Grants, NM: Uranium Capital of Earth Women's Tri-Blend Tee

Part of Our Route 66 Everytown Collection | Grants Edition

Grants, New Mexico: Uranium Capital of Earth

Grants sits beneath Mount Taylor and beside the El Malpais lava flows, a New Mexico Route 66 town whose atomic-age fortunes began with yellow ore in the nearby hills.

Chase the glow of Grants, the Route 66 town whose atomic-age boom began with a Navajo shepherd's uranium find, in a soft women's tri-blend tee.

Part of the Route 66 Everytown Collection: one tee for every town that ever called the road home. Start with Grants, then collect the entire route.

T-Shirt Details & Features

Next Level 6710 women's tri-blend tee with a slim, feminine fit (see size chart in product image gallery)
50% polyester, 25% combed ring-spun cotton, 25% rayon for a soft, lightweight drape
Crew neck with a tear-away label for comfort
Available in sizes S–2XL
Printed in the USA
Free U.S. shipping on orders of $25 or more, applied automatically!

About Grants, New Mexico: Railroad Camp, Carrots and Uranium

Grokipedia calls Grants the county seat of Cibola County, about 78 miles west of Albuquerque along I-40, with 9,163 residents in the 2020 census. The Grants Route 66 guide says the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad reached the area in the early 1880s, and three Canadian contractor brothers named Grant set up "Grants Camp" at a halfway point between Gallup and Albuquerque. The post office opened in 1882 as Grant and became Grants in 1935.

Logging came first. After the Bluewater Dam went up in 1927, irrigation helped Grants earn the nickname "Carrot Capital" of the U.S., and Route 66 was aligned through town in 1926. Then, per Grokipedia, Navajo shepherd Paddy Martinez found yellow rock near Haystack Mesa, about 10 miles west of town, in 1950. It was identified as carnotite, a uranium and vanadium ore. The Grants district went on to produce more than 340 million pounds of uranium oxide between 1951 and 1980, which Grokipedia puts at nearly 40% of U.S. output at its peak. The town billed itself as the "Uranium Capital of the World," and the slogan on this tee stretches that title to the whole planet.

The boom ended in the 1980s, and Grokipedia says uranium extraction had effectively halted by the early 1990s, leaving legacy environmental concerns at ore-processing tailings sites. Today the New Mexico Mining Museum on Iron Avenue preserves that story with artifacts, photographs and a simulated underground mine tour. A neon Route 66 arch added in 2016 lights up the highway, and the Grants guide notes the nearby El Malpais lava flows that earned the town the nickname "Gateway to Lavaland." Mount Taylor stands about 15 miles to the northeast.

Keep rolling along Route 66 with our unisex tees for Bluewater and Gallup to the west or Cubero and Albuquerque to the east. Prefer a classic fit? Pick up our unisex Grants tee.

Care Instructions

Machine wash: cold (max 86°F / 30°C)
Tumble dry: low heat
Non-chlorine bleach as needed
Iron: low heat
Do NOT dry clean

Bring a piece of Grants home. Carry a piece of the Mother Road's history. Add this tee to your cart, then explore every New Mexico town on Route 66.