The steady noise of machinery filled the Santa Fe blacksmith shop in Clovis, New Mexico, late on a Monday afternoon in June 1915. Then, without warning, one worker seized a mechanic’s hammer and struck blacksmith A. S. Combs near the ear.
Combs collapsed unconscious, dropping the red-hot iron bar he had been holding. His clothing caught fire, but the man who struck him quickly extinguished the flames before surrendering to police.
As surgeons fought to save Combs at the Santa Fe Hospital, conflicting accounts left authorities with an unanswered question: What had happened inside the shop moments before the blow was struck?
Man At Santa Fe Shop Hit With Hammer
A. S. Combs was struck with a mechanic’s hammer in the hands of T.M. Dickens at the Santa Fe blacksmith shop Monday evening at 4:30 and is at this writing lingering between life and death at the Santa Fe Hospital where he was hurried for an operation.
Combs, the blacksmith, has been unconscious and unable to give his version of the affair, but Dickens, who was employed as a blacksmith’s helper, says that he became overbearing and grossly insulting. Unable to stand it any longer and in a fit of madness, he struck Combs a violent blow on the ear with a mechanic’s hammer, which felled him on the spot.
A hot bar, which Combs held in his hand, fell on his clothes setting them on fire, but this was quickly extinguished by Dickens, who immediately surrendered to the officers.
There was only one eyewitness to the affair. It was E.W. McFarland, who says that he was passing the window of the shop when he heard the steam hammer strike heavily, which it will do when not properly operated.
Looking inside at the open window, a distance of 20 feet, he saw Combs walk from the steam hammer and almost instantly Dickens seized the mechanics hammer and struck him. He heard no words pass between the two.
An employee named Slaton was also near, but says that he did not see the blow struck.
Dickens who is a man of about 45 years of age is confined in the county jail awaiting the outcome of the injuries before a charge is lodged against him. He has a wife and nine children.
Combs is a powerful man of about the same age as Dickens and has a wife and one boy residing here. He also has a son residing at Kansas City and a daughter at San Antonio, who have been notified.
Source: The Clovis News. Clovis, N.M. June 25, 1915.
