Page 83 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

Bingham - Chapter 20
In the days when I taught there in 1941-1942, Bingham was not located where it is now. At that time there was a WPA schoolhouse, a small motel where the teachers lived, and a general store and post office, everything except the schoolhouse owned by Harold Dean. Years later, U.S. Highway 380 was moved a few miles south. The only building moved to the new highway was the store and post office.
High School at Bingham: front row - Helen Harless, Elma Lucero, Nolan Hefner, A. Howell; back row - ____, _____, Betty Long, Anna Marie Long, Wayne Kennedy
The school consisted of four rooms. Mrs. Kennedy taught grades one through four, fifth through eighth grades were taught by Miss Storey from Bosque (south of Belen), and I as principal taught the high school students.
The fourth room was the cafeteria where all of the children ate. We were furnished a cook and a kitchen helper by some organization of the government, and were well supplied with many kinds of surplus foods. I charged the pupils three cents (that’s right, 3 cents!) for each meal, which
added up to sixty cents a month. If they paid in advance by the month, they paid only fifty cents for the school month.
There were about forty pupils, which meant that I had twenty dollars with which to buy extra food. I bought canned vegetables by the case, staples which were not provided, and even a front quarter of beef occasionally. I never bought hind quarters because, in addition to being too expensive, the meat didn’t go far in steaks and roasts. We used the meat instead in nourishing soups and stews.
In the spring of 1941, the Rio Grande had flooded from a high run-off of melting snow in the northern part of the state, and the bridge across the river on U. S. Highway 380 east of San Antonia, was washed away. At that time there was a bus line running between Socorro and Roswell. Since the bus couldn’t cross the river, one bus loaded with passengers came from Socorro while another one came from Roswell. They met at the river, the passengers dismounted, walked across the river on 2x12 planks, boarded the bus on the other side, and went on their way.
It was very difficult for us to get from Bingham to the county seat at Socorro. The surest way was to drive up to Gran Quivira, on to Mountainair, west on U.S. Highway 60 to Bernardo, thence down U. S. Highway 85 to Socorro - a distance of 131 miles compared to 42 miles by way of the regular road.