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Excerpts from Abe Peña's  popular publications

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

from RANCHING

"Three Elkins Brothers

The three Elkins brothers, Henry, Tom, and Mark (age 15), were young cowboys when they moved to New Mexico from Snyder, Texas with their parents in 1917. The older brother, Henry, had visited northwestern New Mexico earlier with his uncle Dave, and, when they returned to Texas, gave the word of good ranching country, which brought the Elkins family to New Mexico to stay.

According to Mark Arthur Elkins' unpublished book and notes, made available to me by his son Jim, who's a lookalike of his father, “We loaded two wagons to move to this great new country of New Mexico. My father Kin, who had always been pioneer-minded, drove one wagon and my mother drove the other. Bertha, my brother Henry's wife, drove the Model T Ford car. Henry, Tom, and I drove the herd of cattle. After several weeks on the trail, we got to the Grants area and were able to locate some federal lands to homestead, and some state lands to lease, and, later, some private lands to buy.

“Our parents liked what was known as Phils Lake country northwest of Bluewater. There was a small one-room rock house near Phils Lake, so here is where we made camp and started to work.” Jim told me recently, “They hand-dug a well down to 92 feet before they found water.” That is some kind of record; very few hand-dug wells went down more than 60 feet. (Note: when we talk of “Lakes” in this country, they are low-lying clay beds that hold water only in the rainy season. They are dry the rest of the year.)

Mark continues, “In the early spring of 1918, I went to work as a chore boy for the Tom Talle Ranch near Seven Lakes, milking the cows, feeding the horses, cutting wood for the ranch house. My salary was $30 per month. I learned a lot while I was there.” His older brother Tom was already working as a ranch hand at the Talle ranch.

Mark adds, “I well learned how Ott Nance came to be the best calf flanker on earth after working through cattle work at Moss John's outfit. Boy, when they come leading out those old crossbreed calves out of the roundup, you better be good and know what you were doing, or they could flat eat you up, blowing hot snot all over you, kicking your shirt pockets off and chewing tobacco out of your mouth. They make you wonder why you ever wanted to be a cowboy? Those boogers were hard to meet with a smile!”

Pablo Peña, my father, born in 1898 in San Mateo, territory of New Mexico, remembered the brothers in those early years. “They were young strapping cowboys. In the fall of 1918, we were gathering the Peña ranch cattle roaming from Ambrosio Lake to Seven Lakes. That year, our father passed away of a massive cerebral hemorrhage at age 43. We decided to sell the cattle to make the payment on the ranch, and keep the sheep. He had purchased the ranch from the railroad the year before his death,” adding, “Tom and Mark Elkins were working for the Talle Ranch and helped us with the roundup. They were fine hands.”

The country was open range, and cattle grazed wherever they could find grass and water. In those days, neighbors helped neighbors round up cattle. Fencing started about 1920, after the First World War. It signaled the end of the homesteader, who was fenced in by the larger rancher who purchased or leased the land around him.

The number of cattle the homesteader could run on 320 acres, the average size of a government homestead, was about six head year round, not enough to make the homesteader a living. Before fences came, the homesteader sometimes ran dozens and sometimes hundreds of cattle on the open range, using his unfenced homestead as the base.

Most homesteaders had to sell the homestead and move to town, and usually the only buyer was the larger neighbor that fenced his range. This practice led to the perception that the larger rancher “stole” the land from the smaller one.

But back to the Elkins brothers... the oldest was Henry Clay Elkins, who was married to Bertha Hardin when they came to New Mexico. They got a homestead and started a modest cattle operation north of Prewitt, near the red rocks. In time, they moved to a larger ranch on the flanks of Mount Taylor bisected by the road to San Mateo, including the Day well that pumped a good stream of water and still is in production today.

Henry and Bertha never had children, but raised two Laguna Indian boys, Clarence Purley and Joseph Thompson. Clarence and Joseph caught the San Mateo bus and went to school in Grants when I rode the bus in the early 1940s.

Bertha was a colorful lady with milk-white skin, and always wore a large black cowboy hat to shield the sun. I remember her riding in the Grants 4th of July parade on a black and white pinto that matched her chaps, her hair, and her hat. She also rode in several State Fair parades and several Rodeo Grand Entrees at the Fair Grounds in Albuquerque. In their golden years, the couple moved to Grants and built a brick home on Warren Street up on Water Tank Hill.

Mark continues, “Black Leg disease broke out and we had to vaccinate 2,000 calves in a hurry scattered all the way from Seven Lakes to Rancho La Punta. The last day, I was tailing down a big yearling with spike horns and as he went down it slammed its head against the ground real hard and caught my foot with one of the spike horns. It drove it clear through my left foot, boot and all clear through the boot sole into the ground. I rode about 75 miles with my foot hanging down from the horse for two days to the Indian Hospital in Crownpoint.”

He continues, “While I was recovering on crutches, I spent some time at my brother's Henry and Bertha's place. It wasn't far down to the Tietjen Ranch. Mrs. Maud Tietjen had three good-looking girls and a little school marm from Gallup, I like to get stuck on.

“They were all especially good and kind to me so naturally time went by too fast. I had no chance way out on this ranch out in the boondocks to see any girls so I didn't care much if I get crippled or about getting back to the ranch to start on down the road to my fame and fortune.”

Joe, the son of Ernst Tietjen and his wife Maud, came with the founders of Bluewater sent by Mormon leader Brigham Young to settle the village in 1894.

Mark adds, “A few years later in 1922 my brother Tom married Joséphine Tietjen, two years before Ina Tietjen and I were married in 1924. When we were raising our family, my life really began and I actually grew up to be a man. I had obligations to fulfill when we started raising our family.”

Thomas Lawrence Elkins (Tom) and Joséphine started their cattle ranch near present-day Prewitt, and added to the ranch and purchased another on the slopes of Mount Taylor, and also some properties on the north side of Milan and Grants.

They raised a large family: Lawrence, Mildred, Kin, D. J., Hattie, Jack, Keith, Buddy, Dave, and Fred. Lawrence served his country in the Navy as a Seabee during the Second World War. He and my brother Bennie served in the same outfit in the South Pacific, where many Americans stubbornly fought and defeated the Japanese, who were on their way to Australia.

To be closer to school when the children were of school age, they moved from the ranch in 1947 to a large home they built in west Grants above where Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant is now located.

One summer, D. J. and I were tentmates at a 4-H summer camp near McGaffey in the Zuni Mountains. We learned to weave copper wire into decorative rope and stamp square copper sheets with pretty designs. We were both raised on ranches, and we knew how to build fires and pitch tents, and were asked to help train some of our friends from the city. We also learned to read a compass, which came in handy when we served in the Army during the Korean War.

Buddy, now Chairman of the Board of the First Bank of Grants, is still very active in the cattle business, producing, buying, and trading cattle. In the 1960s, he loaned the Peña ranch a heavy duty water pump to pump water up a steep slope on Oso Ridge in the Zuni Mountains. The practice of helping your neighbors and community has been Buddy's philosophy through the years.

Their father Tom had an unfortunate accident on January 3, 1949. It was mid-winter, and, as ranchers do regardless of weather, he went to the ranch to check on a windmill to make sure the cattle had water. Somehow, he fell from the tall tower and died from the fall. It was a shock to the entire community, who admired and respected the quiet and soft-spoken neighbor and rancher.

Mark and Ina Tietjen started a ranch northeast of Grants, and later moved to a home on Mountain Road in Grants where the High School is today and the original Rodeo Grounds used to be. They raised a large family—Nelda, Bud, Bill, Jean, Henry, Sam, and Jim.

Nelda was the oldest and was one of the first girls from the area to go to college. She attended New Mexico A & M in Las Cruces, where we were both students. She got a degree in Home Economics and taught school. Nelda married rancher Duane Berryhill, younger brother of Adrian Berryhill, who married Gladdus Tietjen, a sister to Joséphine and Ina Elkins.

After his children entered school, Mark served on the School Board several terms, including President of the Board, and was proudest of the larger High School built in the 1950s when Adelino Sánchez was School Superintendent. Very appropriate, because there were a number of Elkins children in school.

He was also an active member, as were his brothers, of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. Henry developed a fine line of hardy Hereford cattle that thrived in this country, and sold commercial bulls from his herd to cattlemen in the southwest. Mark, along with I. K. Westbrook and Hamp Eaves, were founders of the Grants Rodeo Association about 1929.

At Grants rodeos, the Elkinses provided most of the livestock, and, in the wild cow milking contest, popular in those days, the range cows had very little milk during the drouth, and the cowboys sometimes came running to the finish line with an empty bottle!

They tell the story of a visitor at the rodeo asking Mark, “How many Elkins children are there?” He answered, “There's a whole bunch of them, and there's a lot more coming!”

In 1954, when I returned home from Australia, I got a telephone call from Mark Elkins. He told me he was thinking of moving to Australia. I was surprised, because he was a very successful cattle rancher. My first question was, “Why, why do you want to move to Australia?” He said, “Because this country is becoming a socialized country and I don't like where we're headed.”

At that time, several successful American cattlemen moved or were moving their operations to Australia. Australia was a socialized country, and I tactfully suggested to Mark to go and spend a couple of months “down under” and see for himself.

He never did move to Australia, but in 1964 he and some of the family went to Mississippi and started a pig and cattle operation. After several successful years, they returned, but Jim and his wife Nelda stayed in Mississippi for a total of twenty-six years and returned home in 1990.

Mark, in partnership with rancher and historian Arthur (Artie) Bibo, organized the Kiowina Foundation, and started building a Museum on the Bibo ranch off Highway 117 near the Narrows south of Grants. The mission was a “Salute to Pioneers.” The Acoma tribe later purchased the ranch, and the Museum now is in tribal hands.

Henry Elkins, one of the sons of Mark Elkins, passed away in November 1997 from cancer, the dreadful killer. The funeral service was held appropriately at the Cow Palace at the Grants Rodeo Grounds. The large building overflowed with the crowd paying their last respects to a well-liked friend and neighbor.

He was buried at the Bluewater Memorial Park, where his parents and grandparents are also buried. Henry was a cattle rancher, and also inventor and manufacturer of an adobe machine. His wife Sue, always interested in community affairs, served several terms as a Trustee of the Village of Milan, and raised their family.

Jerry, one of their sons, built a silver jewelry business into a successful enterprise, plowing his profits into an expanding business and into ranches in Cíbola and McKinley Counties in the tradition of his forebears. He recently completed a large pueblo-style multi-storied home in the Bluewater Valley near where his grandparents lived their golden years and passed away in the 1980s.

The three Elkins brothers, Henry, Tom, and Mark, who came to this area almost a century ago, played an important role in its development. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren continue to make a contribution as we move to the 21st century and beyond."