Jess Taylor and Dorothy Taylor Interview #3 Part 1, 08/29/1971 [transcript]

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;13;04 John Smith Not every wife would do that. It certainly is meant to serve.

00;00;13;06 - 00;00;15;05 Speaker 2 Well.

00;00;15;07 - 00;00;48;25 John Smith What do we want now? Well, you said you want to invite him over. Well, not too many. In fact, over the of that, Mr. Lewis, you said he passed away in Cascade, but now the it was a piece in one of the historical writings of this sister to somebody up in Idaho County. I forgot her name that you’re probably familiar with.

00;00;48;28 - 00;01;16;14 John Smith Yeah. Yeah. So that he passed away in the veterans hospital here in Boise. I think I didn’t write it out as I know he wouldn’t have been eligible for entry into the veterans after the Civil War was a long time ago. Yeah. And most of the old boys never bothered to connect anything up. Yeah. All right. Yeah, and I doubt that very much.

00;01;16;16 - 00;01;20;17 Speaker 2 I think that he was buried in Cascade Hill.

00;01;20;19 - 00;01;24;08 John Smith Okay. We were wondering that. Or get the guess on her part.

00;01;25;18 - 00;01;26;09 Speaker 2 no, I’m not.

00;01;26;14 - 00;01;29;03 John Smith No, on his history. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;01;29;06 - 00;01;37;24 Speaker 2 But, yeah, we thought for a long time he was buried here in secret. I went with everyone, you know? Yeah.

00;01;37;26 - 00;01;42;07 John Smith Very. is it grave marked up there?

00;01;42;09 - 00;01;51;21 Speaker 2 So I didn’t ever get over to the side of the cemetery. Who are you? But the caretaker told us that his grave was over there.

00;01;52;10 - 00;01;53;29 Speaker 2 Well, we never did get over there.

00;01;54;00 - 00;02;16;23 John Smith Well, we sure as hell then we want to verify it. We all know that he was buried in Oak. It’d be worth some some time when we do it by, that would be worth taking a picture of it or checking it just to. To be sure. Yeah. The main thing I’d be interested in today, now that we talked about, Mr. Lewis would be talking about Mr. Taylor.

00;02;16;25 - 00;02;39;05 John Smith Well, do you want to start with our time that we went to the ranch? Well, I might go back even before that, if we could. And start with your your own first interest in the back country. How did it get to be such a competent woodsman and hunter and guy that you are? You don’t pick that up in school?

00;02;39;08 - 00;02;47;05 John Smith No, you don’t.

00;02;47;08 - 00;03;19;04 John Smith When I purchased the lower ranch, my idea was to make a guest ranch out of it at some future time. And I seemed to have an aptitude for the outdoors and for hunting. And also to get along with people.

00;03;19;06 - 00;03;42;11 John Smith Yeah, you have that. But what I’m interested in is, where did you develop the skill in the outdoors and how well did you grow up in. yeah. yes. Yeah. Are you a native Idaho? Oregon. Oregon. Yeah. I was born just out of the ground. Cold.

00;03;42;13 - 00;04;34;03 John Smith And when did you come over to Boise? Well, I put in a pretty normal life in, in Idaho. right after. Right before. During World War One. We all made the creek south. And from up in a locked country, we lived on a farm there. My father was a contractor. he built some of a section of the Great Northern Railroad and a section of Milwaukee Railroad.

00;04;34;05 - 00;05;00;12 John Smith And down just below The Dalles. Or get about just above The Dalles and across from Arlington. And about four miles below, you still see the big bark that over there you build about four miles of the water. Then one of them is the North Bank, and I think it’s the sea. And then something now that they call called the North Bank.

00;05;00;12 - 00;05;32;18 John Smith And because it went up there, it was on one side of the Columbia and it was going up the other side of it. And yeah, so I was I would write in a grading camp and it I was taught mostly at at home and I never went to school, but I half year until I was in the fourth grade, you know, then I had to go away from home in the Oregon school then.

00;05;32;21 - 00;06;09;12 John Smith And you went in the service for the First World War? No, no, I was I was in the war service, but I was in the Texas Naval Shipyard. of the. And what do you get from from here, then? That is from Oregon to Idaho and then to Texas. Yeah, that was that was right on the lines on the side of the river, which is just between Louisiana and Texas there in Orange, Texas.

00;06;09;14 - 00;06;44;25 John Smith And I served an apprenticeship then became a full fledged ship carpenter And that’s where I got this tape for framing logs and so on. Well, that wasn’t where you learned a precision cabinetmaker. No, I mostly I gather that right here in Boise in 1936, to build. And, I work for another contractor here for a short period.

00;06;44;25 - 00;07;19;22 John Smith And then I went on my own, and I decided that I was going to become a first class carpenter and woodworker. And that’s exactly. I made it to the top. Yeah. There was only about four contractors that I’m a writer, and I was one of my forgotten that I built 50 Find a home in Boise. You restricted yourself mostly to residential residents only built one commercial building.

00;07;19;22 - 00;07;59;14 John Smith But I didn’t didn’t care for commercial work. And I did all my time finishing like fireplace mantel and all that. I did all that myself. The home that I built by Google about some of those homes are still standing. What about the men I worked at that tried and contracted here from 1936 to 1942, and then I went in the service and then two years and came back and 44 and then I started to build again.

00;07;59;17 - 00;08;24;21 John Smith But I didn’t or didn’t seem like I could take the pressure anymore like I used to. You know, you’re always under a certain amount of pressure. yeah. When you got subcontractors and all that goes with a house to push them through and get them finished owners and Yeah. Down everybody. Did you do a lot of your own designing.

00;08;25;02 - 00;09;00;17 John Smith yes. Yes. Particularly of the interior. And, manuals and all of that. I that explains why you did such a beautiful job on this one. And, and, well, I have a, I know how to do a, a top job, you know, and anything, you know, in other words, I can plan something out like that bar that my own design and set all out and carry it right through the air.

00;09;00;17 - 00;09;27;19 John Smith So, you know, I can see that for the finished product. Yeah. In my mind, you know, even though I have detail and can see exactly what I’m working towards and how to obtain that and not everybody can do that, you know? No, no. But when you started the ranch, did you have that same feeling? Did you visualize when you first saw the the property, how you wanted it to be?

00;09;27;27 - 00;10;02;16 John Smith yes, to a large extent. And, after I came back from the war, let’s see, we went down there in in 1948, I came back in 44. So in that period in there, I, I built here and bought continued. Well, I, I guess went right on. They would get no problem I my contacts and everything and but I decided that was time to go down and do something with a with a lot of friends.

00;10;02;21 - 00;10;38;23 John Smith I even had offered to buy that ranch when I was in. I I’ll be doing Yeah, over there. So, I went. When was the first time you or so there. And as you remember, in 1934, when I came in, you see, when I went through, in the fall, the, that of the fall of 33.

00;10;38;26 - 00;11;02;15 John Smith Well, I never saw the place. The place you, you see it now is mostly across from the, from the trail, of course, the land on both sides of the creek. You. There was nothing on the other side at all that no matter. They’re there now. They weren’t there. That would get rock and roll land and white metal hay ground there was it on the side.

00;11;02;15 - 00;11;23;26 John Smith But I could hear the dogs Barton over there. So it intrigued me and I had to come back and see it. And now that’s, that’s where and, but I was on a hunting trip in the now when, when you saw it, it wasn’t cause anything the way it is now, You had to appreciate the potential. Yeah. What you could do.

00;11;23;26 - 00;11;48;12 John Smith Well, then you didn’t think about airport or anything in that category, you know, because they just weren’t right in the back country and not much. And anywhere else, you know? So, in other words, when you first acquired it, air travel in there wasn’t a very practical thing, even if you did. no, no, no, no, no. We could go on and on.

00;11;48;14 - 00;12;17;13 John Smith It was all background when I did. You visualize when you first acquired the ranch, did you? Because you you obviously looked ahead more than most people do. Did you visualize aircraft on an airstrip at the beginning or did that? But, you know, as I say, back at that early date, the the aircraft didn’t matter. And the pictures, you know, for anybody, for anybody, it was like, you know, not even in your imagination.

00;12;17;13 - 00;13;03;05 John Smith No, no. But then, when Eric and I went back in in May of 1948, why that that was uppermost in my mind. Then I got a word that if you could develop an airstrip on a piece of land, why you had it made, you’re in business, right? Yeah, because that’s what it hands down know. And so one of our first situations there was the start bearing brook when I when the beginning when you, when you had it, you own it for a number of years before you really began to develop it so you Rajapakse brings in mostly from what is now a big, big grid.

00;13;03;06 - 00;13;32;01 John Smith Yeah yeah. When when was the road built from McCall into Big Creek. Well that was in there. That was, is I remember, in the fall of 34, the road was brand new and the by the name of Carmen had built a log building and put in the store at Big Creek. A great, great. Yeah. Well, have you been in there?

00;13;32;01 - 00;13;57;06 John Smith Yeah. Well, that hotel, not that part of it, was all built at that time. That was built that time. Yeah. Yeah. And, and of course a truck, whatever they wanted to store in, you know. Yeah. When you could take guests in there by some kind of vehicle and then you had take them on on horses or whatever, from there on down to earlier at that early date you were.

00;13;57;08 - 00;14;25;04 John Smith And then of course we didn’t attempt to get until we had America, but Mr. Lewis had guess in there. He had yeah, yeah, yeah. And they even went as far as Warren get some Warren to get some of the old in the early days. Well that would get quite a treat. clear up over out now and across South Park and up again and into Warren.

00;14;25;06 - 00;14;43;08 John Smith Yeah that would take even, even with your skill or it is that it would take how long to get from, say, from Warren down to the ranch if you were taking the party in on horseback. Well, I would say it’d be at least four days and you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be hesitating either, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;14;43;14 - 00;15;11;11 John Smith So that you didn’t go in there like you were planning to stay. well, no, no, no, I. Well, they trip then or 30 day trip. No land. Yeah. So until you had the airstrip, that had to be a major project for anybody who wanted to go in there. Well at that considerable time. Yeah. And the outside of beer, you know, one game back in those days, it is now.

00;15;11;13 - 00;15;39;20 John Smith Yeah. I was interested in you mentioned that the other day the game picture had changed that much in that period of time. So then, after Louis died in 48, you didn’t have very many guests in there at the ranch, just yet. None know they was someone that, that always wanted to stay on the ranch, you know, get to kind of take it.

00;15;39;23 - 00;16;02;29 John Smith They would. They would raise themselves the garden and, one party that was on for several years that did quite a lot of work on the right brown ditches and things like that was Tex Martin and his occupation was moonshine. No kidding. Yeah, they had he made that moonshine. They were getting Boise made it at the ranch there when we were out there at the ranch.

00;16;03;02 - 00;16;31;27 John Smith And when we cleaned out the creek, it was them hardwood barrel. They weren’t empty ale. Yes, they were. And then I found more. They moved and they all they all that stone foundation up there. But, but that where they boil it up it, it if somebody tore it up it they locked it. Where was it. Just dried up back the old government back there in the brush.

00;16;31;27 - 00;16;58;07 John Smith You kids. Yeah. Well yeah. Wouldn’t be very many revenue were getting in there anyway. Well they had a good deal because they could just take it right off still and, no, the small barrel of it on each side of a mule here. And the, the time they got it out, figure it out and all it was, they’d already broken some, they took it out over the same period and the big tree.

00;16;58;07 - 00;17;22;23 John Smith And then down the road, down here, wherever you go, they went out and got stranded in the snow up around the top there and a brown profile with a load. And they couldn’t get through it all. They had download it so they get buried in the snow drift and in the spring word filter down the grid. If they better get up there and get taken care of it because it was dying and it was starting to come right.

00;17;22;25 - 00;17;24;15 John Smith Beginning to show.

00;17;24;17 - 00;17;26;07 Speaker 2 Up,

00;17;27;03 - 00;17;58;01 John Smith you think they might have. You haven’t been tempted to keep the thing going now in recent years? Well, there’s something else that might be of interest to the way they, that I purchased the place. That is the beat itself. One of his administrators was, a man by the name, but while they did it, and so it is the EPA, and he came in to witness the situation.

00;17;58;01 - 00;18;26;06 John Smith You see, 11 there was another one man, I think Harry Chatsworth was they have them. How did having to lose happened to have administrators at that point at that time? Well, they get they look after him and see that he got food and, you know, and had they been appointed, apparently, you know, it wasn’t that he was that there was anything wrong with him mentally or anything like that.

00;18;26;06 - 00;18;59;22 John Smith But in any deal, why he needed to fit. Sure. And they were looking out for had they been appointed by the court to. I presume so, I would think that would be the case. You know, in the case of the military, you know, and this Wiley step, he was all the little mining. And so on. And he also at one time owned the the ranch or doing more.

00;18;59;22 - 00;19;26;26 John Smith And he was one of the I don’t know, rather the first owner, but he was one of the first owners of that. So you mentioned another name in connection with that. That would be really. Yeah. Was that after his death. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was that present and that the way it was recorded. I wrote Dave a check for the balance of his money.

00;19;26;29 - 00;19;54;28 John Smith I didn’t deposit one way and just grew up a little, little agreement between us, in the spring when I was in. And then he went back in that fall to complete the deal. I said, I’ll be in, in, in November, and, and we will complete the deal while they tear it down. I’ll wait and cascade and brought these papers, the dates and so on, and to witness the situation.

00;19;55;00 - 00;20;28;17 John Smith And so we got a, got things straightened out and on the way out were these papers right up there. you heard of Low Bear land here? Well, it was a minor there, but the name of Lobar and it’s a step and Lobar had a little feud going and, and anyhow, that’s as far as he got.

00;20;28;18 - 00;20;54;14 John Smith He got it in the back of the head. The 3030? No, were these papers were made back. And so this was. This is how long after you had gotten the whole thing signed up? BE Right. Right. Then I mean, next there. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it, four or five miles? Yeah. Yeah. And so then a telephone dog, the kind of you could talk anywhere.

00;20;54;16 - 00;21;17;02 John Smith And so I called the sheriff, the name of Bob Wilson. I knew him. And it, you know, and I have, you know, when you come in after the body, will you please, take a date and so on out of that pack and see that they’re recorded here. And that’s the way that the date that, that rent was recorded.

00;21;17;04 - 00;21;41;22 John Smith I’ll be done. Yeah. Whatever happened to the guy who did the shooting? Well, he landed in the pen, Yeah. What was this, an ambush type thing, or were they arguing about? Well, this, this little bear he was wearing there had a tent up in a log frame, I think, at some library of Marietta. You know where to look for it and what would get passed by.

00;21;41;22 - 00;22;09;04 John Smith And, I guess, he walked by. I, I know he wouldn’t even shooting the base while we’re looking at it, because you going back to him, Were you with him? No. No. How’d you hear about it? Well, Lorber, come right on down. And I did. Yes. And what in the today’s cabin that I get killed kind of brightened up your day a little bit.

00;22;09;07 - 00;22;35;20 John Smith Yeah. The guy just walked in kind of casual like that. Yeah, I did kill man up here, Especially the man who was carrying out the papers that were important to you. Yeah, Yeah, Well. Well, he. That wasn’t even a self-defense thing that whole night or on the night in that room, so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then he was the is that was the principal witness to the signing.

00;22;35;23 - 00;22;59;08 John Smith Yeah. Yeah. And he witnessed the, the deal, but he wasn’t around at the time it was recorded. No, no. But the sheriff taking care of that, of course, the deal was all complete. A matter regarding the paid, right? Yeah. And so that’s the way that I’ll be turn. And there was only one transfer, and that was from the me.

00;22;59;09 - 00;23;27;17 John Smith Yeah. And the abstract Roddenberry. No, I wouldn’t be able to, I wouldn’t have a lot of, conditions and COVID 19 restrictions and things like you Were there any seriously speaking in, in the deed, were there any restrictions or any provisions about the use of it or anything? We just didn’t. You don’t believe in transfer, do we? We want to reclaim date.

00;23;27;19 - 00;23;51;14 John Smith Yeah. Yeah. You know, zoning problems to worry about. no, no, nothing like that. It was high res things in that garnered at the time started around the bridge. You going to find a guy to run it out. Are you find them. Did all then re monument down where the original boundary markers and things are described in your your is.

00;23;51;20 - 00;24;17;27 John Smith yeah. yeah. And they were two surveys the first survey and then they modified the survey and make one corner off. But it start at the lower end of the range where that block is there. And if you know where to look, you can look right up and see. They see the symbols on the rock there.

00;24;18;00 - 00;24;29;26 John Smith And that was corner number one, so far from quarter corner. So until effects and so on though. possibly, possibly.

00;24;29;29 - 00;24;30;20 Speaker 2 Yeah.

00;24;32;08 - 00;24;33;23 John Smith that’s.

00;24;33;25 - 00;24;35;06 Speaker 2 Of.

00;24;35;08 - 00;25;05;12 John Smith That’s what it meant. Exactly. And then on every one of those is there’s a witness per year or up corner number one here does it comes down here, is it opening through the block near the block here and the block here and the, the symbol drawn this block right here and this block right here. Well, not so many so many chain their length in certain in a certain direction.

00;25;05;14 - 00;25;37;12 John Smith And where those lines crossed, that’s the corner. so the corner is marked, but they good witness trees or stone. solid marker in other words. And where, where they’ll cross the corner, you know. And, so we found corner number one without any trouble on each corner when they came in to re monument Light and each corner had a tobacco stand on there.

00;25;40;01 - 00;26;18;16 John Smith We on the corner. the No. Nine, we there were ten in there for about a time where we found account everyone would want and the but the description one to point and it could have been improved you know, so many length and, and so many chains and so many length and but we construed it one way and the, the bar service boys that we’re doing very, very remote animating.

00;26;18;18 - 00;26;39;22 John Smith They can shoot it the other way. we got, you know, with a, with a graph on it. And I’m sure that if they the way we constructed was correct and we found again on of that one too, and I didn’t write about it outright. we’re going up to the water. yeah. Yeah. So got originally 1010 monument, ten corners.

00;26;39;27 - 00;27;07;05 John Smith Yeah. Yeah. No. How much of that country back there generally speaking, has been surveyed just up there around Cabin Creek Park. I know. And there is some debate there. You know, other words, the cabin cricket section and also up as far as the John bein, because that’s 160 acre, you know, which would indicate that there was some kind of activity there.

00;27;07;08 - 00;27;38;21 John Smith You know, now whether more is surveyed or medium bound, I wouldn’t know. Now you do. Is it not 150 acres? No, not very likely. Meeting about you know, Yeah. And for some of that country in there hasn’t even been mapped in any great detail. You know they not keep your campaign above good in here you know and one of the bad is the government probably never put in a perimeter.

00;27;38;21 - 00;27;59;10 John Smith Right. No reason why they should. There’s one, topographic map I noticed, several years ago when I was picking up the maps that are in the Bear Valley map was made, and the current map that the government will send here to get a topographic map where you probably got one you made 1991. Yeah, Yeah. So they, you know, keep it up to date.

00;27;59;10 - 00;28;28;19 John Smith You know, there’s not much any well, as an area aerial survey made of all that country now and that’s the way they map it. Right. But no that is surprising what you can see in the area on that they they the Forest Service brought the map of our area down. You know, you can put them together, you know, and they had they had a kind of a land field for looking at them.

00;28;28;22 - 00;28;51;16 John Smith And it just brought over detail out of the rocks, you know, that big rock right at the upper end there that grooves out to you spot that very easily. And certain trees, no problem. Did it give you a elevations too? You could see pretty well. Well that’s more on a there’s another set of maps that give that on a regular topographical.

00;28;51;16 - 00;29;15;26 John Smith Yeah and I think probably their geology the geological or Yeah yeah but I wouldn’t say for sure on that but they gave all the elevations we have them down there too you know. Yeah. Now then from, from when you, you actually acquired the ranch and get the record and everything, then you can use it just for your own, your own pleasure.

00;29;15;26 - 00;29;39;17 John Smith You were in and out of there. I’d go in and out, you know, I’d go in and out and maybe two or three years. But that but the road then was so that you could drive a car down to the crooked river and up Crooked River, get some cabins up there that were owned by the gentleman. And that rabbit’s foot mine was right there.

00;29;39;21 - 00;30;08;01 John Smith But no. Would it operating there. Yeah. Maybe they were couple more out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And the draw. And then you’d have to walk now, you know. You know. Did you ever leave any, any stock there or anything so you could drive? And I left. I left some terrible headed horses, but I think they got scattered pretty rapidly and I came out with one our on there that I’d taken in there.

00;30;08;02 - 00;30;31;29 John Smith She was three years old when I’d taken her and when I finally got back, she was she was still there and still in the saddle. And she had had a nice three year old cold weather. Yes, I was going to. Do you ever go on a beautiful lamb, Yeah. Yeah. Well, then about when you began, you got the airstrip.

00;30;31;29 - 00;31;09;11 John Smith Of course. Then your whole transportation access situation changed. We didn’t get in, but very few things like big cookstoves and just enough food and what to do. The air just so we could get by that we could open the strip on a What kind of structure did military limits have on the place when you bought it? Well, you had to have the, what we call the old cabin up there, which we completely remodeled, you know, and then a small cabin which we also remodeled, and that’s the one that he was living in.

00;31;09;11 - 00;31;33;17 John Smith I get information later. Mom, the log we lived, right? The. Yeah, yeah. Nobody would bother. And of course we remodel that too and, and we built the three newer when I you were in there when you left on this trip when you got the pneumonia and everything, were you customarily in there quite a bit during the spring or just coincidence.

00;31;33;19 - 00;31;59;17 John Smith No, I would I had wintered in there. Know that winter. I’ve been there that entire winter. And then I didn’t leave till I think along about August of that year, you know. That was your first full year, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you dropping or hunting or just enjoying yourself. Well, I, I a little and out of the country over and, and you know kind of got oriented with the situation there you know.

00;31;59;19 - 00;32;31;16 John Smith Yeah. And, but they were they were dear everywhere then they would do but not much else. No. And I’m not as medicated right now you know, they would freak or you’d see them but they made quite a little comeback. Are they still increasing. Very. You know, in my opinion, not in a level that I think they’re right on the land.

00;32;31;19 - 00;33;04;17 John Smith And the gold dog have made it through. Well, the pure gold. Nobody ever killed one of them. Nobody ever bother them. But they, they just don’t seem to include. Well, I wouldn’t know. Well then you were in there pretty much just for your own, you might say recreation or your own enjoyment of it from the time you got it to where you an average being in there for a pretty long period of time, occasionally being like, no, maybe three or four days, no.

00;33;04;20 - 00;33;27;24 John Smith One time I flew in on the tone of the bar with, with their would. That was when I was leaving to go to the Navy and, we just waited on the strip. Well, I went to and then I came back down. So the only time you were in there for any extended period were that first year.

00;33;27;25 - 00;33;55;08 John Smith The first year, Yeah. Yeah. And then no period until we moved in, you know, So I actually by the time you got up there, then you probably was not even quite in as good shape as when you started. I mean, you hadn’t been in and out to do much with it. No, it hadn’t, always had the period created about him.

00;33;55;08 - 00;34;27;18 John Smith So they, you know, like moonshiner, you quite a gardener, too? yeah. How long was he in? In a couple of years. He would have been you know, he would have been a good guy to keep around. And then when was Mrs. Taylor? Look at it after you get married. Yeah, that’s where we got married. I was building here, and I right over here.

00;34;27;20 - 00;35;03;09 John Smith I had rounded up everything I had into, into a home, and I quit. That’s what I’m doing. And then I was on her way home, and she was with a railway company here and probably last, in fact. And she came out with one of the boys, left the house and so, and we rather got interested in each other, and she didn’t sell a house.

00;35;03;09 - 00;35;45;17 John Smith I found out fell out that she did something more for you. Bought some anyway. Much more important than her. Yeah. Yeah. And so I told her what I my plans for her and that just wasn’t any, any woman this way, period. And so, I just didn’t want any, you know, things not to go through or anything. So I, I told her, I said, I’m Bill where does it take me in the back country to go in and kind of straighten things up and, I’ll be back out 17 days.

00;35;45;20 - 00;36;08;07 John Smith And if you’re still the same mine, why we would be married. And so when I came back out in 17 days, she was out of the building. Better airport out here lot. That might make me so, that was that. So we got right and. And were married and then went in on our honeymoon to start building out right.

00;36;08;09 - 00;36;34;17 John Smith I this, this, this poor girl. But this whole thing on faith, I mean, she knew you, but you didn’t have any idea what she was getting into. Not any. Not any. And I tried to tell her that this that there and I didn’t get what never woman would make the grade period. That is all they want to do it and it had been a rugged we lived in tents for two years down there, winter and summer.

00;36;34;17 - 00;37;03;07 John Smith We never moved in the old cabin at all. We didn’t and start getting out the logs and, working on our home out of the four. And they are the two, two prime objectives and it was that tough winter of 4849 that it would get that winter everywhere. It was heavy snow and extreme cold, but we didn’t any we were all right.

00;37;03;09 - 00;37;28;03 John Smith You’d wake up one morning and we had two camps, We had a big one that we had to cook stove in. We had a smaller tent, a bed with a heater in it. And we got morning community from all over it. Cover your inside the tent and we would play the little cool, would get cold the hardest winter, you know.

00;37;28;03 - 00;37;52;05 John Smith Right. And even at that period on a bad winter like that, how much snow do you get? Well, it piled up and it was 18 inches that winter right there on the North Slope, which is very unusual for that country. Do you keep thermometers around 38? The idea how cold? Well, it got down to about 14 below and that it would get that cold out here, too by to do it would get cold there.

00;37;52;07 - 00;38;14;17 John Smith But the cold didn’t last too long. As I remember. There was about three days, extreme cold and a and the cold weather broke. And that’s our American Daniel, where we got a pretty good deal. Again, we do down do you get much wind down there and no you know what you do get high water there. yeah You know what the highest.

00;38;14;17 - 00;38;35;02 John Smith The water’s ever come up the door to your house. That is up over the banks. Well, it there’s never been a time that you couldn’t get a plane on the air. It right at the lower end there. We’re go down the incline that it’s a little lower right there. And it doesn’t carry off that nothing back up in there.

00;38;35;04 - 00;39;08;10 John Smith And, so we never had any problem there. Do you have any problem generally on Big Creek with Reg? No. this as near as I could tell the water, they sure got right back to where it was that that high water year several years ago. It was high here, like, on a little famine over there. Not a lot of the highway in about it would get it would get high water everywhere.

00;39;08;12 - 00;39;49;01 John Smith There’s some big down by the mouth actually creek and then that part of the creek, there’s some big rocks around it off because they must have been moved by water sometimes. That Yeah. That must have been a long, long time ago then to have enough water to move those around. Not no, I wouldn’t say so. In other words, the channel, the big creek cattle now is a much larger channel and it was one way in the country, but it or much larger that that one higher water just probably widen that channel up in the right straight through the channel also and right correct all the drift and everything and just clean them up now be

00;39;49;01 - 00;40;15;19 John Smith doing it. Get clean them out. You know there’d be little drift along the side of the out against a boat or something. Right. go get rich. Channel it, get made a clean sweep. You know, I would account for well a log, a big log went down, evidently had roped on hooked the swinging bridge down. up quick there and took that out.

00;40;17;11 - 00;40;42;06 John Smith Gosh. And we didn’t expect ours to go at any time, but it didn’t happen to one of them. Hook, Where are we? Here is anchored further up on the undersides. Then you’re swinging downriver. So the swinging bridge, well, it was anchored just about on the level of the president. Steel bread. Yeah. You know, the Ibo are still in the bank on the far side over there.

00;40;42;07 - 00;41;08;02 John Smith You look, get low, They get below their old bridge. You know, they built the new bridge just above the old when they use the old in there to traffic back on. I’ve seen them. I didn’t know for sure what the record. Yeah. Well that was them. And on the other side there was a it was a kind of a personal thing there to pull it out to get the elevation now.

00;41;08;04 - 00;41;38;02 John Smith Yeah. In normal times then how far was the water level below the center of the bridge. It would be pretty hard to tell, but I presume that it was probably up within six feet up in that high water, you know, because the bridge and the dip are here. You know. Still amazes me, though, that you went in there with your first work and building your cabin and cleaning that airstrip.

00;41;38;03 - 00;42;04;22 John Smith You did just that. That team. Yeah. Scraper. I bought them out here and, they were kept to the end of the road. And then you had the board and a couple of them to get them. Yeah. I mean, they, they were brought right down the creek, you know, it was a young fella wanted to come in on the place and vacation bird there they were.

00;42;04;22 - 00;42;28;09 John Smith And he offered to take them in and bring them down creek. So that’s where I got to work them. You know, a guy could really get a lot of work done with his friends and he had an attractive place like that. When I got that, our own dog and I had a stonemason say, Any time you want a fireplace on there, I’ll be glad to come down and put it on for you.

00;42;28;11 - 00;42;53;11 John Smith It’s on our home. It’s all framed up and everything. You drop the framing out, put the fireplace and you can. And I had a plaster come in and I had another boy to donate all a layer of material. The metal that put in the cracks, plaster here. And by the, you know, they had worked with me and father.

00;42;53;13 - 00;43;39;10 John Smith Yeah. You know, for kids to go in there, I would do most anything that you have approved with you that throughout. Well when you. Which did you finish first year Trooper that The one year took a year to get that. Yeah. This year. And it went through a winter. We got started and got most of the brush on the, that summer and then we had to have enough food so they would, had a plan that they were that you dropped salt out of and had to shoot in the bottom of it.

00;43;39;12 - 00;44;07;02 John Smith And we, you could get a sack flour through it. gosh. It’ll be salt and things like that. But the packages had to be of that comparable size. Sure. So we packaged everything so that through the chute through to go through the and the snow got about a foot deep on the strip and we had it all open.

00;44;07;04 - 00;44;27;18 John Smith So, he’d, he’d fly up again and he’d come down over and they’d get over the lift the strip be dropped, get as low as he could here. And so we had a big cottonwood left at the lower end. We hadn’t taken out. Made you had to clear that many say now. And Dorothy and I were sitting on it that we just start dumping it type thing gets it.

00;44;27;18 - 00;44;51;14 John Smith This last week, and then as we get put them through, well, you can see where every one of them it and the snow. Sure. And they were the track on the strip or anything and took to pass it to get that load out And that was our winter supply I’ll be doing. Yeah. No I’m broke or anything. You know there’s only one thing it broke and I had blocked all of it cut through, they hit frozen dirt on the snow right.

00;44;51;17 - 00;45;15;04 John Smith Broke corner off of that. But none of the others never lost thing so I never got. And then you went back in on foot with your stuff? Yeah. You went down the cellar door by then landed and. And then you came back. Then we walked back up. That’s. That’s when we had the pop and a whiskey and. And a load on my back.

00;45;15;14 - 00;45;39;17 John Smith yeah. And, really something that we didn’t want to drop. We didn’t want to drop with gear anymore like that. We pretty sure that’s when you said it didn’t seem like a no, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you, you tell that to, you know, when you, when you think back to those days and how new all that was and everything and that’s real adventure, you know, when, when you did it that way.

00;45;39;19 - 00;46;02;10 John Smith Well when we got our cabin going I, I drew it up to scale and I had a very good plumber friend out here, and he’d come down and we’d put in a little plumbing. We had a we had the old bathtub come down from Thunder Mountain in our bathroom to start with. And how would you get it on your mountain?

00;46;02;10 - 00;46;23;11 John Smith Denver Well, it was there, yeah. And it’s it’s part of the thing that I’m preserving you. Nobody got a hole or anything, you know? And, so he come in and looked around a little bit thinking in all that is that we got it opened up and he said, Yes, I think I’d better come in, put in your plumbing for you.

00;46;24;05 - 00;46;53;02 John Smith so he bought, he was a wholesaler himself. It was it’s hard out there now, and he’s the one that found it here and spoke to. And so, I gave him the blueprint, and they all up and bought all the plumbing and come in and stole it for him. And when we got ready for the new cabin down there, he bought all that plumbing.

00;46;53;04 - 00;47;27;23 John Smith And I drew that scale through, and they came in and down that. When did you build a new cabin? about four years after the. Yeah, Yeah, they would call it lap time. And we decided we, you know, was going to go in for pretty good trade and I guess I won’t go anywhere and so we needed a better facility.

00;47;27;25 - 00;48;12;20 John Smith Yeah, that’s when we built the, you know, were next week, you know, we got those logs up Big Creek about, a mile, mile and a half. Cut them up there and, and those bottom make them up and banked them all along the side of Big Creek on Skid Row. The complete camp. And then they put in a boom across the big quick right at the upper end, their strip of log, and we put all that timber into the creek and heard it down there.

00;48;12;22 - 00;48;40;28 John Smith And then I had this big team and hip boot and all. I could get pretty well out there and I just grabbed the team right out into the creek and hook on one of them big log. You take it out, grab it down there, still take that hold. I’d gather up all of them. I get a chain around here and that’s where we that’s where we got the log for that cabin.

00;48;40;28 - 00;49;12;15 John Smith The one for our home. We got mostly right up the creek. You know, even up to make them down behind the good distributor. You know how long it take you to decide where to put it? I mean, you put it on the ideal spot. Well, we looked place all over and decided where we wanted it, so we got the big team and the plow and the scraper, and we made most of our excavation that way.

00;49;12;15 - 00;49;40;04 John Smith And then I went ahead and squared out. AM Did you have to move much to Earth there to make that not work? No, no. It was a, you know, yeah, it, it was pretty sloping but that’s the great we’ve, we’ve got a basement under that home and we’ve, we also have the headroom face down on the other cabin.

00;49;40;04 - 00;50;27;06 John Smith Pretty good, right? Plumbing, everything. It’s all right. They’re really good at it. And then by that time you had both of them built the, the, the yours and then the duplexes. Right. And had them for most of the time with the gas. yeah. Summer in winter hunting season and Yeah. Season. Yeah. It was quite a drawing card, you know, because most of the outfitters that had tents and and we do out in camp when they come out there and quiet years of our farm and sure good quarter and some of them thought it pretty rugged but you didn’t have any of them green.

00;50;27;09 - 00;51;01;11 John Smith No I got you did did you feed most of them there? I mean, did Miss David Cook for the whole boy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When they were at the right, what was the maximum number I guess you had usually at one time. Well, poor or. Yes, sometimes we would, you know, we would stretch it a little in case of a family or, like, the, foreman or the, Coleman.

00;51;01;14 - 00;51;30;02 John Smith Occasional people in. Yeah, reasonably, yeah. Yeah. But it was all on reservation. Sure. And that’s the reason that we kept that a private and it’s still private feel and that, that it’s going to maintain good quality in a contract that it is and they get better step over the line and we’re not going to do anything that will make the I can go in and out that out of there because that’s part of the deal.

00;51;30;07 - 00;51;56;10 John Smith You know I’ll sit there for, probably 20 years before they ever got that place. You know, I don’t know if part of it, but now if I ever decide to go out eating on their own and they’re commercializing, that’ll be done now. Sure. Because the outsider table here, the university taken 100 back there and you could see about one pressure economy.

00;51;56;20 - 00;52;24;09 John Smith sure. When did the Arbitration Guys Association get formed? And I don’t know, I don’t know just how many licenses I’ve got, but they’ve been and being now quite a stale, I presume 20 years mean you been a member of it had a license ever since they said Well I have, I have a license, but I was, I was a charter member to start with and got another offer for me.

00;52;24;12 - 00;52;51;18 John Smith I didn’t go the way of being conducted and they had so-called outfitters in there that I didn’t consider was outfitters. And so I just withdrew. You don’t have to belong to them, but you have to like it through. How does that work? Well, the licensing board and the outfitters and guide, they all they’re part of the same situation.

00;52;51;20 - 00;53;15;05 John Smith They have a different function now. They, the outfitter and guide board. It’s the part on these applications for outfitter guides and guide like, wow. But they. They can’t turn you down just because you don’t have a membership. Then the outfitters and guide, not you. And I didn’t like it and I didn’t like them. They had in there.

00;53;15;05 - 00;53;37;28 John Smith They were trying to wait on me every time they got a chance and I’ve never been in them. I might now, if it straightens up and and gets on the up and up, they, they said I’ll take me right off me cause I could gallop mainly through what was set up. You had I can see. Well yeah, but I know how it got there to cure that.

00;53;37;28 - 00;54;27;16 John Smith An awful lot of hard work. Yeah. And not always taken care of Again, that was, you know, where we made it. Well, now, are there, is there a limit to the number of licenses that with licenses that can be issued that is limited by the territory. no. I have my designated territory there with the boundary and that while I acquire no equity and as long as I don’t get in mixed up in game violation or keep it activated each year by that license, both the campsite by license from Garnett third and my outfitters line from the outfitters and guides automatically come through.

00;54;27;18 - 00;54;50;12 John Smith So I don’t do any poaching. I have watched from the start there were nobody else is licensed to be an owner, not in the same area. How big an area do these guys that are in have or Well, I think of mine right now would be about ten. In other words, you’re not crowded. Exactly. No crews are required now.

00;54;50;12 - 00;55;24;05 John Smith It wouldn’t be any fun either. But when it comes right down to it, the airport designate the area here and we’re the last one down and they won’t allow anyone out there. Also at the bar, they would me you know, if I I’m sure because I didn’t that in my territory but they’ve been very fair on that. Yeah well the how many outfitters are there who work in the primitive area there would you guess.

00;55;24;07 - 00;56;06;14 John Smith Well on where it was first set up they figured that there is ample outfitters on Big Creek the way they were faced and so on. That Big creek would be for the big critters, but then they had a chain from now there that there’s Lanham above. He has a territory above and that’s all right but then here do tomorrow he’s quit Well then not think probably Lanham got any category I don’t know what that would be divided up in among the other outfitters where you wouldn’t bring a new out that are in there.

00;56;06;17 - 00;56;29;25 John Smith Well they go well and no there’s been no no one brought in John Vines He also quit and I presume now that whoever purchased his place would have the first choice on his hunting area, you know, if he was qualified, if it wasn’t, if he wanted it. Right. But he still have to meet the crowd. Yeah, we were back.

00;56;29;26 - 00;57;17;25 John Smith He bought the real estate. Wouldn’t make him and. No, no, no, no, no. What do you do with a place like Noble’s where he doesn’t get a license and his territory is either reassigned as well? Now, there’s one. There’s one other outfit that’s been working in there and he really is in the top outfitter. And it’s possible that he will all and is not the the outfitters and guy’s been out to get me for quite a spell and they gave the dog a portion of my territory.

00;57;17;28 - 00;57;44;01 John Smith Well I’m going to need it to take that back now. In fact, I’ve already taken it back from Denver. I take it back right off. I just didn’t wait, you know, And if they anytime they want to bug me, why they didn’t want to take to it, because I’m going to come out on top and any any break that I get in I believe it I believe it Besides, with you is a pretty good right You wouldn’t mind enjoying very well I, I battled all these years.

00;57;44;01 - 00;58;37;28 John Smith Told that to get it right. Has anybody ever tested the, the principle of of assigning the territory in court. Is any outfitter ever come in and said you can’t restrict this and get moved into a territory but the question why the the state had jurisdiction over the game on federal land or while the far term now if they if they did it vested in the in the fish and game of the state of Idaho why naturally they would have the precedent I would think the regulation but now that’s a question and but what I depend on mostly is my foreign affairs camp.

00;58;38;00 - 00;58;58;12 John Smith You know and you have to have they have their absolutely designated and they’re scattered over the territory and they won’t grant one to anybody else within that circle, anywhere near to anybody else who came. And even if he could get some legal way to get into the territory, he couldn’t have any camps that he can either park their food nation campsite if they live in competition with me.

00;58;58;14 - 00;59;25;11 John Smith How many campers do you have? And I. I have to get one up there. We have to look at it. Yeah, yeah. Right up on Rush point. And then I’ll have another approach quick at the telephone. We got about 15 miles from the ranch and then I have one up on Cripple Creek right. And then that territory below.

00;59;25;13 - 00;59;51;04 John Smith It isn’t good for the light anyway. And we got that right from the right. And if we have camp there, the ranch is a campus, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Base camp. Yeah. You know, you really have the four, but I don’t have to pay for the ranch, right? Yeah, You pay for the permit. yeah, yeah, yeah. It cost me $75 this year for my camp permit, and it’s for service inspection periodically.

00;59;52;04 - 01;00;12;00 John Smith they don’t know where most of them are, but once. Well, I mean, they go through. The ranger finally found the one on road Point where we went through it, and he said, you know, that’s the way I like the camp. He said, Yeah, it’s the way it should be. I found that when the first time was ever up there, I don’t know why he should have had too much trouble playing.

01;00;12;02 - 01;00;34;24 John Smith I know. It was real nice. It’s. boy, that’s fine. Camping in that whole country added the fine camp it and the world a half. yeah. You know that these and the beautiful place. Yeah. And I imagine it’s pretty well protected from weather to improve the snow. Blow up on the old Reagan Diner. Yeah, Yeah. In the morning sun comes up.

01;00;34;28 - 01;01;05;12 John Smith It’s right in there. Just walk up and see that whole country. Yeah. And right then and miles on it, you know, it’s a beautiful spot. And we’ve got the game of the the Forest Service. Over the years you’ve been in there, have you had a pretty comfortable relations with them? Generally, Yeah. Yeah. We’ve had our ups and downs, but has a good day on an everyday freedom.

01;01;05;12 - 01;01;27;28 John Smith Is there do you always kept at your own ranch? You’ve always been pretty strict about the primitive area concept then know you never had machinery in there or things that you could have done on private property. You treated it just as though it was actually part of a primitive area to try. Did you ever use a tractor or anything mechanical?

01;01;28;00 - 01;02;01;23 John Smith Never did. No. So actually, the biggest piece of machinery that’s ever been in there there for a change or something like that, there’s this motor that’s up there running the compressor on the refrigerator. Yeah. And that we got that driven idling tractor on the other side. We got any tractor, anything at all. That’s good, you know. But I didn’t, you know, and I wanted it maintained it that way.

01;02;01;26 - 01;02;38;08 John Smith Well, now what about the history of your, your relations with the university and your decision to sell the place to the university? That that’s a pretty important piece of history right there. Well, it started with, more even darker than values calling more. sure. And that’s all I call him. Anyway, when I turn this over here, we’re just at the end of both of these tapes here, so we’ll.

Jess Taylor and Dorothy Taylor Interview #3 Part 2, 08/29/1971 [transcript]

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;34;27 Speaker 1 What do we want now? Well, you said you’re going to ask some questions or. Well, not too many. In checking over the stuff about Mr. Lewis, you said he passed away in Cascade. The he was a patient in one of the historical writings of this sister for somebody up in Idaho County. I forgot your name. You’re probably familiar with it.

00;00;35;00 - 00;00;57;28 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure that he passed away in the veteran’s hospital here in Boise. I think. I didn’t write, you know, so far as I know, he wouldn’t have been eligible for entry into the veteran’s hospitality. The civil War was a long time ago. Yeah, and most of those old boys never bothered to connect anything up. Yeah, All right.

00;00;58;05 - 00;01;02;13 Speaker 1 Yeah, and I doubt that very much. You see, I.

00;01;02;13 - 00;01;06;09 Speaker 2 Think that he. He’s buried in Cascade here.

00;01;06;11 - 00;01;11;05 Speaker 1 Okay. We were wondering how that would get to get on her part.

00;01;11;08 - 00;01;11;21 Speaker 2 No, I’m.

00;01;11;21 - 00;01;14;24 Speaker 1 Not. No. On the situation area. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;01;14;26 - 00;01;23;10 Speaker 2 But the we thought for a long time he was buried here in good secret. I went with everyone you know. Yeah.

00;01;23;12 - 00;01;26;26 Speaker 1 Buried Cascade. Is his grave marked up there.

00;01;27;04 - 00;01;37;11 Speaker 2 I suppose so. I didn’t ever get over to the side of the cemetery. Where are you? But the caretaker told us that his grave was over there.

00;01;37;28 - 00;01;39;07 Speaker 2 You never did get over there.

00;01;39;08 - 00;02;06;23 Speaker 1 Well, we weren’t sure. Tell them we were on to verify it. Yeah, we always followed that. He was buried in Cascade. Had been worth some. Some time that we go by there. Beware the taking a picture of it or checking it just to to be there by Sure. Yeah. The main thing I’d be interested in today, now that we talked about Mr. Lewis would be talking about Mr. Taylor and well, do you want to start with our time that we went to the ranch?

00;02;06;25 - 00;02;31;12 Speaker 1 Well, I might go back even before that, if we could. And start with your, your own first interest in the back country. How did it get to be such a competent woodsman and hunter and guide as you are? You don’t pick that up in school or something. No, you don’t.

00;02;31;15 - 00;03;08;27 Speaker 1 When I purchased the Lord’s ranch, my idea was to make a guest ranch out of it at some future time. And I seem to have an aptitude for the outdoors and for hunting and also, to get along with people. The. Yeah, you have that. But what I’m interested in is where did you develop the skill in the outdoors?

00;03;08;27 - 00;03;37;18 Speaker 1 And the hunting is where you grow up and, yes, outdoor country. yeah, Yeah. Are you native Idaho? Oregon? Oregon. Yeah, I was born. Get out on the ground with the cold. And when did you come over to Boise? Well, I put in. I’ve put in most of my adult life in, in Idaho.

00;03;39;20 - 00;04;28;24 Speaker 1 right after and right before. During World War One, while we all made it creeks up. And from up in the loft country, we lived on a farm there. My father was a contractor. Know, he built some of a section of the Great Northern Railroad and a section of Milwaukee Railroad down just below the downs. Forget about just above the valley and across from Arlington and about four miles below, you can still see the big bar up here.

00;04;28;24 - 00;04;48;13 Speaker 1 Over there, you mill about four miles of the all of them. None of them is the North Bank. And I think it’s the Seattle and something now that they had called the North Bank and got and went up north directly on one side of the Columbia. And this is going up the out of that I’ll be doing Yeah.

00;04;48;16 - 00;05;19;20 Speaker 1 So I was I would write in a grading camp and it’s, I was taught mostly at at home and I never went to school, but a half year until I was in the fourth grade. No kidding. Yeah. Then I had to go away from home. Nine Oregon school. Then you went in the service for the First World War?

00;05;19;22 - 00;05;49;08 Speaker 1 No, no, I was, I was in the war service, but I was in the Texas National Shipyard, so I was. And, what do you got from. From here, then? That is from Oregon to Idaho and then to Texas. Yeah, that was. That was right on the lines on the same main river, which is just between Louisiana and Texas, there in Orange, Texas.

00;05;49;10 - 00;06;23;29 Speaker 1 And I served an apprenticeship then became a full fledged ship carpenter. And that’s where I got the tech for framing logs and so on. Well, that wasn’t where you learned a precision cabinetmaker. No, no, I mostly I gather that right here in Boise, I started here in 1936 to build. And, I worked for another contractor here for a short period.

00;06;23;29 - 00;06;51;14 Speaker 1 And then I went on my own and I decided that I was going to become a first class carpenter and woodworker. And that’s exactly I made it to the top. Yeah. It was only about four contracts that I’m going to write. It is tops. And I was one up and I presume that I do 50 in our homes here in Boise.

00;06;51;17 - 00;07;33;24 Speaker 1 You restricted yourself mostly to residential residents on the I build one commercial building but I didn’t I didn’t care commercial work and I did all my time finishing like fireplace mantel and all that I did all that. Not so many homes that I’m down in. But how about some of those homes are still standing? absolutely not. As man, I worked at that trade and contracted here from 1936 to 1942 and then I went in the service and then two years and came back in 44.

00;07;33;26 - 00;07;58;14 Speaker 1 And then I started to build again. But I didn’t I didn’t seem like I could take the pressure anymore like I used to. You know, you’re always under a certain amount of pressure when when you’re younger subcontractors and all that goes with a house to push them through and, and get them finished owners and Yeah, yeah. And everybody, you know.

00;07;58;17 - 00;08;28;00 Speaker 1 Did you do a lot of your own designing. Yeah. yeah. I was, yes. Particularly of the interiors and, nails and all such as that I had explains why you did such a beautiful job on this one. And, and, well, I have a know how and the touch to do a top job. No. And anything, you know, In other words, I can plan something out like that bar.

00;08;28;00 - 00;08;57;16 Speaker 1 That’s my own design. And I sketched that all out and carried it right through. Yeah. So, you know, I can see that the finished product. Yeah. In my mind, Yeah. Even though I am detailing exactly, exactly what I’m working towards and how to obtain that. And not everybody can do that, you know. No, no. But when you started the ranch, you know, did you have that same feeling?

00;08;57;16 - 00;09;35;29 Speaker 1 Did you visualize when you first saw the the property, how you wanted it to be? yeah, to a large extent. And after I came back from the war, let’s see where we went down there in in 1948, I came back in 44. So in that period in there I, I they up here and Boise continue. Well, I just I guess one right on they would get in no problem I my contacts and everything and but I decided that than it was time to go down and do something with a little ranch.

00;09;36;03 - 00;10;11;08 Speaker 1 I even had offered to buy that ranch when I was and I think I’ll be doing yeah, I’ll be there when I. So I went. When was the first time you ever saw there in a studio? In 1934. when I came in is the, when I went through, in the fall, the that possibly the fall of 33.

00;10;11;10 - 00;10;34;13 Speaker 1 Well, I never saw the place. The place you, you see it now is mostly across from the, from the trail. Of course it land on both sides of the creek, but there was nothing on the other side at all that no matter that are there now, they weren’t there. That would get rock and roll land. And what little hay ground there was was on their side.

00;10;34;13 - 00;10;54;20 Speaker 1 But I could hear the dogs fighting over there. So it intrigued me and I had to come back and see it. And that’s that’s the way it and but I was on a hunting trip into the now when when you saw it, it wasn’t, of course, anything the way it is now. You had to appreciate the potential. Yeah.

00;10;54;20 - 00;11;19;13 Speaker 1 What you could do. Well then you didn’t think about airport or anything in that category, you know, because they just weren’t any in the backcountry and not much and anywhere else. Yeah, No. So in other words, when you first acquired it, air travel in there wasn’t a very practical thing. Even if you had. No, no, no, no. It just wasn’t done.

00;11;19;15 - 00;11;45;19 Speaker 1 It was all right. What did you visualize when you first acquired the ranch? Did you? Because you you obviously look ahead more than most people do. Did you visualize air travel in an airstrip at the beginning or did that start going to you know, as I say, back at that early date, the the air travel, the matter and the pictures for anybody, for anybody, it was taxi rank.

00;11;45;20 - 00;12;14;06 Speaker 1 No, Not even in your imagination. No, No. But then then when Dorothy and I went back in in May of 1948, why that that was uppermost in my mind then and now. The word that if you can develop an airstrip on a piece of land. Well, I knew you had it made. You are in business, right? Yeah. Because that’s why that name stopped.

00;12;14;06 - 00;12;37;03 Speaker 1 Yeah. And so one of our first situations there was to start during rush hour in the beginning when you when you had it, you owned it, of course, for a number of years before you really began to develop it. So you wrote your pack strings in mostly from what is now a big, big group. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when was the road built from the coal into Big Creek?

00;12;37;06 - 00;13;03;24 Speaker 1 Well, that was in there. That was, as I remember it, in the fall of 34, the road was brand new and the by the name of Carmen had built a log building and put in a store at Big Creek. A quick break. Yeah. Well, have you been in there? You know, Well, that whole town that. That’s part of it.

00;13;03;24 - 00;13;25;10 Speaker 1 That was all built at that time. That was built that time. Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, a truck. Whatever they wanted to store in there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then you could take guests in there by some kind of vehicle and then you had taken one on horses or whatever from there on down to your. yeah. You know, at that early date you were.

00;13;25;17 - 00;13;52;26 Speaker 1 And then of course we didn’t attempt to take any guests until we had an airstrip. But Mr. Lewis have guests in there. Yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. And they even went as far as advance. Get some one to get some of those in the early days. Well I don’t get quite a creek there. Up over, come up and down and across South Fork and up again and into one.

00;13;52;29 - 00;14;10;23 Speaker 1 Yeah. That would take even even with years ago. Or is that would take how long to get from say from orange down to the ranch if you were taking the party in on horseback. Well I would say it’d be at least four days, you know, and you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be hesitating either, you know. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;14;10;28 - 00;14;38;08 Speaker 1 So that you didn’t go in there as you were planning to stay. Well, no, no, no, I well, I trip then or a 30 day trip. No, last. Yeah. So that until you had the airstrip it had to be a major project for anybody who wanted to go in there. Well it had consumed considerable time. Yeah. And the outside of there, there wasn’t the game back in those days that there is now.

00;14;38;10 - 00;15;06;02 Speaker 1 Yeah. I was interested in you mentioned that the other day that the game picture has changed that much in that period of time. Well, then after Mr. Lewis died in, in 1248, you didn’t have very many guests in that ranch. Just just not you know, there was someone that always wanted to stay on the ranch, you know, just to take it.

00;15;06;04 - 00;15;27;11 Speaker 1 And they would they would raise themselves the garden and, one party that was on for several years that did quite a lot of work on the ranch per out bitches and things like that. Was Tex Martin and his occupation was moonshine. No kidding. Yeah, they did. They made the best moonshine they were getting in Boise. Made it at the ranch there.

00;15;27;11 - 00;15;35;11 Speaker 1 Well, we were out there at the ranch, and when we cleaned out the creek, it was them hardwood barrel. Then, of course they weren’t.

00;15;35;11 - 00;15;37;11 Speaker 2 FDL

00;15;37;14 - 00;15;58;02 Speaker 1 Yes, they were. and then I found more stays and whoops. And they all, they all that stone foundation up there the that where they boil it up it, it if somebody out and tore it up it’s still up there. Where was it. And you get dried up back the old cavern back there in the brush. No kidding.

00;15;58;02 - 00;16;21;07 Speaker 1 Yeah. Well yeah. Wouldn’t be very many revenue were getting in there anyway. Well they had a good deal because they could just take it right off the steel and know the small barrel of it on each side of a mule. And by the time they got it out, she took it out and all it was eight you know, already for consumption.

00;16;21;09 - 00;16;42;01 Speaker 1 They took it out over the same trail and a big tree. And then down the road here, wherever they were, they went out and got stranded in the snow up around the top there and a brown profile or with a load and they couldn’t get through. So they had download it. So they get buried in the snowdrift. And in the spring word filter down the great.

00;16;42;02 - 00;16;49;08 Speaker 1 If they better get up there and get taken care of it because it was dying and it was starting to come to light, beginning to show.

00;16;49;11 - 00;16;51;11 Speaker 2 Up.

00;16;51;13 - 00;16;53;12 Speaker 1 The interesting time and.

00;16;53;14 - 00;16;54;10 Speaker 2 Know.

00;16;54;13 - 00;17;29;02 Speaker 1 You haven’t been tempted to keep the thing going. No. In recent years. Well, there’s something else that might be of interest to the way the that I purchased the place that is the beat itself. One of his administrators wrote a man by the name of Wally Spelling FPP, and he came in to witness the situation. You see, I live and there was another one, and I think Harry Shuttleworth was out there.

00;17;29;04 - 00;17;56;03 Speaker 1 How did how did Mr. Lewis happen to have administrators at that point, at that time? Well, they just they just look after him and see that he got food and, you know, and they’ve been appointed apparently, you know, it wasn’t that he was that there was anything wrong with him mentally or anything like that. But in any deal, why he needed to fit.

00;17;56;06 - 00;18;28;29 Speaker 1 Sure. And they were looking out for had they been appointed by the court to. I presume so, I would think that would be the case. You know, in the case, the administrator, you know, and this wily staff, he was, the little mining. And so on. And he also at one time owned the, the ranch were doing. Morris he was one of the I don’t know, he was the first owner but he was one of the first owners of that.

00;18;29;01 - 00;19;06;05 Speaker 1 So you mentioned another name in connection with that that was built really on it? Yeah. Was that after Easter? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was after Easter. And that the way it was regarded. I wrote Dave a check for the balance of his money. I gave him deposit one way and I grew up a little, little agreement between us in the spring when I in and then he went back in that fall to complete the deal I said I’ll be in, in, in November and, and we will complete the deal.

00;19;06;05 - 00;19;50;22 Speaker 1 Why this wild Easter Inn down all the way from Cascade and brought these papers, the deeds and so on and to witness the situation. And so we got a got things straightened out and on the way out were these papers right right up there. You’ve heard of Low Bear Flat tour? Well, it was a minor there, but the name of Low Bar and this is that one low bar had a little feud going and and anyhow, that’s as far as the staff got.

00;19;50;22 - 00;20;10;23 Speaker 1 He shot him in the back of the head to the 3030. No, Ken, were these papers all right. Well I mean back and so this was how long after you’ve gotten the whole thing signed up. BE Right. Right. Then. I mean, the next day or so. Yeah. Yeah. Only six foot. Is it four or five mile place up to that bar?

00;20;10;23 - 00;20;34;11 Speaker 1 Yeah. And so then the telephone all over the country, you could talk anywhere. And so I called the sheriff by the name of Bob Wilson. I knew him that meeting, you know. I know. I ask him now, when you come in after the body, will you please take a date? And so on out of that pack and see that they’re recording?

00;20;34;14 - 00;21;02;27 Speaker 1 Sure. And that’s the way that the data that rancher would record it. I’ll be darned. Yeah. Whatever happened to the guy who did the shooting? Well, he landed in the pan, Yeah. What was it, an ambush type thing? Or were they arguing about? Well, this, this nobody he was wearing their had a hand up and loperamide. It gives them a lot of brain area, you know, where to look for it and what get passed passing by.

00;21;02;27 - 00;21;27;29 Speaker 1 And I guess as he walked by, I mean he wouldn’t even shoot him in the face. Wild one looking and God is going back to the end. Were you with him at that? No, no, no. How’d you hear about it? Well, low bear come right on down. And I did. Yes. And what in the today’s cabin That I get killed each day.

00;21;28;01 - 00;21;48;07 Speaker 1 Kind of brighten up your day a little bit. Yeah, I just walk in kind of casual like that. Yeah, but I get killed. Man up here, especially the man who was carrying out the papers that were important to you. Yeah, Yeah, well, he. That wasn’t even a self-defense thing. This was his whole night on honor. Get shot in the back,

00;21;48;09 - 00;22;11;09 Speaker 1 A gun? Yeah. Well, then he was the is that was the principal witness to the signing of the. Yeah. Yes. And yeah, witness the the deal. But he wasn’t around at the time it was recorded. No, no. But they had taken care of that of course the deal with all completed, you know, matter regarding the tape. Right. Yeah.

00;22;11;12 - 00;22;46;28 Speaker 1 And so that’s the way that I’ll be done. And there was only one transfer and that was from Dave to me. Yeah. And the abstract. But no, I wouldn’t. Titles are not one page. You wouldn’t have a lot of conditions and COVID 19 restrictions and things back here. Were there any seriously speaking in the deed? Were there any restrictions or any provisions about the use of it or anything or just a no, no, you complete the transfer, do very good claim.

00;22;46;28 - 00;23;11;03 Speaker 1 Deed Yeah, Yeah. No zoning problems to worry about? No, no, nothing like that. And it was high rise things and that corner of the guy scattered around the bridge. You going to find them? Going to run it out to find them. But you did all then re monument or non were the original boundary markers and things all described in your the original.

00;23;11;03 - 00;23;44;28 Speaker 1 Yeah. yeah. And they were two surveys they and the first survey and then they modified the survey and left one corner off. But it starts at the lower end of the range where that blood is there. And if you know where to look you can look up and see they see the symbols on the rock there. And that was corner number one, so far from quarter corner so on, so and so on.

00;23;44;28 - 00;23;47;29 Speaker 1 So, possibly.

00;23;48;01 - 00;23;50;26 Speaker 2 Possibly, yeah.

00;23;50;29 - 00;24;17;09 Speaker 1 That’s got to those in and that’s what it meant. Exactly. And then on every one of those is there’s a witness tree or up corner number one here does this comes down here is this opening through the bluff and here’s the bluff here and the bluff here. And they assembled here on this bluff right here and this bluff right here.

00;24;17;11 - 00;24;54;07 Speaker 1 Well, it so many so many chains or lakes and certain that in a certain direction and where those lines crossed, that’s the corner. so the corner is marked like that to witness. Trees are stone, On a solid marker, in other words. And where each where those cross is the corner. Yeah. And so we found corner number one without any trouble on each corner when they came in to remind him of light and each corner had a bank account on it.

00;24;54;13 - 00;25;37;04 Speaker 1 Barrett And we on a corner play No. Nine. We know it was ten. And in the first boundary line, why we found the account everyone would want. And the. But the description wasn’t too plain, and it could have been construed, you know, so many lengths and. And so many chains and so many lengths, and. But we construed it one way, and they the Partridge Boys that we’re doing very, very remind remote that they construed it the other way.

00;25;38;01 - 00;25;56;01 Speaker 1 yeah. We got, you know, with the glass on the signified. And I’m sure that if they did that, the way we construed it was correct and we found the count on that one too. And that and right in back of the house, right. great. We’re going up to the water that. yeah, yeah. So again, originally ten, ten monuments.

00;25;56;01 - 00;26;23;20 Speaker 1 Ten corners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much of that country back there, generally speaking, has been surveyed just up there around Cabin Creek, far as I know. And there is some surveyed there. And in other words, the Cabin Creek is the section and also up as far as John bein, because that’s 160 acres now, which would indicate that there was some kind of a survey there.

00;26;23;23 - 00;26;49;18 Speaker 1 You know now why there more is surveyed or the mountain meat now. Yeah yeah. And of course some of that country in there hasn’t even been mapped in any great detail. There’s no a map to keep your campaign about good at any you know, and when they’re surveying there’s a problem probably never put in a perimeter. No reason why they should.

00;26;49;21 - 00;27;09;10 Speaker 1 There’s one topographic map I noticed several years ago when I was picking up some maps that are in the Bear Valley map was made and the current maps that the government will send you if you get a topographic map where you probably got one made in 1891. But yeah, yeah. So they don’t keep it up to date at all.

00;27;09;12 - 00;27;38;18 Speaker 1 There’s not much has changed. Well, even their aerial surveys made of all that country now and that is the way the navigation. Right. But not that it’s surprising what you can see in those that area mapped. They, they the Forest Service brought the maps of our area down. You know, you can put them together and, you know, and they had, they had a kind of a lens deal for sure for looking at them and get whatever detail out.

00;27;38;18 - 00;27;59;17 Speaker 1 You could see the rocks. You know that big rock, right at the upper in the airport there that gives out to you could spot that very easily. And certain trees, no problem to spot them. Did it give you a elevations too. You could see pretty well. Well that’s more on a there’s another set of maps that give that you know the regular topographical.

00;27;59;17 - 00;28;23;16 Speaker 1 Yeah and I think probably their geology a geological or Yeah yeah but I wouldn’t say for sure on that but they gave all the elevations without them down there too you know. Yeah. Now Well then from, from when you, you actually acquired the ranch and get the record and everything, then you can use it just for your own, your own pleasure.

00;28;23;16 - 00;28;48;20 Speaker 1 You were in and out of there. I’d go in and out, you know, I’d go in and out and maybe two or three years. But that but the road then was so that you could drive a car down to the crooked river and up crooked river with some cabins up there that were owned by the cantons. And that rabbit foot mine was right there and, but was it operating there.

00;28;48;26 - 00;29;15;00 Speaker 1 Yeah. They were more out of that. Yeah. Yeah. And the grand and you’d have to walked in there all you know. Yeah. Did you ever leave any, any stock there or anything so you could drive it. I left, I left some, several had horses but I think they got scattered pretty rapidly and I came out with one car on there that I’d taken in there.

00;29;15;00 - 00;29;38;27 Speaker 1 She was three years old when I’d taken her in, and when I finally got back, she was she was still there and still and good cattle. And she had had a nice three year old cold weather. Yes. As wild as any deer you ever saw on a beautiful land, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, then when you began, after you got the airstrip, of course.

00;29;38;27 - 00;30;04;12 Speaker 1 Then your whole transportation access situation changed. We didn’t get in, but very few things, like the cook stove and just enough food and I told your neighbor just so we could get by, we could open the strip. I don’t know. What kind of structure did Mr. Lewis have on the place when you bought it? Well, he had the two houses.

00;30;04;15 - 00;30;28;06 Speaker 1 They what we call the old cabin up there, which we completely remodeled, you know, and then a small cabin which we also remodeled. And that’s the one that he was living in. I gave him permission lay there long as long as we lived right there. Yeah. Here nobody would bother. And of course, we remodel that too. And. And we built the three new one when I.

00;30;28;07 - 00;30;48;18 Speaker 1 You were in there when he left on this trip, when he got the pneumonia and everything, were you customarily in there quite a bit too during the spring or just coincidence. No, I was I had wintered in there that that winter I’d been there that entire winter. And then I didn’t leave till I think a lot about August of that year.

00;30;48;21 - 00;31;15;24 Speaker 1 Yeah. That was your first full year actually. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Were you trapping or hunting or just enjoying yourself? Well, I, I traveled all over the country over and, and, you know, kind of got oriented with the situation there. No. Yeah. And, but they was, they were deer everywhere then they had to do it. Not much else. No.

00;31;15;26 - 00;31;41;19 Speaker 1 And, and not as many sheep there are now. No. And no sheep. Sure you’d see them but they made quite a little comeback. Are they still increasing as far as you know, In my opinion, no kind of level, no. I think they’re about on a plane, you know, and the goats have made it very well. There’s there’s pure goat.

00;31;41;21 - 00;32;04;18 Speaker 1 Nobody ever killed one of them. Nobody ever bother them. But they they just don’t seem to increase. Well, I wouldn’t know. Well, then you were in there pretty much just for your own, you might say recreation and or your own enjoyment of it from the time you got to three and a half and staying in there for a pretty long period of time.

00;32;04;24 - 00;32;32;20 Speaker 1 Usually when you go in like, no, maybe three or four days, one time I flew in on the told to borrow with what they would at was when I was leaving to go to the Navy and he just waited on the script while I went to And then I came back down. So the only time you were in there for any extended period was that first year, The last year.

00;32;32;22 - 00;33;04;25 Speaker 1 And, and, and no kind of period until we moved there. No. So actually, by the time you got up there, then it probably was not even quite in as good shape as when you started. I mean, you hadn’t been in enough to do much with it. No, it hadn’t. it had deteriorated particularly aided about how the tone the, you know, like the moonshine or are you quite a gardener too?

00;33;05;18 - 00;33;40;20 Speaker 1 yeah. How long was he in there? A couple of years. He would have been on that, and then he would have been a good guy to keep around. Well, then when was Mrs. Taylor’s first look at it after you get married? Yeah, that where we got married, I was building here and I had over here. I had rounded up everything I had into into a home and I was equipped.

00;33;40;20 - 00;34;10;21 Speaker 1 That’s what I’m doing. And then I was gonna have no real estate. And she was with Realty come here. And I was for the last back. And she came out with one of the boys, left the house and so, and we rather got interest in each other and she didn’t sell a house. I finally had to sell out that she needed some more.

00;34;10;23 - 00;34;47;11 Speaker 1 Are you bought your money were much more important than her house. Yeah. Yeah. And so I told her what I my plans were and that just wasn’t any, any one incident in situation, period. And so I just didn’t want any, you know, things not to go through or anything. So I, I told her that I’m, they’ll want to take me in the back country to go in kind of straighten things up and I’ll be back out in 17 days.

00;34;47;14 - 00;35;09;21 Speaker 1 And if you’re still the same mine, why we will be married. And so and when I came back out in 17 days, she was out going to the airport out here about seven miles made me So a lot of that. So we owned. Right. And and were married and then went in on our honeymoon to start building that rank.

00;35;09;24 - 00;35;28;06 Speaker 1 And this this this poor girl loved this whole thing on faith. I mean, she knew you, but she didn’t have any idea of what she was getting. And not any. Not any. And I tried to tell her that that that there and I did just would never a woman would make the grade, period. That is all I was doing.

00;35;28;08 - 00;35;56;24 Speaker 1 And it was a little rugged. We lived in tents for two years down there, winter and summer. We never moved in the old cabin at all. We didn’t and started getting out the logs and working on our home out of the first on the airstrip. That is the two to prime objective and it was that tough winter of 4849 that it would get bad winter everywhere.

00;35;56;24 - 00;36;33;02 Speaker 1 It was heavy snow and extreme cold, but we didn’t suffer any. You were all right. You’d wake up in the mornings and we had two camps. We had a big one that we had to cook stored in, had a smaller tent, a bed tent with a heater in it. And we, we got the mornings and the defrost all over that covers from your inside the tent and we read it for what year the hardest one or you know right in April of that period on a bad winter like that.

00;36;33;02 - 00;36;50;09 Speaker 1 How much snow do you get down there? Well, it’s piled up and it was 18 inches that winter right there on the North Slope, which is very unusual for that country. Do you keep the monitors around there? Do you have any idea how cold? Well, it would got down to about 14 below and that it would get that cold out here.

00;36;50;09 - 00;37;12;26 Speaker 1 The boys, they do have a good cold airplane, but the cold didn’t last too long. I remember there was about three days that extreme cold and a and a cold weather broken desire. American Daniel where we got a pretty good deal again we do down do you get much wind down there and no the crew no no when you do get high water there occasionally yeah.

00;37;12;29 - 00;37;34;26 Speaker 1 You know what’s the highest. The water’s ever come up toward your house That is up over the banks. Well it’s there’s never been a time that you couldn’t set a plane on the air right at the lower end there, where it goes down the incline that it’s a little low right there and it doesn’t carry all that stuff needed back up in there.

00;37;34;28 - 00;38;11;26 Speaker 1 And, so we never had any problem there particularly. Do you have any problem generally on Big Creek with Plunge? No. This year, as near as I could tell, the water this year got right back to where it was that that high water year several years ago. It was high here on the little salmon over here and washed out a lot of the highway and above Reagan there, it would just it were just high water everywhere there there’s some big down by the mouth, actually creek.

00;38;11;26 - 00;38;32;11 Speaker 1 And then that part of the creek, there’s some big rocks around it off because they must have been moved by water sometime in the past. Yeah, that must have been a long, long time ago then to have enough water to move those around. Not no I wouldn’t say so. In other words, the channel, the big creek cow now is a much larger channel underclassman.

00;38;32;11 - 00;38;53;29 Speaker 1 We went in the country. dear. much larger. That that one high water just probably widen that channel up ten feet right straight through the channel all turn right. Correct. All the drift and everything and just clean them up. I’ll be doing it. Just clean them out. You know, there’d be little grit along the side out against the boulder or something, right?

00;38;55;06 - 00;39;21;23 Speaker 1 to just reach, analyze it, get made a clean sweep. You know, I would account for well, a log, a big log went down, evidently had root on hook, the swinging bridge down to Goat Creek there and took that out. Cash. And we just expected ours to go at any time. But it didn’t happen to one of them.

00;39;21;23 - 00;39;44;01 Speaker 1 Okay. Where was yours? Anchored further up on the undersized and your swinging bridge. And. Ever saw the swinging bridge there? Well, it was anchored just about on the level of the present steel bridge. Yeah, the old the high boat. You’re still in the bank on the far side over there, you know. And look, get below the just below the old bridge.

00;39;44;01 - 00;40;06;01 Speaker 1 You know, they built the, the new bridge just above the old and they used the old in there to traffic back and forth. I’ve seen them. I didn’t know for sure what the before. Yeah. Well that was them. And on the other side there was a it was a kind of a personal thing there. Yeah. All of the cables come down over to get the elevation up.

00;40;06;03 - 00;40;37;25 Speaker 1 Yeah. In normal times then how far was the water level below the center of the bridge. It would be pretty hard to tell, but I presume that it was probably up within six feet up in that high water. Yeah. Because the bridge and this ship to your event, you. still amazes me though that you went in there with your first work that and building your cabin including that you did just with that team.

00;40;37;27 - 00;41;01;26 Speaker 1 Yeah. Scraper. I bought them out here and, they were truck to the end of the road and then, you know, they bought them a couple of times to get them. Yeah. And then they, they were brought right down the creek, you know, it was a young fella. Want to come in and see the place and vacation for a day or.

00;41;02;04 - 00;41;25;14 Speaker 1 And he offered to take them in and bring them down the creek for the privilege. So that’s why I got to work, you know, I got to really get a lot of work done with it. Friends that he had an attractive place like that. And now I got our home doubled and I had a stonemason say, Anytime you want a fireplace on there, I’ll be glad to come down and put it on for you.

00;41;25;17 - 00;41;50;08 Speaker 1 I had it on our home there. It’s all framed up and everything just dropped the framing out for the fireplace and looking. And I had a plaster come in and had another boy to donate all a layer of material. The metal out to put in the cracks. plaster here. And by then I said, you know, they, they had worked with men, firemen.

00;41;50;10 - 00;42;26;04 Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, for a chance to go in there a guy would do most anything that you have a privilege of that for a while. Well when you were in which did you finish first year or that the airstrip one year took a year to get that. Yeah. This year And it went through a winter. We got started and got most of the brush off the air that summer and then we had to have enough food.

00;42;26;04 - 00;42;40;23 Speaker 1 So they would had a plan that they were that they used to drop salt out of them. And I had a shoot in the bottom of it and we would get a sack of flour through like, gosh, there be.

00;42;40;25 - 00;42;41;18 Speaker 2 A.

00;42;41;21 - 00;43;15;00 Speaker 1 Lot of salt and things like that. But the packages had to be of that comparable size. So we packaged everything. So it would go through this, you know, through the chute and the snow got about a foot deep on their properties on the strip. And we had it all open. So heat the heat fly up again and they’d come down over and they’d get over the left, the strip be dropped, get it lower the could you see here we had a big cottonwood left at the lower end.

00;43;15;00 - 00;43;37;22 Speaker 1 We hadn’t taken out and they’d had to get it cleared of that many day now. And the Rock and I were sitting on it, that attitude and we just start dumping it. I could see, get this, I get that they get put on through. Well you could see where everyone I’m it in the snow. Sure. And there wasn’t a track on the strip or anything and it took two passes to get that load out and that was our winter supply.

00;43;37;24 - 00;43;57;18 Speaker 1 I’ll be darned. Yeah. Now I’m broke or anything. Now I was only one thing and broken out and blocks of it cut through. They hit frozen dirt under snow and cracked and broke corner off of that gash. But none of the others never lost. So I know again. And then he went back in on foot. That with your stuff?

00;43;57;19 - 00;44;17;29 Speaker 1 Yeah. You went down the cellar door by then landed and. And then you came back and we walked back up. That’s, that’s when we had the pop and the whiskey and, and the load on my back. yeah. And then was something that we didn’t want to drop, we didn’t want dropped whiskey or anything like that for sure.

00;44;17;29 - 00;44;47;26 Speaker 1 That’s when he said it didn’t seem like enough whiskey. Yeah. Yeah, he was you you tell that to casually and know but when you, when you think back to those days and how new all that was and everything, if that’s real adventure, you know when you did it that way. Well, later when we got our cabin going, I, I drew it up to scale and I had a very good plumber friend out here, and he’d come down and we’d put in a little plumbing.

00;44;47;26 - 00;45;12;01 Speaker 1 We had a we had the old bathtub come from Thunder, from Thunder Mountain in our bathroom to start with. And how did you go from Thunder Mountain? Well, it it was there. Now they do, yeah. And it’s it’s part of the the things that I’m preserving. Nobody’s got a hole or anything. Yeah I see. And so he come in, looked around a little bit fishing and all that.

00;45;12;01 - 00;45;41;24 Speaker 1 Exactly. Got it opened up, made that Guess I think I better come in, put in your plumbing for you. So he bought. He was a wholesaler himself. It was it turned out here now. And he’s the one that found it here and in Bogota and so I gave him the blueprint and he checks all out and bought all the plumbing and come in and started for him.

00;45;41;27 - 00;46;43;00 Speaker 1 And when we got ready for the new cabin down there, he bought all that plumbing. And I drew that scale, too. And he came in and installed that. When did you build a new cabin? About four years after that. Yeah. Yeah. There was quite a little time and we decided we, you know, we’re going to work on it for pretty good trade and I guess we’ll, we’ll go in and so we needed a better facility and that’s when we built the new and different actually come, you know, we got those logs, that big creek about a mile, mile and a half, cut them up there and in those bottoms and make them out and bank

00;46;43;00 - 00;47;13;16 Speaker 1 them all along the side of Big Creek on Skid Row to complete camp. And then they put in a boom across the big quick rider dipper, and they’re strip of logs and we put all that timber into the creek and herd it down there. And then I had this big team and hip boots and all. I could get pretty well out there.

00;47;13;16 - 00;47;34;18 Speaker 1 And I just grabbed the team right out into the creek and took on one of them big log. You take it out and grab it down there. Son of a gun. Hold. I gather up all of them. I get a chain around here and that’s where we that’s where we got the logs for that cabin. The ones for our home.

00;47;34;18 - 00;48;04;21 Speaker 1 We got mostly right up the creek. Yeah, Even up the green. Take them down by the camp. And of course, it’s such a beautiful cabin. And how long did it take you to decide where to put it? I mean, you put it on the ideal spot there. Well, we looked place all over and the tighter that goes where we wandered, so we got to the team, the plow and the scraper, and we made most of our excavation that way.

00;48;04;21 - 00;48;33;12 Speaker 1 And then I went ahead and squared it out by hand. Did you have to move much or there to make that not mine? No, no. It was a little hill. Yeah, it was pretty sloping. But that’s of course we’ve we’ve got a basement under that home and, and we’ve, we also have headroom bays down on the other camp until you get right plumbing and everything.

00;48;33;12 - 00;49;18;18 Speaker 1 It’s all right there. We can get out of. And then for that time you had both of them built that the the yours and then the duplexes really. And I had them for most of the time with the gas. yeah. Summer in winter hunting season and Yeah. Season there. Yeah. It was quite a drawing card, you know, because most of the outfitters that 10th and and we do out in the camps when they come in the ranch right here is off our farm and sure good quarters and some of them thought it pretty rugged but you didn’t have cokes any of them again.

00;49;18;21 - 00;49;54;11 Speaker 1 No I just did. Did you feed most of them there? I mean, it must have a good for the whole area. Yeah. Yeah. When they were at the right given what was the maximum number of guests you had usually at one time. Well for four. Yes. Sometimes we would, you know, we would stretch a little in case of a family or like the Pullman or the Coleman Special people and Yeah, special reason to be there.

00;49;54;11 - 00;50;20;06 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. But it was all on reservation. Sure. And that’s the reason that we kept that a private feel. And it’s still a private feel. And that’s the status. It’s going to maintain good quality in a contract that it is. And they get that and better step over the line here and we’re not going to do anything that will make the I can go in and out that out of there because that’s part of the deal.

00;50;20;09 - 00;50;43;10 Speaker 1 You know, our outfitter there for probably 20 years before they ever got that place. Yeah, right. I know it’s it’s part of it. But I if I ever decide to go to operating on their own and they’re commercializing and that’d be done now. Sure. Because the outsiders say, well here’s the university, take the hunters back there to try.

00;50;43;13 - 00;51;13;20 Speaker 1 And you see it’s not one pressure. You become a middleman. sure. When did the Outfitters and Guides Association get formed? And I know I don’t know just how many licenses I’ve got, but they’ve been. And being now quite a spell, I presume 20. And you’ve been a member of it, had an agency ever since they started. Well, I have a license, but I was I was a charter member to start with, and I got a little raw for me.

00;51;13;22 - 00;51;40;18 Speaker 1 I didn’t go the way it was being conducted. And they had so-called outfitters in there that I didn’t consider was outfitters. And so I just withdrew. You don’t have to belong to them. But you. But you have the license through. How does that work? Well, the licensing board and the outfitters and guide, they all they’re part of the same situation.

00;51;40;21 - 00;52;03;29 Speaker 1 They have a different function now. They are the outfitter and guide board. It’s to pass on these applications for outfitter clients and guides. Right. While. But they. They can’t turn you down just because you don’t have a membership and the outfitters and guide. No, I got it. And I didn’t like it and I didn’t like them. They had in there.

00;52;03;29 - 00;52;27;14 Speaker 1 They were trying to wait on me every time they got a chance and I’d never been in and I might now if it straightens up and and gets on the up and up, they said, I’m taking me right off the real key because I can Dallas name. Yeah well they said if you had agency Well yeah but I know how it got to cure an awful lot of hard work.

00;52;27;15 - 00;53;15;15 Speaker 1 Yeah and some say no and taking care of again that was, you know, where we made it. Well now are there, is there a limit to the number of licenses that there’s licenses that can be issued and that is limited by the territories? No, I have my designated territory there with the boundaries and that while I acquire no equity and as long as I don’t get in mixed up in game violation or keep it activated each year, might that license both the campsite like this from the Forest Service and my outfitters line from the outfitters and guide to automatically come through.

00;53;15;24 - 00;53;35;18 Speaker 1 yeah you see I don’t do any poaching I have to watch my step where nobody else is licensed to be owner in that same area. Not in the same area. How big an area does each outfitter have or now? Well, I think of mine and right now I’ll be about South Texas. But in other words, you know, crowded.

00;53;35;18 - 00;54;02;04 Speaker 1 Exactly. No, because it was my idea that it wouldn’t be any fun either. But. Well, it come right down to it. The airport designate the area. Sure. And what are the last one down and they bar service won’t allow anyone out. It all told the bar they would me you know if I. Yeah I’m sure because that and you’re in my territory Right.

00;54;02;06 - 00;54;28;06 Speaker 1 But they’ve been buried there on that. Yeah. Well the how many outfitters are there who work in the primitive area there would you guess. Well on where it was first set up they figured that there’s ample outfitters on Big Creek and the way they were spaced and so on. The Big Creek would be for the big creek.

00;54;28;08 - 00;54;52;22 Speaker 1 But then that a train from now there that there’s Lanham above. He has a territory above and that’s all right down here Dewey more he’s quit. Well, then I think probably Lanham got to be kerikeri. I don’t know what that would be divided up Then among them, they’re out there, you know, would you wouldn’t bring a new outfitter in there.

00;54;52;22 - 00;55;15;13 Speaker 1 You just the only way they go. Well, and no, there’s been no, no one brought in John by and he also quit and I presume now that whoever purchased his place would have the first choice on his hunting area, you know, if he was qualified, if it wasn’t, if he wanted it. Right. But he said, I have to meet both.

00;55;15;18 - 00;55;47;08 Speaker 1 Yeah, you’re in fact, he bought the real estate. Wouldn’t make him an outfit. No, no, no, no, no. So what do you do with a place like Noble’s where he doesn’t get a promotion and his territory is either reassigned to some? Well, now there’s one. There’s one other outfit that’s been working in there, and he really isn’t a top outfitter.

00;55;47;10 - 00;56;11;27 Speaker 1 And it’s possible that he will call every time a dog. And his I tell you, the outfitters and guy’s been up to get me for quite a spell and they gave the noble portion of my territory. Well, I’m going immediately to take that back now, and I’ve already taken back from tents purposes. I take that back right off.

00;56;11;28 - 00;56;27;01 Speaker 1 I just didn’t wait. Yeah. And if they anytime they want above me, why they just want to take to it because I’m going to come out on top and any any break it that I get it I believe it I believe it was tied to it. You had a pretty good life. You wouldn’t mind enjoying part of it.

00;56;27;01 - 00;57;23;13 Speaker 1 Well I, I battle only here. I told that to get it right. Has anybody ever tested the. The principle of of assigning the territory in court. Has any outfitter ever come in and said you can’t restrict this and just moved into a territory. But there’s question that a lot of the state has jurisdiction over the game. On federal land or a lot of the far right now if they if they never that to them they in the fish and game of the state of Idaho why naturally they would have the precedent I would think the regulation but now that’s a question and is but what I depend on mostly is my partners can’t fight you

00;57;23;15 - 00;57;43;11 Speaker 1 know you have to have a they have their absolutely designated and they’re scattered all over the territory and they won’t grab one day anybody else within that territory anywhere near yet. I’m sure anybody else who came. And even if he could get some legal way to get into the territory, couldn’t have any campsite doing either far service what nation campsite if they did in consultation with me?

00;57;43;14 - 00;58;11;07 Speaker 1 How many camped? Do you have a kayak? I have three. Three? Yeah, One. A fresh creek up there. Where to look at? Yeah, yeah, right up on rush point. And then I have another not fresh creek after Telephone Creek that’s about 15 miles from the ranch. And then I have one up on Cripple Creek across from it. And then that territory below it isn’t good for out too.

00;58;11;08 - 00;58;28;23 Speaker 1 Later anyway. And we got that right in the range and it’s, we have camp there. So the ranch is a campus so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Base camp. Yeah, yeah. We were really out of the floor, but I don’t have to pay for the ranch, right? Yeah. You pay for the permits for the other. yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;58;28;23 - 00;58;54;09 Speaker 1 It costs me $75 this year for my camp permit. And as for service, inspect them periodically. they don’t know where most of them are, but once they got through, the Ranger finally found the one on Ray’s point. We did. We went through it and he said, you know, that’s the way I like the camp. He said, Yeah, it’s where camp should be until I found out when the first time I was ever up there.

00;58;54;09 - 00;59;12;00 Speaker 1 I don’t know why he should have had too much trouble playing, but I know it was real nice. It’s a beautiful spot. boy, That’s fine, Captain. In that old country, that is the finest camp in the world. A heartbeat. yeah. You know, on to these and beautiful place. Yeah. And I imagine it’s pretty well protected from weather to it.

00;59;12;01 - 00;59;34;23 Speaker 1 There will be snow blow up on those radiant nine. Her kids dead. Yeah. In the morning Sun comes up here Friday, and you walk out there and see that whole country, you know. And right then a mile down it now it’s a beautiful spot and we’ve got the game. So there’s the Forest Service, over the years you’ve been in there, have you had pretty comfortable relations with them generally?

00;59;34;23 - 01;00;08;29 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. We’ve had our ups and downs, but had a good day On average. They treated me fair. You’ve always kept at your own ranch. You’ve always been pretty strict about the primitive area concept. I know you never had machinery in there or things that you could have done on private property. You treated it just as though it was actually part of the primitive areas, though, right?

01;00;09;02 - 01;00;34;18 Speaker 1 Did you ever use a tractor or any mechanic? Never have it all. so actually the first piece of machinery that’s ever been in there except for change now or something like that is this motor that’s up there running the congressional refrigerator. Yeah. And, that we got that through the inauguration tractor on it. Yeah, Like the guy in track or anything.

01;00;34;18 - 01;01;01;24 Speaker 1 I will match grip, you know. But I didn’t know and I it maintained it that way. Well now what about the history of your, your relations with the university, your decision to sell the place to the university? That’s that’s a pretty important piece of history right there. Well, it started,