Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1908: John V. Farwell, one of the primary investors of the XIT Ranch that financed the Texas state capitol building, died at age 82.
The Texas Panhandle ranch covered 3 million acres and took 36 days to survey, according to the Texas State Historical Association. Farwell, whose business career focused on wholesale dry goods in Chicago, spent some time on the XIT as its managing director.
The town of Farwell on the Texas-New Mexico border is named in his honor.
1941: The brother of a prominent Clovis doctor and a nurse at the city hospital had been killed in a car crash near Littlefield.
The victims were Thos. W. Miller, 61, and Rose Mallick, 50.
Miller was attempting to pass another vehicle when the car he was driving collided with an oncoming pickup, the Clovis News-Journal reported.
The occupants of the pickup, both from Amarillo, were injured; CN-J reported one may have been seriously hurt.
Miller was the brother of Clovis Dr. Harry A. Miller, who’d come to town in 1914 as surgeon in charge of the Santa Fe Hospital.
1945: Staff Sgt. A. B. Munsey, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Munsey, was on furlough in Portales.
He had served 28 months as a platoon sergeant in the European theater.
1946: Fire believed to have started from a cigarette was limited to one room in Clovis’ Gran Quivira hotel, also known as the Harvey House.
Firefighters entered the second-story room through a window about 6 a.m. and quickly extinguished the blaze.
A bed and some furniture in the room were destroyed, but officials said “very few persons were aware that there was a fire,” according to the Clovis News-Journal.
The Amarillo man staying in the room fled when he realized it was on fire, but lost few personal items. His shoes and wallet were burned, but the $200 inside his wallet was salvaged.
1951: Two people suspected in the slaying of the founder of Progress, Texas, had been cleared, Bailey County Sheriff Hugh Freeman said.
Josh Blocher’s badly beaten body was found earlier in the month in a cotton field.
The unnamed suspects were cleared after passing a polygraph test, the Clovis News-Journal reported.
Two Amarillo men were ultimately charged and convicted in connection with Blocher’s killing. They told authorities that robbery was their motive and that they found 13 cents in his pockets.
1957: In a Curry County local option election — the first held in Clovis since 1953, and first held county-wide since Curry went dry in 1939 — voters soundly defeated the proposition to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages.
The final vote was 4,289 against, and 3,016 in favor.
Inside the city limits of Clovis, “where the People’s Committee was hopeful of a victory,” the vote was 3,024 against, and 2,708 in favor, the Clovis News-Journal reported.
In the county, “where it was a foregone conclusion that the Curry County United Drys would win,” the vote was 1,265 against, and 308 to allow the sale of liquor.
1962: A Cannon Air Force Base pilot was killed when his plane collided with another Cannon plane whose pilot ejected to safety.
“Apparently the two planes sideswiped as they were preparing to land in formation about 9:40 p.m. Monday following a three-hour air-to-air refueling mission,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.
Capt. Joseph N. Briggs, 28, was a decorated F-100 pilot who three months earlier had taken a CN-J reporter with him on a practice run.
Briggs’ funeral was held in Tulsa, Okla. Survivors included his wife and three children, ages 7, 5 and 3.
1967: A new superintendent was set to take charge of the Causey school for the 1967-68 school year: Lawrence Widner, formerly of Melrose and Dora.
Widner was also scheduled to be one of 10 teachers for the 130 students who had registered for the year.
Besides Widner, other new faculty included Storm Gerhart, vocational ag and FFA; Mrs. Ivan Prewett, science and math; Jimmy Tillman, social studies and high school athletics coach; Dorothy Gresham, first grade; and Twyla Rodden, fifth and sixth grades.
1975: Curry County Fair officials had announced a new event for the fair scheduled next month: a tractor pull.
Joe Roark, one of the event organizers, said about 40 tractors and drivers were scheduled to compete.
The idea was for tractors to pull weighted sleds.
2003: Ridge Whiteman, the Portales man who introduced Clovis Man to the world, died at age 93.
On Feb. 5, 1929, he wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institute reporting he’d found an arrow point with elephant bones at the site now known as Blackwater Draw.
Anthropologists and archaeologists soon realized the discovery was proof that man was living in North America 13,000 years ago.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
