Tokay, painting signed Audley Dean Nicols, Tokay, N.M., 1927
“This is the picture of it … it’s a painting that somebody did … And the people that ran that mine then was BH Kinney. And they had a brick plant in Albuquerque, and they hauled this coal to Albuquerque. They were still hauling coal to make bricks. Anyway, Tokay was pretty busy in the early, all the ‘20s and much of the ‘30s. And then in 1948, they were totally closed down, and we bought the area. In 1948, we moved to Tokay. In 1948, we bought the old Kinney house. Mr. and Mrs. Kinney lived there, and that’s where their children were born. They had four boys. They still have a Kinney brick plant in Albuquerque.
“Anyhow, then we moved to Tokay and had good, nice soft water and I had trees, and I could have a garden, and I had chickens and a milk cow, and … And we had a little more country, so we could buy more cattle and … we had to have more country so we could make a living. So that’s what we spent our lifetime, getting little pieces of land together and trying to create a big enough area to raise cattle. Then we leased the Fish and Wildlife for several years, and we had lots of cattle on the river. But years later, they fenced it, decided they didn’t want cattle down there. Then we had to cut down. And ultimately, we lived there (Tokay) ‘til Dean died. It was 22 years ago; he was buried 22 years ago the day before yesterday. But he was born and raised in this country. Worked on ranches and did … they’re an old family. They were here in the 1800s.”
Evelyn tells me the Fite family came to Tularosa in the 1800s. Dean Fite’s father was Walter Lafayette Fite, and his mother was Edna Bruton. Edna was born in the New Mexcio Territory in 1911. Dean’s family moved from south Texas to the Tularosa area in the 1800s and was originally from Tennessee.
