PUE, Arthur "Art" - 9 May 1905 - 4 Nov 1978
Buried by Gene K Tarvin...Kenny Smith...Peter Gunn and J. A. Pue. J. A. spoke the eulogy and played and sang hymms for his grandpa. He is buried behind the old store home.
On a cold Nov 4th night, my family and I were returning to our home when we saw flashing police lights at a railroad crossing a few miles south of the mine. The tan colored pickup was upside down out in the pasture and we couldn't tell for sure if it was Art Pue or not. Next morning we heard the news and it was Art who was killed in the wreck.
There was never a city here; my children gave it that name. It was only about 2 mi. from our house behind IMCC Mine to the Pue store, and my children were forever going up to Pue City for cokes and snacks and the name stuck, at least for our family.
Besides ranching, Art and Ruth Pue sold fish bait and snacks and cokes to fishermen from Hobbs and West Texas who liked to fish on the Pecos and Red Bluff Lake. Many times we would run up and buy something we had forgotten to buy in town, saving us a 26 mile trip into Carlsbad.
I visited Art and Ruth many times over the years. He was a gentleman to the core and seemed very friendly. Many times he would need something welded and I would run up to his house with my welding machine or he would bring it down to my house.
Art built a home atop the store that Ruth ran and many times while driving by I would see hogs or a side of beef hanging halfway up the north wall of the house cooling off.
Ruth told me that they also made their own ketchup and peanut butter.
Art told me of his early years, homesteading around 1933 and working at U.S. Potash Co, riding his horse to the mine and working underground mucking salt and potash with a shovel. The miners were on a quota system, having to load a set number of ore cars each shift, and somtimes cars were down for repairs and a miner wouldn't get his quota. In that case the miner would be fired.
He also told me of sitting out back of the house and watching the English lords and ladies go by on their special rail cars on the narrow gage railroad a few hundred yards behind their house. The railroad ran from U.S.Mine to the Refinery about 15 miles away, where the potash was refined.
About 4 years after Art's death I bought all the fishing tackle from Ruth's store and she asked me if I wanted to buy her chickens too. She had the best looking Rhode Island Reds I ever saw, so I told her sure and loaded them up.
They turned out to be the wildest chickens I ever saw. After 2 weeks in my chicken house, I turned them out and that was the last I saw of them. I never knew where they went.
The old railroad is no longer behind the house; it was torn out years ago. The old store is closed and covered in vines.