Jen: Route 66 Kicks-Tucumcari

Anyway, back on my route, I found just a short distance beyond the summit of Nine Mile Hill, the Rio Puerco in the Rio Puerco Valley at 1,391 miles past Go. That waterway is a tributary of the Rio Grande and the site of an historic road bridge over Route 66. It's no longer open to traffic as a conservation measure. Bridges of this type, known as a "Parker Truss" design, are dwindling in numbers though not yet rare.

I took long distance shots for overall perspective and then walked over to take close up photos of the historic bridge. Such bridges were built by a number of contractors from the late 19th century onwards, and were sometimes supplied from a catalog as a prefabricated kit. Such was not the case with this bridge.

Other Parker Trusses can be seen as widespread as Wisconsin and Mississippi, but this one, built in 1933 and remodeled in 1957, is the longest single span example in New Mexico. It measures 250 feet and is constructed from ten twenty-five foot panels.

Back on the road again, I drove through New Laguna and Paraje, both by then little more than ink dots on a blotter. They do have histories, but obscure ones. One exception I stopped to photograph was the famous Church of St. Joseph in Old Laguna close by to New Laguna. The church was built by Franciscan Friars from stone and adobe in 1705 and was still in regular use.

Pointing Mess Swifty down the road again, I drove the short distance to famous Budville at 1,427 miles past Go. This settlement was name for Bud Rice whose father founded a highly successful service station and towing service there in 1928 on an otherwise quite desolate stretch of road--desolate as in "out in the middle of nowhere". Across the road is the old King's Cafe and Bar. A couple of pictures and I was on my way again.

A few miles further down the road brought me to Vila de Cubero at 1,429 miles past Go. See how close some of the little towns and hamlets were along Route 66?Just as the planners intended. Cubero, named for an old Spanish governor, was only organized in 1937, but, like those everywhere else along the "Mother Road", the town's tourist courts were popular for Route 66 travelers.

Those travel courts in Cubero were so popular that Ernest Hemingway stayed there during the time he wrote Old Man and the Sea. Also Lucille Ball stayed in those courts after leaving her husband, Desi Arnez. Who'd of thought that, out in the middle of the wilds of New Mexico!

Another fourteen miles down the road through the New Mexico desert brought me to San Fidel. Mostly. Fidel is know now simply for the number of its declining or abandoned cafes and gas stations. Two miles further brought me to McCartys, New Mexico. For many years, one of the famous Whiting Brothers gas station, motel, and restaurant complexes graced the little burg. Those station complexes, which were run by four famous brothers, once consisted of forty-four franchises stretching from Shamrock, Texas to Barstow, California. The Spanish Colonial style church in McCartys, dating from 1933, still operates.

Again, all these little hamlets were either ghost towns when I went through or would be in the very near future as I-40 replaced old Route 66 a decade or decade and a half later.

At 1,446 miles past Go, I drove into Grants, New Mexico. There, Route 66 runs through the heart of the lava beds known as Malpais which is Spanish for "Badlands". or "Evil Country". Those great floes of hardened lava range from fifty to two-hundred feet wide and forty or more feet high. They are recent--only one or two-thousand years old. The lava is punctuated by "ice caves" whose interiors, insulated by the lava, remain perpetually below the freezing point--even when the outside temperatures climb to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

One other tidbit about Grants comes to mind. In 1950, a local rancher by the name of Paddy Martinez, found an odd yellow rock in the nearby Haystack Mountain ten miles west of town. It turned out to be uranium and that brought the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in to begin mining the ore that fueled the cold war weapons of the fifties and sixties. The find also fueled a "Uranium Rush" as locals bought geiger counters and took off for the hills to prospect.

The area uranium reserves turned out to be one of the largest in the world and the population of Grants boomed from some twelve hundred people to nearly twelve thousand. Though losing some of its population when the mines closed, Grants had a diversified economy, so it continued to thrive and eventually settle down to around nine thousand in population.

For the Route 66 enthusiast, several icons still remain including the Lariat Lodge, Grants Cafe from 1937, the Sands Motel, Lavaland Motel, the now closed Lux Theater, and others.

The roadway led further west through Milan, Bluewater, Prewitt, and Thoreau on the way to Gallup and the Continental Divide, Yes, Thoreau was named for the famous writer although he had nothing to do or no direct connection with the town. The Continental Divide is roughly five miles West of town at 7, 275 feet above sea level. Many tourists like to use the pull over there and have their pictures taken beside the marker sign. The name, Continental Divide, comes from the fact that the line is the north/south running line of the highest point of the mountains that separates the westward flowing rivers from the eastward flowing ones.

I had to make a side trip of a few miles to see the historic Fort Wingate Military Reservation. The fort was originally established as a trading post in 1860. A full fledged fort was established was added in 1862. Soldiers were garrisoned there during the Civil War. After the war, the fort functioned in the capacity of military surveys, escort functions, and patrols against raiding Indians. Among the soldiers associated with the fort were such as: Christopher "Kit" Carson, John "Black Jack" Pershing, Douglas MacArthur (he was born there), and several Navajo Code Talkers who served in the Pacific during WW II.

The fort was still operating in my time, 1963, but was involved as a rocket launching testing site. The original trading post was sold to a private individual and was also still operating in 1963. The town of Fort Wingate grew up around the fort and trading post.

Thirty-one miles further on, at 1,508 miles past Go, I finally reached Gallup, New Mexico.

Gallup is one of the oldest towns in the United States, tracing its history back to 2,500 BC with the settlement of the Anasazi. White men began to populate the area in 1880 when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad began to push its way westward. The railroad paymaster, one David Gallup, established a small company headquarters along the projected railroad right-of-way. Rail workers soon began "going to Gallup" to collect their pay.

The small headquarters was formally named Gallup after the paymaster in 1881 when the railroad actually came through town. Gallup was incorporated as a town ten years later and a local government was set up. In 1901 the community became the county seat of McKinley County.

In the early days, Gallup was a typical, western frontier town--albeit somewhat more quiet than most. The town had its share of saloons, false store fronts, wooden sidewalks, and a single road paralleling the railroad tracks. There were occasional, minor Indian uprisings, but the soldiers of nearby Fort Wingate were able to discourage any major attacks. Most of the citizens carried side arms in a hip holster or stuck in the waistband of their pants until a law in 1896 limited that practice.

Route 66 came through town in its opening year of 1926. The highway brought with it the usual growth of service industries to fill the needs of travelers, but the most prevalent businesses were the dozens of Indian Trading Posts that sprang up displaying Native American arts and crafts.

December 17, 1937 saw the birth of a Gallup icon, the El Rancho Hotel. That establishment was built by the brother of the movie magnet and director, D. W.. Griffith. The hotel quickly became the temporary home for many Hollywood stars as well as a stopping point for tourists. During its heyday, the hotel hosted Ronald Reagan, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Kirk Douglas, among many, many others. Errol Flynn is said to have ridden his horse into the bar while he was in residence there.

I decided to stay the night in the El Rancho as it had been a very long day and a very long drive. In fact, it was during breakfast the next morning that I did most of this history review of the area. The night before, I got in my room, stripped, and dropped in bed to sleep the night through.

Gallup is the last major urban center on Route 66 in New Mexico. The remaining twenty-five odd miles of New Mexico Route 66 road lead west through Allison, Mentmore, and Manuelito before crossing the state line into Arizona. After my morning breakfast, I got Miss Swifty fueled and pointed her down that road once more. My mind was already drifiting with the fact that it'd been quite some time since I'd had any quality sex.

Go, Swifty, go!

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Finis

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