Tales from the Morgue

1931: News Article Gives Mrs. Barner Idea for Sweets Business

08/10/1931

"IT WAS while I was recuperating from an operation in a hospital that I got the idea of selling candy," said Mrs. Hazel Barner, who owns a thriving candy shop in the lower valley. "I read an article which told how much candy was consumed in the United States every year—billions of dollars worth! I had been racking my brain to think of something I could do to help us out of the hole the cotton crop had thrown us in.

''That article set me to thinking fast. I could cook. Been doing that since I was 8 years old. "So the minute I was able, I made some fudge and divinity and took samples in to a local dry goods store. They agreed to give it a try."

THREE times a week, Mrs. Barncr drove 15 miles from the farm in the lower valley with her little package of candy. Her husband laughed good-humoredly at her. If it made her any happier to do that it was all right with him.

It sold all right. Every day after finishing, or that is, reaching a stage in her work where she could stop, she experimented with candy. She'd keep one eye on the baby who was 3 ½ - years old, and the other on the stove. Her equipment? An aluminum kettle, ordinary size, and a candy thermometer, second hand.

"I spoiled lots of sugar and butter and cream. One night I went to sleep with my hands in a bowl of fondant I was trying.

"DISCOURAGED? Yes, but it never occurred to me to stop, I sent away for a recipe book: cost me $6.50. After three or four trials I laid it aside. Nobody can tell you how to make candy. Experience is the only way to learn the little tricks that make for good results. You learn the proportions, the temperature of your stove, when to take it off how long to cream it—everything by trying it out.

"As my candy was selling I began to buy little sacks of other kinds, 25 cents at a time. I took it home and examined it carefully. Then I tried it out for myself. I'd work and work till it turned, out like I wanted it. And

I always tried to improve on it. I was a year learning to make English toffee."

SEVERAL months after she started to selling fudge and divinity they moved up the valley to another farm. She gradually increased the varieties she was carrying to town. Her orders increased.

"One day I told my husband I believed I could make a success if I had a place on the lower valley road where I could sell to tourists, too. We were both sick of farming.

"This place was standing here ready it seemed. It didn't take us long to make up our minds."

AND two years after the day she drove into town with her samples, they moved into the little shop under the cottonwoods to make candy their business.

They succeeded. From fudge and divinity to 100 different varieties.

"There was an old counter in here." she said, "We scrubbed it up and put the candy on it in boxes. The first day we took in S6. Was I thrilled?"

Now their shop, with its shining cases, cool, green walls, polished floors and soft rugs, is a far cry from the old counter.

Strange to say, the saJes didn't go the way she expected, "Tourists don't buy," said Mrs. Barner. It is to El Pasoans she sells most of her candy.

"THAT first year the business doubled. We both had our hands full. Gradually my husband took over the making of the candy and left the selling to me.

"Having been an engineer, he knows machinery, the cooling plant and all. When things go wrong, he sets them right.

"We work out new ideas together.

"Heavens, no. I have no time for parties. There are no hours in this business. We work all the time. Everything is hand-made and our shop is open till 10 at night. Sundays are our busiest days. When I go to town it's a mad rush till I get back."

Mrs. Barner was born in Rich Hill, Mo., near Kansas City. She and her husband met in El Paso. They have one child. Orris, 8 years old, whom they call “Sonny.”

1958: Builder’s Judgment Vindicated by Time

12/04/1969

Demolition of El Paso's first frame structure at 906 North Stanton street is now nearly complete, but it remains intact in the memory of Mrs. Kate

Krause Ball to whom the structure was not just a house but a home.

Built in 1882 by Ernest Ulrich Krause, her father, the house was crafted with great attention to detail. Mrs. Ball, now in her seventies, remembers

well her place of birth and the shelter of her youth.

07/07/1958

MARSHALL HAIL

  Ernest W. Krause was accosted one day in 1882: by a passerby who asked, "What fool built this house way up here north of town?"

"I did," replied Mr. Krause.

“Well, don’t you know it will be washed away by the first flood from Mt. Franklin?”

“No. But you people down there will be washed out by floods from the Rio Grande.”

This colloquy took place near the first residence built north of the railroad tracks in pioneer El Paso.

It was the first house in El Paso not built of adobe.

Little Change

The house still stands “way out” at 906 North Stanton street, just off Montana. It is pretty much the same now as it was in 1882. Mrs. Charles C. Montfort, Mr. Krause’s daughter, has tried to preserve its original features.

Both Mrs. Montfort and her sister, Mrs. Kate Krause Ball, El Paso artist, believe the old house should be kept as an example of the town’s earlier architecture.

Mrs. Ball recently suggested, in a letter to president Jack Vowell Jr., of the El Paso Historical Society, that a way be found to preserve the house “after we are gone.”

Mr. Vowell and Society directors agree.

Builder Krause, incidentally, was prophetic. His house was never washed away, whereas El Paso below the tracks was swept by devastating floods until the Rio Grande was harnessed.

Built for Bride

The old Krause house has many interesting futures, not the least of which was the way it came to be built. Mr. Krause constructed it because his fiancée had vowed she wouldn’t wed any man unless he had a home for her.

Ernest Krause, a native of Germany, was a roamer. He left home at 17. For five years he circled the world as a merchant seaman, but made it a point to ship on British and American vessels. He learned English but never lost his accent.

Finally he tired of wandering, came to the U.S., and settled in Arkansas as a cabinet maker. He drifted down to Gonzales, near San Antonio, where he met Miss Flora Beach, his future wife. Foreseeing a boom for El Paso, he decided to move here with Mrs. Krause-to-be.

The girl said she was going nowhere and marrying nobody until a home awaited her. So Krause came to El Paso by stagecoach in 1881 and built the house “upon the mesa,” returned to Gonzalez, married Miss Beach, and then escorted her to her El Paso domicile.

Mr. Krause got into contracting, then specialized as an architect.

Original Floor in Use

He built his El Paso home of the best materials. It was a frame house, fashioned of redwood, the first redwood lumber shipped from California. It was a story and a half, had seven gables, bay windows, excellent workmanship and furnishings, and was a showplace. Mr. Krause did much of the work himself.

The front hall has an expensive door of etched and stained glass.

The stairway to the second floor is walnut and circles three sides of the hall, attached to the wall without supports underneath.

The circling stairway, an architectural achievement, has a twisting handrail that was shaped, caved and polished by specialists brought from St. Louis.

The parlor has a mantel of birds-eye maple, opposite a bay window with a ceiling in sunburst design fashioned by Mr. Krause.

The floor today is the original wide board flooring. Woodwork has the original enamel finish one-eight of an inch thick. A tall mirror with a marble base reaches almost to the ceiling.

A fisher piano, built for El Paso’s dry climate, is still in possession of the family though not now at the house. Old lighting fixtures, with a handsome brass dome set with jewel-like glass ornaments, were used.

Next to the parlor is a “sitting room” with wainscoted walls that conceal a small secret closet. Mr. Krause applied the wood grain by hand. A shelf built for books and plants also held a kerosene lamp.

“A chromium plated rail around the pot-bellied stove was wonderful to rest the feet on,” Mrs. Ball recalled.

Just off the sitting room was a small greenhouse which was moist and fragrant with geraniums, oxalis and dew plants.

Used as dance Floor

The dining room was added in 1899 and was large enough for a family of 13 and some guest besides. Mrs. Montfort said the dining room, with its smooth floor of edged pine, was added mainly to proved a dance floor for the three Krause daughters and their friends.

The kitchen originally stretched across the full width of the house. It had a large pantry and a wood stove on which Mrs. Krause cooked delicious bread and biscuits. It is now used as an extra bedroom and bath.

Outside the kitchen were fig trees and a grape arbor. One of the fig trees still bears fruit. A willow tree and a rose bush, each 50 years old, still live. A barn for a horse and buggy with a hayloft occupied one corner of the site, where a garage is now.

1963: EP Baseball History Goes Back To 1890's

04/18/1963

El Paso can trace it’s baseball history back to the 1890s when the El Paso Browns were playing what many fans felt was the equivalent of Major League baseball.

Leagues and schedules were sparse then but the El Paso Browns did compete with teams from San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, and Dallas.

Mostly they were weekend games, tempers ran high, and everybody’s civic pride was at stake.

It also wasn’t unusual for a few wagers to be made, and the winners were feted far into the night.

In 1891 under the leadership of the late Captain Juan S. Hart the El Paso Browns compiled a remarkable 17-3 record with one tie game.

At the turn of the century the famed old McGinty Club began to field some ball clubs to represent El Paso with, as many old time fans claimed, a beer keg on each base.

Pick-up baseball continued to thrive in El Paso in the early 1900s and probably the highlight of the period was the famed Black Sox scandal which brought many famous ball players down to this area to play ball.

One memorable event was when El Paso was playing Albuquerque in a grudge game. The report goes that Albuquerque showed up with the old Kansas City Blues intact, and they were slightly chagrined to find that El Paso had most of the stars from the old Chicago Black Sox team in El Paso uniforms.

That was a game in which everything in both towns, including city hall, was riding on each pitch.

Many of the famous players of the early 1900s also appeared in El Paso in exhibition games including Rube Waddell, Christy Matheson, Hal Chase, John McGraw, and many others.

Baseball as we know it today began to take shape in the mid 1920s with the formation of the old Copper League. This was the league where both Andy and Syd Cohen started long and illustrious baseball careers.

In 1927 for example Clyde Underwood was the manager of El Paso in the old Copper League and we were competing with teams from Bisbee, Ariz., Chino, N.M. and Fort Bayard, N.M.

In the 1930s Royce (Mule) Washburn took El Paso into the Arizona-Texas League and El Paso spent many years in this loop.

Mule Washburn won the pennant in the Arizona-Texas League in 1931, Jimmy Zinn repeated the trick in 1938, and Elmer (Speck) Williamson did the same in 1940.

World War II took El Paso out of organized baseball for four years, but in 1945 action was resumed with Andy Cohen leading the ball club into the Mexican National League.

Jack Corbett took over the ball club in 1947 and went back into the revived Arizona – Texas League, and in 1949 won he Governor’s Cup play-offs.

In 1950 John Phelan and Art Lilly collaborated to win the playoff in the Arizona-Texas League, and in 1951 they switched to the Southwest International League and set a new attendance mark in El Paso that season with 101,061 fans and another 7000 that attended that All-Star game here that season.

In 1952-53 Tom Love and Paul “Daffy” Dean kept the ball club in the Arizona – Texas League, and in 1954-55 Dick Azar and Syd Cohen had the club first in the A-T League and then in the West Texas – New Mexico League.

After Dick Azar stepped out of the local baseball picture things began to go downhill. First Pat McLaughlin had the ball club in the Southwest League in 1956, and Tom McHugh barely made it through 1957.

El Paso dropped out of organized baseball from 1958 through 1960, and then came back strong with the Sun Kings in 1961. The trend has been upward ever since.

The names of men, past and present, connected with baseball in El Paso runs into the hundreds.

Dan R. Ponder, present chairman of the board of the Sun Kings, was president of the Arizona – Texas League in 1950, chairman of the board of the Southwest League in 1951, a director of the Sophomore League in 1961, and is presently a director of the Texas League.

George Simpson was active in the old City League in El Paso and bought Syd Cohen his first baseball glove.

Manny Ponsford went on to become a top baseball player at the University of Texas and gave up the promise of a Major League career to go into the contracting business here. Bus Gillete was another fine college player, and such men as Lee Saunders, Barry Hagedon, Sims Davis, and Beto Mendez were all connected with the game in El Paso.

Bert Dugan and Seth Peyton, are two names always mentioned in connection with baseball in El Paso, along with John Andreas and the late Herman Andreas who was a fine catcher.

Slam Marshall helped to re-organize the old Copper League in 1927, and while some El Paso youngsters may not know it Judge “Buddy” Ward was a fine catcher.

The names go on and on. Al Adkins, Pete Leyva, Dick Filleman, and Macie Hart were all fine ball players. Jim Hillen played a lot of baseball in El Paso, as did Modesto Gomez in the old City League.

The list would also have to include Art Mills, George Bell, Kinko Alderete, Godwin Ragsdale, Brice Shuller, now a dentist, Chuma Minjares, Charlie Aronson, Billy Krause, County Clerk Wally Fields, Ike Lowenstein, Jim Powell and Dago Hunter.

In this immediate area old time baseball fans will remember Forrest “Sleepy” Sackett, Eddie Crozier, Benny Amato and Johnny Mulcahy.

Local ball fans also still remember Frank “Sag” Shea and Bob Carson from their playing fays.

El Paso does have a long and rich tradition in baseball and new chapters are being added each year.

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1951: Police Chief Woolverton To Retire After 40 Years City Service

03/07/1951

Police Chief Willard Cline Woolverton, retiring after 35 years in El Paso Police Department, Tuesday put aside his guns, cleared out his desk and left for a delayed fishing trip t the Gulf Coast.

He is ending over 40 years of service with the city.

The 65-year-old executive, who had held the police chief post since 1949, will retire officially on May 1, but, meanwhile, is taking accumulated sick leave and vacation time for a fishing trip.

“It’s a thrilling job,” is the way Woolverton describes his long service with the department, 20 years of which was spent as detective division chief.

The officer first joined the police department in 1916, when he drove the department’s only patrol wagon, an old Reo.

“Fort Bliss then had around 65,000 state militia and around 30,000 regular soldiers, and they were a tough problem for the local police department,” he said. “The militia didn’t have much respect for the regular soldiers and the regular soldiers didn’t have much respect for the milita. We really had a hard time on the 3 to 11 and graveyard shifts.”

“The old Black Maria served as an ambulance as well as a patrol wagon. All the policemen were mounted on horses then, and posted at four sub-stations.

“It took the mounted policemen so long to get anywhere, that we nearly always took the patrol wagon out on all calls,”Woolverton said.

Quelling an uprising of 70 hobos who appropriated a freight train was the job on which eh had most fun, Woolverton remembers. The hobos took over the freight some distance from El Paso and were bringing it into town when they were met by 20 or 25 policemen and stopped by a road block.

“They scurried up over the hill by the Smelter and the battle began,” Woolverton said. “It took about two hours to get them all rounded up. There was a lot of shooting, but only one man was wounded.”

His most exciting job with the department was arresting a man, wanted for murder in Montana, in a downtown El Paso hotel.

The incident occurred in 1932, when Woolverton was with the detective division. The fugitive had been tracked through the co-operative efforts of Montana and El Paso peace officers, to a local hotel, which he had listed as his El Paso address.

Local officers kept an eye for several days on the hotel, Woolverton said. When the wanted man finally called the hotel to see if he had any mail, there was no one available to make the arrest besides Woolverton.

WENT ALONE

Unable to find any help, he went alone to the hotel and found the fugitive standing at the desk with a gun pointed at the clerk. Woolverton walked up behind him, grabbed his gun and said, “I’m an officer, here to arrest you for stealing a car.” The man was relieved at the lesser charge and let Woolverton take his gun and snap on the handcuffs.

Woolverton is a native of Anderson County, Texas, and was reared in Uvalde. He attended school in Del Rio, after taking a business course in San Angelo. He came to El Paso in 1907 to work for his brother, who ran a local grocery store.

He first started to work for the city in the Fire Department and served as captain of East El Paso Fire station. With the Police Department he was first drive of the patrol wagon, late serving as jailer and sergeant of police. In 1929 he became captain and was in charge of the detective division for nearly 20 years.

He resides with his wife at 3509 North Kansa Street. He has a daughter, Mrs. Pat Cogswell of El Paso and a son, Willard, Jr., who operates Woolverton’s farm in Hudspeth county.

1969:El Paso Artist Exhibits In New York Gallery

03/22/1969

An award-winning El Paso sculptor is having a successful showing of his work at Graham Gallery in New York City,

Luis Jimenez Jr., the son of Mr. and Mrs, Luis Jimenez Sr. of 401 Pocano lane, is showing 12 sculptures and 16 drawings.

Two thirds of the works had been purchased during the first five days of the show, it was reported here, one work

by an Italian collector.

THE YOUNG MAN'S work has previously been included in group shows; Erotic Art. At David Stuart Galleries, in California;

Birds and Beasts, at Graham Gallery; Alliance in Art, at Brandeis University, at ihe Allan Stone Gallery, New York and at Stanford Museum and at Silvermine, Conn.

His awards include a mural commission in the Engineering building at the University of Texas, a scholarship to Cuidad

Universitania, Mexico, and the Claudia and Maurice Stone Memorial award.

HE ATTENDED the University of Texas and taught school in Ysleta for a year before going to New York about three years ago.

Mr. Jimenez' father is largely responsible for the decorations in the El Paso Plaza during the holiday season, and reports that his son has had an interest in art since he was a child.

1995: Gators make triumphant return to plaza

1998: 20-foot `Vaquero' rides into El Paso

1998: Wimbledon champion retires to race horses

06/28/1998

By Bill Knight

El Paso Times

The plot to the novel is simple - and a natural.

The little girl stopped on her way home from piano lessons each day, mesmerized by the dirty old clay tennis court. She sat and watched. Occasionally, she would shag balls. Mostly, she just watched.

Not in her dreams, not in her wildest dreams, did that little girl imagine the game she loved to watch would wrap her up like a magic carpet and sail her away to stardom, take her all around the world, introduce her to the rich and famous, introduce her to a man from one of the nation's most prominent families - a man who would become her husband.

The plot is right out of a Fitzgerald novel.

Today, Margaret Osborne du Pont lives quietly in El Paso's Upper Valley, just a long lob from the tennis courts at El Paso Country Club. She hardly is one to live in the past, working cheerfully with her longtime friend, one-time doubles partner and roommate for the past 32 years, Margaret Varner Bloss, in their horse-racing venture.

Du Pont is the star of the novel, even today an elegant lady - one who grew up in a time when conversation was an art, not a necessity. She can talk easily of today and she can slip gracefully back into that other world that is yesterday.

The memories, after all, are there. So many memories of so many other places, so many other times. Despite growing up modestly, she traveled among a Gatsby-like circuit of the rich and famous in the world of tennis. She won it all in her day - French Opens, Wimbledons, U.S. Opens.

She saw a world change. And she lived it.

· · ·

Born in 1915, du Pont spent her earliest years on a ranch just outside Joseph, Ore., riding a horse to and from school each day with her older brother, Charles.

"Oh, I loved the ranch," du Pont said, her mind obviously whisking her away on a trip back to that simpler time. "Just loved it. I suppose my natural love of animals made me love it. I had my own lambs, had some chickens - and dogs, of course."

Her father, St. Lawrence Osborne, had some health problems, though, and they had to give up the ranch. So the Osbornes moved to Spokane, where the father worked in a garage and the little girl began to discover tennis - watching the people play on that old clay court each day on her way to and from piano lessons.

Two years later, in San Francisco, little Margaret Osborne played tennis for the first time. Her mother, Eva Jane, would take her to the public Golden Gate courts.

"When my mother couldn't take me, I would just put on my skates and roller skate over to the tennis courts," du Pont said. "There was an old building near our house with a brick wall. I used to hit balls off that. Unfortunately, it was uneven brick. My brother didn't play much. My parents didn't play at all. I don't know why I loved the game so much; but I did. I was just fascinated by tennis."

When she was in high school, du Pont began to write about the sport, sending articles to the American Lawn Tennis Magazine and Western Tennis magazine.

Smiling, she said, "It was just tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis."

But this tennis would take her around the world and back again. It would introduce her to the rich and famous and to royalty. It would show her the most glamorous side the world had to offer - and the ugliest.

"My parents didn't have much," she recalled. "After I finished high school, I had two choices - continue playing tennis and write or go to college. I chose to play tennis."

This was the 1930s, not the 1990s. Women hardly had the opportunities they have now. Independence was a word that hardly fit the vocabulary of most women of the 1930s. Yet tennis offered this for du Pont. At 18, she got on a train - all by herself - and traveled three days to reach Philadelphia, where she won the National Girls 18 Tournament.

"That was an experience," she said. "Traveling by myself. Was I scared? I don't remember that I was. Just excited. I loved it all. I loved the travel, going over Donner Pass, changing trains in Chicago ... and, of course, playing tennis."

Perhaps it was the long-ago year of 1939 that made du Pont a champion. She always was talented. But, at that moment, with the world out there hovering on the brink of a calamitous war, she showed the steel in her character and took an entire year off from tournaments.

"I needed a new forehand," she said. "So I just practiced. All day, every day. I worked with Tom Stow of the Berkeley Tennis Club. Oh, I worked hard. I almost quit several times."

But she did not. And her journey through the world - seen through the cross hairs of a tennis racket - continued.

· · ·

The memory said it was somewhere around 1940 when William du Pont Jr. and Margaret Osborne first met. The record said the two were married in 1947.

"He used to come to California for three months every year because his health wasn't very good," she said. "He loved tennis. He was always playing and watching. When we married, we moved to his house in Bellevue, just outside Wilmington, Delaware.

"Of course, I'd been there before," she added. "Most of the tennis players had. During the war, with no tennis in Europe, he would host a grass court tournament, and most of the players would stay in his home. He had four grass courts, one cement court, two outdoor HarTru (a form of clay court) courts and two indoor HarTru courts."

The world put away weapons and joyfully returned to play in 1946. But du Pont will never forget her first trip to Wimbledon that postwar year - a time of joy, a time of sadness. It was when the sport showed her how ugly the world can get.

"I went over with the Wightman Cup team," she said. "None of us had ever been to Europe. It was a pretty sorry sight in London. There was no food. I don't know how those poor people survived. I think about that every so often."

Du Pont and her teammates ate many meals at the American Embassy. William du Pont also helped out, slaughtering some of his beef and flying fresh meat over to a restaurant in London for her.

"It was sad, but it was fun to be playing there," she said. "I went to the French Open that year, too, but I don't remember Paris being as desolate, as destroyed as London. There were 2,000 seats destroyed at Wimbledon, where it was hit by a bomb, and they were roped off. That was sort of gruesome-looking. I remember being in London, looking at the BBC tower. It was the only thing standing. It's marvelous the way they recovered."

Du Pont said it always was interesting to be in Paris for the French Open, but the fact she did not speak French and the fact she detested clay courts took away a little of the luster of that trip.

Her son, Bill, was born in 1952 and this semi-ended du Pont's career. She came back in 1953 to captain the country's Wightman Cup team, and by 1954 she had won another Wimbledon doubles title. She came back and played and played well and "you always play seriously," but it never was quite the same.

Still, she continued to travel the world and live the life.

In 1958, du Pont teamed with Bloss to reach the Wimbledon doubles finals. Du Pont already was well into her 40s, Bloss was 35. They lost to a pair of the game's greats - Althea Gibson and Maria Bueno. Du Pont later teamed with Australian great Neal Fraser to win the Wimbledon doubles title in 1962.

"That's one that got away," Bloss said, laughing. "We played for fun at that time. The World's Fair was in Brussels that year, and we went by there for a week. We played it hard, but it was fun. It was a thrill for me to be in the finals."

Du Pont and her husband divorced in 1964. She stayed in the eastern part of the United States so father and son could remain close. But William du Pont died on Dec. 31, 1965, and Margaret du Pont moved to El Paso in 1966 ... and has been here ever since.

"I just loved it here," du Pont said. "I loved the weather and the people and my good friend Margaret was here. Her parents had always been so gracious to me. They were just wonderful people."

Her son, Bill du Pont, who now lives in Orlando and is in the horse business - selling in Kentucky, owning horses in France and Australia - can barely remember the tennis days.

"I'm not sure I ever knew about her fame," he said. "She was Mom, just Mom. Subconsciously, I would have known - but not appreciated. I do remember going to a fair number of tennis tournaments, which I now recognize as big tournaments - and probably being a pain in the neck. But, most of all, she was just a great mom. And still is."

Bloss, who was a U.S. and All-England champion at badminton, a U.S. champion at squash and an all-around accomplished athlete, laughed and said, "We've known each other about 103 years.

"Everything just worked out," Bloss added. "We come from the same thinking, the same competitiveness. She's pretty easy to get along with. I'm a little more volatile. I have my ups and downs, where I get excited and get mad. I like my way, because it's fun. But she has a mind I respect a lot. She has a very good mind."

The two are both active and competitive with their horses. They love the animals - and never bet on them. It is all done for the love of the animals.

"I kind of run the horse racing," Bloss said, "because I have a little more experience. But, sometimes I'll stew over a problem, go back and forth and back and forth. Then, I'll ask her and she'll come out with the most succinct answer. The answer isn't tempered by anything but the facts."

El Pasoans who have come to know du Pont speak of her almost in terms of awe.

"I had always heard of Margaret du Pont," said El Pasoan Christy Balsiger, who is a member of a family that has been chosen National Tennis Family of the Year. "I worked the credential booth at the U.S. Open one year and I was excited about finally meeting her. But she did not come to the Open that year.

"We've since met and she has become a member of our advisory board and a donor and a real supporter for the El Paso Tennis Foundation," Balsiger added. "She's just such a wonderful lady. She is very, very down to earth; just a lovely lady."

Eric Alwan, publicity director at Sunland Park Racetrack, said, "I just think she's one of the great treasures in El Paso. She's got to be without peer around here as someone who won the wealth of major titles in a major sport. And yet she seems so unaffected by it all.

"She's also been highly successful in racing - she and Mrs. Bloss," Alwan said. "She's just a wonderful, wonderful lady. So successful, yet so very unaffected by it all."

Du Pont's son, Bill, hardly is surprised by such a reaction to his mother.

"She's very quiet and very humble," he said. "She was always known as a terrific sportsperson. She was very renowned for her sportsmanship. She has always been a person who is very focused, who is not concerned about elaborate shows. She's very much her own person. She's done so much, yet she remains unaffected by it."

· · ·

Margaret du Pont remains calm, succinctly eloquent. She lived a life among the rich and famous and was never once affected by it.

Smiling, she said, "I was never impressed by the du Pont name. I'm still not."

She still is in love with the game of tennis, still watches it, maybe even is still mesmerized by it ... just like that little girl in Spokane so many years ago. She occasionally still returns to London and Paris and New York for the big tournaments. But she is far more content living her life in El Paso's Upper Valley.

It is the perfect plot - so simple, so natural. It is the novel made into a movie. It is a Hollywood story ... with a most classic, yet most un-Hollywood-like leading lady.

Margaret Osborne du Pont

Born: March 4, 1915, in Joseph, Ore.; grew up in San Francisco.

Currently: Resident of El Paso since 1966; successful in horse-racing business with long-time friend Margaret Varner Bloss.

U.S. Open: Singles champion 1948, 1949, 1950; doubles champion 1941-50, 1955, 1956, 1957. Mixed doubles champion 1943 through 1946, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960.

Wimbledon: Singles champion 1947. Doubles champion 1946, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1954. Mixed doubles champion 1962.

French Open: Singles champion 1946, 1949. Doubles champion 1946, 1947, 1949.

Hall of Fame: Inducted into International Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame, 1967; also a member of the El Paso and San Francisco Athletic Halls of Fame.

Du Pont Park: A public park with tennis courts is named in her honor in San Francisco.

1927: Elopement Ends Behind Jail Bars

04/04/1927

___

Pretty Kansas City Girl And Companion Held By Police

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PLANNED TO WED

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Couple Was Riding In Stolen Auto, Authorities Charge

___

Pretty Grace Brown, 20 of Kansas City, Mo., was locked up in the county jail last night following the shattering of a lover’s romance. In another cell was George W. Blair, 23, of Troy, Kansas, who with Grace was arrested in El Paso.

Both are being held while officers investigate the ownership of the automobile in which they were riding and determine whether the youth paid the expenses of his companion on the trip from Missouri.

Blair was arrested by Sergeant W.W. Anderson and Detective R.E. Dawson. There was at first some question whether to make charges against the girl.

“Lock me up,” she said between sobs, “I haven’t any place to go and don’t care what happens to me now. We had expected to be married in El Paso and now every thing is ruined.”

Grace refused to give any definite information about her relatives, saying she did not wish to bring disgrace upon them. She said she had worked in a store in Kansas City until she started on the trip with Blair a few days ago.

“We loved each other so,” she sobbed, “and thought every thing would be all right as soon as we could find a minister in El Paso.”

It was the appearance of the car which aroused the suspicions of detectives. It was covered with mud and dirt. Blair, when questioned, was indefinite in his answer. He was taken to headquarters for further investigation.

At headquarters Blair said that he owned the car and that it had been given him by his parents as a wedding present after his marriage to Grace. But Grace when questioned separately did not give the same details.

While Blair was being questioned a telegram arrived from Troy Doniphan, county sheriff. It was a very definite missive, giving the license number, engine number and description of the car and stating that it belonged to a Troy man and had been stolen in Kansas City, Mo.

When confronted with the information in this telegram, Blair admitted that the wedding present story was unfounded.

Blair said he was employed by a business firm in Troy, but last night neither had given definite information as to relatives or employers.

1955: 5000 Flee El Paso In Evacuation Test

June 15, 1955

About 5000 El Pasoans In 1000 motor vehicles fled into the desert today in a mass evacuation after sirens sounded a make-believe enemy air raid.

The fleeing civilians moved north from the City along Dyer street and Highway 54 in what Civil Defense officials described as "an absolute success" in El Paso's first major test of wholesale evacuation under simulated enemy attack.

"The evacuation was a complete success from every standpoint," said Charles C. Bowman Jr., Civil Defense Chief of Area 1, who was in charge of the operation. "The movement started seconds after the siren sounded at 10 a. m. and 15 minutes later the major portion of the column was miles out in open country."

Response excellent

Twenty minutes after the siren sounded, the tail end of the evacuation caravan was moving up Dyer street, and by 10:39 the entire formation was miles along the Newman road.

“A tremendous success in every way,” said Liet. Col. David T. Birney, El Paso Civil defense director.

Col. A. M. Lawrence, chief warden, said: “Amazing – it was simply amazing! The response and cooperation was finer than anyone expected.”

The evacuation of the “bombed and burning City” Area 1 was carried out without a major accident, and without a traffic bottleneck.

The moving formation carried a mass of solemn citizens, adults and children.

There was no laughter, no joking remarks, no belittling the significance of El Paso’s first test flight into the open from devastating enemy attack from the air.

Guardsmen Moved In

“Everything was orderly – absolutely so,” said Police Chief J. C. Risinger as he stood in front of the operation headquarters at The Ranch on Dyer street and watched the last of the evacuation vehicles move north.

City, County and State police and National Guardsmen moved into the evacuated area as the citizens moved out. Every precaution was taken to avoid looting.

The evacuated area was north of Fort boulevard and between Franklin Mountain and the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Among the first vehicles to swing into Dyer street while the siren still screamed its warning was a pickup truck driven by a woman with a dozen children as passengers. She stopped for seconds in front of the control office and received a signal from an officer to proceed. The light truck with its solemn-faced occupants wheeled back into the northbound line and helped set the pace for the exodus.

54 Mile Speed

The line moved on the left side of Dyer street and Highway 54, with the right lane held open for southbound traffic. That system was used to expedite the column movement that turned left at Hueco road north of Newman.

The long caravan proceeded under orders for 50-mile speed at the outset, but that movement pace slowed as it settled down to the circuit that brought the formation back along White Sands road. The turning point on Highway 54 is about 22 miles, from downtown El Paso.

An overhead plane reported to command headquarters 20 minutes after the siren sounded that Area 1 was evacuated. All vehicles that were going were gone. A stillness settled over the evacuated area as the guards watched every movement.

Dyer street was empty in both directions from The Ranch at 10:25. Ambulances stood in readiness off street, with drivers beside them waiting for possible call to accidents.

Helicopter Flies

Service cars or wreckers with drivers alongside also stood alongside the control headquarters building.

Other ambulances and wreckers were stationed miles out on the desert highway, awaiting instructions from the Civil Air Patrol planes and the helicopter that had been loaned by the Ft. Bliss Army Aviation section.

The helicopter came down the moving column of vehicles at the last of the caravan formed and moved north. The helicopter provided back-and-forth escort up and down the line, reporting progress of the column, and that all was going well. The helicopter and planes circled at the head of the ground column turned west at Hueco road, and exchanged information with the ground patrol.

Evacuation Supervisor Bowman discussed the purpose of the test while the caravan was making the circuit.

Whole City Plan

The aim is to see how quickly El Paso could be evacuated in the event of an enemy air raid," he said. 'This tests only a portion of the City. But this test proves that all of El Paso could be evacuated in minutes if the necessity arises."

Mr. Bowman was asked if the fleeing column would be an easy mark for strafing fighter planes.

"There would be no strafing planes from an enemy attack," he said. "No Civil Defense training takes account of such military action. The first enemy planes would be bombers so high they would never be, seen unless shot down by our forces. Our aim is to train for evacuation of population centers attack from high altitude bombers.

"El Paso is getting the central idea. This proves it."

The first car back from the Newman area after the evacuation was driven by Mrs. W. D. Hearst of Vulcan street. With her were her two sons, Bill and Jim, and two neighbors, Mrs. Helen Chadwood and Mrs. Doris Painter.

She Hurried

"When I heard the sirens I locked the house and left." Mrs. Hearst said. "I had already arranged to pick up my neighbors. We took

food and had a picnic. Everything seemed to run smoothly."

One auto driven by a woman ran out of gas. Fortunately there were gasoline trucks nearby and she got a refill.

Seven buses loaned by the El Paso Natural Gas Co., carrying women and children, turned off the wrong road and were "lost" for half an hour.

Two cars became stuck in the sand on Hueco road. A wrecker, dispatched by radio, got them out.

Barry Engle of Pollard street, in charge of the telephone switchboard in The Ranch headquarters, gave g typical example of how well advance preparations were made.

"We are handling something like 10 calls a minute from workers at this new installation—but everything is running easy," he said. "I

have good help."

While he talked his aides were plugging and unplugging calls like veteran operators. “I’m glad this thing is going over big," said Miriam Bowman, 13, daughter of Evacuation Supervisor Bowman.

“My mother and dad have been buried in the big test for days and nights. Life would have been miserable if this had flopped."

"But it's a howling success!" said Mrs. Bowman, who stood nearby as her husband kept an easy hand on action as the siren wailed.

"We don't have a message to deliver—and that's a great disappointment," Betty Rowland complained at the messenger table.

Girl Scouts staffed the messenger center, and Boy Scouts ran the messages, some mounted on scooters. There were messages to deliver as the action picket up.

Mrs. Terry Pfister, recruiting volunteers for duty at various posts kept up a running call:

"Volunteers — volunteers — volunteers—we need volunteers for post duty!"

There was ready response every time she called with men, women, boys and girls rushing up to lend their services.

“This is one of the finest organizations I ever have contacted,” said Capt. Mario Acevedo of the Texas State Guard. : Everything is moving without a hitch.”

1973: Marshal Stoudenmire Credited With Straightening Out El Paso

May 7, 1973

Dallas Stoudenmire was marshal for the City of El Paso from April 11,1881, until May 29, 1882, and then served as deputy United States Marshal for West Texas, headquartered here, from July 13 until his death Sept. 18,1882.

That's 58 weeks in the city's employ and nine and a half as a federal man,

YET STOUDENMIRE, fast on the draw, temperamental, controversial, was credited with doing more than any other one man to curb the lawlessness that dominated El Paso in its early days.

He was hired by the City Council to clean up the town after four predecessors in less than a year had not been up to the job. The Texas Rangers had been called in to patrol the town before Stoudenmire, an imposing six feet four, arrived from Llano County.

HIS EARLIEST claim to fame was a shooting incident three days after he was hired. Two Mexican men had been found dead a few miles north of El Paso. During the inquest on El Paso street, John Hale, a rancher suspected in the slayings, took issue with the Spanish-to-English translations being given by Gus Krempkau.

Hale shot Krempkau in the chest, Stoudenmire, who was walking across the street, turned and fired at Hale, missed him killing a fruit peddler, and shot again, getting Hale between the eyes.

George Campbell, who had been fired as one of the marshals preceding Stoudenmire, pulled a pistol and shouted, "This is not my fight." Stoudenmire shot him, too.

THE INCIDENT became known as the "four men dead in five seconds" shootout and has been re-enacted locally by history buffs, A plaque near the Capri Theater, 107 S. El Paso street, marks the spot.

Stoudenmire's later career was entangled with a personal feud with three brothers, the Mannings. After a series of incidents, the crowning blow came when the marshal's brother-in-law. S. M. "Doc" Cummings, was killed in the Manning saloon Feb. 14, 1882, while Dallas was out of town getting married.

ON HIS RETURN, the marshal vowed vengeance and began drinking heavily. One evening, incensed by a sermon about his growing reputation as a boozer, he went to the Church of St. Clement, then on Mesa street, and emptied both six-shooters at the church bell. Since its ringing ordinarily meant fire, half the town leaped out of bed to see about the emergency.

This sort of thing didn't set well with the City Council who asked for Stoudenmire's resignation and, after an uncomfortable meeting at which he showed up drunk and twirling his guns, they finally got it, He then was appointed federal deputy marshal, a job that took him out of town from time to time,

ON SEPT. 17, he returned from a trip and went into the Manning saloon, either for a drink or looking for a suspected criminal. He was at that time under an uneasy truce with the brothers, who happened to be out at the time. The next morning they heard he had been looking for them, or interpreted his presence in the saloon that way, Friends of both parties tried to ward off a fight by setting up a peaceful talk at the saloon.

Stoudenmire walked in and saw two of the three brothers. He asked that the third be included in the conversation. Somehow, quick as fire, he had words with Doc Manning while Jim had left the room to go after Frank. Both drew their guns, Doc hitting Stoudenmire in the right arm and in the shirt pocket where the bullet was caught in a wad of papers.

THE MEN MOVED into the street where Stoudenmire shot Doc in the gun arm. Doc grabbed the marshal and, as they wrestled, Jim Manning shot Stoudenmire in the head, killing him.

In separate trials the Manning brothers were acquitted of murder charges. Frank and Doc both moved to Arizona where they died in 1925 and Jim moved to California where he died in 1915.

Stoudenmire had a short career as a lawman, He didn't make any money at it, either. His fellow Masons took up a collection for his burial expenses. His widow had him buried in Columbus, Tex., where they had been married only a few short months earlier. Yet, even in his death, he had made his mark on El Paso. The town was said to be headed away from its days of lawlessness, thanks to the spirit of the fearless marshal.

1986: Nostalgic hamburger drive-in

11/27/1986

By Del Jones/El Paso Times

Twenty-five years ago, before El Paso met McDonald’s, the Cox family opened a hamburger drive-in on the West Side. It was the day before Thanksgiving.

The Cox family was warned that Mesa Street was not a good place to start a business. Mile long stretches separated stores and more tumbleweeds than customers blew by.

But Mesa had just been widened to six lanes, and Robert Cox Sr. figured there had to be a reason. Seven years later the millionth car passed through the Charcoaler.

Fast-food franchises have since discovered the joy of Mesa. More than 40 other restaurants have moved in. But all must compete with a pair of Charcoalers, still owned by the Cox family.

They moved to El Paso from Oklahoma City in 1961 because Robert Cox Jr. had asthma. At age 10 1/2 he weighed 52 pounds and a doctor said he would die unless he moved to a dry climate.

“I doubled my weight,” in no time at all Robert Jr. said.

Burgers were 35 cents in 1961, Cokes 15 cents – pretty steep prices for the day. But the Charcoaler was the first in town with a drive-up window and the Cox family moved cars through at the rate of one per minute.

The Charcoaler also was the first to take orders with an intercom, and the family tells stories of people, upon hearing a voice, searching comically for a human body.

A taste, not only of hamburgers, but of nostalgia lingers for many El Pasoans who spent much f their youth hanging out at the Charcoaler.

Every city has a place were teenagers gather. “We were that place,” Robert Co Sr. said.

A fight once broke out after a high school football game between Austin and Coronado, bringing 13 police cars to the Charcoaler. Squad cars routinely patrolled the grounds.

Almost overnight teen-age problems disappeared in the early 1970s. “That’s when they let 18-year-olds go to bars,” Robert Cox Sr. said. Fewer cars went through the Charcoaler drive-in after that, but sales increased.

The menu has not changed much in 25 years. There are now 11 main items instead of seven. The 12th, a burrito, will be added soon.