Budville, NM: A Town Too Tough to Die

 

Studying blue highways and the various unique, off-the-beaten path businesses and towns has helped open my eyes to the forgotten specs of Americana. For example, Budville, New Mexico displays the sheer determination of folks while epitomizing the rough-and-tumble history of the state. As we celebrate the state's 100th anniversary in the Union, let us remember, the territory that evolved into the "Land of Enchantment" had to pay its dues along the way.

Since the 16th Century, New Mexico was a land of opportunity for groups like the Spanish, Mexicans and Anglos. However, combine this desire for exploration along with the fact that the Pecos and other Native Americans inhabited the area for centuries and the stage was set for chaos and violence. Overtime, this desire for glory combined with various issues ranging from political greed to economic depression caused New Mexico to be a hot bed for short temperedness and petulance for violence. It was, in many accounts, a true shoot-em up western territory.

One area that epitomized the grit and determination of the state's inhabitants was Budville, a name that sounds as comforting as it was terrifying. Located in the Laguna Indian Reservation along New Mexico Highway 124, which can be accessed by taking exit 104 off Interstate 40, travelers can still see the vestiges of the unique community. Still standing today is the Budville Trading Post and Dixie Tavern and Cafe.

Opened in 1936, Dixie's was a place for the weary traveler to nurse their arid throats and call it a night, a haven for desperados looking to hide from the law as well as a business for people to purchase Indian rugs and other unique merchandises. Interestingly, Dixie's was listed in the business directories of 1946/7 and 1950 in two different locations, New Laguna and Cubero.

 

In order to understand the significance of Budville, let us briefly look at the tough history that helped mold Budville into a true Wild West town along the Mother Road. In 1928, the United States was still feeling the roar of the decade. Americans were feeling confident that they helped win the "war to end all wars." And now, four out of five citizens owned an automobile. People were beginning to explore the country in ways it never could before. Among these freedom loving spirits was a couple by the names of H.N. Bud and Flossie Rice.

Like many Americans, they sought to create new avenues. One way they accomplished this was by opening up a grocery store, automobile service station and trading post that consisted of a wrecker service, auto salvage yard and auto repair garage. Additionally, they operated the local New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department concession, contracted with Continental Trailways to sell bus tickets, dealt in Indian pawn jewelry on the side, dabbled in real estate and owned assorted small business and residential rental properties . Moreover, Bud was Justice of the Peace. According to local legend, Mr. Rice was very successful in attracting millions of dollars from tourists caressing Route 66 aka the "Old Road."

Much of Bud's success depended on his relationships with the sheriff and his deputy who helped bring broken down vehicles to his shops in the trading post as well as traffic violators. Over time, Bud towed more vehicles than the towns of Grants and Rio Puerco. Bud had so much clout that when Interstate 40 was to be built around his community, the construction was delayed a few years and when it did come to fruition, a sign reading "Budville 1 1/4" was erected. While Bud was very successful, not everyone was in love with the entrepreneur. For example, as a Justice of the Peace in Cubero (between Laguna and Grants) he was accused of collaborating with the sheriff department in creating speed traps. In 1939, Rice was convicted of assault for hitting a man with a piece of board and was given a suspended prison sentence; however, a few years later, Governor John Miles pardoned him. All of Rice's potencies culminated in his downfall.

On a cool fall night in November 1967, Bud Rice's past caught up with him. Author Don Bullis, in his novel, Bloodville, provides a detailed description of a bus driver's account of the night Bud Rice was murdered. "Bus driver Cody Miles turned his Continental Trailways Scenicruiser off Interstate 40 onto Route 66 at the Laguna Pueblo Indian Reservation exit, six miles east of Budville, at 7:40 on the evening of Saturday, November 18, 1967. Seven minutes later the bus crossed the Reservation’s west boundary, which also served as Budville's east limit. A sign at that point read SPEED LIMIT 50. Miles blew a blast on the air horn as he passed between the new yellow brick Mormon Church to his right and the rickety old whitewashed adobe Baptist Mission School to the left. He liked to let Flossie and Miss Brown know he was coming. It gave them half a minute to shoo passengers—usually Indians going to Grants—out of the store and into the chill of the autumn night. A pickup truck pulled onto the roadway from the trading post parking lot and headed east toward Albuquerque, fifty-five miles away. Cody Miles later remembered the truck as scrap-iron mounted on wheels. A '46 or '47 Ford, he guessed, dark blue or black except the right door and right front fender were light colored. It didn't have a license plate that he could see, and a single tail light glowed dim gray, the red lens long since broken out and gone. Indian Cadillac, the bus driver said to himself. Old Indian Cadillac.

Rice's two wreckers—the blue and white Peterbilt behemoth he used for towing semi trucks and the smaller red GMC he used for cars and pickups—occupied an otherwise empty trading post driveway. The bus didn't stop in Budville that night. Dark inside and out, except for the two gas pump globes that provided meager yellow illumination, the store appeared closed for business and no one stood under the sign which read Bus Depot. Miles thought it odd. Rice usually stayed open until eight o'clock or later, even when traffic volume declined in the fall and winter months. It pleased Cody Miles to think some of the ill-mannered arrogance had been taken out of Bud Rice when the merchant lost his final court battle to keep Interstate Highway 40 from bypassing Budville. The new four-lane highway was com-plete and open to traffic from Albuquerque to Gallup except for ten miles of the old two-lane Route 66 from Laguna Pueblo to the Los Cerritos Trading Post; the stretch that passed through Budville. By use of frivolous lawsuits and politi-cal chicanery Bud Rice had stalled completion of the Interstate road for seven years, but in the early fall of 1967, construction crews began work on the final section of I-40 where it climbed the side of Flower Mesa a half mile south of Budville. Miles didn't like Bud Rice. Few people did. Rice worked at being as dog-mean and nasty as the pit bull terriers he kept in the salvage yard behind his store, and he didn't care whether Cody Miles liked him or not. He didn't care whether anyone liked him or not, and he in turn, didn't have regard for many people. Apart from police officers and sheriff's deputies, Bud counted few men as friends.

The bus cruised slowly through the tiny town. Miles later recalled seeing two cars in front of Dixie’s Place—a rundown old tourist trap and saloon diagonally across the road from the Bud’s Trading Post—and the dirt parking lot outside the King Cafe & Bar at the west town limit was empty. The bus accelerated as it left Budville and soon rolled along the Old Road at seventy-five miles per hour, passing through Villa de Cubero and Los Cerritos. At the bottom of a sharp little hill just east of the Chief Rancho Motel, the driver saw red lights flashing on the road ahead. He slowed to fifty-five before passing a State Police car and a Corvette with Texas plates pulled off on the road’s shoulder. A uniformed officer leaned on the open driver's door of the black and white Plymouth police cruiser and two other officers stood illuminated in the car's headlights. No one’s safe from the cops, Miles muttered to himself." By the time Mr. Miles inquired to find out what was going on, the hoss of Budville was dead, but what actually happened? Moments earlier, at the Trading Post, according to Bullis, Bud's angry voice yelled, “Go ahead!”... “I don’t give a damn!” The first shot missed. A second quickly followed and it missed, too. A spasm of hope swept over the storekeeper as the bullets whizzed passed his head. Maybe he’d live.... But no! A third slug tore through his neck. So did a fourth and a fifth. The merchant’s hard gray eyes revealed nothing—not fear, nor rage, nor pain—as bullets ripped his fragile flesh. Blood, bone and tissue erupted from the back of his neck and splattered the trading post wall. The slugs drove him backward by a half step before his knees buckled and he dropped to the floor. He lay there, unmoving, as his carotid artery spurted blood like a fountain for a few seconds. Then his heart stopped pumping. Two gray-haired women watched from the end of the counter, near the cash drawer. The older woman, immobilized by shock and fear, screamed something the killer didn’t understand—his ears rang from the crash of the gun’s reports—and she raised her arms to cover her eyes, as if not seeing the killer would make him go away. She took a step backward. The gunman fired two quick shots and nine-millimeter bullets ripped holes in her chest and neck. She staggered, then fell, her face a mask of hopeless surrender to death. The woman lay still as blood pooled around her body and soaked into her housedress. She lived another thirty seconds before life left her. The younger woman ran away and hid. The killer blew smoke from the pistol’s barrel as he’d seen bad guys do in western movies. He followed the second woman through a door at the rear of the Budville Trading Post, a door that led to the Rice living quarters."

The culprit not only killed Bud Rice, but Blanche Brown an 81-year old who was purchasing a pack of cigarettes. The prime suspect, Navy sailor Larry Bunten, visiting family in the area, was arrested the next night at a roadblock and charged with murder. Eighteen days later Bunten was released from jail after evidence became overwhelming that he was with family at the time of the shooting. Billy Ray White then became a suspect and was put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Two weeks later, he was arrested in Illinois and charged for the murder of Mr. Rice. While the evidence strongly supported his conviction, the jury ended up voting not guilty. The courtroom was flabbergasted and Mrs. Rice was extremely upset. As for Flossie Rice, she winded up remarrying a gentleman by the name of Max Atkinson. Ironically enough, in August 1971, Max and his brother Philip were involved in another altercation at the trading post. This resulted in Max being wounded in the leg and Philip dying only three feet from where Bud died a few years earlier. Two years later, Max was involved in another dispute with a rancher 30 miles away. This time he did not survive.

As for Billy Ray White, he was arrested in Louisiana in 1968 for robbing a jewelry store and during his time in prison he spoke to a fellow inmate about what happened in November 1967. The inmate told a magazine in 1978 that White was indeed the murderer of Bud Rice and Blanche Brown. As for Flossie Rice, she married Obie Hall and ran the trading post for the last 12 years of her life. Yes, even as late as 1967, Budville continued to live by the old west code with revenge and justice acting as two key ingredients. Nonetheless, the persistence and strength showed by Mrs. Rice epitomized the meat and potatoes of the community. Budville is and was a town too tough to die.