The Mysterious Ghost City That’s Split Between Texas and New Mexico

Both Texas & New Mexico are full of ghost towns; but usually they tend to stay within their respective states. But not in this case. This is a very unusual case in that the ghost town in question belongs to BOTH states. In order to find it, you just need to travel to Northwest Texas (or Northeast New Mexico) to find it.

Texas & New Mexico is the proud owner of the ghost town called Glenrio

On the old Route 66 lies the small abandoned town known as Glenrio, formerly called Rock Island. During the 40s & 50s, this place was a hot spot with diners, bars, motels and dance halls. The town was even featured & mentioned in several films:

• Like the 1940 film, The Grapes of Wrath.
• The opening scene to the 2018 film, Daylight's End, was shot in Glenrio
• The city was even mentioned in the 2006 film, Cars. The "Glenn Rio Motel" was used as an abandoned building that would become the Racing Museum.

Today however, things have changed. This ghost town lies right on the border of Deaf Smith County, Texas, and Quay County, New Mexico.

A quick look on Google Maps will show you how the town looked in the years 2008 & 2021; which...yeah not much had changed during that time. Most of the town remained abandoned even in present day.

However there is a bit of a change when we look at 2023; one of the buildings, as you can see, went through a bit of a rebuilt. (By the way shout out the guy who tried scaring off the Google Maps car).

Even though the town is, mostly, abandoned, it IS protected as it is now listed into the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. So while you CAN go visit this town for yourself, be respectful because these places are private property.

If you want to find more ghost towns in Texas, you can find 5 in West Texas here.

Get our free mobile app