“Uncle Andy” Wentworth Brought Life Experiences to Friona
by Darla Bracken
Background note: Acccording to the entry in “A History of Parmer County” (1st volume), the A. N. Wentworths came to Friona in “about 1908” from Crisco, Iowa. They farmed for a few years and then sold the farm to the Whaleys. He established the first blacksmith shop and later the first waterworks for the town. He then owned and operated a cafe and variety story until he retired in 1931 and sold it to the E.V. Rushings. After his wife Laura passed away, he moved back to Iowa to live with a daughter. He lived to be 90 years old. When he was 85 years old, he was interviewed in Friona by the News (as in Amarillo Daily News?) in a column known as ‘Line Ridin’’.
Uncle Andy Wentworth, one of the earliest residents of Friona, has met perhaps more discouraging things in his lfe than any 200 of us will—yet today at 85 years old, he continues to maintain his optimism and broad outlook on life.
Thirty-seven years ago in Iowa, Uncle Andy fell off a 50 foot windmill, smashing himself up considerably. He still has a bad right arm that healed crookedly.
Four years ago and that was when he was 81 years old, Uncle Andy was attacked and trampled by a cow. He still walks with a crutch and cane from that attack, and it is doubtfulif his hip will ever heal enought to let him walk unaided again.
Only a few
But these are only a few of the things that have happened to this stout-hearted old man who saw Friona when it was nothing more than a jumping off place in the land boom times.
He arrived in Friona March 4, 1906 when the town boasted one house, a store and a barber shop—and he has lived there ever since. Uncle Andy remembers that at this time Harding had a ranch that covered 21 sections with two ranch houses on it—but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Born in Canada
Uncle Andy was born in Quebec Province, Canada. When he was 14, he came to the “states” settling in Iowa. Thirty seven years there as a blacksmith, and he came, along with several friends, to Friona. The George G. Wright Land company was selling thousands of acres around Friona then, bringing hundreds of home seekers into the territory on special trains. You got a one-way ticket if you didn’t buy land and a round-trip fare if you did buy land.
Uncle Andy bought 240 acres right off the bat, and stocked them with 100 cattle, which cost him $18.75 a head, with 25 calves thrown in. The cattle had been brought from Mexico.
The next year Blackleg struck and as Wentworth says it, “ I lost my nerve and sold out the cattle.”
Bad Crop Years
Then bad crop years struck in rapid sucession, and while the pals who had accompanied Andy from Iowa sat around “swapped stories and cut up”, he suffered reverse after reverse.
Eventually Uncle Andy had to sell his land, which had “taken 10 years to pay for and 10 years to lose.” The veteran Frionaian can remember when the land boom was at its height, with salesmen selling land right and left, that they planted feed crops on the Harding Ranch to show prospective buyers just how fertile a land it was.
“A crop like this will pay for the land and make you a tidy profit,” was the cry of the slaesman and hundreds bought. Many later became discouraged and drifted back home, but the stout-hearted stuck and formed the Friona of today.
Recalls wild horses
Uncle Andy can remember when accomodations were at such a premium that they took 100 guests south 18 miles to a ranchhouse to “sleep and feed”.
He also can recall when wild horses inhabited the region and how, when one was caught, it would be brought into town. Then there would be a purse made up among the loungers, and a cowboy would try to ride the beast. “Very few stuck on,” he remembers.
Uncle Andy is an old man now, and he says if he had the chance, he would leave the Panhandle, but his voice lacks conviction when he says it, and there is a proud look as he looks at the field of kaffir corn behind his house. He was hoeing that corn when I found him...
Editor’s Notes: If my calculations are correct, Mr. Wentworth was born in 1869 and he lived to be 90 years old, so this article was written in 1954.
I want to express my appreciation for the late Edith Moseley Johnson’s clipping and saving this article; there are many historians among us.
Marie Sanders is shown with Mrs. Andy (Laura) Wentworth in Wentworth’s Cafe and Variety Store. Marie, Mrs. Buell Sanders, was my next door neighbor for many years on Columbia Street and she also lived to be 90 years old. I only recently discovered that the Wentworths were her grandparents. The Wentworth house still stands today; it is the old house with the gingerbread trim on Prospect Avenue across the street from the back (or west) of the First Baptist Church. The unusual pattern of bricks on their old Cafe building can still be seen also on the west side of south main across from Lee’s Barber Shop. See it for yourself. DB
Mr. A.N. Wentworth
Wentworth American Cafe & Variety Store
