Horton Andrews Interview, September 16, 2002

Horton Andrews Interview, September 16, 2002

This interview contains memories related to a number of various subjects, some of which include: Prior professors and administration at EOU, some logging and mills, and World War II.

2002-09-16

01:34:17

HA: I’m Horton Karl Andrews. Karl with a K. I was born July 19, 1915 in Perry, Oregon.

JT: And when you were growing up, is there any special things that happened to you before you started to school?

HA: There probably is, I don’t recall them now. I remember after going to school I’d take my little wagon and go all around under the track and back over the track; up to the mill. They had these one by two strips lying out there. I’d get a wagon full of them home. Stop by the store and get a handful of nails and go home and build things.

JT: Make your own toys. That was real interesting. And, uh, we were talking earlier and you said there were two schools when you went to school. Now would you explain that?

HA: Well the uh, the two schools had each four grades. First four in the smaller building. And the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th was in the larger building.

JT: And then, if they went on to high school they’d have to go to LaGrande?

HA: Right. Not many of them did.

JT: Well I can appreciate that during those times. Did uh… well, was there anything that happened to you while you were going to school in Perry? Activities that you did, games you played maybe?

HA: I don’t remember anything in the school. But right there on that hill coming down there was our sleigh riding in the wintertime. Boy it was patronized quite a bit.

JT: And we had winters in those days.

HA: Yes. Also we’d go down to the river and play on the ice in those days. The uh…company used to uh…I don’t know if it was the company or the railroad. Harvested ice behind the dam. And they used ice for refrigerator cars, the railroad did. But in my memory there was an icehouse up in the lumberyard. Every summer it was full of ice and sawdust. And we kids liked, loved to play there.


JT: You like to shave off a little ice and sit there? Now when the railroad were icing cars, that was fruit cars that was going through to maybe the east after the Harvest in the Fall. And that was the Oregon Navigation and Railroad Company back in those days.

HA: Oh, R&N.

JT: Uh huh. Now the mill at that time was the Grande Ronde Lumber Company? Or was it…

HA: Well I think so. I was thinking a while ago that…about the name of the mill when granddad came up there and I can’t remember the name…the people that owned it.

JT: Uh huh.

HA: But uh Spellner [?] eventually got it.

JT: Yeah. You said your grandfather came there about 1860…

HA: ’86.

JT: ’86. Two years after the railroad.

HA: Yeah, that’s what he said. A couple years after the rail line.

JT: And he always lived there in Perry then?

HA: Well they built, Grandma used to say they built three new houses in their life and never got one the way they wanted it. But they built the house in Perry…they used to laugh; they built it right in the middle of what was supposed to be a street. And it ended up just a narrow alley. {Laughter} I don’t know how that mistake was made. But he also homesteaded up there in Starkey. About where the elk ranch is there now. That high fence.

JT: Uh huh. The experimental station.

HA: Yeah. And uh Sullivan, who had the ranch a ways from there, was his guy that was supposed to stand up for him. Well come to see whether he had proved up on it they asked Sullivan and he said well I don’t know. Granddad was always a _smoke line___________ [?] as long as I ever knew him.

JT: I can appreciate that. So then your father grew up in the same area also?

HA: No my dad…that was my mother’s side of the family. She was born in Perry prior to me. But my dad came from North Carolina and he was about 22 I guess. He had a brother in the Army at Fort Vancouver. And he wanted to come out and see him. On his way back he come through LaGrande. He went the Northern route west. Cause he knew a fella that worked in North Carolina was working in a sawmill there down in the Palmer Lumber Company. Bob Young, I don’t know if you knew Bob Young or not, used to drive taxi. Charlie Young’s…

JT: I knew Charlie Young.

HA: Well it was his dad.

JT: Oh, uhhuh.

HA: And uh so he went to see him and dad ended up taking 18 years going home, and I went with him. {Laughter} Bob Young and my dad married sisters. The Hansen’s. Harry Hansen, I don’t know if you know Harry Hansen. Carl Hansen and Lyle Hansen’s dad.

JT: I’m not sure.

HA: He was the first-born.

JT: Well living at Perry, did it seem like a long way from town when ya…?

HA: Oh I didn’t think much about it. I remember that Saturday night was the big night. The stores in LaGrande were always open till 9:00 on Saturday night. And we’d go to town and the folks would do some shopping. They’d always give me a quarter and I’d buy a candy bar and go to the show.

JT: What show was it at that time?

HA: Well the Granada was the Star.

JT: The Star theatre.

HA: And then the Liberty was the arcade. And then the uh…I guess it was always Sherry’s.

JT: That’s where the State Theatre was later was Sherry’s.

HA: That was the biggest thing I remember about living in Perry I guess. Oh we used to go Huckleberryin’. In the summer. The folks would go up Rob’s hill. Come back with tubs full of huckleberries. I can’t figure out where they got ‘em up there, I never see any. {Laughter}

JT: Well families did those activities in those days.

HA: Dad did a lot of fishing. He loved to fish. He’d drive up to where the river uh…oh they stack logs up there. The river camp they called it. But there was no road going on up the river at that time.

JT: Toward what is now called Tony Vey’s.

HA: Yeah. There was a road after you got to Tony Vey’s that come in from around the hill there, up there. But nothing going up the river. But dad used to like to fish up there. He would uh…, he and another fella one Sunday in particular,--they were both sawyers at the mill. Fred Robertson is the other fella. And they fished clear up to Tony Vey’s and coming back. They counted their fish and one had 99 and the other had 100.

JT: Whee!

HA: So they decided right there and then to cast the hook again. They got another one. {Laughter} But I remember the Fourth of July was usually quite a big three or four-day weekend goin up the river and camping.

JT: In those days, did you know the Taal family that was up by the Conent ranch?

HA: I never knew them, but I remember the Taal house up there. And how the road used to…You go by the Conden ranch and turn in a little ways, missed all that swampy ground in there. But I remember going by the Taal place.

JT: Well when you said your dad was a sawyer, what kind, what kind of a saw did they use in the mill at that time?

HA: Oh it was pretty much like we had here.

JT: Just a round one? When did they start using a band saw?

HA: Oh they had band saws then.

JT: They did?

HA: Yeah.

JT: Oh, I didn’t know that.

HA: I don’t know how the original mills were but…I tell ya they had a band saw. My granddad Hansen was a saw filer. And uh…

JT: Well then when you left Perry, did you come to LaGrande when you started school here?

HA: Yes.

JT: Then you graduated from LaGrande High school.

HA: Yeah. Central and…we lived over here on Cherry Street. Willow here only had 4 grades and I was in the 5th grade. So I walked clear up to old Central. We used to go over the hill where the Normal School is there and play on all the graves.

JT: That was before the college was there.

HA: Yeah.

JT: I was told there was a wooden step that went up the hill there, pretty close by a gravel pile; do you remember that?

HA: I don’t remember the wooden steps. But on 8th street hill, that was quite a quarry for the gravel.

JT: Uh huh. Well, when you were going to high school up at the high school, what activities did you do? Did you play football, or…

HA: I tried a little football but I… they didn’t have baseball then for some reason. But I played basketball, went to the State Tournament my senior year.

JT: Well good, did you win?

HA: No, we got beat by Tillamook and Athena. {Laughter}

JT: Well, it was a good time though.

HA: Yeah. First time I’d been west of Pendleton.

JT: I’ll be. Well then when you graduated from high school, what did you want to do? What…

HA: I remember my dad asking me, he said, “What do you want to do now?” I said “I don’’t know”. He said, “Well you’d better go to work.” And off to the mill I went.

JT: So which mill did you start at?

HA: Mt. Emily.

JT: Mt. Emily. And the Mt. Emily started in 1925?

HA: Yeah. You see the plaque on the wall there?

JT: Yes.

HA: That’s part of the first log that went through that mill. Dad sawed it.

JT: And you also sawed the last log didn’t you? You and your father?

HA: Well that was before…That was the end of the old equipment. They were putting in new head rigs and stuff.

JT: Uh huh. But they hadn’t sold the mill by that time?

HA: Well, they’d sold it, but it was uh…Valseth Lumber Company then. And then later they merged with Boise Cascade.

JT: You probably knew my father, John Olsen.

HA: Oh yeah, yeah he was a good old guy.

JT: He worked for Mt. Emily for all those years.

HA: Yeah, he lived in Baker quite a bit.

JT: Yes. Uh huh that was where I was born, was Baker.

HA: In fact, I remember grandma talking about the Olsen’s. I don’t know if that was your family or…There was another that had a furniture store there, that was an Olsen.

JT: I don’t think so. I mean, them being a part of our family. Because my grandfather and grandmother came over from Norway. So I don’t think that they were.

HA: In fact uh…what was his fist name?

JT: John.

HA: Do you remember a Charlie Olsen?

JT: No. I don’t.

HA: Anyway, we have a picture someplace. There was Charlie Sully, Charlie Olsen, and Charlie Hansen. All getting married in the same ceremony.

JT: I’ll be. That’s quite a deal. Well, then when you went to work at the mill and uh…what kind of activities did you do? Did you hunt and fish?

HA: Oh I hunted some but it was always…I killed a couple deer. But it was depressing to me to kill a deer. I just got so I walked in the hills; I didn’t pack a gun.

JT: That’s a nice thing. Then you got married?

HA: Yeah, in ’41. I went to work in the mill in ’33. In ’41…we’re in our 62-year now.

JT: Well that’s a nice long record. That’s good. And you had how many children?

HA: Three.

JT: There.

HA: Mike is 60.

JT: These kids grow up quick.

HA: And the other two will be 56 and 58 in November.

JT: And then, how long have you lived in this house on Willow?

HA: Well, we got married in ’41, and I bought the property that year. We got married in May; some, some in the late summer I bought the north 150 feet of this block here from the milling company.

JT: That’s the flourmill.

HA: Yeah. And old Vetter, I got him to…I drew out a 20 x 26 house here and he built it for me. So we’ve been here since February of ’42.

JT: I’ll be darned. Well what happened to you during the war? What uh…

HA: I was One A. My kids kept me out for a time. And then I was sawing at that time, and that kept me out of the rest of it.

JT: That was good. When you had a family, you needed to stay home. And then your kids I imagine went to Willow grade school, and then went then onto high school where you went.

HA: Yeah. That’s right. And all three of them have their Master’s Degree now.

JT: Well that’s a nice record. What kind of occupations did they…

HA: Well the girls are both nurses. And Mike was a high school English Teacher.

JT: Oh, and where did he go on to teach?

HA: He taught 33 years. 30 of them in Park Rose .

JT: Went down to Portland.

HA: My girls are…the youngest one Carla lives in Albany. She see’s your half sister down there. In fact the last time I saw David, I was sitting there in the bleachers waiting for the program; somebody tapped me on the shoulder and it was he.

JT: My little brother.

HA: Yeah.

JT: Well he’s a doctor in Sacramento you know. Well it’s a small world in a lot of ways.

HA: It sure is.

JT: It uh…

HA: Mel Bourke was living down there in Albany at that time.

JT: Is that right? I remember Mel. He lived up on 4th street for a long time.

HA: Yeah. But he got canned out here before I did. And he went down and got a job down…

JT: You got canned. What was that over?

HA: Well they got rid of all the foreman people. All the…

JT: They brought in their own people when they changed hands?

HA: It was a gradual procedure. Mel uh was one of the first to get it. And then the whole procedure there, both the night and day foreman at the sawmill, yard bosses, all of them down the planer; they all got it.

JT: But you weren’t protected? Because the foremens weren’t under union.

HA: Yeah when I got to be a foreman, well the union mustered me out. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me; I enjoyed 15 years at the college.

JT: Well tell us about your 15 years at the college. And how that came about.

HA: Well I’d spent eight years on the school board up here. And I’d got acquainted with a lot of the college people. At our church, there were a number of college Prof’s Labaugh, well even…why can’t I say his name. The President of the college was there. Uh…Frank Bennett.

JT: Yeah, I remember Mr. Bennett.

HA: And then there’s Al Keiser…a number of them, I knew them all.

JT: All the great old teachers at the college.

HA: And then I uh…when I lost my job over there, I tried to sell Med Insurance for a while. And that was the worst I ever did. I contemplated suicide on that. But I couldn’t see where that would help my family any. But anyway, Glen Sleighbaugh had come to me and said they were going to start the Chemistry storeroom up there, a person there, and would I be interested? Well I was interested but I had never even had a class of chemistry. But uh I got the job. They had a full year’s chemistry that first summer and four of us were in that class. So I got some chemistry. I think I had 12 hours in there _________ [?] but it was mainly just given to me. But I learned a lot of chemistry up there. See I got a periodic chart up there.

JT: Oh! Well I know when you were up there you helped build several things that they needed to work in the class.

HA: Yeah. All over the campus they were comin over with things for me to repair.

JT: Well what were some of the things that you built?

HA: Well I uh…carts they used around there. I’d use plywood and get some wheels to put on ‘em; they had several of those. Uh…what’s the scopes…I can’t think of the type of scope. I think there was two of those carts that I made where you could tilt the scope however they wanted it. Dick had a…

JT: Dick Hermans.

HA: Yeah. He wanted a deal that would, I’m forgetting a lot of those words…
JT: I can appreciate.

HA: But anyway it had a pipette that was supposed to gradually dispense that. So many drops a minute. I, I made a deal that had a little motor on it and a screw and just keep___drop that pipett I don’t know if he ever used it much but I made it.

JT: Well it sure helped the instructors to have equipment that they can demonstrate their uh…

HA: And I had to…Besides inventory and all everything and also order chemicals. Things that we needed; lab ware. Then I had to prepare for the labs. So I learned a lot of chemistry. They had to show me a lot of that stuff to begin with. But by 15 years I wasn’t asking them very much.

JT: Well that’s great. But uh…

HA: But I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the kids. I’d like to show you a book that I got there on my retirement; when we’re through.

JT: What year was that you retired?

HA: ’81.

JT: ’81. Uh huh.

HA: Going on 23 years.

JT: Time goes quickly when you’re having fun. Dick Hermans is now teaching graduate students up out of Moscow, Idaho.

HA: That’s where I saw him and we were talking. I was out at the mailbox and a car stopped there and it was him. And then I see a…he and Maxine and their two girls coming out of the Foley Station Sunday morning; we were in there getting breakfast.

JT: Yes he uh…is keeping quite busy.

HA: Yeah. You see that handrail there. I’ve been working on that. I’ve got one on this side as I’m getting more teetery I decided maybe I better have another one. {Laughter}

JT: Well you’ve got a nice basement here, by golly.

HA: You can see that wall was the original wall. After we were living in the smaller part. I originally thought we’d uh…build a small house and then we’d build a bigger one on the corner. But it didn’t turn out that way; so we started our first build on a little bit out here. Stairway would give us more room in there. And then we decided to build two bedrooms and a bath on this side here. And with a pick and a shovel and a wheelbarrow I dug this whole basement.

JT: Oh. They had to do it that way in those days.

HA: Well like we say it often times; we build all that and when we buy a board we nailed it on.

JT: I can appreciate that. We kind of built our house that way too, our first one.

HA: Uh huh. Well, you live up there on your wife’s uh…

JT: Where her grandparents had. Yeah it uh…Our first little house was across from the clinic there at 6th and J. We built a little house there. But it helps; my father whom you know he contacted a fellow out at the mill and we bought a bunch of knotty pine. And we used that for, uh, to put the sheeting on our roof and stuff. So it was with a lot of help; I’m sure you had some too. Didn’t you notice in those days, that people helped one another?

HA: Yeah I think so.

JT: Isn’t that the thing we miss?

HA: Yeah and I think that’s what’s wrong with a lot of organizations. Churches, the Elks, and I understand the golf course even having problems out there.

JT: Well I can appreciate. There’s so many activities that take your time.

HA: T.V.

JT: Yes, true.

HA: The times you speak of; we never flopped to watch T.V. then; we’d finish eating and then we’d have a project.

JT: Yeah. And you did things as a family. What were some of the things you did as a family with your boy and two girls?

HA: We uh…usually ever weekend we had a drive; we’d go around the mountains or something. We’d have some weenies and buns and build a fire out in the woods someplace. But we took a lot of trips; we backpacked and…

JT: Where did you backpack to?

HA: See that cabin up there? Dick Later took that picture, LaGore’s Cabin, LaGore’s ____________________[?] higher than that. But we were camped up Hurricane Creek one time, and Mike and the dog and I took out up Fall Creek cause there was a very vague path going up there; and we had no idea where it was going. That’s where we went. Then we went on up to the top to LaGore Lake. On top you could look down on the lake from the South fork side. I can’t think of the name of it. But anyway Mike was quite excited about that. And he did some investigating about who built it and found out it was LeGore. And so when he was in college he wrote a deal on LeGore and his accomplishments. And later uh…Dick and a bunch of his friends; we went up there. That’s when he took the picture and later presented me with that.

JT: Well, that’s a steep trail going up Hurricane Creek isn’t it?

HA: Up this Fall Creek, it’s just like that. It’s probably not more than a mile or so up that canyon but you’re just almost on all fours all the time.

JT: It’s really steep. I know I’ve come with Dick Hermans from the top Mirror Lake down Hurricane Creek clear to the bottom. And I know you slip and slide and it’s, it’s steep.

HA: Well it’s not as steep as that. He mined Malugniun and Garnets.

JT: Oh.

HA: And the thing that amazed me; inside the corner of that cabin there was a big old iron anvil. And how he got it up that hill…I know{Laughter} Mike might know about it, he had a mule or a donkey or something. I went up there and I thought that poor donkey must have had to pack that thing up there. But the last time I was in that cabin it was gone. I wondered if somebody rolled it down over the mountain.

JT: Well the forest service burned a lot of them too. I don’t remember ever seeing that particular cabin. I also used to backpack up in the high lakes. Mirror and Moccasin. Been all the way from Lostine over to Wallowa Lake; and up Frasier and what’s the one that’s so blue that’s so pretty that all the pictures are taken? You can see it from the top of the Eagle Cap.

HA: Well you can see the Frasier and…I’ve never been to those two lakes.

JT: It isn’t Ice Lake. Cause Ice Lakes another spot.

HA: Yeah that’s up on the way to Matter horn.

JT: Yeah.

HA: Well, the youngest daughter of mine; she still hikes. Just a week ago she was up at the Lake with her husband and her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. And they spent several days. Then my daughter and her husband left, and left them up there and they spent the rest of the week hiking around up there.

JT: It’s so much fun. I miss going again. I wished I was in better shape and could go up there.

HA: Oh that’s me. I uh…Bruce and I have done a lot of walking. We’ve walked up to the Lake Basin over the hill in the Minam and back down the other side all in one day.

JT: That’s a long hike.

HA: And uh…We talked about when Wallowa Lake and around coming down Hurricane; Mike and I did that one day.

Tape 1 side 2


HA: That old Arch bridge at Upper Perry there, you know. That has a ’24 date on it. And uh…I remember one summer, the year I started school in Enterprise, we were living there behind the dam on a flat place there and we had to have a boat to go across there to get to where we were staying. They were building a house for us down in Perry. Anyway uh…they were blasting and starting to make that highway then. That must have been ’21 because I started school in the fall of ’21.

JT: Mhm. That was a day or two ago. Ah, when uh, during the war, how did rationing affect you?

HA: Well, my wife was from Wallowa and her folks never did have a car. So we used to try to get up there once in a while. But during rationing I’d do a lot of walking around the home here; we’d get enough gas to go up there and back every five weeks. {Laughter}

JT: What kind of a car did you have in that time?

HA: ’39 Desoto. I got that before we got married. We had it clear through the war.

JT: I know people used to buy chickens from some of the farmers; and rabbits.

HA: Yeah, I did too. Between here in the mill is a guy over there had rabbits. It was pretty good but I always thought of cats when I… {Laughter}

JT: I know what you mean.

HA: But I don’t remember…I’m not a great meat eater; beef eater. But I don’t remember any problems.

JT: Do you remember any particular stories about prohibition?

HA: We lived next door to Klinghammer when I was growing up.

JT: Hugo Klinghammer was the Deputy Sheriff.

HA: Yes. And many a morning I was woken, awakened in the morning and he had a big truck where he’d harvested a still someplace. {Laughter}

JT: Those were quite some of the times. The Chinese influence; did you have any experience with any of the Chinese people that lived here?

HA: No I didn’t. When we first moved over there. Over here where Safeway is now, the Chinese had a garden there. And they used the water that come down that ditch. But the ditch come under the track on this side, and he had a smaller ditch going down that side. And I remember him patrolling that. But we never had any problem with it.

JT: Well actually they were nice people. They grew garden things and peddled them to the people around town. Did you know anything about the Chinese that were down by the old LaGrande Hotel here on 4th Street?

HA: Yeah, when we moved in ’25 on the corner of Adams and 4th Street; it was all junky stuff there. And from there back clear….

JT: To the railroad.

HA: Yeah and towards the depot it was all junky living quarters. I don’t remember any problems. I remember China Mary had a noodle parlor there on Adams about where that old telephone…

JT: It was just west of where the old telephone office was.

HA: I know we ate in there quite a bit.

JT: They called that the Chinese Republic in the early days.

HA: I never heard that.

JT: It uh…later that was the same building that Homer Lockwood had his delivery shop; he delivered groceries and had a little motorcycle shop there.

HA: Oh I remember him over on Fir, across from the Sac Annex. Where I remember him having a shop.

JT: Well dad, my father, was his partner in the key business.

HA: Oh is that right?

JT: Yes. They’d known each other from Baker.

HA: Wow. Well I probably remember him because my best friend was a Lockwood, Bob Lockwood. And his dad was a…what they call a foreman in the printing shop, in the Observer. And he got canned about the time we got out of high school. And we formed a friendship that lasted…well just a year ago he died over in Pendleton. Lockwoods, if they’re Lockwoods then they’re _______ [?] related. But Bob Lockwood had a motorcycle later.

JT: Oh. Did you ever try riding a motorcycle?

HA: Yeah yeah. At that time I had an old black Plymouth Coupe. And uh…he started the filling station over in Pendleton just out of high school. And I guess he was over here. And a storm or some reason or other, he took my Plymouth back and said bring my motorcycle over some sunny day. And later on a sunshiny day I drove it over there. {Laughter}

JT: You got there in one piece?

HA: Yeah.

JT: Well, it uh…

HA: Talk about gardening; did you know the Madsens?

JT: Well I knew the Madsen that was the Educational Director up at the CC camp. Is that the one you’re talking about? Lived up on 1st Street?

HA: No. They lived in Perry, down by…below where the old millpond used to be.

JT: No I didn’t.

HA: But uh…there was quite a few of them. Old man Madsen used to, in fact one of the Madsen boys are probably in that picture. But he’d peddle vegetables around on the flat up there. And here two or three years ago Dutch Braden was over here he wanted to go up around Perry. They lived right next door to us then. So we went down to the Madsen’s and Denny Madsen was there and he owned all the old mill site up there at that time. He took us for a ride up there to look at various things. But he has since died. They sold all that to some guy that was gonna build a golf course; but I don’t know what happened to that.

JT: Well, like everything else, the Indians said it would disturb the artifacts. And as you know well, the mill covered that whole area. And the first mill that I have a picture was in 1887 there. It…

HA: Sick the dog on_________________ [?]

JT: Yes, I’ve seen this picture.

HA: You can see the icehouse is here and where they pull the ice out there. Then a spur come in there.

JT: Were you up there when they blew the dam?

HA: No, but I got some pictures of that too.

JT: Uh huh.

HA: But I, when that mill burned in ’23 or whenever it was; we were eating our evening meal down here. And dad took off and I wanted to go and he says no. So I went up behind the schoolhouse and got on top of the hill and watched that mill burn up.

JT: Well, there were a lot of men worked there during that period.

HA: Oh yeah I remember dad making a remark some down and outer would come to Perry and get a job and the next thing you know he was doing pretty good.

JT: Well good.

HA: That summer that we lived in a tent and we had to cross in a boat over here and they built the highway around…but I can….that’s another thing that may be of interest. Up here where the bridge crosses there; I can remember the last log jam in the river. And uh…at that time we were living here in the tent if dad and if the boat wasn’t available he’d have to go up and cross the logjam and come down to the tent.

JT: That’s when they would take the logs down in the spring; they had the river dammed up there at Tony Vey’s and other places and let the water go and wash all the logs down to the mill.

HA: They had three flash dams up there.

JT: Oh. And where were those?

HA: One was on Fly Creek and one was on the river and one was on Meadow Creek. And they had them all the time so they’d come in there and…Mother used to talk about how it was one of the great times of the year. All the girls and everybody would go up…up from Perry and up the river and watch the logs coming down. All the crews and the loggers and keeping those logs from hanging up.

JT: Yeah. The main line of the railroad went right by there.

HA: Yeah. You know for years, all the time that I lived there it never occurred to me till later; you can just see where that was blown out so the railroad could go through. And in the early days they must’ve had to go clear around there. Anybody going up the river.

JT: Mhm. They sure must have. Because there’s still that little piece there that uh…And really the only piece left of where you might see where the mill was. Well there’s a couple foundations over in the back part here. But there’s that little thing…there was a little powder house wasn’t there?

HA: No, that was the safe.

JT: That was the safe? I’ll be darned.

HA: That was the office and the store there. And that was the safe. And you can go up to Pondosa where they moved this mill and everything. There’s one just like it sitting up there.

JT: Just up there. It uh, I can remember when the Stoddards had that…Dave Stoddard that was later the doctor, said that he could ride his bicycle up there quicker than his dad could drive their Winston car. The mud was so deep. {Laughter}

HA: Yeah. Dr. Richardson used to go up there and deliver babies. He delivered me up there.

JT: Uh huh. Well that one picture of the Grande Ronde Lumber Company, would your dad be in that? Mr. Poreman [?] and I remember Horace J. Nelson was one of ‘em.

HA: Yeah I’ve seen that, dad’s not in it.

JT: He’s not in that picture.

HA: An uncle of mine, Harry, is in it. I think Gib Valentine, he was the planer foreman. Gib, not long after the mill burned, he went as an association grader. And then he went up to Baker and the old Stoddard Lumber Company uh…he took the foreman, hewas the foreman of the planer up there; and eventually he had the whole mill.

JT: Oh. That’s quite a picture there, showing the dam and…

HA: Yeah Fred Beaman brought that in, he saw it at a second hand store out at Island City; and he knew I was interested. And he bought it and come give it to me.

JT: He was quite a Freddy. Did you trade with him when he had the Richfield service station?

HA: I probably did some. I…Bob Rawls was where I did most of my trading.

JT: Fred Beaman told me that he used to…he’d give a carwash if you filled up your tank. And so my dad would always bring his car in on Saturday and say fill the tank and Freddy would have to wash his car. {Laughter} He was quite a Freddy.

JT: Was there any particular plays or anything that you were in at school? Did you help in anything like that when you went to high school in LaGrande?

HA: No, I was never in any plays. But uh…We had a uh…One Christmas Mrs. Mrs. Pettigrew was the teacher. She had a Christmas play where there was a lot of dramatics and this dance. And I was one of the dancers. Each of us had a sword. Fred Beaman was one of ‘em and Clayton Fox was one of ‘em. Anyway he sent me a letter the other day. We were talking about the people that were involved in that play. I think…anyway there was a slug of people. You might recognize the names.

JT: Sarah Draper, did her folks run the Draper’s Commercial School?

HA: Yeah, she was in my class.

JT: There are several names here like Frank Tyler and Milton Smith, George Denning, and Burk Inlow, and Myron Smith, Sarah Draper, Wayne Foster, Mary Cook. Genevieve Choate.

HA: Yeah.

JT: That’s Virgil’s sister. And Everett Reynolds down here. Golly sakes.

HA: Yeah, we were all in the class of ’33.

JT: Uh huh.

HA: So that was the extent of my being in plays.

JT: Well I just thought, you know some of the things as we talked that come out. It uh…

HA: I can’t think of any…well ’33… just the high school had burned and we spent all our senior year in the churches and I remember taking civics in city hall, English in the Methodist Church. Music was in the old Lutheran Church on N there.

JT: So you had to rush really to get between classes because it was so far to go.

HA: Can you imagine them rushing?

JT: {Laughter} Not much. Well, in looking back at LaGrande is there anything you’d like to seen better or you’d like to have done that you didn’t get to do?

HA: Oh I don’t know, I like LaGrande. I…they talk about wanting LaGrande to grow, but I’m not too anxious to have a big city here. I do like to see good times. Your kids, like my kids probably had to go someplace else to get work.

JT: That’s true.

HA: But I uh…for some reason it just hit me. When we moved here in ’25, the only paved road outside of town was to Island City and to Lone Pine. The road up to Perry was all gravel.

JT: Well they didn’t get those things done until a little bit later.

HA: And they uh widened the Island City road twice that I can remember.

JT: And at one time, you were outside the city limits here weren’t you?

HA: I was. Willow Street was the limit.

JT: Right the middle of the street.

HA: Yeah. And we lived here a number of years. Finally I took my property, which went clear to the other street. Cause uh I thought it might get…we had water, but we didn’t have sewer. I thought maybe we could get some sewer if I was in. It was just about four years ago ‘fore the sewer finally got here.

JT: It’s been that long?

HA: Mhm.

JT: I remember when they put it down O Avenue. Because my father was alive at that time.

HA: Yeah. When we moved on Cherry Street, we were between Adams and the track over there. We had sewer, but it went outside across the lot there at the main deal. Later they made that…a trunk that went on over and down Cherry Street. Down O and N.

JT: Well they had to put in some lift stations didn’t they? To enable to get it across the tracks?

HA: No, it was plenty deep.

JT: Oh, I wasn’t sure.

HA: Where that sewer comes down in there though, they were gonna hook up Willow School here. But it didn’t___ [?] on top of the ground. {Laughter} But when they did the mall they made sure clear out around. Never touched us here, went clear out around over to Wall Street over by Pepsi Cola there. And they’ve got a big pump there.

JT: Yeah they have a lift station there.

HA: I remember the top blew off of it once.

JT: Oh!
HA: The manhole cover, whatever it was, landed in the Les Schwab lot.

JT: Weeeeeee. That’s a long ways.

HA: Yeah.

JT: Well, LaGrande kind of grew. Well you know when the railroad came it had already started up on the hill, and then they grew together.

HA: Everybody comes to town. Why are the streets so crazy down in LaGrande? {Laughter}

JT: Well…

HA: Yeah when I was a kid, going to Central, I was peddling Oregonians and I would start down by the Methodist Church there and go up 4th Street. And about the time I got to 4th Street it was time to go to school. I had to hang my papers in the closet and go to school all day, then in the evening I would finish up. {Laughter} And I remember going up 4th Street it was just kinda like an isolated street. You look off towards where the college is now and you didn’t see much of anything. There was that old Catholic School there. The same way on the other side. The only paved street up to old town as I recall.

JT: When you were growing up, do you remember the car races that they had?

HA: No I guess not.

JT: Well how about the County Fair. Did they have it over by where…well that was earlier, excuse me.

HA: Well I know the fairgrounds were where the old Mt. Emily Mill is now. I can remember that, that was before we moved to town. I always think it’s odd that it’s over there where now Bowman-Hicks used to be. But I can remember during the Depression, there in that building on 4th and Adams where the T.V. deal is there; they had the fair in that building one year.

JT: Oh.

HA: When they didn’t have any place to put it.

JT: Well, they got it done.

HA: Mhm.

JT: There’s been some good changes. And some changes maybe not so good. How do you feel about Safeway now being closer to your house?

HA: Well, I guess I don’t mind it; cause the traffic is coming anyway. Ever since they opened up 16th through there. Everybody comes down there, even Gerda Brwnton, one day says I go by your place all the time now that they opened…

JT: So, 16th goes into Willow.

HA: Yeah. I don’t mind it. We still go to Albertsons.

JT: You live actually between two railroad tracks, the main line and then the one that goes up the branch. How do you feel about everybody being excited about hearing the trains and whistles? Do they bother you?

HA: They don’t. I spent my lifetime living next to them, maybe has something to do with it. But I read the items in the paper complaining about how the trains keep them awake. They never did keep me awake. In fact as a kid growing up, it was so romantic to listen to the trains whistling going out…I’d just wish I was on one of ‘em. {Laughter}

JT: Travel the world.

HA: Yeah.

JT: Did you think you’d ever come to a time that we wouldn’t have a passenger train coming through LaGrande?

HA: Well I guess not. I wish there was Amtrak now. We’d go down…the kids at holiday time. We don’t like to drive anymore.

JT: Not when the roads are slick. I understand. I never thought we’d ever see that.

HA: Yeah. I told you about when I packed the Oregonian; we used to have to have to meet the train to get the papers off of it. It was about 7:30 or something the train come in. There was an old fella, Bradford, he dealt out the, what do they call that other paper…Journal. And uh he was standing there watching the train come in just watch that ___ [?] come along, hit him and knocked him around. {Laughter}

JT: Weeeeeeeeeeee.

HA: Didn’t hurt him much I guess.

JT: Well good.

HA: I remember seeing that.

JT: Well remember we used to have a man that stood on Fir Street there where the crossing was. It uh…that’s before railroad cross arms come along I guess. That was Mr. Rawhah wasn’t it?

HA: Well I think there were different guys there.

JT: That watched the crossing.

HA: They used to have…I don’t think while we were in Perry they had ‘em, but…Years after that they had watchmen walking the track there by those cliffs, to see if the track was alright. We had all those electric fences in there.

JT: They call them rock fences. If a rock come down and hit the fence, it pulls a cord; and they go check to see if it’s all right, and there isn’t a rock on the track.

HA: I remember several wrecks, train wrecks up at Perry there. You know there used to be quite a super road,____ [?] railroad in front of the store there. And then the track into the mill went this way. I guess it caused some problems there. Because there are two different wrecks that I remember. All piled up there in front of the store. And I had some pictures one time but I don’t know what happened to them. You can look off down into the river and see a couple of boxcars lying in the river down there. And one time when they got these big long mallies they couldn’t make that corner there. It went out on the ground, sittin’ there on the ground in front of the store.

JT: Mhm. There was something I remembered about the mill over there. They, uh, in the sign they had a shotgun carriage, can you explain what that was?

HA: Yeah, I knew the steampage [?] were shotguns. The guns themselves, they’re twelve inch __ [?] over here. I don’t know what they were over there. In about a fFour-inch pistons come out and hook on the carriage. Then the sawyer that handled the valves would run that up and down. I don’t know where that name shotgun got.

JT: Oh. Well they sliced off a log, then it was propelled back so that they could take the next slice; is that what we’re talking about?

HA: Mhm. It was just a 12-inch steam pipe in there. It run about 40 feet I guess. Then there was about a 5-inch pipe on each end that live steam, controlled with a valve. And the sawyers lever controlled his valves.

JT: Well when I was in high school I think we toured the mill over there and there was a girl by the name of Stein that was riding that carriage.

HA: She was riding it for me.

JT: Is that right?

HA: Yeah.

JT: I can remember that. We went through there in a high school class.

HA: Yeah there during the wars. She must have worked there for a year and half or so.

JT: Well I’ll be darned.

HA: Hugh Darling was the setter I think.

JT: Mhm. Well I was one of those snot-nosed kids that come by. {Laughter}

HA: Well I know there used to be a lot of them come there. Was interesting uh…there were three head rakes.

JT: And what is a head rake?

HA: Well that’s where you put the log on. Went up and down the track…carriage.

JT: Well the log come up out of the pond by chain.

HA: Take it out on the deck then go down to the loader. Then when the sawyer was ready for it he had a lever to step on to turn that over….

Tape 2 Side 1

JT: ………and grab the log.

HA: Yeah they’re just like claws you know. They put the lever down and go like that. The old days of the big logs and bark an inch and a half or two inches thick, about all you had was bark often times. Then you had a hammer dog, you called it. Where you’d throw it in, and it had one spike then you’d hammer it down in there. That did some good, but it wasn’t like the logs…or dogs they have now. Where it was just a hair dog and come up from the top and bottom. Grab ‘em on each…that’s another thing the blocks, what they call a dogs, where the dogs put in the blocks. They call ‘em the knees. But anyway on the newer rakes…and I never had the experience of working with those air dogs. I used to wish I could control some of that stuff. Have to break in a new man you know. You’d have to learn your sign language…but anyway those dogs. Those mechanisms that turned the log was called a nigger. And they tell me over there now that’s verbotten. You don’t call ‘em niggers anymore. {Laughter}

JT: I can appreciate.

HA: But to me a nigger was just something you turned the log with, I never associated it with…

JT: No. It wasn’t derogatory.

HA: No.

JT: What was the advantage of having a pond for the logs to come up?

HA: Well, to move ‘em around. In later years I don’t think they got a pond over there. Maybe a little one. But uh…they used to be able just to get the logs around.

JT: What would be the largest size log that you can uh cut? I remember seeing a picture of August Stang standing by a log and it was taller than he was. But he wasn’t a real tall man.

HA: No. Well the carriage that I was sawing on, the knees were blocks, they’d open up 54 inches. And I sawed a number of logs that were bigger than that. You’d get ‘em on there and then you’d have to saw a thick slab about as far as you could and it would keep it from breaking off. Come by and get a hold of the nigger and break it off. Put it back, then turn it over a little bit, give you room to get it through there.

JT: Well now, they talk about quarter sawing, and how did they saw logs to keep them from warping and cupping? Was there a particular trick to that?

HA: I don’t know if it worked or not, but I was taught if you had an arched log like that you loaded the ark up or down. So when you go to cut into lumber it’ll just bow up like that, instead of going sideways. You nail that down, it will nail out straight. But if you have them going sideways, there’s nothing you can do about that.

JT: Same way with dimensional, they twist.

HA: Yeah but there’s…timber bound logs, I’ve uh…

JT: Now what does that mean?

HA: Well as you saw into it, it’ll start pinching. Have you ever sawed a board and it started pinching? Well it’s timber bound.

JT: Mhm.

HA: And you’d occasionally get ‘em over there. We used to saw the bigger logs, two-four inch cants and they’d go to the re-saw to finish sawing up. Well I’ve seen them going through and when you get that saw, it’d just plop like that. ___________________ [?] It’d just spring out like that.

JT: I’ll be darned. Well how did they decide whether they were going to cut boards or dimensional? Was there a particular thing, unless it was an order or…

HA: Well dimensions usually was for uh, larch. And pine was just, you get a pine log…was mostly what we had in the early days. But you’d get the, what they used to call get the uppers off; before you’d start concentrating on the common and the uppers being the shop and the select. And they you had to watch…

JT: Select was the premium board.

HA: Yeah.

JT: With no knots.

HA: Yeah well…D select takes some knots, and there was C select and B select. We…most of the orders we’d get would say so and so D and better select. Shop, they’d want number 2 and better probably. That’s when there’s a knot here and there where they can get cuttings out of it. Those cuttings are figured by the cuttings in the old doors you know. The styles of the along the sides and the muttons across, and you gotta have a certain amount of those cuttings in a board to make it a one or a two.

JT: Well how about…did they cut much fir?

HA: Well they cut a lot of it now, but we didn’t in those days. But that _that went into dimension unless it was select and it would go for fir select.

JT: Lodge Pole Pine. Is that something they called Larch later, or…

HA: No, Larch is Tamarack.

JT: Oh ok.

HA: Lodge pole they’d turn up their nose at those, they’re bringing them in now.

JT: Cutting a lot of things they didn’t before.

HA: Well in fact they told me that if there’s a chance for a big log anymore they don’t want it. Cause they’re geared up for smaller.

JT: Smaller. And now you have quite a lot of bark on some of your studs and things like that. At least some of the studs I’ve seen, there’s still bark on them.

HA: Well the barks supposed to be taken off before they get to the saw anymore, but…but they have what they call wain [?] where the bark was. And uh sometimes again, grading rules they’ll accept certain amount of wainon certain grades.

JT: Did you ever cut any hardwood?

HA: No, no hardwood trees. But when they closed down the last mill in the east, they brought in a whole slug of hardwood cants. They sat around the mill for years it seemed like. Take one of them once in a while and put it on the carriage there and saw it up and what they wanted to make liners for conveyers; for the chains to run on. Finally it was all used up and, they put steel in there for the chains.

JT: What about cottonwood. They did cut some of that up in the Wallowa area.

HA: Yeah they used to get a cottonwood once in a while. But when they got to making paper chips they, that’s where most of that went.

JT: It wasn’t too strong?

HA: No. I imagine it would rot easily. But it’s supposed to make good writing paper.

JT: What do you think of all those trees between here and…well over in the Pendleton area down there toward Boardman that they’re raising for paper.

HA: Well that’s interesting to go by that. It looks like they got some kind of a trimmer, where they must run it up there to take the limbs off.

JT: Take the limbs off; I would say so.

HA: You know they doing the logging anymore on these logs. They have these machines that go in there and they grab the tree like that. They got a clipper that clips it off at the bottom. They go right up the…take the limbs off as it goes up; I guess they do that before they clip ‘em maybe, but…

JT: In the old days, do you remember like up at Dark Canyon there’s a number of long butts there; that when they cut down the tree they left the butt.

HA: Just a short piece?

JT: Well some of them were short and some of them were longer than others. Was that because they were pitchy or…?

HA: Well might oh, it could be rotten; I don’t know if they stop for pitchiness but one problem of the butt, it swells out like that you know. And they get it on the rig if you tapers, blocks have, or what they call tapers and they put it back, you _______ [?] you try to saw parallel to the center. And the growth lines are always thicker at the butt than they are up a ways. So, I imagine they never liked to have butt logs. And then bark was thicker on the butt too so you you didn’t taper, you’d get short boards on this side, turn it over and get short boards on the other side. {Laughter}

JT: Well that’s an interesting thing about cutting, it uh…how long did you have to study to be a sawyer?

HA: Well I was…a lot of guys wanted to be sawyers but they’d never get there. Most of them were 25 or 30, I guess before they could get in there. But they’re apprentice you might say, they were right in the carriage and they’re watching all of those things now. But they don’t have the guys on the carriage anymore. And I got on and I worked…it was May when I stopped, 3 or 4 weeks before school was out to graduate. To get that job in the mill, cause the mill had been down 11 months. I had a chance to go over _____________ [?]. But uh…kinda lost my train of thought.

JT: You said you quit school a little bit early in order to get the job because the mill had been down.

HA: Yeah I went out there and rode carriage all that summer. And I got the substitute setting a little bit, where you had to figure you know…we had a steam settler [?] pull the lever and you’d have a deal would send whatever board you wanted. And I did that…oh Marion Bach was a setter and he got sick and I got in setting right that first summer. I was 17 I guess. By the time I was 21 I was sawing. And I…they used to say that I was the first guy that Augie would let saw run the saw over there.

JT: Well, that’s good.

HA: But after that the new company come and everybody got a chance at it.

JT: And the time you learned, you had a good teacher, your dad.

HA: That’s another thing, uh…Marion Bach that I just mentioned, he was a Pole. A bald-headed Pole. No education, but boy he was well read. No formal education. But, anyways when I was working up at the college, he come up to see me one day. He was talking, sittin’ there, he says when you come to work on the carriages, I felt so sorry for you. Your dad made you do things that nobody else ever had to do. And I just, snapped to me…he wasn’t going to have anybody saying that he was giving his kid a break.

JT: Well you learned good. By gosh. Well, you were working over at the mill when they were cutting box stock, for making boxes and later luggage stock.

HA: Well they put all that stuff in about wartime I think. But I never worked over there on any of that.

JT: That was more on the planer end of it.

HA: I used to like to go over there and get some of that thin boards, and I made a lot of things out of it. You see my desk there and her sewing machine deal here behind you. I made that. That was in

JT: In those days they let the employees bring some of the boards home.

HA: Well stuff was supposed to have been kind of scrap I guess.

JT: I remember Jerry Evans, a friend of dad’s, made desks and he made a number of different things. One thing I remember is a bullet that was cut in two with a saw and he made it into a gun cabinet. I imagine you saw a lot of things like that that you sawed through.

HA: Oh yeah, ...tell you a story about…One day I started to saw into a log and uh I didn’t know what was happening at the time, but I knew something was happening; but there was a piece of metal on a slope like that and it was under the bark, kind of grown over you know. And I run and hit that there, and it just sheared all those teeth off that saw. And they went by the tail saw like a machine gun and went in the wall over there.

JT: Weeeeeee.

HA: It’s just a wonder somebody didn’t get hurt.

JT: And that’s why you worry about some of these…what they call tree huggers that go out and drive things in trees. It’s very dangerous for a sawyer or the people in that…

HA: I’ve heard stories about…you’ve heard of maybe the Wobblies?

JT: I’ve never heard that.

HA: I think they had, uh, organization had a W or something or other, and other people called them Wobblies. It was a union but they didn’t mind what they did to try to get their way. And uh over in Idaho someplace, somebody dug the rot out of an old log and threw a log chain in there. And then threw the rot back in there you know. The sawyer went in there and it just blew that band right off_ [?] , I guess. One guy got killed. The pieces went clear across the mill and hit some guy in the chest.

JT: Just like a bullet.

HA: Yeah. Big chunks, yeah. And there’s another case…wasn’t a Wobbly but you lose the logs off the carriage sometimes. And this guy, sawyer had one that was off and kind of sittin like that. Went down the bark whole one end and went in the bark whole [?] and the other end up here. And they put a chain around it to try to pull it ahead and the sawyer kept giving a little and it wasn’t coming, and pretty soon BANG it went. Poked that log right through the wheels of the…the spokes of the wheel, band mill[?]. That thing blew up I guess. I can remember after I went sawing. Dad was sawing on the other side. Miles on one, Miles Fowler. But one thing we had to watch for was slivers. Sometimes when you’d saw through there, the shaky log, a sliver will flip out like that. And then you come back and that sliver catches the saw. And if you’re not watching for it and pretty alert, you pull the saw off. My dad pulled the saw off and it broke and it wound up all around him in the saw box there. And he just had a couple scratches on one arm. {Laughter}

JT: Very fortunate I’d say. When did they go union at the mill?

HA: I think that was about in the ‘40’s, right in there. I know ’38 Bowman-Hicks were having trouble and that’s the reason they closed up. They had new timbers all ready to fix the mill up to go and they had this union trouble and they shut ‘er down. Moved everything up to Enter, uh, Wallowa.

JT: Yeah, well the union did help because it got uniform wages, and helped the men.

HA: I think they did. But I was on two strikes in my career and I never thought we gained anything as far as that’s concerned.

JT: Well, you actually lost.

HA: Yeah. We were off four months one time there. Took a lot of money then to live. You went out and hayed and whatever you’d do and you couldn’t get any unemployment insurance.

JT: That one strike was particularly bad because, the fellow got back to workthe fellow got back to work and then he quit.

HA: Yeah, Johnny Dockweiler.

JT: Yes I remember that strike.

HA: Yeah that’s the other one that I did. Carl Hermans who was very staunch in his belief in union, says a person that…he says I believe in compulsory arbitration. And uh that doesn’t always get in there either but…


JT: But it did get health benefits and things like that, that people needed in your retirement.

HA: Well we didn’t have any health benefits till Valseth took over out here. I think I had three kids and paid all my own doctor bills. We did have a little organization called the Mt. Emily Lumber…the Mt. Emily Hospital Association that three employees were looking after it. And uh…what was guy Albert ____________ [?] name. Anyway he did the bookwork.

JT: Van Blocklin_ [?]

HA: No, it was the guy above him.

JT: Oh, I don’t remember.

HA: Well that’s funny, I can’t think of his name. But it was alright, he’d take care of all that. We’d put in a little bit and it paid for all our doctor bills, but just for the employee; family wasn’t covered.

JT: I remember when Brace got fired. He was supposedly doing union work on company time.

HA: Augie told him, he says don’t call me on the company phone, and he did. Yeah he’s a cousin to my wife.

JT: Oh. It uh…after we get done I have a question to ask you. Uh…well I was trying to think of something else that would be interesting to people to know. That is important to know how things worked, and how they came…how we got where we are from where we came from. But the union made things better and all of our lives were better. Sometimes it went a little bit farther than we both think they should have. But uh…we did benefit from them.

HA: Yeah I think we definitely benefited, but I wasn’t a staunch union person. I went…when they finally said we all had to join, I joined. Then I took part in the union activities. It was interesting that I was on the board that does the arguing you know. I can’t think of the term I want.

JT: Well, arbitration, similar anyway.

HA: Anyway I would sit on one side of the table then I got made boss and I had to sit on the other side of the table {Laughter}

JT: That’s looking at it both ways.

HA: Yeah.

JT: But the bosses don’t have too much protection, like what happened to you and a few others when they changed ownership.

HA: Well I think the thing about us over there, we were working at the mill that had machinery that was put in there in 1925, it was obsolete; it was built for big logs and most of the logs were small. And uh…What they were trying to do was trying to, trying to get a big cut out of the old machinery, and trying to get the guys to do it. And uh…I was fortunate and I got to be foreman and the guys worked for me and we went up a little bit but it wasn’t enough. And they give me the go. And they put a guy in behind me that, he cussed the guys out, every time he went by one he’d cuss him out. He didn’t last long. They just kept changing foreman, changing foreman, changing foreman. Eventually, they remodeled the mill. It’s the only mill left now. Now, all the Idaho[?] mills are gone.

JT: Well we had all kinds of little mills, all over the valley. It uh…I can remember as high as 12 or 14 of the little mills.

HA: Well there’s a difference, they’re working multiple shifts now. Those little mills didn’t…one shift was probably all they used. I know Augie never run except a little bit one summer there to get his inventory when he first started up; he run the night shift for a while. And then up at Perry after they rebuilt the mill and moved to Pondosa, they run two shifts ‘cause they only had one head rig. The mill that burned had two head rigs. One thing I guess was lights in those days. Good lights at night wasn’t something they all had. Do you remember out here at Lone Pine, the planer that used to be out there?

JT: I remember that little mill was out there, yes.

HA: Well they had their mill up Ladd Canyon and they’d haul their lumber down to that. I would go up Ladd Canyon to see where that mill was once in a while. You have to strain to see what remnants of where that mill was.

JT: Well I remember the sawdust piles being up there on that Green Mountain Road, was that…I think that’s what they called that.

HA: It wasn’t up the canyon very far. But there was a mill up here one time. One guy was working over in the Ladd mill over there and he had a mill he was running up there. Years later that very same place, everybody was going for sawdust.

JT: Right. Yeah up Mill Canyon. Then there was some Southern people that had one up south of LaGrande up there too. I can’t remember their names.

HA: Well this guy uh…what was his name, he had that brick house across from the old school house, I mean courthouse. He come from Tennessee.

JT: Buckley?

HA: Anyway he had the mill in Union.

JT: Oh, you’re talking about Pappy Hoffman.

HA: Yeah.

JT: Yeah he had the mill over at Union.

HA: When I got canned over here I went over there to see if I could get a job. And he had me stand around a while, took me to dinner, then he said well I guess not.

JT: Well he was with McKants [?] wasn’t he for a while?

HA: Yeah I think they started out together.

JT: It no longer is in existence, like so many others.

HA: _Pondosa___________________________ [?]

JT: Peacocks in Imbler.

HA: No mills at Baker.

JT: Yeah.

HA: One at Halfway, one at Richland and…the one at Bates isn’t up there.

JT: No that’s all gone. You go out on the highway and logs will be going both ways. You wonder where they’re taking them and how much it cost to get them there.

HA: Well they’re hauling logs from Idaho over here now.

JT: Oh boy.

HA: I know Ruth come home from the beauty parlor one day and some gals in there said her husband’s were hauling logs in from around Heppner. But they have these long poles going that way, I mean out there by Umatilla, just up the river a ways, they got a chipping mill. They had a big fire there.

JT: They had a big fire I guess. I happened to be there that day they had the fire.

HA: Is that right? I got a brother in law that lives right out by there. They call it Umatilla I guess, but it used to be where the dam people lived.

JT: Yeah, McNary City.

HA: Yeah.

JT: Yeah, my wife and I drove out there to see as much of the fire as we could see.

HA: Did you know Norm Schruff__ [?]

JT: Yes, very well.

HA: He’s a brother in law to me.

JT: Is that right? Well he married uh…Faye Andrews, that’s right. I never thought…I must think a little better than I’m doing. Because I knew Faye and her sister Kay that married Bill Deitridge [?]. And then when she was married to her first husband. We were all working at the shakeswitch [?] shop when she got engaged.

HA: Is that right?

JT: You remember that shakeswitch [?] shop, down there by the old telephone building? I was just a kid, but I was helping make the ice cream. Kay worked in there. Called Helmeth. Helen Cross owned it and Velma O’Neil, and they called it Helmeth.

HA: It’s seeping back in there. Yeah…

JT: Yeah.

Turner, John

Andrews, Horton