Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The “Western Days” special-event day Saturday at the Tucumcari Historical Museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and it also will serve as a tribute to the man who largely made the museum possible, Herman Moncus.
Moncus became the driving force behind the Tucumcari Historical Museum’s founding. A Texas native, his family moved to a homestead in eastern New Mexico when he was an infant. He collected arrowheads and other Native American artifacts from the surrounding mesas.
He began work at the Elk Drug Store along U.S. 66 in Tucumcari during the 1920s, then bought the business during the 1940s. He used the drugstore to warehouse his rapidly growing collection of relics.
About 40 people founded the Tucumcari Historical Research Institute in 1958 and looked 10 years to find a site for a museum. It found one with the closed Central School; the school district sold it to the organization for $1 in 1967.
During the grand opening June 1, 1969, Moncus presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony consisting of barbed wire wrapped around the front door. More than 350 people attended.
Moncus died in 1980. The city of Tucumcari eventually assumed ownership of the building and grounds.
The museum will pay tribute to Moncus’ unique christening with a barbed-wire ribbon-cutting at the complex’s front gate at 9 a.m. Saturday. Among those cutting the wire will be Duane Moore, Danny Wallace and James Crocker, longtime past members of the Tucumcari Historical Research Institute.
At 10 a.m., former local teacher and historian Lucy Nials will give a presentation about the Tucumcari Historical Museum’s early history and Moncus himself.
A chuck wagon will serve biscuits and gravy and cowboy coffee for breakfast, with the biscuits baked in the museum’s horno adobe oven. For lunch, it will serve posole or cowboy stew. Donations to cover the cost of both meals will be welcomed.
A birthday cake to mark the museum’s 50th year also will be served.
Robert Torres, former state historian, will give a presentation at 2 p.m.
At 3:30 p.m., the museum will host a cowchip-pitching contest that’s open to everyone. Wallace formerly competed at the nationally known competition in Beaver, Oklahoma.
The museum will preside over a number of children’s activities, including ice cream making, branding a board, grinding corn, making paintbrushes and a 5 p.m. stickhorse rodeo.
Cowboy poets and musicians will perform throughout the day, and Moore will give information about the region’s historic cemeteries.
The museum’s other special days this year will be a free-admission day July 20 featuring Route 66 and Tucumcari’s railroad history, plus “Patriotic Day” on Aug. 10 that celebrates the city and state’s military history.
The museum will hold extended hours through Labor Day, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.