Thursday, March 17, 2022

Magdalena

Magdalena, New Mexico, figures prominently in "The Morley Family Story."  The little community served many needs.  It was THE supply point to buy whatever you needed.  It's where cattle were shipped to market. It was the nearest railhead.  It's where you went to begin your travels into a wider world.  When Ada and her children showed up on the scene in the mid-1880's, Magdalena had to be a dusty fly speck on the New Mexico landscape. Even by 1900 the town's population was only 273 but it counted 1,220 people in 1910.  Census figures show Datil has a population of 134 by 1910!

We found an excellent 1917 description of Magdalena and reproduced it as a PDF placed on our Google Drive.  It's a fun read.  You can access it here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16PyViqU5YB49d7HYLMMM1vCUCCD03wQH/view?usp=sharing

We obtained the photos used here from both eBay postcard listings and New Mexico State archives.
The Library of Congress archives several early Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Magdalena.
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