San Jon, New Mexico: Deep Ditch on the High Plains

San Jon takes its name from the Spanish word zanjón, meaning deep ditch, a reference to the arroyos that cut through the high plains of northeastern New Mexico. The town was established in nineteen oh two as a railroad stop and grew quickly once the tracks came through in nineteen oh four. Route sixty-six arrived in nineteen twenty-six and transformed the village into a traveler's waypoint with gas stations, cafes, and motels.

For decades San Jon was a small but functional stop on the Mother Road, a place where families heading west across the Llano Estacado could fill the tank and eat a meal. Then in nineteen eighty-one Interstate forty bypassed the village and the local economy unraveled. Most businesses closed.

The population today is around two hundred. San Jon survives as a semi-ghost town, its old commercial strip quiet beside a road that most drivers no longer use.