Route 66 is famous for its quirky, odd but always entertaining roadside attractions. After all, people have been successfully trying to lure motorists off of the highway since 1926, and the great state of Texas is no stranger to roadside kitsch. As a matter of fact, it may be leading the way depending on who you speak with, but one thing is certain, Texans know how to draw and amuse an audience.
Just slightly west of the delightful town of Amarillo, the largest city in the Texas Panhandle, the famous Cadillac Ranch has been pulling people off the highway since 1974. The art installation, funded by Stanley Marsh III and conceived of by the Ant Farm art group, remains to this day one of the Mother Road’s most iconic attractions. And it is not even on the historic highway. But up the road a touch, a mere 35 miles east to be exact, its sister attraction is only a few feet off Route 66. Conceived in 2002, The Bug Ranch consists of five Volkswagen Beetles that, like the more celebrated Cadillacs, have been buried nose-first into the dry Texas earth. The idea was the cheeky scheme of a local family, the Crutchfields.
As owners of the Longhorn Trading Post and adjacent Rattlesnake Ranch, the Crutchfields felt the stress of operating on old Route 66 and wondered how to attract motorists off of the roaring interstate and into their struggling town and business. They had a brainstorm when a large travel plaza was built on the opposite side of their interstate exit. If they could entice trippers to venture over, they were sure that their business would boom. But how would they do so? If the Cadillacs were enormously successful down in Amarillo, then certainly VW Bugs would have a similar appeal in little Conway.
But that is getting a little ahead of the story.
Sixteen miles West of Groom, where the largest cross in the northern hemisphere is located, rests minute Conway. Now a ghost town, the settlement began in the late 1800s as a small ranching community. In 1892, the Lone Star School was built, and a community began to sprout
The school would go on to educate the children of local ranchers and homesteaders. In 1903, the town’s first post office was opened, and the town received its name; it was named after the former Carson County Commissioner H.B. Conway. By 1912, the town was hopping with a grocery store, numerous businesses, and even an interdenominational church. This is Texas, remember.
It is hard to believe in today’s sleepy abandoned town, but Conway in the 1920s was a town with hopes and aspirations. At the time, the Texas Panhandle was thriving and the oil and gas, and agricultural industries were bringing in tremendous growth and revenue to the region.
In 1926, Route 66 was born, and when it was confirmed that the tarmac would run through Amarillo, neighboring Conway started to invest in ensuring that it was ready to rise up and meet the needs of motorists as they traveled down the new and feted highway. This included the opening of motels, known as tourist courts at the time, eateries and, of course, filling stations. In 1930, expecting a boom, a new school was even built. It was constructed with bricks. It was meant to last. From 1925 to 1939, Conway had grown from around 25 citizens to 125. But sadly, by 1966 the town was bypassed by I-40 and largely cut off from the abundance of road travelers who they had come to expect.
Now we come back to the Crutchfield family. Ever the optimistic Texans, this clan decided that 1967 was a good time to open a roadside service station and quickly followed that with a curio shop (Longhorn Ranch) and a side attraction called the Rattlesnake Ranch. They anticipated that these would pull in travelers, and they did for some time. But still, Conway’s population continued to wither away; by 2000, the never-really bustling town was down to a mere 20 people. They were quickly dwindling down to ghost town status.
In 2002, a Love’s Travel Shop opened near to the same exit as the Crutchfield businesses, catering to truckers and I-40 travelers. Business dried up even more as customers started to bypass the established service station in place of the more nationally known and trusted Love’s shop. And that is what brings us back to the Bug Ranch.
In an effort to combat this migration of business, the Crutchfields hatched a crafty plan to distract motorists and pull them over to their side of the road. However, while creative, their idea of planting five VW bugs nose deep in the soil like the Cadillacs, was not successful, and in 2003 the service station, curio shop and Rattlesnake Ranch closed their doors forever. The family too packed up and set off to find greener pastures, but their legacy along Route 66 and in the tiny outpost of Conway will forever be remembered.
Today, the five little cars are still in the ground, attracting visitors from far and wide. They are now no longer bright yellow, but rather spray-painted, just like their cousins a little further west, and the area has become haunted by a forlorn, moody vibe. Nearby big rigs and vehicles cruise by about 1.3 miles away, their roaring engines briefly but eerily heard in the big lonely Texan sky. Conway’s once proud school is boarded up, and it is hard to know that a thriving little town ever once existed in the area. The vehicles are a mystery to many unsuspecting Route 66 adventurers who discover them as they leisurely make their way across the Texas Panhandle. But like so much in America that still stands or has disappeared forever, they too have a story.
