El Rancho Hotel

Built in 1937 (rustic architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

From the record

“El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico, is a historic hotel built by R.E. "Griff" Griffith, the brother of film director D.W. The brothers encouraged early film production in the surrounding area.”
Wikipedia article El Rancho Hotel & Motel, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 25 National Register listings published here for McKinley County · listed in 1988 · category: Building · built in 1937, rustic architecture.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 100 E. Sixty-sixth Ave., Gallup, 87301
When was it listed? January 1988
Category. building
Also known as. Downtown Gallup MRA
Census division. Gallup
When was it built? 1937
Architectural style. rustic architecture
National Register reference number. 87002222 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

1 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of El Rancho Hotel in 1996, burning about 23 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
10 June 1996	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	23 acres	New Mexico State Forestry Division	MENTMORE

Every fire recorded in McKinley County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 15 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 15 workings within 5 miles of El Rancho Hotel: 6 unknowns, 6 past producers, 3 producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Uranium, Pumice, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Becenti Mine	Uranium, Vanadium	Past Producer
Gallup Brick & Tile Co	Clay	Past Producer
Hogback Mine	Vanadium, Uranium	Past Producer	1950, 1951, 1960
J & S Enterprise	Stone	Past Producer
Red Dog Pit	Pumice	Producer
Twin Buttes	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Car-Ball 13 Uran Deposit	Uranium	Unknown
Hyde Mine	Uranium	Past Producer
Uran Deposit	Uranium	Unknown
Elkins Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in McKinley County

Storms near this property

15 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Gallup, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 8 flash flood, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 2 heavy rain. The reports record 2 deaths and 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 1997	Flash Flood	Gallup	1 killed, 1 hurt	A 30-year man drowned while trying to cross the Hunters Point arroyo on Navajo Tribal lands southwest of Gallup. Two men and their vehicle became bogged in the arroyo. The survivor reported being hit by three waves of water and mud. The last wave separated the victim from the vehicle. His body was recovered 7 miles downstream.
September 1997	Flash Flood	Gallup	1 killed	A 56-year old woman drowned near Ojo Encino after seeking shelter in a culvert from a rainstorm. The woman and a companion were swept from the culvert by runoff from locally heavy rain.
July 2002	Flash Flood	Gallup	$100,000	One to two inches of rain from a slow moving thunderstorm caused wide spread street flooding in Gallup. Debris clogged city drainage which aggravated flooding in the older down town section. Water reached 18 to 24 inches deep in several business and two homes.
August 2013	Flash Flood	Gallup	$50,000	Six inches of water flooded the ground floor of the McKinley County Juvenile Detention Center.
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Gallup	$25,000	A trailer home was overturned and destroyed by a microburst near the Springstead Trading Post.
August 2005	Heavy Rain	Gallup	$15,000	no account filed
September 2013	Flash Flood	Gallup	$5,000	State EOC Situation Report #2 on the 11th indicated NM 118 was closed on the 10th due to flood waters, mud, and debris over roadway.
August 2011	Flash Flood	Gallup	$5,000	Flash flooding occurred along Maloney Street between 1st and 6th streets. Several of these intersections were closed as water was halfway up vehicles. A few cars were stuck in the water.
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Gallup	$1,000	Microburst winds damaged the roof to a trailer in Gallup.
July 2022	Flash Flood	Gallup	-	A video shared via Facebook showed flash flooding in the Gallup area. Area and timing is estimated via radar as video was made unavailable shortly after it was shared. No damages are known.
August 2016	Flash Flood	Gallup	-	Flood waters 2 to 3 feet deep on Aztec Road between 8th and 10th streets.
September 1997	Heavy Rain	Gallup	-	Locally heavy rains produced considerable street flooding in Gallup. The Gallup Airport reported rainfall of 1.97 inches ending at 7AM September 9, for a new 24-hour daily record precipitation amount.
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Gallup	-	no account filed
October 2010	Hail	Gallup	-	no account filed
September 1997	Hail	Gallup	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in McKinley County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Redwood Lodge	0.5 miles	1998
Drake Hotel	1.0 miles	1988
US Post Office	1.1 miles	1988
Lebanon Lodge No. 22	1.1 miles	1989
White Cafe	1.1 miles	1988
201-203 W Coal Ave	1.2 miles	2016

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 87002222 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
McKinley County	All 25 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.