Destination Alanreed

By Olivia Miller Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

DESTINATION ALANREED

Alanreed, Texas, is one of those small High Plains towns where the wind blows long and hard and the scattered low-slung buildings seem to cling to the earth so they don’t uproot. Surrounded by sparse grazing land, the residents are a tough breed of people that also cling to the soil. With grit and determination, some families hang on to ranches against all odds, while others do the same with small businesses. But one family with a historic surname — Crockett — has survived more than their share of disasters to hang onto both ranch and business in Gray County, Texas.

In its heyday, Alanreed was a popular stop between Amarillo and Oklahoma City. The town was originally laid out based on plans for the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Texas Railroad. Founded in 1900, the town was previously known as Gouge Eye, reportedly named for a bar room brawl, but later received its current name derived from the contracting firm for the railroad, Alan and Reed. The town reached its peak of about 500 residents in 1927, thanks to an oil boom and the creation of Route 66. The population ebbed and flowed until 1977, following the construction of Interstate 40, when it dropped to a mere 60 residents and zero businesses.

“Like most of our small towns, it’s a dying town. In its time, it was a great town. It still has a population, but I would be surprised if it was still in the double digits in the actual city limits,” said Dora Meroney, Secretary and Treasurer of the Old Route 66 Association of Texas.

Double digits or not, tiny Alanreed has the look about it of simply being out in the middle of nowhere, perched on a hill above Interstate 40, motorists zooming by below. But the owners of the Alanreed Travel Center, Dixie and David Crockett, haven’t seemed to mind — they’re used to the relative isolation, whether at their travel oasis, or at home on their ranch north of nearby McLean. Dixie knew that some travelers would always seek out her colorful, quirky treasure of a travel stop. For 37 years, she operated the Alanreed Travel Center — a Conoco gas station plus general store, post office, RV park, and motel. Travelers would stop for necessities, but also because they’d heard about the very personable Dixie Crockett, a woman beloved by the regulars of the Mother Road. At age 78, she’s finally retired – but she’s happy to talk about how she got to Alanreed.

A Cowboy Love Story

Dixie Jo Burroughs grew up an army brat — her dad served in World War II — so Dixie was moved around the country from a young age, her family finally settling in McLean, Texas, for her high school years. As a young woman she wasn’t quite sure what the future held for her after graduating, but she did know one thing: she was going to marry a cowboy.

“When I was a little girl, I was going to be Cinderella. And then after that, I was going to marry Roy Rogers. And that didn’t happen, so I was determined to find me a cowboy, and I found a good one. His name is David Crockett,” Dixie laughed.

The couple is celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this summer, but their love story began when they met in high school in McLean, only eight miles from Alanreed. David was a football player and the son of a Texaco oil distributor; they lived on one of the quiet streets of smalltown McLean. However, David soon discovered that his passion was for ranching. A couple of local ranchers and rodeo cowboys took him under their wings — in the summers, he’d help a local family with their cattle — and the couple’s future began to develop. Just a few days after her 18th birthday in 1962, Dixie married her cowboy.

In the early days of their marriage, the couple purchased five acres — the beginning of the Crockett Ranch — from David’s grandfather. But as some of their aging neighbors were willing to sell additional acreage, the Crocketts finally found themselves with an operating cattle ranch — and a son and two daughters. Dixie stayed busy with her children, her home, and her passion for antiques and dolls, which led her to open a store called Yesteryear.

“My husband cowboyed and ranched, he loved that. [At first] I stayed home with the kids, but I love anything antique, so I opened a store in McLean. When I-40 bypassed McLean, that was the end of that,” said Dixie. “We decided that if we’re going to survive, we needed to get something other than agriculture to keep us going.”

That’s when Dixie’s husband, David, discovered a diamond in the rough.

The Alanreed Travel Center

In Alanreed, about ten miles away from their ranch, stood a deserted gas station with a small restaurant and motel. “My husband drove by it, and he came home that night and said, ‘There’s something sitting up there in Alanreed that could really help us,’” Dixie said. “But it was left abandoned.

Dixie Jo Crockett.

Whoever had it before us just walked off and left it. The electricity was turned off, everything was left in it, it was a disaster.”

Nevertheless, the Crocketts were ready to give it a shot. They met with the property owner, Johnny Holton, agreed to lease it, and sealed the deal with a handshake. Holton’s father had purchased the motel-and-station complex five or ten years earlier, and the Holtons had watched their business tenants struggle until they simply vacated the property. The provenance of the buildings is a bit murky — no one can seem to remember the original business, but 1965 has been put forth as the year it might have been built.

“We came up there and knew nothing about running a gas station. So, we just had to clean it and get a new image. We were just determined to make something go,” Dixie added. And make it go, they did. A renovation was required to change the building from a restaurant into a general store and post office. Dixie became the mastermind behind the travel center, hatching ideas and hiring workmen to bring them to life.

“My husband is not a carpenter. He can do stuff with cattle, but he’s not a house carpenter,” said Dixie, but they set their sights on what the outcome could look like and pushed forward. While she prepared to open the business, David continued to run the ranch, along with son Brock.

The travel center opened in 1985, boasting colorful murals and quirky signs such as “your husband called and said you can buy anything you want!” to bring tourists in off the road. It worked. The quaint oasis brought in customers both

local and far-flung, and her charming ways ensured that many of them would come back again. Dixie began selling Exxon gasoline, but soon switched to an affiliation with Conoco.

The gas station may be the main reason travelers stopped, but Dixie knew how to make them stay. The motel’s doors were adorned with hand-painted murals of traditional western Texas scenes. A cowboy and cowgirl silhouette leaned against the entrance to the trading post, where visitors could find postcards, beer, wine, and eccentric Texas souvenirs. The “Alanreed Jail” — small as it was — stood outside, just waiting for photo ops. A guest’s stay was carefully designed to be something to remember.

“We did anything we could to draw attention, we tried to make it appealing and a fun place for tourists to visit,” said Dixie. “I had a mock election for the past five presidential elections. Anybody coming down the interstate could vote, they only had to put their state or country. It was a lot of fun.”

Life on the Range

When the family moved to Alanreed from their ranch in 1985, the open land was what their kids missed the most. Going from the country lifestyle to living right off the interstate, the young cowgirls and cowboys missed the ranch and leaned towards their father’s way of life.

“We had always lived out in the country, riding horses, and Alanreed was kind of not in the country, it was right off I-40; it was a lot different,” said Juliana Sadler, the youngest of the three Crockett children. “They had struggled financially. My dad would do the ranching part and my mom… that’s the whole reason of her having to go there. We needed another source of income, because the ranching business wasn’t doing very good. So, it worked out really well.”

As enjoyable as it could be, it wasn’t always an easy road. In 1970, the travel center was hit with its first tornado and then again, 20 years later in 1995. While there wasn’t complete destruction, the Crocketts still had to cope with the aftermath. Then, a mysterious fire destroyed the living quarters of the motel around 2000.

“I was working in the store and looked out and there was fire coming out of our living quarters at the end of the motel. We didn’t really ever know… It destroyed one room in the living quarters,” said Dixie. “But we are the NGU bunch; ‘Never Give Up.’ I had some help. David didn’t ever run it, but he helped in any way he could, whenever there was something major broken down. For a while, I had some employees, but as time went on it got harder to find [people].”

But Dixie did find some help, somewhat accidentally, in a long-time customer. Leigh-Anne Isbell had known the Crocketts since she was 12. She grew up near the Alanreed Travel Center. As it was the only place nearby to buy alcohol, Isbell would tag along with her dad on his trips there.

“My dad would drive out there and it was kind of an adventure for us, it’s nine miles away, and her store was always so neat, with all the different things she had in there. So, it was an adventure for us. ‘Hey, we’re going to the beer store with daddy,’ and he’d go get us a snack and get a beer, and we’d visit with them,” said Isbell.

While working as a curator at the the Devil’s Rope Barbed Wire Museum in McLean, Isbell discovered that the Crocketts were going out of town and needed someone to run the travel center. Her boss initially volunteered her, but Isbell chose to stick around long after the Crocketts returned.

“They’re a really good family. Dixie’s just quirky. They had so many stories of the people they’d met. It was neat to see all the different [folks]. They’d come in and say, ‘We met the Crocketts years ago, so now this is a stop for us, we always stop here,’” said Isbell. “It was a local place that I grew up going to with my dad, and then when I left and went to college, when I’d come home, I would always make a point to go to the store, because they had Texas souvenirs and things like that. I always made a point to go and buy souvenirs and take them back with me when I went out of state.”

Trying Tragedies and Solemn Good-byes

Extreme weather hit the Texas Panhandle in the summer of 1995, in the form of strong storms and a rare F-5 tornado. Three generations of Crocketts sought safety in their storm cellars north of McLean while the tornado wreaked a path of destruction nearly a mile wide, including on their four houses, barn, corrals, wagons, and livestock. It would have been a

hard blow, but this is Texas. Refusing to be beaten, the Crocketts rebuilt everything.

A worse tragedy struck the family in the 2017 Panhandle Wildfires. While working on the Franklin Ranch, grandson Cody Crockett and his girlfriend Sydney Wallace were moving cattle when the winds suddenly changed, killing the young couple.

“He was certainly a cowboy and loved it. He was doing what he loved,” said Dixie.

The tragedy brought the Crocketts closer together, and nearly four years later, in 2021, Dixie knew it was time to close the travel center and spend more time with her family back on the ranch. After working nearly every day for 37 years, working on her feet everyday only got harder. She was in her mid-seventies when her decision was further solidified as David was thrown from a horse, putting him in a nursing home for a month, and soon after, Dixie broke her back in seven different places.

“I should not be on my feet for very long at a time. [David] was hurt for a long time, and he still has some effects from that, so it was just time.” The Crocketts’ decision to close in August 2021 was just what their children had been yearning for, as they worried about their parents’ health and wellbeing.

“Everyone thought it was time. She had been there 30some years, a long time. They’re older, it’s just a lot of work. They’re strong, strong people and they worked through every bit of it. They just never really got to do a lot, and [travel] a lot, so I’m hoping that they can relax more and enjoy life more,” said Juliana.

Into the Future

As the Crocketts announced that they would be closing, the property’s longtime owner, Johnny Holton, listed the property with a realtor, announcing that he was also in the process of retiring. The Crocketts had been Holton’s tenants for 37 years.

“Someone right now is looking at the travel center. I don’t know what they want to do with it. I know they want to keep it as an RV Park, but I don’t know what exactly,” said Dixie. “I hope they keep it just like it was. Any way I can help, I’ll be happy to do it.”

The motel rests quietly on the hill above the highway. It took a while to make the sale, but on February 24, 2022, Johnny Holton sold the property to Daryl Duke, a construction company owner from Wellington, Texas, where Holton also lives. Duke plans to do some remodeling and has not yet announced a reopening date for the business. As for the Crocketts, with eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, they plan to spend their newfound time with their close-knit family. In true cowboy fashion, David plans to continue ranching into his 80s while Dixie will continue to foster her own passion for antiques, making their McLean home the perfect oasis for their brood, just as they did for travelers for nearly forty years. The ranch suits them all, as the family’s legacy of cowboy life flows through the Crockett family genes, and the couple’s children and grandchildren all developed a love for the lifestyle. While the doors of the travel center may be closed for now, the spirit of the Crocketts illuminates Alanreed in visitors’ memories. What could now be considered a ghost town was a beloved stop for many, whether it was a fatherdaughter snack run or a lonely traveler looking for a warm conversation. The Alanreed Travel Center will live on in their cherished memories for all that it was, but mostly for the heart and soul of its owner — Dixie Jo Crockett. Dixie and her cowboy have clung to the land and to each other for 60 years now. As they reflect on their struggles and triumphs, their travel center waits quietly on its windswept ridge for its next occupant, who hopefully will give it another 37 years of life.

ROCK OF AGES

Historians, preservationists, and researchers have explored and documented much of the length of Route 66 and its myriad landmarks. But an aura of mystery still surrounds a handful of enigmatic locations, brushing evidence — or lack of — aside for legends and myths. The quiet remains of one such building stands cloaked in mystery between Luther and Arcadia, Oklahoma. About the Old Rock Conoco Station, few facts are actually known, but the legends and lore run rampant. Its roof and canopy long gone, the rock walls and pillars may hold secrets about this place, but they’re not giving them up for those who want to know what happened here.

Located on old Route 66 five miles west of Luther, the Old Rock Station is also known as the Rock of Ages Station for the farm that it adjoins. No one seems to know the exact year that it opened, but it’s believed to have been built in the 1920s, back when there was no electricity to power the station. The pumps were fed by gravity from 55-gallon drums. Candy was sold when the temperatures were low enough to keep it from melting, and soda was available when the iceman had dropped by with a fresh block. But this purer vision of innocent classic Americana doesn’t quite fit with the station’s corrupt reputation.

“According to the legend that I’ve verified with some other elderly folks that live in the area, they had some folks stop and fill up one day and they told them how they could make a whole lot of money and they sold them these plates. And so, in the back room, in addition to selling gas out front, they were making, I think, $10 bills from these plates,” said Linda Simonton, owner of the Rock of Ages Farm, and now, the old Conoco station.

As the story goes, the two brothers who owned the gas station built a counterfeiting office in a secret back room. They had a good operation going for a time, until they were caught in Oklahoma City trying to circulate the counterfeit bills, thus ending their money-making operation. To further the saga, an unidentified body was allegedly found soon after on the property. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support the local tale, but word of mouth keeps the myth circulating.

“I’m a little skeptical in that as the story goes, they had a counterfeiting printing press in the back room of the station, but the only problem is, the station is very small and on the back wall was a fireplace, and behind that was basically a rock embankment, so I have trouble understanding where this backroom would’ve been,” said Jim Ross, Route 66 Oklahoma author and historian.

While the tale has the station closing in the late 1930s, the only known photograph shows two men with a dog out in front of it, still in operation in 1940. Previously owned by Sam Gillaspy, who shared the legends with the local community, the station’s ruins are now owned by Linda Simonton; both are on the Board of Directors of the Arcadia Historical Society. “It was offered to me by Mr. Sam. I was the only one he would sell it to because he knew I would care for it and maintain it, and let him stay there under supervision. He is still living in the house and there are people checking on him a couple of times a day. He’s 94 years old,” said Simonton. “Mr. Sam keeps that thing meticulous and swept out. He and his second wife ran a park in there. My plan is to restore that park. It had a zip line in it, and a big slide, and a swing. They entertained groups like the Scouts. He’d bring them out, give them a tour, he had swinging bridges over creeks. All kinds of really cool stuff.”

Will a children’s park help to dispel the old tale of crime and murder? Mythology and mysteries are sometimes part of an aura that is hard to shake off. And, despite no known evidence to prove any part of the counterfeiting tale, the story persists. But while the station’s past may be hazy, the future is quite clear. This little piece of lost treasure along Route 66 in Oklahoma will be welcoming visitors for a long time to come.