Ghost Towns of Route 66 (17 page)
Read Ghost Towns of Route 66 Online
Authors: Jim Hinckley
Correo is located south of Interstate 40 at exit 126. The remainder of the towns in this section are on old U.S. 66 on the north side of Interstate 40, accessed at exit 117.
Hidden Gems
A
n array of vintage Route 66 remnants peppers the old road from San Fidel to the Arizona state line. In the old mining town of Grants, the darkened neon of the Franciscan Lodge and the Lux Theater, and the refurbished sign at the Grants Café, all hint of a time when travelers on the double six were as important to the economy as uranium from area mines.
Prewitt, Thoreau, Iyanbitoall, and Manuelito have long and colorful histories, but Route 66 literally placed these isolated trading posts on the map. Jack Rittenhouse, in his 1946 guidebook, notes that Prewitt was “A small community, including several railroad siding shacks and Prewitt's Trading Post. Gas station here. No tourist accommodations in Prewitt.”
Of Thoreau, Rittenhouse says, “Thoreau Trading Post and Beautiful Mountain Trading Post here; gas and garage. Thoreau itself lies off of US 66.” Interestingly, this description is quite similar to that given in the 1927 edition of Hotel, Garage, Service Station, and AAA Directory.
In Thoreau today, the Red Mountain Market and Deli masksâthrough a series of additions and an updated façadeâa tangible link to the very infancy of Route 66: Johnnies Café. The café dates to the late 1920s and was initially little more than a twenty-by-forty-foot shed with a wood-burning stove for cooking and heating water, a counter with a couple of stools, and four small tables.
An interesting historic footnote is found in Herman's Garage at the junction with Highway 371, the road to Thoreau. Erected in Gallup in 1931, this prefabricated, steel-frame service station was moved to its present location in the mid-1930s.
Today, ruins, faded murals, and other ghostly remnants are the dominant features of this stretch of highway. Against the backdrop of beautiful Western landscapes, these appear as sets in a photographer's paradise.
Prices stuck at thirty-one cents per gallon on a pump in Thoreau provide an excellent reference point for when the last car stopped at the station.
Herman's Garage hints that in quiet Thoreau, the curtain between past and present is a very thin veil.
ARIZONA
The Two Guns mural may be a re-creation, but it is an apt monument to one of the most enduring legends on Route 66.
The beautiful Canyon Diablo Bridge gave rise to the quintessential Route 66 tourist stop that was Two Guns.
T
HE GHOST TOWNS OF
R
OUTE 66
in the Grand Canyon State are a diverse lot of mining camps and railroad towns, rough-and-tumble cattle towns and tourism meccas, with two lanes of asphalt linking them all.
With Flagstaff as a median, the ghost towns in the eastern part of the state are largely the remnants of trading posts turned highway service centers. These, as well as the ruins of tourism outposts, such as the isolated Painted Desert Trading Post, are a photographer's paradise because each is framed by truly stunning Western landscapes.
In the western half of the state, you will find the longest uninterrupted stretch of Route 66 in existence. This time capsule section of the highwayâpeppered with the steepest grades, the sharpest curves, and quintessential Western ghost townsâfeatures tangible remnants of every era of this road's history and its predecessors, the Beale Wagon Road and the National Old Trails Highway. Here you will also find icons of the modern era of resurgent interest.
GHOSTS OF THE PAINTED DESERT
R
OUTE 66 FROM THE
N
EW
M
EXICO
state line to Flagstaff is a broken ribbon of asphalt through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the Southwest. This is the land of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, of Canyon Diablo and Meteor Crater.
The ghost towns and empty trading posts dot the old roadside as it winds through the colorful sands and through the shadows of looming buttes.
Lupton, located just inside the state line, had a population of thirty-three in 1946 and was the location for the state point of entry inspection station. The post office was established here in 1917, and Jack Rittenhouse notes in 1946 that the town consisted of “gas stations; store; no other facilities.”
This “gas station” and “store” were part of the Indian Trail Trading Post established by Max and Amelia Ortega. In 1965, the completion of Interstate 40 to Lupton resulted in the razing of the facility, and today the site is an access road to a rest stop.
Allantown, the next town to the west, never really became a town and, in 1946, consisted solely of Stafford's Café. The café also served as a gas station, grocery store, and gift shop. Rittenhouse notes that, from Allantown, “the trees become more sparse, and you begin to enter a stretch of over 125 miles of almost barren country.” This “barren country” is a stark but multi-hued plain dotted with colorful spires of stone and ridges of stone that appear in the red-tinged soil as the bleached bones of the earth itself, where high winds, especially in the months of winter, often result in the closure of Interstate 40.
Lupton may never have been much more than a wide spot in the road, but there was a time when the steady hum of traffic past town never quieted.
Joe Sonderman collection
Early tourists expected the Wild West when they reached the Arizona border, and the proprietors of the trading post in Houck did not disappoint them.
Joe Sonderman collection
Houck is the oldest of these forlorn outposts of civilization, dating to the construction of a trading post by James D. Houck in 1877. The first incarnation of modernity was the establishment of Houcks Tank post office in December 1884, three years after the railroad established a siding and section house at the site.
In 1895, an application for the renaming of the post office as “Houcks” was submitted, and it was under this name that it remained open until 1930. The Navajos lounging around the trading post drinking soda pop fascinated Jack Rittenhouse on his 1946 visit.
The Log Cabin Trading Post capitalized on its territorial origins to give travelers on the National Old Trails Highway and Route 66 a taste of the Old West.
Joe Sonderman collection
Today, all three communities are known for their collection of vintage tourist traps rather than their frontier-era origins. Counted among the most famous of these “trading posts” are Ortega's, Fort Courage, and the Chief Yellowhorse.
Sanders was, and is, the first town of any size in Arizona for travelers headed west on Route 66. Rittenhouse notes it had a population of eighty-eight in 1946, serviced by the Tipton Brothers Trading Post and two gas stations.
Surprisingly, this dusty little oasis houses a number of fascinating Route 66 survivors that are often missed by modern visitors. These include the bridge over the Rio Puerco River, constructed in 1923 east of town, and the classic Valentine Diner in the “business district.”
The little diner, relocated from Holbrook and ingenuously mated with a house trailer, is truly one of a kind. Even on Route 66, where ingenuity reigns supreme, this café is unique.
Travel notes from a 1921 tour guide describe Sanders as follows: “On the main A. T. & S. F. R. R. about 20 miles west of New Mexico line. First called Sanders, for C.W. Sanders, office engineer, A.T. & S. F. R. R. Changed to Cheto because of another Sanders station on Santa Fe.” This did not keep Art Sanders, owner of the trading post, from claiming he was the town's namesake.