c. 1960
At the far eastern edge of the Texas Panhandle, about 15 miles from the Oklahoma border, sits the town of Shamrock. The earliest white settlers in the area were mostly buffalo hunters bent on eradicating the vast herds with the blessing of the U.S. government. Because hunters draped bison hides over their makeshift homes, the area initially became known as Hidetown.
The postal service awarded Shamrock a post office in 1880. George Nickel, an Irish immigrant, was its first postmaster and named the region for his homeland. The railroads arrived in 1902 and formally brought civilization to Shamrock.
Early U.S. Highway 66 through the Texas Panhandle comprised mostly primitive dirt roads that twisted and turned through desert prairies. Conditions were so bad that the 90-mile trip from Shamrock to Amarillo in good weather was expected to take about two full days.
By the mid-1930s, Route 66 ran down Twelfth Street on the north side of town, and Shamrock began to grow like wildfire. In the later part of the decade, service stations, cafés, and auto courts sprang up everywhere along the strip, and in 1937 thousands attended a parade to celebrate the paving of Highway 66 through town. By the late 1960s, however, construction of the new interstate was progressing, and in 1972 the town of Shamrock was cut off by the new I-40.
Neon lights from the dozens of cafés, service stations, and auto courts once lit the evening skies and could be seen from as far as twenty miles away. Today, the “Little Las Vegas” strip is just a fading memory, and only a handful of businesses remain. Much of the neon and glitz along this stretch of highway has quietly faded into the emptiness of the Texas desert landscape.
c. 1958
Groom is located 42 miles east of Amarillo. It was named for the first general manager of the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, B. B. Groom, and laid out in 1902 on the route of the Rock Island Railway. The 1920s brought an oil boom to the area, which, coupled with the new Highway 66, increased the town’s population to 564 residents by 1931.
As oil production faded, agriculture and the tourist trade became the mainstays of the local economy. The Golden Spread Grill opened in 1957 and was one of four restaurants enjoying successful business in town. Soon after it opened, Ruby Denton took over the business and made the Golden Spread Grill a very popular eatery for travelers as well as locals. The back of the advertising postcard reads, “Always stop at the Golden Spread and be among the best fed.” People did stop, and the restaurant’s popularity grew.
Business boomed until one day in June 1980, when Interstate 40 bypassed Groom and crushed many of the town’s roadside businesses. Today the structure that was once the Golden Spread Grill still stands and continues to serve travelers as the Route 66 Steakhouse.
c. 1955
By 1927 Amarillo was well on its way to becoming a popular tourist town. Motorists flocked into town via Highways 66, 60, 87, and 287—four major arteries that provided local roadside tourist stops with all the business they could handle. So great was the influx of visitors from the burgeoning auto/tourist trade that as many as 29 Amarillo auto courts and camps competed for the tourist dollar in 1927.
The Arrow Courts, later known as the Arrow Motel, were located on the western edge of greater Amarillo and were actually considered to be outside of the city limits. It was a good place to stop if you were traveling west and wanted to miss the city’s morning traffic or the hustle and bustle of Amarillo’s “Motel Row,” located on the east side on Eighth Street. The Arrow’s guest rooms were located in two buildings, one with four units and one with eight. An island courtyard filled with plants and trees lay parallel to the eight-unit building, forming a driveway with parking in front of each room. An office building located at the front of the property doubled as a gas station but provided no garage service. A café/restaurant unaffiliated with the motel was conveniently situated just west of the office. The Arrow Motel provided guests with panel-ray heat, carpeted floors, and tile baths. Owners and operators Mr. and Mrs. O. E. Allen (circa 1955) proclaimed the Arrow Motel to be “a clean, quiet place for a good night’s rest.”
In 1968 Interstate 40 bypassed the city and relegated Route 66 to I-40 business-loop status. In 1985, Highway 66 was decertified and left for dead. The Arrow Courts property is currently a private residence.
c. 1959
The small town of Vega, Texas, sits quietly along old Highway 66 about 30 miles west of Amarillo. Vega, Spanish for “grassy meadow,” had its beginnings in 1897 when the state of Texas opened up the land in the area for homesteading. On October 17, 1899, early settler N. J. Whitfield purchased what would become the town site for $1 an acre. In May 1903 A. Miller and Howard Trigg surveyed the area, and Miller opened the first general store in Vega later that year. The following year a post office, saloon, and school were built, solidifying the fledgling community. A bank was established in 1908, and in 1909 the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad (later the Rock Island) was completed, bolstering the town’s economy. By 1915 Vega’s population grew to 223.
Prior to 1926 the Old Ozark Trail carried the first automobile traffic through town. When Highway 66 was commissioned in 1926, the new highway followed along the original dirt pathway of the Ozark Trail through Vega. As automobile travel grew in popularity, tourist courts, service stations, and cafés were built all along the town’s main street. By 1937 the highway was paved and realigned through town.
Vega was one of the last towns in Texas to see the Interstate 40 bypass, but by the late 1970s the inevitable was completed. Many early buildings still stand on both alignments of Route 66 through town, including the Magnolia Station, which dates to the early 1920s. The Vega Motel, an original tourist court, is also still in operation (see the first Route 66 Lost & Found).
c. 1926
The Magnolia Station was built in 1924 by “Colonel” J. T. Owen on a lot he purchased in 1923, when the primitive dirt highway in front of it was known as the Ozark Trail. The Magnolia Station was the second service station built in Vega during the 1920s. By the time Highway 66 came through town, Edward and Cora Wilson had leased the Magnolia from Owen. The Wilsons lived above the station until 1930, when the Magnolia was leased to E. B. Cooke, who operated it for a short time before A. B. Landrum took over the lease in 1931.
In 1933 Owen’s son Austin took over day-to-day operations at the station. He entered into a lease with the Phillips Petroleum Company, which charged him one cent per gallon of gasoline sold. The highway directly in front of the Magnolia remained a dirt road during the time it served as Highway 66. By 1937 Route 66 was paved and realigned through Vega just south of the station, bypassing the downtown area. The Magnolia Station continued to provide gasoline until it shut down its pumps and ceased operation in 1953. The station was then used as a barbershop until 1965. It remained empty until the town of Vega and the Oldham County Chamber of Commerce restored it with partial funding from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.
TEXAS LONGHORN MOTEL, CAFÉ AND SERVICE STATION, GLENRIO
c. 1950
Scared away in 1946 by talk of a new interstate that was being built through Glenrio, local businessman Homer Ehresman and family packed their bags and moved to Plainview, Texas. As 1950 came around, this new interstate seemed to be stuck on the drawing table, so Ehresman, with family in tow, returned to Glenrio and built the Texas Longhorn Motel, Café and Service Station on the Texas side of town. The business ran smoothly until the Rock Island Railroad closed its depot in 1955, handing Glenrio a sharp economic blow.
But the knockout punch was still many years to come. Ehresman’s business struggled for a period, but tourist traffic eventually flourished and the business grew. The Longhorn’s iconic “First/Last Stop In Texas” sign grew from a simply painted board to a giant illuminated billboard beckoning travelers to stop for a bite and spend the night. This enterprise remained highly successful for Ehresman until the dawn of the 1970s. The interstate that had been staved off for decades now spelled economic doom for Glenrio and its businesses. The enterprising Ehresman, down but not out, built a new, modern motel and restaurant just 5 miles west of Glenrio, on the north side of the interstate’s Endee exit.
It is a bit ironic that the last few guests of Ehresman’s Texas Longhorn Motel were the construction workers building his new motel. The First/Last Stop In Texas complex closed for good by 1975, and the “new” motel now lies in ruins. Glenrio, now a legitimate ghost town, sits quiet and alone. Route 66, its main street, once hectic and alive, has transformed into a tumbleweed highway with only a casual stray dog to interrupt the monotony. The towering, beaconlike sign, once brightly lit and beckoning travelers, slowly disintegrates with each passing year.
