DRENCHED IN BRIGHT, beautiful neon, Tucumcari dazzles drivers as much today as it did during Route 66’s heyday, when billboards touting “Tucumcari Tonite—2,000 Motel Rooms” tempted travelers to stop.
Tucumcari’s treasured neon includes a bird in flight at the 1939-built Blue Swallow Motel, a colorful sombrero outside longtime Mexican restaurant La Cita, and the glowing teepee welcoming shoppers to the Tee Pee Curios shop. Heck, even the local laundromat has a 20-foot-tall neon sign featuring a woman working a washboard in a washtub.
“The neon signs were so important and so iconic,” says Johnnie Meier, who helped to obtain a $50,000 restoration grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Office in 2002. He notes that Tucumcari was home to several neon shops from 1945 to 1965, making them central to the town’s identity. “We were the first to start restoring our signs along Route 66, and now other states like Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma have followed us.”
The neon sign at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari calls for a road trip in your favorite ride.
Photograph by NMTD.
Robert Federico and his wife, Dawn, bought the Blue Swallow Motel and its iconic sign in 2020. “It’s Americana,” Robert says of the landmark. “It captures the early history of motor travel, and it’s been drawing folks in for decades.”
A series of 100 murals, including a depiction of Tucumcari’s railroad history and a buffalo in front of a massive Route 66 road sign, continue the town’s artistic legacy. “The murals bring our history to life, blending the past and the present in a way that makes our streets feel like an open-air gallery,” says Connie Loveland, director of Tucumcari MainStreet. “They capture the spirit of Route 66, the heart of the community, and the vibrancy that makes Tucumcari so unique.”
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