Smith Hotel on day of completion. On balcony, from left to right: Ben Smith, Manuel ("Cap") Peters, Lewis Higgins (played the fiddle), Bob Smith, Frank Wallis ("top boss" or head carpenter). On porch below: Fritz Disher (lumberyard man), Lee Bennett, Bill Smith, Uncle George Buchan, B. F. Smith (owner of the hotel), Lemuel Smith.

September 24, 2006

Let’s look at something a little different this week. The flu epidemic of 1923 on the South Plains is very much a part of our history, and did affect Littlefield and the surrounding area in a big way.

I’ve written in the past about the Smith Hotel, completed in 1913 by B. F. (Frank) Smith. By 1923, the year the flu epidemic hit this area, a lot of changes had taken place at "the hotel". Allow me to bring you "up to date".

"Things seemed to be going well for the Smiths who remained in or around the hotel. Life went on at a pleasant pace, and no one foresaw the changes that were soon to come. But within a very few years, the DID come. In 1914 and 1915, Ben (one of Frank’s sons) continued with his freighting and hunting, both of antelope and coyotes, hauling and selling the hides, with a "back-load" of supplies and saleable merchandise for the towns-people. Bob Smith (another brother) had married in 1915, and was ranching in New Mexico with his new bride.

"Then the changes really started. Lorado ( a sister) married Edwin "Mac" McKnight and went with him on an oil drilling crew to south Texas. Berta (another sister) married Ed Cosgrove and had moved to Causey, New Mexico. Gladys (yet another sister) married Frank James and moved to Artesia, New Mexico. Carl (a brother) had gone to help brother Bob on the ranch. And B. F. Smith died in 1916.

"Effie (another sister) and Milton Wharton moved to Flomont, Texas, while both Ben and Desbro (another brother) had gone to serve their country in World War I, both being sent to Europe.

"The hotel, once so alive and ringing with family and friends was without a Smith to run it. It was leased by the Smith children to some people who agreed to operate it and keep it open. However, they only stayed about a year or less, then moved out, taking as much of the furnishings as they could carry. No one ever heard of them again!

"For about a year, there was no one to tend to things, and word of the evacuation didn’t reach any of the Smith children for quite some time. In fact, no one knows if anyone ever even bothered to try to contact them. People would just go into the hotel, pick whatever room they wanted and stay for as long as they wanted. More often than not, when they left, they took whatever they took a fancy to of what was left of the furnishings…..a bed, a chair, a mirror or whatever. By the time Berta and her husband came back to Littlefield in 1918, the hotel had been COMPLETELY stripped of everything. ‘here wasn’t even enough to set up housekeeping.’

"Berta began to put the hotel back in order as best she could, buying what she could from a furniture/funeral home in Lamesa, and by picking up a bedstead here, a chair or table there, until she finally had the hotel refurnished. She began to run it again, as nearly as she could, in the manner it had been operated earlier. Except, this time, there was only Berta, her husband, "Cosgrove", their daughter Zelma (who was only about 4 years old at the time) and Cosgrove’s daughter, Eula, who was about 8 or 10, to do all the work.

"Carl Smith had stopped working for Bob and had come back to take a job on the railroad section line, so he moved into the hotel to help out when he could. This was a Godsend, because Cosgrove died in 1922, and that left only Berta and Carl (when he came in at night) to carry the load.

"Later on that year of 1922, more help arrived, when Lorado McKnight and her husband "Mac" came back to Littlefield. They immediately moved in and began to assist with the hotel duties.

"Just one year later, in 1923, "Mac" McKnight died in the terrible flu epidemic that was sweeping the nation at the time. While the epidemic affected most families in town, "Mac" was the only one who actually lived in the hotel to catch the flu, and this was probably because he was one of the ones who was attempting to help others in town and exposed himself. Bob Smith, Milton Wharton and all able-bodied men were "making the rounds", going from house to house and doing whatever they could to try to help the stricken towns-people. Both "Mac" McKnight and Milton Wharton caught the flu and died from it. Bob Smith caught it, and said he was "scared he would die and afraid he wouldn’t", he was so sick. He was given up for dead at one time, but managed to survive.