Free Ghost Towns of Route 66 by Jim Hinckley

towns—features tangible remnants of every era of this road’s history and its predecessors, the Beale Wagon Road and the National Old Trails Highway. Here you will also find icons of the modern era of resurgent interest.
    GHOSTS OF THE PAINTED DESERT
    R OUTE 66 FROM THE N EW M EXICO state line to Flagstaff is a broken ribbon of asphalt through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the Southwest. This is the land of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, of Canyon Diablo and Meteor Crater.
    The ghost towns and empty trading posts dot the old roadside as it winds through the colorful sands and through the shadows of looming buttes.
    Lupton, located just inside the state line, had a population of thirty-three in 1946 and was the location for the state point of entry inspection station. The post office was established here in 1917, and Jack Rittenhouse notes in 1946 that the town consisted of “gas stations; store; no other facilities.”
    This “gas station” and “store” were part of the Indian Trail Trading Post established by Max and Amelia Ortega. In 1965, the completion of Interstate 40 to Lupton resulted in the razing of the facility, and today the site is an access road to a rest stop.
    Allantown, the next town to the west, never really became a town and, in 1946, consisted solely of Stafford’s Café. The café also served as a gas station, grocery store, and gift shop. Rittenhouse notes that, from Allantown, “the trees become more sparse, and you begin to enter a stretch of over 125 miles of almost barren country.” This “barren country” is a stark but multi-hued plain dotted with colorful spires of stone and ridges of stone that appear in the red-tinged soil as the bleached bones of the earth itself, where high winds, especially in the months of winter, often result in the closure of Interstate 40.

    Lupton may never have been much more than a wide spot in the road, but there was a time when the steady hum of traffic past town never quieted.
Joe Sonderman collection

    Early tourists expected the Wild West when they reached the Arizona border, and the proprietors of the trading post in Houck did not disappoint them.
Joe Sonderman collection
    Houck is the oldest of these forlorn outposts of civilization, dating to the construction of a trading post by James D. Houck in 1877. The first incarnation of modernity was the establishment of Houcks Tank post office in December 1884, three years after the railroad established a siding and section house at the site.
    In 1895, an application for the renaming of the post office as “Houcks” was submitted, and it was under this name that it remained open until 1930. The Navajos lounging around the trading post drinking soda pop fascinated Jack Rittenhouse on his 1946 visit.

    The Log Cabin Trading Post capitalized on its territorial origins to give travelers on the National Old Trails Highway and Route 66 a taste of the Old West.
Joe Sonderman collection
    Today, all three communities are known for their collection of vintage tourist traps rather than their frontier-era origins. Counted among the most famous of these “trading posts” are Ortega’s, Fort Courage, and the Chief Yellowhorse.
    Sanders was, and is, the first town of any size in Arizona for travelers headed west on Route 66. Rittenhouse notes it had a population of eighty-eight in 1946, serviced by the Tipton Brothers Trading Post and two gas stations.
    Surprisingly, this dusty little oasis houses a number of fascinating Route 66 survivors that are often missed by modern visitors. These include the bridge over the Rio Puerco River, constructed in 1923 east of town, and the classic Valentine Diner in the “business district.”
    The little diner, relocated from Holbrook and ingenuously mated with a house trailer, is truly one of a kind. Even on Route 66, where ingenuity reigns supreme, this café is unique.
    Travel notes