Our regular readers know that we began a new project at the Zephyr last year–called “Zephyr America.” We’ve been slowly wading through the massive Zephyr archives of historic photos and digitizing them to share with our readers. To keep up with the project on a daily basis, please check out our Facebook page at Facebook.com/ZephyrAmerica.
Our archives contain thousands of photos, including the archives of our founding publisher Jim Stiles. His photos from the 70s and 80s hold memories of places and people that have already been lost to time. This series, from the Salt Flat Cafe, is one of my favorites… TS
Jim Stiles writes…
In the late 1920s, work was started on a new road that would connect Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, with El Paso, Texas, a distance of almost 175 miles. The new highway would pass through some of the most desolate (and magnificent) scenery in the American Southwest.
The cafe’s origins go back to a man named Edwin Hammock. He was part of a family ranching operation near Van Horn, Texas when word spread about the big road project. Hammock decided a gas station/store would be needed along that long hot stretch of road, and in 1929, he opened for business. Within a couple years he added a diner, and a motor court for weary travelers. Over the decades, the little community grew and shrank with the times. A salt mining operation kept it busy for years, and a Greyhound bus stop was established there as well (it still stops if you wave it down). It was even rumored that Amelia Earhart landed nearby a few times in the 1930s.
The population peaked at about 125, a decade after WWII but had shrunk to less than 70 by the late 70s and Salt Flats lost its post office. At about that time, in November 1978, my buddy Jim Conklin and I stopped there for breakfast on our way to El Paso. Jim was a ranger at Carlsbad Caverns and insisted we pause for what he promised me would be a memorable experience. It was.
We were the only customers on this blustery late autumn morning and I shot these film pictures of the interior as we waited for our meal. By all accounts, the cafe, run for decades by Shirley Richardson, was still open until about 2016, when personal health issues shut the place down for good.
Tonya and I returned to the Salt Flat Cafe in February 2019, and took some “before & after” images. Not much had changed, with one exception. All those thousands and thousands of acres across the road are now owned by Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin launch facility is just over the hill near Van Horn…
For more photos, please check out
ZEPHYR AMERICA: A LENS ON THE PAST
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Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are hot!
Love the photo of Jim Conklin. I know you know that he saved my life in 1976.
finally see value about salt lake cafe : i own property there ; need know exact time open IF i use groundhoud bus
around trip : and your phone number is big help . thank you for trying again : is phone real usable ? : is that a clock
i might see on outside cafe ? …