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Tucumcari Tonite!
David H. Stratton
其他書名
A Story of Railroads, Route 66, and the Waning of a Western Town
出版University of New Mexico Press, 2022-04
主題History / GeneralHistory / United States / State & Local / Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX)History / Modern / 20th Century / GeneralHistory / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)History / Social HistoryTRANSPORTATION / Railroads / History
ISBN08263633939780826363398
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=xFfSEAAAQBAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBookSAMPLE
註釋"David Stratton's Tucumcari Tonite! : A Story of Railroads, Route 66, and the Waning of a Western Town offers an idiosyncratic blend of local history and personal memoir, recounting the 'biography' of Tucumcari, New Mexico, from its founding to the present day. Tucumcari was founded in 1901 as the Rock Island Railroad was laying tracks west in a futile attempt to forge a viable transcontinental connection. In its heyday from the 1910s to the 1960s, the town became a regional railroad center with lines converging from Chicago and Memphis in the east, from Los Angeles in the west, and from the Dawson coal mines in the north. Tucumcari was a bustling industrial center and a hotbed for unionism isolated in an expanse of prairies and plains. In the National Railroad Shopmen's Strike of 1922, Tucumcari saw more strike action than any other place on the Rio Grande Division, including El Paso. Beginning with the establishment of the federal highway system in 1926, Route 66 came through the town, creating a flourishing tourist business. Tucumcari became known by travelers on Route 66 for its many neon-lit motels, restaurants, and curio shops. But after World War II, changes in the railroad industry were made that doomed Tucumcari as a rail center. Today, no passenger trains pass through the town, and the frequent freights whip past with only a passing blast of their diesel horns. As though conditions could get no worse, the post-war interstate highway system customarily avoided small towns like Tucumcari, constructing bypasses around them. An I-40 bypass virtually killed off Tucumcari's tourist trade. The town is dying-a sad story, but one well worth telling. The author is a native son of Tucumcari, born and raised two blocks south of Route 66. Personal insights and family experiences are woven into the narrative, which draws on newspapers and government documents, business records, personal interviews, family and public archival holdings. Stratton has also accumulated a great many potential illustrations that can be included alongside the text. (The book's title comes from the renowned advertising signs that local boosters have placed for hundreds of miles along highways in every direction from town.)"--