Vega: Last Town Before the New Mexico Line

Vega sits at nearly four thousand feet on the high Texas Panhandle, the last significant town before Route Sixty-Six crosses into New Mexico. Founded in nineteen oh three when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway pushed through Oldham County, Vega became the county seat in nineteen fifteen and has held that distinction ever since.

The Dot's Mini Museum, a tiny Route Sixty-Six roadside institution assembled by a local woman named Dot Leavitt over decades, captured the town's highway nostalgia in miniature, though the museum has operated intermittently. The Vega Motel, built in the nineteen forties, remains one of the surviving original motor courts on the Texas stretch of the road. On the westbound drive, Vega is the point where the Llano Estacado begins its slow descent toward the Canadian River breaks, and the sky opens up in a way that travelers have been remarking on for a century.