Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1905: Railroad workers began a new route west, laying the first rails between Texico and St. Vrain. They didn't know it at the time, but they were planting seeds that would grow into Clovis.
Here's how it happened:
In January 1902, the chief engineer for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, James Dun, had a chat with “locating engineer” F. Meredith Jones.
“They (railroad directors) want an east and west line across central New Mexico,” Dun told Jones. “I don't believe they will ever build it, but you go out and see what you can do.”
The idea was not new. For more than 20 years, the railroad had struggled moving freight over the steep grades of the Raton and Glorieta passes in northern New Mexico. But a new route west was not financially practical due to lack of competition and sparse population between Amarillo and Albuquerque.
What changed in the early 1900s was that competing railroads began operating in the Southwest. So the AT&SF dusted off old plans and took another look at efforts to connect Texico to Albuquerque via rail.
In a written report, Jones summarized his efforts:
“My part in the matter seems rather insignificant, but I gave it my entire time, seven days in the week, for 17 months, during which I covered 4,200 miles by buckboard, often traveling by myself, carrying bedding, horse feed, grub and water.”
The boots-on-the-ground research ultimately led to the creation of the Belen Cutoff — a 268-mile line of tracks that connected Texico to Rio Puerco, about 20 miles northwest of Belen.
The exact date the decision was made is debatable, but The Daily Optic newspaper in Las Vegas reported on Jan. 7, 1903, that 2,000 men had already started construction. Contractors told the newspaper it would take about two years before workers could start laying track, but the Belen Cutoff was happening.
On Aug. 29, 1905, workers put down the first rails west of Texico. A station was soon established 8.5 miles west of Texico that homesteaders called Riley Switch. The name was changed to Clovis — “an old French name,” according to railroad documents — in 1906, and AT&SF officials began purchasing land from Clovis homesteaders on Oct. 31, 1906, so they could build a terminal and establish a town.
Passenger trains began arriving in Clovis on Dec. 19, 1907.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens. Contact:
