Did you know that there is a town in New Mexico known as “Bloodville”?
OK, not really. That’s just what the locals call it. Bloodville is actually Budville, a sun-drenched ghost town about 50 miles west of Albuquerque along I40 off Exit 104, just before you hit Gallup. Budville falls along the historic Route 66, along which I40 loosely follows, making it an ideal location for travelers to stop for gas, snacks, and jerky.
So why is it not a thriving travel center? The town was once home to a flourishing “Budville Trading Post,” which now sits empty, home only to the ghosts of the past…and perhaps the ghosts of the two men shot inside during a robbery.
The entire town was named for its founder, Howard Neal “Bud” Rice. Bud was the namesake for a reason. He built all of the little businesses in that patch alongside Route 66 after settling there in 1928, when the major roads of New Mexico were just dirt and gravel. The buildings are now decrepit testaments to one couple’s hard life’s work, now their rotting legacy. It is truly a shame how the things we deem so important while we’re alive don’t seem to matter much once we’re gone and maybe even fall to the wayside, like the entire town of Budville.
Bud was a big fish in a little pond. He was able to do pretty much as he pleased in this town of his own invention, according to Atlas Obscura. He overcharged travelers for goods and auto repairs, knowing that there was nowhere else for them to go for hours, and he imposed speeding fees at whatever rate he saw fit, basically committing highway robbery. His friendships with law enforcement in the Southwest saw him become a justice of the peace in the district and so everyone looked the other way from his antics. He fancied himself “the law west of the Pecos.” And, given how remote this area is even now, he probably was the closest thing to law enforcement there was at the time.
The most interesting thing I read in this article was how Bud intercepted plans for I-40 to bypass Budville and ensured that an exit ramp was constructed to hit his town directly. How he managed to leverage that kind of political pull is unknown, but he managed to remain on the map for travelers after the big interstate was constructed in the 1960s. This helped his convenience station flourish as people were even more easily able to travel through the Southwest now. Unfortunately, I40 has been known for quite a few violent incidents and killings since its construction, and Bud is one of them.
Bud was at his little convenience store on November 18, 1967, with an employee named Blanche Brown who was 82, and Bud’s wife, Flossie. Someone came in as it grew dark. The person shot Bud and Brown in the head. Flossie was tied up and left there alive. The robber then took $450 of cash from the register and sped off. It seems like a typical gas station robbery gone wrong.
There was commotion and a local named Lucy Peterson ran down to the store to assist. She saw the carnage and freed Flossie. Flossie was not able to identify the shooter and he has never been caught.
There was a prison confession, though. Billy Ray Whyte had been charged with the robbery but then acquitted on lack of evidence. He had committed similar violent armed robberies in Louisiana on an apparent crime spree. Before passing away in prison, he confessed that he really had committed the Budville murders. For some reason, most people don’t put much stock in the confession. I think he seems like a good candidate.
Flossie ran the store for a good twelve years after that. Can you imagine the grit of that woman, sitting in the very place where she had witnessed her husband and old-time employee getting shot right in front of her, vulnerable to the same fate? Flossie passed in 1978 and that’s when all of Bud’s businesses became shuttered. That’s how they have remained since.
The sun has slowly deteriorated the buildings, as it has all of New Mexico’s small towns that are slowly receding back into the desert, more and more of their people dying of fentanyl overdoses or moving on to bigger and better things. In the old times, people built these adobes to last, but they still need upkeep, maintenance that current generations just can’t afford without the railroads, ranching, pinto farming, and other industries of yesteryear. Hence, many parts of New Mexico have died, while others have boomed, such as the Permian Basin area where oil and natural gas have been discovered in massive quantities. Central New Mexico, however, has nothing to keep it going anymore and is littered with tiny towns that all look the same: dilapidated, dull, dirty, decrepit, decayed. I actually drove through Budville once and didn’t even know it, due to the fact it resembled every other tiny New Mexico almost-ghost town.
The store now sits empty, its adobe walls fading and cracking in the relentless New Mexico sun, its paint barely readable. Lots of people like to take pictures of it and it appears in many blogs like this one. Lucy Peterson now owns that store and they live in the adjacent house. She and her family dream of restoring it to its former glory, but nothing has come of their plans. They know it could be a popular spot once again, even with its grim history. Most people driving past will know nothing of what happened there so they will gladly stop for an ice cold drink and a piss. She would probably have good luck as a gas station owner, one of the few thriving industries in New Mexico, especially in that rather economically parched area.
I think a lot of these places just need some love to return to their former greatness. They’re not evil just because evil occurred inside them. Just like the gorgeous former hotel and store in Duran, NM. Then again, I probably wouldn’t buy a business or a home if I knew that a gruesome suicide or homicide had occurred inside. It would eat at me and every sound and every creak would freak me out. So I get why these places become “stigmatized.” I admire those who have the grit to buy these places and restore them and stick it out through the stigmas. Owning a haunted place can become quite profitable actually. Just look at the owner of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, the Lodge in Cloudcroft, or the Double Eagle in Mesilla.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/budville-trading-post
https://nmarchives.unm.edu/repositories/22/archival_objects/191485