Montoya Cemetery

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As I was driving back to Albuquerque from my whirlwind tour of Tucumcari (and before I explored Santo Niño Cemetery), I stopped at Montoya Cemetery, another randomly selected stop found with the Find A Grave app. Montoya Cemetery was established in 1910 and it's located right along Route 66, about halfway in between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa. 

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Montoya Cemetery is literally a roadside cemetery, sandwiched between the highway and a smaller road. Not a single car drove by on the smaller road while I poked around, although it seemed like a nicely maintained burial ground. The town of Montoya was founded in 1902 as a loading point for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Not much remains of the town, except a few crumbling structures, but Richardson’s Store and Sinclair Station—open from 1925 until the '70s —was once a popular stopping point during Route 66's heyday.

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The most recent burial I could find occurred in 2015, but a lot of the birth dates are from the late 1800s. Like other desert cemeteries I visited on my trip, Montoya is full of unique markers—wooden crosses, crudely carved cement tombstones, picket fences and more contemporary granite stones are scattered around the dusty plot of land.  

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Montoya would be a peaceful spot if it weren't for the occasional rumble of a semi-truck speeding nearby, but it was the perfect place to pull off the road and stretch my legs for a few minutes. Although I didn't get photos, while I was trying to find out the history of the cemetery, I found the intriguing epitaphs of Eliseo (Lee) J. Sanchez and his wife, Gregorita Agapita Garcia Sanchez. His: "He Walked in Sunshine" / Hers: "And She Took Care of the Rain."