Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
On this date ...
1973: The newspaper interviewed two men who are believed to be the last blacksmiths in Quay County.
Reporter Darrell Roberts talked to John Mansfield, 80, and Art Blakely, 75, who still perform blacksmithing work at Quay County Farm Center on Lake Street for customers from as far away as Las Vegas.
Mansfield, a Texas native, previously was a blacksmith in a McAlister shop before working for 27 years with the highway department.
Blakely, an Arkansas native, once worked in the coal mines in Dawson before taking up the blacksmithing trade.
— Sissy Young, 17, was chosen as the Quay County 4-H Queen during the 4-H Queen Pageant at the county fairgrounds rodeo arena. Young, who just graduated from Tucumcari High School, plans to attend Eastern New Mexico University on a band scholarship.
— Mayor King Aitken addressed about 100 people during annual Memorial Day ceremonies at Tucumcari Memorial Park cemetery.
— City police investigated a break-in at the animal hospital where 100 hypodermic needles, 20 bottles of medication, forceps, nail cutters, a lamp radio clock, pocket calculator, typewriter, adding machine, tape recorded and dog collars were stolen.
— A one-car accident near the waterfall east of Tucumcari on U.S. 66 injured three people from Oklahoma and California. The driver hit a rough spot on the doorway, lost control, overcorrected, spun out and struck a bar ditch.
— The Odeon Theatre was screening the Charlton Heston science fiction movie “Soylent Green.” “People need it … in the year 2022,” the ad proclaimed.
