BARD

NAME: Bard
COUNTY: Quay
ROADS: 2WD
GRID: 6
CLIMATE: Mild
BEST TIME TO VISIT: Anytime

COMMENTS: Hop off of I-40 and on to old Route 66 at the first exit after crossing the border from Texas. It sneaks up on you as you come around a rocky cliff. It is hidden from the freeway so you can only see it from Rt 66. Located on the north side of the road. Update: Bard actually is a general store/post office. My parents address was Bard, New Mexico, 88411 up until about 1990. The building still stands, and until 10 or 15 years ago, the owners of the old general store still lived there.
REMAINS: Gas station with collapsing canopy, a few other buildings behind it.

This was an old trading point for ranchers. The gas station probably folded with the coming of I-40. A small phantom on Route 66 . Submitted by: Rory McManus

We lived in the Cedar Hill Grocery Store/Station from 1960 - 1964 while I went to school in San Jon, NM and graduated.  Charlie and Lillian Murray owned it at that time and we built the corrals in the back.  They were the last to run it as best I recall.  North of there and north of the present day I-40 is a 'basement' foundation where the first Rt. 66 ran north and my grandmother owned and ran.  When RT. 66 moved to where the old photo is to the south of present I-40 she moved there.
During the time we lived at Cedar Hill that stretch of highway was known as 'Death Alley' between Santa Rosa, NM to Amarillo, TX as it remained 2-lane and was the last section to go 4-lane.
I also lived north of ghost town Endee, NM and we got our mail there at Bard, NM for a period of time after my Uncle Bill Smithers passed away.
You also mention Hanley, NM.  I have old postcards dated in the early 1900's addressed to Hanley, NM where my father was raised south of there.
Thanks for the history and photos.  

Sincerely,
Joe Chambers

 


Old Gas station at Cedar Hill on route to Bard
Courtesy Rory McManus

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