The 100-year-old cake tradition that brought this desert city to the map

There are a handful of reasons why you could drive the US route 60, the two-lane, sun-baked asphalt, the New Mexico halves from east to west. Sure, you may be a space mother who wants to check the state Very big array From satellite dishes that grow like huge white flowers in the Rocky New Mexico Highlands. Or you are an adventurer who wants to hike a distance of the continental gap and use US-60 to cross it. But they would undoubtedly miss the most remarkable stop on Route 60 from Texas to Arizona.

And that would be Pie Town.

Although Pie Town is not entirely a real city (it is a population of 188 population), Pie Town is still a small place that has famous its name, not to mention her all-American combination of scaly crust and sweet filling. Pie Town, as it turns out, not only claims a quirky and colorful story, but also celebrates this inheritance every September with its own – they guessed it – they guessed it –Annual cake -resistant This attracts up to 2,000 people to this otherwise quiet, small rural corner of the southwest.

First, how Pie Town got her name

Like many tiny cities in which rural America in rural America Dot, Pie Town was created as a station: Here was a place where you can jump from your saddle, calm down your herd and sleep a night before you push the next day. Was Pie on the menu back then? Here is what a sign in Pie Town has to say: “Due to the strategic situation of our city, people always found it pleasant to stop, to rest and – refresh themselves.” According to this version of the events, “the city’s first dealer had such a demand for homemade cakes and were of such a quality that they were rightly famous. Locals and travelers began to call the community” Pie Town “… and so we got our name.”

A story that as neatly as a crumpled crust? A version in the city tells, accordingly The New York TimesPresent Fill out a few colorful details: a family that runs through with a car full of dried fruits and flour lost a mule (or a horse, depending on the storyteller). Instead of leaving the fruits and pushing the west, they settled down and the woman began to make cakes.

But a historically completed version comes from Kathryn McKee-Roberts, who grew up in Pie Town and researched the history of the name itself. According to McKee-RobertsThe first cake baker in Pie Town was Clyde L. Norman, veteran of the First World War, who sold dried cake at his petrol station from 1922. (It is in the opinion that in this non-fruit fruit part of New Mexico the fruit of New Mexico was a chance choice. In view of the fact that the place had no official name yet, the latter was fixed.

Norman finally sold the cake business to Harmon Craig. When the post inspector wanted a more formal name for the settlement, Craig literally insisted that it was a pie city or nothing that put the name on the card forever. But the cake business would not cut off either. The city’s original pie shop, when the city passed over the years as the owner of the owner, when the city experienced harder times. There was no cake in Pie Town.

Bring the cake back to Pie Town

When Kathy visited her Pie Town family in 1995, she searched for a disc and found a closed general store with a sign with the inscription: “There used to be in Pie Town, but there is no longer – for sale.” Kathy had cake in the blood-child’s grandmother made cake for a café in Illinois and bought the shop and called it Pie-O-Neer. Known as the famous “Pie Lady”, Kathy led the Cake-O-Tag By 2020, when she retired and presented the business to new owners.

The Pie-O-Neer sits directly along the US 60, the western store of stores architecture and a wide veranda with signs and flags, as well as the interior in the general store style. But the true draw is that Freshly baked cake Set up at the rear counter: aromas such as New Mexico Apple, Thunder Berry Crumb, lemon blue -butter -butter milk and tart Cherry Blossom, depending on the season. There is another restaurant gatherin ‘Place ii, who specializes in hand-burned cakes together with the café menu. It is a place where people and gossip at long community tables, the Cheryl Bentley, which leads the place, improves the community spirit. While there are only limited workers in Pie Town, Bentley says, she brings many pensioners to help a day or two a week. You have a small family of bakers and waiters who drive through to deliver cakes and smiles for everyone.

But that’s not the whole cake in the cake city.

Make a festival out of it

For 42 years, the locals are absolutely pie crazy on the second Saturday in September at the annual Pie Festival, which collects donations for the city. And the preparation begins in spring, says Bentley, when the local bakers put 600 cakes for sale during the day. But in the middle of the old-fashioned schedule of the festival with three-legged races, the horseshoe threshold and cake-free competitions as well as the crowning glory of a cake queen and a cake queen, the main event is a juried pie back competition.

Ron Bronitsky, a retired doctor from Albuquerque, is a repeat master here in Pie Town (he has it The power attributed From his fresh freshness fruit) and the New Mexico State Fair Pie Contest, where he is now a judge. He even competed for Netflix Blue Ribbon Back Championship In 2024, where he explained his love for the festival on the show, he presented millions of viewers Pie Town. “It is a whole spectacle. Everyone looks like they had just come off the ranch,” he says. “It is really rural western memorial.”

On the festival day, volunteer judges rate the overall appearance, the crust and the taste of typically 30 entries in four categories: fruit, nut, young people (bakers under the age of 17) and others. The bakers compete for a main prize of 100 US dollars (plus boast rights, promises the control sheet), while the winners in each category 25 US dollars (and of course a classic blue ribbon).

The power of the cakes

Although the bakeries and bakers can change over the years (not to mention the award -winning cake combinations), there is a determination to keep cakes in Pie Town and make this quirky city a place that wants to invite visitors and good for locals. “Many organizations are interested in the well-being of the cake city,” Bentley described, describing the County plans to repair the local campsite, as well as a coalition between organizations that supports the continental trail and Dark Sky International to bring in more visitors. This is the spirit of the city city – people who believe in community and cake, and sometimes that’s all they need.