Old Lea County, N.M.

Author: Texoso

  • Founding of Eunice

    [Transcribed from the 60th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of the Lea County Fair and Rodeo program for the event held August 5-12, 1995]

    The early settlers to the Eunice area would have been the Daugherty brothers whose “84” Ranch headquarters was two miles east of what would become the town of Eunice. Before this time however, ex-buffalo hunters Barney and Jim Whalen claimed the area in 1885 by digging a well. They sold their water rights to Daugherty in 1886, and the 84 Ranch eventually became part of the Cowden Cattle Company of Midland.

    In 1908 John N. Carson of Shafter Lake, Texas came to the area and plowed a furrow around his homestead to make a claim. In 1909, Carson brought his family from Shater Lake and built a home and store. When Carson applied for post office for the area, he listed his daughter’s name, Eunice, at the bottom of the list. In 1909 he received approval along with the name “Eunice” for his post office.

    According to historical accounts, the Carson home was a two room and shed house constructed of lumber hauled in from Midland. The general store and post office was also built from lumber. W. S. Marshall carried the mail free of charge from Shafter Lake to complete the federal requirement for the post office at Eunice.

    In 1910 after raising the money for the school themselves, a one room building was completed which was on land donated by Carson and Mrs. Mat Downes. There were 23 students that first term and the teacher was Winnie Wyatt. In 1910, the teacher was Jessie Estlack who rode her mule three miles to the school.

    In 1910, the Reeders and Norton General Merchandise opened with its stock of groceries, dry goods and hardware. W. F. Turner drilled many of the water wells, established the blacksmith shop and the grist mill. Later he opened a grocery business with L. G. Warlick.

    The Carson home was the center for weekly musicals with Eunice playing the piano and Lee Downes and Marshall Drinkard playing violin while Ed Carson played the guitar and Will Grizzell played mandolin. May socials, dances, rodeos and community sings made up the social life of the small community. The school house was the center for church services and picnics. The Methodist, Baptist and Christian Church organized and met in the schoolhouse.

    To provide medical care, Eunice community leaders advertised they would provide a four room home and a Model T Ford for rounds if a doctor would relocate to their town. Dr. Wright and his large family accepted. But Eunice citizens were too healthy to provide him with enough income!

    The Eunice Plains Democrat started publication March 28, 1914.Legal notices of proved up claims kept it in business because advertising was scarce.

    In 1915, the one room school had expanded to three rooms and five teachers were hired. They included Lucille Woodward, Edith Davis Fanning, LuLu Marshall and Ruby Manning.

    The blizzard of 1918, the flu epidemic and the terrible drought dealt a hard blow to the small community as it did all the southern plains. The school year of 1922 reflected the hardship when only one teacher was needed for the students. Miss Mettie Jordan came for the 1925-26 term and related that her students ranged in age from 6 to 17.

    In 1928, Herman Carson, son of the town’s founder platted the townsite with the Carson Homestead in the center and sold lots in anticipation of a boom if oil and gas speculation continued. He proved correct when that same year the Gypsy #1 State was completed as a gas producer and in 1929 Continental brought in the first oil well in the Eunice area. By 1930 the population was 250 and a railroad spur through Eunice was being built. Oil prices fell with the great Depression, but Eunice rebounded in 1935 with renewed drilling activity. The school mushroomed and in 1934-35 financed construction of the first six brick school rooms.

    September 3, 1935 W. S. Marshall, James Nuget and Mr. Emery met to form the village government. April, 1937 Governor Tingley proclaimed Eunice a city. The little ranching community had come of age.

  • Pearl

    The settlement called Pearl was named for Pearl Stark Roberts, wife of Nathan Cornelius Roberts who settled about five miles west of Monument in what was then Eddy County. Pearl Roberts was named postmistress in 1908 and the post office was housed in a room of their small pioneer home on the Roberts Ranch. The post office operated from 1908 to 1928.

    Both Nathan and Pearl were born in Texas. Nathan was born in Killeen, Bell County, Texas on February 24, 1868 to Nathan Thomas Roberts (1831-1909) and Sarah M. Jeffries Roberts (1836-1905). Pearl was born in McCullough County on June 4, 1877 to Presley Summerfield Stark (1840-1929) and Martha Jane Combs Stark (1844-1915). Nathan and Pearl had at least seven children: Vernon C Roberts, Alton Lynn Roberts, Nathan T. Roberts, Stella Rosalie Roberts Peters, James Dean Roberts, Presley Stark Roberts and Alba Pearl Roberts.

    Their property included a terrain feature called Pearl Valley that was described as a wide, shallow depression beginning a few miles west of Monument and running west for several miles. There is still a road named Pearl Valley Road after this feature. Nathan and Pearl moved to the area in 1902 and homesteaded when it became possible. They operated their ranch for many years. Nathan died in 1942 at the age of 74 and Pearl followed him in death in 1965 at the age of 87. Both are buried in Monument Cemetery.

    Image credit – Lea County Traditions, Summer 2010 issue.

  • Deputy Jack Seay

    Albuquerque Journal, 27 Jun 1932.

    The deputy went by Jack Seay, but his name was Thomas William Caspian Seay, Jr. He was born August 21, 1893 in Liberty Hill, Texas to Thomas William Seay and Bunett Louise Bingham Seay. Jack grew up in the Hill Country of Texas in Marble Falls.


    Jack registered for the World War I draft in New Wilson, Oklahoma at the age of 24 around 1916, giving his profession as undertaker. Jack served in the United States Army from September 19, 1917 to May 6, 1919.

    Jack is first mentioned in law enforcement as having served on the Jal Police Department, perhaps even being chief of police, before coming to serve as a deputy sheriff under Sheriff Bob Beverly of Lea County.

    1932 saw several major arrests. On April 19, deputies Jack Seay and Don McCombs followed a tip that individuals connected to a bank robbery in O’Donnell, Texas the week before might be in Hobbs. Accompanied by federal agent George E. Lilley working out of El Paso, they approached a house in which a car fitting the description of the suspect’s vehicle was parked. As they neared the front door, it opened and gunfire erupted from inside. They backed away and called for backup as the suspects fled in their car. Shortly afterward, they stole another car from a local resident, but in so doing, were delayed long enough for the lawmen to catch up with them. One of the suspects was shot in the ensuing gunfight. The remaining suspects were later arrested in Texas.

    The next day, Seay and Lilly arrested two men on charges of passing counterfeit currency in Hobbs, unrelated to the earlier case. Two months later, on June 25, 1932, Seay was ambushed and shot during the investigation of another counterfeiting case. The alleged assailant was Fritz Kilpatrick, believed to be passing counterfeit $10 bills in the area. The attack took place at a rooming house where Kilpatrick had been staying. Kilpatrick was said to have opened fire on Seay as he came to Kilpatrick’s room. Seay was seriously injured resulting in his partial paralysis and other injuries and never regained the ability to walk. Immediately after Seay’s shooting, he was taken to Lubbock where he survived the first of many surgeries.

    In 1933, Kilpatrick was tried and convicted of counterfeiting and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Seay was carried into the courtroom by four men and had testified at the trial.

    Deputy Seay died in 1953 and is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Albuquerque along with his wife, Mary Little Seay, who had predeceased him in 1951. The Seays had lived in Albuquerque for a number of years. While living in Albuquerque, Jack had been a rancher and tourist court owner. He had been an active member of the Elks Lodge and the American Legion, according to his obituary.

  • Clyde D. Woolworth and the Woolworth Family

    Clyde Dean Woolworth (1883-1938) was the first member of the family to come to Lea County. He was born to a large family in Carthage, Panola County, Texas. His father was Justus Morgan Woolworth and his mother was Mary Jane Paxson Woolworth. Clyde was one of at least eight children.

    The family story is that Clyde and his sister Elizabeth and learned of land that could be homesteaded from an article in a Dallas, Texas newspaper. They came to the area in 1915, after statehood but before the county was to be created in 1917. Clyde and Elizabeth each homesteaded a half section of land and it is said that they built their home where their property adjoined, partly on each other’s land.

    The siblings were later joined by three other sisters, Martha, Litie and Clara. Their property was the nucleus of the Woolworth Ranch near Jal, New Mexico. Finding a reliable and plentiful water source was always an issue in the area. The family told of facing the usual pioneer hardships including extreme weather, rattlesnakes but managed to remain. Oil was later discovered on their property.

    After an illness of several months, Clyde died at the age of fifty-five in 1938 while residing in San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Woolworth was a single man and is buried in San Angelo, Texas. He was survived by five of his sisters: Clara, Litie, Mae and Elizabeth Woolworth, all of San Angelo, and Mrs. Claudia Woolworth Watkins of Henderson, Texas, one brother, Dr. Joseph Dean Woolworth of Louisiana; and was predeceased by one brother, James G. Woolworth and one sister, Martha Woolworth.

    The Woolworth family is noted for having donated funds to found the Jal Library.

    Sources include various newspaper articles and the Summer, 2010 edition of The Lea County Tradition, a periodical.

  • Founding of Jal

    [Transcribed from the 60th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of the Lea County Fair and Rodeo program for the event held August 5-12, 1995]

    The Cowden Brothers had operated the vast JAL Ranch since 1886 coming from Palo Pinto County, Texas. The lure of shallow water and good grass led to their coming to the Monument Draw bringing cattle branded with the JAL brand. They established waterings about every ten miles up the draw. Spencer Jowell, Gene Cowden, Autry Moore, and Stumpy Roundtree all ran the New Mexico Cowden Ranch at one time. The last foreman before the company closed out in 1915 was Bob Beverly. Settlers began to pour into the area to claim their homesteads as they learned of the grass and shallow water. Some of them would later sell out as they realized the isolation of the area because of vast sands and the impossibility of dry land farming. These homesteaders sold out and moved.

    The founder of Jal was Charles W. Justis, a Southern gentleman who arrived before 1910 and opened his mercantile business six miles east of the present city of Jal. On July 6, 1910 he was granted authority to open his post office. To obtain his permit, his sons had to carry the mail from Kermit (25 miles) three months for no charge. As Justis determined a site more suitable to his store existed, he moved his business to the present site of Jal in 1916.

    The fall of 1912 saw the first school for Jal with about 14 students. The lumber was hauled from Midland for building the 12×14 oneroom school house. Leroy Lancaster was the first teacher and he soon married his student Buna Justis, Charles’s daughter. As the number of pupils grew, Eddy County purchased a larger building twenty miles away in Texas and the patrons had to move the structure over the sands to the new site three miles east of the present school.

    The drought hit this area very hard and many settlers either moved away or were forced to leave their families and find work elsewhere. The school closed but Justis’ store and post office remained. The school hung on with Martha Woolworth Knowles as teacher for the few pupils.

    For the next decade, life in Jal centered around the various ranches where neighbors gathered for musicals and dances, barbeques and visiting. West of Jal the Charlie Goedeke home was a gathering place and on the East was the Knight place where Mrs. Knight would play the piano and the French harp. Some of the other settlers of the area were Charlie and Jim Dublin the Buffingtons, Billy and Mont Beckham and Alfred Perry Easton.

    The exploration and discovery of oil and gas made major changes in the small settlement of Jal. On November 1, 1927, The Texas Company brought in the Rhodes No. 1 six miles southeast of Jal and in June 1928 Continental Oil Company brought in Eaves No. 1 and Jal became Lea County’s first oil and gas boom town.

    With the influx of speculators, drilling crews and construction workers came the tents and shacks and formation of two townsite companies that were in competition. The Hubbs-Justis Townsite Company took in north Jal and the Jal Townsite Company formed by Floyd Stuart, Richard Herwig, and Clyde Woolworth took in the southern area. The Herwig Company became the area where most of Jal developed. The depression hit and crude oil prices fell along with Jal’s prosperity, but El Paso Natural Gas Company came in 1931 with gas gathering lines to provide employment that was to prove a stable force in Jal for years to come.

    By 1935, Jal had four service stations, two dry goods stores, two drug stores, three lumber yeards and even a movie theater. The Woolworth Hotel was in operation and served meals. New Mexico Electric Company came in 1935 and a telephone system of sorts was operating. In 1935, Dr. J. L. Burke was superintendent of schools and a four year high school started. The Jal Record owned by Floy Wynn was founded in 1950. Dr. Burke purchased the Herwig Townsite Company and donated land for church building sites. Jal was on its way to becoming the “Gas Capital” of the country.

  • Hobbs’ First Teacher

    Mrs. Harold P. Collier, formerly Miss Olive Manning, was hired to teach in Hobbs in 1915. She recounted her early memories in a newspaper article in the Hobbs Daily News back in 1936.

    The first school building was also completed in 1915, but in stages. Only the basement had been dug by October of that year, so they started holding classes there although the floors and walls were still dirt. Initially thirty students were enrolled and classes ran from the first to the ninth grade. Since the area was still part of Eddy County at that time, it was part of the school district of that county. The administrator was W. A. Poore of Carlsbad.

    Construction labor was donated by area residents and school went on while the above-ground work was completed. It became a community center where local events were held.

    The school building itself was completed around the first of the year in 1916 and the students were able to occupy the it and move from the basement. Mrs. Collier recalled that they had a library of fifty books. Her recollections of Hobbs at that time were that there were not many cars, maybe as many as three or four in town. Transportation was mostly by horseback or wagon. The railroad had not reached Hobbs at that time and there were few businesses in addition to the early post office.

    The building was referred to as the All-Hobbs school building and served the area for around twenty years. It was expanded to add more rooms before being replaced.

    Little else is presently known about Mrs. Collier. The couple had at least two sons, Harold and Kenneth while living in Lea County. Kenneth lost his life in the Philippines during World War II. The Colliers eventually moved to the state of Washington. Olive and her son Harold are buried at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup, Pierce County, Washington. The burial location for her husband, Harold P. Collier, is presently unknown.

  • Power’s Motel in Lovington

    Early settlers, Dick and Mary Power, owned a motel south of downtown Lovington and it served the area for many decades. Mary was the former Mary Eaves whose family had come to what became Lea County in 1909 and Dick arrived in 1914. She was the daughter of Paschal Simeon and Mary Susan Brown Eaves. Dick’s full name was Earnest H. Power. He was the son of Augustus Earnest and Edna Latham Power. Before he and Mary ran the hotel, Dick once owned and operated a cafe named Dick’s Cafe that was located downtown

    The address of the motel was 215 E. Avenue B. The grounds had some beautiful elm and pecan trees which were formerly part of the Eaves family’s orchard. The oldest units were 27 rooms built in 1947 and 12 more units were added in 1953. The old motel was demolished many years ago and a City office building now sits on the former site.

    Dick passed in 1974 and Mary followed him in death in 1982. Both are buried in Lovington Cemetery.

    The Power’s Motel Lovington, NM in 1940 – Image credit: cardcow.com

  • The Loose Balloon

    On May 6, 1978, an advertising balloon became detached from the ground at a motor vehicle dealership in Hobbs. A doctor and an employee of the dealership noticed that it was coming untethered and got in touch with Lea County pilot Zip Franklin who first flew after the loose balloon and finally brought it down after shooting it with a .22 and finally with a shotgun. It came down outside Levelland, Texas and when it did, the dealership employee who had been trailing it in his pickup became trapped in the fabric of the collapsed balloon. Franklin and the doctor administered aid until medical assistance arrived. The dealership employee had to be hospitalized but all three survived.

    Franklin said that the balloon reached heights of 15,000 feet above sea level and estimated that at its peak, the balloon was as large as a house.

    (Thanks to R.O.F. for telling us this story.)

  • Founding of Tatum

    [Transcribed from the 60th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of the Lea County Fair and Rodeo program for the event held August 5-12, 1995]

    Tatum, the crossroads on the high plains, began with the arrival of James Green Tatum August 9, 1909. Mr. Tatum along with his wife Mattie and daughter Martha James made the trip from San Antonio to Roswell and traveled by wagon and team across the Pecos River to reach his 320 acre homestead on the Llano Estacado.

    James Tatum had been in the mercantile business and hoped to take advantage of the need for supplies that existed in the area. Numerous settlers had begun to come into the area and this made an ideal site for a general store. The Tatum General Mercantile Company was born and an application for a post office soon followed. Three names were submitted to the Washington Postal Department – Tatum, Martha James and Bilderback (another early settler that came in 1910). The Tatum Post Office permit was granted in 1909 and Mrs. Mattie Tatum was the first postmaster.

    In the operation of his store, Mr. Tatum had to make long freight hauling trips to Roswell or Elida. At times these trips would take two weeks. Meanwhile it was up to Mrs. Tatum to deliver and pick up mail besides running the general store.

    By 1912 the Tatum School District had been formed. Dr. Charles Bridges, O. M. Daniel, and E. J. Fox traveled to Roswell to establish the school. Because funds were desperately needed for the building, box suppers and rodeos were held to raise the money. $400.00 was raised to pay for the building materials that were hauled from Elida in wagons. The school patrons donated their labor and James Tatum donated the two acres for that first white two-story schoolhouse. The first term began in 1912 with Miss Belle Norton as the teacher. The students included Anita Bridges, Willie, Mattie, and Earl Daniel, Robert and Lowell Fox, Dana Howard, Joseph James, Lambert Eaton, Lydia and Earl Seals and Mary London.

    Tatum’s first doctor arrived in 1911. Dr. D. C. Bridges arrived with his wife who was in frail health and he filed on a homestead claim. Dr. Ruff arrived the following year to set up his practice.

    Many of the smaller outlying schools consolidated with the Tatum District including Warren, Ranger Lake, McDonald, King, Bagley, Collum, Caprock, Mescalero, High Top, Gladiola, Crossroads and Pitchfork. By 1920 a new eight room school was built. In the early days of the school, church services were also held there. Reverend J. W. Allen held the first service for the Methodist Church.

    By 1912, J. W. (Mood) Smith and his family had established the first drug store while W. H. Anderson put in the first hardware store in 1914. The Tatum State Bank was organized in 1916 by W. H. Anderson, M. R. Anderson, Jim Anderson, Ott Anderson, and George Bilderback. The Plains Democrat was published by J. U. Williams in 1917 and Tatum had a newspaper. Tatum could boast a hotel opened by C. P. Byles in 1915 and a blacksmith shop in 1913 with J. J. Seals as owner.

    Tom Howard James brought the first telephone system to the Tatum Community in 1912. The party-line central switchboard style was located in the Tom Bess home and Georgia Bess and her daughter Jewell were the operators. Phone lines ran along the tops of fence wire and were attached to the fence posts.

    Tatum Power and Light was established in the early 1920s bringing electricity to the area. A diesel plant with two engines generated about fifty kilowatts of power and you were never certain about the reliability of the system. If you could hear the hum of the engine you could get electricity, otherwise you were out of luck!

    From its pioneer beginning as the center of the LIttlefield Cattle Company’s Four Lakes Ranch, Tatum has become a modern and close-knit community whose economy still depends on good ranch land and abundant water.

  • Jimmy Franklin

    In the late 1980s we had moved to a neighborhood with cable television. We just signed up for up for it and were channel surfing to see what was available. One of the sports channels was showing stunt flying and the screen captured an upside down plane snagging a ribbon suspended between two soda bottles sitting on the runway. The announcer then named the pilot: Jimmy Franklin.

    Jim Marshall “Jimmy” Franklin was born May 16, 1948 to Oliver Gene “Zip” Franklin and Valerie Jones Franklin. Jimmy grew up on a ranch in the northern part of Lea County. Zip was a crop duster, rancher and sport flyer. Jimmy’s first experience with flying, according to an article, was riding on Zip’s lap while still in diapers as Zip flew between two of their properties. Another family legend has Jimmy sneaking out to have his first solo flight at age twelve. He learned aerobatics while still in high school and bought his first airplane, a 1940 Waco UPF-7, when he was nineteen years old. He used it to begin flying in air shows that same year, 1967.

    For the next thirty-eight years, Jimmy flew in air shows and made numerous other film and television appearances, credited and uncredited. His Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) page lists him in “Three Amigos!” and “The Rocketeer” but according to his family, Jimmy’s other credits include “Forever Young,” “Terminal Velocity,” and “Choke Canyon” in addition to numerous television appearances where he was stunt flying.

    Image credit: airshow.fandom.com

    Jimmy was well known in flying circles, having premiered air show acts, flying with wing walkers, stunt flying, dogfight scenarios, making pickups from riders on motorcycles, portraying characters of his own invention and making one of a kind aircraft modifications, such as adding jet power to one of his Waco airplanes. He was honored with many awards including being named to the ICAS (International Council of Air Shows) Foundation Hall of Fame.

    Jimmy and his long time friend and fellow performer Bobby Younkin were both killed in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada on July 10, 2005. He and Bobby had created an act they called Masters of Disaster. This act had quickly become a popular draw at air shows. It was in this configuration that they were flying when their two airplanes collided and both were killed. Jimmy was fifty-seven years old. His memorial service was held several months later in Ruidoso, New Mexico and he is buried in Lincoln County at Ruidoso’s Forest Lawn Cemetery.