The Great Prairie Fire of 1906: My Ranch Escaped - Part 2

By George Francis McLean, Lora Brown
Reprinted from “Prairie Progress” c. 1981
Submitted by Darla Bracken


“The fire started in the morning, somewhere north of old Fort Sumner and by three o’clock that afternoon, the fire had crossed over into Texas just east of where Bellview, NM now stands. The main path of the lead fire was just south of the Breaks north of what is now Curry County, but the change in the wind had brought the fire back west and southwest through the center of Curry County, and that is why so many shacks were burned. These shacks or small houses were the temporary homes of homesteaders, who had taken up this land in Eastern New Mexico and there was a house on nearly every half or quarter section in that country—nearly all of which were burned up by this prairie fire.”

“Practically all of the grass in Curry County in New Mexico and on the greater portion of Deaf Smith and Parmer counties in Texas were burned, so there was nothing left for thousands of cattle to feed upon. My range was not burned; neither was that of Joe Rhea nor John DeOliveira, but all the Syndicate grass was burned, that was north of the Sante Fe Railroad. This widespread and disastrous fire was immediately followed by a raging blizzard and snow storm, covering the entire plains with a heavy coat of snow. This entire country was fully stocked with cattle owned by the Syndicate, and it was a pitiful sight to see them starving. North of where Friona, Texas now stands was all open country clear to the Caprock, some fifty miles north. John Armstrong, division manager for the Syndicate, began rushing their cattle off the burned and snow- covered country as rapidly as he could using every cowboy he could find anywhere. Finally when enough could not be found in Curry, Deaf Smith and Parmer counties, he began shipping in cowboys by train with their ponies in cattle cars. To push so many cattle right into the teeth of this howling blizzard was a full-sized job. My crew helped them get them off my grass and move them to a point on the railroad where Clovis, NM now stands for shipment. The Syndicate people estimated their loss at 5,000 head. That fire and blizzard were the beginning of the Syndicate selling of its plains land, as this experience had convinced them that it was too hazardous to run cattle on the open plains in the winter. Such was the fire and blizzard of 1906, and about every twenty years, we have another blizzard, but the plow has put the real open prairie fire out of business.”

Another eye witness

Another eye witness to this tragic fire was Lora Brown who was a small girl who lived with her folks apparently north of Melrose and who reported in 1941 that George McLean’s story of the fire did not make it one-half as horrible as it really was. She says that at the time of the fire, her father and older brother had gone to Bovina, Texas, 55 miles away for a wagon load of supplies, leaving her mother, a younger sister, and herself at the claim. “We saw smoke rising in the West and the wind was getting stronger; but we did not worry as Father had plowed a fire guard around our two-room house and we did not think a prairie fire was much in such short grass, anyhow. As we had nothing to do, we just watched the smoke boil up and soon we could smell the fire. A short time later, we were not scared, but it was coming straight at us. We looked up and a cow chip had blown and had lighted on our roof and was burning; is we got busy to put it out. Mother boosted sister and I on top of the house to put out the fire with buckets of water she handed to us. Our water gave out and smoke soon began boiling out of the house. “

“A cow chip had blown inside our house and got into our bed. Nothing could save the house. We went to dragging what things we could save out of there. Soon everything was burned up. The smoke nearly put our eyes out and we could not see hardly at all. Finally night came. No moon, or stars just pure black. We had no bedding and it was cold, but the fire had made us all friendly. The cow finally laid down and we lay down against her to keep warm: then the pigs came and lay down beside us and kept us from freezing. After about a month, it seemed, the sun finally made it around again and daylight showed that everything was gone—burned up, except the lake of water about a mile away. When my father got back, he loaded us in the wagon and made for Bovina for more grub and bedding. We had been hauling water from McLean’s well 35 miles toward Bovina so we headed there. When we got there, we found that the fire had not burned out McLean’s nor Joe Rhea, and I have often wondered why God let us poor settlers burn up and protected big cow ranchers and not burn them up like we were burned. But since hearing how they burnt fire guards and then back-fired to keep the fire from crossing the fire guards, I can see how they were protected.”

“But the horrors of sitting in pitch dark and wondering if the world was all burning up, huddled up all night with the wind blowing the smoke and quite often smoldering cow chips breaking into the flames looking like demons’ eyes blinking ready to attack us at any time out of the pitch black night, is no fun. I can still, after thirty-five years, smell the fire and sometimes wake at night and see the demons’ eyes blinking at me just as they did that night in 1906.”

The late Clayton Reed, who sold land to the Sante Fe to build Clovis once said that this prairie fire occurred in October of 1906, but Mrs. Anna (John) Daniel, daughter of John DeOliveira, says that fire occurred the winter of 1905-06 as she helped fight the fire as did her father, who died in the Spring of 1906. Another old timer, the late Milton Brown, reported that the blizzard started the 17th of November of 1906 and snowed almost continuously until the 21st. The late Fred Ashley, who lived north of Melrose, pinpointed the exact date: Saturday, November 18, 1906. He told that it started near the Ragland [NM] Caprock by wood-haulers. It isn’t strange that there is a difference of opinion on when and how the great prairie fire started—it was nearly 75 years [now 100] ago, a LONG TIME AGO for even those with the best memories.

Note: We are certainly indebted to these eye-witnesses for writing down their stories and to the folks from the Parmer County Historical Commission for preserving them in the County history books. We strongly encourage you and your family to write down your own stories for the future historians who will be seeking the history of our area in years to come.