Standing beside Old Route 66 in New Mexico is this simple but pleasant-looking old Catholic church, built in 1915. It is one of two churches in the fascinating little ghost town of Cuervo, one that grew up with the railroads and all but died when I-40 literally split the town in half during the mid-50s.
Little seems to be known about Cuervo’s history. It likely sprang up as a cattle center for operations like the Bond & Weist ranch thanks to the arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1901; by 1902, Cuervo had a Post Office which was destroyed by a fire last March. When Route 66 joined the railroad in bringing traffic to town, Cuervo saw its population jump to a peak of about 300 (though in a moment you’ll see why I find this a bit hard to believe), and was able to support this Catholic church as well as a Baptist one. Even so, Cuervo wasn’t like its sister Route 66 towns of Tucumcari or Santa Rosa; Jack Rittenhouse noted in his A Guide Book to Highway 66, Cuervo offered but “few gas stations; groceries; no café, garage, or other tourist accommodations.” He noted that there were only about a dozen homes in Cuervo—perhaps area ranchers, in addition to travellers, helped fill the pews of the town’s two houses of worship while adding to that triple-digit population count.
Today, there are roughly a dozen residents of Cuervo; when I visited (and managed to get a sunburn in 15 minutes, a record even for my fair skin; this resulted in a very abbreviated shoot, alas) to photograph the town, a couple of them were sitting on their porch in the “living” side of town. Continue reading
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