A Cross That Commands the Panhandle Sky
Somewhere between the Oklahoma border and Amarillo, on a long straight ribbon of Historic Route 66 that rolls across the flat high plains of the Texas Panhandle, a white shape rises from the horizon and keeps rising. Travelers see it from twenty miles out — a gleaming steel structure growing steadily taller above the wheat fields, wind turbines, and grain elevators until it fills the windshield with something that is unmistakably, impossibly large. This is the Groom Cross — officially the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ — a 190-foot steel monument standing nineteen stories above the Panhandle floor, one of the largest crosses in the Western Hemisphere, and the most dramatic single landmark on Route 66 in Texas.
Built in 1995 by Pampa oil-and-gas engineer Steve Thomas, the Groom Cross was designed to be seen from a moving vehicle at highway speed — and it is. Its 2.5-million-pound white corrugated steel frame, engineered with the same structural principles Thomas applied to drilling-rig masts during his working career, stands between Interstate 40 and the old Route 66 frontage road just west of the town of Groom. It cannot be mistaken for anything else. It cannot be missed. It has been stopping travelers on this stretch of the Panhandle for three decades, drawing an estimated 300,000 visitors to sign the guest book every year — roughly ten million people pass by it annually on I-40 — from every state in America and from dozens of countries around the world.
What began as a vision for a large spiritual billboard became something far more significant: a 10-acre religious campus anchored by the cross and surrounded by life-size bronze sculptures of the Stations of the Cross, a replica of the Shroud of Turin, an empty tomb, a Ten Commandments monument, and a visitor center with a gift shop and auditorium. For some travelers it is a roadside curiosity — a giant thing to photograph on the way across Texas. For others it is a place of genuine pilgrimage. For virtually everyone who stops, it is larger, more detailed, and more affecting than they expected. That is, as Steve Thomas intended from the beginning, precisely the point.
Where Is the Groom Cross?
The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ is located at 2880 County Road 2, Groom, Texas 79039, just west of the town of Groom in Carson County. From Interstate 40, take Exit 112 and follow the frontage road west; the cross is visible from the interstate and from Historic Route 66 (the frontage road) and requires only a short turn onto County Road 2 to reach the parking area. The site is approximately 40 miles east of Amarillo and 215 miles west of Oklahoma City.
Groom sits in the southeastern corner of Carson County at an elevation of 3,255 feet — high enough that the Panhandle’s rolling terrain occasionally reveals the cross from the crest of one rise, then hides it in the hollow, then reveals it again, larger, on the next. The experience of watching the cross grow from a distant white speck into a building-sized structure as you drive toward it is one of the more memorable approaches to any roadside landmark in Texas. The cross is visible from both directions on I-40, though it shows best to westbound travelers who approach it head-on from the east.
The site is open 24 hours a day. The cross is illuminated at night, glowing white against the dark Panhandle sky in a visual that travellers consistently describe as one of the most striking night sights on any stretch of Route 66. The visitor center, gift shop, and indoor exhibits have more limited hours — typically open during daylight hours, seasonally.
The Town Behind the Cross: Groom, Texas
Colonel Groom, the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, and the Coming of the Railroad
The name Groom belongs to Colonel B.B. Groom, an experienced cattleman from Lexington, Kentucky, who leased nearly 600,000 acres of Texas Panhandle land in 1882 from the New York and Texas Land Company, organizing what he called the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company with ambitions to create the finest cattle ranch in America. The venture went bankrupt four years later — the land returned to other hands — but the colonel’s name stayed on the landscape. In 1902, when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway built westward across the Panhandle and a townsite was established at a siding in Carson County, it was named Groom in honor of the cattle baron whose enterprise had first put the region on the map.
The town was formally founded by local landowner W.S. Wilkerson in 1902, incorporated in 1911 with more than 250 residents, and grew steadily as a center of Panhandle agriculture, ranching, and livestock shipping. By 1906 it had a barbershop, a bank, a hotel, a lumberyard, a school, and a cluster of new businesses. The oil boom of the mid-1920s added petroleum income to the community’s agricultural base. And then, in 1926, U.S. Route 66 was commissioned through Groom — and the town found itself on the most famous highway in America.
Route 66 and the Jericho Gap: The Road That Made Groom Famous
During the golden era of Route 66, Groom’s position on the highway made it a welcome sight for a particular reason: it lay just west of the Jericho Gap — an infamous 18-mile stretch of unpaved black-soil road east of Groom that had a well-earned reputation for becoming a treacherous mud trap in wet weather. Early Route 66 travelers attempting to cross the Gap after rain found their vehicles buried to the axles in sticky Panhandle clay. Local service stations and ranchers made a substantial business pulling stranded cars free of the mud. There were persistent rumors, never confirmed, that some locals deliberately watered the road to increase their recovery business.
The Gap was bypassed and eventually paved, but it left a legacy: Groom was the town where drivers heaved a sigh of relief after surviving the treacherous stretch, and the service stations, restaurants, and motels that lined Route 66 through Groom did strong business in consequence. At its peak, Groom had more gas stations per capita than any other community in the Panhandle. Route 66 was everything to the town’s economy.
The Bypass, the Decline, and the Cross
The construction of Interstate 40 through the Panhandle in the 1960s and 1970s began redirecting traffic away from the old Route 66 alignment through Groom. The town’s population, which had peaked at 808 in 1972, began falling as the through traffic moved to the faster interstate. Groom never entirely lost Route 66 identity — the original alignment continues as the I-40 Business Route through town — but its days as a highway boomtown were over. Today approximately 552 residents (2020 census) live in Groom, and while the community maintains its agricultural and ranching economy, the neon motels and filling stations that once lined the route are mostly gone.
Into this quiet, it-used-to-be-bigger Panhandle town came Steve Thomas in 1995 with an idea for a monument that would make Groom famous again — not for the road that was bypassing it, but for something visible to every driver on that road from twenty miles away.
Groom, Texas Sign near Interstate 40
The Groom Cross: Construction, Scale, and Engineering
Steve Thomas: The Oil Engineer Who Built a Monument to Faith
Steve Thomas spent three and a half decades as an oil-and-gas engineer in Pampa, Texas, designing and building drilling-rig masts — the tall steel structures that rise above oil wells to support the drilling equipment. When he decided in the early 1990s that he wanted to make a visible profession of faith along the interstate highway that connected Chicago to Los Angeles, it was his engineering background that told him how to do it. The structural principles of a drilling-rig mast — tall, narrow, engineered to withstand the full force of Panhandle wind loads — were the same principles he applied to the cross.
Thomas has described his original vision as a large spiritual billboard — a response to the adult-business billboards that lined I-40 across the western plains. He was inspired by a cross built by a rancher near Ballinger, Texas, which was roughly half the size of what he ultimately built. The moment his wife laid a picture of the Ballinger cross on his desk, Thomas says, he recognized the project he had been looking for: something big, something permanent, something for the Lord that would be seen by millions of people every year without Thomas having to say a word.
The goal was to complete the cross by Easter 1995. The construction schedule ran long, as large projects do, and the cross was finally erected in July 1995. Thomas watched it go up alongside his son Bobby. The original FAA regulation limiting unlit structures to a maximum of 200 feet effectively set the cross’s ceiling — Thomas has said he would have built it even taller if the rule had not existed. The final structure came in at 190 feet, comfortably below the limit, and required no aviation lighting.
Construction: Eight Months, Two Shops, 100 Welders, Seven Flatbeds
The cross frame was fabricated in two shops in Pampa, Texas — 40 miles from the Groom site — over a period of eight months, with more than 100 welders working on it. The material is white corrugated steel — the industrial warehouse-panel material — welded over a structural frame that Thomas designed using the same engineering approach he applied to oil-rig masts. The completed cross was fabricated in three large sections for transport. Moving those sections from the Pampa shops to the Groom site required seven flatbed trucks. Final assembly and erection took place on the site on Chris Britten’s private property just off I-40.
The concrete foundation poured for the cross was so large that sales of ready-mix concrete to all other customers in the Texas Panhandle came to a halt on the day it was poured — every available truck was committed to the Groom site. The finished structure:
Height: 190 feet (19 stories)
Arm span: 110 feet wide
Weight: 2.5 million pounds (1,250 tons)
Material: White corrugated steel over structural steel frame
Visibility: Up to 20 miles in clear Panhandle conditions
Cost: Approximately half a million dollars, funded entirely by Steve Thomas
Lighting: Illuminated at night; Thomas described the night lighting as representing the Resurrection
Tallest Cross in America — Then Illinois Edged Ahead
When the Groom Cross was completed in 1995, it was hailed as the tallest cross in the United States and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. That record stood for only a few years. Steve Thomas subsequently assisted the City of Effingham, Illinois, in building a cross of their own — at 198 feet, eight feet taller than the Groom Cross. A third cross in the St. Louis area has since surpassed both. For travelers on the Texas Panhandle, the distinction is entirely academic. The Groom Cross is still the tallest cross in Texas, one of the largest in the world, and more than large enough to stop every vehicle on the I-40 corridor that passes it. The Effingham cross, which Thomas helped design, is a direct descendant of what he built in Groom.
The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries: A 10-Acre Campus
The Groom Cross did not stop growing after the steel was erected. Steve Thomas has been adding to the site for three decades, building it from a single cross and a small welcome building into a full religious campus that occupies 10 acres and includes multiple permanent installations, an outdoor path, an indoor visitor center, a gift shop, and an auditorium. The ministry is not affiliated with any single church or denomination, though Thomas describes it as Catholic in orientation. The site welcomes visitors of every faith and none.
The Stations of the Cross
Surrounding the base of the cross is an outdoor path that traces the 14 Stations of the Cross — the traditional sequence of events from Jesus’s condemnation to his death and burial — through a series of life-size bronze sculptures. Each sculpture depicts one station with documentary realism: the figures are full human scale, the details of costume and setting are carefully researched, and the emotional content is direct. Visitors walk the path in sequence, moving from station to station around the base of the cross. The complete walk takes 15–30 minutes depending on how long visitors spend at each station. Tripadvisor reviewers consistently describe the Stations of the Cross path as the most affecting part of the visit — more powerful than the cross itself, in some accounts, because of the human scale of the sculptures against the vast Panhandle landscape.
The Last Supper in Life-Size Bronze
A life-size bronze depiction of The Last Supper — Jesus and the twelve apostles at the Passover table — is one of the campus’s most visually striking installations. The full-scale sculpture group allows visitors to view the scene at the same level as the figures themselves, a perspective that conventional paintings and smaller-scale depictions do not provide.
The Replica Shroud of Turin
The visitor center houses a full-size replica of the Shroud of Turin — the 14-foot linen cloth bearing the image of a man whose wounds correspond to those described in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The Shroud, preserved in the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin, Italy, is one of the most studied artifacts in history and one of the most venerated in Christianity. The Groom replica gives visitors a full-scale sense of the object’s dimensions and the detail of the image. An accompanying video explains the Shroud’s history, the scientific studies conducted on it, and its significance within Christian tradition.
The Empty Tomb
A replica of the empty tomb of Jesus — a stone burial cave with the entrance stone rolled aside — is positioned on the campus grounds as a representation of the Resurrection. Visitors can enter the tomb and experience the interior. This installation is consistently mentioned in visitor accounts as one of the more unexpectedly moving features of the site.
Additional Permanent Installations
The campus also includes a Ten Commandments monument on authenticated Mt. Sinai marble; a bronze sculpture of St. Michael the Archangel; an Abortion Memorial; bronze plaques featuring Scripture passages from both the Old and New Testaments; and a Divine Mercy Fountain — a contemplative water feature inside the visitor center building. Steve Thomas has described his intention as continuing to add installations to the site for as long as his health permits. The campus is a living project.
The Visitor Center, Gift Shop, and Auditorium
The on-site visitor center — expanded from the original small welcome building to a significantly larger facility — houses the gift shop, restrooms, the Divine Mercy Fountain, a reception room with staff and volunteers available to speak with visitors, and an auditorium where a video documentary about the cross and the ministry is shown. The gift shop carries religious merchandise, Route 66 souvenirs, and items specific to the Groom Cross. A reception and counseling room is available for visitors seeking private reflection or conversation.
The Groom Cross and Route 66: Faith at the Heart of America’s Highway
Steve Thomas made a decision that is, in retrospect, the key to the Groom Cross’s extraordinary reach: he built it on Route 66, between the old highway and the interstate that replaced it. Route 66 was always a road that invited stopping — that built a culture of curiosity, of pulling over for the giant thing, the unexpected thing, the thing that required a closer look. Thomas understood that. He didn’t want to be a missionary who traveled to the world. He wanted to find a place where the world came to him. And on Historic Route 66 in Texas, on the road between Chicago and Los Angeles that carries travelers from around the globe across the American heartland, the world indeed comes to Groom, Texas.
Thomas reports that approximately 70 percent of the cross’s visitors are international — Route 66 travelers from Europe, Asia, Australia, and elsewhere who are driving the complete highway and who stop at every significant landmark along the way. Many of them have never encountered a structure of this nature — a privately funded religious monument on privately held land, open to all, free of charge, in the middle of an agricultural plain. The cross, in this sense, is as distinctly American as the highway it stands beside: a product of individual vision, private enterprise, and the peculiar freedom of the Panhandle landscape to host something on this scale without any institutional framework around it.
The approach of the Route 66 Centennial in 2026 — marking 100 years since the highway was commissioned on November 11, 1926 — has brought renewed attention to every major landmark on the Mother Road. The Groom Cross, which has been drawing Route 66 travelers since 1995, is a central feature of the Texas Panhandle corridor that travelers will be celebrating and driving throughout the centennial year.
More to See in Groom, Texas
The Britten Leaning Water Tower
On the eastern approach to Groom at I-40 Exit 114, Route 66 travelers pass the Britten Leaning Water Tower — a steel water tower that stands at a deliberate 10-degree angle and appears to be about to topple onto the frontage road. It was purchased by Ralph Britten — a former Army Air Corps engineer who grew up in Groom and applied his military engineering knowledge to Panhandle roadside marketing — from a gas plant near Lefors and hauled 34 miles to its present location. Britten elevated two of the tower’s four legs off the ground using a bulldozer, creating the lean, and painted “Britten USA” in red, white, and blue across the tank. The tower was the sign for his Tower Fuel Stop; when the fuel stop burned down, the tower remained, and it has been a beloved Route 66 roadside oddity ever since. Vince Britten and his siblings repaint it every few years. At Christmas, the city of Groom lights the large colored star mounted on top.
The Gulf Gas Station and Vintage Service Stations
On the north side of Historic Route 66 through Groom, a well-preserved 1953 Gulf gas station at the corner of Route 66 and Shelton Avenue stands as one of the most architecturally intact surviving service stations on the Texas Panhandle stretch of the Mother Road. Several other abandoned service station shells are visible along the Route 66 alignment through town, offering photographers and Route 66 heritage enthusiasts strong material for documentation.
Groom Historic Markers
Downtown Groom contains several Texas historical markers documenting the town’s history. The marker at the corner near the State National Bank (founded 1904, chartered statewide 1908) notes the Britten family among the early directors — the same family whose tilted tower stands on the town’s eastern edge. The City Hall wall marker tells the story of Groom’s 1882 namesake. A third marker records Dr. Groom Ratliff, for whom the town’s 1966 memorial is dedicated.
The Groom Route 66 Mural
A Route 66 mural in downtown Groom celebrates the highway’s heritage and its role in the town’s identity — part of the broader mural tradition that has become one of the most visible expressions of Route 66 community pride across the Texas Panhandle. Worth a photograph alongside the cross and the leaning tower on any full Groom stop.
Practical Information for Visiting the Groom Cross
Address: 2880 County Road 2, Groom, Texas 79039
Phone: (806) 248-9673
Website: crossministries.net
Directions from I-40: Take Exit 112 westbound off I-40. Follow the frontage road (Historic Route 66) west approximately 0.8 miles, then turn right (north) on Western Street to County Road BB, then left (west). The cross is visible from I-40 and the frontage road. Parking is available at the site.
Hours: The site and grounds are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The cross is illuminated at night. The visitor center, gift shop, and indoor exhibits have more limited daytime hours — confirm current hours before visiting.
Admission: Free. The ministry is self-funded and accepts donations.
Facilities: Parking lot, visitor center, gift shop, restrooms, auditorium, counseling room. Wheelchair accessible paths to the Stations of the Cross and visitor center.
Photography: The cross is most dramatically photographed from the frontage road or parking area, where the full 190-foot height can be captured. Sunrise and sunset light the white steel in warm gold tones. Night photography of the illuminated cross against the Panhandle sky is a popular subject.
Time Required: Allow a minimum of 30–45 minutes to walk the Stations of the Cross path, view the outdoor bronze sculptures, and visit the indoor exhibits. Many visitors spend 60–90 minutes on site.
Leaning Water Tower: The Britten Leaning Water Tower is located 3 miles east at I-40 Exit 114. Add 15 minutes to photograph it. Both stops together make the complete Groom Route 66 experience.
Lodging near Groom: The Chalet Inn in Groom (101 Pine Street) is a budget-friendly Route 66 motel with basic accommodations and free WiFi. Amarillo (40 miles west) offers the full range of Route 66 motel options including the Big Texan Motel.
Climate: The Texas Panhandle is semi-arid with wide temperature swings and persistent wind. Summer daytime temperatures at Groom average 90–95°F and can exceed 100°F. Spring and fall are the most comfortable seasons for an extended outdoor visit to the Stations of the Cross path. The cross itself can be visited in all seasons; the outdoor path is best in cooler weather.
The Centennial Year: With the Route 66 Centennial marking 100 years of the Mother Road in 2026, traffic to all major Texas Panhandle landmarks — including the Groom Cross — is expected to be at its highest level in decades. Plan to arrive early in the day to avoid peak midday traffic at the site.
Continuing Your Route 66 Journey from Groom
Groom sits near the center of the Route 66 Texas Panhandle corridor, approximately equidistant between the Oklahoma border to the east and the New Mexico border to the west. To the east of Groom the highway passes through McLean — home of the Devil’s Rope Museum — and on toward Shamrock at the Oklahoma line. To the west it runs through Conway (home of Bug Ranch) and into Amarillo, the Panhandle’s largest city and home to Cadillac Ranch, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, and the 6th Street Historic District.
Route 66 in McLean, Texas — Approximately 30 miles east of Groom, McLean is home to the Devil’s Rope Museum — the world’s largest barbed wire collection and the first Route 66 museum on the entire highway — plus the restored 1928 Phillips 66 station and the McLean–Alanreed Area Historical Museum.
Devil’s Rope Museum, McLean — The 2,000-variety barbed wire collection in the former bra factory on Historic Route 66, alongside the Texas Route 66 Museum’s 700+ Mother Road artifacts. Free admission.
Conway, Texas on Route 66 — Approximately 15 miles west of Groom, Conway is home to Bug Ranch — five Volkswagen Beetles buried nose-first in the Panhandle soil, the Panhandle’s cheerful answer to Cadillac Ranch.
Amarillo, Texas on Route 66 — Approximately 40 miles west of Groom, Amarillo is the major city on Texas’s Route 66 corridor, home to Cadillac Ranch, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, and the 6th Street Historic District.
Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo — The iconic public art installation just west of Amarillo where ten Cadillacs are buried nose-first in the Panhandle soil, spray-painted and repainted by visitors for decades.
The Big Texan Steak Ranch, Amarillo — Route 66’s legendary 72-ounce steak challenge restaurant in Amarillo, a western-themed institution since 1960.
6th Street Historic District, Amarillo — The most intact Route 66 business corridor in Texas, lined with antique shops, vintage neon, galleries, and restaurants along the original alignment.
Midpoint Café, Adrian, Texas — Approximately 90 miles west of Groom, the Midpoint Café in Adrian marks the exact geographic center of Route 66 — 1,139 miles from both Chicago and Los Angeles. Famous for Ugly Crust Pies and the real-world inspiration for Pixar’s Cars.
Route 66 in Texas — Complete Guide — The full overview of all 178 miles of the Mother Road through the Texas Panhandle, from Shamrock at the Oklahoma border to Glenrio at the New Mexico line.
Route 66 — Complete Guide — The definitive guide to all 2,448 miles of America’s Mother Road, from the Begin sign in Chicago to the End of the Trail at the Santa Monica Pier.
Route 66 Centennial 2026 — The 100th anniversary of Route 66 is November 11, 2026. The Groom Cross, the Leaning Water Tower, and the full Texas Panhandle corridor are central to the centennial celebration.
Why the Groom Cross Deserves More Than a Drive-By
Route 66 built its culture on stopping — on pulling over for the thing that shouldn’t exist in the middle of a wheat field, on taking twenty minutes to understand why someone built a giant thing in the middle of nowhere. The Groom Cross is a direct continuation of that tradition. It is, in the most literal sense, a roadside attraction: something built along a road specifically to attract the attention of people on that road. But where most roadside attractions offer novelty, the Groom Cross offers something that its visitors consistently report as more than that: a place that requires a different quality of attention, a more deliberate slowing down, a walk at human scale through subjects that have occupied human attention for two thousand years.
Steve Thomas is in his office a few yards from the base of the cross, watching the guest books fill up year after year. A third of a million visitors a year sign their names and write where they came from and sometimes what they felt. He built the cross because he wanted to do one big thing for the Lord. He built it on Route 66 because he knew that when people come to America, they come to Route 66. And when they come to Route 66, they come to Groom, Texas — and they stop.
