The Cimarron news and press., January 10, 1907, Image 1

About The Cimarron news and press. (Cimarron, N.M.) 1907-19??

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NOTE The type used in this heading is from the old plant of the Cimarron News and Press and was used for a heading for the paper in the seventies.
VOL I
CIMARRON, NEW MEXICO, THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907
NO. t
I
oprop
Li J J
SERIOUSLY
INJURED
Mrs. Charles Springer met with a
most distressing and dangerous acci
dent on last Monday night, -and was
seriously injured. Mrs. . Springer
spent the evening at the Chase ranch,
and at a late hour started home, with
her driver, a trusted servant. When
about a mile from the Springer home
the spirited hoses became frightened
and at a bad place in the road turned
the buggy over, throwing the driver
out. Mrs. Springer was thrown un
derneath the vehicle ,,and dragged
along on the frozen road and in the
snow for some distance, before she
was released by another turn of the
buggy. The team continued on their
run to the home, but no one about the
premises heard them, and there was
no knowledge of the accident until
Mrs. Springer, assisted by the driver,
reached home.
When she was released from her
dangerous position, Mrs. Springer
was bewildered by the accident, and
the pain from her many bruises, and
started in the opposite direction from
her home. She had gone consider
able distance out of her way before
she was found by the driver, who had
escaped serious injury. She was as
sisted to her home, with much diffi
culty, where it was found she had
sustained many severe bruises. She
was also badly cut about the head
and face. One shoulder was badly
bruised, and both eyes were bruised.
Mrs. Springer has recovered remark
ably, considering her injuries, and is
now about the house, and it
lieved no serious results will
the accident.
is be-
follow
THE CIMARRON
NEWS AND PRESS
The history of Colfax county,
when fully published, will contain
many a. chapter devoted to the thrill
ing vicissitudes of the old Cimarron
News and Press. The paper was es
tablished in 1870, and told of the )oyJ
and sorrows, the fortunes and failf
tires, of those, stalwart pioneers of ih
early days, who, realizing the massivd
fortunes latent in the hills and the
wealth of the valleys and mesas of
Colfax county, struggled against all
the odds of fate, in the days when th
land was young. The equipment qt
the old-plant was not as complete as
the present business needs would de
mand, and .often the editor was office
boy, compositor, stenographer, book
keeper, pressman, local hustler and
job man. At other times the paped
flourished and boasted of a mechanif
cal force, and an able corps of ei'tj
tors. The names of well known Cot
fax men at the head of the editorial
columns of a period of the issues of
ibc old paper, and some of the most
able editorials we have ever read ap
peared in these issues. Some of the
old papers tell of stilling events, now
forgotten almost, by even the prin-iwas
Wood-Preserving
Plant For Cimarron
Cimarron will soon have a wpod
preserving plant. In Hese days of
rapidly decreasing timber supply,
every effort is being made to , pre
serve the forests from wasteful de
predations, and to preserve the') tim
ber of all classes. Of late years rail
roads and large users of timber have
striven to find a means of preserving
timbers of all kinds, so as to got the
longest life of usefulness out of the
materials used. Tie-pickling, or timber
preserving has been carried on, ex
perimentally and practically by the
large railroads and timber companies
for the past few years, and found to
jonomical and practical, especi
ally i" the case of railroad ties and
timbers. It has . been conclusively
demonstrated that the preservation
of timber is an economical profess as
well as a necessity. The continually
diminishing supply of that mst im- j
portant commodity has given those in J
Some Interesting Facts Concerning the
Cimarron Country-Land of Opportunity
Many inquiries come to the
residents oí the Cimarron Country
from friends in the east concerning
the resources, climate of the local
ity. The story cannot be told in
one newspaper, but the News and
Press will in each 3sue treat of
some special feature of Colfax
County
The; climate is delightful. The sum
mers arJfcool, yet warm enough for
the matw'ing, each season, of all
crops ciftimon to the temperate zone.
With tlft altitude, the atmosphere is
such tlif t it is never too hot for com
fort. Jpie nights are always cool. In
winter, while the sun shines nine days
out of every ten, the air is fresh and
bracing, and the occasional light
snows insure a never-failing water
supply for irrigation, to supplement
the rains which under the improved
systems of dry farming will in any
case iisure good crops without the
necesiity of irrigation. However, the
fact that water for irrigation is abun
dant (insures excellent crops. There
are, hi course, many advantages for
the farmer using the irrigation sys
tem, over his neighbor who follows
the Jry farming method, but both are
suciessful. With irrigation, a greater
variety of crops may be raised, and
the acreage is a great deal smaller.
Thfre is every advantage in the world
in flavor of the farmer on the irrigated
farns of Colfax county, even over the
farmer of the eastern states. The
New Mexico farmer need never worry
a !)!' the rainfall. , He makes hi
ifwri, and adapts the supply to the
lieeds of the season and the soil. He
teed never fear a drouth, nor a del
uge. Rainy seasons do not deter his
planting, and crops mature thorough
ly, watered at will.
The soil in the Cimarron country,
and in fact, over the greater portion
of Colfax county, is a deep, ricM
sandy loam, with a clay subsoil, and
comprise some of the most fertile
agricultural lands in the great south
west. The soil has been constantly
enriched by the natural overflow
water from the streams, and from ir
rigation. In the Taos valley, and the
Moreno valley, to the west, only
about thirty miles, the same soil con
ditions and the same irrigation possi-
cipal actors, some of whom are still
living in Cimarron and vicinity. On
one occasion the Cimarron News and
Press was put entirely out of active
service by the unkindness of certain
citizens of the locality. Many of the
older inhabitants of the town remem
ber well the incident. Clay Allison
a well-known character who was
and familiar with the timber business
considerable anxiety. The old, ex
travagant methods have been rele
gated to the past and preserving
plants are now the order of the day.
The Continental Tie and Timber
company, one of the largest com
panies operating in the southwest,
have decided to put in a plant at Ci
marron, for the treatment of ties and
timber from its extensive forests in
Colfax county. Grounds have been
selected for this purpose in East Ci
marron, and work on the plant will
begin in a short time. We have not
been able to learn just what the ca
pacity of the new plant will be, but
it will require one thoroughly modern
to handle their extensive timber in
terests. It is a happy coincidence that
among the many modern devedop-
ments launched and contemplated by
the people of Cimarron, this preserv
ing plant should be a feature.
bilities exist, and in these valleys the
Pueblo Indians who have inhabited
the region for centuries, have for the
past three hundred years raised
abundant crops of wheat, every suc
cessive year, without the use of
phosphates or other fertilizers, than
the water used.
The lands in the Cimarron country
lie at an altitude of some 5,100 to
6,000 feet, and slope gently away from
the heavily timbered foothills. Good
streams, with never-failing water sup
ply cross these lands at intervals of
every few miles. The lands are pro
tected from the storms and blizzards
by mountain chains rising to altitudes
of from nine thousand to fourteen
thousand feet. The Cimarron coun
try is on the sunny, southern slope
of the range.
Farmers raise good crops of wheat,
maize, oats, kaffir corn, alfalfa, blue
glass, sorghum, sugar beets, and in
fact, all grain and vegetables common
to the climate of the temperate zone.
Fruits are particularly fine. No local
ity in the world can surpass this vi
cinity in the growth of apples,
I peaches, pears, plums, cherries, and
kindred fruits. The country is par
ticularly adapted to the culture of
sugar beets. Experts have for years
pronounced the climate, soil and gen
eral conditions ideal for this crop,
and analysis by experts covering
many localities and many grades,
show the percentage of sugar in the
Colfax product to be from four to fif
teen per cent greater than the product
of the Colorado fields, which are at
tracting the attention of the world.
As long ago as 1894, Colfax county
fruits were attracting national atten
tion. An exhibit of fruits raised by
J. B. Dawson, on the Dawson ranch,
received the world's first prize at the
Columbian exhibition at Chicago in
that year, and their excellence was a
source of wondering comment. Other
fruit growers all over the district are
keeping up the reputation of the
country. No other localities can lay
such title to the claim as the "Land
of the Big Red Appl" as our own Ci
marron country. Apples from the
different ranches this year were of
excellent flavor and enormous in size.
Varieties were exhibited in Cimarron
weighing more than
ounces each.
twenty-five
connected with a number of exciting
events during the seventies the
times which tried men's souls, and
brought out all the good or all the
bad in the character of the individual.
In some manner the News and Press
incurred the displeasure of this gen
tleman, and one night, accompanied
by some half a dozen of his friends,
Allison paid the town a visit. They
stopped a few moments at Lambert's
hotel where they put a few marks on
the blackboard, and then went across
the plaza to the newspaper office.
The editor and those connected with
the paper at the time were absent,
but the door yielded to a few well
directed jars from a pole, and the
party entered. When they got back
to Lambert's again they were cov
ered thoroughly with printers' ink.
Whether they believed in the efficacy
of this medium or not, they were
daubed with a goodly quantity of it.
Lambert's facetious query as to their
having been to the printing office was
cut short by the threat that some
thing would happen him if he men
tioned the occurrence, and the party
left. The press of the Cimarron
newspaper was found battered to
pieces, and every movable thing in
the office, including cases, stands and
type, were found dumped in the Ci
marron river. .Years after, when the
youth of Cimarron wanted ammuni
tion for their b.ean shooters, they
went down to the river and gathered
up the silent messengers of thought,
ruthlessly scattered among the sands.
Even this rude criticism of the paper
did not deter the publishers of, the
paper, and we find the paper contin
ued for some time after with new ma
terial and part of the old. Some of
MINING.
The mining regions of the Cimar
ron country have for many years
been a source of great income, even
though the methods employed were
crude and the means of transportation
limited and extremely expensive. In
the tidier days the placers of the
district produced millions in free gold,
and some of the older mines, worked
even ii the nióst crude manner, turn
ed thci tide of wealth toward the
old mining and cattle town of Cimar
ron. But getting out a few hundred
pounds of high grade ore and pack
ing it on burros off to the nearest
shipping point, or milling it on the
property with the laborious arrastra,
is not mining, in the modern sense of
the word, and it is an absolute fact
that the mining resources of the
county have never been touched. The
territory, aside from a few easily ac
cessible points has not even been well
prospected, and one of the needs of
the country now is a number of ex
perienced prospectors.
Long before the days of the mod
ern dredge the old sjstctn of sluices
and rockers was taking out millions
in gold from the rich gravel of the
Moreno valley, Ute creek, I'onil, and
other streams and basins. The gravel
of these districts is now richer than
the placer grounds of California.
Only a few rich pockets in these dis
tricts have ever been worked, and the
great area of medium and low grade
grounds yet remain untouched. Placer
mining in the district has always been
done in a desultory manner. The old
time miner was content to make a
modest tortune, sell out and leave the
country. No large amounts of cap
ital have ever been expended in the
county, and no extensive develop
ment, such as makes great mines out
of low grade, propositions, has ever
been done. In placer mining, the
Oro Dredge company cleared up a
great many thousands of dollars in a
short time, but owing to internal dis
sensions in the company the property
went into the hands of a receiver, and
has lain idle for a long time, in the
midst of a wealth of rich mineral.
There remain in the Ponil, at the
head of Ute creek, and in the Moreno,
valley, immense deposits of placer
gravel, hundreds of feet deep, adja-
cent to an unlimited water supply,
which can be handled either with
the material of the seventies now
forms a part of the Raton Range
plant, where we understand it is care
fully preserved, for the good it has
done in years past. The heading of
this paper, though rather unique and
old-fashioned, was set from the orig
inal type in which the heading of the
paper of the seventies was set. Some
of the letters are somewhat battered,
but the head appears very much as it
did more than thirty years ago. Old
residents of the county will, we hope,
recognize the old heading.
DAWSON ITEMS.
From the Raton Range.
Christa Clark, 15-year-old daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Clark, died
Tuesday morning, Jan. I, of a com
plication of measles and spinal .trou
ble. The funeral was held Thursday
evening -and the remains were taken
to Walscnburg, Colo., for interment.
T. C. Hill, manager of the S. W. M.
Co. store, left Thursday morning on
a two weeks business trip to Kansas
City and other points.
The work on the excavation for the
$20,000 opera house has started and
the work will be pushed rapidly to
completion. 1
L. W. Storm, C. E. and wife, expect
to leave soon for Denver, Colo.
Joe Serrano has resigned as sales
man for the S. W. M. Co. and ex
pects to leave about the tenth for El
Paso, Texas.
D. L. Lucas has returned from Las
Vegas and reports a pleasant and
profitable session of the teachers'
association. Gypsy. Jack
1 dredges or under hydraulics. These
placer beds, miles in extent, are prac
tically untouched, and excel in rich
ness the beds of the famed hydraulic
fields of California. They only await
the investment of sufficient capital to
assure economical production.
Low grade dykes of immense width
and miles in extent traverse the vari
ous mining districts. These dykes
are crossed by a myriad of true fis
sure veins, forming a net work of
dykes and seams, all ore-bearing and
all easy of access for mining on the
most economical basis. There has
been enough prospecting and mining
in a small way upon these vein sys
tems to define their location, trend
and value, but the great resources of
the region have scarcely been
scratched.
Copper is also found in abundance,
and in values sufficient to make min
ing profitable, even under the condi
tions, existing in the past, without
transportation facilities either for sup
plies, materials or product. Now that
supplies and materials may be ship
ped by rail into the very heart of the
district, and the ores may be loaded
onto the cars in many instances from
the mines, and in any event, after a
short wagon haul, the resources of
the Cimarron mining district will be
soon opened to the world.
The News-Press will, in a special
issue to be printed soon, tell specific
ally of the mining industry, past and
present, and give a history of some of
the most famous mines of the Rocky
Mountain region. This issue will be
announced through these columns,
and will be one of the most interest
ing of a series of specials which will
inform the world of a territory which
has lain without development for
three centuries while the resources of
the entire nation have been devel
oped and in many localities ex
hausted. COAL.
A special issue of the News-Press
will be issued in the near future, cov
ering the coal resources of the coun
ty. Colfax county coal fields are the
greatest in the southwest. The foot
hills are underlaid for many miles
with three seams of the finest coking
coal in the world, and the supply is
absolutely unlimited. All this coal is
Con.inued on last page.
The Sullivan Trust company of
Goldfield, Nev., is reported to be
financially embarrassed, several drafts
made on it having been protested. In
the stock market there were heavy
declines in the shares of the Lou
Dillon, the Silver Pick and other
companies promoted by the stock
company.
Railroad Into the
Ponil Country Soon
Another railroad for Cimarron.
This is the latest happy news to the
residents of the western part of the
county. The Continental railway will
be built into Cimarron from the
north, tapping the wonderful resour
ces of the Ponil, and opening a new
territory to commerce.
Surveys and estimates are finished
and actual work will commence 011
the building as soon as contracts can
be let and men and material secured.
The unlimited resources of the vast
area of the country to the north of
Cimarron, especially the Ponil Park
oistrict, in the way of timber and
agriculture, have long been realized.
Lack of transportation facilities alone
has delayed the development of this
vast storehouse, and the development
now will be rapid, indeed.
The new railway is to be built
through the Ponil Canon, into the
Fiinil Park, thence in a northerly and
REPORTED
PURCHASE
Closely following the departure of
William H. Bartlett for his home in
Chicago has sprung up the report '
that he has sold his handsome home
and extensive holdings at Vermejo
Park, north of here, to United States
Senator William A. Clark of Mon
tana, the consideration named being
$2,000,000, Although the report, orig
inating in Trinidad, gives Raton as
the source, nothing confirmatory can
be learned here concerning the al
leged big deal. The Vermejo ranch
contains about 216,000 acres, or near
ly ten townships, of land. On it
stands one of the largest and finest
residences in the United States, the
stone for which was cut away up in
the timber district, and brought down
in gunny sacks and placed in position
with the beautiful moss still attaching
to it. Including the fine road ex
tending to Mercio, Mr. Bartlett's.
total investment for improvements
must have been something near $1,
000,000, of which $250,000 to $300,000
is in buildings. The fact that insur
ance policies on these structures run
ning five years were taken out would
seem to indicate that no sale had been
contemplated, at least until recently.
Another negative factor is that Sena
tor Clark is a man who would demand
a clear title, free from annoying in
cumbrances or rights belonging to
others that would in any way inter
fere with his peace or privacy. It is
known that up until a recent date
extensive coal and timber concessions
were held by other parties, Mr. Bart
lett's title being only to the surface.
Whether or not these rights have
been absorbed by either seller or pur
chaser cannot nt this writing be
learned. The rumor of the sale i&
therefore given for what it is worth
it may be a fact, but there is no di
rect supporting evidence available,
here.
NEW PLANING MILL
FOR CIMARRON
One of the industries which will be
established in Cimarron immediately
will be a planing mill. The plant will
be installed as soon as the building
can be finished, as the machinery is
on the ground and the building start
ed. The mill will be equipped to do
all classes of general mill work,
building material, sashes, doors, cab
inet work, and in fact will fill all the
needs of the contractors and builders
of the town and vicinity. With the
excellent shipping facilities the mill
can supply a large territory. One of
the greatest needs of the contractors
here at present is the class of mill
work the new establishment will turn
out, and the work of building will be
greatly facilitated. The new mill will
be built and operated by the Cimar
ron Lumber company, one of the
progressive business concerns of Ci-
westerly direction opening up one of
the most promising sections of the
county. The ultimate destination of
the railroad can only be surmised.
Just what capitalists are backing the
present project has not been ascer
tained, but the present plans would
indicate the association of very influ
ential interests. The broad, fertile
ranges of the Ponil Park and adjacent
country will make in ideal farming
country. The climate and soil can
not be surpassed. The rainfall is suf
ficient for all purposes, obviating the
necessity for irrigation. Frora t
scenic point of view the country has
no superior.
That Cimarron is to be the center
of distribution for so thriving a com
munity is of itself no malí encour
agement to those who have the wel
fare of the future city at heart. Every
other development tending to the de
velopment of this action are receiv
ing their strongest support '
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