66 Super Service Station

Westbound drivers on early Route 66 reached Alanreed, Texas, just before the Jericho Gap, and the 66 Super Service Station is the building that marks that stop.

The Old Route 66 Association of Texas says Bradley Kiser built the station in 1930 at Main and 3rd Street, the corner where the original 1926 to 1936 alignment of the highway came through Alanreed and turned west. According to the association, Alanreed was the last safe stop before the Jericho Gap, an 18-mile section of dirt road notorious for deep muddy ruts where cars commonly got stuck. A later alignment of Route 66 ran straight along 3rd Street, which kept the station on the highway until it was bypassed in the 1980s with the opening of Interstate 40. The association gives 1982 as the year the station closed. The Historic66 website, by contrast, dates the complex to 1932.