The Luna County Courthouse in Deming, New Mexico

Red-brick monuments to Deming’s past as a turn-of-the-century western outpost still stand sentinel in the downtown area. These sturdy buildings figure as prominently into business, life and politics now as they did in their heyday. By enduring two world wars and major changes in transportation and communication, the structures affirm Deming’s historical continuity in the Southwest:  a dominant place of respite on the trail to elsewhere that never outgrows its usefulness.

From cable networks to Interstate 10, from the railroad to the Butterfield Trail, and from Apache roaming grounds to the ancient Mimbres-Paquime Indian trading connection,  Deming is a vital and lasting rest stop.

Of those who have stayed, many have turned Luna County into an important farming and ranching community. Others have built businesses catering to tourists and retirees. More acres of green chile are grown in the county than anywhere in the state, much of it processed at Deming’s Border Foods, the largest green chile processor in the U.S. Country Club Estates, an adult subdivision catering to snowbirds who decide to roost in a small town setting, was recently named to Where to Retire Magazine’s list of America’s 100 Best Master Planned Communities.

Deming is the fastest growing city in the state, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics. The population increased by 3,000 people between 1990 and 1998, a growth rate of 27 percent. Growth is coming from a diverse combination of new people moving into the area:  retirees from the Midwest, Border Patrol and government employees, and medical personnel and teachers, says real estate agent Rena Bulsterbaum of Suncrest Realty, Inc.

Cotton fields against the backdrop of the Florida Mountains in Luna County

Growth is having a positive effect on the town, Bulsterbaum said, because it’s forcing the community to increase services and upgrade their quality. “Deming has always been a place for new people,” city administrator John Strand said. “Look at the old Harvey House.”

The Harvey House was an upscale restaurant chain built by the Santa Fe Railroad at important depots, said Art Roman, archivist with the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum. The young women who worked there, known as the Harvey Girls, lived in a section of the house for employees. “There was no hanky-panky with the girls,” Roman said. Built in 1881, just after the silver spike was placed near Deming connecting the second transcontinental railroad, the house is now used as the train depot.

“Deming is rich in heritage tourism,” says Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Dorothy Victor. “It has a good mix of ingredients. The buildings tell the story of the late 1880s.” A walk through downtown Deming is a living historical tribute to turn-of-the-century architecture and Deming’s heyday as an important stop on the railroad. Many buildings are on the register and house stops, plus they hide a secret labyrinth of underground tunnels.

One building with an abundance of stories to tell is the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum, a former National Guard Armory built during World War I. “It’s a museum within a historical site,” Victor said. Fittingly, the museum itself is staffed by an army of 70 volunteers who are mostly retirees, RVers and snowbirds.

The museum boasts the world’s largest permanent collection of Mimbres pottery. Much of the collection was contributed by Jim King, who dug up the ancient treasures in southwestern New Mexico. “This is what put us on the map,” said Garrett, who helped arrange and display the pottery.

Deming Luna Mimbres Museum volunteer Andy Anderson points to a display of classic Mimbres pottery remakes.

The Mimbreno people lived along the Mimbres River between 950 and 1200 A.D. and are named after the desert willows which still grow along the banks of the ephemeral river. Many pottery designs contain mirror images, thought to reflect the river lifestyle of the people.

It is believed the Mimbreno Indians traded with a group of Indians called the Paquime in what is now the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Ancient pottery and modern replications serve as the basis of an international tour loop, the Mimbres-Paquime Connection, which promotes the cultures of the two groups. Deming and its pottery collection rest between the anchors of the tour, the Gila Cliff Dwellings near Silver City and the Paquime ruins near Casas Grandes, Mexico.

Although digging for Mimbres pottery in old gravesites in no longer allowed, there is a state park near Deming where digging and taking souvenirs is not only allowed, but encouraged. Rockhound State Park, at the base of the Little Florida Mountains, attracts rockhounds who often travel from one gem and mineral show to another. Deming has much to offer rock enthusiasts, including at least three gem and mineral shows, rockhound organizations, mining and collecting experiences, and a display of more than 10,000 geodes, also called Thunder Eggs, donated by local amateur geologist Paul “The Geode Kid” Colburn.

“I recognized early on that each deposit has unique thunder eggs,” he said. “You could mix up thunder eggs from a hundred different locations and I’d be able to tell where they came from.” Of the deposits he’s staked claims to and named, his favorite is the Baker Egg Mine, 35 miles southwest of Deming. Colburn offers guided tours of local mines in the fall and winter for a small fee.

While volcanic conditions were right to create geodes and thunder eggs 20 to 40 million years ago near Deming, now they are perfect for wine grapes. “Both water and soil are conducive for growing grapes and plenty of sunshine helps too,” said Florent Lescombes, vice president of St. Clair Winery and New Mexico Vineyards. The winery, which also offers tours and a tasting room, is owned by a family of sixth-generation French grape growers and wine makers. New Mexico became attractive to the family, Florent said, because of its abundance of cheap land and a climate similar to Algeria, where the business started. After trying a couple of other locations, the Lescombes family settled in Deming and took over the bankrupt St. Clair winery. At any given time 200,000 gallons of wine are aging on the premises. During the peak season the winery makes 100,000 gallons of wine; 25,000 bottles are filled a day.

Deming’s premier event, however, is the Great American Duck Race, which boasts “Pure Water, Fast Ducks.” Held each year on the last weekend in August, not only can participants race a live duck, personally trained by former Demingite, Robert Duck (that’s really his name) of Bosque Farms, but they can also compete in a tortilla toss or outhouse race.

“Deming’s future success will lie in its ability to balance growth with industry and economic development,” Bulsterbaum says. On the horizon is a community effort to do that through a federal government designation as an enterprise community. Another source of economic growth might be the development of maquiladoras (border town assemby plants) with neighboring Palomas, Mexico, that would attract suppliers and supporters to the town, said Sam Coleman, Executive Director of the Border Authority.

In the meantime, Deming waits as an oasis within the Chihuahuan Desert for visitors old and new to find comfort in her gates.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Deming, NM. Photo by Carla DeMarco.

Thirty miles north of the Mexican border, set against the backdrop of the Florida Mountains, rests Deming, New Mexico, an Old West outlaw and railroad town known for its pure water, prime rock-hounding and annual duck race.

Once a stage stop along the Butterfield Trail, Deming was founded in 1881 at the junction of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroad lines. Deming was named after Mary Deming Crocker, the wife of a Southern Pacific magnate. With a population of 14,200, it is the seat of Luna County.

Deming became an important military headquarters in World War I when troops were trained at Camp Cody and again during World War II when the Deming Army Air Base was used for training bombardiers.

Today’s Deming boasts a fast-growing economy fueled by agriculture, tourism – mostly in the form of snowbirds – industry, ranching and trade with Mexico. Luna County is known as the “Chile Capital of the World.” Its secondary crops are cotton, onions and sorghum.

At 4,335 feet, Deming enjoys a mild climate suitable for year-round activities such as golfing, rockhounding and swimming in its new Aquatic Center. Summer temperatures range from the 50’s to the 90’s while winter’s can drop to freezing or climb to the 60’s. The sun shines about 360 days a year.

Cultural amenities include the Deming Arts Council, Luna County Community Concerts, the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum, galleries and rock shops. Nearby attractions include Rockhound State Park, City of Rocks State Park, Gila Wilderness and the Cliff Dwellings, the Catwalk, Mogollon Ghost Town, Lake Roberts, Elephant Butte Lake, Shakespeare Ghost Town, Steins Ghost Town, Butterfield Trail loop tour, the Santa Rita Open Pit Copper Mine and Columbus, where Pancho Villa invaded the United States in 1916.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

St. Luke’s Church

“House of cards” has a whole ‘nother meaning when it comes to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Deming , New Mexico. According to legend, in 1892, the original structure of this frontier church was financed by $40,000 of winnings from a poker game with Doc Holliday in attendance and hosted by the notorious Lottie Deno. And, for a fact, Lottie Deno made one of the altar cloths used by St. Luke’s.

The church’s design was an architectural triumph of sorts and one popularly celebrated in its day – train station modern. The land for the church was donated by the old Santa Fe Railroad in 1890. The plans for the original structure were those of a train depot. Compare it with the local chamber of commerce and visitor center which occupies an old train station and you can see the resemblance.

The church’s somewhat dark past is matched by its dark interior – beautifully so. The simple wood interior provides an appropriately spiritual backdrop for devotion and the weekly Eucharistic service. The stained glass windows, crosses, statuary, and altar further please the aesthetic senses and the soul. The simple and sophisticated, sensual and spiritual, are wonderfully balanced.

It was on Christmas Day in 1892 when St. Lukes’ bell first rang out. It is believed to be the first church bell in New Mexico, and it has beckoned worshipers for a hundred years. The church was long a mission church, became a parish, and is now a mission church again.

The church’s new vicar, Father Tommy Means, has had a spiritual journey as rich and colorful as that of St. Luke’s itself, one in which St. Luke’s played a prominent role. Under his leadership the church may yet again become a parish.

Father Tommy Means

It is unusual for a priest to lead a church of which he has long been a member. However, both St. Luke’s and Tommy Means are unusual in extraordinary ways.

St. Luke’s survived a fire in 1992 and, with the help of the community, was rebuilt better than new. Perhaps this demonstration of communal support was one source of Father Tommy’s philosophy. Certainly the church’s perseverance is reflected in his own life.

He considered entering the ministry as a young man but fell away. Some years later he again responded to an even clearer calling. The words of Jonah, Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2 spoke to him: “And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching I bid thee.”

With the aid of St. Luke’s Father Martin, he petitioned the bishop, gave it his best shot – and was rejected. He says he was relieved. He fulfilled what he saw as his responsibilities to his calling. The pressure was off.

He remained active in St. Luke’s, becoming a lay reader and senior warden. He also assisted Marian Canterbury – one of the first female Episcopal priests who was sponsored, in part, by St. Luke’s – on her travels from Socorro to Columbus, New Mexico. She ministered to a group of mission churches and he acted as lay reader in what was known as the Jornada de Fe.

Encouraged by Marian, some ten years after his first attempt, he was ordained a priest under a special program that limited his service and compensation. In the resulting itinerant ministry, he served the small Episcopal Church at Hatch, New Mexico, weekly. Every other week he served the church in Truth or Consequences as well, alternating with Father Ed Ostertag of Hillsboro.

The church in Hatch became unsustainable, but his ministry in T or C continued. That congregation was a dozen in 1989 when Father Tommy started there. When Father Tommy, having been subsequently granted fully compensated and unrestricted service in the church, left to be St. Luke’s vicar, more than one hundred attended his final service.

Father Tommy is unusual also in that he, though well studied, is not college educated nor a seminary graduate. He is a product of the Preacher Lewis School of Ministry in Mesilla Park , a defunct school founded by and named for Preacher Lewis who rode by train establishing churches and missions and baptizing people in frontier times. Among his teachers were Bruce and Virginia Brown who also were pastors for the New Mexico State University Chapel.

His message is simple. He preaches giving God a chance. For him that chance came through attending church, celebrating Holy Communion, and engaging in the supportive communion of congregants. If given a chance, God will find you, wherever you may be, he affirms.

“Christianity is not a religion for the Lone Ranger,” Tommy Means says. Community and communion go together for Father Tommy and come together at St. Luke’s.

A family man, Tommy Means is far from the Lone Ranger. He and wife, Barbara, have three daughters and two sons. Two daughters – Mary and Donna – two sons – Obie and Bent – and their families live in Deming. Daughter Keeley and her family lives in Elrida, Arizona. Tommy and Barbara have 11 grandkids.

Tommy was born in West Virginia. His father died in the coal mines there. His mother brought him to Arizona, seeking relief from his asthma – and found it. It was a triumph of faith and determination and a positive influence on Tommy Means.

Tommy worked a variety of jobs and very briefly attended Arizona State University before beginning a long career with El Paso Natural Gas, from which he retired several years ago. Wife Barbara, a Buckeye, Arizona, girl, has her family rooted in Deming. That and the opportunities presented by El Paso Natural Gas led Tommy Means to Deming.

A life-long laboring man, he often worked in and with crews. Perhaps that is still another source of his simple message and emphasis on community. Even today, as a partner in a pest control business with a son and son-in-law, labor is his familiar friend.

Father Tommy’s friendly face can be seen each week and friendly voice heard saying, with joy and humility, “Welcome to St. Luke’s.” He’ll administer Holy Communion, talk about community, and tell a few stories from his continuing journey of work and growth. And, if you listen closely, perhaps you can hear a story or two directly from the beautiful old walls of St. Luke’s itself.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.