T. C. DeShon McKinley County, New Mexico

T. C. DeShon, proprietor of a finely equipped blacksmith shop and vehicle establishment at Gallup, came to New Mexico in 1885 as a mechanic in the Albuquerque shops of the Santa Fe Railway system, having been sent there from the shops at Topeka, Kansas. He was born at St Joseph, Missouri, and for several years before coming to this Territory had been employed by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company at Lincoln, Nebraska, and Edgemont, South Dakota, and by the Santa Fe Railroad Company at Topeka. In 1898 he was sent from Albuquerque to Gallup, where he remained in the employ of the company for eighteen months.

With almost no capital, he then purchased a small building and rented two lots and established himself in business as a general blacksmith, wheelwright and wagon maker, and has added to this until now he is doing a wholesale as well as retail business, and carries a large stock of wagons and buggies. He soon found a large trade among the Navajos and has been quite successful.

Politically, unswerving in his devotion to Republican principles, he has taken an active interest in public affairs, and from 1901 to 1905 served as police justice. He is now chief deputy sheriff of McKinley County. He was made a Mason in Alliance, Nebraska, and has attained the thirty-second degree, entering the higher lodges at Deadwood, South Dakota, and the Shrine at Albuquerque. He is also a member of the lodge of Elks at Albuquerque.

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