03/04/2020
The staples of the American travel are slowly disappearing from the nation’s byways. Before the interstate these sites were standing monuments to an era when family road trips were the favored vacation and the bizarre rest stop broke up the monotony of long and winding drives. These places encouraged imagination and adventure and they gave many struggling families an opportunity to have an income by creating a tourist attraction. My family was one of those and my town was and still is a Roadside Attraction.
In an effort to preserve this history I have been traveling the blue highways and backroads gathering some of the last remaining pieces of Kitschy Americana to display in a new space I’m working on downtown Cave City. This is the story of one of those.
The Cactus Motor Lodge built in 1941 in Tucumcari, NM housed a dance hall, speakeasy, and was the first place for travelers to stay heading west on Route 66. It was also one of the few places for many miles that was in the Negro Motorist Green Book (published from the 1930’s to the 1960’s to help black travelers find accommodations). Even though the property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, its famed neon sign has been sold and moved and the property has been purchased by O’Reilly Auto Parts and is set to be torn down later this year.
This western print curtain hung in the living quarters of the main office until I brought it here to have framed and hung it to be memorialized in its new home off the first paved road in Kentucky, 31W.
Thank you Sims Art Shop for taking care of this fragile fabric to be framed and for understanding the importance of is history.
*****Sometimes the journey is the destination.
