By Ginger Pope
Odessa American
MONAHANS -- The year was 1938, and the day, June 14, was a day filled with
the same tension as a moment before the shoot out at the OK Corral.
For some, Today's 60th anniversary of the Ward County seat's location in
Monahans will go unnoticed, but for others it could be enough to make former residents of
Barstow, rollover in their graves.
Ward County began in 1887, but in 1938 the county seat moved 30 miles from
Brastow to Monahans, an issue older residents in the area remember all too well.
"There's a lot of people still bitter about it," Theresa Walker,
Barstow resident said. "We thought it was real sneaky how they sat and waited to get
the courthouse records."
Walker was about 18 when the county seat moved. She and some other Barstow
residents still carry a bit of resentment for what they call a "robbery."
Residents of Barstow called it a robbery because of the way the county seat
was moved, and because moving it put a damper on the town's growth.
Barstow, established in 1887, was a booming farming community in the 1930s,
with a healthy supply of water from the Pecos River. In the early 1890s the town was
declared the center point of Ward County.
About the same time the farming community began thriving, oil men began to
drill in the area known today as Monahans.
Finding oil was like finding gold, and the promise of jobs and wealth drew
many people to settle in the Monahans area forming a town. As more and more oil men
settled in Monahans the trip to Barstow, to take care of county business was becoming
inconvenient. Soon many people living in Monahans believed it a good idea to move the
county seat out of Barstow, Walker said.
After enough people in the Monahans and Grandfalls area had signed a petition
to call for an election November 9, 1937, to move county seat. Voters favored Monahans
1,433 to 464.
Barstow contested the election because not enough time had elapsed between a
previous election for the moving of the county seat and the November 1937 election.
District Judge J.A. Drane, in Kermit, declared there had to be a period of
five years before the next election could occur, voiding the November election.
Barstow residents still were worried about the November election results
being used five years down the road. So they thought they still needed to contest, and
many residents believed the election was rigged.
"They registered anyone and everyone who had a dog to vote, and they
outnumbered us," Walker said.
Even though the county had already been existing in controversy, another
election took place May 10, 1938, and again results were in Monahans' favor with votes of
1,649 to 453.
Just days later upon request by Barstow representatives Robert H. Miller and
Hill D. Hudson, Judge Drane issued a restraining order to keep records in Barstow.
However, on June 14, 1938, the County Commissioners' Court took a vote of 3
to 2 for records to be moved into Monahans, with Judge Fred Snelson casting the deciding
vote.
"My father had to go with who he had more support with and that was
Monahans and Grandfalls," Paul Snelson, son of Fred Snelson, said.
Once the decision was made to move the court records to Monahans the hired
and volunteer men, who were waiting outside, went into the courthouse to physically move
the records.
As soon as they began moving the records, then Deputy Clerk Viola Burkholder,
Miller and Hudson sped off to Kermit to get a restraining order from District Judge J.A.
Drane to keep them from moving the court records.
When they got to Kermit the Judge informed them that they needed a county
seal to make the restraining order legal. By the time the group returned to Barstow the
records were already being carefully guarded in Monahans.
Walker believes the county seat would have fared as well in Barstow as it has
in Monahans.
"County employees would have stayed here, but when they took it they
helped take away jobs and businesses,"she said. "Most of the people still here
grew up here and want to stay."
Those who know about the county seat moving either lived through it or have
heard stories passed down through the years, Ward County Judge Sam Massey said.
"I'm not surprised there is no celebration. Most people don't even know
the story around here,"Massey said. "Those who know would rather keep it quiet
and not open the wounds again."
Even though there is not the same threat of a gunfight when one mentions the
moving of the county seat, some people still walk on eggshells, Paul Snelson said.
"My dad did carry a pistol for awhile, but he never had to use it because of the
courthouse," he said.
The moving of the county seat to Monahans seemed only natural, Snelson said.
"The oil production was here, and the tax base was here so it was just
natural for the county seat to move," he said. "The oil impact moved it."
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