backroads66

[backroads66]

Re-opening Route 66

  (Photo: Tower Truck Stop. Route 66 Groom, Texas. © 2019 Mark Hamilton/Backroads66.com)

For the last few months, the pandemic has brought tourism, and many businesses to a screeching halt. Now, there are signs of The Mother Road coming back to life….but as the weeks continue to pass, just about everything still seems to be in a hold pattern. I have personally spoken with a few business owners…

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Market Town opened April 1955 at South Main & Oakey.

Photo shared by Ralph Delligatti.

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Construction of Mandalay Bay, 8/29/1997 and 2/21/1998

Photos by Dennis McBride, Nevada State Museum Las Vegas.

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Fremont Street, 1942. Tourists experience the “Old West” while everyone else sits in traffic. Photo by Peter Stackpole. 

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Shiprock, aka Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, “rock with wings” or “winged rock.” The Navajo name for the peak, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, “rock with wings” or “winged rock” is a reference to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. Geologically, Shiprock is the erosional remnant of a volcano, composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette that form a wall extending from the volcanic core. It formed 2,500–3,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. The walls were fissures that filled with lava and hardened (like a jello mold). The hard, volcanic rock was exposed after millions of years of wind and water eroded the sorter sedimentary and metamorphic rock. The wall-like sheets, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age established an approximate age of 27 million years. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field. (at Shiprock) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Pgf3pnqTc/?igshid=1r3qh0qa6c75z

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Downtown Las Vegas, 1950

Rear-view stock footage by Warner Bros, via Getty Images. The driving takes place on Fremont Street traveling west from 4th to 2nd. “Two Flags West” plays at El Portal Theatre, “Frenchie” at Fremont Theatre. The last shot facing the opposite direction at Fremont & 2nd. 

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Lumber mill, El Vado, New Mexico Photographer: William H. Roberts Date: 1919? Negative Number 149910

[backroads66]

Shiprock, aka Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, “rock with wings” or “winged rock.” The Navajo name for the peak, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, “rock with wings” or “winged rock” is a reference to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. Geologically, Shiprock is the erosional remnant of a volcano, composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette that form a wall extending from the volcanic core. It formed 2,500–3,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. The walls were fissures that filled with lava and hardened (like a jello mold). The hard, volcanic rock was exposed after millions of years of wind and water eroded the sorter sedimentary and metamorphic rock. The wall-like sheets, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age established an approximate age of 27 million years. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field. (at Shiprock) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Pgf3pnqTc/?igshid=1r3qh0qa6c75z

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Large group outside J.C. Plemmons General Store and Post Office, Hermosa, New Mexico

Photographer: J.C. Burge Date: 1890? Negative Number: 076579

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Riviera, July 1969. This was Dean Martin’s debut at the Riviera. Kodachrome, VLV.

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South 5th St (Las Vegas Blvd), August 1956

Looking south towards Sahara. “Smart’n Up with Terrible Herbst” on the far right was the first Herbst location in Las Vegas, now the south corner of the Stratosphere. 

Left: “Holiday Inn” aka Holiday Motel; Bagdad Motel; Glenn Vegas Motel (Fun City Motel). Estate sale find by Mike Ohlson

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Penny slots on Fremont St, Las Vegas, July 1964

↩︎ plastixdude 

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Fremont St & Casino Center Blvd, Las Vegas, July 1964

↩︎ plastixdude 

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Golden Inn Motel - 120 Las Vegas Blvd N. - early 60s. 

In the ♡ of downtown, built by the Franklin brothers in 1960, demolished in 2004, and replaced with The Ogden. The sign is now with the Neon Museum.

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Neon & wet streets, Las Vegas, January 1983. Fremont Street at 1st & Casino Center Blvd. Photos by Meredith Jacobson Marciano. 

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Passengers walking from train to Kewa Pueblo (formerly Santo Domingo Pueblo), New Mexico

Photographer: Jesse Nusbaum Date: 1910 Negative Number: 139103

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Village People in front of the Riviera, March 1981. (Dolly Parton coming Apr. 2)