The War Between Two Towns

Lea County Families and Histories Vol #2

The War Between The Towns by Sandi Bishop Wells

(This article appeared in the July 18, 1976 and the July 4, 1983 issues of the Lovington Daily Leader. It was researched and written as a theme while the author was in high school.)

The early boomtowns of the southwest were beginning to grow up out of the dirt and sticks. Two of these towns were Lovington and Hobs. The people in the area sliced off a piece of land from Chaves and Eddy counties and Lea County was born. Lovington was chosen for the county seat as it was the largest and oldest town. In the year 1918, the gray, wooden two story courthouse was built with a jail in out back. Lovington began to prosper as people would shop in Lovington when they came to town on official business.

As time passed, and the oil boom began, Hobbs began growing rapidly until the population outnumbered that of Lovington. The people of Hobbs began to resent trade brought into Lovington and began talk of stealing the county seat and moving it to Hobbs.

A far- seeing lawyer from Wyoming, who had moved into the area, knew of a state law which said that a county seat could not be moved if the distance if the distance it moved was twenty miles or less. Thus, he purchased a piece of land on the outside of Lovington and got the city limits moved out just a little further.

In the early 1930's the people of Hobbs were desperate for the financial advantage of being the county seat. Petitions were circulated through out the county demanding it be moved to Hobbs. They purchased a piece of land on which to erect the new courthouse. They began to rally, and word got out that they were going to steal the records right out of the courthouse and burn it down.

The Lovington courthouse was getting old and not too sturdy; a new one had to be built.

On September 8, 1936, the day before the Hobbsans were to pay their destructive visit, the County Commissioner met and entered an order for all county officials to move, that night, to the various offices which had been secured by said commissioners and the county clerk. The County clerk's office was moved to what is now the Old Reed building on the corner of Central and Love streets, southeast  of the courthouse. (The building was razed in 1983 in order for the new county jail to be built). The county treasurer's office office was situated in the rear of this building, facing south. The court room was situated just north of the part of the Reed building where the county clerk's was situated. The tax assessor and county school superintendent were in the building just north of the court room. The sheriff's office was moved to the little one room building on the southwest corner of the courthouse square, where the War Veterans memorial stands. The probate judges office was moved to the Lister building also.

Meanwhile the ranchers, business men and towns people of Lovington began to tear the old building down. My grandfathers, Hob Gann and Ham Bishop, had a large part in the tearing down of the building. (In fact, Hob Gann purchased  part of the material of the building, which he used to build his home.) The building soon vanished. Even the foundation was hauled off, leaving nothing but level ground except for the jail and the trees.

Judge McGhee was the district judge at the time and called a jury for the trial of criminal cases the next day. The commissioners and county clerk got the leading carpenter to take a crew of men to work. The men worked all night preparing a place for the court to meet so the jury could try the cases. The next morning, all was ready, When the judge and jurors arrived the clerk met them and led the bewildered people to the readymade court room.

The citizens who came from Hobbs on thier mission drove up and gazed in astonisment and amazement at the bare piece of round. Some of them might have been slightly angry.

The Lovington people knew that the Hobbs group would tear the little town apart, if necessary, to get at those records. So it was said that the records had been moved to a vault in Texas where they could be safe from harm. The disgusted Hobbsans, put their tails between their legs and went home, planning a revenge, not even stopping to think that it was a federal offense to move official records across a state line. The records stayed safe and across the street in an old bank vault protected by army of shotguns.

On the 8th day of August, 1936 the Board of Commissioners met in a recessed session and decided against moving the county seat to Hobbs. The reason were that in order for the petitions to be valid, ten percent of the people that had voted in the last general election had to sign the petition. But there were over a thousand name duplications and after the duplications were eliminated there were not enough names. A certified surveyor had been called in and measured the distance and measured the distance between the two towns. It lacked 660 feet of the required twenty miles. The proposed Hobbs building site was not a part of Hobbs when the petition was turned in on July 6th, 1936. Hobbs was not situated on a railroad. There was a New Mexico law stating that no official building could be erected on land where minerals have been separated from it. Oil had been sold from underneath this land. Furthermore, the petition (which was not valid) would have had to have to have been voted on by the residents of the Lea County and they did not have the power to call an election. And the building of the new court house had already begun. The contracts had been signed, guaranteeing payment for work, and it would have been a great loss to the taxpayers to abandon the project.

But a huge sum of money had been growing in Hobbs. It was said that this money was waved in front of the contractor's nose for him to stall working to give them time to whip up some support. It is a fact that the men stopped work for over six days. It was said that a warrant for his arrest was produced, and that the contractor was going to be thrown in jail if work did not start again. It is a fact that the men started back to work the next Monday morning. The people of Lovington thought the battle worthwhile. The officials moved into the beautiful new courthouse in 1937.

This history is based on facts obtained from Grace Beauchamp, who was county clerk during this time, my grandparents, and the County Commissioner's Journal of Lea County, Volumes 1 and 2 on file at the Lea County Court House. Additional information was provided by my father.