Need smart leaders to put us on sustainable course

It’s true that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take for instance our recently completed municipal election in Portales. Water (or the lack of it) was perhaps the most important issue in the City Council election. In our first election 124 years ago water was among the reasons that spurred an election.

Since the dusty cow town sprang up along the tracks of the Pea Vine (Pecos Valley & Northeastern) Railroad in 1898 the town had struggled to fight fire. No water system, just a few windmills in the business district and a bucket brigade of citizens was all the fire protection there was in the young burg.

Over its first decade, numerous bad fires plagued Portales. Finally one particularly bad fire in the summer of 1908 pushed folks over the edge. The entire east side of the business district, over $30,000 in early 20th Century damage was suffered. The alarm was sounded in the wee hours of the morning by a patron in one of the many taverns that existed in that time period. The bucket brigade was woefully inadequate — a proper water system along with fire fighting equipment and electrical power was demanded.

The fires and desire for improvements moved the town toward official incorporation by the end of that year and the first election was scheduled for early 1909. The election became a wet/dry referendum; not because of the water issue but instead because of the fear of demon rum and the changing population of the area demanding that the saloons be closed.

Two tickets sprang up during that first election -- the “wet” faction financed by the saloon owners calling themselves the Citizens Ticket and the “dries” backed by the growing churches filled with homesteaders, calling themselves the Home Protection Ticket. At the top of that ticket was the man who would become Portales’ first mayor and the state’s third governor, W.E. Lindsey.

The dries won out and the town very soon had water. The first three action items in the first meeting concerned putting the incorporation of the city fully in motion and the fourth outlawed liquor. In subsequent meetings the city fathers passed a measure putting a $75,000 bond before voters. While Portales was split down the middle on the question of alcohol, we weren’t on the question of water and other municipal services. The measure passed in a landslide.

Lindsey and others felt irrigated agriculture would be the economic boon the area needed to succeed. After lots of setbacks farmers eventually enjoyed varying degrees of success at irrigated farming for the rest of that century. The steady, but never booming agricultural economy sustained us for several generations but now chasing water has become job one for our municipal government.

Lindsey was resourceful and very smart as he helped launch Roosevelt County, the city of Portales and then the state of New Mexico.

It’s going to take equally resourceful and smart leaders to help us alter our course onto one that will sustain future generations with both the water and the economy needed to survive.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]