Tucumcari, New Mexico

They say the name Tucumcari comes from a Comanche word meaning "ambush" — tʉkamʉkarʉ. But there's another story, a folk etymology, that tells it differently. According to that tale, a Comanche saw a brakeman carrying a lantern and exclaimed "tukaʔ manoori!" — "carry the light!" — which the brakeman heard as "tukama carry." And that, locals say, is how the town got its name. Now, I can't swear to either version, but the story itself has a kind of poetry, doesn't it? A misunderstanding on the rails that stuck.

You know that Cozy Cone Motel from Pixar's Cars? The one where the cones are the rooms? Well, its neon sign borrowed a slogan from this very place: '100% Refrigerated Air.' But here's the twist—the Blue Swallow Motel wasn't just a roadside stop. It was an engagement present. In 1958, Floyd Redman bought it for his wife Lillian. She ran it for four decades, even after Floyd died in 1973. When Route 66 traffic dried up and Interstate 40 took over, she said, 'I felt just like I had lost an old friend. But some of us stuck it out.' She sold in 1998, moved to a small house nearby, and kept visiting until she died at 89. The motel's still here, still open, still friendly.

In 1901, this spot was called Ragtown — a construction camp for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The name says it all: rough, temporary, thrown together. But by 1926, Ragtown had become Tucumcari, and the railroad built something permanent: this station. It wasn't just a stop. It was a division point, a transfer stop where two railroads — the Rock Island and the Southern Pacific — joined their transcontinental services. Passengers changed trains here, freight was sorted, crews swapped out. For decades, the Golden State Limited and other trains rolled through, carrying people coast to coast. Then, in 1968, the last trains were discontinued. The station sat quiet. But it didn't die. Today, the Tucumcari Railroad Museum fills the building — not with ghosts, but with the real stuff of railroading.

You might think the Cactus Motor Lodge was always a motel. But when it opened along historic U.S. Route 66 in Tucumcari, New Mexico, the office was actually a dance hall. In 1952, Norm Wegner bought the place and added an artificial stone exterior, turning the dance hall into a proper office. The motel had three wings of units in a U-shape. After Route 66 was decommissioned, business dried up. By the 1990s, it became an RV park, and the motel units fell into disuse. The neon sign was restored in 2008, but in October 2018 it was sold and moved to an Albuquerque neon-sign park. Other items were sold off, and then the property itself was sold to O'Reilly Auto Parts, which razed everything to build a store. The motel had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, but that didn't save it.