Rex Museum reveals Gallup’s colorful past in historic Route 66 building

A short appointment at the Rex Museum can change how downtown Gallup looks, because the building at 300 West Historic Highway 66 once served as a brothel, then a grocery, and now holds the city’s railroad, mining and neighborhood records in one place. The museum gives visitors, in a single stop, a compact reading of how Gallup grew from a rail headquarters into the county seat people know today.

The city says the building was part of the original Gallup townsite, surveyed and platted by Alex Bowie, a surveyor for the Calcedonia Coal Co. at Railroad Avenue and 2nd Street. The original plat was filed in Bernalillo County before McKinley County existed, which puts the museum inside the paper trail of the town’s earliest years as well as its streetscape. Gallup was founded in 1881 as a headquarters for the southern transcontinental rail route and took its name from David L. Gallup, a paymaster for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.

Inside, the Rex Museum’s exhibits move from the area’s earliest inhabitants through mining and railroad activity to present-day Gallup. The collection also includes an inventory of the graves at Hillcrest Cemetery, along with photographs, newspapers, artifacts and books that document local families and institutions. That mix makes the museum more than a Route 66 stop. It works as a practical starting point for anyone trying to understand how Gallup’s downtown, rail corridor and residential history fit together.

Visit Gallup says the museum hosts rotating local and traveling exhibits, and this year’s featured display is “Art in a Time of Change - Louie Ewing’s WPA Legacy.” Visits are by appointment, with scheduling handled at 505-863-1317. The location also sits squarely on Historic Route 66, whose Gallup stretch was paved in 1934 and widened in the late 1930s and early 1940s as the road took on a larger role in the city’s identity.

The city has paired the Rex Museum with other heritage stops, including the Gallup Cultural Center in the old Santa Fe Railway depot and the Navajo Code Talker Museum, underscoring how much of Gallup’s public story still runs through its historic core. With the Route 66 Centennial Traveling Exhibit scheduled at the museum in 2026, the site is once again being used to connect the town’s earliest railroad years, its mining past and the downtown people cross every day.