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Cactus Motor Lodge

Retro roadside
In Tucumcari, New Mexico
0.1 mi from Route 66

Directions OpenStreetMap

The Cactus Motor Lodge in Tucumcari, NM, is gone: the old motel was closed, its sign sold and every building torn down. I.E. and Edna Perry opened it on Route 66 in 1941, and it earned National Register status in 2006. Later it ran as an RV park. In 2018 its restored neon sign left for Albuquerque, and the site was cleared for an auto parts store.

What is Cactus Motor Lodge?

Today this is a former motel site rather than a place to visit. When it stood, the lodge had three wings of rooms arranged in a U, plus an office that began life as a dance hall. A later owner covered the buildings in artificial stone. Workers restored its neon sign in 2008, not long before it left town.

History of Cactus Motor Lodge

The Perrys built the lodge in 1941. Norm Wegner bought it in 1952, added the stone facing and turned the dance hall into the office. Once the highway lost its Route 66 designation, business fell away. By the 1990s the property was the Cactus RV Park and the motel rooms sat unused. The National Register listing came on March 21, 2006. The sign found a buyer in October 2018 and came down, bound for a neon-sign park in Albuquerque. O'Reilly Auto Parts then bought the land, razed all the structures and built a store.

Visiting Cactus Motor Lodge: tips

Nothing of the motel is left to see. For a sense of what Tucumcari's motor courts looked like, the Blue Swallow Motel is about 0.3 miles away.

Practical info

Hours: Closed permanently
On site & nearby

Sources: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Wikidata · official site — may be outdated. Suggest a fix

On the map

Cactus Motor Lodge with the 6 closest stops. Tap a marker for details.

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Stops near Cactus Motor Lodge

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Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, NM

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Tucumcari station, New Mexico

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Tucumcari's 1926 railroad depot, now home to the Tucumcari Railroad Museum, close to the old Route 66 road.

Historic buildingPhoto credit

1.1 mi from Cactus Motor Lodge

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