Abandoned gas station, Vaughn, NM. |
When I finished with photographing lovely Encino, I
continued on US 285 to neighboring Vaughn, NM. That’s 16 miles that follow the
course of the BNSF Railroad. Unlike Encino, Vaughn is still breathing. There’s
a gas station and convenience store, a Standard Oil bulk plant and a thriving
burger joint, the Chuckwagon. Compared to withering Encino it’s the picture of
life. It lies at the junction of the BNSF and the Union Pacific Lines and
boasts a population of 400 isolated souls. It was 888 when the town was founded
by the railroad in 1920.
The shuttered auto repair shop that adjoins the station. |
The Standard Oil bulk plant in Vaughn. A bulk plant is a distributor of petroleum products. |
To my delight Vaughn has its share of derelict buildings. The discarded buildings aren’t old by New Mexico standards and seem mid-century modern with a southwestern bent. The architecture suggests that
Vaughn’s heyday was the 1940s and 1950s.
Later, I back tracked on 285 past Encino where the BNSF
railroad tracks cross the highway. I turned southwest toward Corona and on to
Carrizozo, Tularosa and Alamogordo. In the postage stamp village of Corona
alongside the railroad tracks is the shell of a handsome general mercantile
store.
The old general mercantile store in Corona, NM |
The connecting thread of these villages is the railroad. It’s
no revelation to recognize that the iron horse really did build the American West
and by extension America itself. When you drive just a few of the blue highways
of New Mexico and West Texas as I have recently done the importance of the
railroad is writ large. Even Marfa, the hipster haven, lives in the middle of no
damn where, began as a water stop for the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. Today
the Sunset Limited passes through Marfa three times a week but doesn’t stop.
The railroad connects far flung communities that have few
residents across great swaths of prairie. Marfa is two hours from El Paso, the
nearest real city, and 20 miles from Alpine where there’s a an honest to God supermarket.
Neither Encino or Vaughn has even a mom and pop grocery store. As far as I can tell you
have to drive to Roswell 70 miles distant to find such a treasure. Talk about
a food desert. And to think we besmirch rural Mississippi.
3 comments:
Ahh yes, the railroad. My dad's father was a railroad man as was Linda's father. I've been hiding away a secret yearning to take a railroad trip someday, just have to pick a route I guess ...
Thank you for the ode to the American railroad on the plains of New Mexico. Vaughn and Encino have their own stark beauty, despite the fact that without the railroad, the towns would be totally deserted, except for a few brave souls, several head of cattle, and the pronghorn. Your photographs show precisely "that look". A little melancholy, a little bit of yearning for hitting the road, or as Terry T. says, the rails. Nice blog, Steve!
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