Originally a railroad town, the village was renamed from Rock Island to Glenrio by the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad in 1908 and began receiving motorists on the dusty Ozark Trail in 1917. Its original structures were adobe buildings. The circa-1910 Angel House was in New Mexico. The Ozark Trail was formed into U.S. Route 66 on November 11, 1926. By the 1930s, U.S. Route 66 in Texas was a paved two-lane road served locally by several filling stations, a restaurant, and a motel. The road was widened in the 1950s. A Texaco station and a diner were constructed in Texas using the art moderne architectural style. The location of Glenrio on Texas and New Mexico's border led to some interesting business practices. At one point, all fuel was dispensed in Texas due to New Mexico's higher gasoline taxes. The 1930s State Line Bar and motel were built in New Mexico because Deaf Smith County, Texas, was dry at the time. The railroad station was in Texas. The local post office, built circa-1935, was in New Mexico. A water tank and windmill in New Mexico were constructed circa 1945. The Joseph Brownlee House, constructed in Amarillo in 1930, was moved to Glenrio in 1950. Glenrio was the site of the "First Motel in Texas" / "Last Motel in Texas" and other businesses which straddled the state line on U.S. Route 66 for many years until Interstate 40 bypassed the community in September 1973. Three filling stations once operated in New Mexico. It went in to decline during 1975 when Interstate 40 had bypassed the town. For years there has been a simmering dispute over which state the east part of Glenrio is lawfully a part of: Texas or New Mexico? The straight north-south border between the two states was originally defined as the 103rd meridian, but the 1859 survey that was supposed to mark that boundary mistakenly set the border between too far west of that line, making the current towns of Farwell, Texline and the east part of Glenrio appear to be within the State of Texas. New Mexico's short border with Oklahoma, in contrast, was surveyed on the correct meridian. New Mexico's draft constitution in 1910 stated that the border is on the 103rd meridian as intended. The disputed strip, hundreds of miles long, includes parts of valuable oilfields of the Permian Basin. A bill was passed in the New Mexico Senate to fund and file a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court to recover the strip from Texas, but the bill did not become law. Today, land in the strip is included in Texas land surveys and the land and towns for all purposes are taxed and governed by the State of Texas.
Location
Glenrio sits just a few yards to the south of Interstate 40 at Texas exit 0 on Business I-40, a road which turns into a local gravel road at the state line. This was the original Route 66 alignment between Glenrio and San Jon until 1952 and was paved for many years until Quay County removed the paving due to maintenance costs. Mail was formerly served by a post office on the New Mexico side of the town. The town consists of the remains of the courtyard motel and related Texas Longhorn Café and Phillips 66 service station, the post office, a few other buildings including the diner and adjacent Texaco service station, the old Route 66 roadbed, and the former roadbed of the Rock Island Railroad, whose tracks were removed in the 1980s. A few homes still exist in Glenrio; the Joseph Brownlee House and an office in the Texas Longhorn Motel were the last to be occupied.
On June 25, 2008, the State of New Mexico opened the Glenrio Welcome Center on Interstate 40 at the Texas state line. The center includes such things as a pet walk, a livestock corral, wireless Internet access, a movie theater, and information kiosks. Built to accommodate one million visitors per year, it includes green features such as recycling of greywater for grounds irrigation, and a wind turbine that will generate 20 percent of the center's energy.
In cinema
Portions of The Grapes of Wrath were filmed in Glenrio. An abandoned "Glenn Rio Motel" is depicted in the town of Radiator Springs in 2006's animated filmCars, where the architectural design of Glenrio's Little Juarez Café is used for a vacant, abandoned building which eventually becomes the Racing Museum. The opening scene from the movie Daylight's End was filmed in Glenrio.
