Pie Town and Billy the Kid

Above, Billy the Kid.

Jessica, my former roommate in Tarzana, California, is to come visit next week for two weeks. This depends upon how her dad is. He is currently battling lung cancer.

If she is able to visit, I am planning on a trip down to Pie Town, New Mexico. As the name implies, the village is famous for its pies and annual pie contest at the Pie Town Festival held on the second Saturday of September. 

Pie Town is 116 miles from Jamestown to the south. 

Sometimes it is funny how things work out. The current issue of Enchantment, the rural New Mexico magazine of the New Mexico electric cooperatives, has an article on Pie Town. Talk about timely!

Here's the front cover:

While down in southern New Mexico, we may head east to Fort Sumner to see Billy the Kid Museum, gravesite and visitor center. If we do, we may go to Alto, New Mexico for the Flying J Ranch Dinner and Western Stage Show. To get to Alto from Fort Sumner, we would drive through Roswell. This would be our second visit to Roswell.

Should be fun!

Pie Town, New Mexico

While perusing Do It Yourself RV, I came across an article on 8 southwestern towns RVers should visit.

One of the small towns is Pie Town, New Mexico. It was the first time I've heard of it. It is what the name implies.

According to the article:

This town on Route 60 (or “Pieway 60”) has been long famous for their locally baked pies. A sign posted in town will tell you how “the first merchant in town had such a demand for homemade pies and they were of such high quality that they became justly famous. Local folks as well as travelers began to refer to the community as Pie Town.”

Intrigued, I Googled around and found more information on Pie Town.

According to Atlas Obscura:

JANINE MCMURTREY FLITS FROM COUNTER to sink to oven in calm, practiced movements. She spreads flour over the counter, measures a cup of lard, and sets a timer. Surrounded by the kitchen’s slamming doors and easy chatter, I’m in what feels like a busy, holiday household. But it’s actually a pie shop in Pie Town, New Mexico. 

Pie Town is a real place—a town with no sidewalks or stop lights abutting a stretch of Highway 60 that features faded wooden billboards. From scrappy homesteading roots, the tiny stretch of desert has earned the claim to its name by making its pie a major roadside attraction. But Pie Town is more than a pit stop, and it offers more than just pie. Visitors seem equally drawn by its scrappy spirit, notably warm hospitality, and ability to foster human connection.

As it turns out, Pie Town is only 116 miles from Jamestown, New Mexico, if one should take I-40 east to NM 117E south.

It looks like it would be an interesting trip to take. There are two campgrounds in town.

For more about Pie Town at Atlas Obscura, go here.