Wildorado was named for nearby Wildorado Creek. The town—which once served as a campsite along the old cattle trail from Tascosa to Canyon City—became a community in 1900 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway marked it as a shipping point. Ranchers Eugene Binford and John R. Goodman were its first settlers.

When Interstate 40 blasted its way through Wildorado, all existing businesses on the south side of old Route 66 were destroyed. Those institutions that survived include Randy's Cafe and the old railroad depot. The latter has been moved one block north of its former site. It was recently listed for sale.

Wildorado holds the distinction of doing more for women "cowgirls" than any other Texas Route 66 town. In 1948, local Nancy Jean Binford became a founder of the Girls Rodeo Association—now the Women's Professional Rodeo Association. She sponsored the first all-girl rodeo in Amarillo, and produced all-girl rodeo shows in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Seymour and San Angelo, Texas.

In 1950, Nancy won the world's championship in roping and cutting horse competition. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1979.

In October of 1899, homesteader N.J. Whitfield purchased Section 90 in Oldham County at one dollar per acre. He sold a 100-foot strip right of way to the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Texas Railroad in 1903 and bartered land to four other settlers. The town of Vega was born.

Vega means "plain" or "meadow" in Spanish. Early citizens, however, had more than fields on their minds. In 1915 they voted to make Vega the Oldham County seat.

Throughout the years, Vega would suffer its growing pains. In May of 1931, a fire burned six buildings just west of the town square. Two months later, a conflagration destroyed more downtown businesses. But Vega bounced back, mixing new structure with old. This good-natured tenacity has kept Vega a Route 66 favorite.

Modern motorists slipping into Vega will find the town's friendly toughness hard to resist. The Magnolia Station was the second service station built in Vega during the 1920s. Today, it houses the Route 66 Club and Cafe. The Vega Motel is without question the most pristinely-kept old-road motor court in Texas, and Roark Hardware is the oldest operating hardware store on Route 66, period. Get out your cameras. And smile!

Patrick and John Landergin were the sons of Irish immigrants who came to the United States in wake of the 1840s Irish Potato Famine. The family settled in Oxford, New York, and there established a dairy farm. But the brothers had big dreams. They headed west in 1870, bought a herd of longhorn cattle, and grazed them along the Red River. Time spent ranching around Coffeyville and Eureka, Kansas, made the brothers' fortune: They fattened cattle and shipped them to markets in England.

At the turn of the century, the cattle market crashed. Patrick and John looked to Texas for their future. In 1904 they leased the western half of the LS Ranch in Oldham County and subsequently bought their share of the business. Patrick and John established Landergin as a headquarters for a ranch in 1906. When the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway ran through the area in 1908, the brothers started a supply store near the railroad switch, and a small community sprouted.

For many years, George Rook and his wife, Melba, operated Route 66 Antiques and the Neon Soda Saloon at Landergin. In 1996, this speckle on the road played host to the "Run to the Heartland"—the first of the great national Route 66 celebrations.

Adrian drew its first official breath in the summer of 1909 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway completed its line through this section of Oldham County.

The first area settler predated this development by some time. He was former Texas Ranger Calvin Grant Aten, and he'd survived a Christmas Day 1889 battle with cattle rustlers on Bull Head Mountain to hang up his guns and move his family to a dugout west of Adrian's current site.

Adrian was named for farmer Adrian Cullen. The town grew in fits and starts, courtesy of promotion by the Iowa-based American-Canadian Land and Townsite Company on the one hand, and local water supply problems on the other. The Giles Hotel—which later took turns as the Adrian Mercantile and the Adrian Community Center—stands in tribute to the town's early, burly days.

Adrian today celebrates its position as the "Geo-mathematical Center of Route 66." From here, the old highway ran 1139 miles west to Los Angeles, and 1139 miles east to Chicago. Motorists wanting to "commemorate the middle" are encouraged to visit the Midpoint Cafe—the oldest continuously-operated cafe on Texas Route 66. The Midpoint was born in 1928 as a one-room, dirt-floor eatery called Zella's. Current owner Fran Houser feeds folks today. Don't miss the famous "ugly crust" pies!

The name is an odd coupling of the English word "Glen" and the Spanish word "Rio." Appropriately, Glenrio was a town split in two.

Half of the hamlet lay on the east side of the Texas/New Mexico state line; the other half sat to the west. This situation stymied government officials, and Glenrio was the object of a long battle for tax rights. There were no bars built on Glenrio's Texas side because Deaf Smith County was dry. There were no service stations constructed on Glenrio's New Mexico side because the state charged a higher gasoline tax.

The story of Glenrio's birth is also a twice-told tale. New Mexico residents maintain Glenrio was born in 1903, after the railroad reached the site from Tucumcari. Texans mark Glenrio's start on the day the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway established its station there. Both camps recall the years Glenrio exploded with activity. Cattle pens at the depot were used by the well-known Landergin brothers.

Scenes from the 1939 film The Grapes of Wrath were filmed at Glenrio. Homer Ehresman was once Glenrio's most visible Route 66 businessman. Today, the remains of his First/Last Motel in Texas honor this silent—if somewhat two-faced—ghost town.