Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date …
1972: A special meeting of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce Highway Committee was held following a crash near Fort Sumner two days earlier that left 19 from a Texas church dead.
Clovis Mayor Chick Taylor and Fort Sumner Mayor B.J. Rogers criticized state officials for failing to make needed repairs on bridges throughout the region.
The accident occurred when a bus carrying members of an Austin, Texas, church collided with a cattle truck on a narrow bridge.
Investigators reported the bridge was 20 feet wide. Each of the vehicles measured about 8 1/2 feet at their widest points.
“As terrible as it may seem, we now have the attention of the state and can get something done,” Taylor told the Clovis News-Journal.
New road construction bypassed the bridge by the mid-1970s though it remains as part of a county road.
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