Main Street mystery

Did Route 66 once run through Tucumcari's Main Street? It's a question a television producer aims to answer in the coming weeks that could have long-term implications for tourism and grant funding for downtown's historic buildings.

Mike Lee, producer and creator of the Fast TV Network, said while making a funding pitch at a May meeting of a city Lodgers Tax Board meeting it was his belief Main Street once carried Route 66 and vowed to prove it with an upcoming episode of his channel's "Legends of Route 66" series.

The city commission, apparently swayed by the upcoming episode's tourism possibilities, approved $11,250 in funding for Lee's project.

Lee said during a telephone interview he'll shoot footage in Tucumcari for the episode this month and begin streaming it on the FastTVNetwork.com website in August.

Lee said he first learned of the possibility of Main Street being an early alignment of Route 66 while talking to residents and Route 66 aficionados.

"It started to become clear to me there was a possibility that was the case," he said. "I started looking into it deeper and found some evidence to prove it. It's going to take some work, but we believe that very well may be the case. We're deep into the research stage at the moment."

Connie Loveland, executive director or Tucumcari MainStreet, said the implications are sizable if the link between Route 66 and Main Street can be proven.

"There are people that seek out those alignments and like to go look for the history," she said. "It definitely will increase the traffic down here with the Route 66 crowd. It definitely will open up opportunities for grants we wouldn't normally have."

Loveland noted the Ozark Trail, a cross-country highway that predates the numbered highways that were federally commissioned starting in the late 1920s, went down Main Street and might've turned south onto Second Street to Gaynell Avenue, now Tucumcari Boulevard (aka Route 66). Other instances of early Route 66 piggybacked onto stretches of the Ozark Trail.

That Main-Second streets path would put the Odeon Theatre and other downtown buildings on a possible Route 66 alignment, thus making them eligible for several historic preservation grants.

Lee acknowledged the Ozark Trail is one of several factors in whether Main Street was Route 66 in Tucumcari.

"Many people don't realize that Route 66 was not this highly planned-out road that ran from Illinois to Santa Monica," he said. "It used other roads and labeled them as Route 66, and along the way they began to changing (the path) for whatever the needs were for that community. And we don't believe Tucumcari is any different."

Documentation of Tucumcari's Main Street being early Route 66 is scant. Many reference books and guidebooks about the highway state it took a straight east-west path on Gaynell Avenue, better known as Tucumcari Boulevard, and don't mention Route 66 ever being on Main Street.

However, two pieces of evidence come from Debra Whittington, a deceased local historian who also was a longtime columnist for the Quay County Sun.

The Tucumcari Historical Museum possesses Whittington's manuscript for a book with the working title of "Living in Tucumcari," later published as "In the Shadow of the Mountain."

"Originally, Route 66 followed Main Street through Tucumcari," Whittington wrote. "Later the route changed to travel south at First Street to Gaynell Avenue. During this time, a popular place to stay was the small tourist court where First National Bank stands today.

"East Gaynell Avenue was a residential area until the route changed to go through the middle of town. By the late '40s and '50s when Route 66 reached its peak in popularity, Gaynell Avenue through Tucumcari was lined with motels, restaurants, and gas stations."

In a later book, "2 for $6," about her former days as a co-manager of the now-defunct Pony Soldier Motel in Tucumcari, Whittington wrote:

"About two miles from town, near where the Pony Soldier once stood, travelers opened the last gate leading into town. The road took a different route that most other towns. It was usual for the road to follow the railroad tracks into town, but for Tucumcari it came in on the south side of town and then took a right hand turn leading to the businesses downtown. From there it traveled on west. Early on, travelers found they could take a cutoff through the residential section and bypass Main Street."

Neither of Whittington's books, however, cite her sources on early Route 66 being Main Street.

Loveland said she also has heard for years that Tucumcari's Main Street was Route 66 before it was realigned to Gaynell Avenue.

She said found a photo in an unnamed book where U.S. 54 and U.S. 66 signs were mounted on the same telephone pole in Tucumcari.

Lee said he's encountered "a lot of naysayers" about his Tucumcari Main Street-Route 66 theory.

"Everyone's dead-set that Route 66 is where it is right now," he said. "The fact is there are many people we've spoken with in the last year that's not the case, and we've uncovered some evidence to make a case that it did indeed take another direction at one point in time. We'll present the evidence, and people can make their own minds up."

Two Route 66 experts contacted by the Quay County Sun didn't completely dismiss the possibility Tucumcari's Main Street once served as Route 66, but they also said the evidence for such a case is lacking.

Jim Ross, an Oklahoma-based author who's researched early alignments of Route 66 for decades, remains a skeptic of Lee's theory.

"To date, I have seen no documented evidence of an alignment downtown," Ross wrote in an email. "There is nothing in the literature, nothing on maps or old aerials to suggest such a route. Oftentimes, the problem is that these alignments either don't fit the timeline or they don't fit the geography. One has to connect the dots. In other words, if the route was on Main Street, how did it connect to the route coming into and out of town, and is that verifiable?

"Is such a route possible? Sure. But it has to be proven."

Ross posited a theory on why residents may surmise a connection to Main Street and Route 66.

"One possibility is that businessmen in those early years placed signs on Gaynell to lure traffic downtown," he wrote. "I know of one instance where a postcard of a downtown business referenced US 66, but the reference was to Tucumcari being on US 66, not that specific business. I would be interested to see what Mike Lee has to support a Main Street alignment."

Nick Gerlich, a marketing professor at West Texas A&M University who has done years of field research of old Route 66 alignments, said he was receptive to Lee's theory.

"I have long suspected something of this sort, especially given the Ozark Trail and the obelisk that once stood in downtown Tucumcari," Gerlich wrote in an email. "I understand there was a second Ozark Trail obelisk at Gaynell to further mark the route.

"While I do not possess any evidence to support Route 66 having gone through downtown Tucumcari, I would not be surprised if it did, even if only for a brief period. My experience with myriad other small Route 66 towns and cities, as well as the frequent realignments of the Route from the 1920s through the 1950s, tells me that it would make perfect sense if 66 did indeed occupy at least a part of Main Street."

Gerlich said new discoveries still occasionally are found about early paths of Route 66 nearly a century after the highway was certified.

"As odd as it may sound, we still discover previously unknown alignments, as confirmed by maps, aerial photographs, DOT documents, newspapers, and basic exploration on the ground. For example, finding concrete remains of a culvert in a field are proof positive that some kind of road once traversed an area," he wrote.

Gerlich added the location of Tucumcari Hotel, destroyed by fire several years ago, near downtown suggests "a steady stream of traffic from both motorists and rail."

"And, the faint path of Main continuing east from the current 54 curve, proceeding to Mountain Road (Bypass 54), also suggests an important road coming into town there," he added.

If the upcoming "Legends of Route 66" episode doesn't convince skeptics, Loveland said that's not necessarily a bad thing from a Tucumcari tourism aspect.

"Even if it's not true, people are going to want to come see it," she said. "People who really care about such things are going to want to see for themselves."