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June 1940. "Stage in front of the post office at Pie Town, New Mexico. This stage comes through daily except Sunday. It takes in cream for the Pie Town farmers to Magdalena and Socorro and then returns the empty cans." Our second look at the Pie Town stop of the Socorro-Springerville Express. Medium format negative by Russell Lee. View full size.
The taxi company must also have a contract with the Post Office Department. That's a #2 Parcel Post sack being carried into the building.
How do I know?
36 years with the Postal Service. I recognize the hasp.
Looks like one of those unpaved roads threw a rock into the windshield in front of the passenger. If someone was seated there at the time it must have been a shock.
I notice some light colored pinstriping on the wheel wells of the fenders on this great vehicle.
Who's the young man inside the door, dreaming of life somewhere else?
The vehicle appears to be a 1937 Plymouth DeLuxe seven-passenger sedan. For those who didn't know, the road between Socorro and Springerville is Highway 60. The Continental Divide at 8,000 feet is just east of Pie Town and the highway at that time was unpaved.
When I was young, circa 1963, my hometown had a few taxis that looked just like this. What I found most interesting was that on the back of the front seats there were four little round seats, each about the size of a dinner plate, that folded down; sitting on one meant you were facing the folks on the rear seat.
Every Tuesday in the summer, my mom and aunt would call a taxi, and shovel all nine of the kids (aged 4-12) they had between them into the back. As the smallest, I ALWAYS managed to grab one of the little fold-down seats.
And off we'd go, without adults, to the New Moon theatre to watch a double header matinee for 25 cents each. Who needs seatbelts when there are nine little bodies packed in like sardines? And the taxi would be waiting a block away for us every time, what days those werec... Oh, and my brother managed to open the suicide door once and almost fell out as we were moving along! I just remembered that!
I wonder how long it took them to cover the 150 plus miles between Socorro and Springerville. And if that was the load always carried, how many miles between flats, breakdowns, and other assorted mechanical problems.
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