Pages Past — Oct. 25

On this date ...

1973: A delegation of firemen notified Clovis Mayor Chick Taylor Jr. they would begin a work cutback in protest that their salaries had not been increased, the Clovis News-Journal reported. Taylor said he was told fire department personnel were threatening to stop handling maintenance on the building at Fourth and Mitchell and would no longer do maintenance and repair work on fire department vehicles. All I can tell you is that my men have asked for a 5 percent raise comparable to the police and they haven t gotten it, Fire Chief Joe Maddox said.

1961: Kenner’s Drug, at 14th and Main, offered a complete line of hobby supplies, including motors, fuel and batteries for model airplanes and model boats.

1954: The city of Clovis declared Oct. 30 would be the lawful time for local Halloween celebrations, since Oct. 31 fell on a Sunday. Mayor O.G. Potter, in a proclamation, said that since Halloween is traditionally devoted to merrymaking, with playful ceremonies and charms, that Saturday would be a better day to celebrate in that the ceremonies and merrymaking will not conflict with our usual church activities.

Go figure ...

376: number of laws passed by the city of Clovis between May 1907 and October 1937, some of which were of course laws repealing other laws, the Clovis Evening-News Journal reported. One ordinance abolished all baseball parks in the city, declaring them a nuisance. That law was repealed in time for the city to build an $8,000 baseball park in 1937.

In world news ...

1962: John Steinbeck, whose novel The Grapes of Wrath still ranks as one of the classics of the 20th Century, was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature.

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

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