Budville Trading Post - Roadside Attraction - Grants, New Mexico, USA.
N 35° 04.167 W 107° 31.533
13S E 269708 N 3883662
Budville Trading Post & Former Phillips 66 Gas Station, a landmark on Route 66, operatating from 1928 to 1979. AKA known as Bloodsville, as two owners were murdered, six years apart in the Gas Station. Located near Grants, New Mexico.
Waymark Code: WMXQR2
Location: New Mexico, United States
Date Posted: 02/15/2018
Views: 2
The Budville Trading Post & Former Phillips 66 Gas Station - Featured on Roadside Peek, & Legends of America, Roadside attraction websites.
I notice from the old photos that the Route 66 sign has now disappeared.
The full story from the Legends of America Website:
"Named for H.N. “Bud” Rice, it got its start when Bud and his wife Flossie opened an automobile service in 1928. Soon afterwards they opened the Budville Trading Company, and over the years — a gas station, a few cabins, and the only tow company between the Rio Puerco River and Grants for a number of years. They also sold bus tickets, operated a post office, and Bud served as the Justice of Peace, a position in which he was known to have issued steep fines, especially to anyone outside of the area.
Having operated the business for 39 years, the store was held up by a desperado in November, 1967. There were four people in the building at the time — Bud, Flossie, an 82-year old retired school teacher named Blanche Brown who worked part time, and a housekeeper named Nettie Buckley. Within moments, shots were fired and the gunman fled leaving behind a scene that would earn the trading post the moniker of “Bloodville.” Fifty-Four year old Bud Rice and the elderly shop keeper Blanch Brown were dead. Flossie and the housekeeper survived. Though arrests were made, no one was ever convicted of the crime.
Closed Cafe in Budville, New Mexico
Afterwards, Flossie continued to run the family businesses and remarried a man named Max Atkinson. Six years after she had lost Bud, her second husband was killed in a fight in 1973, just feet from where Bud had been killed. Once again Flossie persevered and continued to run the business up until 1979, when its doors closed for good after 66 years in business. Somewhere along the line she married for a third time and passed away of natural causes in 1994. The buildings were eventually sold and there was some talk of it being reopened but it never occurred
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"The Budville Trading Post is arguably one of the most photographed landmarks on Route 66 as it passes through New Mexico. Located about thirty feet from the highway's shoulder, it is an abandoned, one-story, white-washed cement-block building featuring a low angled roof. There is a large, non-functioning neon sign, "Budville Trading Company,'' mounted above it on two 12-foot iron posts, one of them sunk into the former island for Phillips 66 fuel pumps.
The unassuming gas stop would be of little interest if it were not for Bud Rice, son of the original owner and the man for whom the town of Budville was named. Rice not only operated a small grocery store, pawn shop, gas station, wrecker service, salvage yard, and repair garage from here; he also sold bus tickets, owned the local State Motor Vehicle Department concession, and was elected as a local Justice of the Peace.
In 1967, Rice was murdered during a hold-up. The criminals were never caught. For a dozen years after, Bud's wife Flossie kept the trading post going. But it closed in 1979 and an attempt to re-open it as a general store in 2006 failed. Today, the Budville Trading Post, established in 1928, serves as a fascinating reminder of one of the larger-than-life legends of America's most famous highway." Text Source: (
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Address of the station:
Budville Trading Post - Budville, Grants, New Mexico, USA.