Historic US Highway alignments in Vaughn, NM
Additional research: Steve Riner
Originally the west end of US 54 was at US 70 in Vaughn NM. This lasted from 1926 to 1932 - at that point, US 70 was rerouted west of Texico, such that it went through Alamogordo instead of Vaughn, and down to El Paso. But an extended US 60 took the place of US 70 west of Texico, so US 54 ended at US 60 for another two years. However, the current junction of US 54 and US 60 is not the same junction where US 54 once ended. That's because the US 70 of the 1920s (and the US 60 of the early 1930s) didn't follow the current alignment of US 60 between Vaughn and Yeso. On the USGS map below, Vaughn is shown in the upper left, and Yeso is at lower right. Modern US 60 is the red line between the two - note how it remains on the north side of the railroad for the entire distance between the two towns:
I've highlighted the original route of US 70 / US 60 in yellow. It had three railroad crossings between Vaughn and Yeso: one just southeast of Vaughn, one near the Duoro siding, and one near the Cardenas siding. As far as I can tell, very little of this road is still driveable. It may have been when that map was made (1954), but even back then it was shown as "unimproved surface". But this historic road doesn't even show up on most modern maps, and on aerial photos it looks like nothing more than a scratch running across private ranchlands.
The image below zooms in on the area just east of Vaughn. I created the background by merging a 1997 aerial photo with the corresponding USGS topo (which was based on aerials flown prior to 1978). I then highlighted the current highway alignments in yellow - you can see how the road configurations at both junctions have changed since the topo was made. But the really interesting thing visible on this photo is a scar running south and west from the current junction of US 54 and US 60. I've highlighted that in green:
Best I can tell, these scars are the ghosts of the original highways running through this area, and they allow us to pinpoint the location of the original west end of US 54. Note the cemetery in the photo above, and use that for reference in the photo below, which is zoomed in a bit closer, and is unretouched by me except for the labels:
You can see the borrow ditches that were used to grade the roadbeds of the historic highways, and you can see that US 54 ended at a "Y"-junction with US 70 (lower left). As I said, these roads have been vacated, and the former rights-of-way have been sold into private ownership (as evidenced by the cemetery that's now situated where the old highway used to run). I checked out this cemetery in 2010, in order to see whether any traces of the old road still remain. Turns out some evidence is still visible, but it's probably noticeable only by someone who's specifically looking for it:
me,
Mar. 2010
That was taken from the middle of the old right-of-way in the south part of the cemetery, looking northeast (the car in the background is on US 60, and the landform in the distance is Argonne Mesa, near Pastura, on top of which is a large windfarm). That direction, you can still see a faint outline of the old roadbed. Looking the opposite direction, the old road is even less conspicuous:
me,
Mar. 2010
Old US 60/70 ran parallel to the railroad visible in the middleground, just on the far side, so the original endpoint of US 54 was just a fraction of a mile in that direction.
I mentioned above that old US 70 had a railroad crossing not far from Vaughn. If you follow the scar of old US 70 southeast a little ways from the photo above, you come to the S-curve shown below:
That's undoubtedly where US 70 crossed to the north side of the tracks, on its way to Joffre, Duoro, and eventually Yeso. A 1927 map shows this road as "graded", but all maps I've seen indicate that it was never paved. It's difficult to imagine what it must've been like to drive across New Mexico in the 1930s - it was no trivial endeavor.
In 1934, US 70 was rerouted again: west of Alamogordo, it went through Las Cruces instead of El Paso. At that point, the US 54 designation was extended south from Vaughn to Alamogordo, and then down to El Paso along the former route of US 70. That was also right about the time that modern US 60 was built between Vaughn and Yeso. A couple years later, US 285 was designated through Vaughn, and since then, the town has been situated at the junction of three US highways.