Tales from the Morgue

His Face Is Pushed In And His Ears ‘Point’

September 19, 1975

By Bill Moore

Many residents of Horizon City cast a leery eye towards the surrounding desert these days. Some say there is a strange creature lurking about.

During the past week, numerous teenagers have reported seeing the creature on the Horizon City golf course and the area south of there. Footprints have reportedly been found, shots have been fired and one youngster says he got a good look at the face.

“His face was all pushed in and flat like a bulldog’s. And he had this big nose that stuck out,” said Bill York, 15, who said he got a good look at the creature on the golf course driving range. “His eyes were sunk in deep and his jaw jutted out.”

Other descriptions given of the creature by various teens report it as being about 8 feet tall, 3 1/2 feet wide and leaving footprints 14 inches long and 8 inches wide.

Some say it is hairy and has pointed ears.

One boy reportedly got close enough to shoot at the creature with a rifle. He says he hit it at least six times at close range. No blood was ever found.

The creature was reportedly first cited last Saturday when Bill Fuller, 14, and Kathy Ellis, 15, thought they saw something walking on the golf course.

Officer Bill Rutherford of the sheriff’s department came driving by. The youngsters flagged him down. He reportedly flashed a light in the direction of the movement and reported he saw nothing. The teens, though, said it was the first time they saw the creature.

“It ducked down to the ground and just took off,” said Miss Ellis, “We know we saw it, but Mr. Rutherford says he never did. I think he said that just so people would not start getting scared.”

An adult has yet to be found who can support a claim of sighting the creature.

“We think some adults have see it, too. But we don’t have their names,” said one of the teens. “In fact, there was a lady who nearly hit it with her car. But I don’t know who she was.”

All the creature’s tracks have also reportedly been destroyed by vehicles and persons out searching for it.

Rutherford, who reported to Sheriff Mike Sullivan that he saw a strange track, said it appeared to have been dug. The two tracks he reports seeing led away from the golf course in the southerly direction and were about 20 feet apart. They were the only tracks to be found in the soft, desert sand in the area.

Creature hunters from throughout the El Paso area converged on Horizon City Thursday night and combed the nearby desert for nearly five hours without results.

“Those guys were out there in the dark shooting at anything that moved,” said one teen-aged girl. “I’m more afraid of them than I am of the creature.”

Rutherford also reported that two anthropologist from the University of Southern California showed up to study the situation. But after they were told of the prints and description, Rutherford said they went back and got on the first plane black to California.

“I know a lot of people around here don’t believe we saw anything,” said Miss Ellis “But there was something out there. And it really scared us bad.”

City License Department Investigates Taxicab War

December 18, 1953

The City License department is investigating charges and counter-chargers in a taxicab drivers’ war reported causing disturbances at the Santa Fe Street bridge.

According to complaints received by George Kissell, assistant collector, cab drivers are raiding others’ stands to pick up passengers.

Yellow Cab Co. operates a stand on the east side of the bridge Terminal and Checker cab companies maintain stands on the west side. Stand operators protested that rivals are swinging cabs in from of their stands to pick up pedestrians, in violation of the anti-cruising ordinance.

A meeting with cab operators, scheduled for Thursday, was postponed in the absence of Mayor Fred Hervey.

Kissell said his inspectors have made many trips to the bridge but have seen none of the violations. One inspector spent eight hours at the bridge Wednesday, Kissell said, without seeing any illegal cab operations.

Some of the trouble has arisen over operation of the Airline Cab Co. in driving passengers to the bridge from the airport. Kissell was told that such passengers paid a flat charge of 50 cents each, when driven to the bridge in numbers, being exempt by franchise from use of meter.

According to complaints, the passengers crossing to the other side of the street would be accosted by stand operators offering to return them to the airport for 35 cents each. Such operators insisted they picked up such passengers in front of rivals’ stands only by prearrangement.

El Paso doctor sued to change laws that took vote from blacks

January 30, 1983

It took 20 years, at least three U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the quiet determination of a tall, slender black physician from El Paso to move toward giving blacks a fair voice in Texas elections.

Most Texas blacks counted themselves as Republicans just after the Civil War, but many deserted the party to help James Stephen Hogg, reform Democratic candidate for governor, in 1892. Others labored in the birth of the Texas Populist party.

But by the turn of the century, black political power in Texas was almost nil.

El Paso County instituted a poll tax in 1902.

El Paso historian Conrey Bryson, in his book “Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and the White Primary,” says a good argument can be made that controlled voting – votes by minorities controlled by big interests – was responsible for the poll tax. “Nevertheless, the poll tax was one more deterrent to impoverished Negroes, who usually believed in January that $1.75 could be spent in more useful ways than the doubtful assurance of the right to vote many months later,” Bryson wrote.

Nixon, an east Texas native, arrived in El Paso in 1910, when blacks comprised 3 percent of the burgeoning city’s population.

By 1920, that percentage had dropped to 1.5 percent.

In May 1923 – a boom year for the Ku Klux Klan in state politics – the Texas legislature voted to deny blacks the right to vote in Democratic primaries. In a state like Texas, where winning the Democratic primary normally ensured success in the general election, that decision was tantamount to denying blacks any power at the voting polls.

Nixon was one of the charter members of the El Paso chapter of the NAACP, organized in 1910, the same year as the national organization.

El Paso blacks were very politically conscious, Bryson said, but not numerous enough to challenge the white political structure.

William Pickens, field secretary of the NAACP, personally chose Nixon as the best person to challenge the new sate law. “We are looking for someone who is not afraid.”

So, in July 1924, poll tax receipt in hand, Nixon stood in line to vote.

“As he recalled the event many years later, (Nixon) said, “The Judges were friends of mine. They inquired after my health, and when I presented my poll tax receipt, one of them said, ‘Dr. Nixon, you know we can’t let you vote.’ “’I know you can’t.” Dr. Nixon replied. ‘But I’ve got to try,’” Bryson wrote.

Nixon sued the two election judges. A federal judge in San Antonio threw out the case, and it went directly to the U.S. Supreme court.

They ordered the case to be tried, and an El Paso jury agreed with Nixon that the state had no right to abridge a black voter’s rights.

But that was circumvented when the Democratic State Executive Committee passed a resolution that only white registered Democrats could vote in the 1928 primary.

The NAACP decided to go to court again, with Nixon again as the plaintiff.

In July 1928, he again presented his poll tax receipt at the same East El Paso fire station. Again he was turned away.

Early the next year, another lawsuit was filed in federal court.

Once more, a federal judge dismissed the case. The dismissal was upheld by an appeals court.

In mid-1932, more than three years after the case was filed, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to be tried in El Paso, just as they had with Nixon’s first case.

Nixon again was victorious. But it would be 12 more years before he could vote in a primary.

Eventually, n a 1944 decision on a case originating from Houston, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional right to vote could not be indirectly denied. Six months later, all properly registered blacks in El Paso County were allowed to vote in the 1944 primary.

Nixon and his wife Drusilla were in an automobile accident in February 1966, and he died the next month at age 82. Mrs. Nixon now lives in Albuquerque with a daughter.

-Jeannie Kever

1953 B-36 bomber crash drew crowds to Franklins

Phyllis posted this on another topic. 

I came to El Paso in 1952 and I remember working at Popular Dry Goods downtown. This was between 1963 and 1965 I believe. While working I heard a loud bang which we thought was a truck hitting the wall of the alley between the buildings. Later we heard it was an airforce plane hitting the mountain on the west side of town. There was also a airforce plane that went down after hitting a water tower or power line by the old El Paso airport. Do you have anything on either of these?

Posted by: Phyllis McCarthy | August 08, 2009 at 12:59 P

Could it have been 1953? I get asked about the B-36 air force plane that crashed into the westside of the Franklins  a lot. I did a column on it two weeks ago and addressed it again this past week. Here are the columns:

08/01/2009

Dear Trish, I was wondering if you could find out or research if there was ever a military plane crash in the mountains above El Paso. When I went to school there, everyone used to talk about an old bomber that crashed in the Franklin Mtns. — Ralph Clark

Ralph, the Dec. 11, 1953, B-36 bomber crash is the one I am asked about the most and probably the one you have heard about.

The headline read “B-36 crash here kills nine; Bomber rams Franklin Range in snowstorm.”
According to the article, “A B-36 global bomber feeling its way through a blinding snowstorm crashed on the western slopes of the Franklin Mountains shortly before 3 p.m. Friday. There were no known survivors among the crew of nine.”

Weather Bureau officials reported one inch of snow fell in El Paso between 8:47 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Thomas E. Davis of Chattanooga, Tenn., out of the Air Force for three days, was in El Paso visiting his friend and World War II buddy William R. Proctor, who was stationed at Biggs. The two were driving west on Fred Wilson Road when they saw a column of flames suddenly appear and then quickly change into a mushroom-type black smoke cloud.

“It must have been 60 feet high,” Davis said at the time. They stopped their car and raced to the nearest phone to call the Provost Marshal’s Office at Biggs to ask if there was any reason for an explosion on the mountain. This was the first report made of the accident.
Most witnesses reported the plane was circling clockwise over the city and rammed into the mountain while heading east.

The 10-engine, $3.5 million  plane was being transferred to what was then Biggs Air Force Base from Carswell Air Force Base at Fort Worth. Because the plane was being ferried from Carswell, the normal B-36 crew of 16 was cut to nine. The crew was to return to Fort Worth.

Air Force spokesmen reported that the plane took off from Carswell at 12:15 p.m. CST. It was scheduled to land at Biggs at 2:35 MST. The Biggs control tower reported losing radio contact with the plane at 2:30 p.m., and the plane crashed a few minutes later.

The crew members were identified as Lt. Col. Herman Gerick, 35, aircraft commander, Fort Worth; Maj. Douglas P. Miner, 34, navigator, Attleboro, Mass.; Airman 2nd Class Frank Silvestri, 24, gunner, Baltimore, Md.; 1st Lt. Cary B. Fant Jr., engineer, 34, Linden, Texas; Tech. Sgt. Dewey Taliaferro, 33, first sergeant, 492nd Bomb Squadron; Airman 1st Class Edwin D. Howe, 22, gunner, Jordan, N.Y.; Master Sgt. Royal Freeman, 25, radio operator, Dallas; Maj. George C. Medford, 33, first pilot, Verona, Pa.; 1st Lt. James M. Harvey Jr., Mineola, Texas.

Rescue operations were hampered by the snowstorm. Crash trucks sent from Biggs were unable to reach the scene due to the rugged terrain leading up to the aircraft.

To reach the scene rescue parties had to take a trail from the highway and then proceed up the side of the mountain on foot. Others made their way from the mountain’s southern edge near Scenic Drive.
The first rescue group to reach the crash scene consisted of four El Paso policemen, Patrolman Bob Aumen, Buddy Bell, Walter White, Jr. and E. A. Williams, all traffic officers. They reported to Capt. Mike Sullivan of the El Paso County Sheriff's Department that the wreckage was widespread and still burning at 4:30 p.m. Sullivan said he was told the officers were unable to identify most of the wreckage, only the engines and a part of the fuselage.

Scores of motorists stopped their cars along U.S. 85 to view the accident scene, which was visible from the road. They saw a large black area about three quarters of the way up the mountain.

On Dec. 24, 1953, Col. Robert J. Abern, Biggs Air Force base commander, released a report stating the primary causes for the B-36 crash were incorrect approach procedures and poor judgment by the pilot in deciding to make a visual approach.


08/08/2009

Many readers remember B-36 bomber, another crash

After last week's column on the B-36 bomber crash, I received several comments and a couple of questions. Here are a few:

Dear Trish:  This was very interesting and timely that you published this article because just last week some of us were talking about this crash.

I was in class at UTEP (then TWC) when this happened. We couldn’t imagine what it was.  I was just beginning at that time to learn to fly, and my flight instructor and several of his friends climbed up to the crash area and managed to bring down a couple of mementos, all of which were returned to the government. 

One thing you may or may not know is that one of the propeller blades (the airplane had 24) is on display at the War Eagles Museum at Santa Teresa.
It’s BIG! And pretty beat up too.
— Dave Schuhmann,  Las Cruces.

Nathaniel Peterson added: What a coincidence. My mother and I were just talking about this.
My mother, Kathy, is Douglas Miner’s daughter. He died when she was just 6, I believe. I never really got the whole story of how he or those other men died.  Truly a special thing you have done for me.
 

Here is a little twist on the story.  My grandfather Miner was friends with Maj. Lewis Browne. They were both scheduled for that flight but due to the reduction in crew, Louis had to miss the flight. Needless to say he lived, and married Miner’s widow, my grandmother Jane Miner.  They lived out their lives in Las Cruces and Albuquerque. Strange how little coincidences shape our lives. Many lives changed course when those airmen were lost.

Nathaniel's uncle Jeb Brown messaged me as well. He was visiting Las Cruces from his home in Albuquerque last weekend and while at a hotel he picked up a copy of the El Paso Times to find the article on the crash that killed his dad's crewmates.

Luis Gabriel Navarro Jr., of Northeast El Paso, wrote: During summer vacation from Austin High my friends and I would hike to the mountains. One summer in 1967 we found parts of the wreckage and a cross with the names of the crew. My question is is it true that Marcus Uribe built the cross?

On March 23, 1944, Marcus Uribe witnessed a B-24 Bomber crash into the eastern slope of the Franklin Mountain. He was able to see the flames from his backyard. He watched the stretcher-bearers come down the mountain empty-handed.
Later that night Uribe, then 42, built a wooden form for molding a cement cross. The next day, with help from some neighborhood boys, he carried the cross up the mountain and secured it to the face of a stone cliff as a monument to the seven crewmen who died in the crash.
In the next few days he constructed a larger crucifix, which he and brothers from St. Anthony’s Seminary placed in the mountain and dedicated as a permanent marker and plaque.
Every year from then to Uribe’s death in 1979 he had a Mass said for the seven crewmen.

Elizabeth Hill McAlmon also remembered the 1944 crash: Your article on the B-36 crash in was very interesting to me. In the l940s, probably during wartime, there was another crash but on the east side of Mount Franklin. 
At the time I was young but well remember the sound of the plane flying low overhead followed a huge explosion.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Hill McAlmon

The B-24 heavy bomber from Biggs Field crashed into the east slope of the Franklin Mountains, about eight miles from Biggs Field, at 10:40 p.m. while on a routine combat training mission.
An article at the time said houses located blocks from the scene of the accident were jarred by the impact when the plane crashed.

The plane crashed with an explosion that woke residents in the entire Northeast part of the city. Many of them reported hearing the blast and of seeing the fire, which burned over a half-mile area for two hours after the crash.

It was also reported that flames shot high into the sky, silhouetting the wreckage of the plane, and lighting the mountainside from the Austin High School “A” to McKelligon Canyon.
Seven crewmen were killed in the crash: 1st Lt. Lyle R. Jensen, Big Springs, Neb., whose wife was in El Paso; 2nd Lt. Benjamin C. Fricke, Indianapolis; 2nd Lt. Robert Spears, Indianapolis; 2nd Lt. Donald B. Harris, Deming; Staff Sgt. Richard I. Stoney, Stoneham, Mass.; Sgt. William T. Hinson, Norwood, N.C.; and Sgt. John H. House, Black River, N.Y.

Marked Bill Helps Catch Young Thief

December 14, 1963

An Anthony merchant, forewarned by a series of petty burglaries recently helped nab a 14-year-old thief by leaving a marked $1 bill in his cash register.

New Mexico State Trooper Bud Budagher and El Paso County Deputies C.L. Lewis and Fernie Garibay co-operated in the case, though all the officers gave full credit to the owner of White’s Department Store in Anthony.

The merchant, not identified in the report filed in the office of Sheriff W.O. (Jimmy) Hicks here, marked the $1 bill in three places and warned other Anthony merchants to watch for bills so marked.
The boy, who admitted going in to the store through a rear window Sunday, took only $1.50 from the cash register, but the loot included a marked bill which he tried to spend at the Anthony Theater. Attendants there held him until Budagher arrived.

Around Town: September 29, 1895

Imported Hofbrau – last of the season.

The Valley is full of huntsmen this morning.

All kinds of printing done at the Times Bindery.

Special dinner at the Palmer Dining Hall today. Meals 25 cents.

The young people will have a dance at the courthouse next Friday night.

Blanks and blank books of every description made to order at the Times office.

Thee will be a lively game of ball at Sportsman Park this afternoon between the Colts and the Fort Bliss team.

The thermometer took a long tumble last night, and at 10 o’clock, overcoats began making their appearance on the streets.

A number of citizens called at the Times office yesterday to sign the petition asking congress to recognize the Cuban patriots as belligerents.

Monday morning at nine o’clock Messrs. B.W. Grover and D.Y. Hadley will take to city council park committee for a drive over to Washington park.

El Paso’s Jewish citizens closed their places of business yesterday and attended services at the residence of Mr. Stolsroff. Yesterday was Yam Kippur, the date of atonement.

Yesterday Mrs. Chas. Friese received from Colonel McCann, agent of the Equitable Insurance company $5,000 Insurance on the life of her husband who died a few days ago.

Last night the driver for O.G. Seeton hitched his horse and buggy in the rear of Charlie’s restaurant on San Antonio street while he went in to eat. Someone stole the horses.

Mr. Courchesne is pushing construction work on the smelter road. He has completed the portion north of the smelter last evening and will commence on this end Monday.

The city board of equalization will hold its last meeting Monday and those taxpayers who have a kick to make must make it tomorrow morning. It will be their last chance.

At Fort Wroth the other day the Panther City’s crack wheeleman went after the state record of 2:18 for a mile held by Harry Walz of El Paso. The Fort Worth man failed to do any better than 2:31.

O.B. Eddy returned last Sunday from an extended trip east and through the mountains in New Mexico, having located a large tract of coal lands in the Salado district of Lincoln county, and in company with his brother J.A. Eddy, established an office for the transaction of business in White Oaks. When the El Paso and White Oaks railway is built, Eddy Bros., will be found to have to local business of the country. – Eddy Current.