Los Lunas museum celebrates Route 66 centennial with school partnership
Luna Avenue shut down for a Route 66 kickoff that mixed student art, cars, balloons and vendors, as Los Lunas weighs whether the museum can keep drawing repeat visits.
The Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Arts shut down Luna Avenue for a Route 66 Centennial Kickoff that turned the block into a student art show, car show and street festival. Museum manager Louis Huning Jr. said Los Lunas Schools partnered on the closure, giving the village a day that linked the centennial celebration to the museum’s work with students, families and visitors.
The museum is housed in the old Agustine Archuleta building at Main Street and Luna Avenue, where it functions as both an exhibit space and a community archive. It is open Tuesday through Saturday and is approaching its 20th anniversary, with organizers already lining up a full calendar of programs and exhibits through the rest of 2026.
At the center of the centennial programming was Our Roots on The Route, the museum’s main Route 66 Centennial exhibit. The student art show ran through July 11 and gave the museum a school-based anchor for the commemoration, instead of limiting the centennial to a single ceremonial day.
The kickoff itself was built as a multi-part community event. Along with the museum’s art show, the day included a car show, e-sports, a rock wall, hot air balloons, food trucks, vendors and emergency vehicles on display. That mix made the centennial less of a display case and more of a public event designed to pull people into the museum district and keep them there long enough to spend time around the village center.
The museum’s schedule shows that the centennial is only one piece of a much busier year. Straw appliqué artwork by Jordan Ortega Aguilar is set for July 18 through Sept. 5, followed by a Camino Royale Artists exhibit from Sept. 12 through Oct. 31. An annual Veterans Day exhibit will run from Nov. 7 through Dec. 5.
The final stretch of the year includes a Southwest Railroad Model Railroad Museum train exhibit in early December, then the museum’s 14th annual juried art show beginning Dec. 11. Taken together, the calendar gives Los Lunas a steady stream of exhibits tied to Route 66, local schools, veterans and regional artists, with the museum leaning on its Main Street location to keep the centennial year from ending as a one-off celebration.
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