Pages past — Sept. 2

On this date ...

1976: A depressed cattle market was blamed for the temporary closure of the Anderson-Skaggs feed lot in Roosevelt County.

Manager Dale Skaggs said cattle would be shipped to the company’s lot at Smyer, Texas.

Skaggs said the beef market had not been stable since a price freeze in 1973 that “interfered with the natural pricing mechanisms,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.

1951: Leslie J. Stone, former mayor of Clovis and longtime engineer for the Santa Fe Railway, had been killed in a railroad accident near Belen.

Officials said Stone was attempting to couple the engine of a train with the car behind it when he was crushed.

Stone, 57, had served two terms as Clovis mayor in the 1930s, the Clovis News-Journal reported.

1941: A Santa Fe Railway employee fired a bullet from a .38 revolver into his head as he stood in the railway waiting room at Bovina.

A. E. Cade was alive, but in critical condition.

Meanwhile, Texas authorities filed murder charges against him in connection with the slaying of a constable in Lefors, Texas, in the Panhandle.

Cade survived and was returned to Texas to stand trial. The disposition of that case is unknown.

Pages Past is compiled by Editor David Stevens. For more regional history, check out his weblog at:

www.highplainsyesterdays.com