The former Acoma Curio Shop on Route 66 in the tiny Route 66 settlement of San Fidel, N.M., was named to the National Register of Historic Places effective Oct. 7, according to an e-mail Thursday from the National Park Service.
The shop is now home for Mary Trask’s Gallery66.us, an art gallery that sells and displays mosaics, paintings, photos, jewelry and fine crafts from several dozen artists.
More about the property from Trask’s Web site:
2003, Mary Trask and Mike Petzel left New England to move to New Mexico. They bought a 2 1/2 acre parcel right on Route 66 that included fruit and walnut trees, a house, several outbuildings and two extra dogs. The greatest thing about the place was it had a 100-year-old, 2000 square-foot adobe building with a pressed tin ceiling 11 feet tall that could be used as a gallery. At one time the building belonged to a Lebanese man named Fidel, whose son became a US senator. It’s been a grocery store, bar, shoe repair and tack shop, a church, cabinet shop and who knows what else. There’s lots of history in its thick adobe walls. The wide front porch is great for sitting, taking in the view of Mount Taylor, and watching whatever happens on Route 66.
Trask also told me on the phone that the property also had several motel cabins that she’s renovating.
Trask participated in the Route 66 oral history project in 2007, of which you can see photos that were taken inside her business here.