NEW MEXICO ROUTE 66 ASSOCIATION

Eating Dust: Walkers, Runners, and Others on Foot along Highway 66 (Part 1)

5/15/2024

By T. Lindsay Baker
Most people familiar with the Mother Road may have read about the 1928 Bunion Derby, a footrace across America that followed newly designated U.S. Highway 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago. The competition featuring 199 male athletes from several countries received widespread publicity, caught the imagination of many Americans, and served an important role in making the new cross-country route widely known. These runners, however, were only some of the people who over the decades sought to follow at least part of the roadway under their own power.
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Eating Dust: Walkers, Runners, and Others on Foot along Highway 66 (Part 2)

5/15/2024

By T. Lindsay Baker
Old Highway 66 experienced a revival starting in the 1990s. Books like Susan Croce Kelly and Quinta Scott’s Route 66: The Highway and Its People in 1990 and Michael Wallis’s Route 66: The Mother Road in 1990 encouraged increasing numbers of people to seek their own Route 66 experiences. From walkers being considered as eccentric exceptions to the rule, it became increasingly common for motorists to observe occasional walkers who intentionally eschewed automobiles for shoe leather.
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Route 66: The Neon Road—The 2003 Neon Restoration Story

11/15/2023

There are nine new reasons to rediscover Route 66 in New Mexico. In 2003, nine vintage Route 66 neon signs have been restored to their former brilliance. From the wonderful TeePee Curio Shop sign in Tucumcari, to the wild and crazy neon Rotosphere in Moriarty, to the elegant Lexington Hotel sign in Gallup, the beauty and artistry of classic neon is once again dazzling and delighting Route 66 enthusiasts.
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The Deceptively Dangerous Road from Tucumcari to Glenrio, New Mexico

9/28/2023

By T. Lindsay Baker
When the U.S. Bureau of Roads in 1926 designated Route 66 connecting Chicago with Los Angeles, its path followed existing roadways. In the Midwest, some of these were long-standing thoroughfares that received county and state maintenance for years, but farther west this was not necessarily the case.
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It’s Show Time

9/20/2023

By Nick Gerlich
If there is one structure in America's cities that captures the ethos of the community, the culture, the social aspect, it is the theatre. Forget about the suburban cineplexes that started dominating the landscape in the 1970s. No, it was those glorious one-screen monoliths that were the anchors and cornerstones of the downtown district.

They were where people went to see and be seen, to consume the latest in entertainment, to wear their fanciest, and participate in life apart from work and drudgery. Theaters were simultaneously escape and fantasy as much as healthy release from the tedium of everyday life. Their glorious marquees, with neon tubes buzzing and bulbs by the score burning brightly enough to burn a few retinas, were testament to the good taste of a community.

And Route 66 across New Mexico is no exception. We’re about to take a journey across New Mexico’s 66, theatre to theatre.
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The Amazing Surrealific Phantasmagoric ROTO-SPHERE!

3/15/2023

By Johnnie America
“In this day of spaceships, flying saucers, and sputniks, a new series of developments have come to the electrical sign and display industry.” So begins the advertising brochure for a truly wild roadside spectacle created by Warren Milks at his Bossier City, Louisiana, sign shop.

“The buying public has had their sign appetite jaded by the numerous electrically lighted signs and displays on the world's busy highways—and the competition for the traveling public's eye is terrific,” Milks‘ promotional brochure explains.

Yup, all the gigantic fantastic flashing neon signs are not enough! Jaded travelers need more eye candy! The jaded roadie wants a close encounter with some spiky alien creation! Warren Milks ventured into the void, to boldly go where no man has gone before. He dreamt it and built it, the psychedelic mind-bending extravagantua—it exists—it lives—stand back and behold the phantasmagoric surrealific ROTO-SPHERE!
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A Galaxy of Neon

1/4/2023

By Johnnie America
“Looking west on Central Avenue from the Santa Fe Railroad overpass, Albuquerque is reputed to have the most brightly lighted main street in America. This galaxy of neon makes it an easily believed fact.”

That is the caption on the reverse side of a postcard showing a nighttime view of downtown Albuquerque. A galaxy of neon! Yes, Albuquerque was a neon oasis with hundreds of neon signs beckoning tourists and locals. Motels, cafes, curio shops, gas stations, movie theaters, retail stores, bars, and even banks announced their presence with neon. David Kammer, in his report, “The Historical and Architectural Resources of Route 66 Through New Mexico,” cites the fact that in 1955, 98 motels lined Route 66 in Albuquerque. Well, then, it is very likely each motel had a neon sign.
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It was in the Postcards

12/23/2022

By Gary Herron
I’m a project guy, a hobby kind of guy.

I’m basically a baseball hobbyist with a few other pursuits: Groucho Marx, the Old West, and railroads and my “newest” pursuit: collecting postcards of Albuquerque motels that once lined Route 66—basically Central Avenue and a few on Fourth Street NW—and arranging them in a binder matching what travelers would have seen entering the Duke City from the east and proceeding west.

Combing research with searches on eBay and via postcard sellers, I have managed to find about 70 one-time address of motels along Central Avenue, plus a handful still on North Fourth that also beckoned overnighters.
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Retro Cool — Chillin’ at the Iceberg Cafe!

12/18/2019

By Johnnie Meier
On May 28, 1931, at 3017 East Central in Albuquer-que, something very cool happened. An iceberg appeared! How could this happen? Was the iceberg transported by aliens to Albuquerque through a mysterious transtemporal vortex?

Well, there was an alien, a long lanky Kansan, named C.E. McAdams who claimed responsibility for bringing the Iceberg to Albuquerque, although it was unclear how he was motivated. It is interesting that in the opening day ad in the Albuquerque Journal it was stated that he would be serving frozen custard in "sanitary vortex cups." Aha!
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