Tucumcari

The town on this panel began as a move. When the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific built a construction camp here in 1901, three years after the railroad date the panel gives, much of Liberty, the settlement to the north with the Herzstein store and post office, packed up and followed. The camp was called Ragtown, then Six Shooter Siding for its gunfights, then briefly Douglas. Accounts put Liberty three miles off or eight; the panel says eight. The first passenger train reached the new town on March 12, 1902.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Tucumcari Population 6,765 - Elevation 4,096 This area was troubled by both Comanches and Comancheros, New Mexicans who traded illegally with the Indians, until the military campaigns of 1874. With the coming of the railroad in 1898, the small community of Liberty, eight miles to the north, moved here to form the nucleus of Tucumcari, which was incorporated in 1908. The Rock Island-Southern Pacific Depot built in 1927 is an outstanding example of a Mission Revival- style depot and recently restored.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blue Swallow Motel — 2.2 mi
  A twelve-room tourist court on Tucumcari's stretch of Route 66, built in 1939, run for four decades by one woman, and lit by one of the most photographed motel signs on the road.

More markers nearby

• Tucumcari Mountain — 1.5 mi
• Tucumcari — 1.5 mi
• Comanche Country — 1.8 mi
• Yetta Kohn (1843-1917) — 3.2 mi