Eastbound travelers on Interstate 40 drive past an art installation called the Cadillac Ranch just before coming into Amarillo. It is a line of Cadillacs buried nose-first in the ground and covered with graffiti. About 30 miles after Amarillo is a similar sight, a line of Volkswagen Beetles lined up in similar fashion. This is part of the remains of a ghost town named Conway.
Conway was founded in the late 1800’s, long before becoming a Route 66 town in 1930. Much like many communities on the historic highway, creation of the Interstate system gave people a way to go further and faster in the late 1960’s. It especially hurt that this stretch was about a mile north of town. Residents adapted by moving businesses to the new Interstate exit and did pretty well for a couple years until a steep decline in 1970. The longest surviving business was a service station with a store named Longhorn Ranch and Rattlesnake Ranch attraction. No Interstate is complete without truck stops, so one was eventually built across the street in 2002. The service station owners decided to mimic the famous Cadillac Ranch and created the Bug Ranch. This only helped for a brief time because the business closed a year later.
The Longhorn and Bug Ranches are now badly vandalized and the Beetles are covered with as much spray paint as their cousin to the West. Additional remains of Conway, a mile south, include a boarded up school (built in 1930), several small structures in conditions varying from barely holding on to piles of wood, residents of 3 newer houses, and 2 sets of grain elevators built next to an abandoned railway.
