THE BETHEL, NEW MEXICO STORY

Privately Printed, 1966, 1966. paperback. Very Good. 0x0x0. Privately Published, August, 1966. Booklet, 20 pp. Limited to 400 copies (unnumbered). Signed by F. Stanley on inside of front cover. In very good condition. Yellow paper covers with red lettering on front. Hint of fading/aging along spine. Binding tight (staple bound). Pages unmarked with a few light age spots near staples at center of booklet. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. One of the few histories of the town of Bethel, New Mexico, originally established ten miles west of Portales, in Chaves County. Settled in 1901 by a group of families from Lockney, Texas, Bethel is one of the oldest of the community settlements. Many of the first homesteaders here were members of the Church of Christ, and their minister, S. W. Smith, came to the new settlement with them. These early settlers immediately set about building a church and school, boasting of having one of the few two-teacher schools in the county. The land in the vicinity was occupied and settled as a farming and ranching community under the Homestead Laws. Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola (1908 - 1996) was a Franciscan friar and grass roots historian who wrote under the pen name F. Stanley. He was passionate about the Wild West and developed a keen interest in the often ignored people and communities in the southwestern parishes where he began serving soon after his ordination in 1938. Beginning in 1948, he wrote over 170 books and booklets that chronicled the history of many towns in the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico. Although penniless he often financed his own printings. Never tiring in his passion, he spent his vacations in small western towns gathering research materials for his books. A big part of Father Stanley's research was done by visiting the older residents of the communities he wrote about. His series of books on small towns in New Mexico which were often limited to a few hundred copies are now quite collectible and can be easily recognized by their bright yellow covers with red lettering.