Latah County Oral History Collection

Clay Gustin, 1973-07-25, Interview - MP3 Recording

University of Idaho Library

Sam Schrager, Interviewer

Latah County Oral History Collection

Transcription by: Rich McCrea

Introduction: Clay Gustin grew up on a wood ranch in the foothills of Moscow Mountain. He worked as a young man in Moscow at various jobs. In this interview he discusses the Parkslay Hall, fatal accidents in the woods, the McGary Butte Fire, advantages of horse logging, the four L's and the IWW, and a few moonshine stories.

SS: The first thing I thought to ask you about the wood ranch on Crumarine Creek. You were just a kid there. That's where you were born.

CG: I was born right at the foot of the mountain

SS: Was it just a wood ranch for cutting wood and no farming at all?

CG: Yes, just for cutting wood and no farming. We just had a wood ranch out there and Dad worked out in the harvest, you know during harvest. We went to school there at the edge of the mountain. Naw that's all we done up in there, cut wood in the wintertime and we would haul it in the summer to Moscow.

SS: For firewood?

CG: Yea

SS: Did you have to go to the school?

CG: It was about three miles from there down. They called it the Evergreen School, just at the foot of the Moscow Mountain before you start into. It's still there, I guess. I haven't been out there for years. Always quite a bunch of kids that went to school there. Becks, I seen him the other day and he was talking about the school. He is about my age. He went to school.

SS: You had a lot of brothers and sisters?

CG: Yea I had, six boys and four girls. They are all dead except for two or three of us. One girl and my brother in Moscow.

SS: Did you have any neighbors out there?

CG: Quite a few around through the country at that time when we was kids. I can't think of all the names. But there was some Cole's lived there, Gig Cole, Ericksons, Dahlbergs, people of the name Stratton, Homer Burr family, Haddens, Coopers, Harts. Oh there was quite a bunch of them. That isn't about you know two or three miles out.

SS: Were they wood ranches to or were they farms?

CG: Most of them was in the timber. I guess some of them had a little land cleared and stuff like that to farm on raise hay for stock. They wasn't really farmers. After you got farther down it was all farms.

SS: Do you know how your father came out getting the place?

CG: No I don't, he had it on.

SS: He probably bought it, he didn't homestead it?

CG: Yea, I don't think he homesteaded. I think he bought it.

SS: Was most of the timber still on it when you were a kid?

CG: Oh yea, still there except when he got rid of it, except what we cut for wood. I see they have logged it though, since then, I don't know maybe several times.

SS: Well how old were you when you remember starting to work out there cutting, helping?

CG: It was about the time after we got going to school you know, as kids we worked all the time when we was home. As soon as we got big enough to hang onto a saw we was cutting wood.

SS: What was the operation like there, I figured it was really small just with a family?

CG: Yea well we would just got out there and we would fall the trees and saw them into four foot blocks then the bigger ones they would split them, splitting wood. God I don't remember when I did start but I know remember being there you know from growed up. I was about 14 years old well we moved to Moscow there and I went to school there for a little while then I quit school and took off up into the woods.

SS: Do you remember anything about Evergreen school and what it was like going there?

CG: I remember when the teachers used to bounce you around on the seat to make you mind (laughs). I seen them pick them up and set them down there quite a few times. It's a lot different than it is now they used to make you mind, now they don't dare to. They would hang the teachers, picking on those kids. No its been so long ago, I forgot. I know there used to be some great big kids there you know, I suppose the 6th or 7th grade and they used to, teacher did, they would hold their hand up and want something you know just for meanness. She had a big flat farm up there and she would make them come up there to lay down on the, to punish them. I remember a lot of times they had that thing full of them (laughs). Want something, then she would ask them what they wanted and if they didn't know what it was she would take them up there. That's the way she. Or stand them in the corner someplace. They was half of them grown men been there somedays you know, tried to get an education didn't want one either I guess, didn't act like it.

SS: Had you had a chance to go to school before that and they wanted it to go and learn?

CG: Oh we didn't get to, we so far from school there you know the snow gets so deep, sometimes we wouldn't get to school. But, we used to have to hike, by the time you get there you would be late. You wouldn't know at that time supposed to have been there on time but couldn't get there. Didn't seen to make much difference as long as you got there and back that was the main thing.

SS: What kind of house did you live in was it just a little log cabin?

CG: No it was a lumber house they built. It ain't there no more, wasn't the last time I was in that country. They had logged it and tore down everything that was there.

SS: Did you get along pretty good with all those brothers and sister?

CG: Oh yea, they would fight once in a while but that didn't make any difference. No they had a pretty good house there at some time. Then my mother's folks they lived there to, they lived up little Louis in there. My brother my mother. Oh course they are all dead now the whole bunch of them, ain't none of them left.

SS: What did you do in Moscow when you went there what were your jobs there?

CG: Well I drove dray team there for Williamsons for awhile then I worked on this paving the streets there you know I had vat down there to cook oil in them. I worked at that and then I worked in that harvester there at Moscow, when they had that harvester there where that big store is out on north Main.

SS: Rosauers?

CG: Rosauers. Worked in there then when I was going to school I used to split wood for them, that fella that used to run the Pennys Store, you know. Split it into cook wood for them. I had all kinds of jobs around there in them days.

SS: When you pull on the dray team, what did you deliver?

CG: We delivered coal and trunks, furniture. I didn't get in much on the furniture because I was too rough and they didn't like that and I didn't like to move it anyhow. Them old ladies would stand out there with a broom and hit you over the head if you scratched something (laughs).

SS: What about the coal where did you deliver that?

CG: I delivered that up at the University a lot of it and then around town ya know the different ones. They would order it. The University had most of it. The flat car gondolas come in and we would load it out of them, shovel it out, take it up there and dump it into that furnace to keep that heating plant going. They could just about burn a load while I was getting one to. Then they finally put the railroad up there. I don't know they ain't got the railroad there now and I don't know what the how they get it up there. Maybe they don't use coal anymore.

SS: You told me that you delivered flour too?

CG: Yea, too the bakeries that's the first job I had in the morning go down there and get about ten sacks, 100 pounds sacks of flour and take it up to that 3rd street bakery. I forget who owned that now. I knew him well then too.

SS: It's the same building.

CG: Yea same place. But I can't think of the fella's name who was running it then. Then I would go overnight the last thing and get that lid delivered down to there where that Rosauers is and then take a bunch of it to the University up there they had two places. Boy there's a lot of bread in 1,000 pounds of that flour when you get it mixed up.

SS: What was at the Rosauers place?

CG: We had an army camp there at the time, and one at the University.

SS: Did you take it to other stores to sell, just those two places?

CG: No, just those them two places. The only places I go.

SS: What was the army camp like? I didn't know they there was one?

CG: Oh the mess halls and stuff like that where they fed them in there. Big long buildings.

SS: Then you worked later in that harvester plant on that same site?

CG: That was before that when I worked in there. They got that for the army out there. Used to haul scrap iron out there and they would melt it. We would pour into these molds and it was a hot job too. Bill Bix he was in on that I think, he was a lieutenant governor later on. I don't think he was right at the time but later on he was.

SS: Wow you took a hot job. Was it founding?

CG: Well the iron you had to catch it in them kettles and then pack it around and then pour in these here molds they had. You could sweat pretty easy (laughs) without doing any work.

SS: What did they make the molds out of do you know?

CG: They used sand mostly. Some kind of sand. They would make the molds out of whatever thing they wanted to make you know then they would pour this stuff in them and let it set and cool off.

SS: Do you know if they used the harvesters right around here in this area?

CG: They used to use them there at Moscow. I don't know I don't think they used them to long because I don't think they stood up to long (laughs) but they had them. They used to make these car wheels for these railroad too, in there.

SS: You came out, you left Moscow pretty young?

CG: I left there before when I was 14 come up here and then I went back at different times and worked there in Moscow, when there was nothing around the woods much to go back down there and get a job and stay awhile then take back to the woods. You know I never did like a town.

SS: When you came out here you were still just a punk kid but you weren't all green about logging?

CG: I'd been in the woods all my life. I knew about the woods. I could tell one tree from another I know that (laughs). Oh I swamped when I first come down here along the railroad track an old feller with me. We worked together there quite awhile. Went sawing and stuff like that. Got on them high lines and just kept moving around where the jobs come up.

SS: Do you remember what they first had you do, have you swamping at the start?

CG: I was swamping down here at old camp 7. They'd fall them trees along the right-of-way and saw them up then we would come along and cut the limbs off. Then the loaders come in and load them up.

SS: Do you remember the Beals Butte Fire that was in 14 which I guess was a?

CG: 1910 wasn't it?

SS: I thought it was a little bit later.

CG: I know this one over here because I was on it. This McGary Mountain.

SS: When was that, that was quite a bit later?

CG: Well that was, let's see that was after they built the railroad into the park and over in there. We was working at the camp, camp 1 over there, at the time the fire started. They put us out. I don't remember which year. It must have been 1931 or 1932

SS: What was the McGary Fire like?

CG: It was pretty hot it burned down a whole mountain all back here and they got it stopped down at the river in there. Got it put out.

SS: What did you do on the fire?

CG: Make trails. I had a crew out there myself, making trails, and I had to watch them all the time. See where they was at and whether they stayed out of the fire or not and see that they got their lunches at noon. Then we backfired from the river back the other way when it got coming down over the hill there. Because we figured it would jump across on this side so we go along the other side and backfired and let it run up into the. I know we went up Boulder Creek in there one time a bunch of us, and was going to put a trail in, heck that fire was going clear over us, you know and liting down, so we had to take them all out of there then and went back to the river and started backfiring the other way. If they had stayed in there and let fire get below them there, they would have an awful time getting out of there. And they had a lot of green kids on it they brought up from Moscow. They didn't know what a fire was or what to do you just had to watch them all the time. Got lost in the brush they might have gotten burned up (laugh). But they most of them pretty good workers they do what they are told to do. Oh I don't know them fires I don't think much of them. I still think they set it.

SS: Who set it?

CG: The Potlatch, always will think so. I don't know (laughs)

SS: For what?

CG: Save burning brush, cheaper that way than it would be to hire a crew to go out and burn I think.

SS: Do you think it was going to get out of hand like?

CG: It did get out of hand but I think they set it in the first place. I couldn't swear to it.

SS: What about the fire over by Floodwood. Were you on that one?

CG: No.

SS: Were there any others that you fought?

CG: I was on one at Princeton on time down there. A bunch of us went down there to fight that. I found out that one was set to, I didn't do much firefighting either I watched all those them skid lays so they wouldn't catch fire.

SS: Set up who?

CG: Oh the company.

SS: Well it seems like that happens, the Forest Service will set them now when they are burning their brush and they let it burn off another 50 acres or so and it's called slop over.

CG: Yea it gets away from them then they holler that somebody else set it, that's. They used to have to pile that brush and burn it and it cost a lot of money to get that burnt.

SS: You mean in the old days?

CG: Yea when they had to pile it all and get a fire going that good they could burn it pretty cheap (laughs). But putting the fire out after got the brush burnt, some of them gets away from them, and then burn up a lot of timber. That 1910 fire I wasn't up here then. But that burned, I don't know, burnt Bovill up I guess, butte and all through that country. I don't know how much farther. A lot of people got burned up in that I guess.

SS: Was Bovill a pretty rough town back there in the teens?

CG: Oh I don't think it was too rough but Clarkia was a rougher town than Bovill quite a bit.

SS: What was it like in Clarkia?

CG: Oh they had all kinds of things going over there, bootlegging, I don't know.

SS: I've heard about that around here to.

CG: Yea we've had some of that here to, I guess, not too much of it that I know of. Of course they could get bootlegged whiskey in here they hauled it in I guess. As far as making it I guess not too many made it. No, I forget half of what used to go on around here.

SS: Its been a pretty long time

CG: A feller never thinks whats going to happen later on, or nothing you know

SS: That stuff is 50 years ago that we are talking about.

CG: I know Deary is a lot different than when I first come up here, old shacks and I don't know. Now they got it fixed up pretty good. They used to have saloons they used to have one right down the road here that Russ Warrens showed the picture over there. He run a saloon right down here along the road when they built this railroad. That was before my time when they built the railroad but I was he had it after I come up here to. I guess it kind of rough on when they built the railroad in here kinda tough on some of them.

SS: How do you mean?

CG: Building the railroad they would get drunk and some of them get killed most of them bohunks though they called them (laughs).

SS: Would you say in the camps it was mostly foreigners that were ah working the camps when you were first out here or was it mostly you know regular?

CG: It was just about half and half I'd say, maybe more of them foreigners. Because they come in here they built the camps then they built railroads all over for the Potlatch. An old feller had a whole camp full of them guys, foreigners, of course they was good railroad workers. About all they knew I guess was railroads.

SS: Well would you say that when the labor activity started it changed conditions it came mostly because of them or did it come as much from the guys that lived around here?

CG: Well when it first started I think they was more of them WOPS in on it but afterwards I think it got so the rest of them was in on it to. You know that's what they gathered up was them WOPS when they come in after them that time. Wobblies they called them. Afterwards quite a few of the other guys got in on it.

SS: The other guys you mean the guys that lived around here?

CG: That worked for Potlatch they got hit up for more money and different things. Then the Potlatch had a union of their own, four L's, and there was another union I forget what they called that. But the Potlatch wrote it and you lived up to it. So it didn't help you any. You did what they wanted you to do or you didn't stay. No the union wouldn't stick up for you so must have been the Potlatch that wrote it.

SS: Did any of the guys join that one?

CG: You had to join if you worked you know they wouldn't let you work unless you belonged to it, finally they got so everybody found out it's a Potlatch union so they finally quit paying in on it and they still stayed and worked and I guess that other union the CIO or AFL got in and that was a little different. They would take your money and if you was more ways to do it (laughs).

SS: But it wasn't a company union then?

CG: No it wasn't a company union then (laughs).

SS: What about the IWW? You weren't supposed to belong to that one right? The company didn't like that.

CG: I didn't belong to it I worked with them guys though, never had a card nor nothing

SS: Did you belong to any of them?

CG: Not now, I joined that Potlatch there paid dues in for a long time and finally I quit that, said they would can you (laughs), and let them can. I was looking for a job when I found this one so what's the difference and I never did pay anymore and I never got canned either.

SS: What do you remember about the strikes that went on in the IWW was out there, were there strikes?

CG: They would strike I don't know whether it was the Wobblies that would do something and they would blame it on Wobblies I don't think half of them Wobblies did what they claimed they did myself, I think somebody else. They had. But I know they come up and got a bunch of them up there one time when I was working with them was on a landing then. They got what had cards on there. They took them to Moscow and I don't know what they done, kept them in a bull pen down there for awhile. I don't know what they ever done.

SS: How could they tell if you had a card?

CG: Well you would pack your card with you, you know, if you belonged to the Wobblies, had a Wobbly card.

SS: So they would search you?

CG: I suppose they would go into them bunk houses and if you had a card laying around or anyplace they find it.

SS: Who were most of the guys they were taking in were they?

CG: They had most of them WOPS that they around here at that time. That's about all they picked on I know up there. But I don't remember much that they done, you know, to cause them to do it. I guess they set a fire or something someplace or something like that. Somebody would and they would lay it on to them whether it was them or not.

SS: I've heard that it said they really did get the better conditions.

CG: Oh they did too. If it hadn't been for them I don't think they would have had any bunk houses, bedding, or stuff. You used to have to pack your own beds and stuff like that you know in them camps. Then you got better bunk houses and better beds and beds furnished, wash rooms, and stuff like that you know. You know them camps was pretty good when I left. I always had everything you'd want you know. If you are staying in them.

SS: Why do you think these bad things were being laid on the IWW?

CG: Well they had to blame somebody, I suppose they figured if anything went wrong and the Wobblies was doing it. But I don't know, I worked with them up there and they was all good workers and everything. They used to like to play dice soon as there was anything, was no logs there, they was all out there shaking dice, taking the others guys money as fast as they can get it (laugh). I used to laugh at them. One time they laid a coat out you know then they shake dice and bet. One guy he would win a lot of money then probably the next time he tried would lose his and the other guys would get it. That's the way they passed away their time. They all seemed to have money I don't know of course money in them days didn't amount to much. I think it was only about sixty cents an hour, for working on the landing at that time. But the sleigh haul here I worked on that for thirty cents an hour. You lived just as good as you do now for seven or eight dollars an hour I guess.

SS: Do you want to tell me what that sleigh haul was like?

CG: Well about the only thing I could tell you be the how they done it, they loaded them on the sleighs on the other end of the line you know, then they brought them about I would say five miles to the river. Then they would bring two sleighs at a time behind each cat, over to this railroad. Then they had a loader there they would load them onto them cars and take them into Potlatch, to the mill.

SS: What was your job?

CG: I was road monkeying down here. I sawed logs over there first then went to the sleigh haul then I went on the road down there. Sanding. They put in 72 days study, never missed Sundays and all.

SS: What did you do to maintain the road? What did you have to do?

CG: We put sand, gravel, on the road to keep the sleighs from running over the horses. Had four horses on each sleigh you see, it was quite a bit of weight there. Them sleighs used to hold the sled back down the hill.

SS: Did you have to work on it every day?

CG: Oh year, 12 hours a day

SS: Did you work while they were hauling?

CG: Oh yea, ride the sleds right down, every sled go down we ride it right down across my beat and stand on the front end of it with a sack of cinders or sand. Scatter it along if we got to going too fast. Get off and go back get another one. I forget how many sleighs they had, but they had, must have had 10 or 12 teams, sleigh teams, quite a bunch of them.

SS: What were the sleighs like?

CG: Oh they had big long runners and them bunks on you know, they chained them on, they chained the logs over, like they do on these railroad cars, binders and so. But the teams could only bring one sleigh in but the cats would take two, see from the river uphill. Cats was more powerful than horses.

SS: They didn't have the cats running the sleigh haul just down from the landing.

CG: This one here to the river, it's about I would say three and a half or four miles, three miles I guess.

SS: Did they do this real often these sleigh hauls or was it just?

CG: That was the only one I had ever been on.

SS: What was the story on why they did it just then?

CG: Well they bought the timber on this school section you see and their time was up and they either had to get the timber off or lose the timber and so they made this road around through there for a sleigh haul it out and a year or two after that they built a railroad right through, but they had lost the timber then they got it off when they did. That's the only time they had left to get it was that winter. Either that or lose it and so they didn't want to lose it, the nice timber big yellow pine. Just had so long a time after they bought it to get it out of there. I guess they figured on the railroad in the first place, but then they didn't get it built.

SS: Is this sleigh haul wasn't to economical then I get the idea wasn't good as other?

CG: I don't know got quite a few logs

SS: Sounds like it

CG: Oh yea they got quite a few logs, quite a few logs every day. Of course they wasn't paying much money then either, 30 cents for I got and the teams got two cents and a half more an hour more than I did so they wasn't making too much money either 12 hours a day. Yea course the lumber wasn't near as high either. But they had lots of men there working on that all together the road monkeys, the teamsters, loaders, skidders. Take quite a crew.

SS: What was it like, can you tell me some stories about prohibition, of the things that, funny stories about guys drinking on the sly and stuff like that?

CG: I don't know to much about that I never, if I have I forgot them all.

SS: You told me a couple

CG: I ain't familiar with a lot of that stuff and a lot of things happened that I forgot all about I guess.

SS: One of the ones you told me was about a dog and I don't remember it to good but it was?

CG: Oh it was about a dog over here a hunting whiskey bottles. He would go out and get them to. You could take and hide one where ever you wanted to and leave, and send him out and he would come back with it. He belonged to Harry Tracy, the dog did, he had him trained. An engineer went out and hid one there and Tracey sent him out and pretty soon he came back with it. He said that's the last one I'll hide around here (laughs).

SS: Just from what I have heard about Prohibition it seems to not been taken very serious, Pat Malone really liked it.

CG: He used to watch the hall down here and he would take a drink. He didn't bother him much. I seen him come around the fence there one night and some guys ahead of him, they stopped and got a drink. Then he came along and he stopped and got one. He come down around and back up. I don't know whose bottle it was, it was dark there you couldn't hardly see much of the light. Ole Pat had the flashlight he was going along there. I thought maybe he was going to try and catch them and all he wanted was a drink I guess (laughs). I guess he's dead a long time ago, he didn't bother anybody because they let him alone. Of course he had once in a while I suppose he had to pick up somebody to show him he's still cop. He was a pretty old man when I first knew him. Around Bovill area. Oh I suppose he's 50 or 60, 50's anyhow, when I first knew him, then I don't know old he was when he left.

SS: Do you know Potlatch Joe?

CG: I used to. Last time I seen him he was in a wire cage, they had a pickup with a wire around it. He was in there and just a bouncing all over down at Princeton. Last I have ever seen him. I seen him a lot of times before that. He used to work at the camps. I don't know he sometimes he worked sometimes he wouldn't. The boss would tell him well I'll can you. He said "quit yourself" he said, we got to many bosses anyway he said (laughs). He was. To many bosses anyhow, quit yourself (laughs) he said. They kept him on a long time. He was kind of a dirty looking old WOP, I don't know. Was the last time I saw him, ole Frioll down there, he was a mechanic, he had this pickup with an old wire cage around it you know with a top over it. I guess ole Potlatch Joe wanted to come out with him and he lowered him into the hind end, looked like a big bear in there, last time I seen him, bouncing around (laughs). Yea he was quite an old Potlatcher. They called him ole Potlatch Joe.

SS: Dick Benge was telling me last week that you could get pretty mad sometimes if a guy really got your goat.

CG: Who was this?

SS: Dick Benge

CG: Oh

SS: I said I can't believe that, I said Clay?

CG: I don't know I been around Dick a lot to. Oh I used to get mad at some of those guys I worked with, once in a while, not because they got my goat, because they wouldn't do what they was supposed to do. Kinda sluff off on to me. I would get kind of aggravated with them once in awhile but I done held my temper pretty good. Of course if I knowed they was trying slip it over on me, it would have worked a little different to (laughs).

SS: What do you mean, not do their job?

CG: Yea you know like that haul back you go to pull that, it's a two man job. You get ahold of the front end, the other guy lay off behind, let you do all the pulling and stuff. Gets a little aggravating once in a while. I'd get behind then I'd do the same with them. Let them pull along if they wanted to then if they couldn't pull along I would help them a little and get even someway (laughs).

SS: What about Dick was he, did you work with him very much?

CG: Well just in the camps I never worked right with him but he used to drive teams getting logs. Then the last, I don't know, I guess the last several years he scaled a lot I think. Scaled logs, I don't know some for Potlatch and I guess some for these little mills up here at Fernwood. He worked there quite a while I know. But most of the time when I was down around Princeton he was driving team, skidding to the landings and the railroad tracks. Dicks a nice fellow he stopped in here a couple of weeks ago. He and his wife was going up to Fernwood after the grand kids. He didn't stay long they was in a hurry.

SS: Do you know Pete Olson up there in Bovill?

CG: Yea is it Pete?

SS: I thought it was.

CG: Is it Dick? Dale. Harmin. It must be Dick. No they's Dick.

SS: Pete used to like to do things his own way what I heard about him. I thought maybe you knew him.

CG: I knew all them boys but I just couldn't think of his first name being Pete. His wife carries papers here if it's the one I am thinking. There is a Pete Olson up there used to be a bachelor lived right there in town.

SS: This guy he's died he's dead.

CG: Oh yea I knew him yea. They found him dead in the ditch up there something.

SS: Speaking of dying I was thinking about, Hershal Tribble said you might know something about that Jess Dillman and Agnes Liner, murder over by Harvard.

CG: Well I heared about it, I don't know just what happened there. I heared several different stories on it, that is different ones tell me.

SS: What have you heard?

CG: Well, all I know about it for sure is he killed her up there. She used to live right here her brother lives here yet, right here on the hill. I, a women could tell you more about it, than I could. They was going together and something and I don't know something happened and, they was in a mine or something or camp up there. He shot her and then shot himself I guess. His brother was married to my sister. But I never did learn to much just what did happen, quite a few years ago that happened. So I couldn't tell you to much I don't know exactly what the argument was over or just how it turned out, but I know he shot her then shot himself but that's about all I know about. I didn't know him, oh I seen him I guess but I didn't know him, myself. They got a sister in Spruce I think. Her name was Towns. Clarence Towns wife. Sister

SS: Would you go over with me, how some of these loaders went over and the different situations?

CG: Well that one jumped the track you see, the car jumped the track. The reason that went over. We was going down to load logs when it jumped. It just jumped the track and that's the way she landed. It finally went on over and the car stayed up.

SS: Wonder what would cause one to jump the track? Just get going to fast is that it?

CG: Well them old railroad tracks in them days you know, they wasn't fixed like they are now, put ties in an some didn't have balance in you know, and they would get holes and dips, get going too fast them things. Them marins are pretty heavy. This is the same one I think, the same picture as that. No. Or is it? There is another one.

SS: This one we got two pictures of. There's another one I didn't take it out.

CG: That one just pulled itself over in the skid lane and couldn't get back up.

SS: Is this the one with the tank on top?

CG: Yea, lets see is it. Yea you see there's a water tank. I think most of those marins had a tank on top but that magifford, the one that tipped over. This one now it had a way higher tank and there wasn't as much weight on behind. When that swung around they got water went back I guess full, tipped over. They wasn't pulling nothing when that one went over I know, cus the log didn't even hang onto the logs. The tongs didn't. This is the one that tipped over down there to but. Seems to me like there was two different tip overs. This is the same as that one there.

SS: Yea it looks like about same.

CG: Took it at a different angle here.

SS: Yea.

CG: This here they had the crew get on top of that one after they got. I used to know who all whom them was, Spencer is one, Randell, Francis OKeffe. I don't know I tried to figure out the scaler on that one, never could figure his name. There is Glen Taylor is the firemen. That scaler is over here, I know him well enough but I can't think of his name to save me. Jack Dunawin, that used to be a check scaler.

SS: What caused you to stop working in the woods out here?

CG: Oh I got tired of that whole gifford up there and had to stay away from home most of the time and I was, got a chance to go to the State and I said the heck with it and stayed home. Made it a lot better. Home every night and you know where you was going the next day. It was only paying a dollar an hour when I quit in 44, for top load. 12 hours a day.

SS: What was your job as top loader?

CG: Placing the logs on the car.

SS: You directed where it would go?

CG: Yea

SS: You directed the guy that was doing the top loading?

CG: Yea, then we would have to pull them hooks off most of the time, they get stuck up there, have to get up there and pull them loose so you can get them back down.

SS: Was it very dangerous work?

CG: Well if you watched close enough it wasn't. It wasn't quite as dangerous as the marion. You see these logs, them logs there where they are swinging them around. Hooking the end here. See the tongs there, if you don't swing them around that log you got to be on top of that car and then take the tongs off. If you don't swing it just about right you might get hit with (laughs). But I never did get hit with them I was always watching pretty close. Once in awhile one would fall off the tongs or something. You know hit the boom and probably come down. I was always looking. Some of them weren't. Most of them was on the ground got hurt. Homer Cocoran he got hit on the legs, he was down there waiting to throw a chain over and a log fell off on him and smashed both of his legs and they had to take him off, took him to Potlatch. He never come off and they cut his legs off. Shock and stuff. Then there was another one got killed up at Elk River. Kinda slick and icy and an old log slipped and he was trying to hold it and there was another skid way right behind him and pushed him right into that. Smashed him.

SS: He got hit by a log coming down the other skid way?

CG: Yea it slid off the skid way and he was trying to hold it with his hands to keep it from sliding and it shoved him right into the other skid way. Killed him. Then there was another one that got killed I don't know just how it happened, his name was Clarks, just a young fellow. I wasn't on that rig when he got killed but I worked with him quit a bit before.

SS: How did he get killed?

CG: With a log someway. I don't know whether it fell out of the tongs or whether it fell off the skid way or what happened. He died in St. Maries I think.

SS: You told me one other about a guy who got killed when you were working there.

CG: I left. There was one, he was unloading a truck. He hollered to me look out down there, he was going to dump a load of truck, logs down in there. He hollered to me to get out of the road and I told him let her go. He tripped it up then the log fell off and killed him. On the truck. It wasn't on the loader. He was, when he knocked the big hoops off you know, one the truck dropped down, guess hanging out too much. I don't know remember what his name was. I didn't know the man to good. He just started trucking.

SS: Was that when the trucks had first been started being used?

CG: Yup, I was up on the Saddock, and a truck rode in there, starting to haul with trucks.

SS: What was the change like there when they went to using the trucks? What did the men think of it?

CG: When they would haul them into these railroads you see, you would have a railroad a certain place and then they would have timber way off, that they couldn't get a railroad into. Be too steep or something. And make roads for these trucks, come down around, then they would haul them into this railroad, then load them on cars.

SS: Did you think it was an improvement?

CG: Well I don't know I, it looked to me awful expensive but it was a poor rig for the country, after they quit the horses they tore down more timber than they took I think. Them cats going up through, pawing around tearing up the little stuff. Horses ya know just had skid trails them, didn't tear up much. I hear their talking about going back to horses quite a bit. They got one guy up here up now skidding with horses someplace now. They got Clarkia up this side, Hidden Creek or someplace in there. That way they don't tear down all the young stuff. But you take these skidders and stuff you know they make a road about every so far around a hillside, big high banks, then it all washes, just tears the ground up, erosion you might say. You go any place up in them hills and you see roads all around the hillsides. And they skid it with a jammer and tear down the rest of what they don't get when they fall the trees, tear down the rest instead of skidding them out full lengths. No I think they can do a lot better, of course this is faster and doesn't take near as many men.

SS: Or as many men to give work to I guess

CG: They used to have all the way from a hundred to a hundred and fifty men you know, in one of them camps. Now they got probably 50, not that many. Takes the place of the whole works.

SS: How far could you skid with a horse?

CG: Oh you could go back, I don't know, some of them goes back 1200 to 1500 feet. You know then they would make a railroad into another place, downhill you know, skid them down quite a ways. Then move them on to another track. Big draw goes up you know, build the railroad right in the draw and skid to them.

SS: How do you think putting in a railroad compares to putting in a road. Putting in a track is that a lot more work?

CG: Yea well it would be a lot more work to put the track in, I'd say, I don't know. Of course now days with those bulldozers they got, it wouldn't be a much of a job putting the railroad in either. Just laying the track, they have machines to do that. Loaders would swing the rails and ties around and throw them out there, scatter them out, then you lay the rails on and spike them down. Keep them going. Getting the road bed in the first place that would be the worst job. Of course those dozers now, they do the road pretty fast.

SS: Did you tell me you worked on the railroad?

CG: Railroad?

SS: Did you ever work on the railroad?

CG: No mainlines, no just these.

SS: The shays?

CG: Shays and stuff. They was all railroad in the woods you know where we loaded. Used to deck them with horses them big decks, put them, skid them up, deck them way high. Then we would go along in spring and load them out. They always had lots of logs on hand when they had horses of course they had an awful lot of crews to (laughs). Lots of camps, now they ain't got no camps. You gotta stay home or take you a trailer or camp, or something to camp in. No they used to stay in camp and board and camp. That is the woods crews. Of course we was running all over to different places. We would stay in one camp one night and probably another camp some another night. Maybe stay at home one night, just depends on where you was at. Them camps used to get pretty old to. Same old thing all the time you know.

SS: You think that looking back on it that Potlatch managed the woods about as well as they could have could have, or was there things they could have done, that would have been better for the country.

CG: Well I don't know, you know, they had to go according to the way everything else goes. Like this machinery and stuff, if they don't buy that the, these outfits don't buy their stuff and I suppose they had to stay up with the, as far as the logging is concerned, there was a lot more work for people when they had horses and didn't tear the ground up like they do. I don't think they wasted near as much timber as they do, but the guys had to go along with the bigger outfits to I suppose. Try and move stuff. Like that in plane they had up there you know, they had, to pull them cars up there with a donkey and let the loaders down with donkies. Then after they found out that didn't work to good they built a railroad right back in there (laughs), where they was getting the timber.

SS: Where was that at?

CG: Clarkia

SS: I went up that once on a flat car. Never come down it. That thing was. You had to lay down and hang on with your hands to keep from sliding off of that thing. How they ever got, they put cables, them big cables over the logs and cinched them up, then let them down with a donkey down the.

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