San Jon: The Deep Ditch That Route Sixty-Six Built

The name is generally said to come from the Spanish word zanjón, meaning deep ditch or arroyo, which is exactly what the landscape looks like out here on the high plains of Quay County. A railroad reached this eastern New Mexico spot around nineteen oh four, and the settlement soon received its official name. Route Sixty-Six aligned through San Jon in nineteen twenty-six, and the little village thrived the way only a highway town can, with filling stations, cafes, and motor courts strung along the roadbed.

Truck traffic, tourist families, and Dust Bowl migrants all passed through. When Interstate Forty bypassed San Jon in nineteen eighty-one, the businesses followed the traffic and most of the tourist businesses closed and the village quieted down. The village was founded in nineteen oh two, and its population peaked at four hundred eleven in the nineteen sixty census.

One motel, built in nineteen forty-six, is still in business and is called the last and the first motel left on Route Sixty-Six in New Mexico. A former Texaco station here is a mid nineteen thirties design by Walter Teague. Out in the pasture northeast of town, stones laid in nineteen twenty-two spell the words San Jon with an arrow beneath, meant to point the way for airmail pilots.

They are now largely covered in dirt. About one hundred ninety-five people live in San Jon today. A few buildings remain along the old Route Sixty-Six alignment, and the name on the map still points to the arroyo that gave San Jon its identity long before the highway came or went.