The basis of Mesa-Croft and its formation lies in the purpose of managing the legacy of J.K. Wallingford, that of Martha Wallingford West, daughter of J.K. Wallingford, and that of Sonny West (E.O. West, Jr.).
Martha Wallingford West formed Mesa-Croft in order to consolidate and manage her business interests. Martha passed away in 2010. Preceding her in death was Sonny West who passed away in 2000, and ahead of that J.K. “Rufus” Wallingford and his wife Ellen, respectively in 1972 and 1985.
Today Mesa-Croft is owned and managed by Martha and Sonny’s daughter, Ellen West Nodwell.
Martha and Sonny West
Martha and Sonny West met in Abilene, Texas in the early 1950’s after Martha graduated from university and Sonny was into his career in the oil patch. They married in Abilene and lived there until Sonny was promoted to a new position with Superior Oil Company in 1961. They were moved to Houston, Texas which was quite a change for the family. They left family and many friends behind to embark on city living on the Gulf Coast.
They lived in Houston for eight years, then decided to move a town north of Houston called Conroe, to a new golf course development named River Plantation. Both of them loved to golf. This meant a commute for Sonny to his job downtown, but he traded this for getting to play golf more. After several years in River Plantation, they built another house further north in a development called Panorama Village. This was the second house that they had built together. They lived there until Sonny was early retired after Superior Oil was purchased by Mobil in 1985.
From that point they lived between places in the Conroe-Woodlands area, and the Texas Hill Country, a small time returning to Abilene, and Cloudcroft in New Mexico. Sonny’s health deteriorated and the requirement for better medical care access positioned them to return to the Conroe-Woodlands area to be near Houston and the Texas Medial Center. Martha remained in The Woodlands area through her final years.
E.O. “Sonny” West Family History
Our ancestors drive our tendencies. The West family had a pioneer spirit and they were practical as well as intelligent, they were designers and builders and could live off the land – they were congenial and ended up as leaders in their communities. Included among them were lawyers, judges, business people, builders, teachers, and artists. Wests integrated with Native American people via marriage. One line descended from Quakers. The other line descended from Anglicans, members of the Church of England.
Sonny West descended from one family who were amongst the town founders of Ada, Oklahoma.
His maternal forefathers included people who came from Arkansas into what was then known as “Indian Territory” in covered wagons, destined to homestead and settle their families escaping the horrors of the Civil War and the Confederacy which brought death and tragedy to their family members. Prior to their migration to Arkansas, this family line originated from Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina after leaving Maryland and Virginia to further migrate west.
These maternal West Family ancestors and many other individuals who were participants in building a country after arriving on the shores of the Americas in the early 1700’s into Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Stephen West was the original West family member from this line to arrive in America from Bucks County in England (Buckingham Shire). William West, of this line from which Howard West descended, fought in the American Revolution.
E.O. West, Sr. hailed from a different line of Wests.
His roots originated in Pennsylvania. This line of the West family descended from John West who came to the American shores in the early 1700’s into Pennsylvania from Long Crendon in Bucks County, England. He fought in the American Revolution, but returned to Bucks County where he died and was laid to rest in October of 1776, following the end of the war. Others from this line included Benjamin West (the artist).
E.O. West, Jr. – “Sonny”
Sonny West was in the oil business from his earliest career after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. Upon discharge he returned to the University of Oklahoma and graduated in 1951 with a Business degree. Martha Wallingford West graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in 1950 with a degree in Home Economics and Interior Design. They were married in 1952.
Because of Sonny’s deep knowledge of the petroleum business having worked his way from field to business development, he helped guide the later decisions and help the Wallingford family manage their interests. Sonny was well regarded in his 47 year career and was known as a successful negotiator and key member of The Superior Oil Company’s Land Department, serving as a regional land manager over a wide extent of Texas trends from the central Texas Austin Chalk down to those trends in Southeast Texas close to the border of Mexico and all along the Gulf Coast.
Sonny cut his teeth in the Permian Basin having first been an oil scout after working in the field, ahead of being promoted into a land man position. He knew every aspect of the exploration and production life cycle, having worked on seismic crews, as a mud logger, and a roustabout in the field, then working his way into the scouting role. He was a “builder” and had the personality to match. He was analytical and could figure out solutions in every situation.
The only things that Sonny West feared included being bitten by a small dog, being in a boat fishing and having a water moccasin (snake) crawl into the boat, and being surprised by a bear up in the mountains (for which he kept a “bear gun”).
He was a gentle giant who in partnership with Martha, his wife, strongly supported and took care of our family. At the same time he was a top notch ethically driven businessman, fair play sportsman, and all around fair minded leader. He was extremely ethical in all of his endeavors and detested (his words) “crooks” and “cheaters”. If you ever lied to Sonny West, he never forgot it. You could not walk back from this.
The Wallingford Family History…
The family of J.K. “Rufus” Wallingford originated in England. The history is fairly clear on this. However, what is not clear in any literature is why Nicholas Wallingford, the original settler, got the wanderlust and came over by ship from Southampton, England. It is recorded that he arrived in Massachusetts at Newburyport in 1638.
He settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, and later married Sarah Travers (Travis); they had thirteen children between 1655 and 1680. The story goes that he was lost at sea (verified) captured by “Barbary Pirates” (unverified, but makes a good story).
From there, the story has it, Nicholas Wallingford’s children and their families moved out to various parts of their new area to settle into different parts west and south, eventually moving across America. The relative from whom J.K. “Rufus” Wallingford descended was Benjamin Wallingford, III, who settled in Maysville, Kentucky.
J.K. “Rufus” Wallingford was the fifth child of Oliver Perry Wallingford, who was roughly three branches down from Benjamin Wallingford who came to Maysville. “Rufus” was the second child born with Oliver’s second wife, Mary Susan Beckett Wallingford.
“OP” as he was called by family and friends, was a farmer of his family’s large plot of land as well as a postmaster and a Christian minister of a local church. He was fondly known in the area as a leader and sought to maintain ethics despite the changing times and great struggles in culture and politics at the time. He served his country as a volunteer in the U.S. Military, during the Civil War in the 55th Kentucky Infantry as a mounted soldier, with a rank of sergeant, from the 4th of April to the 19th of September, 1865.
After his service to his country, OP started his family and lived 81 years. Joseph Keevil “Rufus” was his youngest child. He had older brothers and sisters that helped with his upbringing along the way. Rufus was dedicated to his mother and being the youngest child, she no doubt spoiled him at times.
J.K. “Rufus” Wallingford
Rufus Wallingford attended the University of Kentucky and earned his degree in geological engineering after returning to classes from a break that he took to join the Navy and serve his country during World War I. He was a navigator in the Naval Air Corps. He took his first role out of university as a geological explorer and joined a geological survey team, heading to Mexico in 1921 to continue to explore the emerging Poza Rica trend in the north-eastern areas within the state of Veracruz.
From that point, Rufus experienced what likely at the time was the equivalent to the exploration his original ancestors were bent to do – going to places that were remote from home, navigating the day-to-day experience with all of the risks that come with being in places that are not developed – and in a jungle-like environment. Unfortunately, after living in the conditions in the field in the Veracruz state in the area where the operations were happening, he eventually became sickened by a severe gastrointestinal infection and had to return to Kentucky. However, he did not stop working in the oil exploration business and continued as a freelance geologist as his health returned.
He married Lucy Ellen Williams in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in October of 1922. Her family settled in Bowling Green from Green County Kentucky, as the Williams family ancestors had moved west and south from Virginia where they immigrated from Cornwall, England, having arrived in 1701 into Virginia.
Rufus Wallingford relocated his family first to Wichita Falls, Texas, then to Abilene, Texas in the mid-1920’s after his return from Mexico. Life was disrupted in 1925 by the death of their baby daughter at age two-months. Doing look-back analysis, the symptoms are in line with cystic fibrosis, which later appeared in descendant births. The family relocated to Abilene, Texas where he continued to work as a geological consultant and surveyor.
During the Great Depression years, he moved into working in the hospitality industry, and moved from location to location as economic hard times hit each time period. He moved to own and manage a hotel, The Artesia Hotel, in Artesia, New Mexico. And later, he moved the family further into New Mexico where he and his wife held The Cloudcroft Lodge in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, as their home and work, managing it until World War II made that business untenable in the later 1930’s.
He was active as an industry leader having served as Chairman of the New Mexico Hotel Managers Association, and later as the Chairman and President of the Texas Hotel Association. He served on the board of directors of each organization, being an active strategic member.
J.K. Wallingford returned to Abilene in 1944 to manage The Wooten Hotel then “retired” to get back to be more active in the oil business. At that point, Rufus Wallingford shifted once again into petroleum land work, negotiating royalty rights to and leasing interests to operators who desired to drill and explore the Permian Basin in Texas, the Delaware Basin and along the Central Basin Platform in Southeast New Mexico.
However, his work in hospitality was not finished yet. He relished the challenges of helping improve each property he owned or managed. For him and his wife, Ellen, they always were “host and hostess”, desiring to give each guest a positive experience and wonderful memories of staying at their lodgings wherever. Food was always a focus as were providing excursions.
The Wallingfords once again returned to manage the Cloudcroft Lodge for its new owners in the late 1950’s, then afterwards moved back to Abilene in the early 1960’s once again, and worked as a restaurant and club manager for the Abilene Petroleum Club as his last career position before finally retiring.
For the rest of his life, J.K. Wallingford remained involved in managing oil and gas royalty interests, despite having severe coronary disease which eventually took his life in 1972 at the age of 76.
The tools of the trade were manual and interpretive. Today we utilize technology to work more efficiently, but the “know-how” is still required. At Mesa-Croft we depend on “know-how” passed along from generation to generation.
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