Wilfornia could be Your Land, Wilfornia is definitely My Land...
I am thinking of addressing some private angst in relation to naming our frontier region after a corrupt politician, as was done at the creation of QuayCounty. I think a far better person to honor as a namesake is Anthony Wilford Brimley, so I am proposing that our region be called Wilfornia in his honor. I feel Mr. Brimley simply "brims" over with the attributes that residents of our region value and often emulate. So, residents would be called Wilfornians and I figure we could make sure we have a regular Wilford Brimley Film Festival and invite his family to area events! I would certainly attend!!
There has to be some bounds of focus to a website. For our purposes, these bounds are primarily geographical. Of course, the presupposition of this website is that the City of Tucumcari is the center of this website's "universe", but everyone and everything in view of Tucumcari Mountain is just as vital to the definition of Wilfornia and we encourage everyone to get off the Interstate and explore the many locations within Wilfornia,, both physically and metaphysically!
In case you didn't know, Wilfornia has nothing to do with Texas.
Of course, it is a given fact of this website that, once the artificial constructs of the The United States of America and New Mexico disappear to irrelevance (for which I do not advocate - it will just happen one future Tuesday), Wilfornia will be the proper and natural political and economy geographical entity for the relief of Wilfornians.
Once a lot of this site was pulled together, I found an excellent blog that plows a lot of the same ground at http://sixgunsiding.blogspot.com/.
The Historical Wilfornia
One must understand that the area that we designate as Wilfornia was considered terra nullius, or no-man's-land into the Frontier Cowfolk Era. Until the advent of deep well drilling in the early 20th century, this land was essentially uninhabitable away from a few river valleys and otherwise used for hunting buffalo and other game and a territory to be quickly moved through between settlements. Wilfornia has been gradually reverting to this original usage, with cows replacing the buffalo.
The Eras of Wilfornia
I'm still working on this, but I have a running theory that there have been distinct eras in the timeline of Wilfornia:
Indians used to hunt and pass through here, but with sense enough to make permanent settlements elsewhere.
Authorities were far away and anyone close by were indulgent of whatever happened that didn't cause too much trouble. Mexico acted about the same way. We will defend you from some invasion if we can, but you have to handle most things yourselves. We mostly retain this philosophy even as Americans.
The military occupation and the end of Indians and buffalo.
Frontier cattlefolk took over and are still the significant influence here,
though on a scale of running fewer cattle on larger tracts with fewer cowfolk.
There seem to be a growing number of fires and
a growing amount of land being bought up by large financial interests with many ranchers
becoming renters.
People used to farming in fertile eastern soils
and were tricked into staking Homesteading claims here. Railroad chicanery and massive
government irrigation programs (largely failed except for ongoing taxation) as well.
This ended up being mostly a passing phase except for hay farmers willing to accept
lower production in our sub-optimal soils along with significant income
augmentation. Farmers or not, many established Wilfornians continue to augment.
More people leaving to easier (more habitable) or frankly more prosperous climbs. Wilfornians end up being a bit stubborn if they stay.
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