A collector purchased and removed the 1950s-era neon sign at the Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and the RV park and former motel there soon may be bought out by a national auto-parts chain.
Workers and a truck from SignArt in Albuquerque dismantled and removed the sign Thursday from the property. Johnnie Meier, former president of the New Mexico Route 66 Association, said an Albuquerque collector plans to give the sign for a neon-sign park in that city.
The New Mexico Route 66 Museum in Tucumcari made a cash offer for the sign, but was outbid by more than tenfold. The sign was restored with the help of a grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program in 2005.
It’s the second Route 66 neon sign to disappear from Tucumcari in less than a year. In February, a collector from Wisconsin bought and removed the sign from the long-closed Paradise Motel after the second suspicious fire in less than six months damaged the property.
Andy and Sue Patel, owners of the Cactus property for almost 40 years, said they are negotiating with O’Reilly Auto Parts, based in Springfield, Missouri, on a buyout of the RV park itself and its adjoining but long-closed motel buildings. The Patels want to retire.
The Cactus Motor Lodge was built during the late 1930s to early 1940s. According to a Wikipedia article about it:
The motel included three wings of units forming a “U” shape and an office, the latter of which was a dance hall when the motel opened. In 1952, Norm Wegner purchased the motel; Wegner added an artificial stone exterior to the buildings and converted the dance hall to an office. After Route 66 was decommissioned, the motel lost much of its business, and by the 1990s it became an RV park; the motel units are currently unused.
The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also is one of the few surviving properties in Tucumcari that were in the Negro Motorist Green Book that was published from the 1930s to the 1960s to help black travelers find accommodations.
At least one person has organized a campaign for O’Reilly Auto Parts to “put the brakes” on the project. O’Reilly in 2006 also bought out the Lewis Motel along Route 66 in Vinita, Oklahoma, and razed it for one of its stores.
(Image of the sign at the Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari, New Mexico, by Granger Meador via Flickr)
I just think it’s funny how O’Reilly’s own Twitter page is begging people to share pictures of their “project cars,” which is the classic-car-owner term for “historic preservation on wheels,” but when it comes to protecting stationary artifacts from the same period in history, the company falls all over itself to fire up the bulldozers. You’d think a company based on Route 66 and attempting to market itself to classic-car enthusiasts — who tend to be Route 66 supporters — would be reluctant to keep launching gratuitous attacks on historic properties along the old road, but I guess since they got away with it once, they’re assuming they can do it again.
Particularly galling: There are at least a half-dozen properties along Route 66 here in Tucumcari that would make equally suitable, if not superior, locations for an auto-parts store, but O’Reilly would rather tear down the Cactus than put its new store in one of those locations. There are THREE perfectly viable options at the intersection of 54 and 66: the now-empty Kmart, the former Rockin’ Y’s site, and the lot that once housed the Pony Soldier. If none of those are suitable, they could also look into the long-empty Hardee’s at 209 and 66, the former Alco on the west side of town, or the Taaj Inn and Suites property rendered vacant by those jackass firebugs a few years ago. If this were the only available property in town, I might understand why O’Reilly wants it, but it’s not. Why destroy a Negro Motorist Green Book property when you don’t have to? Why tear down something that historic? I just don’t understand the motivation.
Obviously this is a disappointment. I won’t claim it’s “for the best,” but I wonder what other future the place might have had. The motel itself hasn’t been used in decades, is in rough shape, and wasn’t very likely to be restored. Maybe one or more of the motel units could be dismantled by volunteers and saved for display somewhere; that might be the best remaining option. Sadly, there almost certainly will be other casualties. The Relax Inn (former Circle S Motel) has been abandoned for years; the Apache is boarded up; the Paradise is burned out. I hate to see these roadside relics go by the wayside, but times change (and I’m no better with these changes than anyone else). Once these places outlive their commercial purpose, it becomes harder and harder to save them. Let’s be sure to celebrate the Blue Swallow, Safari, and other survivors, and enjoy them while we still have them.
This is very sad. I am from Tucumcari and watching the unique history of the town be picked and sold to the highest bidder is awful to watch. The town is in financially strapped and that makes things really tough. Apparently the Cactus is in a very poor state of disrepair and it will take a lot of funding to save it from the ruins. Agreed, there are a lot of properties around the town that are in the same or even worse shape, I don’t understand (other than easy opportunity for sale?) why this is such a deal for O’Reilly. I hate to watch the town’s pieces of history that are valuable (such as the signs) being cherry picked and taken out and all is left to ruin. Funding and local protection of these sites is what it takes, but both go hand and hand but is this possible for the Cactus or any others?
I was lucky to have traveled the 66 last summer. We stayed at the Blue Swallow and liked it very much. Same for the town. Even when the sign is shown elsewhere, it is no longer in the place, where it was meant to be. Another example of “there today, gone tomorrow”.
Fred from the Netherlands
Instead of getting on the internet whining about what may happen, why haven’t any of you who live in the area POLITELY contacted O’Reilly Automotive Corporate and professionally expressed your concerns? Emily, I am especially surprised at you. You led the campaign against Walgreen’s tearing down the Boots years back.. Yes, Springfield, Missouri just had an issue with Kum & Go convenience stores. But you know, calm, rational, polite contact greatly changed things. What is going to transpire is not a 100% win for 66 or Kum & Go. But what it is, is the best compromise that could have been hoped for. And almost always a compromise is better than a 100% loss.
Yes, I live where O’Reilly is headquartered and I guess I could contact them. But the Cactus does not mean to me what it does to those of you who live out there. The call for a halt or a change or a modification of plans has to come from the residents for it to have meaning and life. Start the ball rolling Tucumcari residents. There are those that will support you if you get something started but it has to start with you first.