Event marks Tucumcari depot's 100th year

 

Former Southern Pacific Railroad brakeman Bo Golson wouldn't have missed the 100th birthday celebration Friday of the former Tucumcari Union Station for anything. In fact, he dressed up for the occasion. Golson donned a newsboy cap and vintage OshKosh overalls that included a quartz pocket watch he bought from the railroad's credit union while stationed in Tucumcari during the early 1980s. In full railroad uniform, he became a walking throwback during Tucumcari MainStreet's first Down at the Depot event of the summer. Continued

1985: Route 66 officially removed from U.S. Highway System

A grassy stretch of old 66 near Bard, New Mexico. (Six Gun Siding)

(Wikipedia) ... The beginning of the decline for US 66 came in 1956 with the signing of the Interstate Highway Act by President Dwight Eisenhower who was influenced by his experiences in 1919 as a young Army officer crossing the country in a truck convoy (following the route of the Lincoln Highway), and his appreciation of the German Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system.
During its nearly 60-year existence, US 66 was under constant change. Continued

Pioneer rancher and traildriver born in Mississippi

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1836, Robert Kelsey Wylie was born in Tishomingo County, Mississippi.
… In 1865 he began driving cattle to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, a business he continued for ten years. He established cattle ranches near Ballinger and at Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. He also started a sheep ranch near Van Horn.
At various times he supplied cattle to John S. Chisum and to the foundation herd of the Matador Ranch. Continued

Border photographer documents Mexican Revolution

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1913, Brownsville photographer Robert Runyon arrived in Matamoros and began compiling a unique record of the Mexican Revolution along the Texas-Mexico border. The Kentucky native arrived in Texas in 1909 and opened a photography studio the following year.
He is best known for his coverage of the revolutionary conflict in northeastern Mexico between 1913 and 1916. He traveled to Matamoros the day after its Federal garrison had been captured by Gen. Lucio Blanco's Constitutionalist revolutionary forces. Continued

Hometown Hero: Jeremy Reeves

I’ll give you three guesses: 

No, not the football player, though that’s a good guess, they share the same name. 

No, not the guy from Brideshead Revisited. 

And not the 80’s Sherlock Holmes. 

    Jeremy Reeves is a tobacco blender. He’s like a chef, serving up classic old recipes and creating tasty new ones. He is the head blender at Cornell and Diehl (C&D), the last big pipe tobacco manufacturer in the United States.     

    But even when they had serious competition, not long ago, C&D was a cut above the rest. When I say big, I mean relatively big, they won’t be knocking on “Big Tobacco’s” doors anytime soon. Yet they did produce 120,000 pounds of pipe tobacco in 2023, in 150 varieties. I wonder, how many pipe bowls that would fill? Millions, I guess. 

    Anyway, back to Jeremy, he was born in Portales, yes, Portales New Mexico. I had no idea and I don’t know any more about his life in Roosevelt County. Did he grow up here? Did he come here to attend ENMU? Was he whisked away at birth, destined to tobacco greatness, like some smoky Dalai Lama? I just don’t know. 

    I do know that Reeves is in a small school of blenders like Per Jenson, Russ Ouellette, and Rudiger Will, all legends in the field. Reeves and C&D not only produce fine old school tobaccos, they are often thinking of new variations on the theme. They have put out a yearly vintage variety of Virginia tobacco, when they can find a great candidate. A few years back, Reeves made a blend that included honey from his own hives, which was so popular, he had to resort to a larger apiary for the next year’s batch. He is also working on a fitting replacement for Syrian tobacco (a big deal if you smoke a pipe), a variety that has gone commercially extinct. 

    C&D is committed to keeping the old pastime alive and has partnered with a perique farm in Louisiana, a grower in Turkey, and Ireland’s most prominent pipe manufacturer. Despite their international adventures, the lion’s share of C&D’s product is grown, processed, and packaged in the U.S.A. The company does its work in South Carolina. 

    I think Reeves would be the first one to admit he has a dream job. And that’s my point: there is a world of great, attainable occupations out there. If you browse through this blog, you will see New Mexicans who have won the Nobel Prize (from Raton), been Treasurer of the United States (Mountainair), that bult a Hotel Empire (San Antonio), and many more. 

    It seems like all the great achievers live in New York City or Los Angeles, but they didn’t come from there, they came from here, wherever here happens to be, even New Mexico. 

    This is all done to make money of course, but for Reeves and his fellow blenders, it is also a labor of love. How often does that happen? 

    {Thanks to the good people at The Humidor, in Portales, who first told me Reeves was from here. And yeah, that Factory Smokes Maduro cigar was pretty darn good.}

Museum group proposes takeover of Quay School

 

Link

Jal House Rock or Get Your Potash in Gear!

Fire destroys old Kenna store and post office

(Eastern New Mexico News) Fire claimed the iconic Kenna store and service station along U.S. 70 late Saturday afternoon. Continued

Baxter Black, Who Elevated Cowboy Poetry to Folk Art, Dies at 77

(NYTimes) Baxter Black, the country’s best-known cowboy poet, whose witty, big-hearted verse about cowpokes, feed lots and wide-open vistas elevated the tradition of Western doggerel to something of a folk art, died on June 10 at his home, a ranch outside Benson, Ariz. He was 77. Continued

Geronimo

(Wikipedia) Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé [kòjàːɬɛ́] "the one who yawns"; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe.
From 1850 to 1886 Geronimo joined with members of three other Chiricahua Apache bands—the Tchihende, the Tsokanende and the Nednhi—to carry out numerous raids as well as resistance to US and Mexican military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora, and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona.
Geronimo's raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the Apache-United States conflict, that started with American settlement in Apache lands following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. Continued

"Trick Riders and Bronco Busters"

Tucumcari Roundup, circa 1920 (University of North Texas)

Hereford Homesteaders

Photograph of early settlers of Hereford, Texas. (Portal to Texas History)

Paul Modrich

(Wikipedia) Paul Lawrence Modrich (born June 13, 1946) is an American biochemist, James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
He received a Ph.D. degree in 1973 from Stanford University and a B.S. degree in 1968 from MIT. He is known for his research on DNA mismatch repair. Modrich received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015, jointly with Aziz Sancar and Tomas Lindahl.
 Modrich was born on June 13, 1946, in Raton, New Mexico ... Continued

The Pralines, Pecan Log Rolls and Nostalgia Fueling the Stuckey’s Revival

Old Stuckey's billboard, just west of Tucumcari, New Mexico

(NYTimes) In June 2020, having used her life savings to buy back the failing roadside franchise that bears her family name, Stephanie Stuckey was in a Marion, Ark., parking lot in tears. The Stuckey’s in front of her was beyond decrepit; it was disreputable. A storm had opened a hole in the signature teal tile roof, and the owners hadn’t bothered to repair it. Sobbing, she called her vice president and said, “I can’t even walk into this store.” Without missing a beat he replied, “Welcome to your empire.” Continued

Hungarian Blackberry Juice and Wild Cherry Bitters

 

(Peachridge Glass) I’m not quite sure what I found in a New Mexican newspaper. The December 15, 1906 Tucumcari News (Tucumcari, New Mexico) had an advertisement (see below) for a bitters on page 11. There is no evidence they bottled it, but wow, what a great name, ‘Hungarian Blackberry Juice and Wild Cherry Bitters!’
OK, maybe they were selling a juice and a bitters. Not really sure. If this was someone else’s bitters, I would think they would state the brand. They often referred to brands of whiskey or beer in other advertisements. Continued