Gallup: A Small Town Closes while a New Mayor Takes the Reins

Almost precisely at the moment when businessman Louie Bonaguidi took up the reins as the newly elected mayor of Gallup, New Mexico, the state’s Governor Grisham granted his request to use the Riot Control Act to lock down the town due to the “uninhibited” spread of COVID-19. For now, traffic along heavily traveled Interstate 40 can’t enter the town of 22,000 people famously featured in the song Get Your Kicks on Route 66 (originating with Nat King Cole and covered by artists as varied as Nancy Sinatra and Glenn Frey). Residents of the town can’t leave. Vehicles within the town can have no more than 2 passengers.

Gallup is the seat of McKinley County, which as of this writing has about 1030 coronavirus cases and 19 deaths. The outbreak started in a detox center and spread to the streets, from the streets to nursing homes and the population at large. Gallup already has many nicknames: The Indian Capital of the World, Drunk Town, and The Most Patriotic Small Town in America. Now a new nickname can be added: The COVID-19 Capital of New Mexico.

I lived outside of Gallup in the mid-1970s, arriving two years after a notorious incident where an angry young activist named Larry Casuse kidnapped the mayor of the town. In 1973, Gallup’s mayor Emmett Garcia had been named to the New Mexico Board of Regents and announced an intention to open an alcohol rehab program. Casuse was enraged not only at the Board of Regents post, but also at Garcia’s hypocrisy in planning a rehab program while being part owner of an infamous bar/liquor store named the Navajo Inn that was situated one mile east of the Navajo Nation border.

The kidnapping of the mayor ended with Garcia escaping and being superficially wounded by gunfire from a startled policeman’s pistol. Police then opened fire on the building where Casuse and his accomplice were holed up. Casuse’s accomplice surrendered, but Casuse was dead at the scene. After the incident, Garcia took his place on the Board of Regents and bought out his Navajo Inn partners. Then Garcia lost his reelection bid, and ultimately the Navajo Inn lost its lease and the building was obliterated.

I’ve been reading about Gallup’s new mayor, tipping my hat to him in taking on town leadership at this horrific moment in time. Bonaguidi is the owner of the City Electric Shoe Store. The name of the store stems from the time when the Bonaguidi family settled in Gallup in 1924 and opened a shoe repair enterprise that promised fast quality repair, especially cowboy boot repair, by using state-of-the-art electric equipment (see article on Bonaguidi’s shoe store).

Now Mayor Bonaguidi’s shoe store is on the map of must-visit shoe stores in the American West and ranking Number 4 on one publication’s list of best shoe stores in New Mexico (beating out the Santa Fe shop where Jane Fonda buys her boots).

The store makes belts and moccasins on site and is stocked with so much cowboy-meets-pow-wow-dancer merchandise that you couldn’t dream it up in your wildest western fantasy.

To give you an idea of the “not-too-shabby” nature of Bonaguidi’s store, here’s a quote from a review on Yelp: “Hippest men’s boot store in existence with inventory from nothing but the best American-made footwear . . .  Raw hides!  The entire hide!! Whips!!! Chaps to go, animal pelts, custom leather work and more exotic Italian and Spanish shoe leather to reline those Louboutins than you can shake a pinon walking stick at. . . .” The store also has a website selling its in-house made moccasins and belts (https://nativeleather.com/)

Louie Bonaguidi won the office of mayor in an April runoff election against Sammy Chioda (affectionately known in Gallup as Sammy C) by a mere 41 votes. Bonaguidi’s opponent is a former sports broadcaster who owns a namesake establishment called  Sammy C’s Rockin’ Sports Bar, Pub and Grille, which, per Sammy C’s website, is ranked as one of the top 101 best sports bars in the United States by CNN.

Even by 41 votes, the town chose the guy with the business that is helping to put Gallup on the map in a good way. The native and other citizens of Gallup chose boots and moccasins over sports memorabilia and craft beer.

All this to say that Gallup’s taste in mayors has improved a lot in the last 47 years, which, even in the midst of the COVID-19 horror show taking place within its borders right now, indicates there is hope . . .

Gallup is a town whose economy relies on Navajos and Zunis converging on weekends to buy needed supplies, everything from groceries to hay to livestock. It also relies on truckers, tourists, hikers and other assorted travelers stopping for a meal or a warm bed. It depends on Native art lovers cruising its Indian jewelry stores or stores like the mayor’s or attending the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial held every year to feature the best in Native arts and dance. There are also bloodsucking businesses:  payday lenders who suck the working poor into an eddy of crippling debt, the alcohol establishments that have no problem plying the already inebriated with liquor or sending them off drunk to terrorize the highways, the homeless and itinerants who panhandle or turn tricks or sell their plasma for change to feed their habits.

I wish Mayor Bonaguidi all the luck and hope in the world. I hope that he and Governor Grisham and Navajo President Jonathan Nez can put their heads together to come up with a COVID-19 battle strategy, like emergency medical teams and testing for the population and for visitors that will allow the city to open (with 100 Abbott portable devices processing 5-minute tests, half the population could be tested in a day). And after the battle is over, Mayor Bonaguidi, you can move on to the next more lasting one: fulfilling Gallup’s potential as a city that thrives not on exploitation of its native citizens and patrons, but instead thrives as an example of a city that honors and sustains the natives on which its economy and soul depend.