The now-closed New Mexico Route 66 Museum in Tucumcari is seeking a new home at the long-vacant Alco building on the city’s west side. It may be joined by a proposed New Mexico State Police museum and memorial in that space.
With luck and funding, the two museums may open in that space by 2027. (You can read more about it in the Eastern New Mexico News, my day job.)
The operators of the New Mexico Route 66 Museum, housed in a wing of the Tucumcari Convention Center, closed abruptly last month after city officials discovered it had not paid rent there for years. The museum’s lease with the city also expired in 2020.
Board members canceled two meetings with city officials to work out a new lease.
The president of the museum’s board had said he would move the artifacts to an unnamed museum out of state, despite many of those items being on loan from non-residents.
Local attorney Warren Frost, who helped incorporate the museum more than 15 years ago, requested and was granted a temporary restraining order to stop the transfer of those artifacts. He said they remain in storage in Tucumcari.
Frost said he and the attorney representing the four board members in the restraining order were hammering out an agreement where those members would resign and a new Route 66 museum board seated.
Frost wanted to move the New Mexico Route 66 Museum’s contents back into the convention center for at least 30 days, but the city commission and other city officials were reluctant to allow that.
They said they worried about the museum violating the state anti-donation clause — especially with the city being late with its audits.
They also pointed out that the convention center was supposed to be only a temporary space for the museum until a horse-racing track and casino was built in Tucumcari. That racino failed to materialize.
Frost said after the city commission meeting that the Mesalands Community College Foundation, which owns the Alco building, has agreed to store the museum’s artifacts there.
A municipal judge in Clovis, New Mexico, proposed a New Mexico State Police museum and memorial along Route 66 in Tucumari. The Quay County Commission subsequently requested $3 million in state capital outlay money for the project.
The Alco Retail Store in Tucumcari closed in 2014 when the entire chain went belly-up. The building has been vacant since.
Frost said he hoped to renovate the building and have the museums moved in within 18 to 24 months.
Johnnie Meier has offered to run the New Mexico Route 66 Museum after moving his Classical Gas Museum of gas station memorabilia and neon signs from Embudo, New Mexico, to Tucumcari.
(Image from the New Mexico Route 66 Museum in Tucumcari in 2018)