David W. Runyan Eddy County, New Mexico

David W. Runyan, of Artesia, was born in Indiana, left home when thirteen years of age and went to Texas with buffalo hunters, undergoing the usual experiences of such a life on the plains. He came to the Terri tory from Mason County. Texas, in the fall of 1885 with the firm of Shriner & Light, owners of large cattle interests. He drove cattle to New Mexico and continued with the company for several years. This was the first firm to locate on the Peñasco, the date being the fall of 1886, at which time they filed the first land on this stream, where the town of Hope now stands. Prior to this period the Peñasco did not flow through to the Pecos river, but since that year, 1886, because of the cattle tramping down the bed of the stream, the Peñasco has flowed on until it has reached the larger body of water. About 1890 Air. Runyan engaged in the cattle business on his own account on the Peñasco near Hope and has been thus engaged to the present time, covering a period of sixteen years. He located three and a half miles below the present town site of Artesia in 1895 and had cattle all over the country. He now makes his headquarters at Hope, twenty miles southwest of Artesia, and his old ranch, which cost him eighteen hundred dollars and which was located three and a half miles south of his present location, he sold for ten thousand dollars. He has today two hundred and eighty acres of land adjoining the town of Hope, which he owns in connection with J. C. Gage and which constitutes a splendidly improved farm. He is a very popular and prosperous stock man, thoroughly familiar with the development of his section of the Territory, and his business activity and energy have been resultant factors in making him one of the prosperous citizens of this locality.

Back | New Mexico County Biographies

Source: History of New Mexico, Its Resources and People, Volume II, Pacific States Publishing Co., 1907.