Posted on 04/28/2003 8:43:43 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Denver City first built literally from scrap B.L. Dulin & Sons born from leftovers of Texas oil boom
BY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
DENVER CITY — Although many businesses are built from scratch, the first business in Denver City was built from scrap.
Scrap lumber, that is.
Walter "Dub" Dulin, 91, built the B.L. Dulin & Sons filling station in July 1938, a year before Denver City was incorporated.
As he tells it, the lumber was left over from a Shell Oil Co. camp.
During the area's oil boom years, oil companies built housing for their workers. Dulin was walking by the camp when he noticed a mountain of scrap wood.
"They said they were going to burn it," Dulin said.
As if to prove the adage that one man's trash is another man's treasure, Dulin asked if he could take the wood.
"They said, 'What're you going to do with it?' " Dulin said. "I said, 'I'm going to build a building.' "
"So, I bought a hundred pounds of eight-penny nails and 100 pounds of 10-penny nails," he said. Together with the scrap wood, "I had everything I needed but windows and doors."
For a while, a mattress served as the establishment's door. Late at night, Dulin would flip the mattress to the floor and sleep on it.
The oil field was a hopping place in those days, he said, and customers would come by all hours of the night. Once, he went to the shop at 1 a.m. and found 16 trucks with flat tires waiting for him.
"Somebody had lost a bag of nails and all those tires had been punctured," he said.
When the time came for Denver City to incorporate, Dulin's father played a key role.
Dulin explained that his father used to be the postmaster in a town near Ranger.
When the town's founders wanted to name the town "Denver" after one of the oil companies, Dulin's father raised a practical objection.
"My dad said, 'That'll never do. It's too close to Denver, Colo. The mail'll get mixed up. You need to add "City",' " Dulin said.
Despite working in close proximity to oil field workers, Dulin never worked as a roughneck or rousta bout.
Machines were Dulin's first love ever since his father forced him to fix the family's Model T Ford after he locked up the motor in May 1923, he said.
Along the way, Dulin also worked as a lineman, a shop foreman and a farmer. He also drilled water wells and moved houses.
At various times, he called Hobbs, N.M., Littlefield, O'Don nell and El Paso home.
During World War II, he was the shop foreman at Fort Bliss, supervising Italian prisoners one year and German prisoners the next year, he said.
His prisoners were good me chanics, he recalled.
At the height of the oil boom in Denver City, at least six oil firms actively explored underneath Yoakum and Gaines counties.
The companies built worker camps to accommodate the multitude of labor pouring into town looking for good jobs during the Great Depression.
Many of the workers came from Oklahoma and Arkansas, he said.
He remembered one man from Arkansas who was hired to drive trucks for the oil company.
Dulin had just finished work on the truck so "I gave him the keys," he said. "He started it about three or four times."
The man came back to the shop and said the truck wouldn't move.
"I asked, 'How long have you been driving trucks?' " Dulin said. "He said, 'I never drove a truck in my life, but I'm hungry."
Dulin gave the man a few dollars for a bite to the eat at the cafe, he said.
When the man came back, the boss paid him for three hours work and fired him.
Denver City was a dry town so oil workers had to go two and a half miles down the road to Wasson for alcohol.
"Wasson was wet at night," he said. "You'd find a bunch of them down at the beer joint."
Dulin, though, didn't take part in the carousing and never touched a drop of alcohol, he said.
Hobbs also was a popular destination. Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys played many a dance there, Dulin said.
The boom years lasted into the '50s. Afterward, it became harder and harder to keep young people from leaving for bigger cities.
Even though the times were tough during the oil boom, the people's values formed the bedrock of the community, he said.
The people in Denver City didn't tolerate lying too much and placed a priority on educating their children, Dulin said. They wanted their children to have a better life.
"I tell you what," he said. "You shook hands and that was that."
jreynolds@lubbockonline.com 766-8725
Ahemmmmm . . . feel the BS heading your way? LOL. Denver City was our biggest rival. We never lost to them. We even beat them sixty-some-odd to 3 one year. They were much better in basketball though and at that time Seminole was a 3A school and Denver City was just a 2A school . . . so we had quite a few more students to pick from to field a team.
Besides, a dirty little secret still true in Texas is that High Schools recruit players just like colleges do. We had more money than Denver City as well. LOL.
I was from Monahans. We Lobos fought your Indians in many a district football championship. I seem to remember one blow-out where you whipped us 72-14.
I had an uncle who worked for a Supply Co. in Denver City. It was a wonderful small town, but my cousins all moved off to the big city as soon as they could. It's still a nostalgia trip whenever I can find an excuse to drive thru that area again.
My oldest and dearest freinds moved out there, and they really like it. We are considering it as soon as we have enough to set up a homestead.
My family still owns the old family homestead, and I'm currently searching for more documentation on it. A few acres I think, out of several square miles. I know that he was gaines county sheriff for several years, and that he owned much of the land in and around Florey, which probably doesn't even exist anymore, or maybe its a gas station. I don't care how desolate it is, I'll make it home; that's how much I hate DFW.
Never heard about anyone breaking their neck. But then I left Lovington in 1968 and moved to Albuquerque then joined the Army and never went back except for an occasional visit.
One of my best friends moved from Lovington to Monahans, Davy (actually David I guess) Parker in the mid-60's. Last I heard, he's now a school superintendent in El Paso. Small world here in FReeperville isn't it?
Was his name Ed Welch?
I have a brother in DFW and he's trying to move home as well. But I also have two brothers who still live either in Seminole or right around it, they're both CPA's. One of them was telling me two weeks ago that LAND prices had shot up! It had something to do with peanut quotas or some damn thing like that -- one of those programs where the guvmint pays farmers not to plant. One of his clients bought SIX SECTIONS!!!!!!!!
So if you're looking for land, shop wisely.
Awl, man, I hated you Lobos. No one from my generation ever whupped y'all 72-14. LOL. Hell, my sophomore year we got stomped 66-6.
Then to add insult to injury, the best looking girl in town moved to Monahans. Darlene Ogle then . . . I think it's Darlene Stevens now. I hear she works at one of the Monahans schools. I don't know what she looks like now but, man oh man, was she a babe in my day. (pardon me ladies . . . I know babe ain't a politically-correct term but there just ain't another way to describe 'ol Darlene)
Never been to Wink, lived in Lamesa and Welch tho'. Pretty exiting to watch the sandstorms roll in about this time of year.
The only thing I have been able to find online is a record of his draft registration in 1916. It states his hometown as Florey and his birthdate as 1881.
I know about the peanut and pepper thing right now. Anything without a well is still $250-$350 an acre though,m sometimes even cheaper.
Hmmm...earlier, the guy who owned the tire-repair business says,
"So, I bought a hundred pounds of eight-penny nails and 100 pounds of 10-penny nails,"
Sounds suspiciously entrepreneurial to me... '-}
I've heard that name somewhere. My family has lived in Gaines County since the 1850's so maybe someone knows something about him. I used to work part-time for one of the Gaines County Sheriffs in the late 60's -- Ed Welch -- that's why I asked if it was him. Hey, that might've been where I heard of your relative . . . on a plaque or under a photo or something at the Court House or County Jail.
I assume you've checked geneology.com, right? And maybe the Mormon Church records? I hear they've got the best geneology records in the world.
Here's a couple of websites that might help you in your search. The first is Gaines County and it has options to official records and the like. The second one is the local newspaper, The Seminole Sentinel, in case you want to email them some questions. It's still a hokey-newspaper and they love that kinda stuff.
Good luck and if you move there I hope you love it. I did for thirty years and it'll always be home to me.
My family knows a lot more about all this, but prodding them to dig up old memoirs and things is a challenge. Collectively, we probably have a wealth of valuable geneology information, although I had never taken an interest until recently, when I tied some events and people together. I am sort of on my own for the time being, the links are a great help. It sure would be easier to search if I didn't have family surnames like britton, myers, bell and brock. Can't they marry a good kowznofskyshillerstein girl or something? I think I'm related to half the anglo population of Earth, LOL!
If all goes well, I'm moving my family back that way some day. Hope to meet up with you some day, maybe at a freeper rally.
-Scott
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