Pages past — Aug. 22

On this date …

1971: Police were looking for four men accused of attacking a Clovis couple and stealing $87 as they walked through an alley in the 100 block of Connelly Street shortly after midnight. The couple told police they were walking home from a bar at 221 W. First. No serious injuries were reported.

1953: The Lubbock Hubbers dropped the Clovis Pioneers, 5-1, in a West Texas-New Mexico League baseball matchup at Bell Park. Bob Galey was the winning pitcher; he finished the season with 18 victories for his hometown Hubbers.

1949: The Clovis News-Journal reported Max Meadors was resigning as chairman of the Democratic Central Committee for Curry County, citing health concerns and business requirements. Meadors, who lived another 38 years, was an automobile dealer best known for his civic leadership. He was on the original “Washington Committee” representing the Chamber of Commerce that convinced Defense Department officials to reopen Clovis Army Air Field, which had closed after World War II.

In national news ...

1966: Two people were killed and at least 54 injured after an explosion rocked a crowded church in Plainview, Texas, during a revival meeting. About 150 people were in the Church of God in Christ; 12 had to be carried out, unconscious, when the roof collapsed. An accumulation of gas triggered by a spark from an electric organ was likely the cause of the explosion, investigators said.

Those were the days ...

In 1908, the Clovis Democrat newspaper reported the city had 14 saloons, five barber shops, three livery stables and an opera house. Passenger trains made regular stops but the city’s population was fewer than 3,000 people.

Pages Past is compiled by Editor David Stevens. Contact him at:

[email protected]