Roy’s neon sign never went out and neither did this ghost town on Route 66

Amboy’s still kicking on Route 66

You can drive for miles through the Mojave Desert and see nothing but flat ground and heat shimmer.

Then a 50-foot neon sign appears out of the emptiness, red arrowhead and all, glowing like it never got the memo that the town around it basically emptied out.

Roy’s Motel and Cafe still pumps gas, still sells souvenirs, and still sits right on the old Route 66 in Amboy, California. The town has almost no permanent residents.

But it’s far from dead.

A broken-down car started the whole thing

Roy and Velma Crowl landed in Amboy by accident in 1924. Their car gave out on the way to Los Angeles, and they couldn’t afford the repair bill.

So Roy worked as a mechanic while Velma cooked at a local cafe. By 1938, Roy had his own gas and service station on Route 66.

His son-in-law Herman “Buster” Burris helped him grow it into a cafe, auto repair garage, and a row of overnight cabins through the 1940s.

At its peak in the 1950s, Roy’s had up to 70 employees and Amboy’s population hit about 700.

The atomic-age architecture still stands tall

That neon sign and the guest reception building went up in 1959, both built in Googie style.

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve seen the look before: geometric shapes, big glass walls, bold colors, everything angled like a rocket about to launch.

The reception office has an exaggerated inclined roof pitched over a massive pane of glass. Googie design came out of the 1940s through the 1960s, inspired by the atomic and space ages.

Roy’s is one of the best surviving examples on all of Route 66.

Interstate 40 pulled the plug on Amboy

Everything changed in 1972 when Interstate 40 opened nearby and sucked virtually all the traffic off Route 66. Business collapsed fast.

People packed up and left. By the 1990s, Amboy had shrunk to Roy’s, a post office, a small airfield, and a mining operation.

The property bounced between owners and eventually fell into foreclosure.

A town that once buzzed with cross-country travelers sat quiet in the desert heat, waiting for someone to care enough to step in.

One man paid $425,000 for an entire town

Albert Okura, the founder of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain, bought all of Amboy in 2005. That’s roughly 950 acres for $425,000.

He made a promise to Buster Burris’s widow, Bessie, that he would restore Roy’s and keep its Route 66 character intact. Okura already had a track record with preservation.

He’d purchased the original McDonald’s site in San Bernardino and turned it into a museum. By 2008, he had Roy’s gas station and gift shop open again.

The Okura family carries the mission forward

Albert Okura died on Jan. 27, 2023, at 71, before he could finish everything he started. His son Kyle, along with his mother Sella and other family members, took over.

Kyle pushed the neon sign restoration across the finish line and built up the property’s presence online.

The family has been working to reopen the cafe and six motel cottages in time for Route 66’s centennial in 2026, though as of early 2025 the motel rooms were still under renovation.

Flip through old news clippings at the cafe counter

You can fill your tank at the original gas pumps, though expect to pay more than average out here in the middle of the desert. Inside the old cafe, a gift shop sells Route 66 souvenirs, branded mugs, magnets, and shirts.

Grab a cold soda or prepackaged snack from the cooler, including some unusual and vintage brands you won’t find at a regular gas station. No kitchen operates, so there’s no cooked food.

But you can sit at the old counter and flip through binders of news clippings and memorabilia.

The Route 66 shield painted on the road says it all

That Route 66 shield on the pavement in front of Roy’s, with the neon sign rising behind it, is one of the most photographed spots on the entire route.

The rows of 1940s motel cottages sit unrestored behind the main building, and they give off an atmosphere no set designer could fake. A mural and monument on the property honor Albert Okura.

If you time it right, sunset turns the desert gold and the neon sign lights up against a darkening sky. That’s your shot.

A volcanic crater sits five minutes down the road

Amboy Crater is a nearly perfect volcanic cinder cone just 2.5 miles southwest of Roy’s. It earned National Natural Landmark status in 1973 and rises about 250 feet above the surrounding lava fields.

The crater stretches roughly 1,500 feet across. A breach on the west side marks where basaltic lava once poured out over 24 square miles of desert floor.

The whole area falls within the 1.6-million-acre Mojave Trails National Monument, which was designated in 2016.

Hike the crater rim for wide-open desert views

The round-trip hike runs about three to four miles with around 400 feet of elevation gain, and it’s rated moderate.

You cross flat desert and lava fields before climbing to the rim, where you can see Bristol Dry Lake, the Marble Mountains, and miles of open Mojave in every direction.

The trailhead has a parking lot, shaded picnic tables, restrooms, and an accessible viewing platform.

After dark, the skies out here get about as dark as skies get in California, so bring a camera if you’re into astrophotography.

Route 66 turns 100 and the whole road’s throwing a party

U.S. Highway 66 was officially designated on Nov. 11, 1926, and 2026 marks the centennial. The national kickoff celebration hits Springfield, Mo., on April 30, 2026.

All eight Route 66 states have events lined up through the year, from car shows to sign relightings to community festivals.

Roy’s and Amboy sit along the longest remaining undeveloped stretch of the original road, so rolling through during the centennial year puts you on a piece of Route 66 that still looks like Route 66.

Buster Burris wired the town with a Studebaker

Herman “Buster” Burris didn’t just run Roy’s. He built much of Amboy with his own hands.

He strung electrical lines from Barstow to Amboy using an old Studebaker pickup truck, putting up his own utility poles alongside Route 66.

He recruited workers through classified ads in newspapers across the country to keep the place running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He and his wife Bessie ran Roy’s from 1959 into the late 1970s.

Bessie kept visiting and collecting memorabilia for the town until she died at 91 in 2008.

Visit Roy’s Motel and Cafe in Amboy, California

You’ll find Roy’s at 87520 National Trails Highway in Amboy, Calif., 92304.

It’s open daily from about 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. You can gas up, browse souvenirs, and grab cold drinks, but no cooked food is served. Amboy Crater’s trailhead is a five-minute drive south on Crater Road.

The site sits roughly halfway between Barstow and Needles, about 65 miles from each. Bring plenty of water and plan for extreme heat in the warmer months.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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