KGLP Podcasts

Cities like Gallup along famed Route 66 celebrate its history

Cities like Gallup along famed Route 66 celebrate its history

By Reed Black and Tom Maxedon

 

Route 66, also known as “The Mother Road,” has hosted travelers across the American West over the last 100 years for a variety of pursuits. Some, purely for exploration and adventure. Others to make a living, or even to entertain audiences.

The latter was the case for a famous filmmaker.  

“W.D. Griffith, he was a movie producer and director, came here to Gallup, New Mexico to make a western movie,” said Leroy McCray, the official El Rancho Hotel historian, speaking during a recent tour of the iconic landmark, which was constructed in the 1930s following Griffith’s first film.

“He left, came back a second time. After he made his second movie here, he realized that this was a great place to make Western movies. Everything just had that natural western movie backdrop to it. So, him and his brother decided to build the El Rancho Hotel so they could house the movie stars while they were filming around the area here.”  

McCray recounted how average travelers on Route 66 coming to Gallup interacted with celebrities staying at the hotel.

“When the El Rancho Hotel was first built, it was sitting by itself right here. Nothing close by. The downtown was about a mile down the road down here. And anybody driving Route 66 can come off of it and mingle with the movie stars. But they had to park in the downtown area and walk up here. Only the movie stars were allowed to park in the back, so there was no parking for guests.”

Some of those movie stars included John Wayne and Errol Flynn.

“He was on a horse. They were shooting scene[s] around the area and way across on the other side they would have corrals that they would put up the horses. And instead of putting up his horse Errol Flynn rode his horse back over here, came through the front door down the hall and into the bar and ordered a whiskey for himself and beer for his horse,” said McCray.

Aside from stories about the El Rancho, Gallup’s downtown is filled with historic buildings, many of which have played host to shops, bars, and art galleries. In an effort to preserve the history of Route 66, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been giving out grants for a variety of projects.

ART 123 in Gallup is one of the Trust’s award recipients. Gallery executive director Rose Eason said the money is being used to extend its hours of operation for its current exhibition, “66 Artists on Route 66.” She spoke about one of the featured artists.

“Gretchen Adams is a weaver. She's doing abstractions of kind of the geometry and the geography of Route 66 through our community. So artists, yeah, they're very inspired,” she said.

Eason also talked about the souvenir shop that's part of the exhibit, where many of the artists’ works can be purchased.

“The work being shown is incredibly creative, be it a keychain or a tote bag or a painting or a print, and we're really excited about how kind of festive ‘66 Artists on 66’ is as a result of everyone's creativity,” she said.

The Trust also inspired people like Beth Buenger and her husband to travel Route 66. 

“We started in California at Santa Monica, and we're going all the way to Chicago. 2,448 miles,” she said.

Buenger is co-owner of a historic tire shop and automotive business in Granite City, Illinois and is part of a caravan of Route 66 enthusiasts. She and her husband recently stopped in Gallup to witness a 72-ounce steak-eating contest conducted by the Big Texan, a restaurant based in Amarillo, Texas.

Actor, director and producer Ryan Begay, who stars in AMC’s “Dark Winds,” was one of the featured contestants. 

He was asked by one of the restaurant’s representatives during their YouTube live stream of the event what it meant to be participating in Gallup as one of the contest stops during the 100th anniversary of Route 66.

“It’s such a great community. It’s wonderful to see everybody always come out for these events, even for myself. I’ve kind of been away for very long, so it nice really to come back and see everybody come out,” said Begay.

Vendors also were invited to set up shop in the Courthouse Square. One of those vendors, Martin O’Malley from the 9th Street Gallup Flea Market, talked about his artisan shirts.

“There's different symbols here that are recognizable. This represents a lot of the native food that's sold out there and a t-shirt made out of the Bluebird Flour sack, Navajo tea, tamales. That could be stew or blue corn mush. These are multi-colored corn earrings,” O’Malley described.   

All summer and through the fall, celebrations will continue for the centennial of Route 66. 

NOTE: Reed Black is an intern with the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships Program, which places emerging journalists in newsrooms like KGLP’s across New Mexico.

Learn more at www.newmexicolocalnewsfellowships.org. 

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KGLP's Calvin Gleason speaks with one of the organizers, Norman Patrick Brown.

The event flyer is available at: https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/648e40c3-d44c-47f5-bec6-8a52b8595c41/UraniumFilmFestRevWinRock1113n111425.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:984,h:1230

Gallup Mayoral and City Council Candidates Forum recorded 10/23/2025

    This podcast includes audio recorded on October 23, 2025, of the Gallup Mayoral and City Council Candidate Forum.

    Several of the candidates have submitted written introductions and/or full answers to the questions asked that night, since the event answers were limited to 2 minutes.  Those PDFs are at: https://kglp.org/gallup-candidates-details.

    Early voting continues until November 1^st, with Election Day on Tuesday, November 4^th. 2025.  Citizens can call the Bureau of Elections at 800-245-1771 to find out where to vote or get answers to any questions about the voting process.

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KGLP's Calvin Gleason and Rachel Kaub speak with attendees at the October 18, 2025 No Kings rallies in Window Rock, Arizona and in Gallup, New Mexico.

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KGLP interview with Crevice Author Anna Redsand

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Crevice is a memoir in thirteen related, stand-alone essays, seven of which have been previously published. The stories and reflections tell about the life of a White girl, and later an adult, living within the fissure that lies between Diné (Navajo) and Bilagáana (White) cultures. In that place, I belonged and didn’t belong; it was Home Not Home. The stories are about what I saw from within the cleft that existed between the two worlds, which was often different from what either Diné or Bilagáanas saw from either side of that space. It is about what that was like in the fifties and sixties when I was a child and life was simply that—life. My life. It is about what I am left with now in the twenty-first century—both richness and poverty. It is about grappling with my settler heritage, the riches I was given in my time in Dinétah, and about the obligations that perhaps come with those experiences. It is about what I have created and hope still to create from both of my inheritances. Each essay reflects in some way on the identity that evolves when someone spends a lifetime between distinctly different cultures. The far-reaching effects of colonization and occupation that continue today in Dinétah are an unavoidable part of the landscape and necessarily play a significant role in my observations and thoughts.

Part I, Ground, contains four essays that recreate early days in the author's life, moving in each case from childhood into adulthood. “Fissures and Crenellations,” the first piece, situates the reader in Dinétah and shows for the first time the land of In Between. “In and Out” is about the exigencies of boarding school life as lived by a White girl, as viewed by me, and as told to me by my Diné friends. “Some Things Were True” is about both Diné and Bilagáana beliefs and practices regarding death—about what was real in both cultures and what perhaps was not, about sameness and difference. "In the Girls Room" shows how, throughout my life, I have parsed what others and I observed of my parents' contrasting ways as guests in Dinétah. It tells how I have attempted to make sense of what I heard and saw and to find my own path in that land.

Part II, Self, contains five essays and has a particular focus on the search for identity. “Border Town,” a hybrid essay, shows the everyday devastation that exists in and because of towns that border the Navajo Nation. It tells of the nature of borders, about how I tried to find my place in Gallup, New Mexico, a town on the edge of the Nation—the town that in many ways describes who I am. Four further essays address questions of identity that have persisted into my adulthood. “Naturalization” is about how an interracial partnership of seven years left an imprint on my interactions with my Black college students. “A Good Stranger” is a braided essay that explores a search for spiritual identity within the milieu of three distinct cultural identities. "Tongues" is an experimental essay, exploring human and animal existence through the multiple meanings in multiple languages––denotative, connotative, and idiomatic––of the word "tongue." In “The Importance of Clear” I discover through the lens of language that I may possess a lasting identity of my own.

Part III, Passage, offers the final four essays and moves the writer and hence the reader toward resolution. "Racial Injustice Benefited Me" is a flash essay that details a very small number of ways in which systemic racism benefited me as a child living in the Navajo Nation. In “Being Third” I examine Other as a possible identity, following a path away from binary thinking. “The Obligation” examines the idea that those who have inhabited the cracks and crevices of society may be uniquely equipped to bridge our many cultural gaps—that in fact, we may have a duty to do so. "A Reckoning," the final essay in the collection, represents a coming to terms with just what is my place in the worlds I've inhabited and a recognition of who I am within the fissure between them.

NM Reps and Senator respond on 7/3/25 just after passage of GOP budget bill

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