New Mexico Route 66 Museum sets opening for June

The Tucumcari City Commission last week unanimously approved the lease at its convention center for the New Mexico Route 66 Museum.

With that, organizers have set a grand opening during the Wheels on 66 event in Tucumcari on June 6-9, according to a news release today.

[T]he museum has begun work on its website and marketing side, with help from Tactical Magic on logos and other brand identity items. Tactical Magic and Trace Hallowell have been instrumental in our branding strategy so far, as well as some of the work they’ve already done on the road, from 66 Icons to multiple projects in Seligman, Ariz., like Angels’ Barber Shop and the Snow Cap.

Over the coming months, the museum’s website will continue to change, make improvements and add functionality with new information like its newest sponsorship opportunities from the Neon Trail Level to the Route 66 Shield Level, which includes museum passes and more. […]

The museum will begin in phases, with the interior space and gift shop to be completed first, which we hope to share with the world during Wheels On 66. The second phase will then concentrate on the exterior with more signage, lighting, landscaping and other unique features.

The museum aims to show New Mexico’s Route 66 heritage “from Glenrio to Gallup.”

Nearby Santa Rosa, N.M., also seeks to land a Route 66 museum in its historic Ilfeld Warehouse near downtown. But the city’s sudden and severe financial problems this summer due to a $1.2 million gross-receipts tax appeal makes that unlikely for the near future.

UPDATE 10/30/2012: The current print edition of the Guadalupe County Communicator reports that an Ohio man wants to turn the Ilfeld Warehouse in Santa Rosa into a new National Museum of the American Southwest.

Jon Vinton Gallegos, who has family roots in the area, is starting The Gallegos Institute as a nonprofit group with the goal to eventually establish the museum in the Ilfeld.

The warehouse also has been targeted as a Route 66 museum, but the building still awaits funding for renovations. The city’s precarious financial condition makes such a prospect uncertain.

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