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Entertainment At Best In The Early 30's The father of David Stewart, the late Clyde F. Stewart, often related his adventures in the wild and wooly tent city of Best which sprang up almost overnight to support the oil field after Santa Rita #1 was discovered in the '20s. One such adventure is as follows: The 20's and early 30's era was during the prohibition, but it made little difference to the numerous bootlegger's who came to Best to cater to the thirsty roughnecks, roustabouts, gamblers, hookers, and merchants, who also came to Best to provide thier services. The law at Best in those days was a one man police force by the name of Sonny Lane who years later became the Chief of Police in Monahans. Sonny looked the other way while numerous saloons served thier spirits and often, in the interest of peace, checked on such saloons. One such saloon, a favorite hangout of Clyde Stewart, was named "The Bucket of Blood" and was located on top of the hill just south of Best. One night, Sonny came into the Bucket of Blood while Clyde was there and they got to discussing the absence of entertainment in Best... The only entertainment was drinking, snake hunts, or an occasional pit bull dog fight and the natives were getting restless. In fact, Best in those days was noted for it's killings and lawlessness. Clyde often related how one could drive by the one room jail in Best (still there today) on Sunday morning after Saturday night and the jail would be full with the overflow chained to mesquite trees outside. Anyway, as the story goes, Sonny and Clyde had heard about a traveling carnival out of San Angelo which had a star wrestler who would take on all comers where ever it went and would pay a bounty to anyone who could pin their star wrestler. So, in the interest of entertainment and since Best had it's share of town toughs, Sonny and Clyde decided to invite the carnival to Best and promote a wrestling event. However, when the Carnival arrived in Best and the locals saw the size of the star wrestler who weighed around 300 lbs and 6'4" tall, no one would get in the ring with him. Of course, this caused much discontent and rowdiness among the carnival goers who had paid to see the wrestling event. The crowd became more and more unruly and they accused Sonny and Clyde of having some kind of kick-back scheme with the carnival. Finally, to appease the crowd, especially since Sonny and Clyde had promoted the wrestling event, they decided that they were obligated to volunteer to wrestle the star wrestler. Clyde went first and was in the ring for only about 2 minutes before he was picked up and bodily thrown out of the ring suffering multiple cuts and bruises from landing on some chairs. Sonny went next and he fared little better. He was, however, able to stay in the ring for about 3 minutes before he suffered a broken bloodied nose and was pinned. The crowd loved the excitement and afterwards thanked Sonny and Clyde for the entertainment. Years later in the mid 50's, David was fortunate to stop by Monahans with his dad to visit Sonny Lane and hear his dad and Sonny laugh about the time they prevented a riot and provided entertainment for the tent city of Best. If anyone knows any of the descendents of Sonny Lane, who has no doubt passed on by now, we are sure they would appreciate knowing about this story.