Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Opinion: Service station burglaries and giant rattlesnakes

I collect historical tidbits that interest me from area newspapers. Here are a few from Aprils past:

• April 3, 1945: Bill Vance of Portales announced his dog, Buzz, had been poisoned. Vance said he would pay a $25 reward if someone could identify the perpetrator. Two other dogs had also been recently poisoned in Portales, including “the dog of the little crippled children of the Colby family.”

• April 6, 1955: The Lilac Park Cafe, on U.S. 70 near Eastern New Mexico University, had new owners. Mr. and Mrs. Bill Walker, formerly of Roswell, purchased the restaurant from Mr. and Mrs. Loyd Cox, who had operated it four years.

• April 12, 1955: Two Portales service stations were burglarized, but the criminals had little to show for their efforts. University Service Station reported it lost a box of cigars, a flashlight, some batteries and about $2 cash. The Shamrock station on the Lovington highway reported the only thing taken was a check for $1.25 that had been returned by the bank with a notation reading, “No account.”

• April 13, 1899: David Blanton & Son, of Fort Sumner, had traded their stock of goods to Hughes Brothers, of Portales, for 2,400 head of sheep and two ranches near Portales and Tierra Blanca.

• April 18, 1940: Dunn’s Funeral Home, which had been established in 1907, offered “superior free city ambulance service” by calling 184. The Tucumcari funeral home also provided pipe organs and soloists for funerals and sold monuments.

• April 18, 1966: Midway Speedbowl races were held at 1 p.m. every Sunday off of U.S. 70 between Clovis and Portales. Admission was $1, or 75 cents for students and servicemen. Children under 12 were admitted for free.

• April 20, 1950: Pep residents were preparing for their first rabbit drive of the year. “The ladies of the community will serve lunch at noon, and shotgun ammunition for all gauges will be on hand at cost,” read one report. Organizer W.R. Boone said it rained the last time the Pep community came together to thin out the jackrabbits. He was hoping this month’s drive would be conducted in the mud again. Officials reported after the hunt that 539 rabbits were killed by about 65 hunters. Preston Parkinson led the way, reporting 31 kills.

• April 20, 1965: Porter Randolph of Tucumcari posed for a photo with a 62-inch long rattlesnake he said he caught and killed at Ute Lake. Randolph said the snake had 14 rattlers and was “one of the largest” he had seen in Quay County.

• April 21, 1955: Roosevelt County Sheriff P. F. Turner reported three dogs killed 30 chickens in a hen house at the western edge of Portales. Farm owner Jim Wade said the dogs killed the chickens but did not eat them; they ran away when Wade began pursuit.

• April 21, 1960: The P&M Broom Co. on the Lovington highway outside Portales was producing 17 to 20 dozen brooms per day. It could make four dozen whisk brooms in an hour. The products were distributed locally and wholesale.

• April 22, 1960: “Crazy Sam” Sanders estimated he had pumped gravel and sand from 40 acres over the past six years, creating three sunken lakes “in the middle of the dry, desolate, sagebrush country.” The gravel pit north of Portales was believed to be the largest of its kind in the state and maybe in the U.S. Sanders had moved operations away from where mammoth bones and tusks had been discovered, attracting the Southwest’s foremost archaeologists. Sanders employed 15 to 25 men at times and said his annual payroll was about $68,000.

• April 24, 1950: Clovis Police Chief George Ray was dismissed by the Clovis city commission. The action came in the wake of dismissal of a radio operator who allegedly had been drinking before reporting for duty, driving a police car for personal use and allowing his fiancé to visit him in the office, against regulations. Police Capt. Daniel Webster was named acting chief.

• April 25, 1950: Burglars took about $800 in cash and checks from the Fort Sumner Lumber Co. Police said the door of the office safe had been blown off.

• April 25, 1938: Gene Autry performed at Clovis’ Lyceum and Mesa theaters. The Clovis newspaper did not review Autry’s performance, but did report that Autry received a traffic citation while he was in town, for overtime parking. Autry’s parents — Delbert and Elnora Autry — lived in Clovis in the 1930s.

• April 26, 1950: State game officials were urging “careful consideration” before planning any prairie chicken hunting. Gaming Director James Cox said prairie chicken populations in Roosevelt County were “not so abundant as in previous years.” Drought conditions and a heavy kill the year before were blamed for the decline in population.

• April 26, 1960: A Portales News-Tribune reporter counted 129 bicycles parked at the city’s three grade schools and junior high. Reporter Dave Thornton, reporting on Bicycle Safety Week, found that 29 of the bikes had lights and none of the lights he tested worked. He found many of the bikes had broken pedals, needed chain guards or fenders and lacked horns.

David Stevens writes about regional history for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]

More local history:

pagespast.net

 
 
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