The American Legion Dugout
By Lloyd Rector, son of Foister Rector
[“The American Legion Post #206 was organized in April 1934 and chartered in March 1939. The first officers of this post were: Ray Smith, Commander; Clyde Goodwine, Adjutant; J. .J. Horton, 1st Commander; F. L. Todd, 2nd Commander; Scottie Weir, Finance Officer; H. D. McCandless, Chaplain; J..J. Williams, Historian; and William H. Massie, Sergeant-at-arms. Other charter members included W.E. Anderson, A. J. Mincher, Parker Mann, Fred Bell, A. H. Hill, H. G. Beene, John F. Stanford, A. L. Branley, Lonnie Smith, A. W. Schwartz, David Moseley and Frank Griffith. Their first meetings were held at Scottie Weir’s Café and Recreation Hall in the 600 block of West Main. Then Mrs. A. W. Henschel donated three lots at 7th and Washington and Leo Pottishman started the building fund with a donation of $100. Through pie suppers and personal donations, the building got underway with a basement of 20 feet by 60 feet being dug. Plans were for a building to be built on top of the basement at a later time, but these plans were eventually discarded. The basement was used for several years.” Prairie Progress, 1981 DB]
In the late 1930s a few of Friona’s World War I Veterans decided that they needed to have a place of their own to meet. Some of these men that I remember were David Moseley, Frank Griffith, Arthur Apple, Fred Dennis, Virge Whitley, Seldon Warren, Scott Weir, Roy Price and my dad, Foister Rector. They took their teams of horses and equipment: slips and fresnos*, shovels, picks and hoes, a cement mixer and vats to mix concrete in and they started to work.
They dug the main hole as deep as they could with the horses hitched to slips and fresnos; then with picks and shovels and other tools, they squared the ends and the sides. They poured the concrete floor and made the walls out of concrete blocks. A few days later, after the concrete had cured out [or dried], they put on a wooden top and made the entrances. The men donated all their labor and the ladies fixed dinner for the men everyday until they had finished. [Women’s Auxiliary organized 1939].
With the dugout finished, the ladies continued their fund raising with bake sales, quilts, doilies, etc. They even sponsored the first queen’s contest in Friona with Johnny Lynn “Uncle Jay” from Amarillo’s KGNC as master of ceremonies. The Legion helped donate funds to build the VA Hospital in Amarillo in 1940 in one of their earliest projects, aided veterans, helped needy families, supported Boy Scouts and Boys State, and many other community activities.
In the early 40s my dad, Foister Rector, was Commander of American Legion Post 206. He traveled all over Texas to different meetings in order to keep up with things and to learn how to handle their business. Officers went to Laredo, Waco and Dallas. He was also instrumental, along with other legion members and the federal government, in getting the Veteran’s war monument put in the city park with the names of Parmer County Veterans who have died in the service of their country.
In 1945, American Legion Post 206 bought the old Syndicate Hotel building from Muleshoe’s American Legion Post [because they could not move it past the draw]. They had it moved to the corner of 7th and Washington where it sits today. After that the post let the Boy Scouts have the dugout for a place to meet until the Scouts built their Scout Hut located west of the Community Center.
*This 20' by 60' dugout would have been quite a large undertaking with horse drawn equipment. A slip was a simple ‘oversized shovel’, but it and the buckboard scraper were great improvements over just hand tools. The Fresno Scraper which was invented in 1883 by James Porteous, a Scottish immigrant, in Fresno California was an improved version of the slip. In his wagon shop, Porteous created the Fresno Scraper with three patented designs which he purchased from William Deidrick, Frank Dusy and Abijab McCall. Each design improved upon the other. “The scraper transformed the backbreaking labor of land leveling, ditch digging and road and railroad building changing the way that the earth could be scraped, moved, dumped and leveled.” It was the 19th Century forerunner of today’s giant earth moving equipment which can scrape 30 cubic yards of dirt and move it at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. www.valleyhistory.org The dugout still stands today, but age is telling on it.