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Route 66--town where railroad ends

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While the Grand Canyon is one of the world's foremost tourist attractions, tourists often overlook many other outstanding places to visit in Northern Arizona, such as the town of Williams. By Paul Sullivan

Date published: 12/16/2006

BILL WILLIAMS was a gruff old mountain man of the early years of settlement of the American West. So fierce was he that some said you'd best not walk in front of a hungry Bill Williams late on a wild woods trek when the food was gone.

There is a small town in Arizona named for Williams and it backs up to a solitary mountain that also carries his name.

Each year thousands of tourists, including many I have spoken with from the Fredericksburg area, reach the Grand Canyon via the Grand Canyon Railway, departing from Williams.

Late one afternoon last week, I watched as a flood of tired but happy sightseers--fresh from their trip to the canyon--debarked the train in Williams. And other than to grab supper at a local restaurant I wondered how many of them overlook the neat little tourist town high on Arizona's Coconino Plateau that bills itself as "Gateway to the Grand Canyon."

The town sits half a mile off Interstate 40, one of the primary east-west thoroughfares in the United States. Because it is a tourist town, Williams, population about 3,000, has a ton of places to dine and stay the night.

Unlike some other tourist towns, this one really is tourist-friendly--both in accommodations and facilities as well as the hospitality of its people. And after last week's excursion to Cave Creek, Ariz., near Phoenix, I came to appreciate another thing separating the tourist spots we like from those we leave with no regrets: I'll call it walkability, for lack of a better term.

When I visit a place and try to size it up, I'm trying to define the things that make it enjoyable. And a town--even a very small place--where I must drive because there are few safe places to walk, is a serious annoyance (to say nothing of an inconvenience).

All of this is something of an aside, a way of saying that Williams, the historic old town on fabled Route 66, is a walker's town. Park the car at the excellent visitors center on Railroad Avenue next to the train station (with its great railroad museum) and take off on foot.

Date published: 12/16/2006