dennison, which was merely a siding with no gas, motels or services for the tourists. It was followed 3 miles to the west by Meteor City

Hopi House Trading Post (Gone)

The Hopi House trading posts had a Texaco gas station, cafe, a motel and a trailer campground. Below are two vintage postcards:

A now lost memory on Route 66: Hopi House Trading Post c.1950s

It was located to your right, on the north side of Route 66 at its junction with the access road to Leupp.

In 1941, Ray Meany had his Hopi House Trading Post built in a classic pueblo-revival style, with flat roof and exposed "vigas" - those roof beams that jut out of the wall, so common in the native Pueblo buildings; did you know that "viga" means "beam" in Spanish?.

Ray Meany (1906-1987), former sailor and later composer of Hawaiian music Aloha songs ran the Golden Gate Publishers with over 400 copyrights and owned a steel guitar school in Oakland California. He was the owner of the Hopi House in Leupp Corner (1944 - 1951) and also acquired the "Old Frontier" from Hubbell in Joseph City.

It was a shop that not only offered curios, rocks, Navajo baskets, pottery, genuine Indian jewelry and rugs, it also included a motel, a trailer park, a Texaco gas station and a cafe. The place also sold beer and wine.

It promoted itself as being on the "Main Entrance to Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations... 10 minutes west of Winslow, Arizona".

But in 1955 Ray and his wife Ella divorced. He kept the Hopi House but later sold it to Armand Ortega, and with the proceeds, bought a motel in California. As the Meanys also owned the Frontier Trading Post in Joseph City (on Route 66) east of Winslow, Ella kept it as part of the divorce agreement.

Razed in the mid 1960s

It was torn down to make way for the four-lane highway in the 1960s. This 1953 aerial photo shows that Route 66 ran along the current Eastbound lanes of I-40, the trading post was to the north. When the new two westbound lanes of I-40 and US-66 were added, they would have ran along its facade. The Frontage Road ripped would have cut across the back side of the building. So it had to go. It was torn down.

Remains of the old post

Some rubble can still be seen in the land north of the frontage Road. The image below shows where the old post would have been located (red lines), the original UDS66 (eastbound lanes of I-40), the extended roadway of highway 99 (blue lines) and the rear part of the property where the trailer park was located and where the rubble can be spotted (dashed red lines):

Site of Hopi House at I-40 and Hwy 99, Leupp Corner. Click on the image for large size picture

Rubble from Hopi House nowadays, click image to enlarge (St. view)

A view of the rubble where the old trailer park once stood, on the back part of the property north of the Frontage Rd. Click on image to enlarge. Red arrows mark some rubble.

Leupp

Pop. (2020) 1,216. Elevation 4,763 ft (1.452 m)

From Leupp Corner to Leupp Map (18.8 miles).

A small location in Coconino County, north of Route 66 which can be reached from Leupp Corner via AZ-99.

It is inside the Navajo Nation Reservation and its Navajo name is Tsiizizii.

The town was established close to where the San Fransico Wash met the Little Colorado River around 1907 when the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.) opened a boarding school for about 500 Navajo children.

This town is now known as "Old Leupp". The current town of Leupp is about 2 miles northwest. The old town had the school, built in red sandstone in the 1920s, the administrative buildings, a Presbyterian church, some residences, and a water tower and windmill (these two are still standing). Later a levee was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps to protect it from flooding, However, the school had closed in early 1942 because of its inconvenient location on the flood plain.

This is a Old Leupp location map.

The new town is on the west bank of the Little Colorado River, and there still is a B.I.A. Boarding school in the town (Leupp Schools, Inc).

Leupp Isolation Center

An Internment Camp for Japanese Americans during World War II

More World War II Camps along US66

There are two other camps along Route 66, some for POWs other for interning Japanese-Americans: the Santa Fe Internment Camp in New Mexico, and the German Prisoner of War Camp in McLean, Texas.

The U.S. government used the abandoned Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school to intern Japanese Americans during World War II.

The inmates came from the Moab "Isolation Center" in Utah and from the Manzanar camp. These innocent Americans had been considered "noncompliant" or "disloyal" American citizens just because they were of Japanese ancestry!

During 1943, 41 men were moved to Leupp adn during the war, a total of 80 Japanese Americans were housed in the facilities until they were al moved to another camp at Tule Lake. The site remained open but empty of inmantes until 1944, when it was returned to the Department of Interior.

Continue your Road Trip

This marks the end of your visit to Leupp Corner, head west into Meteor City to continue your Route 66 Road Trip.

Nature and Outdoors

Tip: consider visiting the Petrified Forest National Park (near Holbrook) on your Road Trip.

Petrified Forest

Only National Park on Route 66

>> Book your Hotel in Winslow

Credits

Banner image: Hackberry General Store, Hackberry, Arizona by Perla Eichenblat
Jack DeVere Rittenhouse, (1946). A Guide Book to Highway 66.
Debra Redsteer, 28 June 2008 Leupp, Arizona: A Shared Historic Space for the Navajo Nation and Japanese Americans
J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord, Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites Chap. 14

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