Arizona's Haunted Route 66

By Debe Branning

Arizona claims one of the longest segments of the famous Route 66. Along the nearly four hundred miles of road are stops filled with legends, history, superstitions and spirits of travelers who experienced untimely accidents and murders. Meet Leorena Shipley, an aspiring actress whose career was cut short by tragedy. Discover how the Apache Death Cave became the haunted site of a mass grave. Visit the Monte Vista Hotel, one of the most haunted hotels in Arizona. Learn how the Grand Canyon Caverns were discovered and became a favorite attraction. Travel to Oatman, a ghost town with a multitude of spirits. Join author and paranormal historian Debe Branning on a haunted road trip across Arizona and discover the spooky history of the Mother Road.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781439673553

Debe Branning

Debe Branning has been the director of the MVD Ghostchasers since 1994. The Mesa/Bisbee-based team conducts investigations of haunted, historical locations throughout Arizona and offers paranormal workshops. Debe has been a guest lecturer and speaker at multiple universities, community colleges and conferences in addition to her television appearances. As a paranormal journalist, she investigates haunted locations worldwide and is the author of multiple books for adults and children.

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INTRODUCTION

Many of us remember that almost monumental feeling of overwhelming excitement that first week of June—the day school let out for the summer! Mom and Dad scrimped and saved all year so they could afford to load up the kids in the back of the station wagon and (if you were fortunate) head out on the road for a one-week vacation visiting historic landmarks and national monuments and buying souvenirs at various trading posts. If you were like my family, a cooler was packed with a picnic lunch to cut down on the cost of the burger joints we passed as we drove slowly through towns and cities. We ate our lunch at roadside stops on weathered picnic tables under a tree. If we were lucky, there might be a barbecue pit and a trash barrel, and if it was really fancy, there might be a smelly outhouse (surrounded by flies) nearby.

Bathroom breaks were only acknowledged when Dad needed to stop for gasoline. Gas station attendants serviced the vehicle while Mom gathered the coveted key to the restroom (most often secured on a ring with a large wooden stick marked Men and Women). The restrooms were greasy and smelly, with spiderwebs in the corner. If you were lucky, there was a roll of toilet paper sitting on the sink. But never fear—Mom always had a spare roll in her purse.

After supper, our parents drove down the old highways searching the neon signs for that perfect motel to rest our heads. No fancy hotels or swimming pools for our family! It was down to the basics: a bed with clean sheets and a sterile bathroom. If we were lucky, there was a café adjacent to the motel where we might be treated to a warm hamburger or hot dog.

No matter what, we loved being on the old highways. I can remember having to stop and change a burned-out headlight or maybe fixing a flat tire or two, but it was always an adventure. You would see all sorts of other families out on the road creating their own memories.

Route 66 was probably the most sought-out highway for vacationing travelers in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. But in its earlier days, it was also a road for survival. In the early 1920s, automobiles became affordable to many American households. They were being mass-produced in factories, and people started buying them at an astounding rate. To meet the needs of the public, the U.S. government created a federal numbered highway system that linked existing roads together into routes for people to travel. The official birthdate of Route 66 was November 11, 1926.

Route 66 consisted of 2,448 miles of blacktop roadway in eight states—from Chicago, Illinois, to the ocean views of Santa Monica, California. In between, travelers explored Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona—places most travelers had never dreamed of seeing. The cities and towns offered museums, attractions, cafés with inviting home-cooked meals, cozy places to rest your head and plenty of trading posts to buy postcards and silly souvenirs. As time passed, traveling changed for motorists. Suddenly, travel was all about how quickly they could arrive at their destination. Interstate Highway 40 was planned and developed, and by 1984, most of the small towns and business had been bypassed, left to become ghost towns in the dusty Arizona desert.

Old Route 66 in western Arizona. Courtesy of Chance Houston.

Arizone Route 66 map. Courtesy of Pinterest.

Some say that Arizona has the most isolated stretches of Old Route 66 of all the states the road passes through. There is nothing like driving the dark, deserted highway in the middle of the night, listening to an oldies radio station as you navigate the narrow winding road. Stop at one of the remaining roadside tables and take in the sights—the view of the constellations and the Milky Way hovering over you will lead the way. Listen for the spirit voices of the past. They may be willing to share their tales, legends, folklore filled with hope and adventure, love and despair—it is all on Arizona’s haunted Route 66.

CHAPTER 1

LUPTON

CHIEF YELLOWHORSE TRADING POST

Lupton is a tiny hamlet in Apache County adjacent to the Arizona/New Mexico state line along Route 66. This area of Arizona has been inhabited for at least ten thousand years. In more recent times, the Anasazis, or Ancestral Puebloans, lived in this area. Their homeland covered the Colorado Plateau, a vast part of southern Utah, Colorado, western New Mexico and Arizona west of the Colorado River and north of the Little Colorado and Puerco Rivers. Apache County was created in 1879, and in 1895, Navajo County was split from its western half. The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, which later became a part of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF), built its rails westward from Gallup and extended its tracks in 1883 following the Rio Puerco to the West River.

The town was named after the 1905 Winslow train master, G.W. Lupton. Another source indicates that G.W. Lupton owned the first trading post in the area. A small post office opened in 1917, and shortly after, in 1926, Route 66 was aligned through Lupton following the National Old Trails Highway, which had been created in the early 1910s. Lupton figured in the 1927 Rand McNally Map, along U.S. 66, as being twelve miles east of Houck, Arizona, on an unpaved but graded road that would be realigned once again in 1930.

Chief Yellowhorse Trading Post near Lupton. Author’s collection.

Lupton is also known as Painted Cliffs for its soaring sandstone cliffs, formed between 60 and 200 million years ago. Statues of bear, deer and eagles adorn the top of the cliffs and welcome weary travelers to the deserts of Arizona. The 1940 Hollywood epic The Grapes of Wrath used the stop as a film location. Moviegoers may remember it as the spot where the Joad family enters Arizona beneath the colorful red cliffs. A state inspection booth once stood where Tom Joad reassures the inspector that they don’t intend to stay in the state any longer than it takes to cross it.

The Yellowhorse family has welcomed traveling tourists from their Navajo-owned trading post on the Navajo reservation for decades. They began their legacy as traders in the 1950s from a roadside stand, where the enterprising family sold Navajo rugs and petrified wood to vacationers. Traveling Route 66 was a great adventure, and stops were few and far between. Resources for gas, restrooms and food were greatly needed, so they created a traveler stop the entire family could enjoy.

Earlier in the 1940s, Harry Indian Miller left Two Guns, Arizona, and brought a portion of his famed desert zoo and Native American artifacts to the cave-like formation in Lupton. Here he proclaimed that he was an amateur archaeologist. Miller believed that he had discovered the real route to Coronado and the Seven Cities of Cibola in the Lupton area. Miller was quite the storyteller, and his accounts of the killings predating his arrival were rarely questioned. He opened a trading post in the Cave of the Seven Devils, adorned with relics and wigwams to create an early Indian village. The name was painted in huge letters over the cave entrance and was visible from the highway. Some say that he resided at the cave until his death in February 1952, while others proclaim that Miller was banished from Arizona due to his unorthodox business practices. We will speak more of the infamous Harry Indian Miller in a future chapter.

In the 1960s, Juan and Frank Yellowhorse bought the site where Harry Miller’s former mystical trading post stood and turned it into a modern trading center not far from their first primitive rug stand. The large cave still lends an aura of mystique and attracts Route 66 travelers as they enter the colorful deserts of Arizona.

Chief Yellowhorse Trading Post

Exit 359, I-40

Lupton, AZ 86508

CHAPTER 2

ALLENTOWN

CRONEMEYER TRADING POST

Allantown had its start around 1900 after the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad was extended to reach that point in 1881 and 1882. The community was named after Allan Johnson, a cattleman. The town post office was later renamed Allentown, changing the spelling, and established in 1924. It remained in operation until 1930. The town was long inhabited by the Navajo people of the area but never grew very large. When Route 66 came bustling through town, it boasted a gas station, grocery store, curio shop and café. For many years, travelers along this stretch of the road associated Allentown with a large dome-like structure that housed a curio shop called Indian City. Although the dome structure is gone, visitors can now visit a new modernized version of the famed site.

One of the first businessmen of the area was a man of German descent named Curt Cronemeyer. Some believed that he was a wealthy man and owned a large estate in Germany. Cronemeyer owned several trading establishments and erected a trading post a short distance south of the railroad tracks. Cronemeyer had two Navajo wives and built his trading business on land that was said to have been allotted to one of his wives by her family. He had two children: a son named Hoska Cronemeyer and a daughter named Edith Cronemeyer Murphy.

Cronemeyer had a reputation of being an eccentric character and somewhat of a flirtatious ladies’ man. He often left a questionable impression on his traders and customers but was known to be an honest man and respected by those who knew him well. He was widely known throughout western New Mexico and eastern Arizona and had many friends among the Native American tribes.

Cronemeyer Trading Post token. Courtesy of Pinterest/eBay.

On June 27, 1915, he and his employee, C.A. Red McDonald, were robbed, shot and killed at the trading post. At first, rumors began to circulate that the fifty-nine-year-old trader was confronted by Navajo tribesmen. However, newspaper articles later revealed that Gallup, New Mexico sheriff Bob Roberts tracked a group of Mexican bandits to El Paso, Texas, where they confessed to the murders when captured.

Victor Wezer and Blas Lozano, along with two other men, M. Nuanez and Delbino Rosales, secured five dollars in money from Cronemeyer and spent the entire amount for food. They rode out to their camp in the hills, where they cooked and ate what they had purchased.

Later, around six o’clock, they went back to the store, where they got into an argument with Red McDonald. Lozano whipped out his six-shooter, a .44-caliber, and shot McDonald dead, putting two bullets in his body. Lozano later stated that it was not their intention to kill either of the men in the store when they returned, but a quarrel came up over an old watch that they were trying to pawn for more money. After McDonald was shot by Lozano, Wezer pulled out his revolver, a .38-caliber, and opened fire on Cronemeyer.

As he stated it, they had to kill Cronemeyer so he could not tell the story of the killing of McDonald. Six shots in all were fired, according to his testimony. Wezer shot Cronemeyer twice, he said, once through the hand and once through the body. A third shot was fired, but this bullet went wild and struck the wall of the store.

Cronemeyer was not instantly killed and was able to get to the telephone and call for help. At about 8:00 p.m., a telephone call was received at Houck, Arizona, and a voice believed to have been Cronemeyer cried into the receiver, We are shot! Send help quick, quick, quick! The Santa Fe Railroad pumper and section foreman went at once on horseback, and upon arrival at the trading store, they found McDonald dead behind the counter of the store and Cronemeyer lifeless on the bed. McDonald was shot through the eye and breast. Trading checks and a box of crackers lay on the counter, indicating that the murdered man had been waiting on a customer at the time of the shooting. A Winchester rifle with one empty shell, covered with blood, lay beside him.

Grave of Red McDonald at Hillcrest Cemetery, Gallup, New Mexico. Author’s collection.

Footprints and drops of blood show that Cronemeyer ran around the house two or three times, either chasing or being chased by someone. A bloody handprint on the mirror in the living room indicated that he stopped to look at his reflection in the mirror. There was another bloody handprint on the floor of the kitchen, where