Route 66 is perhaps the most fabled of Americas lost highways. Running from Chicago to LA, the "Mother Road" was completed in 1926. This tourist trap was just north of Albuquerque, Mew Mexico and fronted 66 before the Santa Rosa cut-off left it on the less traveled Albuquerque to Santa Fe route. In order to survive, the owner of Navajo Rugs had to diversify.

In the days before corporate chain outlets each independent business, with no board of directors to answer to, was like a little laboratory. The proprietor could keep experimenting until he or she found things that worked. It might be rugs, pottery, jewelry, reptiles, snakes or a combination of ingredients.

Unfortunately, the completion of I-25 in the 1970's was too much for even the most enterprising entrepreneur to overcome.

I first photographed Navajo Rugs in 1992. On my last trip to New Mexico I found the building still there but the cochinas were gone, the vigas removed, and the whole place painted white.