In Focus Volume 4 No. 1

In Focus Volume 4 No. 1

A Journal of Archaeology, Essays, Fictions, Folklore, Natural History, Native American Culture, Nevada History, Old Photographs, and Poetry.

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

1990-1991

CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
A Journal of
ARCHAEOLOGY NATIVE AMERICAN
ESSAYS CULTURE
FICTION NEVADA HISTORY
FOLKLORE OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
NATURAL HISTORY POETRY
THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, FALLON, NEVADA
1990-1991
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM ASSOCIATION, INC.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Susan McCormick, Chairman
Al Glaubitz, Vice Chairman
Kathy Albiston, Secretary
Myrl Nygren, Treasurer
Wilva Blue, Accessions Coordinator
Vaughna Bendickson, Trustee
Lauren Chealander, Trustee
Ken Coverston, Trustee
Dan Luke, Sr., Trustee
Harold Rogers, Trustee
Nancy Soule, Trustee
Cyril Schank, Commissioner
EDITORIAL POLICY
IN FOCUS solicits articles or photographs of scholarly or popular interest dealing with the history and people of Churchill County and neighboring Nevada regions. Prospective contributors should send their work to the Editor, IN FOCUS, Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406. Articles should be typed, double-spaced, and sent in duplicate. If the article is available on a computer disk, it can be submitted in this form, to eliminate retyping. For return of the manuscript, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Copyright Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., 1990. Manuscripts and photographs for each annual publication must be received by May 15 for consideration for that year's journal.
Authors of articles accepted for publication will receive three complimentary copies of the Journal.
IN FOCUS is published annually by the Churchill County Museum Association, Inc., a non-profit Nevada corporation. A complimentary copy of IN FOCUS is sent to all members of the Museum Association. Membership dues are:
SENIOR (60+) $ 10.00
INDIVIDUAL 15.00
FAMILY 20.00
LIFE 250.00
Membership applications and dues should be sent to the Director, Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406. Copies are also sold through the Museum Mercantile shop, located in the Museum, by mail, and at several retail outlets.
The Editors of IN FOCUS and the Churchill County Museum Association disclaim any responsibility for statements, of fact or opinion, made by the contributors.
POSTMASTER: Return postage guaranteed. Send address changes to Churchill County IN FOCUS, 1050 South Maine Street, Fallon, NV 89406.
Cover Photograph: The Fairview Bar in old Fairview, c1909. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Colen F. Hoover Collection. Photographer unknown)
CHURCHILL COUNTY
IN FOCUS
ANNUAL JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
VOLUME 4 1990-1991 NUMBER 1
Contents
SOFT FOCUS
The Editors' Comments Michon Mackedon and Sharon Lee Taylor 1
SHADOW CATCHER
Jesse and Colen Hoover: Memories of Fairview Sharon Lee Taylor 3
SHARP FOCUS
Project Shoal: Anatomy of a Nuclear Event Michon Mackedon 11
FOCUS ON 75 YEARS AGO:
Lahontan Dam: 75 Years of Fulfilling a Dream .... Eloise A. Enos 23
Hoping Lilly Field Pearl 30
Harmon School--A History, Part I: 1906-1916 Maie Nygren 32
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Sonny Mosquito and the Chicken Dance .... Adam Fortunate Eagle 44
PIONEER PORTRAITS
Nevada Humanities Committee Funds Fallon
Oral History Project Sylvia Arden 53
Excerpts from the Oral History of Elmer J. Huckaby,
Elaine Hesselgesser, Interviewer Elmer J. Huckaby 56
Excerpts from the Oral History of Ivy Wallace Ringstrom,
Marian LaVoy, Interviewer Ivy Wallace Ringstrom 66
FAMILY SNAPSHOTS
George C. Coverston and the Fallon Garage .. Ethelyn E. Coverston 82
Fred and Lizzie Lucile Kirn Riley 96
CREATIVE FOCUS
bad mood Nila Northsun 105
ditchrider Nila Northsun 106
at Gramma' s House Nila Northsun 107
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
The Audubon Christmas Bird Count William T. Mewaldt 108
IN MEMORY
Marguerite Coverston Members of the Museum Staff 111
CONTRIBUTORS 114
CORRECTIONS 117
SOFT FOCUS
The Editors' Comments
THESE ARE EXCITING times for those of us committed to the publication of In Focus. Much has happened this past year to reinforce our faith, not only in In Focus, but also in our reading public. Last year, I issued a plea for help. I needed articles about your families and your experiences in Lahontan Valley. Help arrived in the form of two original and interesting family memoirs, one about Fred and Lizzie Kim, the other about George C. Coverston. Both are included in this issue. Meanwhile, the museum applied for and received a grant from the Nevada Humanities Committee to implement an oral history project. One of the results of that highly successful endeavor is a cache of appropriate, entertaining and unique material for present and future use in In Focus.
The good fortune continued. The photo essay on Fairview is the result of a letter which arrived out of the blue from a Mr. Colen Hoover of Kansas, offering to the museum his collection of Fairview photographs. Staff morale received a boost when the Reno Gazette-Journal ran an article by columnist Philip Earl, congratulating the Churchill County Museum for "this fine addition to the literature of Nevada's history." And, most pleasing of all, letters and phone calls have arrived all year, telling us that we are both read and appreciated.
MICHON MACKEDON, EDITOR
I always find the time spent each year finishing up In Focus a combination of exhiliration and exhaustion! It is a pleasure working with our Editor, the writers, volunteers and staff. This is the second year with our desktop publishing system allowing us almost unbelievable control over our manuscript from start to finish. Our printer has again given us the "red carpet" treatment. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have enjoyed the challenge of bringing it to you.
SHARON LEE TAYLOR, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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2 Mackedon & Taylor
SHADOW CATCHER
Jesse and Colen Hoover:
Memories of Fairview
SHARON LEE TAYLOR
TWENTIETH CENTURY MINING camps in Nevada continue to intrigue historians and writers. They thrived only yesterday, a time that seems so near and is really so long ago. Many of the stories hinted at in the rubble that shrouds their ruins and abandoned mines are lost to us. It is fortunate that writers like Hugh A. Shamberger have combined the first person memories of surviving residents with the fact and fiction that had grown up around camps like Seven Troughs, Weepah, Wonder and Fairview.
Fairview is the 1906 camp perched on the east side of Fairview Peak overlooking Labeau Flat in eastern Churchill County. The discovery of rich ore and silver-bearing float created considerable excitement, and a boom occurred within a year. The town was originally laid out just west of the mines, on the edge of the flat, and attracted 1,000 residents for the hotels, restaurants, stores, and two newspapers that sprang up. Electric power and a telephone line
L to R: Jesse James Hoover, 1897-1930. Colen Franklin Hoover, 1909-. Robert Lee Hoover, 1901-1984 taken c1915. (Churchill County Museum & Archives --Colen F. Hoover Collection)
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4 Sharon Lee Taylor
connected this remote camp with the county seat at Fallon, 42 miles northwest, and the neighboring camp of Wonder, 18 miles north. All of these facts and more are contained in the pages of Shamberger's delightful book The Story of Fairview, Churchill County, Nevada. A little about the Fairview Mining District, its people, its towns and mines, its quest for water, and its promoters, all of which made an interesting chapter in the mining history of Nevada, first published in 1973. It seemed that the book was closed. But no one told Colen Franklin Hoover that.
One day a letter arrived at the Churchill County Museum from Kansas, and county history has never been the same since. Those of us doing research in 1990 never thought we'd have a chance to learn something firsthand from a resident of this interesting place. His numerous letters and subsequent gifts of photographs and family anecdotes are a very special gift to the residents of Churchill County, and one that we are delighted to share with you.
James Samuel Hoover and his wife Edith Ett Rice had their first child, Jesse James in 1897. The Hoover family then began an odyssey that took them throughout the west, from their home in Missouri to Taos, New Mexico in 1898, and then to Kansas. By 1906, their growing family included a second son, Robert Lee, born in 1901. News of the boom at Fairview, Nevada, reached them at their farm in Kansas.
Leaving shortly thereafter, the Hoovers finally reached Fairview, after losing their way. There is little remembered of their stay during these first boom years. Colen Franklin Hoover was born in Old Town Fairview on April 4, 1909. He was named after Cole Younger and Frank James, outlaws of an earlier period. James' mother was a close friend of Colen's grandmother. His parents then took him and his two brothers back to Freeman, Missouri. They weren't happy there. Selling their farm in mid-summer of 1910, they took a covered wagon with all their belongings and returned to Nevada. The trip took 85 days, as feed for the team was hard to come by, and there were no marked roads most of the way.
After they arrived at Fairview this second time, "Jim" Hoover began a general store and water hauling business. Domestic water was fetching a high price, and he was able to provide it at a lower cost. His wife became the postmaster for a short time.
It was Colen's older brother Jesse James, named after the famed outlaw, who will help us focus on the fading years of Fairview. He obtained his first Eastman Folding Camera when he was about sixteen (1913). From then until 1915, when the family left Fairview for the last time, Jesse used the camera to record it, structures, people and events of the town. Now, the images he captured, along with his brother Colen's memories of the events tied to them, shed new light on the decline of this high desert mining camp.
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The Palace was located in Old Fairview just above the flats. Colen Hoover was born in the old town, but, according to family recollections, while they were gone, sometime in 1910, there was a flood that devastated it. Returning in 1911, they found that the townsite had been moved further up the canyon. A Mr. Kent is shown. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Colen F. Hoover Collection. Photographer unknown, c1909)
Old Fairview, c1909. (Churchill County Museum & Archives -- Colen F. Hoover Collection. Photographer unknown, c1909)
6 Sharon Lee Taylor
Old Fairview. Dr. Servoss (4th from L) was a subsidy doctor working in Fairview. He delivered Colen Hoover in 1909. (Churchill County Museum & Archives — Colen F. Hoover Collection. Photographer unknown, c1909)
This is the part of the site of Old Fairview where the first Hoover home was located. The building was destroyed in the flood thought to have taken place in 1910. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
Jesse and Colen Hoover 7
The Hoover General Store was built in 1911 and faced west on the lower end of town at the new location of Fairview. It served as a grocery and drygoods store. At one time it housed the Post Office. The store provided drayage for local moving. A blacksmith shop was later added to provide service for the family owned wagons. The cans sitting on the loading dock were 5 gallon kerosene cans. Miners reused them to hold domestic water. An old car seat is being used as a bench.
A second grocery store was located farther up the canyon. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
8 Sharon Lee Taylor
The Hoover water wagon, used to bring domestic water from East Gate to Fairview. Driving the wagon is James Hoover, with Mrs. Wasser. Standing is Mr. Wasser. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
The new location of Fairview, c1913. The school can be seen in the distance. High on the hill to the right is the is the home of the Superintendent of the Nevada Hills Mine. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
Jesse and Colen Hoover 9
This photograph was taken inside the Hoover General Store. Colen Hoover is seen in the lower center, in front of the wrapping-paper roll. On display to the right are a vinegar barrel, oranges and lemons in crates, and a sack of potatoes. In the corner is the egg case. Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco rests on the shelves, along with Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, K-C Baking Powder, syrup, flour, crackers, and many varieties of canned goods. Butter was kept in a cold frame. Also in stock were Levi-Strauss jackets and overalls, and during a wet winter, shipments of smelly, part rubber overshoes.
As a treat for the miners, his mother also made and sold baked goods, such as bread and cakes. Also on hand was cotton string, kerosene and candle wax. Because Fairview had telephone service, it was possible to order perishables from Fallon and have them delivered by the horse-drawn stage.
(Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
Hoover helped George Budd, a retired circus acrobat, by setting him up as the shoe and harness repairman for Fairview.
(Churchill County Museum & Archives-Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F. Hoover Collection)
10 Sharon Lee Taylor
Looking down from Fairview Peak at the Nevada Hills Mine and Mill c1913.
(Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F.
Hoover Collection)
This is the powerful hoist at work in the Nevada Hills Mine, c1913.
(Churchill County Museum & Archives--Jesse James Hoover photograph, Colen F.
Hoover Collection)
SHARP FOCUS
Project Shoal: Anatomy of a
Nuclear Event
MICHON MACKEDON
THE SIGNS OF a singular event must have been apparent to the eastbound traveller on Highway 50 as he reached a point 23 miles east of Fallon, Nevada, a few minutes before ten o'clock on the morning of Saturday, October 26, 1963. The high Basin and Range desert near Fourmile Flat would have looked peaceful enough, white and spare in the clean light of late October. But, just where the highway enters a pass through the Sand Springs Range, the traveller would have been stopped by a roadblock manned by brown-shined officials wearing dosimeter badges, which detect the presence of radioactivity. On close inspection of his surroundings, one familiar with the area would have noted that an eerie silence characterized the air space over Sand Springs/Fourmile Flat, normally buzzing with the activity of pilots training at the nearby Fallon Naval Auxiliary Air Station, and he would have seen the newly-cleared parking area beside the highway, marked "For Observation." Our traveller was about to witness Project Shoal, an underground nuclear weapons test held at Sand Springs, Churchill County, Nevada, on that Saturday morning.
At precisely 10 a.m., a twelve kiloton nuclear bomb was exploded 1200 feet underground, a few miles from the roadblock on Highway 50. A bright magnesium flare marked the exact moment of detonation. For the length of a suspended breath, nothing happened. Then, those observing the blast from a distance of 4000 feet were "jarred by a severe ground shock.... Four seconds after the blast, a loud roar filled the air and a cloud of dust a thousand feet long began to rise over ground zero" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, October 29, 1963).
After ten minutes, the roadblocks were taken down; our traveller moved onward. At 3 a.m. the next morning, airspace was reopened to private and military flights. Five days later, The Fallon paper carried an announcement of the success of Project Shoal. Within a few months final reports on the event were filed; the Atomic Energy Office, which had been opened in Fallon in 1961, closed, and the event seemed all but forgotten by the residents of Churchill County, who, judging from newspaper accounts, were caught up in the excitement generated by the installation of a natural gas pipeline by Southwest Gas Corporation.
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12 Michon Mackedon
Frenchman Station, on Highway 50, as photographed prior to the detonation. 1963. (© Mary Walker Foster, reprinted from VUF-1015)
Today, most Churchill County residents are unaware that Project Shoal took place. When told about the event, they express disbelief that a 12 kiloton nuclear weapon was once exploded 28 miles from Fallon's City Hall, 20 miles from Stillwater, 12 miles from Salt Wells, 5 miles from Sand Mountain. Many are even more surprised by what appears to have been an acceptance of the project by those living next to it at the time.
The news accounts reveal more by what is not in them than by what is. The local paper, the Fallon Eagle-Standard chronicled the progess made in drilling the holes for emplacement of the bomb and the instruments, and it announced bid deadlines and employment figures; but what is not present is news of the kind of activities which routinely accompany today's underground weapons tests--no public inquiry, no stories of protests or boycotts, no pictures of sign-carrying demonstrators, no letters to the editor expressing reservations about--or support for--Project Shoal. It becomes apparent that the story of Project Shoal, as told by the newspapers and documents of the early sixties is much different from the story that would result from a similar event taking place in 1990.
Several factors explain the quiescence of the townspeople. In 1963, the United States, in terms of its experience with atomic energy, was still in its
Project Shoal 13
childhood, a state of development characterized by an optimism and innocence that are both its blessing and its curse. The enthusiam we felt for most things nuclear was, of course, mingled with apprehension brought by the knowledge of the horrifying destructive potential of atomic energy, as manifested at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Bikini Atoll. But, in most minds, the scales were tipped in favor of further exploring and developing our atomic technology, of testing atomic weapons as a means to advance knowledge and maintain the advantage in international negotiations, and of stockpiling bombs as a deterrent to the Soviet threat.
The bomb was perceived as not only necessary but, indeed, as the answer to our prayers for peace, progress, and prosperity. The prayers in question were not just a figure of speech; God's name was often invoked in the same sentence with the atomic bomb. President Harry S. Truman, addressing the nation in the wake of Hiroshima, said, "It is an awful responsibility that has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us instead of to our enemies, and we pray that He may guide us to use it in his ways and for his purposes." When the natives of Bikini Atoll were asked to give up their island for the testing of the atomic bomb, they were told that "Everything being in God's hands, it can't be anything but good." The lyrics to a post-war song contain the line, "I believe the bomb that struck Hiroshima/ Was the answer to a fighting boy's prayer" (The Atomic Cafe). (An echo of the association is still occasionally heard. A report of the dedication of a World War II memorial in Wendover, Nevada, printed in the Reno Gazette-Journal, August 26, 1990, bears the bannerline "Thank you, God, for the Atom Bomb.")
Added to this post-World War II awe of the bomb was a persistent public relations effort by the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy). Constandina Titus, professor of political science at UNLV and author of Bombs in the Backyard, has analyzed the techniques used by the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950's and '60's to "sell the bomb." First, they constantly reminded the American people of the threat from Soviet Russia, capitalizing on fear to keep the weapons testing program at the front of our defense strategy. Second, the AEC, reinforced by politicians and bureaucrats, stressed the potential of the atom to bring technological progress to all areas of American life. President Eisenhower, in his famous "Atoms for Peace" speech of December, 1953, proposed that a pool of atomic materials be established to make the "deserts flourish" and help "to warm the cold, to feed the hungry, to alleviate the misery of the world." What followed was an outbreak of atomic dreaming. Atomic zoos, atomic greenhouses, atomic saws, and atomic locomotives were envisioned and designed on the pages of newspapers and magazines. One plan put forth by the AEC, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and the State of California Division of Highways called for twenty-two nuclear explosions to cut a pass through the Bristol Mountains near Amboy, California (Titus, 67).
14 Michon Mackedon
The back bar at Frenchman Station, as photographed before the detonation. A post-shot photograph was also taken, revealing no damage to the stock of liquor. 1963. (© Mary Walker Foster)
The third strategy of the AEC and the government was, and still is, to emphasize the safety--and the safeguards--of atomic testing. Press releases concerning testing included statements similar to these: "All necessary precautions will be taken," "The health and safety of the public is a primary consideration," and the ubiquitous phrase, "no radiation has been detected above normal background readings" (Titus, 74-85).
It is within this climate of public optimism and aggressive AEC public relations efforts that Project Shoal was undertaken in Churchill County. The newspapers of the time support Titus's analysis of AEC strategies. Her comments on the pervasive anti-Soviet climate are borne out by a local editorial of July 9, 1963, entitled "The Free are Always in Danger." The article quotes a Mr. James A. Farley who had recently stated in an article in Reader's Digest, "Communists are moving war toward us. Today they are on our doorstep." Project Shoal, itself, is described in press releases as an economic boon to the community. Headlines read: "AEC to ask for bids on construction work in Sand Springs Area"; "Salt Lake Firm Low Bidder for AEC Shaft Construction"; "Forty Miners will be Employed"; "Contractors Advised AEC to Issue Plans for Drilling Program." Potentially hot words, like "bomb," "explosion," "fallout,"
Project Shoal 15
"radiation" were avoided in favor of neutral, cool, business words--"drilling project," "dollars," "drift work" and "contruction bids." The reports also included two curious phrases which may have been used to keep public concern at bay. One phrase, attached to almost all of the pre-shot news, read, "No detonation has yet been approved." The second phrase, appearing as late as September 19, 1963 (just one month prior to the blast) read, "No date or range of dates has been set" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, January-October, 1963).
Newspaper companion pieces to the reports of Project Shoal reveal much about the general public interest in science, technology, and progress. In the May 24, 1963 edition of the Fallon Eagle-Standard, a news release on Project Shoal is juxtaposed to a syndicated "Science Topics" column entitled "Atomic explosions help measure earth's shell." A touring "parade of industry," highlighting the potential for high-tech development in the state, made front page news as did word that the "Industrial Future of Fallon Good."
Furthermore, the suitability, even necessity, of Sand Springs as a location for the shot was stressed in the press releases of the time. Dr. Robert Frosch of the Project office explained that the area had been chosen because of its proximity to the Dixie Valley-Fairview earthquake sites. "The primary purpose," said Frosch, "is to obtain seismic signals from a nuclear explosion in an area where natural earthquakes occur, in order that we can compare the seismic 'signatures' from the two sources occurring in the same area, and thus having the same characteristics" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, October 29, 1963). Such data was necessary because, with an above-ground test ban treaty on the table, it was imperative that the United States discover ways to verify underground Soviet tests and to distinguish them from naturally occurring earthquakes. Sand Springs, Churchill County, Nevada, was the perfect site because "The famous Dixie Valley-Fairview Peak quakes were so extensive that after-shocks from this quake are still being recorded" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, January 11, 1963).
The public relation efforts were not confined to newspaper releases. An Atomic Energy Commission office was opened at 335 East Stillwater and the townspeople were invited to stop by. A "diorama" of Project Shoal was constructed and loaned to various public institutions for display. The Eagle-Standard, Friday, April 19, and Tuesday, May 28, 1963, reported the rotation of the diorama from the First National Bank to Churchill County High School to the Churchill Public Library. Service organizations were encouraged to borrow it to display at their meetings. The AEC effort also focused on troubleshooting unforeseen developments. A public meeting was announced in the Eagle-Standard of October 1, 1963, to "explain that a recent detonation which caused earth tremors in Las Vegas was many times as powerful as Shoal. It will be explained also that the tremor felt in Las Vegas was barely above the strength at which humans begin to feel earth shocks, and represented a fraction of the energy at which property damage would ordinarily be seen." The Public Health
16 Michon Mackedon
A map of the Project Shoal vicinity, revealing the locations of the mines and structures surveyed and photographed. 1963. (reprinted from VUF-1015)
Service added its participation to the vigilent effort to sell the project to the public. Lectures, demonstrations, and movies explaining air and water sampling procedures were presented to Lions Club, Rotary Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion groups, and at the local schools (VUF-1009, 3).
Meanwhile, preparations were underway for the shot itself. Documents published after the completion of Project Shoal tell a story that is, in retrospect, almost fantastic, a story of urgent and thorough preparations that reveal the reverse of what they purported to prove. For the researcher of Project Shoal, it becomes clear that no real or theoretical stone was left unturned in the quest for scientific guarantees that the event would not bring unexpected disaster. The underlying paradox is that only an event which is inherently extremely dangerous and subject to unknown consequences could inspire a quest for safety assurances like that undertaken by the scientists and technocrats of Project Shoal.
Several years before D-day, Project Shoal, studies commenced to analyze the geology, hydrology, and chemistry of Sand Springs Range, Faiview Valley, and Fourmile Flat. The water levels of the wells in the area were carefully measured, checked, and rechecked. A gravity survey was designed to investigate the valleys and ranges to determine the Basin-Range fault pattern in order to arrive at estimates of displacements resulting from blast shocks. Tests were made of
Project Shoal 17
thermal conductivity, permeability and elastic properties of the granite host rock at ground zero. Hydrologic studies focused on the origin of the water in the area, "its rate and direction of movement, and the location of all points where water is removed from the system, either naturally or artificially" in order that probability of ground water contamination might be predicted (VUF-1001, 60).
Two Public Health Service personnel were assigned to the project office to establish air sampling stations, select milk and water collection points and conduct public relations work (VUF-1009). Every mining structure within a twenty mile radius of the Shoal event was inspected and photographed so that potential damage could be assessed. Thirteen privately owned mining properties were surveyed in this way and photographed by Fallon photographer Mary Foster both before and after the detonation. Among the thirteen mines surveyed were the Nevada Scheelite Mine, Red Top Mine, Dromedary Hump Mine, Aldona Mine, Buffalo Hump Mine, Summit King Mines, Broken Hills Claims (VUF-1010). Three additional mines outside the radius were included at the owners' requests, and Mrs. Foster remembers travelling as far south as Mina, Nevada, to complete her photograhic task. Private businesses and ranches within the zone were similarly inspected and photographed, including the popular Highway 50 stops, Frenchman's Station and the Big Top Restaurant.
The kinetic physical energy was matched by a massive accumulation of scientific paraphanalia, at sight of which the unbriefed observer might have thought he had stumbled into the future--or onto a science fiction movie set. Arriving in Fallon on a railroad flatcar was a whole body counter. "The subject being counted lay on a steel framed bed mounted on tracks laid down in the center of the room. Two small crystals were mounted on the bed to view the two lobes of the thyroid. A large, separately mounted crystal was placed in standard position over the body mid-line" (VUF-1009, 5).
Near ground zero, the brown and barren October sands played ironic host to the shiny, industrial, symmetrical buildings, machines and vehicles, each equipped to measure, document, calibrate, and, it was hoped, mediate the forces of destruction and death: a remodeled 28-foot trailer for first aid; a mobile radioassay lab for counting gross alpha and gross beta activity; a personnel-decontamination trailer; a Shoal weather trailer equipped to receive "telemetered" data from wind instruments installed around ground zero; 18 remote gamma detectors; a truck with a 1000 gallon water tank and high-pressure pump and nozzle for decontamination of heavy equipment; a mobile laundry trailer for decontaminating clothing (1050 coveralls and 2400 pieces of protective equipment--boots, gloves, caps, respirators, etc--were eventually decontaminated) (VUF- 1012).
Surrounding the sites at carefully-spaced intervals were Wood Anderson seismographs, consisting of a camera, hexagonal seismometer array, timing devices and remote control circuitry. One was installed along each of four lines
18 Michon Mackedon
Nevada Sheelite Mine, along with sixteen other mines, was photographed prior to Project Shoal. Seismic equipment has been placed between the ore car rails. 1963. (C) Mary Walker Foster)
radial to the event at azimuths of 29 to 46 degrees, 150 degrees, 215 degrees and 312 degrees. Each station consisted of a prefabricated house, 7' by 7' by 7' (VUF-1011, 9).
Expanding the concentric geometry was a ring of "twelve trailers--each with eight air sampling heads that could run all together, in sequence, or singly" (VUF-1012, 7). In each trailer, one sampler ran for one hour, then the next sampler for the next hour, through the eight hour cycle, and then each began again.
As D-day closed in, project activities increased in scope and number. Public Health Service personnel increased from two in early 1963 to twelve on September 10 to forty-five on the day of the event. One gallon samples of milk and water were collected in polyethylene collection bottles and sent to laboratories for pre-shot analysis (VUF-l009). Public Health Service doctors were assigned to Fallon. A Public Health Service veterinarian, accompanied by a U.S. Army veterinarian, visited local ranchers to explain what services would be available "in case of a problem" (VUF-1009, 6). On "D-30" (30 days prior to detonation) wind observations commenced at ground zero and at one off-site station.
Project Shoal 19
On D-21, the schedule increased to include a second off-site station. Beginning on D-7, upper air pressure, temperature and humidity readings were taken twice a day and on D-4, smoke pot observations were initiated at Bound zero to determine low level trajectories (VUF-1008). On October 9, a circular letter was sent to twelve small Nevada airports--Fallon, Tonopah, Warm Springs, Schurz, Yerington, Eureka, Austin, Ely, Mina, Round Mountain, Hawthorne, and Gabbs--to alert pilots of an airspace advisory area.
At 6:00 a.m. on the 26th of October, FAA Flight Service Stations began broadcasting semi-hourly warnings to avoid "the airspace from the surface to 12,000 feet MSL bounded by radials of 080 degrees True and 140 degrees True from the Project Shoal site extending 50 nautical miles southeastward." (VUF-1017, 3). At 10:00 a.m., D-day, October 26th--with wind patterns verified, air, milk and water sampled, and instruments checked--the bomb was armed and fired. Seismograph needles danced a 5.2 magnitude jig. Eighteen ground radiation monitoring teams whirled into action, carrying portable gasoline generators and sampling gear: Precision Model 111 "Scintillators," Eberline geiger detectors, Beckman geiger detectors, and Tracerlab ionization chamber detectors (VUF-1009, 8). Post-shot milk and water sampling began. A C-45 Public Health Service aircraft swooped over ground zero, ready to track any resulting radiactive "cloud" from the air (VUF-1009, 8).
At dead center of ground zero, an immense cavity--a hot, very hot, bubble--grew in the granite, trapping most of the billions of released radioactive particles under the earth's surface. Project Shoal was declared a success. New plans were put into effect for drilling the cavity, decontaminating the soil, and dismantling the equipment. By February 11, 1964, the AEC had closed down the site and terminated its lease on project offices. Mr. John Tudor of Reynolds Electric Company, an AEC subcontractor with offices in Fallon during the project, reported to the Fallon Chamber of Commerce that his company "had been very happy in their dealings with the community.... The cooperation had been excellent" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, January 17 and February 11, 1964).
The project complete, the story should end. But ghosts haunt the minds of those who contemplate an event like Shoal, for it typifies the best and the worst aspects of our nuclear policy, past and present. The best aspects, in fact, are at the same time the worst: had an accident occurred, the regimented preparation, the technological assurances, the scientific groundwork might well be viewed as loud and expensive whistling in the dark. The "cloud" could have been tracked, doctors and veterinarians called into service, radiation measured in water, milk, and air, and personal dosages read on film badges and whole body counters. But the almost thirty years which have passed since D-day, Project Shoal, have taught us how little we knew, and how little we still know, about health effects and migration patterns of radioactivity. We can count it and measure it, track and record it, but we can't innoculate against it or cure its resulting diseases or get rid of its long lived particles.
20 Michon Mackedon
The Big Top Restaurant at Salt Wells, twelve miles from Ground Zero. 1963. (C) Mary Walker Foster, reprinted from VUF-1015 )
Another persistent ghost reminds us that the Atomic Energy Commission and its heir, the Department of Energy, have left a legacy of half truths, at best told in the name of public relations, at worst told to disguise the truth. In the face of news about covered-up radiation releases in Hanford, Washington, and in light of advice given Utah downwinders that "fallout can be inconvenient but your best action is not to worry about [it]," how can we trust what we hear (Titus 82)?
A letter sent by the Department of Energy, responding to my request for information on Project Shoal, forms a postscript to these thoughts. It reads:
Regarding your inquiry on June 6, 1990, for information on Project Shoal, no printed documents are available.... Project Shoal cost approximately $5 million and was sponsored by the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and was part of the nuclear test detection program (Project Velva). It was an experiment to improve ways of distinguishing earthquakes from underground nuclear explosions.
...At 10 a.m. (PST) on October 26, 1963, the 12-kiloton device was detonated 1,211 feet below the surface. Readings taken at the time of the test indicated ground motion well below the point to cause any structural damage.
Project Shoal 21
...At the time of the detonation no radioactivity was vented. Most of the radioactive material was entrapped in the rock. At the conclusion of the test, a final radiological safety survey was conducted on the surface work and burial areas. Soil samples were collected and analyzed from all surface areas known to have been contaminated. These surveys showed that radiation levels did not exceed natural background readings" (Letter from Nevada Operations Office, Department of Energy, Las Vegas, Nevada, to Michon Mackedon, July 13, 1990).
So, Project Shoal is dismissed in fewer than three hundred words, all of them expressing some degree of truth. The letter states that "no documents are available"; what it doesn't state is that more than 30 documents about Project Shoal were published within two years of its completion. Most of them are "available" through the University of Nevada Library; in order to use them, one need only to know how to ask for them. The letter further informs its reader that "Project Shoal...was part of the nuclear test detection project (Project Velva)." The researcher who looks up Project Velva will turn up nothing; the name of the project was Vela. The letter closes by reassuring the reader that "at the time of the detonation no radioactivity was vented." What isn't explained is that some radiation was vented after the detonation, during the post-shot drilling of the cavity, between December 10 and December 19, 1963. The Fallon Eagle-Standard, Tuesday, December 17, 1963 , reported that drillers had encountered temperatures of 600 degrees Fahrenheit and radiation that peaked at 40 Roentgens per hour. The resulting contamination of the soil was handled by "scraping the surface, mixing the contaminated soil with clean soil to reduce concentrations of radioactive material, and burying the soil under several feet of uncontaminated earth" (VUF-1012, 12).
Today, a visitor to the site of Project Shoal will find little evidence that the event ever took place. The access road, branching west, five miles down the Sheelite Mine Road from Highway 50, is still marked here and there with crumbling, thirty-year old asphalt but is succumbing to age and encroaching shadscale and rabbitbrush. Ground zero itself has almost been reclaimed by the desert--a few piles of drilling rubble rest among patches of cheat grass, rice grass, and sage. The barrier erected on the road to bar public access is gone. Only the heavy iron posts, set in concrete, stand there beside the road like guards left behind to mark the place, but tell nothing, of that extraordinary moment in time.
22 Michon Mackedon
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fallon Eagle-Standard, January, 1963 - February, 1964.
Letter from Nevada Operations Office, Department of Energy, to Michon
Mackedon. July 13, 1990 (held in private collection of author).
Reno Gazette-Journal, August 26, 1990.
The Atomic Cafe (video). The Archives Project, Inc., 1982.
Titus, A. Constandina. Bombs in the Backyard. Reno & Las Vegas: University
of Nevada Press, 1986.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Geological, Geophysical, Chemical, and
Hydrological Investigations of the Sand Springs Range, Fairview Valley, and
Fourmile Flat, Churchill County, Nevada (VUF-1001). Nevada Bureau of
Mines, University of Nevada, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Weather and Surface Radiation Prediction
(VUF-1008). U.S. Weather Bureau, June, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Final Report of Off-Site
Surveillance (VUF-1009). Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare, Public Health Service, September 1, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Structural Survey of Private Mining
Properties (VUF-1010). U.S. Bureau of Mines, December, 1963.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Seismic Safety Net (VUF-1011). U.S.
Department of Commerce, Coast and Geodetic Survey, August, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: On-Site Health-and-Safety Report
(VUF-1012). Mercury, Nevada: Reynolds Electrical and Engineering
Co., Inc., June, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Analysis of Shoal Data on Ground
Motion and Containment (VUF-1013). Alexandria, Virginia: Roland
F. Beers, Inc., December 4, 1964.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Preshot and Postshot Structure Survey
(VUF-1015). Las Vegas: Holmes & Narver, Inc., December, 1963.
Vela Uniform Project Shoal: Federal Aviation Agency Airspace
Advisory (VUF-1017). Federal Aviation Agency, 1964.
FOCUS ON 75 YEARS AGO
Lahontan Dam:
75 Years of Fulfilling a Dream
ELOISE A. ENOS
LAHONTAN DAM, AN earth and gravel fill dam, spans a length of 1600 feet and reaches a height of 124 feet. It has a volume of 770,000 cubic yards. The purpose of the dam is to store water used for irrigation in the Newlands Reclamation Project. When Lahontan Dam was finished in 1915, it completed a complex network of canals, diversion dams, laterals, and ditches. These stark facts describe the tangible aspects of Lahontan Dam, but a closer study of its history reveals many other facets.
For some, the dam represented a vision of arid desert lands turned into lush, productive fields. For others, Lahontan Dam answered a dream—the American Dream of owning land. And for a few, the dam became a political pawn which could destroy careers, make fortunes, or enable some to rise to greater power.
In the 1880's, lands in the East for the most part, had been settled, and the price of those parcels for sale exceeded the budget of most prospective buyers. Land in the West was, by comparison, plentiful and cheap. In Lahontan Valley the fragile ecology of the desert provided enough water to support only a few farms along the benches of the river and around the Carson sink area. Still Churchill County had doubled in population over the decade and boasted of 500 residents. Elsewhere in Nevada, the population rapidly declined as the large mines tapped out. The state politicians realized the economy of Nevada must be based on a dependable source in order to halt this exodus.
The first politician who used reclamation for his platform was Bill Stewart. In 1885, he recommended that all western lands be studied to find the best storage sites. Stewart was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January of 1887. By October of 1888, he had negotiated for a $100,000 appropriation to the United States Geographical Society to survey the West and choose prospective locations for water storage.
Stewart envisioned a state controlled project in which the state sold land in the reclamation area then used the proceeds to build canals and dams. The director of the United States Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell, had other plans. After completing the survey, he withdrew nine million acres of land for federal control. Stewart and Powell struggled over this issue without resolving the problem.
23
24 Eloise A. Enos
Later Francis G. Newlands, elected to the house in 1892, continued the efforts to establish an irrigation system to reclaim the desert lands of Nevada. Newlands had a personal stake in the outcome. In 1889, he learned about future storage sites from information which had not been released to the public. He purchased property in Carson Valley and Churchill County, even the proposed location of Lahontan Dam. Newland's political strategy led to the passage of the Reclamation Act of 1902, naming five areas selected for reclamation, including Churchill County.
The Secretary of the Interior authorized construction of the irrigation project on March 14, 1903. The United States Reclamation Service predicted that 200,000 acres in Lahontan Valley could be developed through irrigation. Work began on Derby Dam in 1903. By 1905, diversion dams on the Truckee and Carson Rivers (as well as the Truckee Canal) had reached completion. During this period, the USRS moved the headquarters from Reno to Hazen. The first land parcels became available between 1904 and 1911. L.H. Taylor, the chief engineer of irrigation works, answered questions posed by prospective homesteaders.
Mr. Homer Hewins of Hardstone, Alberta, Canada, received a letter advising him to bring his own wagon and team because they were very expensive to purchase in Nevada. The Garlock Land and Credit Company of Minnesota obtained maps, information, and a favorable report of mild weather in Churchill County.
In Everett, Washington, Ellis H. Rogers learned that settlers could file for parcels of land through the U. S. Homestead Law. The water in 1906 cost $26.00 per acre, which could be paid in ten annual interest-free payments. Mr. Taylor warned that the task of preparing land for irrigation was arduous. A "V"-shaped drag weighted down with iron and pulled by six horses was used to clear the land. In addition, each homesteader must dig distributing ditches inside his 80 acres, while the government provided canals to the property line. Arthur Breed, of Lynn, Massachussets, found that homesteads consisted of 80 acres of irrigable land. He also learned that the 31 mile long Truckee Canal, which had cost one and a half million dollars to build, delivered water to the Carson Sink area.
By 1908, all the land close to Fallon had been claimed. A reply to an inquiry by F. B. Fisk mentioned that open land lay at least eight miles outside of the city. Fallon, the county seat of Churchill County, was 16 miles east of Hazen. Freight was brought in on the Fallon branch line, but passengers had to get off the train at Hazen. For $1.50 a stage hauled them to Fallon.
Applicants included women such as Anne H. Martin of Haymarket, England, who received this advice: "The land subject to homestead entry are raw desert lands covered by sage brush and greasewood. This land has been subdivided into farms of eighty acres each and the irrigation system has been constructed as to bring water to each farm" (Letter from L.H. Taylor to Anne H. Martin. Churchill County Museum, Capucci Collection). She also learned that a homesteader must live on the land for five years and cultivate the land.
Lahontan Dam 25
Mrs. Ruthie Lee wrote from Cotter, Arkansas and Elsie Beebe corresponded from Nebraska City, Nebraska. Dorothy Shepner wondered if a 24 year old woman separated from her spouse would be eligible to homestead. According to the homestead laws, any person who was a United States citizen, over 21 (or head of a family), who had not homesteaded previously and did not own 160 acres of land in the U. S. could apply.
As construction progressed, the first water from the Truckee River reached Lahontan Valley on June 17, 1905, and regular irrigation service began in 1906. In January of 1910, bids opened on the building of an electric plant which could generate the 2,000 horsepower needed to power the machinery which would be used to dredge the dam site. J.B. Daniels won the contract with a bid of $50,000.
On December 29, 1910, the paper announced that $1,193,000 had been appropriated to build Lahontan Dam. Construction on the dam commenced in February 1911 and offered an economic opportunity to residents of Churchill County. Construction jobs supplemented the meager earnings of fledgling farmers, and the increased wages stimulated business in Fallon. Another benefit for residents of Churchill County was the transmission line run from the electric plant, providing Fallon with electricity for lights and power to operate a water and sewage system.
The editor of the Eagle described an August 1911 tour of the dam site. He saw 116 men working on the base of the dam and the chute. Two huge steam shovels operated continuously to dredge out 80 tons of rubble each day. Three trains of cars hauled it away. Two towers, each 103 feet high and 1600 feet apart, stood on either side of the river. Builders estimated that 75,000 to 80,000 barrels of cement would be required for the construction of the dam.
The workers established a small community named Lahontan City. In April 1911, it consisted of 14 dwellings, but by August, around 250 people resided there. Lahontan City included a dining hall capable of feeding 300 people, a general store, and a dispensary. Residents formed a baseball team which competed against teams from Fallon and Hazen.
The distance covered between Hazen, Fallon, Lahontan City, and other outlying points proved difficult to travel by horse back. The Reclamation Service outfitted the project with four Model T Fords and one Indian motorcycle (The Indian Motorcycle was the first motorcycle produced in the U.S., beginning in 1901). One supervisor reported that the automobile saved considerable time. He left Fallon one morning, drove to Stillwater, continued to "Dutch Bill" Lake, and then returned to Fallon for lunch. Then he traveled to Lahontan Dam and back to Fallon. On a horse, the same trip would have taken two days. The average operating cost for the vehicle was approximately seven cents per mile.
The dispensary included a clinic and even a small hospital ward to care for the less serious cases. In 1914, a workman named Nick Monff missed 93 days of work due to a protracted case of typhoid fever. That summer, two cases of malaria developed so all standing pools of water had to be covered with oil. Lois Cole, daughter of D.W. Cole, the Newlands Project engineer, died from
26 Eloise A .Enos
contracting scarlet fever. The remaining family members had to be quarantined until the disease ran its course.
Project doctors dealt with broken legs, appendicitis, accidents, and bed bugs. One man required an emergency operation to amputate his leg; a case of trachoma kept a patient absent from work for 61 days. Doctors vaccinated against typhoid one day and treated a gunshot wound the next.
This construction project attracted workers from the local area, other states, and even laborers from Bulgaria and Armenia. German, English and Italian workers joined the general population, but the Slavic workers were segregated in a separate camp. Some easterners found western conditions too primitive and harsh, attitudes which created a considerable turnover. In other cases, men who came to work on the project established themselves in the community. Frank Gibbs, superintendent of construction for the reclamation service, married Miss Gertrude Whipp and became a permanent resident of Churchill County.
Between January and August of 1914, 250 men, 52 horses, and 38 mules labored in the construction of the dam. The wages in 1914 listed $150.00 per month for a master mechanic and $2.40 to $2.64 per day for laborers. This federal project was the first to implement a federal law limiting the work day to only 8 hours.
As the work progressed, the number of workers fluctuated. By June of 1913, the dam was 43% completed. In June of 1914, 28,000 pounds of powder were necessary to loosen 30,000 cubic yards of rock. By November and December, the crew devoted hours to clearing the brush, logs, and debris from the area which would be the bottom of the reservoir. By March of 1915, only the finishing touches remained. The mess hall and general store closed down. The actual official opening of the dam brought little fanfare.
Today, Lahontan Dam serves the Newlands Reclamation area by storing water to irrigate the crops. This year, 1990, marks the 75th anniversay of the completion of Lahontan Dam, and we take this opportunity to look back at the history of the Dam and consider the impact it has had on Churchill County, the state of Nevada, and the western United States. Perhaps, even more important are the number of families who achieved the American Dream and live on the homesteads which have been passed down from generation to generation. They can thank Lahontan Dam and the pioneers who built it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annual Operation and Maintenance Report Truckee-Carson Project, 1911.
Churchill County Eagle, December 22, 1910
Churchill County Eagle, June 13, 1914
August 22, 1914
March 20, 1915
Department of the Interior Twelfth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service,
1912-1913. F.H. Newell, Director. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Lahontan Dam 27
Eleventh Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 1911-1912. F.H. Newell, Director. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913.
Encyclopedia of Transportation. Chicago: Rand McNalley & Co., 1976. Letters on File to and from Homesteaders, Churchill County Museum, Capucci Collection, Fallon, Nevada.
Map Showing Location of Water Supply Pipeline for City of Fallon, Churchill County, Nevada, December 1911, E.C. Osgood, Engineer.
Townley, John M. Turn This Water Into Gold. Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1977.
U.S. Reclamation Service Truckee-Carson Project, September 1910. Data for Review by the Board of Army Engineers.
U.S. Reclamation Service Truckee-Carson Project Annual Report, 1912. U.S. Reclamation Service Truckee-Carson Project Annual Report, 1913.
U.S. Reclamation Service Annual History Truckee-Carson Project, 1914. D.W.
Cole, Project Manager, E.G. Hopson, Supervising Engineer.
U.S. Reclamation Service Annual Operation and Maintenance Report, Truckee-Carson Project, 1914.
U.S. Reclamation Service Annual History, Truckee-Carson Project, Nevada, 1915. D.W. Cole, Project Manager, E.G. Hopson, Supervising Engineer, (Jan-July).
Lahontan Band, U.S. Reclamation Service c1912. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Museum Collection)
28 Eloise A. Enos
A July 4th parade at Lahontan City, 1914. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--George White Collection, Owen Oviatt photograph)
An unidentified couple riding on one of the Reclamation Service Indian motorcycles, c1914. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--George White Collection, Owen Oviatt photograph)
Lahontan Dam 29
Working at the base of the dam c1912. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Henry C. Taylor Collection)
Lahontan Dam just after completion in 1915. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Margaret "Peg" Wheat Collection)
Hoping
LILLY FIELD PEARL
Reprinted from The Fallon Eagle
Saturday March 17, 1928
Editor's Note--As Mrs. J.G. Pearl of Soda Lake district was to go [to a] University Summer session in 1921 to prepare for teaching and help raise the money to meet expenses on their land, the evening before leaving she and her husband stood watching the first watering of this land. The one bird passing over gave a ray of hope. On February 25, 1928, as Mrs. F.R. Hallock joyously told of the happiness the NEVADA BOOK OF POEMS had given her, the inspiration came to Mrs. Pearl to try writing something for this worthwhile book. On the following day she wrote this.
It was sunset on the desert,
Not a sound the stillness told.
Out across the barren reaches
Lay the coarse sand, eons old.
When from out a little cottage
Passed a man and woman, slow
They were testing out the levees
Where their first crop had to grow.
Would it hold, this loose sand shifting?
Could the tiny roots there grow,
Where for ages nothing ever
Had been placed by man before?
Side by side they stood and watched it,
As the muddy water flowed,
Hoping, longing, praying ever
For the lifting of their load.
30
Hoping 31
How the parched earth seemed to drink it,
Making thirsty, gurgling sounds,
Almost like a weary traveler
Who at last a quench had found.
While they stood and pondered, longing,
Hoping for the home to be
Would their aim, as many others,
Only waste of effort be?
As the blue and rose were fading
To a violet's softest hue
'Cross the pastelle tinted softness
A single bird, all silent, flew.
Seemed to foretell brightness, to them,
Gave an answer to their prayers,
For the aim they sore were striving
Surely would one day be theirs.
Many more this selfsame story
Could of toil and struggle tell;
But a wondrous future beckons
Those who follow on as well.
They who sow and do not gather
From a harvests golden grain,
What may seem a useless struggle
Means another future gain.
Harmon School--A History
Part I: 1906-1916
MAIE NYGREN
THE SCHOOL HOUSE--
The original Harmon School was located on the southeast corner of the intersection where Downs Lane and Highway 50 meet. Built sometime during 1906, on land owned by Guy Harmon, it consisted only of one room and was of a simple board construction. The first teacher, an 18 year old by the name of Emily Roy, was paid $40 a month.
Unfortunately, the land on which the school stood then was low and lacked proper drainage. During the winter months, especially, a swamp-like condition existed much of the time. One student who had attended the school at that time recalled how her brother, when taking her to school on a horse, guided the horse to the door before letting her get off.
Because the seepage water made that location unhealthy and because the residents wanted to have the school located on deeded ground, sometime, either in late October or early November in 1908, the school was moved about one-half mile to the east where it stood near the residence of Will Harmon. In its new location, the school contained a wood stove and a water pail for drinking and washing. Also erected were two outhouses and a hitching rack for the students' horses. Somewhere on the grounds there must have been a coal bin because an account describing a ball game played in the school yard on a Sunday afternoon in late October of 1913 read, "The coal bin served as grandstand for the spectators" (Churchill County Eagle, November 1, 1913).
As enrollments increased, the decision was made that the school needed to be enlarged; so in 1912, several farmers of the district got together and built a 12' x 16' wing to the building.
The additional space created in 1912 was sufficient for only two years. In the February 14, 1914 issue of the Churchill County Eagle, the "Harmon District" column reported that, "School will start in the ditch house Monday for the first, second and third grades with Mrs. A.C. Renfro for teacher. The old School house is too crowded to give satisfaction." This ditch house was located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Stillwater and Reservoir roads.
Two meetings were held during May, 1914, to determine "steps to be taken toward supplying quarters for the next term" and to "discuss the repairing of the 32
Harmon School 33
building, etc." Although a large crowd was reported to be in attendance, "no definite plans were made" (Churchill County Eagle, May 9, 1914). The group, however, appointed H.C. Taylor, a resident of the district, to investigate a site for the location of a new school
In the parlance of today, the residents of Harmon district, at that time, probably would be referred to as "movers and shakers." Sometime in June of 1914, the Harmon School trustees, Adolph Baumann, Charles N. Davis, and Fred A. Nelson submitted an application to D.W. Cole, Manager of the Reclamation Project, for 40 acres of land to be set aside for a school site and civic center. Their justification for such a request was that "... in all the project there is not a place where farmers can take their families for Sunday's rest or a day's picnic; that in the timber along the river the mosquitos are bad and the groves are not in condition for enjoyment" (Churchill County Eagle, July 25, 1914). Their vision for that 40 acres included establishment of an agricultural college as well as a baseball field and an athletic ground. Their ultimate purpose for the agricultural college was to keep the young men on their fathers' farms; their expectation was that funds to build such a college would be provided by the government.
Shortly after receiving notification that the district was being granted 10 acres with free water--not the 40 acres that had been requested--work by Harmon district residents began. First a crew of four surveyed the land then a crew of two broke the sage brush. On July 24, 1914, 30 men with 140 head of horses (40 horse teams), and equipment such as plows and scrapers, leveled the land. Three divisions were laid out and one farmer supervised the work on each division. Five acres were prepared for putting out ornamental trees and shrubbery which was to become a picnic ground. Another portion was prepared as an athletic field and the third portion was to be the site of the new school house. That this work force of men and horses were able to level the 10 acres in one day was regarded as a "remarkable feat" (Churchill County Eagle, July 25, 1914).
Just before noon on July 24, 1914, "... the entire assemblage, numbering at least 300 was grouped around the flagpole, and at a signal from H.C. Taylor, Chairman of the day, Old Glory was hauled to the top of the mast by I.H. Kent, President of the Churchill County Chamber of Commerce." Following that ceremony, a picnic dinner was served by women of the district to the workers and many guests invited from Fallon and neighboring districts. Many Fallon merchants contributed toward that meal by donating lemons (A.C. Burton, Peoples Bros.); sugar (Grob & Bingham), and 600 lbs. of ice (Smith & Jarvis).
Other items donated by various merchants to make the occasion more festive included a $15 flag and a 45 foot flag pole (I.H. Kent Co.), a ball for the flag pole (D.J. Beasley), nails and a flag pulley (Fallon Hardware and Supply Co.), and a 90 foot rope for the flag pole (J.W. Vannoy). Unknown others gave cash donations.
After a meal served by women of the district, H.C. Taylor called the group
34 Maie Nygren
Harmon School, 1914. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Alan Odell Collection)
together and introduced I.H. Kent who "gave a sound talk on the commendable movement that was being made in this district." Other speakers included D.W. Cole, Reclamation Project Manager, who commended the cooperative spirit in the community; Dr. C.A. Hascall, President of the Fallon Electric Railway; La Fayette Pierce, from Smart School District and F.D. Farrell, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who had recently been placed in charge of a bureau for disseminating agricultural advice and assistance among farmers on reclamation projects. He is reported to have said that " ... from his observations the name of the district should be changed by adding a "Y" (Resources of the Truckee-Carson Project and Churchill County, Nevada).
Whatever was not accomplished on that July 24th presumably was completed during either the following week or the following two weeks. On Monday, the Committee's report stated that 21 men and 65 horses worked on the grounds and, again, women in the district were there at the noon hour with food for the workers. Beginning Tuesday and during the remainder of the week, 16 head of horses guided by men, put the finishing touches on the land and made a raised ditch, one-quarter mile in length to carry water to the grounds. The plan was that, after the levees had been made, water would be turned onto the tract and,
Harmon School 35
later in the fall, the ground would be seeded in wheat so that its condition during the spring would be conducive for seeding grass.
An announcement of results of the school census in Churchill County, which was submitted to the Churchill County Eagle by Professor J.F. Abel, District Superintendent of Schools, showed that the Harmon School could expect an enrollment of 50 students for the Fall, 1914 term. His announcement prompted men of the district to spend three days building an addition to the old school house. A dance was then held to raise money to buy temporary blackboards and other equipment for the new addition.
The fall term for 1914-1915 started in the old schoolhouse on Monday, September 21, 1914, with Anabel Hunter teaching the primary grades and Lovan Ezell teaching the intermediate grades. It was the first year in which two teachers were employed at the beginning of the school year and the last year in which classes were held in the old schoolhouse for the full academic year.
During spring of 1915, people in the district organized again for another community undertaking, this time to prepare for a celebration of Arbor Day. Cards were sent out soliciting men and horses to help build ditches on the site. Twelve men with nine teams of horses, scrapers, plows, etc. responded. Three women surprised the workers at noon by providing a hot dinner. A meeting was held on March 23, 1915, to discuss plans for planting trees.
On Friday, March 26, 1915, another large group of Harmonites congregated at the new school site and spent the day planting trees. Men, with teams of horses plowed irrigation ditches, while other men, along with members of the Harmon School baseball team (known as the Dwarf Giants), dug holes in which the trees were to be planted. As usual, the women provided food for the noon day meal, after which the students, directed by their teachers, presented a program which had Arbor day as its theme.
In the afternoon, a picnic grove envisioned by people in the district was laid out under the supervision of Mr. Headley and Mrs. Cline of the Experiment Farm, who also provided some of the trees. Other trees were provided by George Freeman, H.C. Taylor, W.H. Williams, and C.N. Davis.
In addition to those in the picnic grove, trees were planted along three sides of the site and along an artistic driveway which formed a half circle around the flag pole. Both the flag pole and driveway were situated directly in front of the plot where the new school was to be erected. Children from the lower grades had the privilege of planting poplar and elm trees along each side of the driveway and each tree was labeled with the name of the child who planted it.
Children of the upper grades had the privilege of planting the trees in a grove that had been laid out in the southwest corner of the site. Again, each tree was labeled with the name of the child who planted it.
Over three hundred trees were set out that day. Of these, seventy-six were planted by the school children. In addition to poplar and elm, other varieties planted included willows, box elders and wild peach trees.
36 Maie Nygren
At this point in time, the site was ready for the new school house. The next step was to obtain the money needed to build it. A canvas of the district, made sometime before the site was initially cleared and leveled, revealed that the residents were prepared to vote $5,000 in bonds in order to have a modern two-room school house. This required an election, at which time the residents would vote for or against bonding the district for that amount. Two elections had to be held, because, for some unexplained error, the results of the first one (27 for; 20 against) were declared invalid. The second election, held on Wednesday, July 28, 1915, at the school house, resulted in 32 votes being cast for the bonds and 18 against. For both elections a total of 50 votes was cast.
The Board of Trustees for Harmon school then, unanimously, adopted a resolution stating that the Board would forthwith
... proceed to issue the negotiable coupon bonds of the district to the amount of five thousand dollars ($5,000); said issue to comprise a series of nineteen such bonds, numbered consecutively from 1 to 19, inclusive; bonds Nos. 1 to 15, inclusive to be of Two Hundred Sixty-Three and 16/100 Dollars ($263.16) each, and bonds Nos. 16 to 19, inclusive, to be of the denomination of Two Hundred Sixty-Three and 15/100 ($263.15) each; said bonds to bear interest at the rate of six per centum (6%) per annum, payable semiannually, on January 1 and July 1 of each year until and including date of maturity, and to mature in their respective numerical order, one on January 1 of each year commencing with bond No. 1, which shall mature on January 1, 1917, and so on to and including bond No. 19, which shall mature on January 1, 1935; both principal and interest to be payable at the office of the Treasurer of Churchill County, in the city of Fallon, county of Churchill, state of Nevada; said bonds not to be sold for less than their par value, and notice of the proposed sale thereof to be given as required by law (Board of Trustees Resolution Pertaining to School Bond of Harmon District, No. 14, September 1, 1915).
A second part of the resolution presented models of the forms to be followed in printing the bonds and the interest coupons. A third part of the resolution authorized and instructed the Chairman and Clerk of the Board of Trustees (C.N. Davis and Fred A. Nelson), to "have such bonds printed and to execute, sign and attest to same, as Chairman and Clerk of this Board, respectively, and to thereupon deliver the same to the Treasurer of said Churchill County for countersigning and registration by him; and that, thereupon, the Clerk of the Board give notice of the proposed sale thereof of publication in one issue of the Churchill County Eagel [sic] a newspaper published in Fallon in said County and
Harmon School 37
state, and by Posting in three public places in said school district for at least ten days, before said bonds are disposed of."
The printing of the bonds by the Churchill County Eagle had been completed by September 4, 1915. According to an item in the issue of the newspaper published on that date, this printing was the first it had undertaken that involved 40 coupons. The bonds, executed in a blue lithographic design, then had to be signed individually by C.N. Davis and Fred Nelson and then countersigned individually by County Clerk A.E. Wilson, a process involving 400 signatures on the part of each man (Churchill County Eagle, September 4, 1915).
Lone Kaiser, who was awarded the contract for building the school was to complete it within 92 days. Instead of two rooms, the plan called for three, plus a basement. Two of the rooms were for classes and the third was to be an assembly hall. Dimensions for the front portion (the base of an inverted T) were to be 72' x 32'. Dimensions for the centered back portion (the stem of the inverted T) were to be 32' x 24'. The basement, where the heating plant was to be located, was to be 24' x 46'. Excavation work started on Monday, September 27, 1915 and it was Lone Kaiser's expectation that the concrete work would be completed before the onset of freezing weather. Materials were hauled to the site by A.R. Wainscott and L.C. Ayers. The foundation, built of concrete, was completed by October 23, 1915, and erection of the walls, built of concrete blocks made on the site, had begun. The walls had been completed by November 13, 1915, and the next step involved the woodwork. By November 27, 1915, laths for plastering were being installed by D.H. Gavin. By December 4, 1915, the roof had been painted by L.W. Newton and his assistants, and D.H. Gavin was applying plaster to the inner walls.
While construction was in process, the Board of Trustees solicited the assistance of District Deputy Superintendent, George McCracken, in selecting furniture for their new school house. According to a report presented in the October 16, 1916 issue of the Churchill County Eagle, not only the most modem furniture was selected but a change in the floor plan was made to incorporate an alcove for kindergarten work. For this alcove, a long table and little red chairs were selected. Deputy Superintendent McCracken also visited the construction site during November (Churchill County Eagle, November 16, 1915).
Formal dedication of the school house occurred on January, 1916. Early on that day, men with horses and scrapers proceeded to clean and re-level the grounds while other men, armed with hammers, saws, wrenches and screwdrivers, placed the desks in the classrooms. While the men were busy doing this, the women were in the basement setting tables, heating foods on oil stoves that had been brought in, and arranging food in preparation for a feast consisting of roast pork, roast chicken, baked potatoes, etc. After the meal, pictures were taken of the school and of the men and women who had participated in the morning activities.
38 Maie Nygren
The formal dedication ceremony began at 2:00 p.m. in the Assembly Hall where everyone had congregated. Friends from adjoining neighborhoods had been invited to participate. By all accounts, it was an auspicious day. The program opened with the group singing "America." Rev. Wachob followed that with a speech entitled "Don't Be a Quitter." His speech was followed by an address given by J. R. Post who described growth in the district. Short speeches were given by H.C. Taylor, who served as Chairman of the day, by F.G. Hough, a member of the high school board, by Mrs. J.W. Johnson, and by C.N. Davis. The major address was delivered by Professor McKillop, Principal of the high school faculty. Mrs. C.E. Cline sang a solo and then the program ended with a speech given by Reverend Shaffer, entitled "Hitching Post."
On the following day, January 2, 1916, the spring term of the 19154916 year opened in the new school house with Miss Mary Ferguson, as teacher of the lower grades, meeting her pupils in the west room and Miss Lovan Ezell, as teacher of the intermediate grades, meeting her pupils in the east room.
THE TEACHERS--
The teachers were a series of unmarried ladies (except for three) whose tenures generally were for two terms, i.e. fall and spring, although four stayed fewer than two terms. Some were native Nevadans; others came from such places as Wisconsin, Minnesota and California. Their salaries were minimal when compared with current salaries for teachers. The State of Nevada, Educational Directory, published on January 7, 1909, reported Emily L. Roy's salary as $60. It is not clear if this amount represented a monthly salary or the salary for one term or the full year.
Most of the teachers for the Harmon School were reported to be in attendance at the annual Teachers' Institutes which appear to have been rotated among the larger communities within the Third Supervision District. Locations referred to in association with the institutes were Reno, Lovelock and Fallon. Some teachers were required to take teacher's examinations which were administered by the Deputy Superintendent.
Little is known about the teachers except their names, and some names are questionable because official documents containing such records have not been uncovered. Announcements about teaching faculty in the newspapers, moreover, concentrated on the schools located in Fallon. Announcements about the appointment of teachers of schools in rural districts tended to be sporadic and gave little information except a teacher's name which might be spelled differently in different issues or even in the same issue. Accounts in the "Harmon District" columns in newspapers show that the teachers of Harmon School were well received by residents in the district. According to research conducted thus far, the teachers and their terms were: Emily L. Roy (1906-07); Jessie Hicks (1907-08); Emily L. Roy (1908-09); Edna Jenkins (1909-1910);
Harmon School 39
Harmon School. Lovan Ezell is the teacher. 1914. (Churchill County Museum and Archives—Alan Odell Collection)
Mrs. Arch Moon (1910-1911); E.L. Sutton (1911-1912); Eula Franklin (Fall 1912); Margaret Monahan (Spring 1913, Fall 1913 until November); Mary Branch (November 24, 1913, Spring 1914); Anabel Hunter (1914-1915); Lovan Ezell (1914-1915); Mary Ferguson (1915-1916); Lovan Ezell (1915-1916).
THE PUPILS--
During the period between 1906-16, it was not uncommon for students to attend schools for only two or three years. Nor was it uncommon for some pupils to be as large in stature as was their teacher and close to her age.
In order to enter the high school in Fallon, pupils in the eighth grade who desired to go further with their education were required to pass an examination administered in the Spring by the Deputy District Superintendent of Schools. Results of these examinations often were not reported until sometime during the summer months. Because of that, eighth grade graduation exercises were not customary. An article in the July 18, 1914 issue of the Churchill County Eagle, noted that the grammar school at Wadsworth had adopted the plan of holding graduation exercises for those who complete grammar school because few go further in their education. The article suggested that schools in Churchill County should follow the example set by Wadsworth.
40 Maie Nygren
The number of pupils attending a school was as important during that era as it is today. To ascertain the amount of money in the state needed to provide a school in a given district, someone in each district was appointed by the Board of Trustees in that district to take a census of school children--a school census child was defined as being one who was between the ages of 6 and 18. Based on the number of such children within a district, the state allocated to Churchill County a certain amount for each teacher and a certain amount for each school census child. Churchill County also allocated a certain amount for each teacher and each school census child.
In January of 1908, the school census children for the county numbered 386 and for Harmon School, 21. The state allocation per school census child was $12.20, which meant that Harmon School received $256.20. By January, 1914, the number of school census children in the county had increased to 642--an increase of 66 percent. The state provided $128.38 for each teacher and the county provided $91.70. This was on the basis of 30 students per teacher. The state provided $2.58 for each school census child and the County provided $4.03. According to a school census count taken in August, 1914, Harmon district had a total of 50 school census children, an increase over 1908 of more than 100 percent. For Harmon School, the State's apportionment was $385.56 and the county's was $283.39, to make a total of $668.95. The only other district that had more school census children was Smart District, which had 60. Of the 17 school districts existing at that time, other than the Fallon schools, only four had enough pupils to require two teachers. They were Wightman, Old River, Smart and Harmon (Churchill County Eagle, December 17, 1908; January 28, 1909; and August 8, 1914).
THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS--
Three conclusions can be drawn from a study of the history of Harmon School between 1906 through 1915. First, the residents of Harmon District, men and women alike, had a common goal--they wanted their children to have educational opportunity and they wanted that opportunity to be locally oriented. Second, they were personally willing to spend the time, energy and money to achieve that goal, and third, they understood the value of cooperation.
For every major undertaking, the residents participated almost en masse, if not on site, in the background, and the same names appear as contributors time after time. Had they not been "movers and shakers," they would not have had a school over which they could exert control.
If their school was in need of something, they would see that the need was met. If that "something" required money or material, they would stage an event to earn the money needed or they would donate the materials and/or labor. In the spring of 1908, for example, an entertainment given by the school children and several adults raised $53 for the school fund (Churchill County Eagle, March 5,
Harmon School 41
1908). In the Fall of that year, a dance was held to raise money to "pay for the organ and school apparatus" (Churchill County Eagle, November 12, 1908).
In March of 1910, the children were eagerly awaiting a basketball, and D.E. Fulton was fencing the school grounds, (Churchill County Eagle, March 10, and March 31, 1910). By Arbor Day in the latter part of April, the school yard had been leveled and ditched and trees had been set out by the children under the supervision of managers from the Experiment Farm. On Wednesday, March 6, 1912, the children gave a show and the money they earned--about $25--was to go for library books (Churchill County Eagle, April 8, 1910). To ready the school for the fall semester of 1912, the residents held a "cleaning bee" and during the following week, F.A. Nelson did some "staining and varnishing" at the school house (Churchill County Eagle, March 9, 1912). Early in January of 1913, L.J. Clarke and F.A. Nelson built a book case for the school. In the fall of 1913, the district purchased a large bell for the school and then they "put it up" (Churchill County Eagle, January 25 and November 8, 1913).
The "movers and shakers" whose names appear repeatedly in accounts published in the Churchill County Eagle about Harmon District and its school include: Guy Harmon, Scott Harmon, W.H. Harmon, Albert and Charles Wainscott, W.H. Williams, C.N. Davis, L.J. Clarke, Fred A. Nelson, L.C. Ayres, H.G. Wendt, H.C. Taylor, C.H. Hancock, A.C. Renfro, J.W. Johnson, Earl Danielson, H.A. Hancock, H.F. Buerer, C.W. Renfro, C.E. Glazier, C.J. Taylor, R. Vansickle, Charles Wabersloh, Alex Baumann, Adolph Baumann, Fulton Sears, Emery Freeman, Claude Freeman, Louis Freeman and R.D. Freeman.
In the background, of course, were their wives who provided the food for workdays, dances and box socials. But the women also helped the teachers drill the children for their Thanksgiving, Christmas and other programs, played the organ and sang solos to augment the entertainment, and it was the women who made it possible for everyone who attended the annual Christmas program to leave with a bag of candy, nuts and an apple or orange.
The public spirit, cooperation and enterprise exhibited by the residents of Harmon District were applauded frequently in the Churchill County Eagle but especially in articles describing the day when the land was leveled and in the article describing the dedication of the school (Churchill County Eagle, January 8 and January 15, 1916).
That the "movers and shakers" did not lose sight of their goal is a testament to the depth of their commitment to have a school and to their tenacity, for there was great pressure during that period for schools in Churchill County to become consolidated. The Churchill County Eagle frequently found occasion to argue for consolidation or to cite officials who were pushing it. In its November 11, 1911 issue, the paper reported that at the teachers' institute to be held on November 23, " lecture on the movement toward consolidation of the rural schools would be given and Prof. J.F. Able, Deputy Superintendent of Schools
42 Maie Nygren
would like to have as many rural school trustees present as possible ...." In the November 25, 1911, issue of the paper, the arguments for consolidation made by Frank T. Bunker, Superintendent of the Berkeley Schools during the teachers' institute, were summarized in substantial detail.
In the November 15, 1913, issue of the Churchill County Eagle, there appeared an article entitled, "Centralized Schools: The Modem Method is Being Advocated in Country Districts Adjacent to Fallon," in which the point is made that " ... while new buildings are being put up, it would be better to adopt the more modem method and make the improvements at some suitable location, whether in town or out in the country, so that the children may have better educational advantages."
Again, on November 29, 1913; March 14, 1914; March 28, 1914; and April 4, 1914, there appeared articles advocating consolidation. Within a month, the paper announced that four districts--Wildes, Smart, Wightman and St. Clair--were considering consolidation and noted that "Reclamation officials are encouraging consolidation." A follow-up article on April 18, 1914, contained the headline, "A Union of Schools: Smart, Wildes and Wightman Districts Have taken a Progressive Step." Again a feature article in the July 11, 1914 issue of the Churchill County Eagle describes the move for Union schools on the part of Smart and Wightman Districts, announces that the government had donated 40 acres of land with water rights for 10 acres, proclaims the approval of District Superintendent of Schools F.A. Abel that such a union take place, and cites his arguments for consolidation.
Given the political climate favoring consolidation within which the "movers and shakers" and their successors operated, it is no small wonder that Harmon School remained a separate entity for over forty years after it was dedicated on January 1, 1916. The only explanations possible are the devotion and commitment of the Harmon District residents to their neighborhood school.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Churchill County Eagle, March 5, 1908
November 12, 1908
December 17, 1908
January 28, 1909
August 14, 1909
March 9, 1910
March 10, 1910
March 31, 1910
April 8, 1910
November 11, 1911
November 25, 1911
Harmon School 43
Churchill County Eagle March 9, 1912
January 25, 1913
November 1, 1913
November 8, 1913
November 15, 1913
November 29, 1913
February 14, 1914
March 14, 1914
March 28, 1914
April 4, 1914
April 18, 1914
May 9, 1914
July 11, 1914
July 18, 1914
July 25, 1914
August 8, 1914
September 4, 1915
November 16, 1915
January 8, 1916
January 15, 1916
October 16, 1916
Resources of the Truckee-Carson Project and Churchill County, Nevada.
Churchill County Chamber of Commerce, nd.
Ring, Orvis, Superintendent of Public Instruction. State of Nevada, Educational
Directory and Information as to Certification of Teachers. Carson City,
Nevada: State Printing Office, 1909.
44 Adam Fortunate Eagle
Adam Fortunate Eagle, dressed to dance in a men's traditional pow-wow competition, c1985. (C) Photograph by Grant. Courtesy of Adam Fortunate Eagle)
NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE Sonny Mosquito and the Chicken Dance
ADAM FORTUNATE EAGLE
STARTING OUT ON the pow-wow trail is always a time of great anticipation and excitement, for we never know what type of adventure lies ahead. The preparation requires careful planning, especially of those trips that will last several weeks; for no one wants to find himself several hundred miles away from the reservation only to discover he forgot the Coleman lantern or its replacement mantels.
Over the many years of hitting the pow-wow circuit, I have found it interesting to note the changes in the equipment one takes on the road and to experience how convenient and comfortable new developments can make life on the trail.
At one time, we took a steel grill to put over the camp fire to cook on. We soon moved on to a second-hand, pump-up model camp stove that used kerosene. It was erratic and unpredictable, just like a woman--hot, cold, stubborn! You fill the tank with fuel, pump it up, turn on the valve and light it with a wooden match. If you are lucky it will burst into beautiful bluish-red flame, and cooking breakfast on a chilly morning will be an absolute delight--or you can pump the heck out of the tank, turn the valve, light it, only to have the feeble flame quit after wheezing and chuffing along for a couple of minutes. You repeat the process several times as you try to keep your temper down. The worst situation occurs when you light it and the flame belches upward two or three feet like a huge blow torch, sending everyone running for cover, expecting that fire-belching green dragon to blow up.
Finally, we could afford a beautiful propane-fueled cooking stove. The stove sat on its own little folding stand. On the ground sat the fat little gas cylinder, with a little black hose connecting the two units together like an umbilical cord. No more pumping, no more trepidation at lighting it. Just open the valve on the tank, turn the valve on the stove and light it. The only problem now--where the heck do we find propane when the little tank runs out of gas? Some of the reservations can be miles from the nearest town.
Camping equipment checked out, it's on to other tasks. Last minute repairs are made on our dance outfits; we check out our eagle feather bustles to see that
45
46 Adam Fortunate Eagle
everything is secure. If tie strings are worn, we replace them with new ones, as dropping a feather in a pow-wow can be a very bad experience. Our regular clothing is also checked, then packed. Over a period of time I have developed a system of packing the van, for everything goes in its own place. Things we need most often are more accessible while the camp gear is tucked into the most remote spaces.
Teepee poles are tied snugly together and then lifted up and onto the roof of the van. The teepee cloth cover acts like a cushion for the poles; over that we tie down our camp chairs and grub box. After tying red warning flags to the front and rear ends of the long overhanging teepee poles, we are ready. I jam a pow-wow tape into the cassette player to set the proper mood, as we head out our dirt driveway to the paved road. We are on the pow-wow trail!
Three days later, we are winding down the road from the Blackfoot reservation at Browning, Montana, toward the grassy prairies of southern Alberta province of Canada. It is a relief to get out of the Rocky Mountains with its numerous wooden crosses marking the demise of the unfortunate travelers who failed to negotiate its treacherous curves.
Our destination is a small Kainai reserve at Standoff, Alberta. As we approach the pow-wow area all we can see is a thick stand of trees sitting out in the prairie. The encampment is well hidden in the shadowy depths of the grove. In no time, we, too, are swallowed up by its murky shadows--only it's like a journey into another world of time. Teepees and tents are everywhere and more are going up all the time, for this is camp day. The village is alive with people, and children are happily running around. The mood is definitely festive.
As is our custom when we arrive at camp, we circle it a time or two, searching for a nice place to set up our teepee and to gather the energy together. At a ceremonial gathering, we will circle the camp four times to bring good energy and feelings into the place. At the south side of the camp, a tall, gaunt figure of a man walks out to greet us. It is Sonny Mosquito! To a stranger, Sonny looks kind of strange: his deep-set eyes peer out through the dark rims; his nose is long and angular, sticking out between hollow cheeks. His lips are a little pouty, and it seems like he has too many teeth--as his front ones are slightly protruded. His scrawny figure adds to the unsettling appearance of Sonny, but those who know him see a very special and kind person.
Both his father and uncle are medicine men who seemed to have a little rivalry going on between them--maybe a sibling rivalry they never outgrew, but fortunately it is a friendly rivalry. In time, Sonny might become a medicine man, but, in the meantime, he is very active in keeping the traditions and teachings alive. He is a renowned singer, knowing many pow-wow songs, round dance, owl dance, honor songs and sacred songs, many of them handed down through his family. However, he did not come to the Standoff pow-wow as only a grass dancer. He had outfits for several different styles of dance, including the traditional dance.
Sonny Mosquito 47
Sonny gives me this big toothy smile as he shakes my hand and makes us welcome. "Here's a good spot to pitch your teepee," he says, pointing to a smooth spot of ground below a large overhanging tree that would provide welcome shade during the hot part of the day. The spot is not too far from his group of family teepees, so later on it would be easy for him to visit.
It doesn't take my wife Bobbie and me long to set up our teepee. All seventeen poles have their places in the circle. After the canvas is stretched over the framework of poles, the lower edges are staked down and, finally, the poles holding open the smoke flaps are installed. Inside, a floor covering is laid on the ground and we haul in the bedding material and the rest of the items necessary to make our teepee a cozy home. While Bobbie is arranging the cooking area, we hear the pow-wow Master of Ceremonies announce that sign ups for the various categories of dance competition are now open.
Sonny Mosquito stops by and says, "Come on, Adam, let's go sign up." Together we walk across the still growing camp ground. A work crew is stretching indoor-outdoor carpet over the dance arena. We stop in the middle of it in wonder and stomp on it a few times to test it out. "I've never danced on a carpet on an outdoor pow-wow," I comment. "Me neither," answers Sonny. "This is what you call progress, I guess." We laugh as we continue our way to the sign-up table. Other dancers are already there and as they are signing up, we look at the bulletin board listing the various categories and the prizes to be awarded, especially at the men's categories and the prizes to be awarded. All the men's categories list 1st place at $800.00, 2nd place at $500.00 and 3rd place at $300.00. But something is different! There listed below senior men's traditional category, is "Prairie Chicken Dance." Wow! I've never seen this category listed in competition at any pow-wows of the United States. I ask the girl sitting at the table, "Who can get into this contest?" "Anyone who wants to give it a try," she says with a laugh. "You mean a dancer can enter in more than one category?" "That's right. If you are eligible, you can sign up in as many categories you want."
Sonny says, "Let's sign up, go for it. What have we got to lose?" He also signs up for the grass dance category. I sign up for the chicken dance, men's traditional and, since I am over 50 years old, I sign up for senior men's traditional category as well.
As Sonny and I walk back toward our teepee, he points to another guy walking over to the right of us. "See that guy over there?" Sonny says. "He's the champion chicken dancer around here; he's won the championship three years in a row at this pow-wow. He's got some damn good moves; keep your eye on him during the pow-wow and you might be able to pick up on them. Look at the proud way he walks; he even walks like a champion."
When we arrive at my teepee, Sonny Mosquito turns into "coach" Mosquito. "Those Lakota chicken dancers down in South Dakota do a lot more bending
48 Adam Fortunate Eagle
over at the waist during the dance. Sometimes they look like near-sighted guys looking for dropped coins on the ground. Up here, we don't bend so much and we shake our shoulders more." Sonny stands there assuming the posture of a chicken dancer, much to the amusement of my wife Bobbie, who's watching the demonstration and coaching from the door of the teepee. I'm facing Sonny, feeling a little silly, having assumed the pose of a chicken also.
In the adult categories of the competition, three qualifiers are picked by the judges to go into the finals. So, at the end of three sessions, there will be nine finalists in each category. In the first session, all men who have signed up for the chicken dance are called out to the dance arena. The drum starts with a ruffle tempo; the dancers move out to the tempo of the drum, posturing and shaking their bustles like a covey of prairie chickens doing a mating ritual. The drum suddenly stops and the dancers have to stop right on the final beat. Then the tempo of the drum picks up into a solid war dance beat. All the dancers change their dance steps to maintain the solid beat of the drumming, slightly bowing and shaking their shoulders as they go through the moves of a prairie chicken. All dancers stop right at the final beat of the drum while the audience applauds the performance.
At the end of the first night's session, the M.C. announces the qualifiers for the finals. The three year champion is the first one called, followed by Sonny Mosquito and myself. On the way back to the teepee, Sonny and I congratulate each other at going into the finals. It is then I confide to Sonny that in all the dance competitions I have ever entered into during the many years of pow-wow dancing, this is the first time I'd ever competed in the chicken dance. Sonny laughs out loud in disbelief. "I've seen you dancing at pow-wows all over the United States for many years." "But," I respond "have you ever seen me chicken dance?" Sonny stops and thinks about it a moment. "Come to think about it, I haven't." He starts laughing again. "Damn, Adam, that's all right!"
The next morning, Bobbie fixes us breakfast over our new propane gas stove. The smell of fresh brewed coffee in the outdoors takes on a special fragrance along with the sizzling sound of bacon and eggs. The coolness of the morning only serves to stimulate our appetites. We chow down breakfast, sitting on folding camp chairs against a folding table with one gimpy leg that requires a little wire wrapping to make sure it doesn't fold up on us while we are eating.
Mid morning at many pow-wows is a great time for visiting. It doesn't take long for the sun to take the chill out of the air, and life in the camp picks up in quiet intensity as the women tend to their tasks around the teepees and dress up the children so they can go out and play. Sonny Mospuito stops by to visit; we invite him to sit down and then pour him a cup of coffee ... that little coffee pot sure gets a work out at the pow-wows as we always serve coffee to our drop-in guests. It seems to relax them, as they sip the steaming hot coffee and we talk. "You know there's a buffalo jump a few miles over there." Sonny sweeps his
Sonny Mosquito 49
arm in the southeast direction. "There's still a lot of old bleached buffalo bones at the bottom of the cliff; one of these days I'd like to take you guys over to see it." Anyone who's read any books about the early Indian days in the prairie knows about the buffalo jumps. Waving blankets and pounding their hand drums, the Indians would stampede the buffaloes over a cliff. It was a time of great celebration and feasting. Delicacies like tongue, liver, and heart were eaten while they were fresh. The meat was sliced thin by the women and hung up to dry and then to be stored away for the winter months. Sometimes several tons of buffalo jerky could be prepared in this way. When the calvary attacked the Cheyenne camp of Morning Star in October, 1876, they gathered up all the possessions of the tribe, buffalo robes, teepees, some of which were beautifully decorated with sacred designs and quillwork, all cooking utensils and tools. The troops threw everything into a huge pile. The troopers also found tons of buffalo jerky and threw that onto the pile and then they set fire to it. The surviving Cheyenne were reduced to hunger and starvation and could be more easily rounded up and put on a reservation at Lame Deer, Montana. Afterward, the calvary realized they had made a stupid mistake. They were on short rations and a brutal winter was rapidly approaching and they had just burned tons of meat.
It's conversations like this that are part of the oral tradition of our people. Legends and the ceremonial ways are also discussed so there can be a beautiful understanding of our heritage. It's pow-wows like this that draw together people of many tribes in a social way so that this knowledge can be shared and passed on. Young urban Indians find these types of gatherings much more educational to them in the traditional ways of our people, as such experiences could never be obtained from a book.
I pour Sonny another cup of coffee and we switch our conversation to pow-wow talk. He laughs as he tells of us qualifying in the first round for the finals. That means we can sit and watch the next two qualifying rounds. Sonny also qualifies for the finals in the grass dance competition and I still have enough stuff in me to qualify in men's traditional and senior men's traditional categories. Now we can both kick back and watch the other dancers do their thing. When you are over 50 years old, you have to take every advantage to save your energy and strength.
As in any athletic or dancing competition, you psych yourself up before the actual event, getting the adrenalin pumping in your sometimes protesting veins. When the drumbeat starts, you move out into the arena, stomping in rhythm to the beat of the drum that sometimes produces a euphoria and exhilaration found nowhere else. For the solid drum beat is like the beat of your heart; the chiming of the bells strapped around your ankles are like a chorus of small spirits singing to the delight of the dancer, twisting, turning, bowing all in time with that lovely drum and the singers, in their high falsetto voices that literally climb to the heavens. All around is a swirling mass of other dancers--men bedecked in eagle
50 Adam Fortunate Eagle
feather bustles that gently brush against you as they dance by, women traditional dancers in their hand-tanned buckskin dresses decorated with a profusion of beads, dentellium shell or occasionally a classic elk tooth decorated dress. The younger women have colorful shawls draped over their shoulders, with various traditional decorations on them, trimmed with long fringes adding to the movement of their graceful active footwork. The shawl dancer is the women's version of the men's fancy dancer. "When you dance, dance proud," my Crow brother once told me, "for you are dancing before the Great Spirit who made a dancer of you ... show your pride!" There is no question about it, for everyone in that circling mass of dancers is both proud and happy.
The three day pow-wow passes all too quickly. Before we know it, the final night of the pow-wow has arrived and all adult categories of competition are to be run off. The Master of Ceremonies calls out the finalists in each group ... women's fancy, women's traditional, men's fancy, men's traditional, grass dance, men's senior traditional. Each group goes through a series of songs appropriate for that category. Sonny and I both go through our categories and, in between sessions, we stand together happily talking about the competition. "Adam, those shoulder moves you do look good. Those ermine skins attached to your shirt swing and move real good as you shake your shoulders!" Sonny "the coach" Mosquito was at it again, offering his knowledge of the dance and type of moves that looked best in that dance.
The time of the chicken dance competition finally arrives. The M.C. calls out the nine men finalists into the arena. The champion strides out with a look of confidence on his face, for he's been in this situation many times before. Sonny and I shake hands and wish each other good luck as we both go out into the arena to assume our positions.
The waiting in that cool evening for our category to start causes me to cool off and my muscles to stiffen a bit so I start a mild form of calisthenics to loosen up those aging bones. All the time I'm thinking, "I've got to loosen up, gotta loosen up, cause when the dance starts I'm going to dance like I've got no bones in my body, to shake and bow and make those moves in the most fluid way possible. Remember, this prairie chicken dance is a re-enactment of the mating ritual of the prairie chicken. You've got to dance like a homey little rooster putting the make on those cute chicks out there. Yah! that's it ... dance like a homey chicken and go all out in the contest cause this is the last contest." I take several breaths of air, deep, real deep, fill in all the little pockets in my lungs with air almost to the point of hyperventilating. "Dance like a homey chicken," I mutter again to myself as the drum starts the ruffle part of the dance in which the little rooster goes through a series of moves, shuffling his feet rapidly as he struts and preens his extended feathers. I try to think of myself as that little rooster trying to stir the libido of the admiring chickens. "Shake those shoulders, shake those shoulders!" It seems as though I can hear Sonny's instructions in my ears
Sonny Mosquito 51
as I shake my shoulders, bowing and turning a graceful circle as I shuffle along. Damn that feels good!
The drum suddenly stops, I stop right on the beat, bowing and shaking my shoulders as I do. Then the drum starts a solid war dance beat. We stomp that indoor-outdoor carpet until the dust flies out. All nine dancers really turn on the moves. The champion whoops and hollers as he raises his coup stick, making a beautiful turn as he stomps the trembling ground in time with the great drum. I wear an eagle feather back bustle with the feathers spread out, similar to that of the rooster prairie chicken. When I shake my hips, the eagle feather bustle exaggerates the moves, making it appear as though I'm moving more than I really am. I sneak a quick look at the audience and spot several young women looking at me with admiring eyes. "Hot damn! This aging rooster can still turn the heads of the chicks!" The powerful beat of the drum, the high pitched singing, the loud clanking of ankle bells and the rhythmic stomping of our moccasined feet create a mood that makes you forget you're over fifty out there dancing with guys young enough to be your sons ... for you are out there dancing a dance that takes you back in space and time to a more peaceful time when the Indian lived as one with all life around him--emulating the forces of nature, of procreation, of life itself! The mighty drum suddenly stops. All nine dancers stop right on the final beat. We let out war whoops to express our joy. We line up by the announcer's stand with the applause and shouts of approval from the audience. The judges have their jobs cut out for them as they mark their score cards, double checking the numbers pinned to the dancers. Their faces are stoic and give no hint of who they are voting for. When they are through marking their score cards, the head judge waves us off. Sonny and I almost stumble out of the arena as the exertion of the dance starts to show itself. I am puffing and wheezing, still trying to catch my breath as we find a space under the arbor to await the announcement of the winners. At the other side of the arena, the champion is surrounded by a circle of friends that had been cheering him on during the contest.
"And now, for the winners of the chicken dance competition," the announcer booms out over the P.A. system. Sonny looks at me with a big smile on his sweaty face. "It's time," he shouts over the din of the crowd. "The third place winner in the chicken dance contest is Charlie Fast Bull from Hobema, Canada!" "Hey, that's the champ!" yells Sonny. "Somebody has just knocked off the three years' champion!" Charlie, the dethroned champ, walks slowly across the arena to receive his $300.00 prize. "For second place in the chicken dance contest, we call out Sonny Mosquito." "Way to go, Sonny!" I shout, slapping him on the back. "You've beaten the champ!" Sonny runs a slow gait over to the head judge to collect his $500.00 prize. "Who's the new champ?" I think to myself as I look around the arena at the other competitors. "They all danced great." Before I can make my guess, the announcer breaks into my thoughts. "And now, ladies
52 Adam Fortunate Eagle
and gentlemen, I'm proud to announce the new chicken dance champion, from Fallon Indian Reservation in Nevada, a member of the Chippewa tribe, the new champion is Adam Fortunate Eagle!!" The M.C. milked that announcement for all it was worth, but, who cares, I am the surprised winner!
The audience lets out a roar of applause and shouting as I bound across the indoor-outdoor covered arena. Sonny rushes out to greet me. "You did it, Adam, You did it! You pulled it off ... you've beaten the three year champion!" He is pumping my hand and pounding me on the back at the same time as we walk over to the head judge to collect my $800.00 cash prize and a small trophy which reads "Kainai Indian days ... 1982 ... Chicken Dance."
That little trophy may look a little funky for a tribal event, for standing on top is a figure representing a Roman athelete holding aloft a laurel wreath as a symbol of victory. That little Roman athelete represents a winner, a champion from another culture and he appears to be saying to me "You too are a winner, a champion, in fact you, Fortunate Eagle, are an International Chicken Dance Champion!"
Come to think of it ... have you ever met a chicken dancer?
Oh Ho!!
PIONEER PORTRAITS
Nevada Humanities Committee Funds
Fallon Oral History Project
SYLVIA ARDEN
IN JANUARY, 1990, the Nevada Humanities Committee awarded the Churchill County Museum Association in Fallon a grant to develop and implement an oral history program which could serve as a pilot project for other communities and states. The project would center on Fallon, an agricultural community known as "The Oasis of Nevada."
The objective of the project was to develop a full oral history program in Churchill County. This would involve organization, training and processing. I was hired as the Humanist-in-Residence and provided overall direction, intensive training, guidance and consultation. Early experiences indicate that the project will be an extraordinarily successful one.
The project began with discussions with Myrl Nygren of the Churchill County Museum Association, supervisor of the project, in which visits by me were scheduled over a period of time. The time frame is one of the unique features of
Sylvia Arden hard at work in the Oral History section of the Churchill County Museum & Archives, 1990. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Carol Cote photograph)
53
54 Sylvia Arden
Fallon's project and will be important in securing ultimate success. It has the advantages of granting incentives with each visit and extending the training and development through the final steps of the oral histories. After discussions, the following schedule was finalized: June 4-15, intensive training and development of recordkeeping systems and forms; July 16-20, reviewing oral history tapes, follow-up training. Sessions were scheduled for September 5-6, October 10-11 and November 14-15, for reviewing, processing, consultation, setting future goals, and reports.
Individuals targeted and invited to participate in the training were staff and volunteers from the Churchill County Museum and similar representatives in surrounding towns. Newspaper and radio publicity, as well as letters, sought additional volunteers from the region. It was hoped that attendance would range from a minimum of six to a maximum of fifteen.
Seventeen participants showed up at the first training session, including four from Yerington and two from Hawthorne, small towns over sixty miles from Fallon. By the second week, participants had increased to twenty-three, representing a wide range of backgrounds--from third generation Fallon residents to newcomers escaping the crowded California cities for the quiet rural atmosphere of Churchill County. Included were several wives of retired military men, some now working for private contractors at the Naval Air Station. The participants ranged in age from the thirties to the early eighties. The three men involved with the project did not seem to mind being outnumbered by the women.
Mornings were devoted to intensive training. These sessions were videotaped so they can be later used for continued training as new volunteers join the program, or for sharing with other communities. Afternoons were devoted to setting up systems for keeping records, creating forms, reviewing and critiquing the practice tapes, and taking research field trips. Separate small training sessions were held with volunteers working on record-keeping, transcribing and cataloging. Every training session was dynamic, with a flow of questions and constant notetaking. The enthusiasm of the participants never waivered--in fact, it heightened as the project progressed.
During the second week of training, an Oral History committee met to identify subject priorities. The key to the Lahontan valley area is water; thus the committee quickly decided to focus on the Newlands Project, the first federal reclamation project in the United States, including its subtopics, the Lahontan Dam, Civilian Conservation Corps, Homemakers' Clubs, farming, and how the Newlands Project impacted the region and its people. The participants discussed and recommended prospective narrators based on their first-hand knowledge and experiences.
Since research is such an important component of quality oral histories, I visited area repositories containing materials relevant to the proposed subject
Oral History Project 55
areas. Staff at the Nevada State Archives, Carson City; University of Nevada, Reno; and the Nevada Historical Society, Reno, were all eager to cooperate. A research field trip to Reno was scheduled for the second week of training.
All were enthusiastic about the research field trip. They had previously visited the Fallon public library for an orientation to its Nevada Room Collections and had been given a thorough introduction to the resources at the Churchill County Museum and Archives. Nineteen participants carpooled to Reno, meeting at the University of Nevada's Special Collections room. There, Kathryn Totton gave a detailed orientation to the collections and extended the opportunity to do some research. Tom King's oral history department was also visited. Then, the Nevada Historical Society Librarian Marjorie Lee Mortensen presented a detailed description of their materials. Many of the participants had never visited these repositories before, so it was a new, exciting experience. Everyone was eager to return to devote more time for research.
Friday, the last day of the first training session, the participants were given an assignment--to complete their first serious oral history by my next visit, July 16. At that time I planned to review the tapes plus the participants' folders containing research materials, forms, copies of letters and notes.
When I returned and met with them on July 16, I found much had been done. The volunteers had completed six oral histories. The transcriber had completed one transcript and a portion of a second one. The museum had purchased three recorders, mikes, carrying cases, and a number of tapes and batteries. Three volunteers had purchased their own equipment. During the first day of the second session the participants discussed their experiences. Most of my time during that week was devoted to listening to the oral histories, reviewing the contents of their folders, reviewing and editing the transcripts.
All of the interviewers were excellent. The interviews, photos and documents are already coming in. The project is succeeding, and two oral histories are printed in this edition of IN FOCUS.
56 Elmer J. Huckaby
Elmer J. Huckaby at his salt works on Fourmile Flat, 1986. (© Christine Riedell)
Excerpts from the Oral History of
Elmer J. Huckaby
ELAINE HESSELGESSER, INTERVIEWER
Courtesy of the Churchill County
Oral History Project, Fallon, Nevada, 1990
THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW is with Elmer J. Huckaby at his residence at 895 Harrigan Road in Fallon, Nevada. It took place the morning of July 6, 1990, for the oral history project at the Churchill County Museum. Elaine Hesselgesser interviewed Elmer on his early childhood and his purchase of the salt works east of Fallon.
ELAINE: Okay, Elmer, when did you move to Fallon?
HUCKABY: On the tenth of May, 1931.
ELAINE: And did you come here by yourself? Or with your family?
HUCKABY: No, I come with my folks. They had a dairy business. We took a lease on the Moiola ranch out next to the cemetery. That was our first home here and my Dad had a partner down in the Owens Valley, and they didn't get along so we moved to where I live now, in 1931. Dad took a lease on the Dodge Ranch south of here, where George Pomeroy lives. We were there for about three years, and then we moved up the river to Bango, Nick Jesch's ranch, and then we got together with Louis Moiola and we moved back to the Moiola ranch about 1935. And, sure enough, I got married in 1936, but in the meantime I'd been baling hay for a living. Oh, we worked hard; in other words, it was tough going. We baled hay out of the stack. It'd take six men and myself. I had the first pickup baler in Fallon. Yes, and we could bale hay with three men and myself then, oh man, so much easier.
You know ... and oh, came into 1938, and I had a chance to lease the salt flat from a guy, name of Quinn, and, sure enough, in 1940 Leslie Salt called me and said, "Elmer, are you the man with the salt bin in your backyard?" And I said "Yes." And they said,"Well, we've had an investigation in Fallon and there's four other people besides you that's interested in the salt flat, and we find that you have the best record for honesty." Well, the truth of the matter was, about three out of the four guys had spent time in Leavenworth, Kansas--(laughter)--a federal
57
58 Elmer J. Huckaby
penitentiary--so I've always said I was the least of the crooks (laughter). But it has been a wonderful, wonderful thing for us.
I remember our first load that I got out of there ... I borrowed a wheelbarrow from my father, and, sure enough, the road was washed away down to the plant area where we are now. So I backed this old '36 Chevy--oh, for a quarter of a mile and got as close as I could down to the salt flat itself. Then there was what we called drift salt that gathers on the side of the road and, sure enough, I had some two by twelve's--or the old company did. They were twenty four foot long and had been soaking in water. I imagine they weighed 250 pounds, but I was young and strong; I packed and dragged them damn things down to the truck, made a ramp into the truck out of a couple of them. And then I got a couple more and made a catwalk out into the flat. So I take this old wheelbarrow, go out there, and I had a number two scoop, and I scooped the wheelbarrow full and run it down the catwalk. Got kind of a running start at this ramp and was strong enough to push this wheelbarrow up there. It took me two days to get six ton, and the third day I brought it into the MPA Creamery north of town. Otto Scholz was the manager, and, sure enough, I hand-mucked that stuff into a place, and they give me seven dollars a ton. I made forty-two dollars there in three days, which was big money back in 1938 (laughter).
It went on in 1940. Then Leslie called me from Reno and said to me, "We'd like to have you take over the flat directly from us." So, that was the way it went. Then we leased the ground, paid royalty--two dollars a ton--for years and years until ... up until 1983 it was. And, sure enough, in the meantime we'd been sold. Leslie sold out to Cargill Company from Indianapolis, and we'd been sold for a year and didn't know it (laughter). We had a horrible lot of water out there. Oh, and it rained in 1982 something fierce. All the people here--their hay was rotten. They'd keep turning it over, just had to burn it practically, in other words. But we got so much water on the flat, the wind blew it and it blew right over the road and washed away at least a quarter of a mile of road. There was just room for us to get our trucks down there to start overhauling it. By the time we got through buying a bunch of coarse rock to keep the place from washing away, we was in it about ... I don't know, about six or seven thousand dollars. So I told the Leslie people, I said, "Could you come up with maybe four or five thousand to help us because it's your property?" And they said, "Well, Huck, instead of us giving you five or six thousand, would you give us a dollar for the whole thing, because," they said, "you've earned it." So, sure enough, I gave 'em a dollar and I was seventy-five years old at the time, so I said, "Don't make no deeds out to me. You make it out to my sons, Jim and John, and my daughter, Joyce. Make
them the owners of it. And then, turn around and lease from them and give
them two dollars a ton or a dollar a ton...." I still do. So that's the way it's been. Now, of course, I'm getting onto eighty years old. I've had cancer in my rib and lung and spots in my liver. So I spent most of this last winter in Reno in St.
Oral History Excerpts 59
Mary's Hospital. They said I'm in remission and so, oh, I'm doing good. I've started to pick up weight and my cancer doctor said, "Huck, you should take twenty shots of radiation, so this thing don't wind up in your brain. So here I am with my forehead all burnt and my ears ready to fall off. I'm still in remission so thank the Lord for that.
ELAINE: What made you interested in buying the salt works, or leasing the salt works?
HUCKABY: To make a living, to make money. I thought, man, in other words, the salt in 1938 was beautiful, in other words, they had another tough winter. The more water that you get on the flat, the bigger the crystals will grow. Now, I've seen a lot of them an inch square. Perfectly square. Yeah, in other words, I just thought to myself, "Man, an area maybe five thousand acres out there ... salt."
ELAINE: That large?
HUCKABY: Yeah.
ELAINE: And this is pure salt?
HUCKABY: Yeah, most of the time. We have, oh, 99% or better. We have had it up to 99.85 pure, fifteen hundredths of one percent and then that's six different things; like, we do have a little sodium sulphate--that's another word for alkali. We get that in the salt. And we get carbonates, sodium carbonates.. . baking soda. Aluminum, there's a little aluminum in the salt, just traces of it. Thousandths of a part. We usually have Leslie test it and they would give us a complete analysis of all the elements in it, maybe six or seven different things.
ELAINE: Now, you test it every year?
HUCKABY: In other words, it's tested for dirt, sediment--if you got it, and most of the time, it's nil, none, the way our invented harvester picks it up.
ELAINE: And something else I wanted to ask you about was the equipment you use out there.
HUCKABY: Oh, yeah, we got away from that wheelbarrow. In 1940, Myrlin [Plummer] and I, we built a little side delivery bucket line that raised the salt up, gravity flow, into an old hand-operated hoist, three ton. Your hands would smoke on that handle after you raised that three ton up (laughter). In 1941 Leslie asked us if we could ship two hundred car loads out of there, and I said, "By God, we'll sure give her a try." So we had this side bucket-line affair and we built a ramp so that we could back up the ramp and dump it where it would fall through these holes, when you opened the traps, into these old Chevy trucks that we had. If you didn't lose a minute you could get maybe fifty ton in eight, ten hours. We had to windrow the salt up ahead of it, in other words, we'd windrow the salt. We had an old horse blade and we'd pull it with our trucks ... windrow the salt up, and then this bucket line would come down those windrows and pick up the salt. Then we had an outfit, you know, the buckets that kind of scattered. We had an outfit behind that we kind of bladed back up again, ha, ha, and, sure
60 Elmer J. Huckaby
enough, we'd just get our men hired and get going--had a couple of dump trucks--come a rain and our windrows would all disappear just like sugar ... you know, they'd melt. So, nothing to do, we just laid the crew off and waited until the flat went dry again; then we could go out and harvest again. We could windrow it. Well, this rain happened, oh, three or four times that summer of 1941, and I said, "There's got to be a machine that'll come out here and windrow--blade this stuff, elevate it and bunker it, all in one operation. Sure enough, I was wracking my brain. I was playing this old piano of ours, and about ten o'clock at night I got this vision of this machine, and before I forgot what I'd looked at.... It was Heaven sent--the good Lord sent it down ... I got up and got an old piece of meat wrapping paper and I drew it out, a design. The next day I asked my wife Vera--and our son John was only two months at the time--I said, "You get them kids ready. We're heading for Frisco. We're going to see if we can get money enough to build this harvester."
So, sure enough, we got down to Newark [California]. We had to go to Newark for the meeting and I showed this piece of meat wrapping paper around, and it was pretty discouraging to watch the expressions on these guys' faces as they looked at this (laughing). Anyway, one guy said, "That don't look practical to me. What you gonna do if you hit one them soppen places out there on the flat?" They said, "You gonna have salt up there fourteen foot high, ... that machine will tip over." I said, "No, I don't show it here on these drawings but we're going to put outriggers on it. You know, South Sea Island canoes have them." "Oh, okay." So old man Hewitt, the President of Leslie Salt Company at that time, he said, "Elmer, you think that"--and the words were--"s. o. b. will work?" I said," Mr. Hewitt, she's gotta work or you're not going to get your two hundred car loads." He said, "How much money you gotta have?" I said, "Two thousand bucks to build it." He said to his secretary, "Wilbur, make out this boy a check for two thousand dollars payable at two bits a ton, when he gets it built."
Oh, boy, did I sign that slip. Sure enough, I got the two thousand bucks, made a down payment on another truck coming through Reno, brought it home, and Myrlin Plummer and I went to work on this thing. He done most of the work. Nine weeks later at a cost of $1,165 for nine weeks of work of lathing and cutting and welding, making bearings, we took it out to the flat and it worked just like we thought it was going to work. Beautiful, you know. We were picking up a ton a minute, which beat that wheelbarrow all to pieces (laughter).
It's been there ever since. This last year we've had to redo the bunker on it, the old used iron that we got from Dodge and Drumm and anybody else that would sell us anything cheap, you know. In fact, the bucket line and all the head and tail pulleys, countershafts, big shafts like that, I paid thirty-five dollars for up there at Smith Peterson, the gravel company in Reno. They'd stacked it out and was gonna sell it for scrap iron. The bucket line, was a kind of a joint, knuckle affair, and those knuckles were worn until you could see the half-inch bolts. And
Oral History Excerpts 61
The salt works on Fourmile Flat. c1975. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Elmer J. Huckaby Collection)
The salt harvester designed by Elmer J. Huckaby at work on Fourmile Flat. c1975. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Elmer J. Huckaby Collection)
62 Elmer J. Huckaby
that old bucket line lasted until last year. We just bought a new chain for it and new buckets.
ELAINE: That's pretty good.
HUCKABY: All that time, in other words--well it was forty-six, forty-seven years--that original old stuff was on there. We just replaced it last year, and we replaced the bunker with stainless steel. We spent, oh, seven or eight thousand bucks for stainless steel alone ... four, six, seven times more than we paid for the whole machine in 1941.
* * *
ELAINE: How long do you take to harvest it [the salt]?
HUCKABY: Oh, last year we was, oh, we was months. In other words, we put about five thousand ton in a pile and then we'd get rain. We found it's better to just let the salt flat rest, and make salt again, rather than to go out and keep stirring the ... you know, stir up the silt if you keep it working, and the silt will form back into crystal, makes the salt look tan, so we just pull the equipment out until it goes dry again.
Last year it took three crops to get fifteen thousand ton in the pile.
ELAINE: So it's pretty seasonal? Do you do it mostly in the summer?
HUCKABY: Oh, yeah. Well, when the salt flat goes dry, usually we have water until, oh, maybe March, April. We went out in April this year, and the kids got, I don't know, five or six hundred ton. Sure enough, got rained out, and we've been waiting for it to dry up for nearly two months. It had a lot of water, so that's what made our big crop this year. The kids are out there right now. Too bad you can't come out and see it.
ELAINE: I'm going to some day.
HUCKABY: Yeah, Elaine, it would be something that you wouldn't forget. It's no ordinary thing. Had an old fellow from Dow Chemical come up during the war and he said, "Huck, I've been around the world three or four times." He said, "You've got the most economical salt operation I ever saw." You know, a lot of places they do it by hand. China, you know, and then there's places where they'll make fifteen million ton of salt in one year. In Baja California. The Gulf of California? Natural salt pans practically, very little diking was necessary; and they make fifteen million ton a year and they still run out of salt. They ship it out there by the boat load, ten or twelve thousand ton at a time. It's terrific, it's a German owned company. They really have a big operation. They sent boat loads to New York. Boat loads of salt.
They thought they could get by without salt, and hell, they had nothing but wrecks, accidents. They went back to the use of salt. They found out it was the cheapest.
ELAINE: When you first leased it out there, how much equipment was left?
Oral History Excerpts 63
HUCKABY: Oh, there was a couple of old duplex trucks left. Guy by the name of Heward, he finally wrecked out the whole thing. They had a big long kiln dryer, sixty feet long, and it must have been four feet in diameter, at least. Huge.
During the first part of World War II they were so anxious to get things going out in Gabbs--they had magnesite out there that they needed. And this old kiln dryer at the salt flat wound up as a culvert in that road going to Gabbs (laughter). No kidding, that's the truth. Old Elmer Heward, he hauled it away. So we built our own stainless steel kiln dryer, about 1980, I guess. So, we get going out there we can kiln dry about eight tons per hour that we bag up and the fines we use for this Nevada Supplement, like I was saying awhile ago. In other words, it's what we call a three-thirty second fine, screened and they sort of take it loose, which is handy, you know. We don't have to bag it or anything.
We start out with the bags, I think they were four or five cents apiece and now they're forty cents apiece. Sixteen dollars a ton for bags alone. That's what it amounts to, forty bags to a ton, fifty pound. So, in other words, we have to charge like the devil, seventy-six dollars a ton, bagged up.... We thought we could heat the thing with oil but it didn't atomize like it should. In other words, when you've got the salt out you can still smell stove oil in it. It wasn't completely burning so we was afraid it would make cattle sick, or sheep, so we had to go to Petrolane. Petrolane at that time, I think, was about eighteen to twenty cents a gallon. Now it's a dollar, a dollar and some cents sometime. So, in other words, by the time you pay the guys to bag it, you just about break even. Boy, it's just a service, is all.
I'll show you, Elaine, I'll show the bags after awhile, when we get through here.
ELAINE: What were some of the funniest experiences you've had out there?
HUCKABY: Well, there's been some dandies. I've come close to being killed three or four times. This old harvester we built had an old five ton Dodge rear end in it--what they called spike axles at the time. The axle took the weight of the machine, and old Myrlin and I had put triple tires on to keep it up in the soft places. But this axle broke and we couldn't get it out ... we couldn't get it out ... we beat on it with sledge hammers. So I said, "Well, we'll get it out of there." I had dynamite. So we rolled a barrel up there and it seemed like it took the cast iron bung to hold the dynamite in the right place; and, sure enough, I lit the fuse and I backed off there, oh, a hundred feet and "Boom" that went off. That cast iron bung come right through the barrel and it actually "pert" near burnt my ear. That's how close I come to getting my head tore off, no kidding.
ELAINE: Wow!
HUCKABY: Yeah, and, oh, it wasn't funny. We was trying to get an axle out and we had a ball peen hammer and I hit on that ball peen hammer and
64 Elmer J. Huckaby
this old Tom Jones, running the harvester—the piece hit his thumb on the inside of the palm and you could see it trying to come out over here. [Elmer pointed to the back of his hand by the base of the thumb.] Oh, he was hurting, I said "Now, Tom, you just hang tough here for a minute." So I got my knife, I cut the skin and the cut the piece of ball peen hammer out of his hand, (laughter). Old Tom, he was a wonderful old fellow. He come from Texas, he said, "Boy,"--he'd been picking cotton down there--he said, "This is the best job in the country." (laughter). Oh, dear old fellow, I was a pallbearer for him. He died, he got cancer. Old Sophie's still going; she's celebrated her ninetieth birthday and I went, Mary and I went. Oh, so many of my old pals are out at the graveyard. Actually, I think there's more out there than I got running around here in Fallon (laughter). I tell you, people have been real nice to me since my sickness, no kidding. People in St Mary's, the nurses, dang near fall in love with them all, they just sure treated me nice. No kidding, and the doctors, same way over at radiation ... it seemed like I'd get there and maybe my appointment would be for 11:30. If I'd get there at 11:00, "go on in."
ELAINE: That's pretty good.
HUCKABY: Oh, yeah. Of course some of them just absolutely, you know, beautiful, no kidding. Of course, when you're sick every girl looks like a queen.
ELAINE: Yeah, our Daddy met an awful lot of nice people.
HUCKABY: Oh, your Dad [Phil Hiibel], he was great, I'll tell you. I'll never forget we went to a dance out at the Half Way House. That was before prohibition, you know. The Ferguson boys had a big jug of whiskey and, damn, I got into that and the next thing you know we were heading for home in my old 1928 Chevy coupe and, sure enough--it was winter--my damn radiator froze up, so I stopped at the river and got your Dad's hat--it was a new Stetson hat--and that was the only thing I could get water in, (laughing) and thawed that damn thing out and took old Phil on home. He'd passed out cold. Oh, boy. He was great. I tell you this District hasn't been right since old Phil Hiibel passed away, or quit the job. I tell you it's getting worse all the time. So much, the government backing those Indians up over there at Pyramid Lake. Man, when you get to fighting the government you'll have a hell of a time. I know your Dad had to go back to Washington two or three times to see if he couldn't straighten the thing out. Of course, Reno and Sparks wants water, Carson wants water. This water is getting to be quite a problem. I hope and pray that this valley don't turn out like Owens Valley did, the water all going to L.A. That's the reason why I'm in Fallon. Yeah, we was trying to lease ground from the city down there and, oh, we had about a thirty cow dairy. Dad just got through leveling a hundred acres of ground, getting it all seeded, coming up, and the city refused to give him water for it. That's when he said, "By God, I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to go north„ I'm not going to get any closer to the city of Los Angeles than I am right now." And that's when we come to Fallon.
Oral History Excerpts 65
ELAINE: Well, is there anything else you'd like to add about the salt works?
HUCKABY: We just keep making it easier. We had an old--let's see what they call it--it's like a Barber green loader, Leslie had it. We used it for loading out of stock piles for years. It'd load a ton a minute, and now we've got skip loaders, we have a Terex--that's a two and a half, three yard--we have a 1955 Caterpillar, and we have a 1933 Caterpillar track layers. We got three skip loaders out to the flat. Something we never had before. We've had to buy trucks -- Peterbilts -- have a Freightliner and then we have an International, all capable of twenty-five tons.
ELAINE: And your son John helps you?
HUCKABY: My son John is running it right now, and his two boys. He got three boys; I think he'll have all three of them out there. It takes--like I said awhile ago--it takes a man to run the harvester, a man on each truck, you gotta have two trucks. And that's the efficiency that puts sixty ton an hour in the pot.
66 Ivy Wallace Ringstrom
Ivy Wallace Ringstrom in the parlor of the Churchill County Museum. 1990. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Carol Cote photograph)
The Wallace home, 2775 Reno Highway. c1950. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Truckee-Carson Irrigation District Collection)
Excerpts from the Oral History of
Ivy Wallace Ringstrom
MARIAN LAVOY, INTERVIEWER
Courtesy of the Churchill County
Oral History Project, Fallon, Nevada, 1990
THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW is with Ivy Wallace Ringstrom at the home of Harriet and Bill Barkley, 5580 Candee Lane, Fallon, Nevada. It took place on July 9, 1990, for the oral history project at the Churchill County Museum. Marian LaVoy is the interviewer.
Ivy was born in Fallon, Nevada, in 1912. Her father, Walter Herbert Wallace, had come west from the Dakotas in 1906, looking for work generated by the San Francisco earthquake. But work there was scarce. He heard about the Newlands Project in Fallon and arrived in the spring of 1906, landing a job on his first day there. He rapidly advanced from carpenter to foreman to superintendent and, finally, to manager of the Newlands Project. Ivy's mother, Ella Lohse Wallace, was born in Chemnitz, Germany (now Karl Marzstadt) and also arrived in Fallon in 1906 with her parents, Ida and Albin Lohse. Walter Wallace and Ella Lohse were married in 1911 and moved to what is now the Don Travis farm, where Ivy was born.
LaVOY: Now, where is the farm?
RINGSTROM: That's where Don Travis is, and that is 1800 Wade Lane, where Don Travis's house is now. But it was further back from there, and my grandparents' home was right by that. Theirs was built of adobe bricks ...
LaVOY: Your grandparent's home?
RINGSTROM: Yes, they made their chicken houses and tack rooms and storage rooms, and everything, of this adobe brick because it was inexpensive and lumber was expensive; and they had to provision the farm with animals, and seed and everything. They tried to make their money go as far as it could.
LaVOY: They made the adobe brick themselves? RINGSTROM: Yes.
LaVOY: What was it made from?
RINGSTROM: Just mud and straw, and they made frames of wood and poured this slurry into it and let it dry and then they constructed their house.
LaVOY: Well, I think that's marvelous.
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RINGSTROM: I do too (laughter). I think it's just absolutely fascinating, and they had it laid out, I guess, like the European style farmyards. But they were not farmers, they were city people and I do admire them for coming here, not knowing the language, not knowing the country. Like they came from a green country and coming out to the desert, and they were in their fifties, rolling up their sleeves and starting life all over again.
LaVOY: That is amazing.
RINGSTROM: Isn't it, though?
LaVOY: Is that house still standing, do you know? RINGSTROM: No.
LaVOY: And your parents lived right on the property next to it?
RINGSTROM: Well, they had a house right on the farm, and they had that until 1914.
LaVOY: Now, was that adobe too?
RINGSTROM: No, that was built of wood. See, my dad knew how to build, and they built this little house, and the doctors that delivered me said that, [it] was such a little doll house that they had there.
LaVOY: Who was the doctor that delivered you?
RINGSTROM: It was two doctors, Doctor Dempsey [Dr. George Langley Dempsey] and Doctor Ferrell [Dr. J.C. Ferrell].
LaVOY: They were early Fallon doctors?
RINGSTROM: Yes, they were.
LaVOY: I see. Well, you lived there, then, for two years and then where did your parents move?
RINGSTROM: Well, then they bought a farm over on what's the Reno Highway now, and Buck Kim lives on the farm. He sold part of it. I think it's Clines [Jean and the late Wilfred Cline] that live in the house that Buck built. But the original house that my folks moved into ... [then] there was a house on the property; they built a new house. It was finished in 1928. That house is gone now. It was torn down.
LaVOY: I see, now the house that you lived in then as you grew up was the old house that was there?
RINGSTROM: The old house.
LaVOY: Can you tell me something about it? How was the house heated?
RINGSTROM: By wood stove, and we cooked on the old wood range, you know.
LaVOY: Whose responsibility was it to bring the wood in and to get it cut?
RINGSTROM: Well, we shared on that. I was supposed to pick up kindling, and that was a murderous job for me (laughter). I hated that and the place abounded in kindling. And yet I hated it so. I was a lazy one, I guess.
LaVOY: Oh, I wouldn't say that. Well, your mother, and you, too, cooked on a wood stove?
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RINGSTROM: On a wood stove, yes.
LaVOY: What was your drinking water source?
RINGSTROM: Well, there was a pump and we were lucky. We had a well under the house and had a pump and a sink right in the kitchen. That was right next to the hot water reservoir on the stove so we could just fill it very easily. That was a luxury.
LaVOY: Yes. I imagine that it was in those days. Did you have electric lights?
RINGSTROM: Not until about 1924, I think it was, that we got electricity and Doctor Dempsey had brought electricity out from town to his property, and then my folks and Thomas Williamson, and Frank Hammond, and Mr. Pelton--I can't remember his [first] name, he was Phil Pelton's dad--they went together and brought the power line out, around to our place and so we had electricity earlier than the other settlers in the valley because the rural electrification didn't take place until the thirties.
LaVOY: What kind of fixtures did you have?
RINGSTROM: Well, we had light fixtures, we had an electric iron, and we had a toaster and that was it.
LaVOY: That's wonderful. Did you have indoor plumbing?
RINGSTROM: N-0000. Not until in the new house, 1928, then we had it all there.
LaVOY: But, prior to that you had to go outdoors...?
RINGSTROM: Absolutely, absolutely.
LaVOY: Do you have any funny stories about outdoor plumbing?
RINGSTROM: Well, I know it was awfully cold in the winter time (laughter) and the flies were terrible in the summer time. And it was quite aways from the house. We just thought we'd died and went to heaven when we got into the new house and had indoor plumbing. Mom says, "It didn't matter about the rest of the stuff, but," she says, "I don't have to go out to the outhouse anymore."
LaVOY: Well, this sounds very odd to say, but I'm wondering ... all of the ranchers in Elko County had the good old Montgomery Ward catalog out in the friendly two-holer and I'm wondering if you had that or if you had...?
RINGSTROM: We had the Sears Roebuck catalog. (laughter).
LaVOY: Oh, well, that's the same idea. How did you keep your food cool? You didn't have a refrigerator in the early days.
RINGSTROM: We just didn't. We just used the fresh food and that was it.
LaVOY: You had no running water?
RINGSTROM: No. No cooler. Not at all. Not until we got into the new house and we didn't have a refrigerator then but we had a cool room where the air ventilated from the bottom and sucked up the cool air from under the house, and kept things nice and cool.
LaVOY: But that was in the new house?
70 Ivy Wallace Ringstrom
RINGSTROM: That was in the new house. In the old house we relied on canned vegetables and fruits, and meats in the summertime would only be [served] when we had gone to town and brought fresh meat and that had to be cooked right away. And, of course, we had our hams and bacon, which we could keep.
LaVOY: Now you say canned vegetables. Did your Mother and yourself do a lot of canning?
RINGSTROM: Very much.
LaVOY: What were some of the things that you canned?
RINGSTROM: We canned peas and corn, and I can tell you an experience about corn canning. We had a steam canner. It was before there was a pressure cooker, and my Aunt Elsie and I, we had gathered all this corn and put it in the jars, and we put it in this steam canner and every single jar spoiled because we didn't know that corn swelled when it got hot and cooked and, of course, there was no seal on it, and every one of them spoiled. We were the most disappointed people you could ever think of. But we learned.
LaVOY: You said your Aunt Elsie. Who was your Aunt Elsie?
RINGSTROM: Well, she was Elsie Sloan, one of the early people that came to the valley, but not before the Dam was built. They came later.
LaVOY: Was she related to your mother?
RINGSTROM: No, she was my mother's brother's [wife], my mother's sister-in-law for that matter. My Uncle Hans, he married her. Oh, I can't remember when that was ...
LaVOY: Oh, that's all right, I just was wondering what her name was.
RINGSTROM: It would have been Elsie Sloan, and her nephew, Jim Sloan, is a lawyer in town now....
LaVOY: Oh, I see. Well, you said you had a garden. Was that your mother's responsibility, because I imagine your father was out working.
RINGSTROM: Yes, my father was always working and Mother had the garden but as for canning, we canned peas and carrots, corn, and beans, string beans, and, oh, whatever, exotic vegetables. Sometimes we'd have different things that we would have and make a mixture of squashes and things. And then, when we got a pressure cooker, then we canned meat. Chickens and pork and beef.
LaVOY: ... Your mother ... did she have a flower garden?
RINGSTROM: My Mother was an avid gardener, and that was really her main hobby, and after we moved into the new house she had more time and she landscaped the place there and she sold flowers so that she could buy new plants to put in the garden. So it was sort a self-sustaining hobby, but she had a regular park there.
LaVOY: Did she belong to a garden club?
RINGSTROM: Well, she belonged to the Lahontan Valley Garden Club.
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LaVOY: When did she join that, do you have any idea?
RINGSTROM: Oh, I don't know when that was formed. It was after the war though.
LaVOY: Oh, I see.
RINGSTROM: Before that there was no garden club. But she did win ... she entered a contest that Better Homes and Gardens sponsored and she was given Honorable Mention on this. It was a national contest, and that was one of her pride and joys, the certificate that she got from them. We still have that.
LaVOY: Oh, that is wonderful. Was her picture in the magazine? RINGSTROM: No.
LaVOY: Just her name as an Honorable Mention.
RINGSTROM: Honorable Mention and she got the certificate.
LaVOY: ... Something I've heard about your mother that I'd like to have you tell me about, I understand that she made marvelous gingerbread houses.
RINGSTROM: Oh, she did. When my sister ... I had a sister that was born in 1918, ...
LaVOY: And her name was?
RINGSTROM: ... was Ellen, and she died in 1931, and before she died Mother had always admired the gingerbread houses in Germany. But, because my grandparents were saving all their money to bring the family over here, they were very frugal. Grandmother said that was a luxury, so mother just got to see them, and it was her ambition to get one of these candy houses--which we called candy houses but they're gingerbread houses from Germany. Before my sister died she had gotten one, because they could still get things and then she decided that she was going to make one. She formulated this recipe and she made one for us. The Artemisia Club sponsored this but she made them for the orphanage in Carson City, the Children's Home over there.
LaVOY: Made them at a certain time of the year or all year?
RINGSTROM: Christmas, for Christmas, always for Christmas. And they were huge, some of these houses were, oh, I guess, two and a half feet long by probably two feet high.
LaVOY: Well, how did she decorate them?
RINGSTROM: Oh, with candy. We saved candy, bought candy, different pretty candies all year round and would stockpile it and then, at Christmas, when she was making the candy houses, she would decorate them with the candy.
LaVOY: Did she bake gingerbread first?
RINGSTROM: Well, it was a honey cake, a honey cake base.
LaVOY: Lebkuchen?
RINGSTROM: Sort of, and she'd bake these in these big sheets and my Dad and she would design the houses and every year they were different.
LaVOY: How many did she make a year?
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RINGSTROM: Well, she made the big one and then, depending on how many friends and relatives that she was going to make them for, and I used to help make them too. One year we had nineteen candy houses. (laughter).
LaVOY: My goodness.
RINGSTROM: We had just a regular village of them.
LaVOY: What time of the year did you start making them?
RINGSTROM: In December.
LaVOY: Oh, just in December? Well you must have been very busy.
RINGSTROM: We were.
LaVOY: You mentioned the Artemisia Club, would you tell me something about that?
RINGSTROM: Well, do you want to hear it from the beginning?
LaVOY: Yes, I would like to very much.
RINGSTROM: All right, well Mrs. Dunbar [Mrs. Ed Dunbar], and Mrs. Del Williams, they saw the farmers' wives come into town on Saturday, because that's when the shopping was, and the men would do their shopping around and do their things and the ladies would evidently get through with their things earlier, and, of course, they had the children too, and they would just wander the streets. These two women felt very sorry for these women and thought that there should be some place available for them to tidy up and to take care of their children while they were waiting for their husbands to finish their chores around town. So they opened up this little building, I think they rented it from Kents. I'm not too sure about that, but it was next to where the little Woodliff's Store was and they had it opened on Saturday afternoons, and then they had their meetings there. Then they bought this little place over on Williams Avenue next to the Eagle-Standard building and the women could come there and rest, and that was where I first went to Artemisia Club--at that building.
These women were very civic minded. They wanted to do things for the community. They helped with the State Fair which was in Fallon at that time; they encouraged women in the valley to bring their things into the Fair so that it would be interesting and to show off what they could do. They decided that they were going to work toward consolidating the school districts. When I started school, I started school in Fallon which I would have anyway, because we were on the right side of the river. Anybody that lived on the other side of the river from us, the north side, had to go all the way out to Soda Lake School and that was a long ways out there. Way out! I don't know why they didn't make it more centrally located because it was at the edge of the desert and those poor little children had to go all that way. But, Harmon and Stillwater and Lone Tree, St. Clair, and Northam and Hazen, they retained their own schools, their grade schools. They all came in for high school. But the rest of the area was consolidated and they brought the children in by bus.
LaVOY: Now this was through the efforts of the Artemisia Club?
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RINGSTROM: Yes, they got it up to the Legislature and passed that this was a consolidated area.
LaVOY: ... When did your Mother join the Artemisia Club?
RINGSTROM: Well, it was early in [the] 1930's. I don't know exactly when, but it was around 1932, 1933, sometime like that.
LaVOY: Did she become president of it?
RINGSTROM: Oh, yes. She was president of it several times and so was I, several times. Mother was historian for the state federation. The Artemisia Club belonged to the Nevada Federation which was affiliated with the general Federation of Women's Clubs, and she was historian for the State Federation and I was secretary, recording secretary, for the State Federation. Then I became president for the State Federation ....
... It wasn't any of my, really, desires because I had no intention of going on in the offices, but the first vice-president at that time had been in a severe car accident and hurt her legs and she couldn't take it; and the second vice-president, she was taking a literature course, and she said, "I am going to finish it and then I will be ready to take over the presidency." And so, with the help of the past president I took it and survived, and the Federation survived (laughter).
LaVOY: I'm sure you did a marvelous job. I understand that the Artemisia Club started in 1909 ...
RINGSTROM: 1909.
LaVOY: ... and it's still going?
RINGSTROM: Still going.
LaVOY: And they're giving scholarships and what not.
RINGSTROM: Yes, they are. They used the money that they got, well, they had given scholarships for years but they were small and over the years, they increased just a little bit, but not all that much. But after they sold the club house then they put the money in the bank and they take the interest from that to give scholarships now.
LaVOY: Now, did they build a new club house after the one next to the Woodliff's store?
RINGSTROM: Yes, they did, that was on Center Street that they built this little club house.
LaVOY: What address, do you know?
RINGSTROM: No, I can't tell you that now.
LaVOY: It's where the A Able Vacuum and Sewing Center is [240 West Center Street], I believe, isn't it?
RINGSTROM: Yes, that's it, and it was very attractive at that time. There were a couple of trees out in the front yard and there was a lawn and a fence and it was really pretty. We were real proud of it.
LaVOY: I bet you were. Now, something I don't quite understand, the women came in, these were the farm women, the homesteader's
74 Ivy Wallace Ringstrom
wives, came in and they had a place to sit and to visit initially. How was it furnished? Just with lounges and chairs?
RINGSTROM: I think it was very sparsely furnished.
LaVOY: How long did they continue to use it as a place for the farm women to come in and sit?
RINGSTROM: That I don't know. I imagine when the women came in with automobiles that things were quite different than when they came in with the wagons, you know. It would be quite different.
LaVOY: Well, it sounds like a very ambitious club.
* * *
LaVOY: Okay, now something that I'd like to ask you about. What stores do you remember in Fallon?
RINGSTROM: The I. H. Kent Company, which is still there. Gray Reid, ... it was on the corner of Center and Maine on the same side of the street as Kent's ... and then the hardware store--that was Jarvis and Bible--and I think there was a hardware store way down on Center Street closer to the Oat's Park School. Well, Eldridge and Hursh were over on the other side of Maine Street, on the west side of Maine Street was a dry goods store. That's where we could buy all our fabrics for making clothes and notions and all.
LaVOY: You mentioned the little store that is now down by the Museum, what store was that?
RINGSTROM: That was Frank Woodliff's store-that's Frank Woodliff Sr.'s.
LaVOY: What did they sell?
RINGSTROM: That was before my time. That was closed then, but I think it was all dry goods, mostly.
LaVOY: Something I wanted to ask you, when you were in high school there must have been a horse trough or something in the center of the street, I keep hearing about this. Could you tell me about that?
RINGSTROM: Oh, yes, that's Maine and Williams. There was a horse trough, and underneath was a fountain where the little dogs could drink. All I know is that it was just standing there in the days when horses were brought into town, I remember when Maine Street was paved. It was a gravel street, and my Dad tells about the freight wagons that went through and assembled on Maine Street.
LaVOY: Where were they going?
RINGSTROM: To Rawhide and Wonder Mines. He said that the first night's stop was out at Beckstead's store. That's about four or five miles out of town [425 East Corkin. Lane].
LaVOY: What were they freighting?
RINGSTROM: Supplies out to the mines.
LaVOY: Food and whatever?
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RINGSTROM: Food and whatever.
LaVOY: Well, I was interested in this fountain ... this horse trough that you're talking about, because I understand the Draper Self Culture Club put that up.
RINGSTROM: I don't know who did, and I don't know who took it down, but I think it was too bad because it was interesting.
LaVOY: I believe they put it up in 1914 and then it was moved in
1929 [August, 1930] when the street was paved.
RINGSTROM: Probably.
LaVOY: Getting back to your school. Did you have school dances?
RINGSTROM: At the High School, and they were severely chaperoned too, believe me!
LaVOY: Oh, tell me about this.
RINGSTROM: We had a wonderful principal, Mr. McCracken--George McCracken. He was very, very strict. He didn't allow any hanky-panky, even in the halls. Boys and girls were not supposed to talk to each other very much. They did a lot of note passing though. No hand holding, and the parties were fun--everybody dressed very nicely--no blue jeans; that was not allowed. The only time they did was when they had a hay ride, and they could dress down, but I remember when bobby socks first came in to being ... Mr. McCracken did not allow any girl to come to school with bobby socks!
LaVOY: Well, what did you wear?
RINGSTROM: Silk stockings, if you please.
LaVOY: Oh, my goodness.
RINGSTROM: Yes, silk stockings!
LaVOY: How did you young people entertain yourselves? I know you had the school dances occasionally, but how else did you entertain yourselves?
RINGSTROM: Oh, dear, I don't know, we had picnics and private parties.
LaVOY: Where did you picnic?
RINGSTROM: Oh, along the river and Lahontan Dam.
LaVOY: And how many would go along in these groups?
RINGSTROM: Oh, probably 10, 15, 20, something like that.
LaVOY: Do you have any funny stories that you'd like to tell about one of or more of your outings?
RINGSTROM: No, I was raised pretty strict, I wasn't allowed to go out too awfully much.
LaVOY: Oh, I see. Well, when did you graduate from High School?
RINGSTROM: 1932.
LaVOY: In 1932. How did you happen to meet your husband?
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RINGSTROM: Oh, he came out here from Chicago; he had come from Sweden.
LaVOY: What part of Sweden?
RINGSTROM: Stockholm and Dalarna, up in the country, where his foster mother was, because after his mother died he was taken in by a family in the northern part of Sweden. He came to the United States in 1929 and the crash came and he didn't want to go back to Sweden. A friend of his that he had known in Sweden was working for his uncle out here in Fallon, and he wrote to him and asked if he thought he could find a job for him, and he said, "Yes, there was a man here that could use a young man." And, so he thought he'd come out here and see about it.
He came out on the train and before he went to bed he saw the salt flats of Salt Lake and when he woke up he saw the Parran flats and thought he had gone across this all night long. He thought that this was something awful, and when he got off the train in Hazen, it didn't look any better, so he asked the station master when the next train was going back East and he said, "Well, nine o'clock at night." This was five o'clock in the morning, and he said, "When does the train go into Fallon?" and he said, "At 7." So he said, "Well, I'll go in and take a look." That was it. He stayed!
LaVOY: Oh, well, how did you happen to meet him?
RINGSTROM: Well, it was over a can of milk. (Laughter) The cow went dry on [the] farm that he was working on, and he came down to get some milk from us. I had heard about him because the young man that was renting the old house from us was working up there on that same farm. He was telling Harry about me and then he was telling me about Harry, so when Harry came down to get the milk I darn well knew who he was. That's the way it started.
LaVOY: What was your courtship?
RINGSTROM: Well, we went together for three years 'cause this was Depression times and we didn't have much money, but we would decide whether we were going to spend our dollar going to the dance or whether we were going to a movie on Saturday night.
LaVOY: How much did the movies cost?
RINGSTROM: Evidently a dollar for two or 50 cents each and the country dances were a dollar.
LaVOY: Now, where were these country dances held?
RINGSTROM: Well, they were out at the Harmon School, at Union School -- which was our favorite - Sheckler School, St. Clair ... we went out there a few times but that wasn't really our favorite and we'd go to Northam. The school house was still out at Soda Lake and they had school dances out there.
LaVOY: What was the music for the dances?
RINGSTROM: Usually a piano.
LaVOY: Do you recall who the musicians were?
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RINGSTROM: Well, I know out at Union it was Lida Sander that played. She was a PEO member for years and was a teacher here and she played piano. Sometimes there would be a guitar. It was mostly piano and--Oats was her maiden name [Mary Oats Reed] --she played the piano, too....
LaVOY: Tell me now, were you working at this time, after you graduated from high school, or were you living at home helping your mother?
RINGSTROM: I was living at home helping my Mother and I did help Mrs. Hall [Ida T. Hall] in her hospital for a bit after I graduated. She had a little--I guess what you'd call now--a lie-in hospital, just a dwelling house [293 East A Street]. She had maternity cases and other cases, too. I was just a helper there, sort of helping with anything that she needed. It was an interesting experience. I really enjoyed it.
LaVOY: Was she what we'd call a midwife?
RINGSTROM: Well, she was a registered nurse, and she would have women come in for having their babies and there was always a doctor there, then she would take care of them, but she was a registered nurse.
LaVOY: Then you and your husband went together for three years--then you were married?
RINGSTROM: Then we were married and we lived on the farm with my folks and he ran the farm there and then he went into the tractor business. He was the Ford tractor dealer here for awhile.
***
LaVOY: Someone mentioned to me that you had worked for Selective Service, is that correct?
RINGSTROM: Yes, it is. I started in about 1951. Grace Paul had worked during the war and then Alva Gaylord took over after her and then I was there for 21 years. That was just about the time the Selective Service Office was winding up, and they were boxing up the files and shipping them to the central depot in St. Louis.
LaVOY: Do you have any interesting stories about people that were drafted and how families reacted?
RINGSTROM: Well, it was very interesting and I always felt that I was trying to help the families and the young men because I can understand how awful it was to be taken to war because it was "hot war"--both Korea and Vietnam. Some boys would come in quite disturbed, as their parents wouldn't listen to them. One young man wanted to join the Air Force and he said his parents were dead against it and I said, "What do you want to do?" He said, "Well, I want to go in and make a career of it."
And I said, "Okay." I knew his parents real well and I said, "Why don't you go home and don't ask your parents what they think--tell them what you think, that this is what you want. You want to make a career of it. You've thought it over carefully and you hoped you'd have their blessings." It worked and he was a career Air Force man. I feel good about that. Then there was a very sad case.
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This young man came in; he was 17 years old and wanted to volunteer for the draft because he wasn't old enough to be drafted. I said, "Oh, have you talked to your parents?" He said, "Yes." I said, "What did they say?" "Well," he said, "they agree with what I want to do." I said, "You're so young, you don't have to go yet, so, please, go home and talk it over awhile longer, and then come back. I want you to bring--if you're still of the same mind--I want you to bring a parent with you." Well, he came back a few weeks later with his mother, and his mother said, "This is what he wants." I said, "What does his dad say?" She said, "Well, if that's what he wants, that's what he will do." So, I said, "Okay." We got him signed up and his parents had to sign for him. He got to Vietnam, was there three weeks, and was killed (sobbing). I never got over it. It was terrible.
LaVOY: Yes, it certainly is.
RINGSTROM: It seemed like he had a date with destiny, but it--it was hard. Then there was a young man who had a physical ailment that he hadn't told the examiners about when he went down for a physical examination. He was called up for the draft and said, "I didn't tell them about this." Well, it was one of things that is listed in the book as not acceptable, and his employer called me from Reno and said, "What are his chances of being rejected?" And, I said, "He'll be back in town in three days, because they will not take him." Well, the young man says to me, "Whose side are you on?" I said, "I'm on the right side. I have to tell you what is right and what's in the book. I'm not trying to railroad anybody in here. This was all made out. I have to tell you, or I would be negligent." Well, he was back in town in three days, his employer called me and thanked me and the boy thanked me.
Then there were boys that had ailments that they were rejected [because of], but they looked perfectly all right but were not, and parents would come in and say,"Well, if that boy can stay home, my son can too." I couldn't tell them what was wrong with the boy because that was confidential. I had those kind of things, but it was a job and I enjoyed it.
LaVOY: Did you have any parents very angry with you?
RINGSTROM: Oh, yes, oh yes.
LaVOY: Did they come in and behave disagreeably?
RINGSTROM: They certainly were. There were times when I would hold the bottom of my desk to keep from saying things that I shouldn't say. I always had to maintain a calm exterior.
LaVOY: I'm sure you were very good at that.
RINGSTROM: I tried, I really tried. Poor Mr. Reed [Dale H. Reed], Margaret Estlow's father, was one of the Board members. He was darling man and he was Chairman of the Board. He saw one young man off and the father of that young man called Mr. Reed every vile name that was in the book. Mr. Reed was a man that never used an off-color word or an off-color expression and that poor man was crushed, but he was only doing his duty.
Oral History Excerpts 79
LaVOY: I hope the boy returned from war, did he?
RINGSTROM: He did.
LaVOY: And then was this man ... friendly?
RINGSTROM: What he said was, "Well, my son is a veteran." He was real proud of the son, but he never did apologize to Mr. Reed for the awful things that he said. There were a lot of experiences, and it was interesting. I certainly saw mankind at its best and its worst.
* * *
LaVOY: Now I would like to regress and see if you have anything further that you'd like to tell me about your father.
RINGSTROM: Yes, in the early days [at the Newlands Project] there was what they called a headquarters but it was really bachelor quarters for the work crews building the ditches and whatever needed to be done; there was a cook house there and my mother cooked there for just a little while after she was married to my dad. This was on the end of Venturacci Lane right up by where the canal is now. There were some buildings there and that's where the men stayed when they came in from work. They roomed and boarded there.
LaVOY: Do you know what they had in the rooms? Plain cots?
RINGSTROM: I imagine. I know when my dad was working up on the Truckee Canal, they realigned the tunnels there and he was up there and they had cots, so I imagine they were the same thing. They had tents and cots there, but there were buildings there; they weren't tents that they had.
LaVOY: Did your mother ever say anything at all about what she had to cook for the short time that she worked there?
RINGSTROM: Lots of food (laughing).
LaVOY: How many men was she cooking for?
RINGSTROM: I suppose about 20.
LaVOY: Was she the only cook?
RINGSTROM: Yes, she was the only one.
LaVOY: Did she have any help with cleaning the vegetables and whatnot?
RINGSTROM: No, but my dad helped to dry dishes at night ... but he drew the blinds so that the men wouldn't see that he was doing this.
LaVOY: They served the men with dishes and then your mother had to do the dishes?
RINGSTROM: Yes, right.
LaVOY: Or, I should say your father and mother did the dishes.
RINGSTROM: Yeah, they did the dishes in the evening.
LaVOY: How many meals a day did she cook?
RINGSTROM: Breakfast, and made lunches, and had the dinner. It was very plain food because, after all, in a camp it's nothing exotic, just meat and potatoes and gravy and a few vegetables.
80 Ivy Wallace Ringstrom
LaVOY: Desserts?
RINGSTROM: I suppose there was always pies and cakes to make.
LaVOY: Did she quit because she was expecting you?
RINGSTROM: Well, the house was getting done and she was expecting and not feeling too good so that was the last of her employment.
LaVOY: Do you recall how much she was paid?
RINGSTROM: No, I really don't, but I do know that you could buy a pound of hamburger for fifteen cents, and steaks for twenty-five cents. She kept close account of it but it's hard to relate to prices then ... , and I don't know what the men paid for room and board there, because, with today's prices, you just can't relate to that at all. But I do know that she paid fifteen cents a pound for hamburger.
LaVOY: That's amazing.
RINGSTROM: Yes, it is (laughter). I'd like to talk a little bit about my dad. He was always available to the water users when he was Project Manager, and when he was Superintendent there. He was always out in the field and he came home at noon. He had a car (there were no mobile phones at that time) so he could always get phone calls and have his lunch, rather than go to the office and pick up messages. The phone did ring quite often, as they knew that he would be home.
One time he was walking along the ditch down at the Indian Reservation and there were some Indians having an argument about the water. They saw my dad coming along and they said, "Oh, here comes Wallace. Let's ask him, he knows everything." So he had the confidence of the Indian people and he never had any trouble with them. They were always nice to him and always very helpful. My dad certainly was helpful too, because he felt that he was working for the people at the Irrigation District and he was their servant. I really admired him for that. He was so very conscientious about what the farmers could afford to pay and how the best use of the money was made when they made up the budget. Every dollar would count. Well, I guess that's about all.
LaVOY: I understand that when the Project first started the land became waterlogged. What did he have to say about that and how did he work on that?
RINGSTROM: Well, when this Project was first started it was under the Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation. IDBR was what everything was stamped. The main office was in Denver and everything came out of Denver, so before the Project was turned over to the farmers here, they must have had engineers come out from Denver to assess the situation and that's when they decided to dig the drain ditches. There was a lot of surveying going on and dredging to get rid of this water because the alfalfa has a very deep tap root and it will go down to water. If the water table is high it will rot.
LaVOY: Oh, I see, and the farmers had taken all their money to plant these fields and the crops rotted.
Oral History Excerpts 81
RINGSTROM: Uh huh, they didn't produce, so they dug those drain ditches and after that things went along very well.
LaVOY: Fine, can you think of anything else you'd like to say about your father?
RINGSTROM: No, except he was a great man.
LaVOY: And you say he lived to be ninety ...
RINGSTROM: No, he was eighty-four when he died [1966].
LaVOY: And your mother was?
RINGSTROM: Ninety-six [1892-1988].
LaVOY: Ninety-six. Two grand people.
RINGSTROM: They really were, and I feel that they had a good part in developing this area here.
LaVOY: Well, thank you very much, Ivy. I've certainly enjoyed listening to you.
RINGSTROM: Well, thank you so much. I feel it's a privilege to be able to talk about my parents and family because of their part in the early beginnings.
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George C. Covertston at the time he graduated from high school in 1902. (Churchill County Museum & Archives -- Ethelyn E. Coverston Collection)
FAMILY SNAPSHOTS George C. Coverston and the Fallon Garage
ETHELYN E. COVERSTON
WHAT AWESOME CHANGES the 20th Century brought! Automobiles are a good example, and, on a very small scale, the Fallon Garage, during its existence, was representative of the advance of the garage industry.
In 1911, one A. A. Codd, owner of the Hazen Hotel, set up Mr. L. M. Lewis in a storage, gas, and parts structure built of sheet metal (pressed not corrugated), fifty feet deep and located where the oldest section of the garage now stands, the northeast part. George W. Coverston, father of George C., had come from Indiana to be near his wee grandchildren, Helen and Roy, and he decided to buy out Mr. Lewis so that he and two of his sons, Lloyd and Lynn, would have a paying business.
George C. meantime had been working for the Bureau of Reclamation, driving their Pullman and maintaining their vehicles and telephone lines. When the Bureau of Reclamation wanted to buy a Model T Ford, George C. decided to take the local Ford sales under the Reno distributor. He managed to sell five or six Model T's including one to Mr. Norton and one to Ed McLean. Daisy Allen had the only one in Fallon.
Now Mr. Cole ran into the side of a train on Maine Street and, while waiting for a replacement fender, asked George C. to overhaul the engine of his car--in G.W.'s shop. Meanwhile, Lynn went to work at the power station at Lahontan, Lloyd was found inebriated, and G.W. was ready to quit! G.C. still owed some on his former home on the forty acre Miller property in the Island-Lone Tree District, but in 1913 G.W. agreed to take over G.C.'s interests there in exchange for the garage business. G.W. would be hired to man the one gas pump which stood at the side of the double doors and practically in Center Street.
To G.C. it was clear that repairs and maintenance would have to be added to the gas and parts sales and the storage. Some of the cars with which he had to deal were Model T's, Winton, Hupmobile, Ira Kent's Willys, Knight, Pierce Arrow, Michigan, and Foote's Detroiter; and in 1914, when G.C. took the agency, he added Case for Fred and Lee Wightman. C.W. Foote, cashier at the Churchill County Bank, took on a competitive dealership, first Hupmobile then Overland, and was quite successful in sales; he could learn from the bank clientele accounts who had enough money to buy a car. He would invite the
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prospect for a ride, and as the prospect enjoyed this unexpected pleasure, he would ask about cars, and Foote would make a sale. He knew only that the car would go when he wanted it to, and it is said he would describe the smooth curves of his cars, and when a customer would express dissatisfaction, he would quickly say, "Oh, that's on the inside! The outside is blocked like this..." making abrupt angles with both hands. But he had to depend on G.C. for maintenance and repairs.
During 1914, G.C. had the building cemented and extended back far enough to accommodate a large lathe and the essential service pit (not to the alley); and then he was in the repair business as well as sales.
Fred Wightman had the misfortune to blow the cylinder head gasket on his Case while near Frenchman's Station; G.C. put the head on with shellac--no gasket! And, as far as he knew, this was never corrected!
G.C. once used an old piece of tar paper blown from a shack to repair a much worn multiple disc clutch!
Hi Shellard, with three companions including G.C., was driving his old Ford to Smith Creek on a fishing trip. At 3:00 a.m. they were on the 8-mile flat when a thumping started in the rear end. This continued until, when about one-eighth mile from Westgate, the car stalled in the road. G.C. walked on into Westgate and routed Solly Salisbury out of bed, primed him with a few snorts from the bottle G.C. carried, and then explained his problem. Solly volunteered, "A fellow left a Ford here a year or two ago; why not take the rear end out of it?"
They got the stalled car in before they realized it had a 56" rear end, whereas the stored car had a 60". This meant George had to tear out all axle and gear parts, saving the oil, and refit the parts into the 56" rear end. As soon as George had satisfied himself he had done the best he could, the other three left and George agreed to ride on in Solly's car since he wanted to see the outcome of the transplant. Then Solly told George his car had something wrong that wouldn't take long to fix.
Before he could get it fixed, the others were back; the thumping had started up again! So all four got into Solly's car and headed out for Eastgate with George beside the driver and carrying a shotgun. He seemed to be enjoying shooting rabbits so much that Solly decided to trade places, though he had never let anyone else drive his car. Just as George shifted, Solly said, "Forgot to tell you--no brakes!" But that wasn't the next calamity. George had previously patched the crankcase on Solly's car with a steel patch and a hundred cap screws, whose heads had long since burred in contact with road hazards. As luck would have it, George hit a stone in the narrow ruts as he crossed the flooding creek; and a hole was punched in the patch! Sending the others off to fish, George took lead from a .38 pistol bullet, smashed it down to make a rivet, and patched the patch! Then he too went fishing--with very good luck.
The first batteries were plates with wooden separators, which would warp beyond usage; then the separators would have to be pressed together until the
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plates touched. This overhaul cost $14 for a 6-volt. A.E. "Exide" Handley, who came from San Francisco to be the Fallon Garage battery man in circa 1918, and who was an expert repair man, preferred to sell new batteries at $20-$25. And this policy was being adopted for many troubles: the whole assembly would be replaced rather than repairing any faults.
On some of the earliest cars an acetylene tank on the running board was used to fuel the headlights as well as make spark to start the car. If one forgot to switch off this tank after starting, the headlights would dim rapidly. This happened to G. W. Coverston, and Roy had to remind him.
A Stanley Steamer being driven over Tioga Pass held George's car up when the altitude proved too high for the necessary steam pressure.
Many stories are also remembered of mishaps which occurred while car buyers were learning to drive; this teaching was often the responsibility of the car seller.
Once George W. Coverston, helping to park the storage cars, pulled back on the wheel, shouted, "Whoa, whoa," as he neared the back wall--and BANG!
On the occasion of George W.'s returning his son Roy's Willys Knight from San Francisco, he pulled over to the outside near Donner Summit--and went off the grade! Valiantly he steered his way down--between the trees--and onto the road below! The only damage--a steering knuckle. Another time he had the misfortune to hit and partially mount a horse while driving to Reno with G.C.'s wife, Effie. She feared to get out, but feared to stay in--the horse might turn the car over in getting up! And she vowed never to ride with G.W. again.
George C. acceded to his mother Luna's wishes to teach her to drive, took her out on a salt flat, and succeeded in getting her steering around and around the flat. She was thrilled--then he dropped his handkerchief and called for her to stop! Both her hands and feet flew into the air as she squealed in panic! She never did learn to drive.
George's wife, Effie, had her experiences with early cars: While she was bringing her young family back from a picnic at Sagouspe Dam in their Michigan, the engine caught fire! She jumped out and, with the help of the young, threw sand on the fire. George had to replace the motor, of course, but his family was safe. At another time Effie was driving the Michigan at Broadway and Center Streets in Fallon, when a man suddenly appeared in front of her! She couldn't stop, but he put his hand on the fender, eased himself across, and went on his way. She never really enjoyed driving.
Ed Schindler kept his EMF (nicknamed Every Morning Fix'em) sparkling. One day while driving with George at the south fork of New River, he suddenly started off the road. G.C. grabbed the wheel, got the car back in time, and apologized for interfering. Ed said, "It's a good thing you did. I had to spit and it went right back on the fender!" [G.C.] thought, "You fool, what'd you do that for?" Another time Ed was bringing his car in for storage, and Fred Connor was
86 Ethelyn E. Coverston
opening the doors. The wind was blowing, caught the first door, and, as Fred opened the second and Ed started in, the first door gradually crowded the car over against the wall. "Why'd you run me into this corner?" Ed lamented.
The stories are numerous--and funny. Fred Munn was going downhill, when suddenly the back wheel came off his car and rolled ahead! "Oh dear, oh dear, I wonder where that wheel could have come from!"
While George was teaching Dick Wildes, brother of Mark, to drive a Chevrolet, Dick ran into a pig just below the Will Harmon place--no kill!
Frank Gibbs had George chauffeur him in Frank's Ford, then suddenly decided to learn to drive. The roads were then (as so many are now) on the canal and drain ditch banks. Frank nearly wrecked when he accidentally pulled off into the drain ditch, but went on through and up the other side, onto the road there.
Martha Baumann had turned the wrong way into a canal, said she was used to steering a boat!
Andy Drumm once drove his car down Kent's wooden sidewalk ripping out many posts--on a dare?
Governor Nye's son once stalled his Pierce Arrow near Grimes Ranch, and while waiting for George to come, he had removed the pan, exposing the carburetor. George's first question was, "Gas?" and Nye's reply, "Plenty." Nye was much chagrined when there proved to be--no gas!
When the 1916 Chevrolets came out, Kent took local dealership under John Durham of Revada Sales in Reno. The Chevrolets proved to have one great fault, in the springs to the front axle. These were 1/2" steel, and, on the primitive roads of Nevada, they broke easily. G.C. finally got Chevrolet to put 9/16" steel springs in those destined for Nevada. These were called "Nevada Specials" or "Coverston Specials" and everyone everywhere wanted theirs to be so equipped. George then took over the Chevrolet dealership from Kent but it remained under Durham. He immediately ordered a carload of cars and a $5000 parts inventory. Captain Clarke had put in dead storage across Maine Street from Kent's Flour Mill, and here George kept his new cars.
Soon George learned that many of his potential customers were getting their demonstration rides from him, then going to Reno to buy their cars! Chevrolet refused to give George a direct dealership; so when next Durham came down, George called him everything he could think of. Durham listened, smiled, and said, "Now we have that over with, how about a carload of cars?"
In August of 1917 George took on a subdealership for Oldsmobile; also, that year he drove from Reno to Fallon in THREE HOURS, a most noteworthy record! The road to Hazen was gravel, and in the canyon the road curved greatly, crossing the railroad tracks several times.
In these early days the automobile companies would "prove" their cars by transcontinental runs, sparring for time. In 1918 one of these transcontinental races was scheduled to refuel at the Fallon Garage. Rollie Kolstrup was sent out
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with George's nine-year-old son Roy to Grimes Station eight or ten miles out--Rollie to guide the racers over the poor roads and irrigation floods on into Fallon, and Roy to bring Rollie's car back in. Saxons, Marmons, Overlands, and Hupmobiles were among the competitors. Marmon had two entries, and when the main one broke down near the Half-house, G.C. took the necessary repair part from the backup entry, put it in the main car to get it on its way, then fixed the backup entry and had it on its way soon enough that it almost beat the racer into San Francisco. The Saxon had no backup nor the necessary repair parts, and Saxon had to discontinue its run at Fallon. Just before dusk, hours later, Roy drove in with Rollie's car! When questioned, he said, "Well, you didn't expect me to beat the racer in, did you?"
In 1918, George moved the house (which before his purchase of it had been an annex for the overflow from the Overland Hotel) to Richards Street next to the E. B. Loring residence; and on the corner lot on Center Street thus vacated, he set up a "super" service station with three pumps, drive-through, office area, and lubrication rack. That same year he bought a seven-passenger, jump-seat Oldsmobile touring car. And in 1919 he attached a two-wheel trailer with two foldup beds which would open out on each side under full tenting to make an enormous six-sleeper unit. He loaded up his family (wife and four kids) and, in company with Frank Hammond and his family, headed east to Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio--a most unusual undertaking for those days.
On the return trip in Fort Bridger, his breakfast was interrupted when a lengthy army caravan threatened to overtake him. He threw the rest of the hotcake batter, had Effie [his wife] grab up the wet laundry she had just arranged on the bushes, and they hurried to get over the mountains ahead of that obstacle. When the caravan reached Fallon, George had a large wagon loaded with watermelons ready for the soldiers to enjoy while their units were being serviced.
By 1921, G.C. began to feel cramped and had the area between the old garage and the superservice station paved and roofed over, creating a new showroom, office, and parts department. Also he had several sheet-metal storage sheds constructed along the alley for more convenient storing of the now many automobiles whose owners were without garages. On March 26, 1921, he had the Fallon Garage incorporated, with him holding 27,000 shares, Effie 1000, and Lynn 14,000, Lynn having returned from Lahontan to be parts and service manager.
Nobody realized it at the time, but Shadler, architect of the garage remodel, hadn't allowed for a seal between the old and new attics--and disaster struck in the summer of 1922 when George was vacationing with his family at Virginia Lakes. On August 15, a short in the wiring of an old car in the storage section (the oldest part) caused a fire which spread rapidly, and the open attic, acting as a flue, condemned the new structure also. Then in an attempt to save a few cars, the new storage sheds were all thrown open, and havoc reigned. Twenty-two
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The Fallon Garage shortly after the fire of August 15, 1922. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Ethelyn E. Coverston Collection)
cars and practically all the merchandise were destroyed, an estimated $80,000 loss. G.C. raced home from Yerington, where he had first heard the news; his first question was, "Did they save the books?" Then he immediately threw all effort into cleanup and reconstruction.
In 1925, G.C. added White trucks to his dealership, and about this time he dropped Oakland-Pontiac and took on Buick. These were the days when Highway 50, the Lincoln Highway, was fighting for its life against Highway 40 (now 80), the old Victory Highway. The Fallon Garage added its prestige and funds to help put signs and sympathetic service station operators at Fernley and Wendover to direct traffic over what is now called "The Loneliest Road in America." Also, feeling a growing need for such a convenience, he, Lynn, and H.S. "Chick" Thomas started the Fallon-Ely stage lines under the aegis of the Fallon Garage. Ted Ascargorta was one of the very able drivers who served this venture. By now G.C.'s older children were helping around the garage, the boys handling storage and shuffling cars and supplies, and the girls learning the booking, though neither looked on it as a life work and both trained for teaching. A super helper during these varied times was Frank S. Marsh, salesman extra-ordinaire.
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G.C. again felt the need for more expansion in 1929, when he took on the Oldsmobile-Viking dealership for northern Nevada in Reno, the Coverston Motor Co. located on north Virginia Street. The two girls were in University and the two older boys able to fend for themselves, while Carl, the youngest, was just starting first grade; so a move to Reno was advantageous in many ways. Lynn and Frank Marsh would keep the home concern going. Of course, this move was destined for disaster when the great financial crash came and depression set in. In 1931, George liquidated the stock and the Coverston Motor Company and returned to Fallon. The depression did give him another opportunity for further investment, however, for he returned from a trip to San Francisco with a very extensive stock of hard-to-find but often essential screws, bolts, nuts, cotter pins, washers, what-have-you in a cabinet of drawers bought for very little at a liquidation sale.
In 1932, the Fallon Garage took on the wholesale unit of Associated Oil Company, and Roy was employed to run it. In 1936, Lynn considered withdrawal from the organization, and G.C. offered to buy him out or sell to him on a basis of book value. Lynn chose to sell, so G.C. once more became sole owner. With the intention of consolidating the interests of his boys, Roy and Marshall, G.C. sent them in turn to the Dealers' Sons' School run by Chevrolet in Detroit. During the mid-thirties G.C. also had the building extended to the alley, paved, and roofed with much improved mechanics' stalls, a hydraulic lift for undercarriage repairs, improved hydraulic wash and wax stall, electric lubrication rack, and heated space for overnight storage at 50 cents a night or monthly storage at $3, making it one of the largest and finest full-service garages in northern Nevada. Also added was a nightshift for 24 hour service, and AAA service was contracted for.
Then shortly after Roy's return from the Dealers' Sons' schooling, G.C. decided it was time to insure the future for all of his five children. He put Roy in as manager of the garage and set aside equal shares of the stock for each child, to be paid for in part by the dividends from such shares. The two girls and Marshall put in some of their earnings to get their shares paid off fairly soon; Carl, still in school, let the dividends pay his off; but Roy, raising a family of four, started withdrawing his dividends before his shares were fully paid.
Within a short period Roy had antagonized Helen's husband, Lowran Boldra, and Helen withdrew, leaving her shares with G.C., who later paid them off to her. With war and greatly increased competition, the boys were not able to cope, and when a few years later, 1948, the garage showed a loss for the year, Roy was replaced as manager by Marshall. For a few years under Marshall's management dividends were paid, but soon this was discontinued, the garage was again incorporated, and any profits were funnelled back into the business.
When Marshall took management, Roy decided to sell his interest and take over the Buick dealership with the Associated Oil on his own, and G.C. bought
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The interior of the Fallon Garage. 1933. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Ethelyn E. Coverston Collection)
The Fallon Garage in the 1930's. (Churchill County Museum & Archives--Ethelyn E. Coverston Collection)
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back Roy's shares at book value. When, somewhat later, Roy wished to buy back into the garage, G.C. gave him a lien on all the shares in his possession, and Roy became Sales Manager with Marshall still manager.
An outstanding event during this time was the observance in September 1963 of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Fallon Garage. An auction sale of 50 cars and trucks and a contest to find the Fallon Garage's "earliest purchaser" were included in the advertisements for this event; an early Chevrolet from the Harrah Auto Collection was on display along with an old Lincoln Highway sign and a Fallon Garage road sign, "Best Repair Shop in the West."
About the time the car auction was to take place, Bill Gamick, the auctioneer, was slapped with a restraining order halting Midwest Auctions and it is not clear whether this was accomplished. However, a live radio broadcast was held at eleven o'clock, September 26, wherein the winners of the earliest purchaser contest were invited to reminisce with other old-timers over KVLV. Ethel Kent McNeely, Frank Hammond, Jack Redmond, and Minnie Blair were among the winners. This celebration marked the advent of a new ad slogan "Over 50 Years of Service."
At this same time the Fallon Garage was awarded a service plaque from the California AAA. Bernie Smith of the Reno office of CAAA presented their plaque showing the Fallon Garage, "under contract since 1957, had given excellent service to AAA members and motoring public due to the fine management and conscientious work of Coverston and his two sons down through the years."
Roy died in 1965. Roughly nine years later, Marshall arranged the sale for the Fallon Garage to Bill Janess, and a Fallon landmark became history.
But what of the man who pioneered and built up this historic business? George C. Coverston was an active, alert person who looked for and found opportunities to help his country, his locale, and his family, and he well deserves the University of Nevada scholarship funded in his name.
George Cleveland Coverston was born June 17, 1885 in Muscatine County, Iowa, the third son and fourth child of George Washington Coverston and Luna Melissa Smith Coverston. He was early introduced to individualism when his father, G.W. dropped the "e" from the family name of Coverstone, the only one of the family to do so permanently.
G.C. was encouraged to work at anything available as he grew up: a button factory at 25 cents a day (where he lost the end of his left middle finger to the grindstone), a box factory, a lumber yard, and machine shops. In 1902 he graduated from Muscatine High School, and on graduation night was commissioned by his mother to travel with her cow to Columbia City, Indiana, where G.W. had purchased a farm. Here G.C. attended the Valparaiso Teachers' College, getting a teaching certificate in 1904.
After one year of teaching in a rural school out of Columbia City, he met his future wife Effie while boarding with the Scheckler family, for whom she
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worked. He then decided to come west and get into mining with his uncle Hank Smith, brother of Luna Smith Coverston, who had a landholding ten miles south of Fallon. At that time there was no depot at Hazen, the train stopping about half a mile west. On Cato's stage to Fallon next morning, after a night in Jud Allen's Hazen hotel, G.C. met Warren Williams, a colorful character wearing a stiff-bosomed shirt with no collar and a string of tobacco juice down the front. As they jolted over the many pot holes, Williams would mutter an occasional, "Be Christ, be Christ!" as the dust swirled over them, choking all.
When they finally arrived in Fallon, G.C. instead of mining, started keeping books for Douglass and Jarvis Meat Market, rooming with Joe Jarvis in the unfinished second floor of the Churchill County Bank, now the Sagebrush Cafe. Here Dave Hayes, in charge of surveying the canals for the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, hired G.C. as head chain man for the survey crew. He helped tear down the survey camp buildings from where Minnie Blair's house later stood, helped load the pieces of shack onto a hay rack rented from Charles Mills, and helped re-erect the camp below the then Ernst Ranch.
But disaster struck in Fallon! Typhoid fever, caused from lack of good water and sewage disposal, wiped out almost half the population; and G.C. was smitten. He was taken to St. Mary's in Reno, where carelessness allowed abscesses to form in his left ear. These broke through to the mastoid, a situation about which the hospital knew too little, and G.C. went to San Francisco for relief. He was near complete collapse, when he finally found a doctor Woolsey, who, when G.C. objected to an operation saying he was a stranger and had no money, responded, "Who said anything about money?" Three operations later, he was recovering without the maleus, Incas, stapes, and cocclia necessary for hearing, and without a sense of balance. The left side of his face and his mouth were drawn taut.
At this point his mother, Luna, a proud lady (claimed descendent of Sir Francis Drake), travelling alone from Indiana, rode perched on the wagon seat of a dray through the streets of San Francisco! She claimed George and took him home with her to recuperate on the home farm. And there he and Effie Blanchard were married April 25th, 1907.
Effie had been born March 9, 1886, in Whitley County, Indiana. She had been hired out at the age of 12, after only four years of schooling, to do housework for her board and room, thus relieving the Blanchard family, which consisted of ten living children. G.W. had little use for females and none for one not highly educated, and he constantly harrassed Effie. "I can read and understand what I read," or "Who put soap in the gravy?" and such he would say, until she could take it no longer. G.C. applied for positions with the railroad and in the school at Lesterville, South Dakota. There, the discipline problem caused hard feelings when he maintained order, and he was happy to leave that situation and move on to Fort Yates on the Sioux Indian Reservation near
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Shields, North Dakota. There was a day school of thirty to forty Indian children, and, while G.C. taught the boys their subjects, Effie had the twelve to fifteen girls cook lunch for the school and also sew for the children. The girls giggled amongst themselves when Effie neglected to allow for slots in the boys' underwear.
The trip to Fort Yates was not easy, especially in midwinter. From Yankton they rode the train to Porcupine Station then hired a rig to go to Fort Yates along the Cannonball River, where a rope trolley provided crossing in bad weather.
Very shortly after their arrival at Fort Yates, on January 29, 1908, along came Helen--a spider with long legs and arms and black hair! And, no one was there to supervise the delivery. The midwife G.C. engaged couldn't be reached in time, so G.C., with a doctor book, undertook the delivery, then called a doctor to supervise the afterbirth. The Indian community was delighted and nothing was too good for the white baby! A pair of moccasins made and beaded for Helen was the cause of much embarrassment to Effie: when they were presented, she tried to ask how much, and instead said, "Ish-pappy-yamni" (25 cents). The delighted squaw heartily agreed, but Effie knew how much a 25 cent loss would affect their meager finances!
Life there was hard; storms blew from the same direction day in and day out, and then there was the snow! If you had to go out, you completely covered your face except your eyes and waited for a lull to get the direction to the barn door before making a dash! Once G.C. had to make a trip to see Major Shell. He took the Indian team since his was not shod, and about midnight, lightning streaks showed an unending fence across the trail! His lasting impression from this visit was of the Shells' constant quarreling: "Move that stuff out of that chair - dearie!" And another lasting memory was of the Irishman Murphy whose Indian wife was a little fatter than he--if possible. Interpreters were needed, and Paul Goodiron and one man named Fox supplied such service, while See-the-Bear was also well remembered for that duty.
Finally in March 1909, Effie agreed to go to Nevada with George. On April 1, 1909 they arrived in Hazen, the "jumping off' place, and made their way to the Hank Smith ranch where George had stayed before. Effie was most distressed; the mountains were so close and overwhelming, she could scarcely breathe! (By 1919 when the family toured to Indiana and Ohio, she feared she would fall off this earth; there were no mountains to hold her on). In Nevada, George was hired almost immediately to operate and maintain the heavy equipment owned by the Calvada Ranch. (The Community Pasture now occupies a part of that holding). Here, George put up a 12' X 12' cabin just north of Hank's home; and there, August 21, Roy was born. G.C. had hired Mrs. Dr. Haskell and, as nurse, Mrs. Dave Anderson, to oversee the birth, but when the process started and G.C. tried to contact the doctor, she said, "Might be a month yet." About midnight things started popping! George sped the half mile to Smiths, then to Anderson, then to
94 Ethelyn E. Coverston
a telephone at Merrills, and finally back home to deliver the child and afterbirth. About noon Mrs. Haskell came!
For some reason when Ethelyn, the third child, arrived February 23, 1911, George again made the delivery.
That same year, 1911, George, working now for the Reclamation Service, contracted for the Miller property, just south of where the Lone Tree School now stands, and moved his family by wagon along the ditch bank with Helen and Roy tied onto the treadle of the sewing machine and Ethelyn in arms. When the bindings loosened on the sewing machine, Effie grabbed, and it was Ethelyn who went out--on her head! George didn't stay long on this property but moved his family into town, into the McLean house which at that time stood where the Methodist Church is now, on Stillwater Avenue; and so Marshall was born m town, November 22, 1912, the fourth child born within five years, and the first to have a doctor in attendance. Later, in 1923, a fifth child, Carl, was born.
In 1913, G.C. bought from his father G.W. the Fallon Garage, and put much time, effort, and money into it, building it up until 1936, when he started turning it over to his children as an early inheritance, as was detailed earlier.
But George was alert to many opportunities in many fields besides the automotive industry, though that prompted one of his most satisfying avocations--inventing. He saw where improvements could be made in auto manufacturing and patented his ideas. He visioned the transmission--a smooth, oil-pressured model; the engine--a gas-conserving rotary model; and the carburetor--a fuel-conserving mixer which in turn prompted the development of an atomizer-mixer for many purposes; on all of these ideas he obtained patents. He was helped a great deal in his experiments by Roy and Kenneth, Roy's older son, and Matt, a grandson. He visualized a way of putting up concrete buildings from pre-poured slabs, put a prototype on his ranch in the Island District and then, through the garage, financed the building of the prepoured slab motel at the eastern side of Fernley with Clarence Conley as owner-manager. This motel had to close in 1943 during World War II, when everything--gas, oil, parts, tires, gum, candy, everything--was rationed or non-existent.
George was for some time fraternal minded, being an active member of the Masonic Order, the Kerak Shrine, the Knights of Pythias, the Distinguished Order of the Knights of Khorasan, and the Rotary Club, of which he was a charter member. He joined the Chamber of Commerce and was elected to the City Council, but politics was not his field.
He was much interested in Highway 50 travel and with others started the Fallon-Ely stage line, later sold to Nevada Central Stages.
When the depression set in and the banks were forced to close, George became chairman of the Depositors' Committee to liquidate the assets of the Churchill County Bank, one of the Wingfield chain. Most of their assets were in the form of chattels with, for example, cattle selling at $25 a head. This
George C. Coverston 95
Committee formed the Churchill County Bank Mortgage Corporation, and George was elected President, which position he held through the years of the corporation, repaying a higher percentage of deposits than any other banks realized (he and the other corporation members took no salary). The remaining assets were bought up by the First National Bank.
George C. had always dreamed of building up his own ranch, so during the liquidation of the bank assets, he bought a 140-acre ranch in the Island District just north of the Community Pasture. He soon found that such life was not for him--he developed skin cancer--but he kept the property until 1945 with Claude Lima living there and doing the work.
At that time, when World War II was winding down, the Navy conferred with Fallon Councilmen and County Commissioners as to a "holding" entity to maintain the base property east of Fallon. G.C. had two sons interested in aviation, and he asked for and was granted a lease on the property. Marshall was quite interested in this project and started cleanup and maintenance, bought two planes,- and inaugurated a flying school. But as early as 1946 the Navy changed its mind and issued an ultimatum: Marshall was given 30 days to get off the base--without compensation!
Perhaps the most time-consuming, promising, and frustrating of G.C.'s ventures was mining. He started prospecting with Charlie Towle, and they staked the Hard Trail and Nevada Gold Extension claims, which G.C. bought from Towle in 1945, and recorded along with the Resurrection claim in 1946. In 1947 he located, and had Carl record, the White Bed, a diatomite hill which Carl managed for a short period. In 1948 he recorded the Junction and Junction 2, and, in 1953, six claims in the Mt. Augusta area. One thrill came when he, with Ace Robinson, turned the blacklight on some carnotite they had found--the uranium fever was then at its height.
Meantime to keep himself and his funds occupied, George taught himself, and, to a small extent, his family, how to deal in the stock market. Suffice it to say that he was wily enough to double and treble his money and leave his heirs stocks of considerable value.
George C. Coverston died June 21, 1979 in Churchill Public Hospital of pneumonia and is buried in the Fallon Cemetery. Effie had preceded him in death in 1961, Roy had died in 1965, and Marshall died within two years of his father. The girls and Carl are still living, as are many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Truly his was a full, thought-provoking, successful life, and his accomplishments will be long lasting.
96 Lucile Kim Riley
Fred Kim. (Courtesy Lucile Kirn Riley and Nina Kirn Kent)
Fred and Lizzie
LUCILE KIRN RILEY
GUSTAV KIRN WAS born 30 October 1847, in Baden, Germany. In 1870, he married Catherine Hedolinger, born 30 January 1851, also of Baden, At this time Germany was going through a series of power wars, so to get away from the constant military service, Gustav decided in 1875 to take his lovely redheaded, pregnant wife to the land of opportunity--America! They traversed from Newark, New Jersey, to Calhoun County, Illinois (a German settlement known as Golden Eagle). Gustav built a two-story house on 40 acres and worked as a carpenter while Catherine raised their six children: Louis, Susan, Fred, Theresa, Julia and Charles--what a handful! As Fred told his children years later: on Halloween, while the neighborhood boys were out doing their tricks, one old man called out, "I hear you out there a-grinnin, Fred Kim."
Directly across the country road lived Pius Sebus who had immigrated from Germany in 1876, also from Baden. He built a snug log house and a large red barn and proved to be a very thrifty farmer. In 1882 he married a beautiful widow, Louise Teichengracher Rexroth, with five children. She came from Hanover, Germany. Two children, Louise Caroline Johanna and Charles were born of this union. Louise, known as Lizzie, grew to be a very serious, responsible, blue-eyed, beautiful brunette.
At age 23, impetuous Fred wooed and won his lovely neighbor (as he repeated many times in later life, "Lizzie made a man of me"). They were married April 2, 1907, and left immediately for Fallon, Nevada, to make a new life for themselves. They were received by Obie and Annie Harrell who lived on Stillwater Avenue. Many of the homes and rentals that Obie built are still lived in on Stillwater Avenue.
Fred worked for Bill and Inez Harmon, living in a small house on their ranch east of Fallon. Here, Curtis Harmon Kirn was born March 5, 1908, and one year later Philip Fredrick Kirn came along, December 15, 1909. What a wonderful utopia for Lizzie with her two baby boys and husband-lover Fred. They made plans for the future by buying a lot in Oats Park addition when fate stepped in and they had to return to Illinois to care for Lizzie's cantankerous, bedridden father. There, in two year intervals were born: Lucile Katherine, October 6, 1911; Nina Amelia, November 18, 1913 and Alice Helena, September 25, 1915.
97
98 Lucile Kim Riley
The Kim family home, c 1975. (Courtesy Lucile Kirn Riley and Nina Kirn Kent)
In 1916 Pius Sebus died, so Fred and Lizzie immediately returned to Fallon where they purchased the Guy Harmon ranch from J.C. and Laura Fink.
In the meantime Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada had helped secure the first Federal Reclamation Program in the United States. The Truckee-Carson project was introduced in 1903. A diversion dam was constructed near Derby on the Truckee River. Then, 33 miles of canal carried water from the Truckee River to the Carson River. Construction on the Lahontan Dam was started in 1911 and completed in 1915. With water assured for irrigation, many farmers and homesteaders moved their families to Churchill County.
Fred and Lizzie's new home was a two-story board and batten; in the kitchen was a huge wooden sink with no drain! The upstairs was nicely finished, and over the years Lizzie made a comfortable home for her large family. The house was completely surrounded by tall Lombard Poplar trees, with an occasional big old cottonwood squeezed between. A family orchard had been planted between the house and road with every fruit tree native or adapted to the climate of Nevada. Black walnuts and gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries all thrived west of the house. A granary, a shop (garage later) and large barn with corrals completed the place. One fence had been made of greasewood taken from the fields and piled about five feet high (the silly turkeys made their nests on top of this fence).
Fred and Lizzie 99
Off the porch there was an adobe storeroom where, during the first winter, much of Lizzie's home-canned fruits and vegetables froze. Fred dug a deep root cellar, 12 x 20 feet and five feet in the ground, built up to about seven feet and covered with dirt. What a beautiful sight in late fall--all sides lined with canned peaches, pears and apricots, string beans, corn, beets and tomatoes. Carrots were stored and cabbage made into a large crock of sauerkraut; sweet pickles, dill pickles, mustard pickles, bread and butter pickles (Fred liked pickles) were stored next to gallons of homemade catsup and sacks of potatoes and onions.
Dedication of the new Harmon School took place January, 1916. Miss Anabel Hunter (Mrs. Walter Nygren) was the first teacher. Fred Nelson, a bachelor rancher living near the school, was chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years. He furnished most of the children attending with their lunch boxes (tobacco cans with two bails), I don't know the brand but they certainly served a good purpose. Every rancher of Harmon District took an unending interest in helping run the school. Teachers were chosen with great care, and Harmon graduates excelled in whatever higher educational endeavor they chose. The Harmony Club was formed for the ladies of that district. They constantly planned fund-raising activities to make improvements to their school. Their quilting bees held together long years after the school was closed down when the district consolidated with Fallon.
May 1, 1916, The Nevada Colony Corporation [The socialist colony, east of Fallon] held its first organizational meeting with C.V. Eggleston as promoter. He located the colony in a well-watered valley, secured prosperous ranches and advertised in every market place of the world, and so "The Colony" grew up around the Fred Kirn ranch. Eventually the name Eggleston was spoken with nothing but contempt. One remark made by Fred: "Well, your ideas of sharing and general socialism sounds good but Old Eggleston is up to nothing but fraud." The Colony went from socialistic to capitalistic ideals, going into receivership May 1, 1919. Fred and Lizzie were friends to many of the good families left destitute at that time. Several families remained at Nevada City through the summer of 1919, and two or three lived in "Adobe Town" until 1920. Fred contracted to move many of the homes from the colony site to lots in Fallon for people who bought them for homes.
Teletha Louise (Jim) was born October 18, 1917, and five years later Mildred Nevada joined the Kirn Family for two short years. It was terrible for the family to lose their little Ray of Sunshine.
Lizzie was busy and happy making a home for her large family. Monday was wash day; if there was irrigation water running past the house, clothes would be soaked overnight to help loosen the dirt. Immediately after breakfast, water was heated to get the washing machine going with hot water; it was hand run with a lever, taking one person at all times to keep the process going. The large wash boiler was put on the cook stove to boil all white clothes for bleaching--a full
100 Lucile Kirn Riley
day's job to be sure. Tuesday brought ironing: all shirts and dresses were starched and put away without a wrinkle. Wednesday was baking day: loaves and loaves of delicious, fragrant golden brown bread were baked by late afternoon. Thursday was set aside for cleaning house. By Friday Lizzie would be anxious to get out to her bountiful garden. Early in the spring there were green lettuce and radishes--always hoping for corn on the cob and tomatoes by the 4th of July. Any vegetable that grew, Lizzie cultivated, and she placed a banquet on the table three times a day of mostly wholesome German cooking. During green bean and corn maturity, several of the neighbor ladies and their children would congregate in Lizzie's kitchen to process quarts for the family consumption during winter months. That meant a party for all the kids while their moms labored and sweat over the big old cook stove pouring out the heat that pressured the vegetables.
Every autumn Fred and one of the neighbors would strike out for a canyon in the Silver Range to haul out nut-pine wood for heating during the cold winters. It was a two day trip with horse and wagon, and it took a week to snake down with the wood. After automobile time (Fred's first was an Oakland), each fall a neighborhood picnic was planned to go pine nutting (messy but so much fun). Pine nuts had always been a main source of winter food for the Paiutes.
During this period farmers mostly grew alfalfa for feeding their dairies (the milk was separated with the cream being sold to the creamery and the skimmed milk fed to the pigs). Corn and wheat were grown to fatten the pigs and turkeys. Heart-of-Gold cantaloupes and Fallon turkeys were widely known for their flavor and quality and were marketed nation-wide. Then, without refrigeration, ranchers hoped for a cold snap in mid-November so the turkeys could be thoroughly cooled during the night after killing. These were mostly sold through the co-op; Fred also had a lucrative Reno market. Sugar beets were introduced to the valley unsuccessfully. Hog butchering! What a busy time--hams and sides of bacon to be smoked, the loin ground up into sausage with special flavoring of marjoram ordered from Illinois, head cheese and blood sausage to be made, fat to be rendered for lard to be used as shortening in cooking and baking--it was indeed a busy productive time for Fred and Lizzie.
Each spring all residents of Lahontan Valley eagerly awaited the large fresh fish sold by the Pyramid Lake Indians. It is no wonder that the Indians object to having the lake dry up from lack of water from Truckee River. Other fresh fish came from catfish caught in the channels of the sink below Dutch Bill's pasture. Brook trout came from the small streams and creeks in Reese River range.
Musical Lizzie introduced pleasure with an elaborate Pathe phonograph and many semi-classical records; later came an ornate organ and then the piano. Lizzie loved to sit before the warm heater during the long dark evenings of winter playing her harmonica to the four girls while waiting for the men folks to finish chores and come in for supper--one of the few times she took for anything but work at home.
Fred and Lizzie 101
Lizzie Kim. (Courtesy Lucile Kirn Riley and Nina Kirn Kent)
102 Lucile Kim Riley
While the boys were still small, Fred drove freight from Fallon to the mining town of Fairview. He was not happy making a living off his farm; he liked doing custom work with his combine and contracted to "put up" gentleman farmers' alfalfa. He was well-known for making his hay stacks the straightest and highest. Then the Jackson fork was used--up and down, up and down, one forkful at a time.
In our neighborhood lived a miserly bachelor. He lived in a little one room cabin on his 80 acres. For transportation he used a bicycle, and that was the only piece of equipment on the farm. Fred contracted to harvest his alfalfa each year. Fred and his two boys would leave early in the morning, after milking and chores. Lizzie would do the necessary household cleaning and hurry out to her garden for fresh vegetables. About 11:00 the two oldest girls walked to Johnny's place with the lunch: a quart jar of creamed peas and new potatoes, a vegetable, good homemade bread and dessert. They walked through the old Colony place and Adobe Town, the place being about one mile south. As they were a little early before Fred and the Boys came in from the field, the big search was on--the search for a large, nice, flat, smooth rock. Fred always said, "That guy is so miserly he farts against a rock to save the grease." Now, could that be the frugality the present administration plans for our future generation in order to pay for their deficit?
Fred and Lizzie loved having the neighbors drop in for short chats and refreshments. One day Fred invited the ditchrider in and he apologetically said, "Love to, Fred, but Fanny has her ass up and can't get it down, I have to get home and fix that chicken house." If there was illness close by, Fred and Lizzie were the first to offer assistance and they were first to welcome newcomers. Fred acted as the neighborhood veterinarian. There was always room for any number of guests at the already large table. In a minute's notice chicken heads were chopped off, fresh vegetables gathered, whipped cream cake set in motion and in two hours Lizzie had a delicious banquet ready to serve.
All work and no play was definitely a no-no for Fred. Each summer he took the Boys on a two weeks' camping and fishing trip into Reese River and Smith Creek canyons. One year Lizzie accompanied them, taking the whole family, also friends, with their already large family. Lizzie decided it was easier to stay home with the Girls and do the milking and farm chores in Fred's absence. New Year's Eve was about the only time Fred and Lizzie went to Fallon to party and dance. Many pleasant memories of Harmon district residents were centered around the dances at Harmon school (an accordion player came from Reno and packed in the crowds from the whole county), the annual school picnic and cheering on the school baseball team. The big Fourth of July celebration was generally held in Stillwater. A picturesque stopover along the slough, it had been the county seat of Churchill County.
Each spring the Paiute Indians would hold their pow-wow down on the Indian reservation. Fred would round up his six kids to join them in their dancing and watch while they gambled, squatting in the alkali dust--dusty, dirty, but fun.
Fred and Lizzie 103
Another outlet of great pleasure for Fred was his wild game hunting. (He said, "I'm the best damn shot in the county--and no doubt about it.") The family feasted on mallard duck, honker geese, quail, pheasant, dove and sagehen whenever they were in season. Come open deer season in October, Fred organized a hunting party for neighboring and Reno friends to camp out for at least a week, maybe two, in the Reese River high country--a good time was had by all! In later years when Fred could no longer climb the steep mountains, he chose a hiding place near the path of the deer traveling for morning water and feed, never failing to bag his bounty. At that time all women of the district needed the neck meat of the venison for their delicious mincemeat.
Both Fred and Lizzie became interested in the Knights of Pythias and Phoebe Temple, Pythian Sisters of Fallon, now that the children were becoming old enough not to utilize all their energy and time. Both took active offices and Lizzie especially enjoyed the marching team.
In 1924 Fred contracted with Churchill County to resurface the Harmon District road with gravel. The gravel was hauled in small dump wagons pulled by horses. This made a big improvement for traveling now that everyone was an owner of an automobile.
Fred and Alex Baumann consolidated to submit a contract to TCID for an electric power line through Harmon District into Stillwater. They received the contract January 21, 1928--a big undertaking for two industrious farmers.
With the coming of electricity, Lizzie then had her porcelain sink installed, with running water and a drain! Fred built a makeshift bathroom on the end of the porch and Hallelujah--it was almost like living in town.
With the children mostly leading lives of their own, Fred decided to run for long term County Commissioner and was elected November 14, 1934. He remained in office until January 4, 1947. There could have never been a more conscientious public servant, always working for what he felt best for his county. He was heart broken when, after serving 14 years, he was defeated--he just couldn't accept that losing is part of the political game.
During this time Lizzie had taken an active part in the Lutheran Church in Fallon, her Pythian Sisters Lodge and, of course, the Harmony Social Club. Lizzie always kept in close contact with her large family, visiting whenever they moved away from Fallon. Fred liked staying closer to home. Most Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were attended by all members of the family living in Nevada or traveling from California. Fred did take a great interest in teaching all his grandsons to drive his car down the roads he had graveled.
After his active political life Fred more or less retired to the farm--planting and harvesting to a minimum, helping Lizzie with her garden and taking care of chickens for eating and supplying them with eggs. He again drove a delivery truck from Fallon to a newly developed mining facility east of Fallon.
One time while visiting in California the family was getting ready to go to dinner at the Coral Reef. Fred came out wearing his old Stetson--not bad but not
104 Lucile Kirn Riley
new. Lizzie reprimanded him, "Now Dad, you go wear your new Stetson." He did. Later after dinner Fred's fortune cookie read, "Many a good man is hidden under an old hat." It was his turn to grin. Both Fred and Lizzie were "good" people, unselfish, giving of themselves and dedicated to their large family.
In 1957, Fred and Lizzie celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary with a beautiful open house at the Hammy Kent ranch in Stillwater. So many friends, young and old, came to wish them well.
In 1963, Lizzie underwent surgery and never quite fully recovered. After a lingering illness Lizzie died in 1966. Serving as pallbearers were her seven grandsons. Interment was in the family plot of the Fallon Cemetery.
Fred stayed on the ranch for a few years but lost interest in life without his Lizzie by his side. Finally he decided to sell his ranch, making his home with his daughter in Fallon. Gone was his Lizzie and his ranch; all he had worked and lived for his whole adult life, his dream come true was now over. His doctor told him, "Fred you can't just give up living; you have the mind and physical body of a fifty year old man." But give up he did! Fred died February 20, 1971 and was laid to rest beside his adored Lizzie. Now driving by the homesite there is absolutely nothing left to indicate the family life of living, caring and sharing; even the trees are all gone. Seems a long lost dream in today's world of greed.
CREATIVE FOCUS
Three Poems
NILA NORTHSUN
bad mood
i am in a
bad mood
i don't know why
& i don't care either
but i try & keep it
to myself
rather than staying up
watching dumb t.v. shows
& being mad at the people
watching the shows
i take my bad mood to bed
though it's only 7:30
i lay here
with the feeling of
baby scorpions in my hair
& try to relax as
earthquakes
rock me to sleep
105
106 Nila Northsun
ditchrider
bumping along thinking
or
just looking out the
cracked windshield
need some retreads
on the county's pickup
cruising the back roads
watch a gang of 10 years olds
prowling the ditches with bb guns
see a tom cat mousing the
fields
wood's stacked for winter covered
with tarps
80 year old trees sit around
the farmhouse
across the road green sticks
of poplar pushed in the ground
waiting to turn to shade trees
for the double wide trailer
bumping along kicking up dust
barbed wire alternately
tight or sagging
depending on whole field it surrounds
magpies pick at squashed rabbits
most ditches are full
last round for irrigating
cruising everyday
troubleshooting
it's a job.
Three Poems 107
at Gramma' s House
we would take baths in
a big galvanized wash tub
she'd heat up water
drawn from the well
it took many buckets
heated on the woodstove
to get that water
just perfect
warm hot in the winter when
we bathed in the woodstove room
or lukewarm in the summer
while we splashed under the
cottonwood trees
gramma's house had
an outhouse
about 40 yards from the main house
we didn't go out at nite to use it
fearing the coyotes & ghosts
and in the daytime
we fought the wasps as
we peeked thru the knotholes . .
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
The Audubon Christmas Bird Count
WILLIAM T. MEWALDT
THIS YEAR MARKS the 90th anniversary of the original Christmas Bird Count, taken on Christmas Day, 1900, by 27 participants at 25 different locations near various northeastern U.S. cities. Since then, this annual event has grown to over 1550 count locations with over 40,000 participants.
Last year every Canadian province, every American state, Bermuda, many Central American countries, and numerous West Indian and Hawaiian islands submitted their results to the National Audubon Society, which sponsors and supervises the affair and publishes all findings in its ornithological journal, "American Birds."
The count itself is undoubtedly the largest birding event of the year, and for some groups it means days and weeks of planning strategies and working out logistics that will yield, in a single calendar day, the most complete census of birds possible in the designated area. By tradition, that "count area" is a circle with a specified center and a fifteen-mile diameter containing about 177 square miles of land. When I began coordinating our count here in Fallon five years ago we chose as our center a point a few miles south of town on Depp Rd. This allowed us to include most of the available habitats of our area, including Carson Lake and Carson Lake pasture, the town of Fallon, Grimes Point, part of the Carson River, Rattlesnake Hill, S-line Reservoir and the Naval Air Station.
Within this circle, we attempt to field as many competent birders as we can. These observers are grouped into "parties," each with a specific portion of the circle to census. There is no upper limit on the number of participants taking part. Last year, the Edmonton, Alberta, count had 1172 participants, while our Fallon count had only 15 observers and the Reno count had 35.
During the Christmas season, warmer climates hold an enormous advantage over cooler climates. Also, any areas near large bodies of water (especially ocean water) that are not frozen have an advantage over drier locations. Last year, the Panama Canal Zone count scored the highest with 341 species. The highest count in the United States was the Santa Barbara, California, count with 218 species. By contrast, the folks on the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, count endured -8 degree Fahrenheit on their chosen day and saw only 15 birds--all of one species. Last year, the fifteen observers of the Fallon count recorded 81 species while the
108
Christmas Bird Count 109
35 observers of the Reno count saw 82 species and the Carson City folks saw fewer than 70. With more observers and better planning, our count should, on occasion, surpass the Reno count.
Apart from its attraction as a social, sporting and competitive event, the annual Christmas Bird Count reveals interesting and scientifically useful information on the early-winter distribution patterns of various species of our winter resident birds--where they are and in what numbers. Over the years, this data is used to monitor the population fluctuations of bird species, including both invasion and extinction patterns. Since birds are relatively easy to observe and count in the field, we can indirectly assess the health of our environment by monitoring bird populations. Birds may act as the "canary in the mine" to alert us to impending environmental hazards.
I include here a list of the common names of the 81 species of birds observed on our Christmas 1989 count. In past years we have seen both more and fewer species, depending on the year, but I think that last year's count is fairly representative of our typical bird population here in the Lahanton Valley. Some species that we expected to see were not found while a few species that we do not ordinarily see were observed.
Great Blue Heron Cooper's Hawk
Great Egret Red-shouldered Hawk
Black-crowned Night Heron Red-tailed Hawk
Tundra Swan Rough-legged Hawk
Canada Goose Ferruginous Hawk
Wood Duck American Kestrel
Green-Winged Teal Merlin
Cinnamon Teal Prairie Falcon
Mallard Ring-necked Pheasant
Northern Pintail California Quail
Northern Shoveler American Coot
Gadwall Sandhill Crane
Canvasback Killdeer
Redhead Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Scaup Long-billed Dowitcher
Common Goldeneye Common Snipe
Bufflehead Ring-billed Gull
Common Merganser Herring Gull
Ruddy Duck Rock Dove
Bald Eagle Mourning Dove
Golden Eagle Great-horned Owl
Northern Harrier Downey Woodpecker
Sharp-shinned Hawk Northern Flicker
110 Willaim T. Mewaldt
Horned Lark Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-billed Magpie Orange-Crowned Warbler
American Crow Rufous-sided Towhee
Common Raven Sage Sparrow
Mountain Chickadee Savanah Sparrow
Bushtit Fox Sparrow
Rock Wren Song Sparrow
Bewick's Wren Golden Crowned Sparrow
Marsh Wren White-crowned Sparrow
Ruby-crowned Kinglet Dark-eyed Junco
Mountain Bluebird Red-winged Black Bird
American Robin Brewer's Black Bird
Hermit Thrush Western Meadowlark
Water Pipit House Finch
Cedar Waxwing Lesser Goldfinch
Northern Shrike American Goldfinch
Loggerhead Shrike House Sparrow European Starling
IN MEMORY
Marguerite J. Coverston
MEMBERS OF THE MUSEUM STAFF
MARCH, A TIME for renewal and the arrival of spring was not the joyous time it has been in past years. Senior Hostess Marguerite J. Coverston, who had served the Churchill County Museum since August, 1968, passed away. It hasn't been easy for those who worked with her, as her sense of humor and hard work, along with her knowledge of the formative days of the museum, are truly missed.
Some of the Staff have contributed memories of this remarkable woman that we would like to share with you.
Marguerite was a "lady" in a time when society has forgotten the qualities of the past. She was a woman of honor, dignity and courage, and she possessed a definite sense of what was right and wrong. She challenged all of us to measure up to these high standards.
-Loree Branby
Marguerite was a "lady." She was vibrant and full of fun. She had a wonderful sense of humor. Whenever she heard the simulated male voice talking from my computer, she teased me by coming into the computer room to check up on me.
-Caret Cote
Even though I knew Marguerite only a short time, I will always remember
her for the enthusiasm she shared with me for her work and the museum.
-Maw Seevers
When I began to work as a hostess, six and a half years ago, Marguerite was the person who helped me with all the things that I needed to know about the museum. She shared all the stories about the exhibits. I don't think there was an article that she couldn't identify. She was pleasant and courteous, and she loved to talk to all of the visitors. She always had the best interests of the museum in her mind. I shall certainly miss her.
-Laurada Hannifan
When I first came to work at the museum Marguerite was a treasure to me, as she shared her vast knowledge of Fallon. She made many of our displays even more exciting with her knowledge of them.
Marguerite was a grand lady in every sense of the word. I am so glad that I had the pleasure of working along side her.
-Felice De Los Reyes
111
112 The Museum Staff
Marguerite J. Lavin Coverston was born in Leadville, Colorado, March 20, 1908. She married Roy Coverston September 21, 1928, in Santa Rosa, California, and came to Fallon that same year. (Churchill County Museum and Archives--Marge Coverston Lister Collection)
Marguerite J. Coverston 113
Knowing Marguerite has made me a better person. She taught me respect for the past and traditions in a way that studying books could never have done. We didn't always agree on things, but I feel we often learned more about each other from these disagreements. I shall always respect her and her contributions to the museum.
Marguerite remembered a time when the past was revered. She shared many of her own antique collections with those who came to visit and often felt personal pain for the sharing. Long ago, before the security improvements we have today, a treasured coin silver sugar shell was stolen, and the loss hurt her deeply, as it was someday to have been a gift for a much-loved daughter. A tiny vaseline glass salt dish was also stolen, and a year later it was returned in a small box mailed to the museum. The word "Sorry" was the brief note included. She valued the box and note and shared them with the staff, as they showed that people could learn from their mistakes.
Hardly a day goes by that I don't expect her to come through the front door, dressed in a bright spring dress and wanting to share some new idea for an exhibit or display. She may have left us, but her influence and her spirit remain.
-Sharon Lee Taylor-
CONTRIBUTORS
Sylvia Arden is a well-known Oral Historian from San Diego, California. She has established the Churchill County Oral History Project with the help of a grant from the Nevada Humanities Committee.
Ethelyn E. Coverston is a Fallon, Nevada native who has long pursued her interest in local history. She is a retired school teacher.
Eloise A. Enos is a Fallon native and a graduate of Western Nevada Community College. She currently attends the University of Nevada, Reno.
Adam Fortunate Eagle is a member of the Red Lake band of Chippewa, of Minnesota. He owns the Roundhouse Gallery and is known for his skill as an artist and for his teaching of Native American traditions.
Elaine Hesselgesser is active in farming and 4-H with her husband and three sons. She also works at the Churchill County Library and donates her time to the Churchill County Oral History Project.
Elmer J. Huckaby shared his memories of extracting salt from the desert as part of the Churchill County Oral History Project.
Marian LaVoy is a native Nevadan. She donates her time to the
Churchill County Oral History Project, recording important
memories of early residents.
Michon Mackedon teaches English at Western Nevada Community College.
William T. Mewaldt teaches Life Sciences at Western Nevada Community College.
Nila Northsun is a well-known Nevada poet who makes her home in Fallon.
Maie Nygren is a graduate of Harmon School. Her mother was a teacher at the old school from 1914 to 1915.
114
Contributors 115
Lucile Kirn Riley attended Harmon School and Churchill County High School. She is retired, and has lived with her husband in Fair Oaks, California, since 1951.
Ivy Wallace Ringstrom shared her memories of living and working in Churchill County as part of the Churchill County Oral History Project.
Sharon Lee Taylor is Director of the Churchill County Museum & Archives.
116 The Museum Staff
Corrections
IN FOCUS, Volume 1, Number 1
P. 5
Senator Pat McCarran is not shown. Change to:
(L) James G. Scrugham and (R) Vail Pittman
p. 14
"In 1855, I.C. Russell...". Change to:
"In 1885, I.C. Russell with the U.S. Geological..."
pp. iii, 41, and 97
Ophelia "Leafy" King. Change to:
Olephia "Leafy" King
pp. 42, 46 and 47
Based on Survival Arts of the Primitive Pauites,
by Margaret M. Wheat. Reno: University of Nevada
Press, 1967.
"Nunra ... " Change to:
"Niminnaa"
p. 47 II... the footprint (of Nunrbia)... " Change to: II... the footprint (of Istimfnnaa)... "
IN FOCUS, Volume 2, Number 1
P. 3
In photo caption, Ted deBraga. Change to: "Frank deBraga, Commissioner..."
p. 74
In photo caption, Unidentified man. Change to:
"Art Corbeil."
117
118 The Staff
IN FOCUS, Volume 3, Number 1
pp. 84 and 85
Don Ray Hennen. Change to:
"Donald Ray Hennen"
CHURCHILL COUNTY
MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
1050 South Maine Street
Fallon, NV 89406
(702) 423-3677
MUSEUM STAFF
Sharon Lee Taylor, DirectorlCurator
Myrl Nygren, Assistant Curator
Loree Branby, Director's Assistant & Registrar
Jean E. Jensen, Assistant Registrar
Carol Cote, Museum Photographer
Wilva Blue, Accessions Coordinator
Bunny Corkill, Research Assistant
Laurada Hannifan, Senior Hostess
Felice De Los Reyes, Attendant/Hostess
Bob Walker, Attendant/Host
Marge Seevers, AttendantlHostess
Ces Jacobsen, Tour Guide
William A. Landman, Computer Consultant
IN FOCUS STAFF
Michon Mackedon, Editor
Sharon Lee Taylor, Associate Editor
Loree Branby, Staff
PRODUCTION CREDITS 1990-1991 ISSUE
Cover Design: Sharon Lee Taylor & Loree Branby
Production Photography: Carol Cote & Sharon Lee Taylor
Typesetting: Amiga 2500 with a NEC LC 890 Postscript Laser Printer and
Professional Page v.1.2 software done by Museum Staff
Production: Heffernan Press Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts
Cover stock is 80-lb. Cambric Beckett Birch
Text is set on 60-lb. acid-free book stock
FOUNDED IN 1967, the Churchill County Museum Association seeks to advance the study and preservation of local history. The Association does this through special programs, exhibits in the Churchill County Museum & Archives, which opened in 1968, and this publication, Churchill County IN FOCUS. The Association is also active in the collection and preservation of historic photographs and collects manuscripts, maps, artifacts and books, making its collections available for research. The Museum is the repository for both the City of Fallon and Churchill County government records.

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