El Rancho Hotel
and Armand Ortega (1928-2014)
Gallup, New Mexico
El Rancho Hotel
El Rancho Sign
The El Rancho Hotel was built in 1936 along U.S. Route 66 for R.E. “Griff” Griffith, brother of the movie director, D.W. Griffith. From the beginning El Rancho was the center of the movie industry in Gallup, as both Griff and his brother encouraged Hollywood movie producers and directors to use El Rancho as a base for film crews and stars on location. The hotel's eloquence, superior service, and accommodations (the staff was trained by the Fred Harvey Company), made the choice easy. And, in addition, the varied western landscapes surrounding Gallup were magnificent backdrops for the movies.
El Rancho continued to be linked to Hollywood and the movie industry until the mid-1960s. Over 300 stars including John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, and Lucille Ball were guests at the hotel while making movies in the vicinity. However, by 1964 interest in the western hero was diminishing, plus Hollywood was using Technicolor to replace dramatic, stark images in black and white. With the opening of Interstate-40, the mystique of the West was no longer there--a big part of that mysterious quality had to do with Route 66.
Enter Armand Ortega:
Armand Ortega was born and raised in Holbrook, Arizona and began his first business at the age of ten when he sold newspapers and led a team of shoeshine boys. He learned well by working for his father at the Indian Trails Trading Post in Lupton, Arizona as a youth, which eventually led him to becoming the first, and one of the most influential Indian arts and crafts dealers in the United States. When Armand was about 13 years old he used to wander into the El Rancho and think that he'd someday like to have a place like this. When the hotel started to decline in 1980, in large part because Interstate 40 bypassed Route 66, that dream came true. Armand rescued the El Rancho Hotel in 1986 after it went into bankruptcy and was threatened with demolition. According to an Associated Press story, Ortega bought the property for $500,000 and spent another $500,000 restoring it. It was reopened in May 1988 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places that same year.
Since his passing in 2014, Armand's daughter, Anna, is continuing the legacy of the El Rancho Hotel.
