The Lovington Daily Leader carried this headline in its August 27, 1959 issue, “Intense Blaze Burns Heater at Phillips Buckeye Refinery.” We remember being awakened early that morning and told we needed to evacuate the area because the gasoline plant across the road was on fire.
Some event had ignited a fire at the Lee Plant that morning. We were living in the house nearest the road and there were six more houses to the north of us. Closer to the plant than our houses were several dozen houses of the plant employees who we assumed were getting the same emergency request.
Buckeye is eighteen miles from Lovington and further than that from Hobbs, but both fire departments were called out to fight the blaze. Units from Lovington arrived a few minutes followed by elements from Hobbs just a few minutes later. Our parents quickly loaded up some clothing into our cars and drove down a half mile to the Buckeye intersection where the gas station, store and little post office were located. We all watched the fire and smoke until the blaze was safely put out and we were allowed to return to our houses.
We later learned that a piece of equipment called a pre-heater had caught fire at about 5:30 a.m. and went out about sunrise. The newspaper account said the blaze lit up the sky and could be seen over the horizon all the way to Lovington. The fire departments were able to contain the blaze within about thirty minutes after they arrived. The firefighters braved the extreme heat and danger to spray foam on the flames and extinguish the blaze. Phillips praised the firefighters for their quick work and said if it had not been for their efforts, it could have led to a much more serious situation.
There were no known injuries and damage to the plant was confined to the pre-heater and surrounding equipment. There may have been more vehicles that were damaged, but we remember at least one passenger car having been melted down to a shell and hauled off on a flat bed truck. The photo below is from the August 27, 1959 issue of the Lovington Daily Leader.
Old Lea County, N.M. 
That was my Dad’s company car that burned. His name was Calvin C. Smith and he worked for Phillips 45 years taking better care of his company cars than he did his personal vehicles.
We moved into the company camp at Buckeye in 1957 and my parents lived there until Phillips closed the camp. They bought the house and stayed there until forced to relocate. After his retirement and during the latter stages of them living near the plant he saved the plant several times because he could hear when there was too much oil in the high pressure gas line and would tell the operators to shut down the flow so it would not create a dangerous situation.
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Thanks. I never knew whose car it was till now. I still can picture it getting hauled off on the truck. I also remember that we used to play baseball on that bald dirt diamond across the parking lot and driveway from the plant office.
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Where are you located now? I was at Baylor U. for a 20 year tenure including being the founder, professor and chair of the Department of Museum Studies and director of the Waco Mammoth Site which became a National Monument in 2015 and just completed the book, “A History of the Waco Mammoth Site: In Pursuit of a National Monument published by BU Press. My website: http://www.legacymuseumconsulting.com.
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We live in North Texas now. Always loved living at Buckeye. Great memories.
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Have really enjoyed your website…I have been asked to return to Waco to reimagine the Taylor Museum of Waco History and a couple of your articles are useful to my efforts.
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Sounds interesting. Best of luck to you.
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