Hotel business brisk in early days of Clovis

Clovis solicited customers in

many ways. One of the best

ways to entice customers was to meet

the passenger trains that stopped at the

Santa Fe Railroad depot where passengers

got off, to stretch their legs, get a

bite to eat or seek a hotel. Soliciting

patrons to a hotel was rather dangerous,

as you will see.

In 1908 J. D. Lyons and his wife

Mary (better known as “Mother Lyons”)

operated a two-story hotel, the Lyons

Hotel, located in Clovis on Main Street

between First and Second streets. The

Lyonses had come from operating the

McIntosh Hotel in Amarillo and were

parents of seven children: Jerry, Johnny,

Dan Jr., Helen, Mamie, Anne and Phil.

On July 10, 1910, son Dan Lyons had

driven the Hotel Wagon to the train

depot, as usual. And as usual he would

call out the name of their hotel, or hold

up a sign with the hotel name, competing

with six or so other hotels for possible

customers getting off the train. The

hotel wagons, carriages and buggies,

with the names of their hotels on them,

were crowded up near the west end of

the depot so that it was easy for hotel

guests to get their baggage aboard the

hotel wagons.

The trouble was many of the hotel

personnel would get in a scuffle over

passengers. There were a few fights, as

expected, but no one expected what

happened on this day.

Dan Lyons, a popular youth at 19,

and a driver from a competing hotel had

hot words. A scuffle and a shooting followed.

Dan Lyons Jr. was shot dead on

the station platform. No one suspected a

hotel employee to have carried a pistol.

Frank Leteaux, who killed Dan Lyons

and worked for the Reidoria Hotel, was

apparently never tried for the killing.

About 1909 J. D. Lyons built the

famed Antlers Hotel, at 109 W. Grand

Ave. At first it was built as a three-story

square brick structure. Later a balcony

was added. In the late 1920s the

“annex” over the two buildings fronting

Main Street was added. Rooms in the

popular hotel numbered from 1 to 48.

There was no room 13. This hotel was

considered the Waldorf-Astoria of

Clovis.

The youngest son of the Lyons family,

Phil, was raised in the three-room

apartment in the hotel. He recalls several

of the permanent residents of the

hotel: Carl Catlin, a cattle inspector;

Ben Clark, and an old cattleman named

Newberry. Phil says his father began

loaning money to area ranchers and

later bought his own ranch to put out on

wheat pasture. In this way J. D. Lyons

got into the ranching business.

After J. D. Lyons died in the early

twenties, his son, P.R., who had just

returned from World War II, came to

Clovis to run the hotel. He met and

married Anna O’Neill, daughter of

Morris O’Neill, who had come to

Clovis from Kansas in 1914-1915 and

worked at the railroad.

The hotel boasted a fine restaurant

and bar, but both were closed after

Clovis voted in prohibition in 1942.

With building of the Hotel Clovis in

1931, and later the coming of motels,

the Antlers’ business declined. “Mother

Mary” Lyons, whom Phil Lyons said

ran the whole family, came down to run

the hotel during the Depression. She

died in 1939.

In 1955 the hotel was remodeled, but

its “heyday” had passed. The building

was sold in about 1965 to Dean

Eldridge.

Don McAlavy is Curry County’s historian.

He can be contacted at:

[email protected]