Opinion: Maybe somebody wants to own a nice collection of our region's history

New Mexico’s third governor lived in Portales about 100 years ago, and Washington Ellsworth Lindsey’s house is still standing. Any building that old deserves our respect and our admiration, no matter its condition.

The 80-plus windmills Bill Dalley collected at his home on South Kilgore were once listed by roadsideamerica.com as one of the “neat places off the beaten path” to visit in the United States. Now at the Roosevelt County Fairgrounds, they’re still a delight for all who love fresh water and the life it gives us on the High Plains.

And those were good words shared by Meredith Eaton and Brandon McAfee during Tuesday’s Roosevelt County Commission meeting as they did their best to save the house and half the windmills from what the county calls “asset disposal.”

But county commissioners are not bad people for trying to auction the house to be moved, making way for a new barn to store road equipment. That’s why the county bought the property to begin with; it never wanted the old house.

And selling some of the windmills to help offset costs for maintaining the rest seems like a responsible way to not spend taxpayer dollars. Although it’s a little confusing how a government entity got in the windmill-display business to begin with …

In other words, both sides are right, like they always are, when we debate preservation of our past.

It all comes down to money.

We’d all love to see that governor’s house when he lived there in the 1920s, complete with all of his old furniture and his clothes in the closet and his car parked out front. But who’s going to pay for that? Most of us can barely afford the upkeep on our own homes and businesses.

OK, there is potential for tourists to visit Portales so they can experience our legendary yesterdays. But if that’s such a good idea, why hasn’t some visionary entrepreneur hopped on it already? Maybe because Fort Sumner isn’t getting rich from tourists and it has The Kid?

Government money — our money — shouldn’t be spent on tourism anyway. Not until the roads are fixed and the water issues resolved.

There is a better argument to be made for Roosevelt County to cough up the money to spruce up those windmills. It accepted that responsibility when it accepted the collection in 2011, when it spent well beyond $15,000 to move that collection from Dalley’s home to the fairgrounds. But we all know government cannot be trusted to keep its commitments. And government never had any business in the windmill-display business anyway.

There is still hope that the house and windmills can all be saved. The public auction is scheduled March 27 at the fairgrounds.

Does anybody want to own a piece of history?

— David Stevens

Publisher