David H. Stratton

Tucumcari, New Mexico, was founded in 1901 by the Rock Island Railroad and soon had major railroad lines converging there from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Memphis as well as a northern branch line from the Dawson coalfields. The federal highway system established Route 66, the "Main Street of America," through the middle of town in 1926. Tucumcari flourished as a tourist mecca, welcoming travelers with its blazing displays of neon lights. But mergers, reorganizations, and financial problems of the railroads, as well as the creation of the interstate highway system that bypassed small places, brought a sharp decline to the once-prosperous town. Tucumcari Tonite! blends in-depth research and personal and family experiences to re-create a "memoir" of Tucumcari. Drawing on newspapers and government documents as well as business records, personal interviews, and archival holdings, Stratton weaves a poignant tale of a western town's rise and decline--providing a prime example of the destructive forces that have been inflicted on small towns in the West and all across America.

In mid-1900s Washington, most orchardists grew apples for the fresh fruit trade, and had little access to markets for their low-grade leftovers. Immense piles of culls were left to rot or dumped into landfills or the Columbia River--until beverage salesman William Charbonneau started using them to create his own brand of 100% apple juice. In 1960, his company became a growers' cooperative, and Tree Top Inc. was born.Over the next fifty years, the innovative cooperative continued to expand and revolutionize the industry. Tree Top was the first processor to produce and market frozen apple juice concentrate. They devised modern processing methods and equipment. Multiple strategic acquisitions enabled Tree Top to introduce new consumer items and compete in the industrial marketing category, providing dried ingredients to makers of oatmeal, ice cream, cake mixes, and other foods. The corporation navigated many challenges, including two devastating fires, the 1989 Alar scare, frequent apple shortages, and intense competition from China.Today, Washington is still the nation's leading domestic apple producer, and the fruit is the state's top-ranked agricultural commodity. Tree Top, which has continually maintained its commitment to growers and nutritious, natural products, has been a significant contributor.

Albert B. Fall, interior secretary in the Harding administration, was the first American cabinet member sent to prison for a crime committed in office. In the Teapot Dome affair - the worst modern political scandal until Watergate - Fall leased two naval oil reserves, Wyoming's Teapot Dome and California's Elk Hills, to Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny and received payments of $404,000 from the two millionaire oilmen. Historian David Stratton pulls no punches as he sheds new light on western and national politics, conservation, and economic development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Tempest over Teapot Dome describes Fall's role in Harding's administration, his tribulations in court before going to prison in 1931, his freewheeling career in New Mexico politics, his lawyering for underdog ranchers in a bloody range war, his gut-fighting style as a U. S. senator who opposed Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy, and his strident activities as an expert on Latin American affairs, particularly U. S.-Mexican relations.Fall's belief in the unrestricted and immediate disposition of public lands was as typically western as his black, broad-brimmed Stetson hat and his love of fine horses.