Tales from the Morgue

1980: Mayor, other characters, preen for silver-screen stardom

Photo: 13 JUL 1980 - Extras mill around the movie set at Concordia cemetery for scene from "The Border" to be shot. (Times photo by Carlos Rosales)

07/01/1980

Mayor Tom Westfall said Monday he is ready for the glitter and fame of movie stardom.

Westfall will make his acting debut this summer with jack Nicholson and Valerie Perrine in a locally filmed movie titled “The Border”

Alderman Polly Harris, a movie veteran (she played a waitress in the El Paso-filmed “Hamster of Happiness,” an unreleased feature), also will be in the movie.

It’s a small part, the mayor said, but it could be the budding of a third career. Before entering the limelight of politics, Westfall was an FBI agent, a profession that, if Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is to be believed, is fraught with the human drama of cinema magic.

The mayor’s show biz break comes in a film with a storyline that has strong El Paso ties. The plot follows a Los Angeles couple who move to this area to escape the smog. The husband (Nicholson) becomes a border patrolman, befriending and falling in love with a young woman fleeing devastation of a Guatemalan earthquake.

Westfall, Mrs. Harris and other community leaders, including a bank president, will test their thespian talents in what the film people describe as an “upper-class summer party” scene.

Casting director Rick Barr asked for people who can play local “big wigs.” El Paso’s hostess for film crews, Norma Mayo, called community leaders she knew and arranged a get-together Thursday night at the Chamber of Commerce.

Barr attended the party and decided the persons there fit the bill.

When the party scene is filmed in mid-July at an Upper Valley ranch, all participants are to bring two different colored outfits.

Mrs. Harris, determined to be just what the director ordered, said she still has to do some checking to find out if long or short gowns are in order.

Although advance personnel from “The Boarder” joked that they hoped there will be some nudity in the movie, the party scene as described at the chamber gathering contained no hint of drugs or sex that might be embarrassing to the mayor, an anti-pornography crusader.

The mayor said he is taking the career plunge because “we need to encourage motion pictures to come here and shoot films.”

In a bid to attract tinsel-town dollars, local leaders plan to apply for a federal grant to build and Old El Paso movie set on the east side of the Franklin Mountains, perhaps in the Wilderness Park Area.

There also is some talk about construction of a Tarzan village in El Paso, said Dale Lockett of the El Paso Film Liaison Office of the Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Lockett said he told an interested film company there is plenty of land available in El Paso for a jungle set. But, Lockett said, he hasn’t heard from the producers since he sent them a letter describing the desert.

Members of “The Border” film crew have been in town about three weeks preparing for shooting. About 3,000 persons have been interviewed for walk-on parts. Casting is closed but may be reopened later, Barr said.

Barr said he can’t be swayed by singing telegrams, roses or bottles of champagne, all of which he has received already from one local aspirant.

The film people made a big hit with county commissioners Monday when they tentatively promised the county a credit line in return for use of Lower Valley roads.

“The Border” promoters did not mention to commissioners that the mayor and Mrs. Harris will have faces, not just a credit line in the movie.

Lower Valley commissioner Rogelio Sanchez said later he did not care that Westfall had a shot at stardom and Sanchez didn’t. Apparently not everyone has gone Hollywood.

The Border photo gallery

Town names reflect area’s rich heritage

05/07/1987

By John Laird
El Paso Times

From Anthony to Weed, town names around El Paso and southern New Mexico reflect the region’s melting-pot heritage.

The most frequent source of town names is the Spanish language, which has supplied such words as El Paso, Socorro, Las Cruces and Animas.

Geographic terms also contribute to a wide assortment of town names; Cloudcroft, Artesia and Silver City.

Early settlers provided namesakes such as Clint and Mayhill.

When railroads arrived in the region in the early 1880s, surveyors and foremen were anxious to bestow family names on new communities, thus Fabens, Lordsburg and Deming.

Military commanders with names such as Hancock and Hatch were honored.

The map even reflects derivations of Indian words with town or community names such as Canutillo and Ysleta. Also accorded their places on the map are a banker (McNary), rancher (Newman), horse race track (Sunland Park) and a radio show (Truth or Consequences).

This list provides information on the sources of town and community names in the region. Information was obtained from the three-volume “Handbook of Texas,” published by the Texas State Historical Association; “New Mexico Place Names,” edited by T.M. Pearce; “Texas Towns,” by Fred Massengill; “Pass of the North, Four Centuries on the Rio Grand,” by C.L. Sonnichsen; and the Texas Almanac. Assisting on much of the research was Mary Sarber, director of the El Paso Public Library’s Southwest Collection.

Upper Valley

Anthony – about 20 miles north of El Paso between Interstate 10 and the Rio Grande on the Texas-New Mexico state line. When the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1881, the station was placed on the Texas side and named La Tuna. A Mexican woman named Sabrina had a chapel on the New Mexico side dedicated to San Antonio, and when a town was started, she rejected the name La Tuna and insisted on Anthony in honor of the chapel.

Another legend about the origin of Anthony connects the town with Anthony’s Nose, an outline on the Franklin Mountains. But the origin of that geological formation’s name is unknown. There also is a promontory on the Hudson River in New York known as Anthony’s nose.

Canutillo – about 14 miles north of El Paso between I-10 and the Rio Grande in Texas. Legend has it that canute is an Indian word from an unspecified tribe that mean alkali flat. In the early days, Indians gathered near Canutillo to play organized games. The town began in 1823 as part of the Mexican Colonization Law. The settlement was abandoned in 1883 because of Indian attacks. The town began again in 1855 and was surveyed by Anson Mills in 1860.

La Tuna – Between Canutillo and Anthony, La Tuna is the site of a federal prison. The name is Spanish for prickly pear, which grown in profusion in the area.

Sunland Park – in Dona Ana County, N.M. The community takes its name from the horse race track. It was incorporated in 1984.

Vinton – about 17 miles north of El Paso near the Rio Grande in Texas. It was named in 1880 for railroad surveyor J.C. Vinton.

Lower Valley

Clint – about 20 miles southeast of El Paso. The town was named for Mary Clinton Collins, an early settler, in the early 1880s. No explanation survives as to why the town name is an abbreviated form of the woman’s maiden name.

Fabens – About 30 miles southeast of El Paso, Fabens was named in 1880 for George Fabens, an official of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Fort Hancock – About 55 miles southeast of El Paso, in Hudspeth County, Fort Hancock was named in 1882 for the military post’s first commander, Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock.

McNary – About 60 miles southeast of El Paso, in Hudspeth County, McNary was founded about 1910 and originally was called Nulo, Spanish for null, void or useless. In the mid-1920s the name was changed to honor James M. McNary, and El Paso banker.

Socorro – about 15 miles southeast of El Paso. In 1682 a Piro Indian pueblo and mission was named Nuestra Senora de Concepcion del Socorro. The first North American priest, Father Oliver Rueffan, arrived in June 1873. Like the original Paso del Norte town, Socorro at first was south of the Rio Grande, until a flood redirected the river in the early 1800s and forced the settlment to move.

Tornillo – about 35 miles southeast of El Paso. Tornillo is a Spanish noun that means screw, vice or clamp. The town is named for the Tornillo bean, which is shaped like a screw and grows in the area.

Ysleta – Now in the El Paso city limits, Ysleta was settled in 1682 and is the oldest permanent settlement in Texas. Refugees from the upper Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico settled Ysleta del Sur. The word comes from the Isleta tribe in northern New Mexico. Isleta is Spanish for island, and the original Isleta pueblo was an island in the Rio Grande.

Northeast El Paso

Newman – Near the Texas-New Mexico state line, it was named in the late 1800s for rancher Henry L. Newman.

Southern New Mexico

Alamogordo – on U.S. Highway 54 at the western base of Sacramento Mountains. The name is Spanish for “fat cottonwood.” Named in 1898 by John and Charles Eddy, early promoters of the Pecos Valley and the Tularosa Basin.

Animas – 40 miles southwest of Lordsburg. The name is Spanish for “soul” or “courage.” It was named in 1843.

Artesia – 36 miles north of Carlsbad. It was named in 1903 for the discovery of artesian water in the vicinity.

Capitan – 20 miles east of Carrizozo. The name is Spanish for “captain.” It was named for nearby Capitan Peak. The town was known as Gray (for homesteader Seaborn T. Gray) from 1884 to 1900, when the railroad arrived and changed the name.

Carlsbad – on the Pecos River, 36 miles south of Artesia. The town originally was named in 1888 for John and Charles Eddy. When it was learned that the mineral content of a spring northwest of the town rivaled that of the Carlsbad springs in Bohemia, public opinion grew to change the name from Eddy to Carlsbad. Townspeople voted in 1899 to change the name. The city officially changed its name in 1918 in a proclamation by Gov. W.E. Lindsey.

Carrizozo – 57 miles north of Alamogordo. It was named in 1899 for nearly Carrizo (Spanish for “reed grass”) Springs.

Cloudcroft – 13 miles east of Alamogordo. Cloudcroft was named in 1899 by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which built a branch line to timber camps. The name was a salute to the location among the clouds, at an altitude of 8,640 feet.

Deming – 55 miles west of Las Cruces. Deming earlier was known as “the city of windmills.” It was named in 1881 for Ann Deming, daughter of John Jay Deming, a sawmill owner in Indiana, who married railroad builder Charles Crocker.

Hatch – 33 miles northwest of Las Cruces. Hatch was named in 1880 for Gen. Edward Hatch, commander of Fort Santa Barbara on the east bank of the Rio Grande, north of the current townsite.

La Mesa – Six miles south of Las Cruces, La Mesa is named for a nearby lava flow called Black Mesa. It was founded in 1854 by Spanish-Americans.

Las Cruces – 45 miles northwest of El Paso. Las Cruces is Spanish for “the crosses.” One certainty is that a collection of crosses marked a burial ground in the 1940s. According to one version Apaches attacked a Spanish caravan in 1848, and a search party erected crosses where the victims’ bodies were found. Another versions says the Indians attacked an earlier caravan of ox carts from Chihuahua, and that a second party of freighters later found the bodies and erected crosses.

Lordsburg – 58 miles west of Deming, Lordsburg was named in 1881 for an engineer in charge of a railroad construction crew. His first name now is uncertain.

Mesilla – Two miles south of Las cruces, Mesilla is Spanish for “little table.” It was so named because it is built on a little piece of tableland that rises above the Riog Grande. The town was settled in 1850.

Orogrande – southwest of Alamogordo, 26, miles from the Texas line. The name is Spanish for “big gold.” It was named in the late 1800s for many gold-mining operations in the vicinity.

Roswell – Seven miles west of the junction of the Pecos and Hondo rivers, Roswell was named in 1871 by professional gambler and settler Van Smith for his father, Roswell Smith of Omaha, Neb.

Ruidoso – 36 miles northeast of Alamogordo. The name is Spanish for “noisy,” to describe a fast, noisy creek that runs through the town. It was known until 1882 as Dowlin’s Mill.

Silver City – 52 miles northwest of Deming, Silver City was named in 1874 in honor of the mining boom. It previously was known as San Vicente de la Cienaga.

Truth or Consequences – 72 miles northwest of Las Cruces. The town changed its name March 31, 1950, from Hot Springs. The city voted to accept the offer of Ralph Edwards, master of ceremonies of a radio show, to adapt the name of the show in return for an annual fiesta that would include the program being conducted in the city. The community commonly is referred to as “T or C,” and its high school still is named Hot Springs.

Weed – 27 miles southeast of Alamogordo. It was named in the early 1880s for settler W.H. Weed of white Oaks, N.M. (in Lincoln County.)