Texas Monthly this month published a nuanced, well-researched article about Glenrio, the Route 66 ghost town, and the Glenrio Smoke Stop dispensary that sprang up there a few years ago.
The story begins with how future Glenrio Smoke Stop principal Gabi Tuschak, an Austin hypnotherapist, matched on a dating app with Erik Spain, a divorced farmer in Olton, Texas.
This part of the story has been previously unreported:
A month before he matched with Tuschak, alone on New Year’s Eve, he took psilocybin. Under the spell of magic mushrooms, he saw what he now believes was Glenrio, a town that straddles the Texas–New Mexico border seventy miles west of Amarillo. “I saw a desertscape. And someone important was standing with me,” Spain recalls.
He knew Glenrio. He’d once considered growing cannabis there, but the plan had fallen through. When he connected with Tuschak, he told her about his vision, convinced she was the figure he had seen. “He saw us raising money together, pitching investors,” Tuschak says. “He saw the clothes we’d be wearing. He’s telling me about this, and he has so much conviction, and I’m thinking, ‘I haven’t even met this guy!’ ”
The story delves into the complex history of Glenrio, which never had more than 100 residents and withered when Interstate 40 bypassed it in the late 1970s.
But Glenrio earned its own allure when Route 66 travelers would roam its deserted streets, imagining what once was there and contemplating the tragedy of the town dying because of the interstate. It served as a key inspiration to the 2006 Disney-Pixar film “Cars.”
The writer talked to Route 66 enthusiasts Nick Gerlich and Rich Dinkela, who lament the loss of the ghost-town vibe with the coming of the dispensary and the activity around it.
Yet Glenrio has its first business in about 40 years. That business appears to be thriving, too.
According to New Mexico’s Cannabis Control Division, Glenrio Smoke Stop has reported over $5.6 million in cannabis sales since it opened in the fall of 2023.
In November 2025, the latest data available, sales there reached an all-time peak of over $325,000.
The cash-rich dispensary in Glenrio might not be the only thing happening there:
The Glenrio Properties team is in talks with investors about the rest of the plans for revitalizing the ghost town. Tuschak and Spain want to turn the old motel into a funky rest stop with lodging, dining, and retail. They want wellness facilities, including plunge pools and saunas; a dance hall; and even a rodeo. They hope Glenrio can become not just a place to pass through, but also a place where travelers might stay for a week.
We’ll see. But one thing is indisputable — Glenrio Smoke Stop is seeing a lot of green, and it’s not just marijuana leaves.
(Excerpted image of the Glenrio Smoke Stop in Glenrio, New Mexico, via Facebook)