The Editorials I Wrote

[johncpo]

Greetings to all,

I have been invitied by the Columbus, NM Historic Society to demonstrate the basic techniques of building a model railroad. This honor was the result of two editorials that were published in the Deming ( New Mexico ) Headlight. Having written two editorials about the history of Luna County and the connections with the railroads as well as the importance of history the world over, I received the invitation from a member of the Historic Society. This is a distinct honor as I have never had such an invitation and I don't think too many people have.
For those members of this forum living in the Deming area I would extend an invitation and would be very pleased to meet anyone interested.
The time and location are: 5:30pm on April 13th at the Sanchez Youth Center, Columbus, NM.

Hope to see you there,

John Staehle

[ARTHILL]

During our rockhound years we spent a lot of time in Deming, joined the rock club, found some great geodes. We miss the people but have moved on. We have not been back to Deming since I have returned to HO but would like to visit you people. I am modeling some of your area on my pike. Good luck with the presentaion. I love the museum building you have. I got to meet the Geode Kid there once.

[GAPPLEG]

Congratulations, I am from El Paso and know the area well, (now live in PA for 40 years, My layout is of course SP and based loosely on the Lordsburg Sub. of the SP. All desert, etc. Wish I could be there, I even have the Deming Headlight bookmarked here on my pc, read it quite often, I don't know if your articles were available on-line or I missed them.

[johncpo]

Thanks to all who wrote back and those about to !....I too have avids fans, my wife and her folks, our grandkids and the rest of the family as well.
My theme is the Southwest in general but with attention to local history, i.e. the older buildings on towns and the scenery being that from this area. A note for Gappleg...you'll be disappointed to know Lordsburg let their depot go the way of the bulldozer several years ago, however I did hear that a RR museum is there now, we cannot claim that but the aim of my progect is to hopefully stir interest up along those lines, at least in Columbus and hopefully the bug will spread to Deming as we have a large museum.

Thanks again.

[cwclark]

Are you the same guy that wanted to start a MRR club in Deming not too long ago?...If they have a railroad museum, the building would be the perfect spot for a RR club...they did that in Galveston Texas and now have a very nice layout at the train museum on the Strand...chuck

[johncpo]

To all...and yes to chuck...

I am that same guy and thanks for the tip. Our city museum is rather large and holds many local artifacts from this area including ranching equipment, a large mineral collection and many more items from around here. The interesting part is that at least two people have donated HO train items that include locomotives, cars and buildings and I will approach the crurator after I get with this group in Columbus as to the possibility of setting up a working rr within the large room that houses a replica of the Deming depot. The actual depot is sitting by itself and has lost any historical value having been moved from the UP tracks, so the idea of using it has gone by the wayside as the college is expanding its classrooms to take over the depot.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Las Cruses renovated it's depot years ago and houses somewhat of a collection and the depot in Columbus as well, but not Deming, which was built by AT&SF and the SP rr's. This is my objective establishing the historical value back in Deming of these sort of things. One thing that this area is famous for is the Harvey House resturants and many locals would like to see a replica in the old depot, perhaps that is a possibility some day when the college moves out !

John