The longtime owners of the Milagro gas station west of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, will retire by the end of August. The future of the Route 66 landmark remains unknown.
Last week’s print edition of the Guadalupe County Communicator reported Rudy and Doris Marquez will turn in the keys to the station after 24 years because of health issues and so they can travel.
The newspaper said:
The fate of the landmark gas station is up in the area, with the site’s owner Honstein Oil & Distributing, LLC, advertising for someone new to lease the gas station business.
This week, the outgoing proprietors were hoping to sell the last few gallons of (premium only) fuel in the tanks and the remaining items from the half-empty shelves inside the store. […]
In about two weeks, Rudy and Doris Marquez will be locking the doors for the last time, meaning at least a temporary pause for a gas stop that’s been operating since the 1950s heyday of Route 66. There’s no telling when the station might reopen.
The station proved to be an oasis because of its remote location and its huge “Milagro” sign.
The Marquezes acknowledged a grind of being open 10 to 12 hours a day six to seven days a week. Plus they dealt with oddballs, wrecks and snowstorm-stranded travelers on nearby Interstate 40. Doris said she even recognized two men identified as being among the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But they said they got a lift from local customers and Route 66 tourists from all over the world, including India, Brazil, Iran, Canada, Switzerland and other countries.
Visitors included celebrity sightings: the Oak Ridge Boys, actor Robert Redford, boxer Roberto Duran, and former presidential candidate and current Secretary of State John Kerry.
The small settlement of Milagro sits a few miles south of the Milagro gas station. Some movie fans think it’s the setting for the Redford-directed film “The Milagro Beanfield War.” But Redford shot the movie about 100 miles north in Truchas, near Santa Fe. The Milagro portrayed in the film also was fictional.
(Image of a 1968 Oldsmobile convertible in front of the Milagro gas station sign in 2008 by Peter Barwick via Flickr)