Nine miles west of Lordsburg is the abandoned town of Road Forks. This once thriving tourist stop has abandoned very recently. I know the town was still active in the fall of 2005, but when I went though there in September of 2008, I noticed that is was completely and utterly abandoned. After looking at the buildings, I guessed that they had all been abandoned at least a year. At any rate, the desertion of this dimunitive little town is pretty recent.
Road Forks was never a large town. It never had more than 30 people and, most of the time, the population was around 20, with most of the employees driving out from Lordsburg everyday. Road Forks may have been tiny, but it was a thriving place. It had the Shady Grove Truck Stop, which had restaurant, gift store and convenience store. There was another small cafe, a campground and a motel. The motel had approximately 100 rooms, but now is completely abandoned like the rest of Road Forks. The motel's parking lot has weeds growing up through cracks on the pavement. I did not get a look inside any of the rooms, but the motel appears to still be in good condition. The former truck stop has taken on a forlorn look to it with some windows already broken even though it was only abandoned recently. the handful of houses in this little town are all abandoned.
Road Forks was first settled by the G.H. Porter family in 1925 was a succession of rough trails and roads was starting to be upgraded into the system of paved highways that we are all familiar with today.
The town was further developed by John Graham in the 1930s and the Graham family continued to own all of the businesses in town until its abandonment.
Road Forks was located on U.S. Highway 80 in southwestern New Mexico just 11 miles from the Arizona border. It was situated where Highway 80, once called the "Broadway of America," made a sharp turn southward to wend its way to Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border. When highway 80 made this sharp, southward turn, State Highway 14 continued straight ahead and actually provided the most direct route to Tucson and points west. New Mexico State Highway 14 became State Highway 86 in Arizona and this highway reconnected with U.S. Highway 80 at Benson, Arizona, 45 miles east of Tucson. This state highway has been supplanted by Interstate 10. So Road Forks was located at a strategic crossroads and was a very active, albeit small, travel stop.
