Interview of Rufus M. Dunnahoo(aged 88 in 1937) by Georgia B. Redfield, March 19, 1937

"I left San Antonio and arrived in New Mexico in July, 1880. Judge Asbury C. Rogers, the first school teacher in this district, was one of the men who in our outfit. At Pecos we found a Caravan with sixteen covered wagons and a bunch of cattle. They were discouraged because grazing for the cattle was all burned up because of long drouth. The cattle had gotten weak and poor from lack of water and food. I made them a proposition to bring their stock through to Seven Rivers for them and I did that.

"We hadn't been at Seven Rivers long when Geronimo's Apaches came and stole all the teams and 32 head of their horses. But I had bought the old Beckwith Ranch and had my horses in a five-foot high and two-foot thick adobe corral, near the house so the Indians didn't get mine.

"I opened a blacksmith shop in Seven Rivers. Then Seven Rivers, Roswell and White Oaks were the only towns in Southeast New Mexico. Now (1937) all that remains of Seven Rivers are some adobe walls and Boot Cemetery, where men were buried with their boots on after shoot outs. I was dissatisfied with lawless conditions in wild and wooly Seven Rivers and so moved to Roswell owned by Captain Lea and his wife, Sally (Wildy) Lea."