Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of the Barton junction: Old Route 66 running diagonally beside I-40, with scattered buildings and a vehicle yard among juniper grassland

On Route 66

Barton

A homestead-era post office and roadside stop in the East Mountains, on Route 66 from 1937. The store, the cabins and the post office are gone, and the name now covers a census area of 1,282 people south of I-40.

35°04′59″N 106°14′49″W · ≈6,750 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).

Little left · private land

Barton's store, cabins and post office are gone. What's left stands on private land along Old Route 66 (NM 333), so look from the road. A video posted November 2024 shows the bare tower of a windmill still standing at the junction and, at Lester's Conoco 0.9 mile west, a flagpole, small buildings and a wall of license plates behind a fence. TheRoute-66.com cites a 2022 Street View image of the station's two old pumps. Legends of America also describes old pumps, rusting cars and an old jail at a former Conoco site; we found no dated report of those.

Overview

A stop on the road over the Sandias

Barton sits on the high grassland east of the Sandia Mountains, where Old Route 66 climbs west from Edgewood toward Sedillo Hill and Tijeras Canyon. A post office opened here in 1908 and took the name of an early settler. By 1920 the Barton Store was selling gasoline. The road west from Edgewood toward Albuquerque appears on a 1927 map as US 470, the route between Albuquerque and Moriarty.

The post office closed in 1936, and the mail went to Edgewood, a newer town three miles east that was briefly called New Barton. A year later, Route 66 was moved off its long loop through Santa Fe onto the direct road through Moriarty, Edgewood and Barton. In 1946 Jack Rittenhouse's guide to the highway found a gas station, a grocery and a few cabins here, three miles past Edgewood and three miles short of the highest point on the road east of Albuquerque, about 7,000 feet.

Interstate 40 was later built along the north side of the old road, and the roadside buildings at the Sedillo Road junction were torn down. The name stayed on the maps. For the 2020 census a Barton census-designated place was drawn south of the interstate, and it counted 1,282 people. Old Barton is a junction on NM 333 with the tower of a windmill, still standing in a video posted November 2024.

Video

A windmill tower and a wall of license plates

Two travelers drive west on NM 333 from Edgewood and stop on the shoulder at the bare windmill tower standing in the grassland. About a mile on, at the NM 217 junction, they look through the car window across a white fence at the old Conoco site: small white and stone buildings, a flagpole and a wall of license plates. Old photos of the Barton Bean House and the Barton Store are cut in. The narration says the Conoco site goes back to a single pump at the Barton Store in 1920; TheRoute-66.com dates Lester's Conoco to the late 1950s. The two pumps appear only in a still photo cut into the video, not in the drive-by footage.

Play “Route 66 Barton Ghost Town New Mexico Then & Now #route66 #edgewood” from YouTube
“Route 66 Barton Ghost Town New Mexico Then & Now #route66 #edgewood”, by BATTLEFOXX LIVING EARTH - Nature, Coto de Caza on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Post office, store and highway

  1. The USGS San Pedro sheet shows a wagon road running east from Sedillo across the area. No settlement is marked.
  2. A post office opens, named for an early settler, Barton.
  3. A photo of that year shows Alva and Abraham Reeves at the Barton Store, which sold Magnolia gasoline.
  4. A Rand McNally map shows the road through the area as US 470, linking Albuquerque and Moriarty. It later becomes US 366.
  5. Edgewood is founded three miles east. For a while it is called New Barton.
  6. Barton's post office closes, and mail moves to Edgewood.
  7. Route 66 is moved onto the direct road from Santa Rosa through Moriarty, Edgewood and Barton to Albuquerque. A photo captioned "Town of Barton" is taken from the highway that year.
  8. Jack Rittenhouse's guidebook finds "a gas station, grocery and a few cabins."
  9. An aerial photo shows buildings on both sides of Route 66 at Sedillo Road. The 1954 USGS sheet shows Barton's buildings beside US 66, with Mountain Valley Cemetery half a mile south.
  10. Lester's Conoco opens at the NM 217 junction, 0.9 mile west.
  11. The USGS map shows I-40 running past Barton beside the old road.
  12. Barton is counted as a census-designated place for the first time, with 1,282 people.

1937 on

The Santa Fe cutoff

The first Route 66, numbered in 1926, did not pass Barton. It ran from Santa Rosa north to Santa Fe and down to Albuquerque. The road through Barton was US 470 on a 1927 map, later US 366, a spur of 66, and it was unpaved east of Tijeras. In 1937 Route 66 was moved onto a direct road from Santa Rosa to Moriarty and then along US 366 to Albuquerque. TheRoute-66.com calls it the Santa Fe cutoff. That road is NM 333 today, and it runs through Barton on the south side of I-40.

Jack Rittenhouse's Guide Book to Highway 66 of 1946 lists Edgewood, with its cafés and gas, then Barton, "three miles farther," with "a gas station, grocery and a few cabins." West of Barton the highway kept climbing to about 7,000 feet before winding down through Tijeras Canyon. TheRoute-66.com says the stretch of the 1937 road west of Barton looped north through Sedillo until 1949, when a straighter roadbed replaced it, now the south frontage road of I-40. Farther west, the Route 66 Sedillo Hill Travel Center occupies the building of Comer's coffee shop and Phillips 66 station from the 1950s.

What's there

A junction on NM 333

The junction. Old Barton stood where Sedillo Road meets NM 333. A 1937 photo looks southeast from the highway at the town, and a 1952 aerial photo shows buildings on both sides of the road here. TheRoute-66.com says the buildings were torn down and only the tower of a windmill remains, its rotor and tail gone, in a picture it labels 2022. The video on this page, posted November 2024, shows it still standing.

The Conoco sites. Two sources describe old filling stations nearby, and they don't quite agree. Legends of America, in a page updated September 2026, puts an old Conoco station at the corner of old Route 66 and Mountain Valley Road. The building is gone, it says, but the site still holds a couple of old gas pumps, a few rusting cars and the original Barton jail. It adds that the jail once held outlaws such as the Dawson Gang; that is a local story, and we found no record to confirm it. TheRoute-66.com describes Lester's Conoco on the northwest corner of the NM 217 junction, 0.9 mile west of Sedillo Road, built in the late 1950s, with two 1950s Tokheim pumps, a small office, a second pump island with a flagpole and a wall of license plates, citing a 2022 Street View image. In OpenStreetMap, Mountain Valley Road meets the old highway at that same junction, across from NM 217, so the two are probably one site, though Legends of America says the station building is gone. All of it is private.

The census place. The Barton of the 2020 census is a much larger area south of I-40 in eastern Bernalillo County and the corner of Santa Fe County, bordered by Edgewood to the east and Sedillo to the northwest, with NM 217 running south through it.

The 1954 USGS sheet below shows Barton's few buildings beside US 66 at a crossroads, a road south to Mountain Valley Cemetery, and a note at the sheet's edge giving Albuquerque as 25 miles away. The 1892 sheet shows only a wagon road east from Sedillo. By 1978 I-40 runs beside the old road, and the 1990 sheet labels the old road NM 333.

  • Windmill tower at Sedillo Road
  • Old pumps, cars and an old jail at a former Conoco site
  • Lester's Conoco (late 1950s), NM 217 junction
  • Old Route 66 (NM 333)
  • Mountain Valley Cemetery, half a mile south
USGS topographic map of Barton where Sedillo Road meets NM 333, with I-40 to the north and the county line just east
USGS The National Map, topo. Barton at center, where Sedillo Road meets NM 333, the old Route 66. I-40 runs to the north, the Bernalillo–Santa Fe county line just east, and NM 217 at the left edge.
Aerial view of Old Route 66 and I-40 crossing diagonally, with a vehicle yard, scattered buildings and a school at the bottom
Aerial imagery, closer in. Old Route 66 and I-40 cross the frame side by side. A yard full of vehicles sits by the junction right of center, and Route 66 Elementary School is at the bottom.

Historic maps

Barton on USGS maps, 1892–1990

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Barton, 1892
San Pedro sheet, 1892, 1:125,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Barton is on Old Route 66 (NM 333), 3.8 miles west of central Edgewood and just south of I-40. From Albuquerque, take I-40 east to exit 181 and follow the old road east for 2.6 miles.

USGS topographic map of I-40 and NM 333 from Barton east to Edgewood, with the Bernalillo–Santa Fe county line

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From central Edgewood3.8 miabout 6 min
  1. From central Edgewood, follow NM 344 to Old Route 66.0.3 mi
  2. Turn right (west) on Old Route 66 (NM 333) to Barton, at Sedillo Road.3.5 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • NM 333, Old Route 66, runs along the south side of I-40 between exit 181 and Edgewood.
  • The land along the road is private. See the junction and the old station sites from the road.
  • Fuel, food and lodging are in Edgewood and Albuquerque.

Photos

Have photos of Barton?

We haven’t added photographs of Barton yet. If you’ve visited, share your photos and a field report below.

TheRoute-66.com reproduces a 1920 photo of the Barton Store and a 1937 view captioned "Town of Barton" on its Edgewood page.

Visitor reports

Been to Barton?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Nearby

Other sites near Barton

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our New Mexico index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Barton": fact sheet fields (county, road, climate, best time, remains), the 1908–1936 post office and mail to Edgewood, the place on US 66 east of Albuquerque, the name from an early homesteader.
  2. Wikipedia, "Barton, New Mexico", retrieved October 2026: the census-designated place first listed for 2020, its counties and neighbors, I-40 as its northern border, NM 217, the 2020 count of 1,282.
  3. Legends of America, "Moriarty to Tijeras, New Mexico on the Salt Missions Trail", updated September 2026: Barton about three miles from Edgewood, the name, the 1908 post office closed by 1936, Rittenhouse in 1946, the Conoco site at Mountain Valley Road with its pumps, cars and jail, the Dawson Gang story.
  4. TheRoute-66.com, "Route 66 in Edgewood NM", retrieved October 2026: Barton at Sedillo Road 3.5 miles west of Edgewood, the post office moving to Edgewood in 1936, the 1920 and 1937 photos, the 1952 aerial, the windmill tower and its 2022 picture, Lester's Conoco and the 2022 Street View image, US 470 and US 366, New Barton, the 1937 realignment and NM 333, Rittenhouse's 1946 text, the 1949 Sedillo realignment, Comer's coffee shop, the Edgewood climate figures.
  5. BATTLEFOXX LIVING EARTH - Nature, Coto de Caza, "Route 66 Barton Ghost Town New Mexico Then & Now #route66 #edgewood", YouTube, posted November 8, 2024: the video on this page; the windmill tower still standing, and the Conoco site at the NM 217 junction with its fence, flagpole, buildings and license-plate wall.
  6. USGS historical topographic maps: San Pedro 1:125,000 (1892), Edgewood 1:24,000 (1954 and 1990), Albuquerque 1:100,000 (1978). Village point and school name: OpenStreetMap. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Mountain Valley Road: OpenStreetMap. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits