Mary has an especially keen interest in Americana, ghost towns, old mines, antique cars and almost any nostalgia that can be photographed. One of our most enjoyable experiences was getting inside the Pioneer Store in Chloride, NM and hanging out with the owners – Don and Donna Edmund. Here’s what we saw.
Chloride is 2:15 and 117 miles from Las Cruces, NM, which was out starting point. You should email or call ahead to make sure that Don or Donna are around to open up the store and other buildings in town. Here is a link to their website.
I recommend you read about the history of the town a bit and the fascinating store and how the Edmunds bought the store and other buildings with the contents in tact and spent almost ten years cleaning up the contents and refurbishing the buildings to the state they are today. There is no charge, but a donation is recommended and I propose you leave a nice one, as you will enjoy this place immensely.
We were fortunate enough to be the only ones there that day and Don let us bring our tripods into the store and showed us lots of goodies and told us numerous stories. The tripods were necessary because the store is a bit dark and photography would have been difficult without flashes or long exposures. We also thought the flashes would have been too harsh a light for the subjects here.
We spent about an hour inside the store and another hour walking around and photographing the other buildings and equipment. Ask Don if he would open up the old safe for you.
Afterward we drove 3 hours, but only 127 miles to Silver City, NM to spend the night. The next day we visited the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument and then back home to Las Cruces. Here is our blog post about the Gila Dwellings.
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