Whiting Bros Motel & Gas Station Ruins

About

The Whiting Bros Motel & Gas Station Ruins preserve the remains of one of the Southwest’s classic Route 66 roadside complexes. Located west of San Fidel near McCartys, the property once included a Whiting Brothers gas station, motel, grocery store and café serving travelers along the Mother Road. The site developed around an earlier roadside stop known as Chief’s Rancho Café, which was already noted in a 1946 Route 66 guidebook.

Whiting Brothers became one of the most recognizable independent gasoline chains in the Southwest, operating dozens of stations along Route 66. At San Fidel, the motel was eventually lost and much of the complex fell into ruin, but portions of the service station and the distinctive Whiting Bros Motel/Groceries and yellow WB roadside signs remain. Their faded paint, exposed structure and lonely desert setting make this one of those places where the decline of the old highway is still visible in the landscape.

Time and abandonment have dramatically changed the site. The motel disappeared in the 1990s, the service-station building deteriorated, and other elements of the complex were lost, yet the large roadside sign continued to stand across Route 66 from the former businesses. Its faded lettering, remnants of neon and distinctive Whiting Brothers shield make it an evocative reminder of the service stations, motels and oversized roadside advertising that once competed for motorists along the Mother Road. Historic photographs held by the National Archives and Northern Arizona University also document the sign as part of the surviving Route 66 landscape between San Fidel and McCartys.

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