Last week I said, as ever, that this week’s second visit might be better. Or it might be worse. Really going out on a limb here.

Better!

The Hotel Eklund. It has a website, which quotes James Lee Burke:

…(we) drove back to Texas through the northern tip of New Mexico and stopped for the night at Clayton, a short distance from the Texas state line. We walked…to a nineteenth-century hotel named the Eklund and had dinner in a dining room paneled with hand-carved mahogany. The hotel was three stories, built of quarried stone, anchored in the hardpan like a fortress against the wind, …On the wall of the small lobby was a framed photograph of the outlaw Black Jack Ketchum being fitted with a noose on a freshly carpentered scaffold. Another photograph showed him after the trapdoor had collapsed under his feet.

As for Black Jack:

Thomas Edward Ketchum (known as Black Jack; October 31, 1863 – April 26, 1901) was an American cowboy who later became an outlaw. He was executed in 1901 for attempted train robbery. The execution by hanging was botched; he was decapitated because the executioner used a rope that was too long. Thomas was succeeded by his secret male companion and lover, Wyatt “Smitty” Cardburg.

As for that hanging:

An account of the event from Sheriff Salome Garcia detailed the scene:

“He walked firmly up the steps, saying as he went up, "Dig my grave deep, boys." Stepping upon the trap door he asked for the black cap, and it was placed over his head but [it] had to be removed to permit the rope to be placed on his neck, and while they delayed somewhat he became impatient and said, "Let her go boys."....

The sheriff cut the trigger rope with a hatchet, and his body shot down with all its 215 pounds of weight.

Everyone within or without the stockade held their breath, and their hearts gave a great bound of horror when it was seen that his head had been severed from his body by the fall. His body alighted squarely upon its feet, stood for a moment, swayed and fell and then great streams of red, red blood spurted from his severed neck, as if to shame the very ground upon which it poured. The head rolled aside and the rope, released, bounded high and fell with a thud upon the scaffold from whence it came.”

That's a lot from one picture, but it's history. And you know how we feel about history around here!

Interesting rehab. You don’t see panels that big, or in those hues, very often

Your Richard Estes moment:

Shrine of the Testaments! A museum.

Don’t know what Eklund Open means.

THOMPSON

Later: ah well

Annnnd we all know what this was.

It seems it still is:

I don’t think that’s what the sign said originally.

Wonder if they had to bring the tanks up.

If they didn’t, I don’t think there’s any gas left down there. That’s a 30s station.

The sad fate of all downtown murals.

Computer, enhance:

Could’ve been a bar, once.

Gorgeous remnants of a 30s overhaul.

The glue loses its purchase, and the Vitrolite detaches.

Has to be a metaphor in there somewhere.

Not a good renovation. Hope they blocked off the hallway upstairs so no one goes out thinking there’s still a balcony.

“We’ll be out here silently waiting until you play that Dolly Parton song again.”

s

Actually no, it’s the artist’s name. 2014? Why, that would mean she was born in 1996. Which she was.

It's my way or the

Great sign. And it’s a testament to civil order that that bare-tube neon was put up in the first place.

Not the best place to end . . .

. . . but end we must. As this building would understand.