Guy Kibbee

 

(Immortal Ephemera) One of the most popular and lovable character actors of the 1930s and ‘40s, Guy Kibbee specialized in playing goofballs and patriarchs in just over one hundred Hollywood movies. Well past forty, and usually looking over fifty, Kibbee first excelled as pre-Code sugar daddy and come-on king in titles like City Streets, Laughing Sinners, Blonde Crazy (all 1931), Girl Missing, and 42nd Street (both 1933). Sometimes he was lecherous, other times not intended to be taken too seriously: it was the latter personality that caught on and led to Kibbee spending a career playing Pa’s and Pop’s, judges and cops.

... The Kibbees had six, possibly seven sons, and one daughter—Guy Kibbee was third or fourth born of this group, the last of the clan born in Texas, or so the 1900 census convinces me. The youngest four boys, including youngest brother Milne—Milton Kibbee of the screen—were all born in New Mexico. Father James was a publisher of small papers such as the Concho Times and Burnet Bulletin around El Paso, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico. Continued

Nancy Lopez

(Wikipedia) Nancy Marie Lopez (born January 6, 1957) is an American professional golfer. She became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1977 and won 48 LPGA Tour events, including three major championships.
Lopez won the New Mexico Women's Amateur at age 12 in 1969, and the U.S. Girls' Junior in 1972 and 1974, at ages 15 and 17, respectively. Shortly after graduation from Goddard High School in Roswell, she played in the U.S. Women's Open as an amateur in 1975 and tied for second. Continued

Ray Crawford

 

(Wikipedia) Ray Crawford (October 26, 1915 – February 1, 1996) was an American fighter ace, test pilot, race-car driver and businessman.
Born in Roswell, New Mexico, Crawford served as a U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilot and flew the P-38 Lightning in combat over North Africa in 1943. He was tied as the top-ranking fighter ace of the 97th Fighter Squadron with six enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed and one probably destroyed. Rotated home, he eventually became an early jet pilot.
... He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with fourteen Oak Leaf Clusters before separating from active duty as a Captain in February, 1946. Continued

James Hinkle

(Wikipedia) James Fielding Hinkle (October 20, 1864 – March 26, 1951) was an American politician and the sixth Governor of New Mexico.
... He served as a member of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners from 1891 to 1893 and also served as a member of the New Mexico Territorial House of Representatives from 1893 to 1896.
He became a member of the New Mexico Territorial Senate in 1901 and served as a member of the Lincoln County Board of Equalization from 1901 to 1911.
He served as the mayor of Roswell from 1904 to 1906. Continued

Robert Goddard

Goddard in Roswell

(Wikipedia) Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.
... With new financial backing, Goddard eventually relocated to Roswell, New Mexico, in summer of 1930, where he worked with his team of technicians in near-isolation and relative secrecy for years. He had consulted a meteorologist as to the best area to do his work, and Roswell seemed ideal.
Here they would not endanger anyone, would not be bothered by the curious, and would experience a more moderate climate (which was also better for Goddard's health). The locals valued personal privacy, knew Goddard desired his, and when travelers asked where Goddard's facilities were located, they would likely be misdirected. Continued

Nancy Lopez

(Wikipedia) Nancy Marie Lopez (born January 6, 1957) is an American professional golfer. She became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1977 and won 48 LPGA Tour events, including three major championships.
Lopez won the New Mexico Women's Amateur at age 12 in 1969, and the U.S. Girls' Junior in 1972 and 1974, at ages 15 and 17, respectively.
Shortly after graduation from Goddard High School in Roswell, she played in the U.S. Women's Open as an amateur in 1975 and tied for second. Continued

Ray Crawford

 

(Wikipedia) Ray Crawford (October 26, 1915 – February 1, 1996) was an American fighter ace, test pilot, race-car driver and businessman.
Born in Roswell, New Mexico, Crawford served as a U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilot and flew the P-38 Lightning in combat over North Africa in 1943. He was tied as the top-ranking fighter ace of the 97th Fighter Squadron with six enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed and one probably destroyed. Rotated home, he eventually became an early jet pilot.
... He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with fourteen Oak Leaf Clusters before separating from active duty as a Captain in February, 1946. Continued

Robert H. Goddard

Goddard in Roswell

(Wikipedia) Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.
... With new financial backing, Goddard eventually relocated to Roswell, New Mexico, in summer of 1930, where he worked with his team of technicians in near-isolation and relative secrecy for years. He had consulted a meteorologist as to the best area to do his work, and Roswell seemed ideal.
Here they would not endanger anyone, would not be bothered by the curious, and would experience a more moderate climate (which was also better for Goddard's health). The locals valued personal privacy, knew Goddard desired his, and when travelers asked where Goddard's facilities were located, they would likely be misdirected. Continued

The Lawful Breed: Joseph Hardin Clements

(True West) Few are aware of notorious gunfighter John Wesley Hardin’s first cousins, the Clements brothers. Of those four, the best known was Emanuel (Mannen), but one of his brothers should be lifted out of obscurity—Joseph Hardin Clements.

Born on December 1, 1849, Joe was too young to join the Confederate Army, as did his brothers Mannen and Jim. As an adult, however, he joined his brothers and other Gonzales County men from Texas to drive cattle up to Abilene, Kansas, in 1871. Continued

Roswell’s Mysteries Are Life’s Mysteries

Photo by John Margolis

(NYTimes) ... The longer one is in Roswell, the harder it becomes to avoid trying to answer the question, Did an alien spacecraft really crash to earth 70 years ago?
Are we all alone in the universe?
Does any of this even matter? Continued

Old House 77

Solano, NM

Eastern New Mexico is a virtual museum of vernacular architecture, spanning from 1900 to 1940. There are several reasons for this, the first and most obvious, is the homesteading boom of the early 20th century, when tens of thousand of people, hoping for a new start, moved into the region. Then, due to draught, depression, and the ruinously small size of the homesteads, most of them left, leaving the towns and rural landscape full of surplus housing.
     Much of the housing remained because it was solidly built and suited to the region. Adobe, and its modern child stucco, is cool in the summer and warm in the winter, keeping out the high winds so common to the area. The fact that the land remained inexpensive, and the property taxes low, meant there was no reason to demolish the abandoned buildings. Many of them were consolidated into larger ranches and used for storage, or kept by family members out of sentimental reasons ("the old homestead"), or simple inertia.
     The romantic notion that the whole place is abandoned is untrue, a huge number of the structures are occupied. In towns such as Clovis, Tucumcari, and Roswell a very large portion of houses date from the old boom days. My first house in Tucumcari featured 12" adobe walls in a stucco frame, the overly soft bricks most likely dug out of Tucumcari Mountain itself. The house I live in now, nestled quietly in a post-apocalyptic block of Clovis, NM is built like a fort and as snug as can be.
     Sadly, many of these places are falling apart, uncared for by predatory landlords who just want to make a fast buck. Others are owned by poor people who can't afford to stabilize the sagging foundations. (New Mexico may be the Land of Enchantment, but it's not a land of riches.) Often, the houses are literally splitting in half because the piers are rotting. But many of them, such as the one pictured above, have been lived in, and cared for, over the past century, often upgraded several times over. If I put together a list of the old houses around here that I would like to live in, it would be as long as your arm.
     While it would be impractical to save every old house, they are what give the region its character. Nobody visits Tucumcari to tour the Kmart, they come to see vintage Americana. My hope is that Eastern New Mexico keeps enough of the old places to retain that character for generations to come.