Book review: “Route 66 in New Mexico”

Joe Sonderman is primarily known for two things — as a radio announcer in the St. Louis area, and as a huge collector of Route 66 postcards.

But while reading his latest book, “Route 66 in New Mexico” (soft cover, 128 pages, Arcadia Publishing, $21.99), it occurred to me that Sonderman may have met his best calling — history writer. This is his fourth volume for Arcadia (three of them about Route 66), and an Amazon.com search reveals at least three other history-minded books. And he’s very good at it.

This book begins with a two-page summary of Route 66’s history in New Mexico. Despite its brevity, it’s packed with nuggets that likely will educate even the most veteran roadie. For instance, only 28 miles of the Mother Road’s 506 miles in New Mexico were paved in 1926. Also, one in five traffic fatalities in New Mexico from 1953 to 1958 occurred on U.S. 66.

But “Route 66 in New Mexico” shines when Sonderman combines his well-researched text with his enormous collection of old postcards and vintage photos. Each page contains at least one photo, often two. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for text on the history of a restaurant, motel or landmark, but Sonderman manages.

Here are a few facts from “Route 66 in New Mexico” that many roadies probably won’t know:

• Endee, west of Glenrio, boasted 187 people in 1950. Sixty years later, almost nothing but a roadside privy is left of the settlement.
• One of the Blue Swallow Motel‘s owners in the 1940s died in a plane crash. Floyd Redman took over the Tucumcari motel and later gave it to his wife Lillian Redman. She owned it for the next 40-plus years.
• Harry Harrison, owner of Harry’s Cafe in Tucumcari, gained national fame by being portrayed in a 1948 hit song by Dorothy Slay titled “Two Gun Harry of Tucumcari.”
• A scene from the Oscar-winning “Grapes of Wrath” was filmed on the Pecos River Bridge in Santa Rosa.
• Elephant Rock, a natural landmark near Albuquerque, was bulldozed into a gully during road construction in the 1970s.
• A scene from the Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men” was shot at the Desert Sands Motel in Albuquerque. The motel’s Room 109 also reportedly is haunted.
• A giant kachina doll once stood near Gallup.

The images that Sonderman used are always fascinating and sometimes amazing. One striking photo of Arrowhead Camp near Glorieta in 1929 shows what looks like Model T parked next to a tiny log cabin. The image is reminiscent of John’s Modern Cabins near Arlington, Mo. Back then, this was considered good lodging at 50 cents a night.

Amazing sights seemed to lurk around the next bend. In the 1940s, neon lighting and art deco architecture were everywhere, including gas stations. In the Land of Enchantment, you might see a restaurant shaped like a sombrero, a gigantic covered wagon near a souvenir shop, or an iceberg-shaped custard stand.

And places were given such colorful names as the Honey Dew Drive Inn and the Nod-A-While Motor Lodge — sometimes, as in this case, in the same block.

A significant number of these businesses and landmarks have been lost to time or redevelopment. But such sadness is tempered by the joy and wonderment of the past that this book brings. Land of Enchantment, indeed.

Highly recommended.