Jack Kerouac landmark saved

Johnson’s Corner, the Colorado gas station and eatery described in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” has been moved from the spot where the Beat poet found it.

The concrete, 1937 Art Deco structure, designed by Denver architect Eugene Groves, is now in Prospect New Town, a development about a mile south of its former location on Main Street in Longmont.

Kerouac describes taking a nap under a tree at a gas station fitting Johnson’s Corner’s description and then ordering a creamy milkshake.

Preservation activists, among others, battled for 18 months to save the building, which had last been used as an office for a car lot, finally raising the $160,000 needed to move and establish a new home for the structure. State transportation officials had planned to raze the structure to make room for the extension of a highway.

From Associated Press