The park in downtown Roy
The park in downtown Roy

Roy is the "big city" in Harding County, although the population has dropped more than 24% since 2000 with a lot of younger people leaving for what they think are better opportunities in the cities.

This is primarily a big cattle ranching and hay production area on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico. Roy is also home to the only gas station in Harding County...

When I last drove through in 2011, I was pleasantly surprised. The town was quite clean without a bunch of ramshackle and collapsing/collapsed buildings around. The town park was very nice with the schools very close by. Roy was like a green oasis in the heart of some very dry and sunburnt countryside. It's obvious the town has seen better days population-wise but the downtown area had several touristic-type shops, some arts and crafts shops and a general store. I don't know about the hotel... or the restaurants, I was busy driving La Frontera del Llano from end to end and was already spending a lot of time on the side of the road trying to find things to take photos of.