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White Deer Land Museum

116 S. Cuyler

Pampa, TX 79065

Nels Walberg sold farm implements in early Pampa

Nels Walberg was born in Wisconsin of immigrant Norwegian parents. His first wife, Bredena, came as a child from Norway to South Dakota. After Bredena died in 1906 in South Dakota, Walberg and his four motherless children started south.

For several months they stopped in Kansas City where Walberg was associated with C.L. Bergnthal of the Huber Manufacturing Company. Bergnthal encouraged Walberg to come to the Texas Panhandle where a new frontier was opening up. Pampa was then a frontier town with unpaved streets, wooden sidewalks and a population of about 200.

The Walbergs stopped in Miami, Texas for three months where the two girls, Ella and Edna, stayed with the Severtson family and the boys, Norman and Arthur, stayed with the Cooks.

Walberg bought three sections of land seven miles east of Pampa and plowed out several acres of sod with a steam engine. He built an eleven-room concrete house which is now the country home of Dr. R.M. Hampton.

In 1908 Walberg bought the property at 621 East Kingsmill and engaged Pampa carpenter Charles T. McCarty to build a house. The big clapboard house had two stories with beveled glass front and second story doors and two stained glass windows. There were four bedrooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs. Walberg had a place for a bathroom built upstairs, but because there was no running water, it was not used until 1913. Until then everyone bathed in a No. 3 washtub in the kitchen.

A coal stove in the dining room and one in the parlor provided heat for the lower story, but the upstairs bedrooms were not heated.  Norman and Arthur would sneak in their "wooly" dogs to warm their feet underneath the comforters.

An American elm tree and a lilac bush were planted in the backyard.  Barns and later a windmill were behind the house.  To the right was an orchard and to the left, a cowpen.

At a time when mules and horses were used for farming, Walberg went to Kansas City and purchased several mules which he wanted shipped to Pampa in a separate freight car behind a passenger train.  When the station agent in Pampa told Walberg that this could not be done, Walberg assured the agent that it would be done.  Walberg enlisted the help of a Masonic friend in Kansas City, and the mules did arrive in Pampa in a freight car behind the passenger train.

In addition to farming Walberg was in the implement business for many years and had a store at 623 West Kingsmill (now Second Opinion). He became a Mason in 1909, Pampa Lodge No. 966, A.F. & A.M. and was given a lifetime Masonic membership in 1940. He was a member of the school board for eight years, a county commissioner for two years and a director of the Gray County State Bank for many years.

In 1911 Walberg married Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sills, mother of Lottie Sills (Mrs. Alex Schneider, Jr.) and Lester Sills. Walberg died in 1953.

Edna Walberg, oldest daughter of Nels Walberg, was one of the first graduates of Pampa High School.  After attending business college in Wichita, Kansas, she returned to Pampa and finished her schooling at Clarendon Junior College before working at the First National Bank.

In 1916 Edna married Roy Tinsley, son of William and Harriet Tinsley who came to Pampa from Minter, Kansas in 1908. The William Tinsley family purchased land south of Pampa near the Cities Service Plant and built a two-story house. In 1919 they purchased land in the Wright Addition and moved into Pampa. William died in 1923 and Harriet moved to San Jose, California, where she died in 1945.

Before coming to Pampa, Roy Tinsley studied music and taught in Lindsburg, Kansas.  An accomplished violinist, he continued his studies and taught violin after coming to Pampa.

Roy and Edna purchased a section of land four miles east of Pampa. They were the parents of Marie Tinsley Smith and William "Bill" Tinsley. Edna was killed in a gas explosion in 1940 and Roy,  who married Emma Louvier in 1942, died in 1976.

Marie Smith owns the Tinsley farm which is farmed by her son, Earl. Her daughter, Betty Lou Love, lives in Amarillo.