Pages past — Oct. 21

On this date ...

1976: Ranchvale school students were preparing to host a weekend carnival that included a haunted house in the basement of the gym.

“The house is complete with screaming vampires, ghosts, bats and other spine-tingling supernatural beings,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.

1956: A Clovis television dealer had been the victim of robbery in Amarillo.

Jim Costa had gone to Amarillo to purchase the TVs for local customers. He loaded them into the back of his pickup truck, but soon learned the weather forecast called for rain in the Clovis area.

And so he spent the night in an Amarillo motel to avoid the wet weather. When he awoke the next morning, both TV sets were missing from the back of his pickup.

1941: Nine freight cars derailed in the east end of the Santa Fe rail yards in Clovis and a passenger train struck two of the wayward cars.

“Two cars slithered toward the main line track where they were sideswiped by the passenger engine as it came to a sudden stop,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.

No injuries were reported. Most of the passengers were asleep when the incident happened, but were awakened by the collision and “alighted” from their cars to see the wreckage.

The passenger train was delayed about an hour while crews moved the wrecked cars away from the main-line track.

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

www.highplainsyesterdays.com