Auto Parts Store on Route 66

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chief Auto Supply is on old Route 66 in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. It looks like something out of the 1940s. I wish it had been open the day I was in Santa Rosa, it would have been interesting to meet the owners and see the inside of the store.

See the rest of the photographs from my trip to New Mexico last month.

I've scanned from 12 rolls of 40...many more photos coming!

 

[Chuck Albertson]

That's a great road trip, Chris---must have been a furnace in August. Never leave home without a few rolls of TMZ in the bag, eh?

It's neat to see the old stuff along Route 66. When I grew up in northern Arizona in the 50's and '60's, though, everyone was kind of relived when they put I-40 through, because the length of 66 through those parts was a real death trap. The local custom was to erect little white crosses by the side of the road where fatal accidents had occurred, and the bits of the highway there were like a small forest of the things. But what's left now isn't nearly as crowded as it was back then.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

It was incredibly hot in Texas and Oklahoma, over 100 degrees, but it got cooler in New Mexico. Northern New Mexico is all high elevation, most over 5000 feet, so the heat is not quite so bad as in southern NM, or Texas and Oklahoma.

Why was Route 66 so deadly? People in Indiana put up crosses at accident sites, and some roads where I live have a lot of them too!