The Tulia Herald (Tulia, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 15, 1993 Page: 4 of 48
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PAGE FOUR A
THE TULIA (Swisher County) HERALD
THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1993
WASHER PITCHING MATERIAL — Leo Koger tells Linda Swanson
about washing pitching, which was a favorite entertainment In years
past. He has owned these washers for years. — Staff photo
October Meeting To Determine
Fate Of Weed Control District
Swisher County Commissioners Court
will send notice to the Texas Department of
Agriculture of a public meeting to discuss
whether to continue or dissolve the county
Noxious Weed Control District. The meeting
is scheduled for Oct. 25.
The county governing body will advise
Swisher County Appraisal District that the
county will not approve die district's pro-
posed budget unless there is an equitable
allocation of vehicle, fuel and maintenance
costs and contingencies. A budget with more
than $25,000 in contingencies will not be
approved.
A bid was accepted from C&D Telephone
of Tulia to purchase a telephone system for
the courthouse.
Esther Reeves was appointed an alternate
lay representative to represent the Swisher
County Library at Texas Panhandle Library
System meetings.
SWEET CORN
Big 9" Ears
Come Get It
While It Lasts!
PANCHO’S GARDEN
Hwy. 378 South
Lockney, Texas 652-2726
LAREDO
NEW
AGRIPRO
(CERTIFIED WHEAT SEED)
For:
High Grain Yield
Semi Dwarf, Med. Maturity
Northern & Western
Adaptation, Winter Hardy
Heavy Test Weight
Above Average Protein
Good Disease Protection
Straw Strength
Early Grazing
Uniform Height
Excellent Eye Appeal
995-3882_Tulia, Texas
GRADER BIDS
The court will advertise for the purchase of
motor graders for PrecincLs Two and Three.
Bids arc to be opened at 10 a.m. July 26.
Specifications arc available in the judge's
office.
Members of die county governing body
inspected a bridge in Precinct Four.
Sale of diree lots in Kress to individuals
was approved.
Other matters were routine:
•Overtime pay for die sheriffs department
and jail for die two-week work period ending
June 26 was approved.
•The third quarterly report for April, May
and June was approved.
•June reports from die clerk, treasurer,
constable, justice of the peace, librarian and
sheriff were accepted, as were May reports
from Extension agents.
•Bills were approved for payment.
•The budget was amended by increasing
and decreasing line items.
•Twenty-one rough notes were read back
by Clerk Pat Wesley.
Present were Judge Jay Johnson, Com-
missioners A. G. House, B. F. Smith, W. C.
Weatherred, Clerk Wesley and one guest.
Constable Weldon Smith.
Jackie Dee Not
In Custody On Tuesday
Jackie Dee Loring, for whom an arrest
warrant was issued earlier, was still not in
custody Tuesday afternoon, according to
lawmen.
The Swisher County man and seven other
persons face federal charges of "obstructing
justice and/or conspiring to impede and in-
jure an officer of the United States in the
discharge of his duties."
By Johnny Daniel
•July 6: 8:15-9 p.m., one mile west of 1-27
on 6th Street, grass fire. Sixteen men and
units 81, 82, 84, 86, 87 and 88 responded.
•July 7: 5:25 p.m., two miles east on
Highway 86, then three miles south on dirt
road. Pickup belonging to Billy Paul Preston
demolished. Fifteen men and units 81,82,84.
86 and 88 responded.
Koger Stays 'Plenty Busy’ Drilling Wells
Tulian Sees Panhandle Development To Modern Society
Continued From Page One
three automobiles and probably 25 horses” brought
people for the historic event
"They had dug a trench for the first building two
or three days earlier with a grubbing hoe. Pa Ferguson
smoothed out the cement with a trowel, and she laid
the first brick" for that initial Texas Tech University
building.
Koger recalls a professional photographer was
present and offered to photograph the pair for a
nickel. "That’s about all we had," but they leaned
against the hood of the Cleveland 6 to "have our
pictures made."
SET POWER PLANT ENGINES
He had the only wench truck available to unload
and set an engine in the Tulia power plant during
World War II. "Uncle Sam had priority over wench
trucks for the oil fields. They had to keep pumping in
the oil fields" to supply petroleum for the tools of war.
After the second world war, Koger says "me and
the Foster boys from Whitfield moved in and set"
another power plant engine. "It was brought in on a
flat car. It was parked on the brick street due to its
weight and people raised Ned because they had to
drive around it."
Asked if it were true that he set beams on present
business buildings in Tulia, he responded "nearly all
of them."
He was a busy man, frequently going from before
sunrise to well into the night.
During the boom days of his drilling business,
"sometimes we left early enough to cat breakfast at
Slaton, if we were working in that direction. We went
as far south as Post and we didn't come home until late
at night, if we came in at all."
He recalls seeing 'The first load of lumber" for his
wife's dream house arrive before daylight as he was
leaving town. "The next time I saw that house in the
daylight, it was finished. At one time I oversaw four
cable tool rigs."
He was also a visionary individual, purchasing
agricultural land in Colorado and New Mexico which
had strong water supplies.
AIDED BY DRY WEATHER
Leo and his wife Sylvia — whom he admitted 'had
a turn for money' and was in charge of the record
keeping — were among few West Texas residents
who were aided by drought.
He spotted an irrigation drilling rig "during a wet
spell" and worked out a trade. Roads were so muddy
he was unable to move it home immediately but the
transaction "turned out to be profitable" because this
country has more dry than wet years.
In the midst of such a "dry spell" he had inquiries
about drilling irrigation wells, many of which had
been hand dug in earlier days.
This was the catalyst which led him to business
success.
"Uncle Sam opened an office in the courthouse
and loaned money for drilling irrigations wells,"
explains the man with not only a superb memory but
an equally strong gift of gab.
The government's intervention via loans "really
cranked up the well drilling business. They were after
me day and night. I bought every well drilling rig I
could and at one time I owned four. There were more
wells to dig than you could ever get dug at once.
"At one time here, nine out of 10 wells were
financed by the government." That was an advantage
for drillers because "when we got to the bottom of a
hole, we came in and got our money."
He operated his business on his farm east of Kress
until 1942 when he moved to Tulia and operated from
a building where Walco is now located on Highway
87.
With limited correspondence available, most of
his trflhsactions with pump companies were con-
ducted by telegraph. "Daddy Sprague (Ted Sprague's
father) got to be depot agent in the ’30s" and he
forwarded the pump purchase orders.
EARLY WELLS DRILLED
Koger and his crews drilled some early wells on
which three and four generations of the same families
have operated farms.
Although now virtually confined to a wheel chair,
he remembers while he was still active "a man came
up to me in the cafe and shook my hand." Discovering
that Koger did not recognize him the fellow responded,
"Well I remember you. You were the first man I met
in this town." He wasa boy when his family purchased
a plot of Swisher County dry land and moved here
from Oklahoma. The man "begged" until his father
allowed him to tag along when he talked with the
driller about an irrigation well.
That pump remainder in the hole 30 years before
being pulled.
Koger believed in hard work, by himself and his
employees. Crew foremen were paid on an incentive
basis.
"Ab Pepper was my foreman. He was with me 18
years," the longtime businessman said while speak-
ing fondly of his late employee.
He claims to have "never repossessed a pump."
Koger "sold out" after his wife became ill and "I
took her from hospital to hospital and found out she
had cancer. I took her to the Loveless Hospital in
Albuquerque, N.M.," which prompted him to dispose
of the business. She died in 1975 after a five-year
battle with cancer.
DESCENDS FROM PIONEER STOCK
Koger is a descendant of hearty pioneer stock. His
mother's family was the second to arrive in Lockney
and his Grandfather Koger, a German immigrant, was
the third to reach that town.
Leo was born Sept. 7, 1902, at Lockney. Ironi-
cally, both he and his wife were only children and they
had one son.
His father owned landed four miles west of the
Lockney until he sold it when Leo was 8. The family
then homesteaded near Portalcs, N.M. In May 1915,
they moved 18 miles cast of Kress.
Koger's formal education was finished after he
completed fifth grade at the former Alexander School.
"Some teachers had only a fifth grade education and
when you got through the fifth grade you knew as
much as the teacher and quit school."
He claims, "I went through every war except the
Federal (Civil) War and my grandpa was in that one."
Leo was six months too young for World War I.
"I was standing on the doorstep of being drafted"
into World War 11 and had already passed his physical
examination.
"I had given the tractor, car, chickens, hogs and
everything else away because we didn't think we'd
come out of the war." His main concern was for his
widowed mother and his new wife.
Expecting to be called into active duty at any time,
he still had "30 head of yearling cows. There was
nobody to take care of the cattle and I didn't want them
to starve." Many families had moved off the land after
the war started, he said.
Frustrated about his situation, "I came to Tulia to
ask the draft board for one more week to get rid of my
cows" before being inducted. Within minutes after
walking into the draft office he learned "Uncle Sam
had changed the age limit and I was too old."
But the family still had problems. "We had no
groceries and we'd given everything away."
He secured a farm job but "the wind blew dirt off
the seed. Next, it started raining and the grass rotted.
There was water everywhere. People dug ditches to
prairie dog holes (which stood on higher ground) and
drained the water off their pastures and into the holes
so their grass wouldn’t rot."
Needing a source of livelihood, "people bought
Jersey cows and planted Johnson grass to feed the
cows." Sylvia Koger, like many other women, "went
to (raising) chickens."
CREAMERY 'SAVED THIS COUNTRY'
"Henry Tcubcl set up a creamery in Tulia, which
saved this country," says Koger, who "got up at 4
o’clock to milk cows." The milk was brought to Tulia
for processing.
"Teubel sold butter to Uncle Sam," Leo explains.
"It went out of here by train in car load lots."
Discussing troubled economic limes, Koger con-
tends "I've seen the worst floods and the dust bowl.
During severe drought years, little baby chickens
would fall in cracks and die if the women and children
didn’t hear them squawk.
"I managed to keep the taxes paid on the house for
my mother to live in. I never had to depend on the
country (welfare assistance)."
Despite having had significant holdings at one
time, heclaims "my no good relatives got my money."
Koger says he has suffered "a couple of strokes,
broke his right shoulder and injured his arm, which
has left him immobile. He spent "months" in the
hospital, has "hip problems", a knee injury which
required surgery years ago and "in 1924, the top of the
combine gave way and cut off half my right foot." He
lost a thumb in an accident as a boy, but his mother,
a nurse, "sewed it back on with needle and thread."
SPECIAL FRIENDS
Linda Swanson, a caring individual, commands a
special place in Koger's heart. "She’s a lifesaver to
me. She came into the picture at just the right time
(having met through his dealings with First State
Bank about the time he was released from the hos-
pital). When she gets off at the bank, she fixes me a
meal and she buys my groceries and helps me in other
ways."
He receives lunch from Meals on Wheels five
days a week.
Another special friend is Rick Wallace, who comes
by to bring a cup of coffee and visit each Saturday
morning.
He takes special pride in the fact that his mother
"deeded her house to the Senior Citizens fora parking
lot." It was located "where the Happy depot is located"
in Santa Fe Park, immediately eastof Swisher Memorial
Building.
NOT VOID OF OPINIONS
Perhaps it is indicative of the era or manner in
which he was reared, but Leo Koger has definite ideas
of changing moral values and criminal trends.
He claims "we didn't hear filth (spoken) as a child.
You were not regarded as being grown 'til you were
21 (although many people married before that age)."
Koger adds, "They used to have a hanging post
behind every jail. It would stop crime if we still had
hanging posts at jails.
"It was legal to shoot a horse thief in those days"
because a horse was regarded as being essential to a
person’s survival in the untamed and largely unsettled
land. "If a horse thief was caught by the law, he was
shot right there if he tried to get away. If not, he was
brought to town and hung."
Koger describes a hanging he saw as a youngsters
while he and his grandmother were visiting relatives
near Paris, Tex. Soon after their arrival, an aunt
announced," they're hanging a man over in Paris in the
morning." Hangings were witnessed by people from
miles around.
Recalling that day long ago, he says "everyone
arrived before sunrise," when the hanging was
scheduled. This person, a black man, was led out of
the jail with a black hood over his head and led up the
gallows. Then a preacher spoke to him. Custom had
it that it was humane to lift the hood and "let the man
see the sunrise for the last time" immediately prior to
the hanging.
Not many people living in 1993 have seen a public
hanging, but then few people have had the opportu-
nity to experience many of the events Leo Koger has
lived.
(Editor's note: Another article will follow in a
future edition about Leo Koger's parents and
grandparents, a story which reeks with history.)
Athletic Apparel Show
Sports Card
Kristi's
ALL Sale Merchandise
(Including The Attic)
Buy 2 get 1 FREE Buy 4 get 2 FREE
Buy 6 get 3 FREE
Thursday. Friday and Saturday June 15, 16, 17
nif* /St / 614 Broadway Plainview, Texas
Highest sale price will apply to each purchase
1 coupon per customer per day please
TWY Enterprises
209 N. Armstrong
Saturday, July 17, 1993
Xg. 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
•Assorted Sports Cards -Fitted Caps
•Assorted Sports Suits
For More Information Call 995-4049
BAT MASTERSON—Ed Benz playing the character of Bat Masterson
for the Summer Reading Club participants of Swisher County Library.
Benz Is the director of Hutchinson County Hlsotrica! Museum in
Borger. The children became more aware of the people, their dress and
way of life, and events of the 1874 Battle of Adobe Walls. About 120
children, K-6th grade, and adults attended the program on July 7. The
summer shcool students and teachers from Swinburn School also
attended. —Staff photo
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The Tulia Herald (Tulia, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 15, 1993, newspaper, July 15, 1993; Tulia, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth507592/m1/4/: accessed June 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Swisher County Library.