Pie Town and Socorro

The next morning I left Springerville, AZ and headed back to New Mexico and my home near Rio Rancho. By noon I needed a break. I had always heard the stories of Pie Town, NM. A hundred years or so when it took many days to make the trip I was making in about 5 hours a resident of this little village decided to bake pies and offer them to the tired travelers that stopped here in their old Ford trucks and cars. So the tiny community became known as Pie Town. I'm not sure what else there is in this town but 4 eatery's that sell pies among other things and the people that own and run these places. I decided to stop at one of the oldest ones The Pie-o-neer which has been featured on several TV shows. It was open but someone hadn't know which was the brake and which was the gas earlier in the morning and had driven up the steps and almost into the building. The people that owned the place said their first though had been an earthquake. But they had gone on baking pies and selling them. If you go here remember this place only sells pies, although some of the other cafes do sell other kinds of foods. I had a really delicious piece of cherry pie and good conversation with owners and other people eating pie.

After leaving Pie Town I made it to Socorro, NM and took a wrong turn to get to the freeway. But that was alright as I found an old Spanish Catholic Mission Church and stopped for a few minutes. The church didn't look that old as it has been repaired many times. There was no one around so I didn't go in. As you can see by the signs below that they celebrated the 400th aniveresy of the church in 2015 and that it was actually founded in 1598.

This old adobe house was across the street from the church and is actually for sale. But to close to the street to suit me.

Almost Ghost Towns

 In the tiny town of Magdalena I found that the library was the train depot a hundred years ago. But the depot was moved at some time and doesn't sit where it did when it was used as a depot. And the train tracks are now gone. I did talk to a man for a few minutes that said when he was a kid (I would think in about the 1950's as he looked about my age) that he would watch the trains go by as his home was near the tracks. He tried to tell me where that was but not knowing the town I wasn't sure where he meant. The librarian was telling me that in late May there would be a talk given by a man over 90 years old who had been an engineer on the last train to go though Magdalena. It would be interesting to hear by I don't think I can go back.

This looked to be an older building in the town of Magdalena and it said there was still a newspaper in one end of it.

There was a windmill museum in the town of Pie Town, named that many years ago back in the 1930's when a man decided to sell pies to the travelers on this road. He made a good business of it and the little town grew but there have been times when there were no places that sold pies. Now it has become a tourist stop for the pies and there were 3 cafes that sold pies. Very good ones, in fact, with a favorite being the apple pies with jalapeno peppers and pinion nuts added to the pie filling. Jalapenos are a very well known New Mexico hot pepper usually used in Mexican foods and the pinion nut comes from the pinion tree which is the New Mexico state tree and a kind of pine tree found only in the southwest states. Pinion nuts were ( and are still well liked) a staple in the diets of native American Indians in the southwest states.

 This old building, the old car, and sign were near the Pie-o-neer Café.

 This church was in the town of Quemado, NM. I couldn't find any information on it but do not think it was the old, just made to look that way. The deer horn tree was in Quemado, also. Not much else there but a gas station and some other basic business'. All of these towns had once been thriving mining and ranching towns but almost became ghost towns until more traffic on the highways brought in more business.