Glenrio, Texas

What is Glenrio?

Glenrio sits partly in Texas's Deaf Smith County and partly in New Mexico's Quay County. The historic district covers a stretch of the old highway and, when it was listed, 17 empty buildings, among them the Little Juarez Diner and the Texas Longhorn Motel, whose sign once read "First Motel in Texas" on one side and "Last Motel in Texas" on the other. Later the old State Line Bar could not be saved because it was judged structurally unsafe.

The state line shaped the town. Deaf Smith County, on the Texas side, was dry, so the bar stood in New Mexico. For a time all the gas was sold on the Texas side, where the gasoline tax was lower.

History of Glenrio

The town began in 1903 as a Rock Island Railroad siding and was first called Rock Island. Its later name joins the Scots word glen and the Spanish río, river. By 1917 the Glenrio Hotel was taking in motorists on the Ozark Trail, and that road became part of Route 66 in 1926.

Traffic grew heavy from the 1940s to the 1960s, and in the 1950s a new Texaco station and a streamlined diner went up. When Interstate 40 opened in the 1970s, the cars stopped coming and the businesses closed one by one. Since late 2021 new owners have bought land on both sides of the line, and in 2023 a cannabis dispensary opened on the New Mexico side.

Visiting Glenrio: tips

Leave I-40 at Texas Exit 0 and follow the old road into town. It is paved on the Texas side and turns to gravel past the state line. There is no gas or food in Glenrio itself; the New Mexico welcome center on I-40 is about half a mile away. Photograph the buildings from the road and obey any No Trespassing signs, since much of the town is private property. Boise, another ghost town, is about 10.5 miles away.