Hidalgo County New Mexico


William Chesley "Bill" Miller
July 23, 1910 - November 10, 2002
Bill Miller was born near Apache, Arizona on July 23, 1910, the second child of the six children born to Theodore Floyd Miller and Amy A Hardcastle who lived in the area between Apache, Arizona and Rodeo, New Mexico.

Education began at a small school building between Rodeo and Apache, AZ. Transportation to school for the Miller children were an occasional horseback ride but most often walking two miles each direction. Bill went two years to high school at Apache, then quit for a couple of years until he found a job in Douglas, AZ, where he worked at a feed store and finished his high school education.

Bill’s father was killed in an automobile accident in 1935 and Bill returned home to take his fathers place and operate the ranch for his mother. They had Angora goats and Hereford cattle. Bill was a good manager and helped his mother get the ranch out of debt. He married Adeline Gene Reid on July 30, 1938. They raised two sons Robert J. Miller and William C. Miller Jr. Tragedy came to the Millers when Robert was killed in an airplane crash in Cotton City in 1961 at 22 years of age.

Bill loved the hard work of ranching and did it well. Raising Angora goats made a good payday and provided meat for the family. The goats were raised for mohair and were sheared twice a year. The mohair was hauled to Lordsburg and put on the train to ship to Texas to sell. Part of Bill’s work with the goats was to drive them down to the valley to water each day. The trip was about two miles each direction and was made until Bill eventually drilled a well up in the mountains. The Millers call that well “a gift from God” because it waters most of the ranch with pipeline and troughs even now.

Bill never held a political office but served on many juries and election boards. He was a member of the Farm Bureau and Cattle Growers and was instrumental in bringing rural electricity and telephone to the valley. He served on the Soil Conservation Service Board for a number of years and practiced conservation and erosion control, building dikes at first with a team and fresno and later with heavy equipment.

He was a lifetime rancher and lived at Post Office Canyon Ranch for his entire life. His hobbies included fishing and scuba diving, which he taught the whole family. He died on November 10, 2002 at the age of 92.