Palomino Motel lots up for auction in Sweetwater

The lots where the old Palomino Motel used to sit on East Broadway in Sweetwater will be up for auction on October 4. The estimated minimum bid is $27,980.00, according to Perdue Brandon (Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott), tax attorneys for Nolan County.

The .434 acre site is one of 19 parcels in Nolan County that are being sold for back taxes.

The address of the former Palomino is 1500 E Broadway. More information can be found on the Nolan County Appraisal District site. 

The neon sign from the motel now resides at Cook's Garage, a bar and grill in Lubbock.

The Texas Historical Commission estimates the motel was built in 1935.

The motel was razed in 2020 by the city. A photo of the demolition appeared in the October 1, 2020 issue of the Sweetwater Reporter.

The auction will take place on the north side of the Nolan County Courthouse in Sweetwater, scheduled for 2:00 p.m.

Miracle Fishing

It's funny how a random thought or action can lead me down a path, sometimes to the future, in this instance to the past.

Someone sent me a photo of themself, holding a piece of paper with their name and date on it, in front of a blown-out tire, to prove to me that their tire was indeed ruined on the day in question. Okay, it was my son, asking for money to fix yet another tire. He goes through about five a month.

I texted him back that I appreciated the proof of life. I first heard that term from Tom Hargrove when he was telling me about his Colombian kidnapping, and that the kidnappers would send a picture to the family of the victim holding a recent newspaper to prove they were still alive. 

I did an internet search of "Tom Hargrove proof of life" to get a photo to send back to my son, and I came across a link to a documentary titled "Miracle Fishing: Kidnapped Abroad", produced by Miles Hargrove, Tom's son.

I used to be in contact with Tom and I wrote a few articles about him. He was a fascinating person, brilliant, really. His work with rice and its life-saving properties was on the scale of miracles. 

That time in Tom's life has been thoroughly pored over in books, interviews and feature film, but this documentary brings it all together. It is the overlay needed to completely understand and fathom what the family went through to get Tom back.

I watched it for free on Plex, a streaming service I found through Roku. It looks like it's also available on Prime Video, Vudu and Redbox. I highly recommend it.

If only I could find that file

I wish I could find a list of all the books I checked out of the school libraries during my time at Reagan Junior High, Sweetwater Middle School and Sweetwater High School. I'd also like a list of the books I had in my childhood library at home. As it is, I can only recall about three standouts out of the hundreds of books I've read. 

Not all spectacular literature, there was a pretty trashy bout during eighth grade, books that the girls passed around and hid from teachers and mothers. No titles will be mentioned.

I have a lot of favorite authors and books that I go back to, but the three that I'm thinking about today are The Diary of Trilby Frost by Dianne Glaser, The House of Stairs by William Sleator, and The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. The first two might be juvenile, but the last has adult themes in it, which means it talks about sex, sometimes. Not gratuitously, it's just in there in a contextual way. 

Now, I might get all crazy and start naming other excellent books that are popping into my head, like A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck, but I'm going to hold back. 

I guess I haven't lost all the files. A little nudge might help me find a few.

Fisher County Commissioners to meet Monday, vote on budget

Well, I was right about the last meeting (meetings, rather, it lasted for two days, with breaks). There was yelling, cursing and a walk out. Invigorating!

Once again the question of whether or not to close the jail was raised, and it was the contributing factor for much of the hubbub. It wasn't on the agenda, but the topic was introduced by County Judge Ken Holt, presiding officer of the commissioners court. It seemed an odd time to bring it up, after numerous presentations from vendors for services at the jail.

Anyway, during the budget meeting the next day, the court decided to leave the jail open. Holt was not present. Everyone agreed, or understood, the jail is not a money-making proposition, but a needed service for the community.

Tomorrow the Court is scheduled to discuss and vote on the following items:

• Purchase of a new truck for the sheriff
• Engagement and payment for services to monitor inmates and the jail
• Engagement and payment for telephone services at the jail
  
• The county budget
• The tax rate

Tune in to the live feed on The Double Mountain Chronicle facebook profile at 9 am.

Fisher County Commissioners Court, today. Oughta be a doozy!

 9 AM today, Fisher County Commissioners will meet to discuss the following items:

• Department reports
• Bills, budget amendments, burn ban
• Presentation, conversation and budgeting regarding the various companies the sheriff’s office is doing, or wants to be doing, business with
• Computer software and tech contracts for the county
• Presentation of the tax rate by Purdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott
• Outside audit
• Order of general election
• Fix or replace the sheriff’s pick-up
• Talking about that danged tree outside the senior center, again
• Rescind prior authorization for county judge or attorney to negotiate or enter into any contract on county's behalf
• Accounting policies
• Budget workshop

The meeting can be viewed live on facebook, on The Double Mountain Chronicle profile.

These aren't the Barkleys

- Mitchell Co horses, 2017 -

The Dutton family is not benevolent. They have very little likeness to the Cartrights or the Barkleys of western yore. Fathers will not be kissing sons the way Lucas did Mark. There will be lots of horses and machine guns.

Yes, I have been sucked into the vortex of Yellowstone, an hour long per episode cowboy mafia soap opera. I didn't want to like it, but now I find myself wondering what Teeter's doing and babbling to strangers about how to mark a horse for war. It wasn't even a horse I was using as an example, it was a buffalo statue in front of the Arrowhead Motel in Ruidoso, but I couldn't be stopped.

There are unlikely things that happen, but with a good show, I'll suspend my belief after I complain about it. Such as, I was thinking that these business tycoons would keep a closer eye on local land sales, but they could have been too busy to look at them, what with all the attempts to kill their family and all.

Speaking of land sales, there was all kinds of speculation about Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone, buying the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie. I don't know why there was any wondering, because the information is right there in the TexasFile database, searching King County. Memorandum of sale last December, memorandum of exclusions in June. Sheridan Ranch Properties with Taylor Sheridan's signature, plain as day. I'm not always able to find what I'm looking for, but this took about five minutes. TexasFile and county appraisal websites are powerful tools for finding information.

Anyway, Yellowstone is not for the faint of heart, but the characters are vivid and there's never mundane action. The continuity of story is satisfying. Sometimes I'll ask a question (out loud or in my head), then it's immediately addressed. The downside is that I blew through three and a half seasons, not realizing I only have a handful of episodes available to watch before season five starts in November.

Top ten Fisher County oil leases

- EA6869 -

The EA6869 lease is using one location to drill two wells, one with a bottom hole on the Emily lease in Fisher County, the other on the Adams lease in Scurry County. It looks like a city being built out there. Access is from Fisher County Road 347. That's a long way to go across pasture and field. The site is visible from FM 1614, north of the Emily 1H and Emily 2H wells.

The top ten oil producing leases in Fisher County from January to April 2022, most to least, were:

• Grand Canyon W 31-46 at 68,222 BBL (barrels of crude oil, 42 gallons)
• Saguaro W 105-58 at 66,936 BBL
• Carlsbad Caverns 54-55 at 59,928 BBL
• Canyonlands E 61-60 at 51,338 BBL
• Tennie Unit at 44,328 BBL
  
• Jill Unit at 40,054 BBL
• Johnson Unit at 38,094 BBL
• Sequoia E 63-6 at 35,838 BBL
• Hannah-Stevie Unit at 35,497 BBL
• Sequoia 63-6 at 32,865 BBL
  

Clear Fork, Peregrine and Moriah are the operators on these leases. The Railroad Commission doesn't have reporting for production beyond April. More information can be found by going to the RRC website and clicking Query>Production Data Query>General Production Query.

Changes in the view

- Bugs on FM 419 -

Besides the oil and wind industry changes in the landscape, a few other things are looking different around here.

Up on Rooster Corner, named by me and my kids, just north of Nunn Hill (what TxDOT guys called it) and Bus Wreck Curve (named by me, from a school bus wreck I saw in 1968 or '69), nothing is left except two eternal Volkswagen Bugs. It was always a topic of conversation to try to identify whether the old brick house that sat there was occupied or not. A long time ago there used to be roosters in the extensive pens, but trees had grown through them and they sat empty for decades.Sometimes there were dogs there. It's looking pretty good, now.

About a month ago, I noticed the old jail in Roby was being cleaned out. I mean desks, shelves, everything. I wonder what they're going to do with it. It has the best facade in the county, I hope it's not going to be razed.

The Rotan school looks like a big purple building as you drive in from the west. That's just the new construction, not the final exterior. It looks like it's where that weird little sidewalk from the south side of the cafeteria used to be. My kids were always falling down and hurting their legs there.

I took a drive back into Rough Creek, where I recently saw my first Mountain Boomer (Collared Lizard). He was so colorful he didn't even look like he was from here. He was so quick, I didn't actually see his collar, just a lot of aqua-blue and green. On a second drive, I saw the female, pretty, but mostly brown. I didn't see the male that time, but I'm glad he's not out there alone.

Driving farther down that road and coming up behind Koonsman, I saw a huge solar farm in the beginning stages. It had Criswell in the name, so I'm guessing it's on that ranch. It's in Scurry County.

A visit to the city

- Dallas rain -

I saw rain this weekend, but it was in downtown Dallas, not west Texas. It rained on and off during the drive back home, as far as Mineral Wells, where I was standing in the rain getting gas. It was fabulous.

I went to the big city to attend an anime/comic convention at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. I have about as much interest in these things as I do a Saturday afternoon college football game (none), but my daughter likes to go and I'm not willing to let her drive or be in Dallas alone.

There is a small contingent of that crowd that uses these events as an opportunity to be nearly naked, sort of like the girls who dress as prostitutes in the name of Halloween. I'm pretty sure I saw one young lady who had no top on, but security gently moved her and her entourage off to a stairwell, presumably to clothe.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Katee Sackhoff was one of the thirty or so celebrities that were there for autographs and photo opportunities. She played Vic on Longmire, a series that I'm making my way through. I guess she was there for her role in The Mandalorian, a show that I'm unlikely to see. I saw her from afar, unwilling to pay the eighty bucks or so for a signature.

The Omni Hotel where we stayed was nice and fancy, but we left by noon the next day. There's really not much to do at these things but buy merchandise and look at other people's costumes. The traffic from the convention was overwhelming, and there were too many bodies stuffed into that huge space. 

I'm not used to an urban setting, and while it was almost Fantasy Island-like around the hotel, just going a few blocks away to forage at a 7-11 freaked me out. Someone was sleeping in the middle of the parking lot next door, just laying out there. I don't like going somewhere that I don't know what neighborhood I'm in.   

So, we skipped out on plans to go to the aquarium and got the heck out of dodge. Sometimes the big open roads of Texas are quite a relief. I was glad to be headed back home.

Oil, deep drill, players

- Holloway Unit 3H -

West Texas Intermediate has been hanging around $120 for a few weeks. That can be good or bad, it depends on which side of the oil well you are sitting. If you have a well, you can say you are just paying yourself at the gas pump. If you don't have a well, hit up a relative or friend who does to help you fill your tank.

The photo is of a new drill in Scurry County, just north of Camp Springs, up County Road 1154. Information on the Texas Railroad Commission site indicates it is the third well permitted for the Holloway Unit. Total depth is reported as 7000 feet. It is operated by Moriah.

RRC records show that only two wells have been drilled to the depth of 10,000 feet, back in 2012, but there's been a new one permitted by Endurance, out by Busby, on the Gillespie survey. It's a horizontal well, Whiskey Dent 1H.

Endurance Resources III is one of the new players in the area. A couple of other new operator names are Arrington Oil & Gas, Patton Exploration, and L.C.S. Production. The familiar names around here are Clear Fork, Browning, Moriah, Cholla, Sojourner, Peregrine, and Gunn.

Check out the RRC for more information.