Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Fred M. Davis received a notice from the Curry County draft board on Oct. 17, 1917. He was to go to Camp Funston, Kan., for induction. One of his orders, in handwriting on the notice, was to “bring an easy pair of shoes.” The data herein was researched by Juanita Fox, a daughter, from his military records: The notice was signed by Sheriff D. L. Moye, the chairman of the local draft board. At this time, Davis was getting his mail at Havener (by 1920 it was called Grier). The 1911 Davis homestead was on the west end of wha... Full story
The railroad bridge at Fort Sumner is 100 years old this year. The bridge crew knew they had a big job ahead of them. One of the great floods of the Pecos River in 1903 demonstrated to the Belen cutoff railroad crew that the bridge on the Pecos would have to be strong and high. Then on Sept. 30, 1904, another Pecos River flood submerged the Old Fort Sumner Military Cemetery four feet under the current. Many markers and stones were moved or lost. Even Roswell and Carlsbad suffered the flood waters. The Landry Sharp... Full story
After five years of writing a column for the Curry County Times, I got a call from the editor of this newspaper: W. W. “Bill” Southard. This was right after Jan. 1, 1982. He told me I could get more readers if I moved over to the Clovis News Journal. I moved and he was right. My first column for the CNJ was on Red Ryder’s creator, Fred Harman, who had been a friend of mine for several years. Southard, 10 months before, had entered the Bantam Books/Twentieth Century-Fox First Western Contest. He won first place and received $2... Full story
There are little remnants of the civic organization inside the crumbling, peach colored building. The walls are covered with graffiti. The wooden floors are littered with glass shards from smashed windows. The east side was scorched by a fire. Clovis Director of Public Safety Pete Wilt condemned the abandoned structure in November. “It’s dangerous. It’s a wide open space, a place for vagrants and gangs,” Wilt said. But the crumbling building was once a vibrant meeting place for the Clovis Woman’s Club. Now, it is the prope... Full story
We learned in part one John W. Childers Jr. survived a long court trial down in Las Cruces for killing a prominent attorney. Money and power behind the scenes caused Childers to be acquitted. His rich and powerful father and attorneys, with the help of three famous New Mexicans, aided Childers in being judged “Not guilty.” Childers’ history showed, before coming to Clovis, he was involved in shooting up the towns near Gainesville, Texas. One night there were 60 Mexicans waiting for him. A shot hit his wrist and he fell....
One of the first real shootouts in Clovis happened on Aug. 15, 1909. That’s one of the first stories I heard when I started writing about Clovis history. Old Tom Pendergrass, the first historian of Clovis, told me the story. He was a lad of 9, who was in the alley and witnessed the death of a killer through a window. Just recently in the October 2005 Wild West magazine was the story of the “Silver City Shooting,” featuring gambler John W. Childers and his shooting of 37-year-old Thomas Heflin, a prominent Silver City Terri...
I don’t believe any other man stood taller in the estimation of Clovis citizens than Bill Duckworth. He was a pharmacist, drug store owner, politician (Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico), state senator for six years, Curry County Commissioner, automobile dealer, farmer, 33 degree Mason, Rotarian who achieved an almost unbelievable record of over 30 years of perfect attendance, a collector of books which he donated to the Clovis library and had a 15 minute radio show almost daily where he gave a history of old timers. Duckwort...
Nature blessed eastern New Mexico with plenty of wind, sunshine, and deep wells, but there were times when a person did not have time to drill his well in search of something to alleviate a dry condition that threatened to dehydrate the body. To take care of such a condition and to eliminate the possibility of dying of thirst, many establishments were erected within the limits of a young and vigorous city. When the housewives were wearied of the man of the house you can be sure that she never let her frazzled nerves get out...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Sometimes I can get over my head in helping somebody. That was the case with Jack Skipworth. You’d have to know something about Jack to understand. Maybe this will help: Jack was sort of famous for being in trouble with the law. Some of you may remember I wrote a two-part column about Jack in the 1980s. He had been told to get out of Clovis by the law after incidents related to handling booze illegally and gambling. In 1969, he settled in Del Rio, Texas, and became the first fishing guide at L...
The story is told that a New Mexico blizzard made its appearance during the two days (actually nights) when two songs by Jimmy Self were recorded by Norman Petty. It was said that the recording studio was so cold the musicians had to wear coats during the sessions. Perhaps they also had to keep moving in order to keep warm, for — if you will listen carefully at the end of “An Old Christmas Card” — there is some studio noise for 2.5 seconds after the music stops ... or maybe Norman’s fingers were too cold and stiff to turn t...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Not until after John H. Barry died could the folks in a big part of New Mexico realize how a man in a hardware store could be an empire builder and benefactor. There never was a real story on Mr. Barry because he despised publicity. We are talking about the John Barry and his hardware company in Clovis, with the slogan "The Store That Stays." John Barry came to Clovis in 1907 from Atchison, Kan., where he was traveling for a hardware firm. He and his brother, the late Henry Barry, opened a...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Carolyn Kitchens sat in her pickup on a snowy January night in 1998, watching as the last wall fell into the flames that engulfed her home. Everything burned except her grandmother's cast-iron stove, which glowed red-hot in the moonlight. Kitchens lived in a farm house between Tolar and House and drove back and forth — an 80-mile round trip — to work at Kelley's Bar & Grill in Clovis. The patrons there heard about the fire. “There were about eight of us sitting around the table drinking beer,... Full story
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Perhaps 1926 should be remembered as the year oil was found in Curry County. Deliberate or not, rumor had it that an unnamed, big oil company paid someone to sabotage the well. What happened to another well in 1927 is unknown. Professional oil well drillers drilled four or five test holes in Curry County. The Frio Oil Co. was made up of Clovis investors: Charles Scheurich, W. F. Swartz, George Houk, Harry Tyler, W. G. Head and W. C. Barton. The company started a test hole on the Sanders ranch...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Lincoln-Jackson School, a segregated school, had its beginning in 1924 in the Patterson Chapel Church which was then located at 609 West 1st Street. Miss Marjorie Ford was the first teacher. She came from Temple, Texas to teach two students, Ray Love and Herman Dillard. Mrs. Ida O. Jackson replaced Miss Ford in 1926 and had a total of five students enrolled. She found the dilapidated church “rocking and reeling every time the wind blew.” She worked hard for a better school in a segregated tow...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist The following story was told to Don McAlavy by Mark Hall, a commercial pilot who grew up in Clovis. “In the winter of 1958-59, my dad, L. S. (Bud) Hall,” said Mark Hall “was a partner with Lee Ross and George Hammond in the first aircraft dealership at the new Clovis Municipal Airport. Skyline Aviation was a Cessna dealership. My dad ran the day-to-day operations. “They had an instructor named Ray Jones. My dad did the charter flights, the pick up and delivery of aircraft. He picked up their f...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Back in 1969, an artist in Clovis figured it was about time to paint pictures of old historical buildings, scenes, and the pioneers of the old days. The artist who came up with this idea was Virginia Posey Gregory. With help from Willie Fe Hester, another fine artist, the modest but earnest recording Clovis and Curry County history through art began. Any subject older than 1935 was considered historical. When the project became overwhelming, the two ladies got sponsorship from the newly organized...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Ranchvale Elementary School northwest of Clovis has quite a history. The first school in that area was located two miles east of present Ranchvale, taught by A.J. Reid. It was open only three months each year. In 1917-18, when four neighboring schools consolidated, they agreed to open Ranchvale Elementary School with grades one through 12, located a mile south of its present site. The four schools to consolidate were Sunshine, Ideal, Bethel, and Fertile Valley. All agreed on Ranchvale as the name...
“I wanted to see Tolar again,” said Stephen Reynolds, a former game warden in eastern New Mexico. “Mainly I wanted to search for Ruth. Both the town and the child had been forsaken, but in different ways: Ruth, around 1910 when our family had to leave her grave behind, and Tolar almost 35 years later, in 1944, after the entire town had been leveled by a trainload of bombs. It was the only town extinguished by World War II bombs. “The old town site of Tolar lays several miles east of Fort Sumner and was founded by my great-g...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Ï doubt if anyone in Clovis remembers the radical union organization I.W.W. founded in 1905 in Chicago. Its purpose was “to put the working class in possession of the world.” Most people called them the “Wobblies.” One of their members, a streetcorner Socialist whose death provoked an investigation that trailed off into time, was buried in 1942 in Sapulpa, Okla.. This person died in 1917. He was called “I.W.W. John” as he had no other identification. My uncle, John McAlavy, died that year or disa...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist The first doctor of Clovis, Dr. J. Foster Scott, came from a prominent Tennessee family. He was a city physician and head of a general hospital in Knoxville. In 1906, he and his wife traveled to Texico. By the spring of 1907, the doctor had settled in Clovis, his first office a tent in the newly opened town. The good doctor and his wife came west for the health of their son, J. Foster IV, who died several years later. The oldest daughter, Ruth, was born in Tennessee, but the other four children...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist When I worked at Chick Taylor Press in the 1950s I was lucky enough to type up longtime Clovis News Journal editor Jack Hull’s columns. He was retired then and writing his column, “Caught in the Round-Up.” Here’s one of his columns: “I’m an old-timer in this country, a real old-timer. I date way yonder to the infancy of Clovis. I’m Jack Hull, born 1888 in Texas (don’t hold that against me) and my folks and I came to Clovis in 1907. I virtually grew up with this burg and it’s my home town. I saw...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist Back in 1997 my musician friend Larry Buchanan discovered that Waldo O’Neal, who moved to Clovis and is buried in the W. 7th cemetery, had written five songs which were recorded by the famous Blue Yodeler, Jimmie Rodgers. Larry and I decided to write a book on music made in and around Clovis. My friend died in 2001. It was a while before I could continue working on the book, but when I did, I decided to start at one particular point in time when the music in Clovis started: May 1, 1907. You w... Full story
Editor’s note: As told by Odis Echols Jr. to Don McAlavy on Sept. 4, 1998. In late 1953 my father, Odis “Pop” Echols bought the KCLV radio station in Clovis. To make ends meet, we put together shows from Clovis and went on the road to places such as Muleshoe, Plainview, and other small towns. Pop was master-of-ceremonies. We featured such singers as the Commodores, an all-male quartet from Lubbock. One of the group’s singers, Homer Tankersley, later moved to Clovis. He was known then as Ken Pepper, a name Pop Echols gave hi...
Don McAlavy: Local Columnist “Any resemblance in persons living or dead in the following story is purely on purpose,” said Mark Morris, Clovis High School sports editor of the Purple Press back in 1976. “The spirit of ’76 is now upon us in shades of red, white, and blue, and everywhere one looks, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others of our governmental fathers remind us that our country is on the eve of its 200th birthday. “The sports scene 200 years ago was fairly dim and the reason was fairly obvious. A new nation was...
A Clovis friend told me in July the old military stable near Bell Park might soon be torn down. He said one part of one stable has been torn down in the last few months. The one that is still up at Sixth and Ash is the last one standing. It is currently being used for storage for the city street department. If the remaining building is torn down, Clovis looses an historic monument. The building was part of the 111th Cavalry unit of the National Guard of New Mexico, the same unit that was changed to the 200th Coast Artillery...
