The Day Roswell was Doomed
Mike Smith
in Roswell Edition Column
|
Post a Comment
Share this: del.icio.us | Digg | Google | Ma.gnolia | Reddit | Stumble Upon | Technorati
Every civilization must one day meet its epic demise. There was the fall of the Roman Empire, the city of Pompeii whose inhabitants were buried alive under volcanic ash and lava, and the fabled lost civilizations of Mu and Atlantis which sank into their respective oceans. And, once, so did Roswellites run for the hills in fear that their fair metropolis would meet a cataclysmic end. Or well…sort of.
Many interesting tales can be found waffling through The Old Timer’s Review, a unique collection of newspaper articles published from 1979 to 1987. The paper, published by Clarence Adams, contained articles on all sorts of interesting stories concerning famous events and people from the Roswell region’s past such as Elizabeth Garrett, daughter of Pat Garrett, and even little known tidbits about rancher Mac Brazel who found the Roswell UFO debris in 1947. Many of the most interesting exploits belonged to Clarence Adams himself, whose own boyhood experiences could rival Mark Twain’s. One of the stories Adams relates is of a summer in 1936 when a woman predicted that Roswell would be annihilated…and no, aliens didn’t have anything to do with it.
In his article, “Where Were You the Night Roswell was “Doomed?”, Adams relates a day back in the summer of 1936 when some of the town’s inhabitants were a little spooked by a woman claiming to be a prophet. The woman had said that very night an earthquake would occur and swallow the town of Roswell into the bowels of the Earth. What Roswell had done to await such a fate at the time is anyone’s guess, but it still had some residents scared. Although not many would take stock in that woman’s predictions today, people were likely more susceptible to such ideas at the time due to the dark clouded skies of the Depression Era of the 1930s.
Adams wrote that he wasn’t overly worried about the doomsayer’s predictions because, as he put it, “I’d always been taught that whenever the Lord wanted to bring destruction on a town, He’d do it without any help from some crackpot.”
Adams goes on to remember that his own father wasn’t worried at all over the woman’s predictions, although he had heard that some town residents were hightailing it to Six-Mile Hill west of Roswell to camp there for the night, should the town meet its demise. Soon Adam’s brother, J.B. Adams, came home and confirmed to his father and brother that he had seen many cars heading west leaving town. There were also rumors swirling that the bath house at Bottomless Lakes east of town was a foot underwater.
Of course, later that night Roswell did not sink into the ground, and not even a slight tremor was felt.
Nothing sums up the humorous event like Adams himself, who ended his own article like this:
I often think about that night that so many people left Roswell for a “safer” place. However, the strangest thing happened after that. You couldn’t find a single soul in the whole community who’d left town on that fateful night. Often you’d hear a conversation that went like this:
“You take off for the hills the other night when Roswell was supposed to sink?”
“Naw, shore didn’t. Stayed right at home. Don’t believe in that kind of nonsense.”
“Well, I reckon a lot of folks took off for high country anyway,” would come the answer.
Clarence Adams is unfortunately no longer with us and the name of the alleged prophet and others who might have set off for six mile hill can only be speculated upon, but, there is one very interesting thing to note: The massive flood that hit Roswell one year later in the summer of 1937.
Although the town wasn’t swallowed whole, the flood was strong enough to wash away several houses near the Berrendo, Hondo, and Spring Rivers and do plenty of damage. Could the woman many called a crackpot have been off in her prediction by a year?
Yeah…probably not, but it’s an interesting coincidence considering some townsfolk seemed to think Roswell’s destruction could come in the form of a flood instead of an earthquake that night in 1936. Also interesting is the fact that a flood of such proportions could happen again as Adams pointed out in his article on the 1937 flood in The Old Timers Review since as of yet there is no flood control dam on the Berrendo River north of town…
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments