of Tape Recorded Stories
from the Life of Olaf Petrus Ådin
as Recounted by Himself
Approx. 1975
SIDE 1
Note:From research I have located the birth record of Olaf Peterus Ådin
Interviewer: I want you to start your story all the way back in Sweden. We'll get the whole story here.
Pete: That wouldn't amount to much.
Interviewer: Well, you've told me some interesting things about the job that your father had, and how you learned to ski, and stuff like that.
Pete: Well, there really isn't too much about that. I started skiing when I was four years old. My brother made me a set of skis out of barrell staves. That's how I got started skiing. Of course, after I got up to six or seven years old, I got some regular skis. And, of course, Swedes are great people for skiing and sports of that kind. My father was a shoemaker. He made some real nice, fancy shoes for ladies. In fact, my father was a "jack of all trades." He even had a blacksmith make him a set of forceps and he pulled people's teeth. In fact, it seemed like he could do most anything. He was a great man for doing and trying to do things that other people wouldn't attempt to do. He was working on a log drive one time and he got his foot caught between two logs and broke his ankle. Of course, back then, they had no doctors close. He just sat up in bed and splinted his own foot. Well, in fact, he was a great man. He died young. He was only 44 years old when he died. Now of course, I was just a young punk at the time when he died. I had to make my own way from then on. I worked on farms and, being a hospital right across from where I lived, I worked there for a couple of summers, and roustabout and so that was practically my whole story about my younger days after my father died.
Interviewer: What about the ferry? Did your father run the ferry?
Pete: Well, my father had a ferry. We lived close to the river, and he had built a ferry. He had a small boat for people. Then he had a larger boat for horses and wagons. He ran that for several years. And then his main work was making shoes for people and shoe repair and stuff of that kind. But he was taking an outfit across the river and it was real cold weather and they had quite a lot of trouble getting across the river. He developed pneumonia which he never recovered from. He died at age of 44.
Interviewer: What was your father's name?
Pete: Olaf Petrus, same as mine. My brother's name was Carl.
Note:From research done in Sweden where my Grandfather lived. I found that his Father name was Per Olof Ådin where as grandpa's name is listed as Olof Petrus. His brother is listed as Carl Johan. See Clerical survey.
Interviewer: Didn't you tell me somebody in your family worked for the king?
Pete: Well, that was my brother. He joined the service and my brother was a pretty nice looking young fellow. They gave him a promotion as a footman for the top general for the army. Of course, he served in the army for three years. After that I lost track of my brother because I was 17 years old and that was the time I immigrated to this country, at the age of 17.
Interviewer: Who was the king when you were living in Sweden?
Pete: Oscar...King Oscar II.
Interviewer: Was he a pretty good king?
Pete: Well, I guess he was. He was not a big head, like most people with big appointments, like that. But he was a real nice person.
Interviewer: You told me a story once about him running into a fellow that was drunk, or something.
Pete: Yes, they was dedicating this new hospital and of course, a king had to be there. And going up to the hospital, a fellow ran out from the side of the road and stopped the carriage and said, "Hello, Oscar. How are you?" and they started a conversation. And the king took it all in good nature and talked to him for a while and just went on. That was quite a..., well I don't know just how to explain it, but this dedication was quite a thing and this hospital was a big concern. It took care of over 100 patients.
Interviewer: Was that the hospital where you worked?
Pete: Yes
Interviewer: Did you see the king?
Pete: No, I didn't.
Interviewer: What was the name of your home town in Sweden?
Pete: Solleftea was the closest town from my home. Of course, I lived out in the country. (Osteras small town in the Ed parish or Annex as it was called) The town was only seven miles from where I lived, so we quite often went to town for shopping and stuff of that kind. It was real beautiful country back there where I lived. But work was scarce and so when I got 17 years old, I decided to pull out for other places to find work. My brother-in-law, that married my oldest sister, had been out here in this country, and he went back to try to persuade his wife to come over here with him. But she wouldn't leave back there. But he came back over and stayed over here for approximately three years and so I decided to come over with him. I guess that's about all of that...See the ship mannifest and the Clerical survey for the Brother in law.
Interviewer: I'd like to have you talk a little bit about your trip over on the ship. You had some interesting details about that.
Pete: Well, we left home and come to Norway where we immigrated to this country. We got aboard ship at the name of the town Trondheim in Norway and went to Hull, England. Then we had to travel on train clear through Britain into...I forgot the name of the town(probably Liverpol as most inmigrates coming from England sailed from Liverpol). We had to stay there for a couple of days to wait for our ship. We got aboard the ship on the 11th day of June, 1907. The ship docked at Boston, Massachusettes. We had to stay over in Boston for approximately eight hours. My pals, (there was four of us all together), we decided to take a walk and see the city. But neither one of us could speak any English. We didn't understand the English language. We walked for, perhaps, three blocks. A cop stopped us and asked us where we was going. Of course, we just stand there, not able to tell him anything. So he just turned us around and took us back down to the dock. So we didn't get to see much of Boston.
Interviewer: Say, Pete, back there on the ship, you told me something once, sort of interesting in this day and age, about [how] there were some young men and women that got, kind of, too familiar, or something.
Pete: Yeah, that was on ship between Norway and Britain. Two young ladies, very nice, were promenading on deck one day. They stopped to talk about something, I don't remember what it was, but I was sitting right close to where they were standing. They were talking, and pretty soon one of them said, "Whoop" and she got seasick and she vomited all over her lady friend and she made a mess of things. That was aboard ship from Norway to Britain. And then after we left Britain, we was seven days on the trip between Britain and the United States. The sea got pretty rough one day and the seaman was tying down everything loose on deck. There was a young Englishman on deck, promenading around. The workmen told him to get off deck and he didn't pay much attention to them. Pretty soon, here come a big wave and set him down on the deck and just washed him perhaps 25-30 feet along the deck. He got up and was willing to get off deck.
Interviewer: That convinced him, huh?
Pete: Ya. There was two people got sick from some sickness of some kind, and died aboard ship. So they just simply buried them at sea.
Interviewer: Oh, they did?
Pete: Yeah, put them in a canvas bag with some rocks for weights. They had a chute that they put on the rail of the ship and just put the caskets, if you would call it a casket, and they would slide out in the ocean and that was the last of them. We all had to be vaccinated aboard ship after this malaria sickness, of some kind, and there was no more sickness of any kind, so we got through that part of it O.K.
Interviewer: I was wondering about this marriage at sea...
Pete: Oh, we had a ship personnel that was really strict about you messing around with girls, or women folks. The women had to be off deck at 9:00 in the evening. There was a young Norwegian girl, she was perhaps, 16-17. They had quite a time keeping her off deck.
Interviewer: Was she by herself?
Pete: Well, as far as I know she was. She probably had some relations or somebody here in this country that she was coming to. But, the steward ran her off deck, and she went down one stairway and pretty soon, here she come up on another one. They had quite a time with that girl. There was two ladies in the cabin next to ours and they was messing around with a couple of guys and they had to be married aboard the ship. Of course, that marriage didn't amount to anything, you know...
Interviewer: Just a formality, huh?
Pete: Yeah, just a formality. But that was a rule of the ship, you know. They had to get married. This young Norwegian girl, she kind of took a liking to me, I guess. She was fooling around, and I guess I was too young and inexperienced, so I didn't mess with her.
Interviewer: It's a good thing. You might have been married before you got to America.
Pete: Yeah, but I was only a kid. Well, I guess they didn't pay too much attention to us.
Interviewer: Where did you go from Boston?
Pete: Well, after we got on the train and left Boston, we was heading for Wyoming. Our destination was Rawlins, Wyoming. It took us a couple of days on the train from Boston to Wyoming. After I got to Rawlins, I got to work with a timber company. It had a loading dock where they loaded railroad ties, mining ties, mining props, and stuff for mining at this place, with the name of Fort Steele. I got a job there and worked that summer. (summer of1907)
Interviewer: Were there soldiers there at that time?
Pete: No, I think it must have been 20-25 years after the government moved out. This Carbon Timber Company had a sawmill there and these loading docks for loading railroad ties to be shipped to some place in Wyoming, where they had a treatment where they treated these ties with oil, for a preservative. I worked that first summer at Fort Steele and then I come to the encampment, tie camp, where they were cutting all these ties for this company, and I spent one winter cutting railroad ties and then the next summer they hauled the ties and props and stuff, out of the woods and piled them up along the river. So, in the spring, when the spring floods come up, why they floated the ties and props and stuff, that was cut during the winter. They brought them down to the railroad, Fort Steele.
Interviewer: Was that up there at the encampment where you cut your foot with the axe?
Pete: Yeah, I worked for a cook on this log drive. We got to be pretty good friends. He was a good cook. But, he had a young wife and he finally got it in his head that I was fooling around with his wife. So he told his wife one day that he was going to kill me... She told me about it and I said, "Oh, oh. It's time for me to move on, isn't it?" So I got ready to leave camp. She said, "If you're going...
SIDE 2
Pete: ...I told her, "Nothing doing." I says, "I'm going! And if I find a good job someplace, I'll let you know and if you want to come be with me, I'll let you know." But I never did find the place, so that was the end of that. That winter I worked for a contractor that was building a big irrigating system.
Interviewer: Wait a minute, Pete. Let's go back and fill in a couple details here. You ought to get it down on tape about the way you sewed up your foot, and all.
Pete: Yeah, I was working one winter cutting ties and I cut my left foot and the cut was right over the ball of my big toe. Of course, after the accident why I had to get to my cabin, which was about a half a mile off from where we was working. That strap on my skis wasn't helping the pain any. It sure pained quite a bit. So we got back to the cabin, and I got my shoe and sock off. That cut gapped open 1/4 inch. I told this partner of mine, I says, "Why don't you sew that up?" My pal, he says, "What do we sew it with?" I says, "I got some #8 Clark thread. It's black, but I think it will be all right." So he took several stitches of this black thread and it was a wonder to me that I didn't get blood poisoning. Where we was working was approximately 30 miles from a doctor, so I was mighty lucky that no infection set in.
Interviewer: Can you see the scar today?
Pete: Yeah.
Interviewer: I thought it was pretty interesting, Pete, the way you got the ties down the river, and all.
Pete: On these log drives in the spring, all the men that worked in the woods went to work for the Carbon Timber Company to get these ties, logs and stuff down to the railroad. It was 90 miles from the railroad to the camp. And took some little time to complete the drive after it started. I was working for this cook, that I said was a friend of mine, they had approximately 60 men to cook for and it kept me quite busy, washing dishes and doing things around the cook fire.
Interviewer: You collected the fuel didn't you?
Pete: Yeah, that was buffalo chips that I picked up on the plain out there, which made awful good fuel for baking bread and stuff, which was baked in what we called "dutch ovens."
Interviewer: What kind of food did you eat?
Pete: We had mostly beef and stuff like that.
Interviewer: Was it pretty good food?
Pete: Yes. This fellow was a good cook. The boss for the log drive had a brother working on the gang. He was, you might say, not much good. He come to me one day and he say, "Pete, I'm going put my brother in your place, helping cook." He says, "You go off with the gang on the drive." I says, "All right." But the next morning, after his brother's first day with the cook, the crew refused to go to work. The boss asked the guys what the trouble was - why they wouldn't go out to work. They told him, they says, "You put Pete back with the cook, and we'll go back to work." Well, he says, "That brother of yours is a filthy, no good, and we just refuse to work unless you make the change and put Pete back with the cook." I went back with the cook and stayed with him until the job was completed. At that time the UP Railroad was building a spur into the Saratoga and Encampment from the main road. Saratoga was 40 some miles from the railroad and the Encampment was 25 miles further out from Saratoga. So that was about 65 miles all together that the railroad was building this railroad.
Interviewer: And you just floated the ties down the river?
Pete: Yes
Interviewer: Was your cooking outfit on a barge or something?
Pete: Oh, well we camped along the river do our cooking and after breakfast why we put our stuff all together, got our dishes washed, and everything loaded in a big boat we had for that purpose. We got our dinner all ready for the crew and then we go on down the river and catch the crew while they were working and stopped for dinner. Then after dinner, why, we go on down, maybe, perhaps, a mile, maybe two miles down the river and make camp for the night. So that's the way it worked.
Interviewer: What river was that, that you were on?
Pete: They called it Encampment River. After we got to the railroad, I decided to go on back up to the camp where I was woking, cutting ties, and the railroad company run the first trains from the Walcott on the main line, to the Saratoga and they had a flat car with seats built on the sides, you know, for people to sit on, and that was the beginning of the Encampment Saratoga Railroad. And when we got to Saratoga (of course we had to take the old-fashioned stage from Saratoga to Encampment. That was 25 miles, and that was an all-day drive with teams.)
Interviewer: Was that a pretty rough way to travel, Pete?
Pete: No, it was pretty fair road, not paved or anything, but it was pretty decent road. We was going along across the prairie there, and there was a young lady on the stage and an old gentleman. I don't know, he was a doctor or what. He was quite distintinguished old man. This young lady begin squirming around, you know, and she couldn't be at ease. This old man was watching her for a while. Pretty soon, he stuck his head out, told the driver to stop and the driver stopped. The old man got out, he opened the door, motioned for this young lady to come on. When she got out of the coach, he told her, he says, "You get down there and take care of yourself. You'll feel better. So he went back in the coach and left her alone out there for a few minutes. And she was very well pleased, because she was in misery!
Interviewer: That took care of her fidgeting, huh?
Pete: Uh, huh. Well, it took all day, 24 miles, you know, in the old stage coach, with the old leather springs, you know.
Interviewer: That could be pretty miserable.
Pete: Yes, she was in misery. But I don't know, I believe he was a doctor or something. Anyway, he noticed this lady was quite in trouble. Then that winter I got to working for this contractor who had a contract on a stretch of this canal that went through a cut through a mountain side. This canal was quite big. It measured 19 feet across the bottom of it, so it was quite a good size job. This contractor used to be a mine foreman for a mine they call Ferrs Haggarty Mine, close to Encampment. But this mine closed down and he got this contract deal in this canal through this big cut. It was a miserable job. No camp facilities. We slept in tents.
Interviewer: Was this in Wyoming?
Pete: Ya. It was up to 45 degrees below zero. We slept in tents - get up in the morning, get you a hunk of ice and wash your face and hands. I kind of had enough of it. I told the boss one day, I say, "I think I quit." He says, "No, I don't want you to quit. You stay with us." He says, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you fifty cents a day more than the rest of the gang if you stay with us." I thought that sounded pretty good. I stayed with him.
Interviewer: What was this about "white backs?" In this camp you said you had a problem with some kind of critters?
Pete: Oh, that's a lot of cattle grazing around there on...you might say...on the prairie. This cold weather, you know, they try to find something to eat. Pretty soon they just humped up, fell over dead - froze to death.
Interviewer: Now, I was thinking you said you had some trouble with lice at that camp.
Pete: Well, you mean fires? There was three of us slept in one tent that I slept in. The old blacksmith, myself and another guy slept in this one tent. The old blacksmith always got up in the mornings and built a fire in the stove. He told me one evening, he says, well, he says, "Pete, I think it's your turn to build a fire in the morning." I said, "All right." So I woke up. I looked at my watch, lit the fire in the stove and instead of being five o'clock in the morning, it was twenty-five minutes after one. When morning came, the fire was all gone.
Interviewer: Now, I can't remember what you called them, it was some kind of term for "lice." Didn't you say you had lice there?
Pete: Oh, that's when I was working on the UP Railroad, over double track between Salt Lake City and Laramie,Wyoming. I got a job on the, well there was two young Swedes had a contract on a pretty good size rock cut, well the cut was twenty-five feet deep. I got a job with them and well, you take those camps like that out, where there's nearly always someone to bring in a bunch of what you call gray-backs...lice. And boy the place got overrun with these gray-backs. So I finally decided to get out and I quit. I went back to rock cut and I worked there until after May. These two young fellows got on with their contract and this fellow I worked for that winter, got over here in Durango for a job as mining foreman for the Neglected Mine up there - Junction Creek. And he wrote and said, "If you guys want a job, well, come on over. I'll give you a job." We decided to come to Durango. That's how I happened to come to Durango.
Interviewer: What year was that, Pete?
Pete: That was in 1910. The day I landed in Durango was May 18th, 1910.
Interviewer: Is that when you ate all those peanuts?
Pete: Ya, and I was sure sick when I landing in Durango, eating those salted peanuts all day on that train. And I was sick enough to die, wishing I could. And that was the time that Halley's Comet was going through space.
Interviewer: Oh, did you see that?
Pete: Ya. And the night of the 18th of May it was supposed to strike the earth. That was supposed to be the end of things.
Interviewer: Gee, I bet that was kind of scary, wasn't it?
Pete: Well, I was praying it would hit, because I was sick! I thought, "I'm going to die anyway." Ya, that was quite a sight, the Halley's Comet.
Interviewer: Did people really think it was going to hit the earth?
Pete: Yeah, that's the way they had it figured. It traveled at terrific speed. It had a tail on it 1000 miles long. But, it never happened, so when I was sick there that night, why, one of my partners, or one of the boys, said, "I'm going down to the saloon, see if I can get you a drink and straighten you up."
Interviewer: Was your brother-in-law still with you?
Pete: No. He was still at Encampment at that Tie Camp.
Interviewer: Your sister never did come over to join him, did she?
Pete: No. Now where was I?
Interviewer: Oh, you were going to tell that your buddy went down to get you a drink. Sorry to interrupt you.
Pete: He went down, told this bartender that I was awful sick, had indigestion. "Well" he says, "I'll fix him a drink, help him out." So, he mixed up a drink. Come and brought it up to me and I drank this drink, I don't know what it was. And in fifteen minutes time I was sound asleep. It sure had a kick to it, whatever it was.
Interviewer: Were you staying in a hotel then?
Pete: I was staying at a rooming house, what they call Nealy Rooms.
Interviewer: Is that still in existence?
Pete: Ya. And well we asked this guy how to get to the Neglected Mine and he told us, well, he says, "You take the train to Hesperus. Then," he said, "you take the stage from Hesperus up to the mine." So we got on the train that went to Hesperus and the mail carrier from the...
SIDE 3
Pete: ...and it was quite a town at that time. It had a hotel.
Interviewer: This was at Mayday?
Pete: Yeah. Well, La Plata City. It had a couple of stores, hotel, saloon. So we stayed there that night, and this mail carrier, he told us, he says, "I think you fellows ought to go back to Durango and go up Junction Creek." But, he says, "I can take you to the top of the pass and then you have to walk from the top of the pass to the mine because the whole side of the mountain is still covered with snow about five feet deep. And," he says, "I can't make it with horses." Well we talked it over and we decided that he'd take us up there. So we started out. We each had a suitcase, so we got up in the mountains. We run on to a snow slide we had to cross, and that snow was just like ice. But he had a shovel on his saddle and he got the shovel and made some holes in the snow for the horses to get their footing, see, across the slide. I was right behind him, and I got off. Carried my suitcase, leading the horse, and the horse kind of started to crowding me and I stuck my hand up to kind of slow him up, you know, and he lost his footing and down he went. There was a young spruce tree in the slide and it was all bent over and he hit that spruce and he just slid right up onto the spruce and his front feet was clear off in the snow and his hind feet was on the snow.
Interviewer: Just sort of hung up there, huh?
Pete: Ya. We decided (we didn't have an axe to cut this tree down) so we decided to take hold his front feet and push him over backwards off this tree, you know, and we did. Pushed him off of the tree, and he hit the snow and down the slide he went. He went clear to the bottom of the slide and of course, the ground was kind of muddy and soft, right at the edge of the slide, and he just kept sliding. He hit this mud and the old saddle horn stuck in the mud and he just spun around three or four times. He just got up and kind of shook himself, you know. He wasn't hurt a bit. So we started and went on to the top of the pass. There we could see the mine about seven or eight miles miles across the canyon. He says, "This is as far as I can take you fellas. You'll have to make it afoot from here on. Well, and we payed him. He charged us ten dollars to take us up to the top of the pass. We gave him the ten dollars. He started back and we picked up our suitcases and started across the snow, and boy, we went into the snow up to our hips. Soft snow. We fought that for a while, and so I told the boys, "I've had enough of this." I just had my suitcase, my old cow hide suitcase. I layed it down on the snow and I sat down on it. Down the hill I went, using the suitcase for a toboggan. So we finally got out to the Junction Creek and the mine was out of the south side of the hill so the snow was all gone, between the creek and the mine. But after we was pretty well petered out when we got to the creek., so we hung our suitcases up in a tree and started out afoot again. And we got to the mine that evening just as the supper bell rang.
Interviewer: That was pretty good timing.
Pete: Yeah, and well, of course, my time went on there for quite a while, doesn't amount to much. But the company decided they had to have a telephone out there...
Interviewer: I've got a couple questions about the mine. How'd you get supplies out there in the winter time? Didn't you get kind of snowed in?
Pete: At first they packed in the summer months, had pack outfits, you know - burros.
Interviewer: Was that where you met Olga Little?
Pete: Uh, huh. And of course, after the snow got deep, why, there was a fella got the job, he had a team and he drove the team between transfer and the mine which was about seven miles - about twelve miles above Durango. So the company decided they wanted that telephone, and the telephone company told them they'd try and get the line in, but the mine would have to furnish two men to help out to string that wire, because there was no line. They had to put in new line and they just went from tree to tree, you know, used trees instead of poles. So we had to string this wire and wire come in coils and weighed 85 lbs. to the coil, you know. And we'd just get one of those coils on our backs, walk along, let the wire unwind off of our backs, and they finally got up to the mine, (this was the second to the last day before we got to the mine), the wire chief of the telephone company was up there and he saw me performing on skis, and told me, he says, "You ought to be a good man for the telephone company." And he says, "the way you handle those skis, you ought to be a good one." "Well," I says, "You going to give me a job?" He says, "I sure will." So that's how I got started with the telephone company.
Interviewer: And then you moved down into Durango?
Pete: Uh, huh. Well, I still worked for the mine for a couple of months. He says, " You'll be in Durango, sometime in the better part of March and started work for us. So I worked for about three months yet for the mine and I quit and gone into Durango, and that's how I got started to work for the telephone company.
Interviewer: Did you tell me the Wright Brothers flew in here once?
Pete: Yeah, that's when they first started. I think it was the first year after they built their plane and one of them, I think, had an accident, and he was kind of crippled. But he was still flying, and brought his plane in here and he was flying during a Fiesta. People said, "You could never fly a plane in here, because of the mountains."
Interviewer: Yeah, the winds and stuff?
Pete: Yeah, but he got his place and got it all put together and he was flying and come up in here in a circle and went down the river about two miles and had to land in a hay field.
Interviewer: Did they fly the plane into Durango or did they haul it in?
Pete: I don't remember how he got it in here. He didn't fly it in here. But I think they brought it in in a truck.
Interviewer: Was that back in 1911 or so?
Yeah, I think it was 1912.
Interviewer: You'd probably never seen a plane before that had you?
Pete: No
Interviewer: When was the first time you ever saw a car?
Pete: Oh, was just a kid, about 10-11 years old when I saw my first car.
Interviewer: Over in Sweden?
Pete: Uh huh. The old French, they made a car and brought in here and somebody bought it. They were running it and it didn't have a muffler on it, and that thing, boy, it was the noisiest thing...
Interviewer: Scare the horses?
Pete: Oh yeah. People had a heck of a time. They meet that thing on the road and sure have a runaway.
Interviewer: When cars first came out, did you ever think everybody would be driving them?
Pete: Well, I never thought much about it. But I knew the thing was making an awful racket! Dr. Oxner had a car. He was about the only one. John Bell had a car. The fellow that run the pool hall here in Durango had one. Harry Jackson had one...that's about four or five. That was about the size of cars in Durango...
Interviewer: About four or five of them..
Pete: Yeah.
Interviewer: How many phones were there when you first started working for the phone company?
Pete: In Durango and the surrounding country we had about 900 telephones and now Durango's got about 2500.
Interviewer: What did your job involve?
Pete: Oh, I done everything: digging post holes, installing switchboards, everything that come along.
Interviewer: Did you have to go out in the mountains and stuff to work on the lines?
Pete: Yeah, we had to keep our lines up and clear troubles. On a line, if we had any trouble, why we always had to get it. The telephone company, when I first went to work for them, was Colorado Telephone Company. In 1912 the mountain states formed a company and that took in seven states and it was, of course, the American Bell Telephone Company, I think, financed and owned, I think, part of the investment in the outfit. They have Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, and Arizona and New Mexico and part of Texas. So that's a pretty good sized company after they bought out the Colorado Telephone. Durango had telephones that you didn't have to crank to get the operator. All the others had to crank to get the office.
Interviewer: How'd the other ones work - you just holler in the phone?
Pete: Well, you take the receiver off and that lights a light on the switchboard. In 1913, I put in the first telephone in Mesa Verde Park. 1915 I put in the line from Ignacio to Tiffany and Allison and Arboles, Rosa, New Mexico.
Interviewer: What was Mesa Verde Park like when you first went in there?
Pete: It wasn't much. There was an old board shack about, oh I guess, 20 foot wide and about 45-50 feet long and a kitchen on one end of it and a dining room on the other part. And they had about 7 or 8 small tents, no facilities for hotel service, just a place to sleep.
Interviewer: Did you have to go up there on horseback?
Pete: No, you could go out there with a team and wagon and well, when I put in the telephone up there there had been just a few automobiles that go in there, but the roads were so narrow, they couldn't pass and that, what they call the Windy Point. It had a road on the west side of the mountain. That road was so narrow, that two cas couldn't pass on it. And I put in the telephone system. You had a telephone at the bottom of the hill, and one at the top of the hill. And if you were going up, you had to call the operator at the central office, and find out if anybody was coming down. And she'd give you permission to go. And if you was coming down it would be the same thing. You had to call from the top of the hill and find out if it would be permissible to come down. We had about five telephones up like that. ...1911 flood. That was pretty bad. See that was on October 5th. Well, October the 4th we had to go to Bayfield, and, of course, we had to go by wagon (team, you know) and that night of the 5th we had that flood. The Pine River was flooded, La Plata River was flooded. Everything around the country here was flooded. We was there in Bayfield on the 5th, that's the day of the flood, and we went and called to Durango, and couldn't get Durango. Every line in the country was out. Well, the bridges were washed out. The Pine River Valley was all under water. We had to stay at Bayfield two days and wait for it to quit raining. And we stayed there for two days, 'til the water began to recede and the approach to the bridge across the Pine River at Bayfield was all washed out. You couldn't use the bridge. So I had decided to find some way of crossing the river, to get back to Durango. So I started wading the river to find a safe place where there wouldn't be any deep holes, you know. And I was walking along, the water hit me about my waist. And I was walking along, and I saw a barn door lodged against some trees and something on this door. I walked up there and it was a pig laying on it. And this pig was alive. I thought it was dead, it was laying there...
SIDE 4
Pete: What was I saying?
Interviewer: You kicked the pig and it was alive?
Pete: Yeah. That pig was alive and I finally found a way of crossing the Pine River. So the next morning we started out, well, the river was going down pretty fast after it quit raining, but the roads was all washed out and the bridges, and what-not We traveled through sagebrush, and wherever you could get through, you know. And we left Bayfield about 7:30 that morning and we got to Durango at 11:00 that night. Well, we took 15th Street where we turned to go up 3rd Avenue, well that was all under water (Main Street was). And there was two old privies lodged on the...laying right on Main Street.
Interviewer: Wasn't anybody in them, was there?
Pete: No. They were all tipped over, washed in there. Well, we had quite a time getting those lines back in shape. That was on the 5th day, was the day of the flood, 5th of October. The 5th of November, just a month after that, I had to go to Ignacio on some trouble. And I went out to Ignacio on the train, and there wasn't much work connected with the trouble, so I got my trouble and I was waiting for the train to come from Durango so I could come back home ( same day) and the train come and I got on and the train, after it left Falfa out here, coming down that Wilson Gorge, you know, and it made a big loop in there. Well right in the middle of this loop and the train turned over. Well it was the engine and the box car then the coach that we was riding. It was partitioned off. Half of it was a smoker and the other half was baggage. And then behind that was another coach for anybody that didn't smoke. Going around this curve the king bolt on the front of this coach that I was riding in, broke and the car just slid of of the track and turned over. Two fellows sitting across the hall from where I was sitting, of course, we was all scrambling to get up, and these two fellows hauled on top of us. And I got up and I shook them off of me and stuck my arm through a window and crawled out. The old man that was riding in the same seat with me, why, I helped him get out. He cut his hand on the broken glass. I had a brand new pair of gloves and I was fixing his had up, where he cut it. I took my glove and put it on over the bandage, you know. And that was the last of my gloves. And then we had to ride in box cars to get into town.
Interviewer: When was it, Pete, that they thought you were dead?
Pete: Oh, well that was quite later. That was is in about, around '28 or '29. The year 1928. That was a lot later. We'll have to get to that later.
Interviewer: O.K.
Pete: But things went along... Well I met a girl, 1910. We come down from the mine to spend Christmas and I met my wife and that was in Christmas 1910. After I went work for the telephone company, we just kept going together. We got married 1913. May 17, 1913 we married. Well, she used to go with a young fellow there in town. Him and his father had a mining claim up in the mountains, and this young fellow was working this claim and he had a cave-in and was kind of caught in the cave and he got his back broke and he was paralyzed from his hips down. And that's when I first started to help my fellow man. And, of course, he didn't have any money. He was working for himself. And he had a nurse that had to be with him and we took him in, my wife and I, and we gave him and his nurse our bedroom and our bed and we slept on a cot in the living room. And we kept themt for four months and of course, we had no money. So that was free (a gratis). I wouldn't charge him anything. Well, next episode, we had some trouble on the Farmington toll line and boss sent me out on the trouble. Coming home right on top of what we called Farmington Hill, you know where that is, why there was an old jalopy setting along side the road and a man standing there by it. And I asked him if I could help him, if he had some trouble. Well, he says, "Could you give me some gas? I run out of gasoline." Well, I says, "I don't know if I have any gas to spare or not, but," I says, "we'll see." I gave him a gallon of gasoline, but his car wouldn't start. I says, "You've got some other trouble besides gasoline." He had one of those old Model T's, you know, that had those four ignition coils, you've probably seen them.
Interviewer: Not too many of them.
Pete: Well, one of those coils went bad, and he couldn't start it. So, I left and come on home. I set down to eat my supper, and I told my wife about seeing this old fella out there. I was eating supper and somebody was standing along side of me. I didn't see anybody. But somebody said, "You can't leave that man out there." I didn't know. I didn't see anybody. I don't know if it was just my conscience told me this. Anyway, I told Grace, I says, "I got to go out and get that man and bring him in here for the night, anyway." So I went up, and I got out there and he'd gone to bed. He was laying in the ditch in a bunch of old gunny sacks and a couple of horse blankets. I walked up to him and I says, "Hey, " I says, "get up." I says, "You can't lay there." I says, "I'm going to take you home and give you a half decent place to sleep and get you something to eat" (because I knew he hadn't had anything to eat, maybe for days). So we got his old jalopy turned around. I hooked on to it. I come on home. He was dirty, filthy, long hair, and long whiskers.dirty, his shoes was, well, you might say, wore out. I told him, I says, "We haven't got no bathroom." And I says, "We got a washstand there. You'll wash, and get cleaned up so we can look at you and see what you are. He got washed up. Grace got him something to eat. That was her habit. She never turned anybody down. No matter what they looked like, or what they were, she always gave them something to eat. So he got washed up. I says, "We have no place in the house," I says, "for you. Of course," I says, "its just a small house. Just room enough for our family. But," I says, "We got a nice barn out there with a loft in it and a nice dry place and you take you out there and fix you a bed. So I took him out there. We had a light already out there and I told him, I says, "Tomorrow," I says, "you ask the Mrs. to use one of her wash tubs," I says, "and you take it out here and you take a bath." I says, "We have no washtub" and I says, "You clean up," and I says, "I'll get you some clean clothes." So after work I went down to the store, and I bought him a whole new outfit - winter clothes, shoes and I brought them home and give them to him and I says, "You get these on," I says, "You'll probably look like a man or somebody. So he did. And I kept that man for three months. I got him a few days work for the company. So we always had a few dollars. We had enough to get his car fixed and the tank full of gas. I got home one night and Grace says, "Well," she says, "That man's gone and he said to thank you for what you've done for him and he said he imposed on us long enough, so he pulled out." I think he was heading for Farmington country. They were doing a lot of drilling at that time, and so he he was gone. Well, that was that. Sometime later I was working on some trouble behind Main Street and I had my pickup parked on 10th Street and I got my trouble all fixed, come back to the pickup, there was a young man standing there by the pickup, he says, "I see by your car, you must be working for the telephone company. I said, "Yes, I work for the telephone company." He says, "Do you suppose I can get some work with the telephone company?" He says, "I got a wife and a baby, 18 months old", and he says, "I have no money and the landlady here where I'm staying, turned us out. Says we have to get out. She couldn't keep us any longer." "Well, I says, "I don't know what I can do for you, but", I says, "you be right here tomorrow evening," and I says, "I'll come down and see you after I quit work." So the next evening I went down there, and there he was standing there, waiting for me, and I says "I had no luck trying to find work for you." I says, "You get your wife and baby, and the stuff you've got and I'll take you home." I says, "We've got a spare bedroom and we'll keep you for a few days and you might be able to find some work." So he got his wife, baby and I took them home and I kept them for three months. And so I told him, I says, "You keep busy looking for work," and I says, "You may find something." So he finally got a job out there at Mesa. Somebody had a dairy farm and they had a little cabin for their hired help, so he got fixed up all right. It seems like I was cut out to help somebody and I was going to work one morning and I passed an old man, (I was living up the valley at that time), walking up the road. He looked like he was just "all in, you know. I said to myself, I says, "Too bad that somebody can't take pity on an old man like that, and give him something to eat and a little rest. Well, behold when I got home, he was sitting on my back porch! And you know, I kept that old man for two years. But I guess, being too good to people, I kind of hurt myself. I lost my place up the Animas valley. Got behind a couple of payments and of course, they foreclosed on me and we had to move back to town. Well, I told the old man, I says, "I lost my place. We have to move back to town." I says, "I won't be able to keep you any longer." But I kept him long enough that he could get help from the county. So he was all right. He got in with somebody out in the valley there. He wanted to prospect. But, I tell you, he was an awful nice old man. But he got with this other people and he started drinking. He didn't drink and well, he was getting relief from the county and he was getting these groceries down there at the common store and he got to borrow some money from Mike Cummins and he was going to get him some whiskey. Well, Mike finally found out what he was doing and he quit. Wouldn't give him any money. So the old man got him a couple of sticks of dynamite and a fuse and a cap and he went and layed down just across the road from the Highway Garage and he put his head on the rock and lit the fuse, had it under his arm, and just blowed himself all to pieces.
Interviewer: That's sort of a messy way to do it...
Pete: Oh, yeah. That was terrible. Well, that was the end of that. And we got to town, went to town and there was a "Kid" married a widow, had three or four kids. He had no work. Well, Grace had lots of canned fruit and stuff. She gave them some stuff. And he told me one day, he says, "Hey, Pete, I know a fella thats got a Model T truck he wants to sell. He says he'll take $150 for it." It had no bed on it. Was just a running gear. And he says, "You buy that and fix it up and," he says, "I'll run it. Get a job on the road." (The highway was building and some roads.) And he says, "We'll split the difference. Whatever I make, I'll take half and you take half." Well I thought maybe that would be a good way to help him. So I said, "All right." I bought that truck. It had a long bed, oh it was too big for a dump truck and we had it cut down to a regular dump truck size. And I got a dump bed and a lift, you know, for dumping, and well it cost me about $300. And he got a job over at the other side of Cortez, over on Dove Creek. Had an old job over there. He got a job, but he doesn't know how to take care of a car or a truck and about all he made went to repairs for this truck. And he got to owe for board and room out there. I think it was a widow he got board and room with. And she told him one day, she says, "You have to get out." She says, "You haven't paid for a long time." She says, "I can't keep you any longer." And she says, "I'm going to keep that truck for what you owe." But, of course, she couldn't do that because that was my truck. And he called me up and told me what she'd told him. Well I had to go out there. I went and paid the old lady $18 he owed this woman. I gave her a check. And the road often closed down for the winter. So we didn't have no job and he brought the truck back in to Durango. We had a small storm and he got a job with the city to haul snow off the street. In doing that, he had to have a set of chains. I went and bought a set of chains, and paid $5 for them. And up to that I had got no return from the investment. He got through with the city and he come to me and he said, "By golly," he said, " I guess we're going to get a payday!"
SIDE 5
Pete: "...truck off of your hands." And he had a gravel pit up in the valley there. And he says, "I've got use for it . He says, "I'll give you $175 for it." Well that was about half of what it cost me. I had no use for it so I told him, "All right." Well, he says, "I won't be able to pay you now. I'll pay you later." Well that was it! Later never did come. So that was that. Of course, then we transfered to Denver. We was up there for five years. I took my retirement and I come back. But it still seemed like I had to help somebody. So I bought that trailer court and there was a young couple staying up there with us. And they had their little girl and she got sick. And they kept her in the hospital and he had no work. She finally died and they had to bury her. And hospital bills, funeral bills...so, in the mean time I sold out my interest to my brother-in-law and I went to Hesperus and got that piece of ground out there for a trailer house. And Dave got behind on his trailer rent. He owed $84. Well, my nephew was running the place. Well, he told him one day, he says, "Well, you'll have to get out." He says, "I can't keep you any longer." And he says, "I'm going to keep your trailer for what you owe." Well, ____________, he had no work and Dave liked me pretty well, and so he come to me one day. He says, "Pete," he says, "I want a little of your advice. I'm having trouble. Lost our bording. And," he says, "he's turning me out and he's keeping my trailer for what he owes." And I says, "That's kind of a dirty way of doing, isn't it?" "Well," he says, "I guess that's the way of the world." Well, I says, "Come on. Let's go down and see Mr. Burleigh and we got down there and I says to Burleigh, well, I says, "You and Dave's having some trouble, aren't you about rent? He says, "Yes." He says, "He owes $84 and from now on I can't keep him any longer. And he says, "I'm going to hold his trailer for what he owes." And I says, "You can't do that." I says, "That's dirty." Well, he says, "I've got to do it." I says, "Dave, you back my pickup up to your trailer and hook onto it." And I says, "We'll take it out of here." I says, "I'll go in and give this young punk a check for what you owe." And I gave Burleigh his check for $84 and we brought Dave's trailer house out to Hesperus. And I already had a spot for an extra trailer and I says, "This spot for trailer there and the spot already got fixed. And I says, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I says, "You keep your trailer on that spot until you get work." And I says, "The $84 you do the same way. You pay me when you get work." And I says, "All I want you to do is pay half of our light bill." And oh boy, he was tickled with that. And oh, he did a few days work. So we managed. And they stayed there two years and I didn't charge them a penny. So that was the last of that episode. And well ____________ got it now. I don't know if I should mention that or not. ______________, I don't think he's getting too much of a salary, is he?
Interviewer: I couldn't tell you, really.
Pete: Well, they generally don't. Well they've got five kids. Anyway, groceries and things going up. I tell you, its hard for a person. Well, in '74, I gave them $25 a month and I said that ______ me up for the kids, anyway. And last year, in '75 I gave them $30 a month and I am still doing it.
Interviewer: That probably helps quite a bit.
Pete: Oh yeah. So, that's about the end of it. I don't know who I'm goiing to help next. There'll probably be somebody to help.
Interviewer: Why don't you tell about some of the experiences you had working in the mountains on the telephone lines, and stuff.
Pete: ...one trip we had, one winter. And well, it was May and we case of trouble on the Alamosa toll line (that's up on the "Transcontinental Divide"). We had to get up in Durango. It was May, you know - everything was green down there, trees "leaved" up - it looked like summertime. Well, we didn't take any snow shoes and we got up to elevation about 8500 and we run into snow about there. I had made snow shoes out of spruce limbs, you know, tie the limbs together, going to use them for show shoes. Well, the wire we had was too stiff. I couldn't work it. I didn't have any luck at it. But we got to the cabin that night. I told him, I said, "We have to get out good and early in the morning," I says, "so we have that crust to travel on." So we started out - got to the top of the pass, that's about 11,000 feet, and the telephone line run across a park, up on top of the mountain. We started across this park, this fella with me was a big heavy fella. He weighed about 208 -210 lbs. And he started to go down through that snow. He didn't go very far until he played out. And I told him, I says, "You see that pine tree over there on the hillside? You work your way up there, and wait for me." I says, "I'll be back after a while." Well, I left him there. I started out, and I started to go through the snow. I had to get down on my hands and knees - walk like a bear across that snow! Got to the cabin. I called up Denver - called the task board. Well, he says, " You're trouble is about a mile, mile and a half, to the side of you yet, towards Alamosa. Well, I says, "I don't know. I'll see if we can get it." I says, "I had to leave my partner." I says, "He's played out. I had to leave him. I've got to go back and get him." I says, "But we'll get it, get the trouble as soon as we can." Well, the floor in the cabin had short borads - about three or four feet long. Well I tore up floor boards - part of the floor and made some snow shoes! I was going to go out, started back for him. By the time I got back to him, he was pretty well rested and all right. Had something to eat. I got these boards tied on his feet, started out. Well, he just walked right along, on top of the snow with the boards. Well, we got to the cabin and we stopped, made a fire and had some coffee and somemore stuff to eat. We started out. We got to our trouble and got it fixed and back to the cabin that night. I often thought I ought to have kept those boards. But we got down out of the snow and left them. Another trip we made up in there, the Alamosa end was in trouble, and we couldn't get Alamosa, but they could still call back and get Durango. Well, that evening, well, we had some more snow slides and it put the line out between us and Durango. So we was isolated. We had no way of calling anybody. And we got our trouble and went back home. My wife handed me a Denver Post. She says, "There's quite an article about you fellows and trouble. It said 'Two of Durango Telephone Employees Lost in a Snowslide' and they won't be able to go get their bodies until next summer." So we were dead for six months! Well, things like that happened quite often.
Interviewer: You told a story about when Grace went with you once and you were in that cabin, and...remember that?
Pete: Well, you know, that's when the company, bought out Colorado Telephone Company. They had to take inventory of the lines. And they gave me the job from Durango to the top of Wolf Creek. And we started out and Grace wanted to go with me, so I let her go. Well, she was quite a help. We walked along the line, measure the distance between poles and I had to get the size of the pole and how many wires was on it and all that information. She drove the team, so she was quite a help then. Well, we was on that job for a month and of course, we had no kids at the time, nobody to care for so, we got along all right and we got to the ranger station. It's eight miles up San Juan river, east of Pagosa, and we was staying there and this cabin had a big box for horse feed, so you could keep the chipmunks and stuff from eating the horse feed. It was right along side the window. And it had a pane broken in the window. Well, it had a little bedroom on one end of the cabin. I told the kids that was with me, I says, "You take the bedroom and my wife and I will sleep on the floor in here." Well, we made our bed alongside this feed box. Went to bed and oh, about 11:00 we were going to sleep. Grace let a scream out of her. She'd lit right on top of me and and like to scared me to death. I says "What in the world is the matter?" Well, she said, "Something jumped in my face." I had the flashlight right by my bed and a 22 gun and I got the light and started to locate what was in there that jumped on her face. Well, I finally spotted it, sitting on the wood box. It was a great big mountain rat. Well, I says, "You hold the light. Hold it right on him and," I says, "I'll fix him." So I got my gun and I killed him. But, oh boy, she was liked to have scared me to death! Well, I don't know of much more of interest to tell you.
Interviewer: How about talking about...there was a couple of inventions that you thought of. The thing when you couldn't figure out how to get the telephone line across that river?
Pete: Yeah. Well, that was something. That was in 1927. We had another flood - washed the toll line out on the Piedra River. We couldn't get the line across and we worked on putting the thing up all day and we never made any progress, trying to get across there. There was a kid there in Durango, had a little cannon. We borrowed it and we had a lead slug with a loop in it. We got up, tied a string to this lead slug, you know, bring this gun, going to shoot it across. Well, we lit the fuse, you know, the thing went off. The jerk took up the slack, and the line, well, it broke. The slug just went on - no line across. So I remember when I was a kid we used to fish. We made a contraption - take a board, put a lead weight on the bottom, and set it up on edge, like this. Put this lead weight on the bottom and the thing would stand up, like that, in water. Well, we had some of those big heavy clamps, you know, for guy wires. I had some in the pickup and I got a couple of them, found me a board and nailed those weights on the bottom of this board. It stood up in the water, just fine and dandy. I tied the wire to the side of the board and tied a wire to it and started across the river. Got out so far and the weight of the wire and the pressure against the wire in the water - it just stopped right there and wouldn't go any further. So there was a big Cottonwood, right there where I was working, I climbed up in this Cottonwood, got the wires in the top of the tree - that kept it up out of the water, see? And ____________________________________. The day before that, I told him _______, I says, "You get a boat tomorrow," and I says, "We'll take that wire across in a boat. I could handle a boat like it was nobody's business. And well he says, "I've got to call Grand Junction, call the big boss, and get his permission about crossing this in a boat. So that evening we called the boss in Grand Junction. "Oh, no", he says, "Don't you ever let him in a boat!" He says, "We ain't going to have nobody drown getting that wire across." But we already had the wire across!
Interviewer: That was a pretty clever invention!
Pete: Yeah, well, we made them when we was a kid.
Interviewer: To fish with?
Pete: Yeah, we tie a couple lines to it let it run out in the river. Went out so far, you know, and we walk along and that thing would just stay out there, we'd get a fish, just pull it in. We used that quite a bit fishing.
Interviewer: Did you eat a lot of fish when you was growing up?
Pete: Yeah. We never had no meat. Beef was not in the question. But we always had plenty of fish.
Interviewer: There was another sort of a little invention that you made out of a beer bottle...
Pete: Yeah. That when I run to a couple of women going to Mancos. The other side of Mancos there was Hesperus, you know? There was a car standing there in the road, and I stopped and asked them if they were having trouble. It was Perish Ann __________and her daughter. They were coming to town and they run out of gas. Well, I says, "I'll take your girl back to Hesperus and get some gas. And I says, "I'll bring her back." Well we went and got the gas back to the car and __________with me trying to pour gas out of a bucket into the gas tank. And I told Ann, I says, "By golly, we're having trouble. you haven't got a funnel in the car have you?" And she said, "No, nothing we can use for a funnel." Well, I says, "I haven't got one either." And I says, "Wait a minute and I think I''ll look around, see what I can find."
SIDE 6
Pete:...I went over to the ditch bank. I found a beer bottle. And I had a screwdriver with a long shank on it that would go down in the opening of the bottle. I put the screwdriver in the bottom, gave a quick tap, like that, that bottom come out of that bottle just slick and pretty. Ann looked up at me and said, "My golly," she said, "Now I've seen everything!" And it made a pretty good funnel.
Interviewer: Was there another occasion that you were talking about when you stopped to help somebody out, with car trouble, out in the desert or someplace? Seems like I recall you were on your way to California, or something....maybe not.
Pete: I can't remember.
Interviewer: Seems like you were talking about you went one way and ended up you found out you should have went the other way, or something. I don't quite remember the details of that story. Was there one where you needed some sort of a part and you looked down on the ground and there it was?
Pete: I can't remember.
Interviewer: I might be mixed up with something Mrs. Adin told me.
Pete: That could be. I guess she had some experiences too. But I guess you have to be satisfied with that.
Interviewer: What about when you went up to this guys cabin that was supposed to put you up. And he had his family there for Christmas...
Pete: Oh, yeah. Went over on the other side of Cold Bank Hill. That was on Christmas Eve and we got back to this power company station about 10:00 Christmas Eve. And I knew the fellow, and lights were still on in the cabin. I says, "That's a something unusual, them being up at this time of night." And I knocked on the door, he come to the door, and says, "What you doing out here?" I says, "I'm looking for a place to stay overnight. "Well," he says, "I can't do anything for you. Tonight my family's up to spend Christmas with me." Well, I says, "Could you give us something to eat?" "Yeah," he says, "I'll feed you." And he says, "There's a sheep herder's cabin, over here a little way, and it has a fireplace, a bunk." He said, "I don't know what else is in there." He says, "That'll give you a place to stay for the night." I said,"All right." We had our supper. He took us over to this cabin. We had quite a bit of wood in there. We finally got a fire started. Pretty near froze to death keeping the fire going! So I looked at the bunk. It had an old mattress on it. Over in the other corner of the cabin, there was an old mattress, rolled up, laying there. I got it, put it on top of this one on the bunk, buttoned up my jacket and I says, "I'm going to bed, goodnight." I crawled in between these two old mattresses and woke up the next morning and you could stick your hand out between the logs in the wall. 32 below zero!
Interviewer: You could get pretty cold. And then did you go out and wash yourself with a piece of ice?! What was Durango like in 1910, Pete?
Pete: Well, it wasn't much of a place...Lots of vacant lots on Main Street and when we took Main Street down here from 17th Street, going north, there wasn't even a street light.
Interviewer: Was there mostly mining, as far as work around here?
Pete: I'll have to tell you about when I moved back to Durango from up in the valley. That was in the 30's, during the Depression. Thy asked me to run on the city council. I says, "All right." So I served first term on the council. Election come up the second term. People asked me to run again. I decided I would. There was a guy running against me, and he says, "Yeah, I'm going to get Pete out of there." He says, "I don't like his idea of being on the council." So election day come, the votes were cast, oh, I don't know, about 7500 people voted. They counted the votes. This guy running against me got his own vote, and I got all the rest of them.
Interviewer: That was sort of a landslide! You helped get the first sewer in there, didn't you?
Pete: Yeah, you know, during the Depression there was no work, and I was on the council and we talked things over and we decided to get a sewer put in over for Animas City. We inquired about it and the government said they'd put it in for $105,000. Well, that was lots of money at that time, but he says, "That's what the original cost would be, but," he says, "I think we can cut that down quite a bit." Well we gave him the job to put in the sewer. It cost Animas City $15,000 instead of $105,000. And we got to buy a truck and we hauled gravel and stuff with the truck, so the truck didn't cost us anything. But, you know, there was several people, kicking about us putting in that sewer. They even had us in court. Had us subpoenaed in court and tried to make us quit. And the judge kind of agreed. "Fellows", he said, "You're doing a wonderful job, just go right ahead and do it." And when I was on the council we were going through some of the minutes of years by, you know, and there was one minute there, showed where some fellow drowned above Animas City and his body lodged against 32nd Street Bridge. And Animas had an ordinance that if you carried a concealed weapon, you'd be fined. Well, this guy had a gun on him, so they fined him!
Interviewer: What did they mine out of that Neglected Mine? What kind of ore did they get?
Pete: Gold
Interviewer: How did they go about mining in those days? Was it just with a pick and all?
Pete: Oh no...drill. Yeah, an Italian kid come up, asked for a job, so the boss gave him a job mucking, and traming off the dirt, you know. By golly he didn't work over two weeks until he high graded the gold. They have a place in the...well it's just a kind of hole off the main tunnel, it wasn't very deep, just a few feet and it had some pure gold show up in there. And by golly, the kid, he got next to it and he high graded the stuff, before he'd worked there two weeks.
Interviewer: What's that mean, "high grade?"
Pete: That's stealing.
Interviewer: Oh. What'd he do, just take in out with the old dirt and stuff?
Pete: Uh huh. Well the mining outfit that was selling stock in the mine at that time, you see, and they had this for bait, to show people what they had, you know. But this kid, fixed that part of it!
Interviewer: What'd they do to him?
Pete: Fired him.
Interviewer: He'd probably got a lot of gold out of there by then, hadn't he?
Pete: Oh, he'd got some...I don't know just how much. He got some.
Interviewer: Was that a pretty common occurence for somebody to get some gold for themselves?
Pete: Oh yeah, that's always been the case in mining. High grading. Had some ore, transported gold, you know, then they steal it, some of it, anyway.
Interviewer: It wasn't worth it to steal the cruder ore, huh?
Pete: Yeah.
Interviewer: Well, Pete, I guess we've pretty well covered the highlights, huh?
Pete: Yeah.
Interviewer: Probably forgot something, but I don't know what.
Pete: Lot of things happened, but not worth mentioning....Well, 1913 I put in the first telephone at Mesa Verde Park. They had no telephone service, so I put up a line, put in a telephone, first one, and it was several years after that, they was having some trouble on the line, and they asked me to come out and get it, get the trouble. I told them I would for $25. They said, "Oh no, we can't pay that kind of money." And I said, "All right, I'm not crazy about getting into slide, killed at the work. And so it went on he got his own men looking for this trouble on the line, and I guess they spent about $200 trying to find the trouble, and they didn't find it.
Interviewer: So they spent $200 trying to fix it themselves.
Pete: Yeah, They didn't have any luck finding it, so we went out and got it that night. Got the trouble, about 11:00 that night. I think it was well worth their $25 for it.
Interviewer: Yeah, I imagine they were glad to pay it by that time.
Pete: Yeah.
Interviewer: I recalled another little incident that was sort of amusing. It was when this fellow was real thirsty and was eating snow...
Pete: Oh, yeah, there was one time we were on the other side of Coal Bank and this fellow kept eating snow all the time, and I told him to quit it. I says, "That's the worst thing you can do, when you're traveling like we are." But he heard some water running under the snow. He started digging for it. And I was 50-75 feet ahead of him. Where I was, the water was out in the open, you know. I asked him, I says, "Why don't you come up here and have a drink?" He came up there and he said, "You SOB , you made me do all this digging for nothing!"
Interviewer: Does it make you more thirsty when you eat snow?
Pete: Yeah, it does, and you just have to keep eating it. It just seems like, well I don't know...I'll tell something that's good if you're out in the snow like that. If you have a small pebble, rock, and you put it in your mouth, and that will sure keep you from wanting a drink. It's just remarkable what it will do.
Interviewer: Is that the same time when you were skiing and there was a place where the dust had blown up on top of the snow?
Pete: Yeah, up on Coal Bank? Yeah, they had one of those dust storms, and we was coming down off of Coal Bank. I was ahead, and I noticed that black streak on the snow, and I knew what it was because we'd had a dust storm. I prepared myself for hitting them. And I got across all right, and the guy that was with me, he didn't realize what it would do, and he come down there, and he hit that streak of dust, and his skiis just stopped like that, you know. He sure went a spinning.
Interviewer: Well I guess we better wrap this up so you can get on.
Pete: Oh, I might think of something else later on. We can do it tonight.
Interviewer: We've got three hours worth, here. That's pretty good.
Pete: Yeah.
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