Ports to Plains spur connects New Mexico and Texas

September 27, 2006
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

The Ports-to-Plains Series, Part 4
Other parts you may have missed:

1. Laredo, Texas to San Angelo, Texas:
   Ports-To-Plains may save rural Southwest
2. San Angelo to Lubbock:
   Ports-To-Plains connects Mexican manufacturers, consumers with U.S. markets
3. On to Denver, Colorado:
   On the Ports-to-Plains, Truckers’ tradeoffs: Better roads, but higher fuel prices
4. The New Mexico Spur Back to Texas
   Ports to Plains Spur Connects New Mexico to Texas

 

Aside from his reputation as a master of international diplomacy, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson may be remembered as the “transportation chief” of his arid state.

Richardson’s push to bridge commerce within and beyond the “Land of Enchantment” is finely illustrated by his drive to graft a branch onto the main trunk of the Ports-To-Plains Corridor.

On a map, the route from Dalhart, Texas, to Raton, New Mexico, appears as a spur to or from the main PTP route that stretches from Laredo to Denver. But on the ground, Sept. 20, travelers are treated to sweeping New Mexico prairies, interrupted only by hills, bluffs and caprock.

Lush grasslands dotted with herds of grazing, tan-and-white pronghorn antelope, and a horizon-to-horizon blue dome punctuated with puffy tufts of drifting clouds complete the scenery for which northern New Mexico is famed.

But U.S. Highway 64/87 also offers important alternatives to truckers moving goods through the desert southwest. Richardson says the value of those goods on this route ranges from $60-100 billion annually.

The New Mexico portion, the lion’s share of the spur, is 83 miles, from Raton to Clayton, N.M. When he broke ground for the project on Dec. 15, 2005, Richardson committed $101 million to make it a first class, four-lane divided corridor.

When completed, the road will offer safe passage for truckers, travelers and tourists between the main PTP route and Interstate 25. It’s a small, but vital part of the governor’s GRIP program – “Governor Richardson’s Investment Partnership.” GRIP is a $1.6 billion statewide transportation infrastructure rescue and enhancement program Richardson inaugurated in May, 2005.

Again, a glance at the map shows why Richardson was so adamant about becoming part of the Ports-To-Plains Coalition. With the connection, truckers coming from Mexico (through Laredo, Eagle Pass or Del Rio), for example, aiming at deliveries in northern New Mexico (Santa Fe or Albuquerque) or southern Colorado (Trinidad, Pueblo or Colorado Springs), will have access to the I-25 corridor to those destinations and many more.

To get to southern Colorado, however, truckers must negotiate the winding road and steep grades through Raton Pass, elevation 7,834 feet, a trek most avoid during snowy, icy episodes, November through April. If Denver is the primary destination of trucks originating in Mexico, the PTP Corridor through southeastern Colorado is often the chosen alternative.

Richardson dubbed the U.S. 64/87 stretch from Raton to Clayton the “John L. Morrow Highway” in 2004, in honor of the late state senator, a popular figure in the New Mexico legislature, also a rancher with a reputation for good humor as “New Mexico’s Will Rogers.”

Now, the race is on to completely rehabilitate the aging roadway, bringing it up to PTP standards. At the 2005 groundbreaking, Richardson shared his vision: “We are making this huge investment here because Northeastern New Mexico is a vital part of our economic future. We are working to take what was once part of the Santa Fe Trail into the 21st Century.”

A southbound traveler on I-25, fresh from the glorious panoramas afforded in the negotiation of Raton Pass, makes a sharp left onto U.S. Highway 64/87, and within minutes is slowed for the first batch of many miles of construction projects cranked up by Richardson’s GRIP program.

Another stretch, from Grenville, 30 miles west of Clayton, N.M. to within 7 miles of the Clayton city limits, shows Twin Mountain Construction Company work on two more lanes, designed for westbound traffic. All phases of work are in evidence, from scraping bare soil, to establishing base and roadbed, to paving with jet black asphalt. The $14 million section will complete the four-lane divided highway here.

Bridgework, right-of-way pipelines and fiber optic cable are scattered at strategic points along the route, as are huge materials storage and mixing sites, with hundreds of gravel haulers and earthmovers crawling about, or parked for the night.

But out of an abundance of civic pride, Clayton Mayor Garth Boyce considers his town the eastern anchor for this sweep of the Ports-To-Plains Corridor. With a city population of 2,600 and a Union County population of 4,000, Clayton is striving to capitalize on both highway and historicity to advance in the direction of Boyce’s dreams.

The city bills itself as the “Crossroads of the Southwest,” in part because Union County touches the borders of Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. But the county’s Community Development Corporation also touts its “natural wonders, national grasslands, large ranches and dinosaur tracks.”

Nearby Capulin Volcano National Monument protects a 60,000-year-old cinder cone, rising 1,000 feet from the plains below, affording views of all four states in the immediate area and into Kansas as well.

Clayton is a National Main Street City, as is Del Rio, Texas and, as with our city, private entrepreneurs and investors have put their money where their mouth is to make the designation a meaningful reality. The jewel of Main Street in Clayton is the Eklund Hotel, Dining Room & Saloon, a $2.6 million renovation project completed in 2004, after a closure of 30 years and all the neglect that goes with it.

Built in two parts, respectively in 1892 and 1898, the old landmark is now completely refurbished, with spacious, high-ceilinged rooms and suites, comfortable hand-made furniture, sparkling period-style tile, ceramic and porcelain baths, and gracious hosts – Thedra McDowell and Ilene Taylor – at the front parlor desk.

In addition, the historic saloon boasts its original bar and mirrors. The whiskey and wine may be aged, but the room is timeless and popular. Nearby, the Victorian period decorated dining room offers a great selection of steaks. “Union County is ranch and feedlot country,” asserts the Community Development Corporation Web site, www.eatmorebeef.net.

But Boyce, 63 and mayor for only seven months, is looking beyond the feedlots and recent increases in pig production for revenue streams to drench the local economy.

“Today we signed a $78 million economic development agreement with GEO Group and the New Mexico Department of Corrections to build a 600-bed correctional facility here, to be expanded another 300 beds,” Boyce said over drinks and dinner at the Eklund. GEO Group, he said, is expected to create 200 new jobs, and stimulate another 100.

The most recent estimate of through travelers is that 1.5 million vehicles pass through Clayton annually. “If you can stop that car overnight, it’s about $50 per person into the local economy, and at two or three people per car, it becomes a $172 million market,” Boyce exclaimed. “We’re trying to change from a byway to a destination city.”

“But we also want to know what’s in all those trucks passing through, and how we can participate in their industry. We hope to build an industrial park to accommodate whatever we learn about that,” Boyce said.

Other prospects include a pilot energy-generating “windfarm,” already in profusion in the Texas Panhandle, the Davis Mountain area, and southeastern Colorado.

His big concern now is the number one issue on the lips of westerners everywhere. Water.

“Over towards Dalhart, they’re putting in the world’s largest cheese factory, so there’ll be stiff competition for water out of the Oglalla Aquifer. It doesn’t recharge itself, you know,” said Boyce. The concern is regional.

“Question is – where’s all this water going to come from? When asked what was going on in Dalhart, an individual who identified himself as being associated with the dairy industry replied, ‘We’re going to buy Dalhart,’” said a Nov. 30, 2005 blogger to the Amarillo Globe News Web site.

But Boyce believes in the power of positive thinking. He’s working a deal with a “major truck stop and a possible hotel,” to be sited on Clayton city property for a $1-per-year lease arrangement. Boyce believes truckers and tourists are strong reasons to support the Ports-To-Plains Corridor here.

From Clayton to Texline, the first burg east of New Mexico, the evidence of civic pride is abundant. Amidst rolling bundles of tumbleweed are frequent signs announcing roadside cleanups by Union County Crime Stoppers, the Clayton Gospel Church and the Lariat Cow Belles.

Road construction continues along the New Mexico and Texas spur, nearly to its reconnection with the main PTP Corridor. And Eklund Hotel Manager McDowell is relieved.

“That road is so unsafe as it is now or was before all this! When we have high winds and blowing snow and ice, there are so many wrecks out there, all the time,” lamented McDowell.

McDowell’s and Boyce’s sentiments and aspirations are felt or expressed all along the 1,300-mile Ports-To-Plains Corridor, perceived most acutely in those communities that have heard and taken to heart the goals of the Ports-To-Plains Coalition. The Coalition can make no promises – only projections – but communities make it happen.

Closing thoughts on the Ports-To-Plains Corridor

Just as the brutally competitive railroad industry of the late 19th- and early 20th century drove many small towns into oblivion, shunned from rail access, Interstate highways have repeated the neglect of struggling small towns and villages across the nation, leaving many shriveled or dead, barely a name on old maps.

In the process, some Interstates have become overcrowded strips of traffic, often populated by tourists, commuters and truckers jockeying for room to rumble.

But revitalized, alternative pathways of commerce – such as the Ports-To-Plains Corridor – may, in turn, resuscitate and embellish rural areas, such as Limon, Colo., Clayton, N.M., Sonora, San Angelo, and Dumas, Texas, and 20 more that have chosen to become partners in well-planned efforts offering relief from Interstate strip madness and congested traffic.

Alternative routes are already providing better direct access to intermediate and long-distance destinations, lacking only consistency in quality of roads, bridges and freedom of movement within or around congested traditional routes. The Ports-To-Plains Coalition strives to accomplish such improvements, and jobs and economic strength will surely follow.

Other parts you may have missed:

 

1. Laredo, Texas to San Angelo, Texas:
   Ports-To-Plains may save rural Southwest
2. San Angelo to Lubbock:
   Ports-To-Plains connects Mexican manufacturers, consumers with U.S. markets
3. On to Denver, Colorado:
   On the Ports-to-Plains, Truckers’ tradeoffs: Better roads, but higher fuel prices
4. The New Mexico Spur Back to Texas
   Ports to Plains Spur Connects New Mexico to Texas