Firmin Bruner Oral History part 3

Firmin Bruner Oral History part 3

Firmin Bruner Oral History

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

February 23, 1994

Analog Cassette Tape, Txt File, MP3 Audio

English

128kbps/44100HZ

Churchill County Oral History Project
an interview with
FIRMIN ASCARGORTA BRUNER
Fallon, Nevada
conducted by
Sylvia Arden
February 23, 1994

This interview is part of the socioeconomic studies for Churchill County's Yucca Mountain Planning and Oversight Program.
© 1994

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewer and interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Churchill County Museum or any of its employees.

This is Sylvia Arden, interviewer for the Churchill County Oral History Project. Mr. Firmin Ascargorta Bruner was interviewed for the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project, October 28, 1991, by Bill Davis. This is a second interview today at Mr. Bruner's home, 47 North Broadway, Fallon, Nevada, February 23, 1994, and we'll be concentrating on the Newlands Project, Lahontan Dam, TCID [Truckee-Carson Irrigation District] and ranching.
SYLVIA ARDEN: Good afternoon, Mr. Bruner. Would you tell me your full name and where and when you were born?
FIRMIN BRUNER: I was born on a little farm near Guernica, Spain, September 25, 1899. My Dad was over here in this country already, but in 1903 my mother and I came to north of Wells, to a ranch where he was working.
SA: So you now are how old?
FB: I was ninety-four last September.
SA: Now I know that you have a very wonderful long, long interview at the museum, so this is a second interview. We're just going to concentrate today on asking more questions about what you might remember or have experienced during the Newlands Project, the Lahontan Dam and all the results after, which created Fallon. I read in your first interview about your family and their moving to Fallon in 1917. That was a period when there were hundreds of settlers coming because of the Newlands Project. So I have a couple of questions to ask you, because you were already a teenager then in 1917.
FB: That's right.
SA: And so I want to know, was your family attracted here by notices of the promise of water for agriculture for ranchers here in Churchill County?
FB: No, Dad was working in the mines and he was getting salivated from the quicksilver [mercury], and he decided that he would like to get away and we heard of the opportunities in farming here, and that's how he come down.
SA: So that's what I was going to refer to, because when the Newlands Project was starting, they sent flyers all over the world to attract people. Do you think they saw some of that, saying there would be good farming and good agriculture here?
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BRUNER: No, Dad couldn't read English, but he heard of what a good place this was, from word of mouth.
ARDEN: Uh-huh, because that was a time many were coming. When you first saw Fallon, and saw that area where they were first going to
start the ranch, can you remember what it looked like?
FB: Well, they didn't start any ranch, they took a lease. He and a man named Billy Bell took a lease on this dairy that was already going, from A.E. Grennel. So they bought the cattle and leased the ranch, an eighty-acre ranch. It was very well developed. It wasn't all developed, but very well developed.
SA: But it was a ranch already?
FB: Oh yes, it was already cutting hay.
SA: Okay, so what I want to ask is this: When you first came to that first ranch--and that's the one you're talking about--I want you to see if you can describe it in detail, because from the first interview, there was no description, and also it said it was a dairy, but it didn't describe it. Tell me what it looked like when you first saw it, and what was there.
FB: Well, you understand that I didn't come here at that first time--I stayed up to work. But anyway, it had a fair-sized house, I would say two bedrooms and a dining room and a kitchen. It had an adobe cellar off to the side. Well, what else?
SA: I'm asking more about the ranch, not the house--the land. . . . See . . . we're interested, from the Newlands Project about the agriculture, was there anything growing yet? Were there any trees?
FB: Oh yes.
SA: That's what I want to hear about.
FB: Yeah, they were raising hay, and it wasn't all in, it wasn't quite all in, but it was pretty well all in, in alfalfa.
SA: How many acres of it?
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BRUNER: There was about, I would say, maybe forty, forty-five acres. There was some land that was adobe and wasn't fit for farming, but what ground could be used was pretty well all in.
ARDEN: I know that you stayed behind in the mines, but how often did you come home to visit?
FB: Well, I was driving supply truck between here and Phonolite, so I was in here practically once a week and sometimes oftener, because the mine was just being developed.
SA: Good, that's what I wanted to find out. So this is what I want to ask you: What was the irrigation like at that time at that place?
FB: Well, as far as I know, the ditches was all in good shape out at the ranch that the folks took up.
SA: Were they still the dirt ditches?
FB: Well, yeah, they were dirt ditches and wooden headgates.
SA: And do you know how that worked? Was it rationed or how did that irrigation system work?
FB: Well, they had a ditch rider, same as now, and it seemed to work pretty smooth.
SA: For people who have never been to this region and don't know, tell us what a ditch rider is and what they do.
FB: Well, a ditch rider is a man that takes care of the distribution of the water to the different areas, at the different ranches in his area. You call up the ditch rider and tell him you want water, and when he has water available he gives it to you. Sometimes you have to wait a day or two while someone else is using the same ditch.
SA: Okay, now describe, when you say "he gives it to you," how does he give them the water?
FB: Well, he would tell you your water is coming, and you just waited for it and opened your headgate and you started using it.
SA: Now where did the water come from?
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BRUNER: Well, it came from Lahontan Dam. It came down to Diversion Dam, and then it was put into different canals there: the one that went toward Soda Lake, and the one that came down this way.
ARDEN: And when you visited, did you ever stay on the ranch long enough, on that ranch, to do any work to help them?
FB: No, I worked out and furnished the money. (laughter) The thing wasn't very profitable.
SA: How long did they stay at that ranch before they split and your father went to the other ranch?
FB: Well, they hayed that summer and stayed--I don't exactly
remember when Dad moved away, but it was probably early in the spring.
SA: The same year?
FB: No, the following year. We hayed the first year.
SA: Now, that was a dairy, right?
FB: Well, I think there were, oh, around fourteen, fifteen head of cattle, but they were just--we did our milking out by a (chuckles) corral
and so forth and so on. Not very sanitary at that time.
SA: Did they sell any of the dairy products?
FB: Yes, they sold cream.
SA: And where did they sell it to?
FB: At that time, I don't remember. I think it was a co-op here in Fallon. I think it was.
SA: And they just sold the cream?
FB: Yes. And the milk they fed to chickens and pigs. Had a pig or two on the ranch. And turkeys.
SA: So they sold it to a co-op, not to private individuals?
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BRUNER: Well, I'm not sure what came first, the co-op or some other outfit. I might think of it later on, but right now it won't come to me.
ARDEN: Now, I read, of course, in your first interview, that soon Billy and your dad split, and your dad left to rent and then to buy a new
place. Did Billy pay him off, or was the place bankrupt?
FB: Well, it was bankrupt, there was nothing to divide up.
SA: Okay, I read that you then, always helping out your family, went into partnership with your dad on the second ranch, so I have some questions now about the second ranch. First, how old were you by then?
FB: Well, I didn't really go into partners with the second ranch until I think it was in the forties.
SA: Oh, in other words, there were many years before?
FB: I contributed all those years, because they never could make it. Poor Dad wasn't a farmer, and he never did make it pay, so I contributed all those years. I was forty years old before I got out of debt. I considered their debt mine too, although I was married previous to that.
SA: Well, because it was confusing in the first interview. It sounded like you immediately went into partnership. So now let's go back to that second ranch before you became a partner. At that time, before you were a partner, when your dad and his family moved there, did you at any time during that early period live at that ranch?
FB: I didn't live on it. I stayed out and worked all the time. The ranch only had fifteen acres leveled, and the ditches was all real sand-blown. There was one big sand hill extended from the road to the corral, which would have been, oh, a thousand feet. And it was so high that after we built a house there--we had to build a house the first thing--that coming from town, you could barely see the little window in the gable of the roof. So that shows you how high the sand hills were. This was the last place taken up, and Dad paid $6,000 for Mobly to release his homestead, and then Dad filed on it.
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ARDEN: Do you know when Mobly homesteaded that?
BRUNER: I don't have any idea, but it wasn't proved up. And there was just a little old shed on there, that when the wind blew (chuckles) the sand inside was higher than outside.
SA: Oh my goodness!
FB: The first thing they had to do was build a house. And a fellah named Schindler built a house for $1,000. It had three bedrooms-small ones, in a row, on the east side, and Mom and Dad's bedroom--and then a front room, pretty good-sized front room, and a kitchen, for $1,000.
SA: Now, who was living in the house at that time? You were away. Who else was living at home?
FB: I don't think anyone was living in it when we bought it! (laughter)
SA: When your family moved there, how many of your family lived there on the ranch?
FB: Well, everybody except me.
SA: Who was that?
FB: Two sisters and a brother and Dad and Mom.
SA: And when you went home to visit, where'd you sleep?
FB: Well, my brother and I slept together. It had three bedrooms.
SA: Now I read that very early, like 1917 when the Lahontan Dam got electricity, that electricity was wired into Fallon. Did your ranch have electricity?
FB: No, it was brought in way later. I don't recollect right now just when, but finally the ranchers in that district went together and rustled the money to bring the power line out.
SA: So that was out of the city of Fallon, not in the city?
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BRUNER: No, they tied on probably over here just across the canal, at the outskirts, by Taylor Street there. Probably from there.
ARDEN: Was it an unincorporated area then, the ranch where your family lived?
FB: Oh yeah, they never were incorporated. These fellahs just put up the money, and they brought the power out, and then we deeded it back to the power company.
SA: How did you heat your house there?
Wood. Wood and coal.
SA: And what did you use for light?
FB: Kerosene lamps.
SA: And what about plumbing?
FB: Well the plumbing was pretty primitive--especially on a cold winter night.
SA: Did you have outhouses?
FB: Yes.
SA: And how did your family do the laundry?
FB: By a tub and a washboard. In those days they didn't have any detergent, so you had to boil your clothes to make them white.
SA: Oh, my goodness!
FB: Yeah, you had to boil them.
SA: Now tell me at the start of that ranch, what did they raise and what kind of animals did they start to get?
FB: Well, he gradually got some more cows. The first thing Dad had to do was go to work, so he went feeding cattle down in the Beach District [extreme southeast portion of the Newlands Project].
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ARDEN: To earn some money?
BRUNER: Yeah, to earn money.
SA: And when was he finally able to put in some crops or get his own animals?
FB: Well, that was during the winter, fall and winter. And then he must have--I don't remember--but he started leveling-up right away. He bought four horses and a tailboard scraper and started leveling land. And he leveled a little every year 'til, oh, I guess it was almost the forties.
SA: Now, who worked with him on the ranch?
FB: Just himself.
SA: Your brother didn't stay either?
FB: Well, he stayed there all the time, he lived there all the time. But he would go out and work for the neighbors.
SA: You all worked to bring money in?
FB: Well, he didn't hardly make his own expenses part of the time, but he always helped on the ranch, and the girls did too.
SA: So everybody was working very hard.
FB: Oh yes.
SA: Did your mother work on the ranch too?
FB: She was quite frail, but she raised a garden and did the cooking and the canning and so forth, but she was very ignorant about canning and somebody had told the girls that if cold air hit the jars, they would crack. (chuckles) So they even put something under the door so that the cold air wouldn't come in, and cooking on a hot wood stove, you can imagine it was plenty warm inside.
SA: During that period did your dad ever raise enough to sell any of the cattle or any of the animals or crops? Did he ever reach that point?
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BRUNER: No, he got some sheep, and started out with a few head of sheep and so forth. Then the cattle too, I guess he was milking, oh, around six cows. But Dad didn't know that a cow gave richer or leaner milk, so whenever he saw a cow that gave quite a bit of milk, that's what he took.
ARDEN: Oh. Now, what were the water rights like? Did he get water rights to that property?
FB: Yes, when we first took that out, the water right was as high as eighty dollars an acre, and then they brought it down to sixty. They said (chuckles) that was too high. But we never did pay it all until I sold the ranch. In other words, you pay the government so much at a time. And when I sold the ranch, we still owed $400 and I had to pay that before I could sell the ranch.
SA: Oh, my. Did the water rights cost go up and down? Or did it stay the same?
FB: The water rights stayed the same, but the operation and maintenance went up and down according to the expenses.
SA: Now, in the first period before you came back and became a partner and before you married, were there many changes in that next decade from the twenties to, let's say, the early thirties? Were there many changes in that region? Did you see other homesteads starting to flourish? Were things flourishing?
FB: No, it was pretty well all taken up. Of course some of them sold out and moved away, but the ground all around us, like I say, it was the last place that was taken up (chuckles) and it wasn't worth taking up! (laughs)
SA: No, what I'm asking is this: The other ranches in the region, in the Fallon area, because of the irrigation, did they start to get greener and more crops and more trees? Did the water start to pay off?
FB: Well, I am not too sure whether the other ranches were developed fully or not. I couldn't say that. But I suppose they weren't all in, same as our place. And the ones that had them, why, they would put in a little land each time. One was lmus, they just had a few acres, and they had it developed too. Now, Dad used four feet of water to irrigate, and he could hardly handle that, because the
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sand was so treacherous, and sometimes when he'd have a washout, my brother would lay down in the washout, and he'd shovel sand against Dad to fix the break.
ARDEN: Now, visually, was the region changing? Because I know what it looks like now, of course, and what it looked like before the Lahontan Dam. Looking around, did you come enough into this region to see where the green was starting and more hay planted and more cattle and more dairies? Because it started to flourish for awhile. Did you observe it or not?
BRUNER: No, I didn't observe, no. The neighbors all around us seemed to be getting along pretty good, and I didn't pay any attention to that.
SA: What about, like I know in 1921 they started the huge melon culture of the Heart-O-Gold melons. Did you observe any of that?
FB: Well, they raised that up at Swingle Bench. C.G. Swingle introduced and proved that Hearts-O-Gold cantaloupes grew well in the sandy soil of Swingle Bench and had outstanding good flavor. One year he shipped $30,000 worth to the Chicago market in ice refrigerated railroad cars. The refrigeration did not hold up some years, causing a loss for that year.
SA: Also during that period there was a great big sugar beet factory and people were raising beets for the sugar beet factory. Did you participate or know anything or know people in that business?
FB: Well, Dad planted a few beets, but the alkali was so bad (chuckles) they only grew up about two or three inches.
SA: (expressing concern) Oh. So he didn't have the best property.
FB: No, he didn't. (laughter)
SA: Oh, that's a shame. Then I want to ask you, can you remember what it was like here during the Depression, about 1929? Was that just before you married? Or did you marry during the Depression?
FB: Yes.
SA: How did the Depression hit not only your family but the region?
Were there visible signs of people leaving or pulling out?
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BRUNER: Well, I didn't notice that too much. I think the people around us were pretty well established. But it didn't affect me either, because as shovel operator, I had a job all the time. But Dad did not pay his water right moratorium at that time. They declared a moratorium on the water rights and Dad didn't pay that, and that piled up. But I gave him money to keep him above water.
ARDEN: You were a very special son. Now, I know in the other interview you tell all about how you met your wife. When you married, then you went to the ranch here in Churchill County, right? Is that when you became a partner? Did you become a partner?
FB: No, we just built a little two-room house so that we could make that as a headquarters, and I followed highway work.
SA: What year was that?
FB: We came there around 1931 or 1932, and built this little cabin there. And then I went to work up at Sequoia Park, and then that summer she followed me, but we always had that as a headquarters to come back to it.
SA: Now when you say Sequoia Park, you mean in. . . .
FB: California.
SA: We don't want to hear about California, but what I want to get back to is when you first both went to the ranch to build a house, were there changes, what was it like then? Not only on the ranch, but in this whole region. Were there any changes? Were there changes in the type of irrigation or farming?
FB: Well, I didn't pay any attention to it at that time, no. And we rented a house in town, and I was gonna go to Sequoia, and then she didn't want to live in town, so we built a little cabin.
SA: Right. So when you were building the cabin on the ranch, were there any changes happening? Was the water worse or better? Plants growing? More hay? Were there changes? Or was it always so static?
FB: The only change that seemed to take place was when we first came there, the wind blew every Sunday, it seemed like. Every
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Sunday there was a terrible wind. And it's like Dad planted four acres of alfalfa out by the house, and a neighbor come over and he said, "That's the prettiest stand I ever saw." And that night there wasn't an alfalfa plant up. The wind had come along and cut it down. And it seemed like as the shade trees and so forth was planted around, why, it inhibited the wind from blowin' so much.
ARDEN: How long did it take for the trees to grow where they finally were useful?
BRUNER: Well, they were cottonwood trees.
SA: I want you to go back and think carefully and describe, thinking about this project, what it looked like. Were there trees? Were there chickens? Where there vegetable gardens? Were there flowers? Describe how the irrigation project helped that land.
FB: Well, by the time we moved back, the shade trees around the house was good-sized shade trees--they were cottonwoods. And Dad had an orchard and they had seventy-two trees in it, and he had some berries--currants and so forth.
SA: What kind of fruit trees?
FB: All kinds: apples, peaches, apricots, and plums. Yeah. He just had prit near every kind, uh-huh.
SA: bet that was delicious. Now was that for canning? Did you sell any of it?
FB: Yes, we sold some afterward, but I don't recollect whether Dad did or not. The trees was still pretty young. But after we moved, we sold a lot.
SA: We'll get to that part in detail when we finish with this early period. You said when you moved there with your wife, then you went away to work for a while at Sequoia, right?
FB: Yeah.
SA: How often would you come home from there?
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BRUNER: Well, the wife went with me all the time, and the little cabin was just a place to come to.
ARDEN: How often would you come back?
FB: Well, whenever we was out of a job, like from Sequoia we went down to Southern Nevada, and did we go somewhere else from there? I don't remember. But anyway. . . .
SA: Of course we want to stick with Churchill County. You said that you went into partnership. Is that when you finally came back and stayed longer there?
FB: Yes, when we came down in the forties.
SA: Now I understand that you came back to the ranch after working all over in many places, and you came back with your family in 1945 to stay at the ranch. My first question is, did you come with any of your children?
FB: Yes.
SA: When you came back, tell me who came back with you.
FB: My wife and my family came back.
SA: How many children?
FB: Four children and my wife came back.
SA: And did you all stay in that same little house?
FB: No, I added-on to the little house and the folks moved into the little house, and I added-on to the big house and put in running water and toilets and so forth.
SA: Now, did you move into the big house with your family?
FB: Yes, I moved into the big house with my family.
SA: Who else was left from your parents' family?
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BRUNER: Well, Domingo was there. My brother was still on the ranch, because he had no other place to go. He was a bachelor.
ARDEN: Now who lived in the little house?
FB: Dad and Mom moved to the little house.
SA: Which was bigger now?
FB: Well, we added to it, and put in running water and so on.
SA: Did you do that work yourself?
FB: Yes. (laughs) It was pretty crude carpenter work, but it did the job.
SA: I bet your parents were thrilled that all of you came.
FB: Well, yeah, it was good to have progress.
SA: And to have the kids around?
FB: Yeah, the kids would come around quite often.
SA: Now, you came back in 1945. Tell me now, thinking again of the irrigation, agriculture, what we're interested in, what was the ranch like then? What else was planted, what animals were there?, et cetera.
FB: After I went in partners, then I still worked out, so I leased the place to my brother. That was during World War II, and he run it for a couple of years, and then I decided to take farming on while I was still young.
SA: Now, you were doing other work, but were you still living at the ranch? You said you leased it--were you still living at the ranch? This is after 1945.
FB: Yeah, this was just before 1945.
SA: No, we're talking now, after moved back to the ranch with your family, you made the houses bigger, now I'm asking, What was the ranch like when you moved back and you increased the size of the
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house? Now tell me about the land and the animals and the agriculture. What was there when you moved back?
BRUNER: Well, we had sixteen head of cattle that I bought from my brother, and we sold apples. We did very well, six cents a pound.
ARDEN: Who did you sell them to?
FB: Well, there were people came from up north of Reno--all over. People would come to the ranch.
SA: Did you have signs out so they could see?
FB: No, it was by word of mouth. (laughs) They were pretty cheap
apples, six cents a pound, but they were good apples.
SA: Did they pick them themselves?
FB: No, we picked them. One tree netted me $600.
SA: Oh, wonderful! And did you sell other fruit too?
FB: I don't think to amount to anything, although we had good apricots and so forth. But mostly it was apples.
SA: So when you were selling the fruit, would you have it picked and ready, or you'd pick it when they come? Describe how that worked.
FB: Well, we would pick them as we had time. See, I was farming along with everything else, so we picked them and we'd have some there.
SA: No signs in town about it?
FB: No, we didn't advertise.
SA: What did they call your ranch?
FB: Firmin Bruner, I guess. Ascargorta before that.
SA: So you had the apple trees and apricots and other fruit trees. Now, did you have any vegetable garden?
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BRUNER: Yes, Mom was quite active and previous to that, Dad wouldn't order water, only just when the crops needed it, and gardens just would hardly survive. But when I moved there, I bought a pump and put the pump in the drain ditch and we would pump water and we had a very good garden. Well, she put up 125 quarts of beans for the family, and I sold a lot of vegetables up on the river there. A fellah had a fruit stand on the river there, and I would take them over there and he would sell them.
ARDEN: Tell me some of the vegetables.
FB: Well, watermelons and cabbage. Well, most everything, a variety. Mom liked to garden and she'd fiddle around. And whenever she needed water, I would start the pump, so she had a good garden.
SA: Wonderful. Now, what about the cottonwoods, and were there other trees around to shade?
FB: No, it was just cottonwood and some poplars.
SA: Now, were you raising any crops?
FB: Oh yeah, we were raising hay all the time, and like I say, I had sixteen head of cattle that we were milking and selling the cream.
SA: Were you selling the cream still to the co-op?
FB: It seems to me like it was the Utah Co-op, yeah, from Utah.
SA: Now, would they come and pick it up? Or would you deliver it? How did it work?
FB: They would pick it up. They would come and pick it up once a week or twice a week.
SA: What kind of containers would the cream be in?
FB: Just in cans. (laughs) Nowadays, very unsanitary. (laughter)
SA: Were those great big steel gray cans with the tops?
FB: Yeah, ten-gallon cans.
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ARDEN: How did you separate the cream from the milk?
BRUNER: We had a hand separator.
SA: Describe it and tell me. . . .
FB: It was a DeLaval. It was a very popular separator.
SA: Do you have any pictures on anything?
FB: No, I don't have any pictures of it. And it had a thing on the handle that if you turned it a certain speed, it would be quiet, it would quit clicking. But if you slowed down to where you was getting more milk than cream, why, it would make a clicking sound.
SA: Now, who did this, and how long did it take?
FB: Well, Dad and I and my brother while he was there, we all pitched in and milked.
SA: How long would it take to separate the cream?
FB: Oh, it wouldn't take very long--maybe twenty minutes.
SA: And how much cream would you get in that twenty minutes?
FB: Well, I don't recollect too much--maybe two or three gallons.
SA: So it was a lot of hand work.
FB: It was all hand work.
SA: Did you ever reach a point where you had more sophisticated equipment on the ranch?
FB: Oh, yeah, I bought a John Deere tractor and a side-delivery rake. Before that they just had dump rakes. I bought quite a bit of equipment, yes.
SA: And when you bought the equipment, was the ranch growing? Since you were there and doing so much, did it start to thrive, did it increase in crops or animals?
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BRUNER: No, I wouldn't say that it increased any, except that I worked in the wintertime, and I farmed in the summer. That way we got along. We was making a little money that way.
ARDEN: Did you ever get into selling beef cattle?
FB: Well, no, but to give you an illustration, we had a real nice young bull--what they called a baloney bull--and he weighed a thousand pounds. And we got forty dollars for it--forty dollars! (laughs) That shows you the price.
SA: Now I know that in Fallon, it's the only state auction house here at the Stockade, that I have visited. Can you tell me anything much about that?
FB: No, I never did attend one. I never did attend an auction.
SA: That kind of interested me. I did visit it and watched.
FB: We didn't have anything to sell.
SA: You didn't go just for the fun of it?
FB: All we had was just the dairy cattle.
SA: Have you ever gone to watch the auction?
FB: No, I never did. I was usually pretty busy. In the summer I worked for TCID and picked up the odds and ends around home. And in the winter, I mean, I worked there. And in the summer, why, it took about all my time to patch things up--fences and all that stuff. They were pretty well run down when I took over.
SA: Did your kids help you on the ranch? Did you have much time for the kids?
FB: Oh, the kids remember the good times we had, yes. We spent quite a bit of time with the kids. And then about that time they got so that they could drive, too, and so they got along very well. The kids always remark what a happy childhood they had, which is a great thing nowadays.
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ARDEN: Now, knowing that you came from a Basque heritage, and I've been interviewing many up in the northern part, in Lander County, did your family continue some of the Basque culture with you and on the ranch and with the grandchildren?
BRUNER: No, Mom tried to Americanize. She absorbed the different methods and so forth. If we talked to Mom and Dad, we would talk Basque, but among us, we talked English. (laughs) And a lot of times, we'd get in a ruckus, and Mom would come along and straighten things out.
SA: So did your mom and dad talk to each other in Basque?
FB: Yeah, they talked in Basque.
SA: And when you were kids, did they talk to you in Basque? Because most of the ones I interview, the kids didn't speak English 'til they went to school.
FB: I don't recollect when I couldn't talk English. We always talked English, us kids, and the playmates and all. But at home we talked Basque to Mom and Dad.
SA: Part of the Basque culture that fascinates me is the wonderful frivolity, good food, friendships with others. Was there that kind of an atmosphere in this region?
FB: Oh yes, they were very--well, a very generous people. Like when Dad had to take Mom to Reno to the doctor, and after we came back, the mine shut down soon after that. I happened to get ahold of one of his books, and Dad owed $700 to different friends that had loaned it to him. That showed how if you had a son, those days (laughs), the Basques would loan you money, because they figured the son would pay it.
SA: Oh, like part of the family.
FB: Yeah.
SA: And did your family ever attend, or did you, any of the Basque festivals? I know I went to the one in Winnemucca, and there's Ely and Elko.
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BRUNER: No, they never did attend too many. They stayed home pretty well.
ARDEN: Now, I want to talk about the years you worked for TCID, which were many years. Some of the things 1 want to know is, not just the work that you did, but the overall picture of TCID and it's responsibility. Do you have information to share?, because I want to know more about their role in the water development, water rights, and water distribution.
FB: Well, when I went to work for them, that district was in very poor disrepair, and we put in hundreds of head gates. The old wooden ones was just fallin' apart. And we dug a lot of drain ditches where people were getting waterlogged, and straightened out the ditches. And of course it was all, very little concrete work.
SA: Was this in 1921 when you were working in the early period, 1921?
FB: No, this was after 1945, after we moved down here. In the wintertime I would work for TCID, and in the summertime I would farm. And we was doing very well on the ranch that way.
SA: So let's get back to TCID. First, how many people were working for them when you were working for them?
FB: Well, on the maintenance and construction and all that, there must have been around fifteen, twenty--fifteen, anyway.
SA: Were they all local people?
FB: Yes.
SA: Beside the repair work, do you know the role they played in the water rationing and other things that they were responsible for?
FB: Well, they took pretty well care of anything that needed attention, oh yes.
SA: So they were in charge of it all?
FB: Oh yeah, like if a farmer couldn't get rid of his excess water after he got through irrigating, they would put in drop boxes for him to drop the excess water into the drain ditches and all that. Yeah, they
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were very, very good about keeping up and helping everybody, yeah. Everybody seemed to be satisfied.
ARDEN: Now, did you have to pay a certain amount for these services? Where did the money come to them to do all this?
BRUNER: To the TCID?
SA: Uh-huh.
FB: Well, it was operation and maintenance, and according to how much they spent, that's what the charge would be.
SA: The charge to the rancher, or to the city?
FB: To the rancher. They were assessed so much an acre.
SA: In other words, assessed so much an acre that went into a pot to get the work done?
FB: Yeah, that kept up the finances of the TCID.
SA: Like a co-op where people pay so much a month to get the roof fixed and the garden?
FB: That's what it was, yeah.
SA: Can you remember what you had to pay?
FB: I don't recollect.
SA: Well you're certainly sharing a lot of the things that I want to learn about.
FB: It seems to me like it was about two or three dollars per acre. It was a couple of hundred we had to pay.
SA: Now, going back to your ranch, how long did you live there and keep the ranch?
FB: We moved into town in 1947.
SA: Now wait, you moved out there in 1945.
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BRUNER: Yeah, we was only there a couple of years.
ARDEN: You were only at the ranch a couple of years?
FB: Yeah. I got to thinking, things got to looking a little bit down at that time, and I got to thinking that if the ranch didn't pay, I didn't have anybody to help me like Dad did, so we had a chance to sell it, and we sold it for $14,000. But this $400 moratorium on the water right was still on, so we got $13,600 for it.
SA: That's nothing! Did that include the houses?
FB: Included everything.
SA: In what year?
FB: Eighty acres, in 1947. Yeah, we moved into town. I tried to sell the east half to our neighbor for $4,000, and he said it was too much. So I told his dad, "Well, tell him to come over and we'll get along." I decided I'd keep the west forty as a home, and sacrifice that, but he never did show up. But since then, he's kicked himself. The last time it was sold, this fellah bought it, I forget how much he paid. I think he paid $70,000 and he got $140,000 for it a couple of years afterward, and started a dairy business up in Salt Lake.
SA: And today, with the way it's growing, I bet you could get a lot, lot more.
FB: Yeah, they're subdividing nowadays. That subdividing boosts the prices. It had excellent drinking water.
SA: Now tell me this: When you decided to move, where did you move to in Fallon?
FB: Right here.
SA: Okay, you moved right here, and you bought the house right away?
FB: Yeah, $5,200!
SA: Oh, can't beat that!
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BRUNER: (laughs) I've gotten back almost $200,000 in rent! ARDEN: Did you miss the ranch?
FB: Well, my son missed the ranch. We had a horse for him and all that. But I wouldn't say I missed it, no, because it had been a headache to me ever since I was knee high.
SA: So now before we close this, is there anything else—sticking again, to the results of the irrigation project which we're interested in--the water, the land--what changes. There are such beautiful ranches around the area, with the cattle and the alfalfa, and I travel all over Nevada, and this is the greenest area. Has that been gradual? has that been something that you have seen? or is it just recent? because there are such beautiful ranches in this region.
FB: They haven't improved very much, because usually the land was high and the guys that bought them wasn't too well off, and they didn't have anything to improve--in fact, a lot of them had to sell, because they paid too much. It's pretty hard to get that much money in crops, the prices they're asking for land. But the old permanent ones here have put in concrete ditches and concrete headgates for their fields and improved their houses. They did a wonderful job of improving, yes. They figured on being
permanent, and they have improved their places.
SA: And especially if the families homesteaded and didn't sell it, they probably had a big financial break, right?
FB: Well, yeah, but I don't think there's too many (laughs) of them that are descendants of the homesteaders.
SA: Well, I've interviewed a few here: the Testolins went back to their parents' homestead.
FB: Did you?!
SA: Yeah, there's a few I have interviewed that have come home, the second generation, to their family's ranch. I'm interviewing someone this week who's on her grandmother's homestead.
FB: Is that right? Well, that's remarkable!
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ARDEN: Uh-huh. So they're the ones who are kinda lucky, huh? BRUNER: Yes, they are.
SA: Now, before we end this, do you have any photographs or written materials or newspaper articles, or things about the topic we're talking about that I could look at to see if we could copy?
FB: I don't think I got any pictures of TCID, no.
SA: No, not [just] TCID--your ranch, your family on the ranch, the house you lived in--all the things we've been talking about.
FB: Oh yeah! I'll show them to you.
SA: Because that's all part of it.
FB: Okay.
SA: So before we end--because this again is a second interview to your very long one--is there anything else on these subjects that you might want to add before we close?
FB: I can't think of anything.
SA: Well, it's been a pleasure. You have a very clear, good mind, and you're very articulate. I thank you so much for sharing more with Churchill County, and you're going to be blessed by many people who appreciate this information.
FB: Thank you very much for the interview, and you have been a pleasure to talk to.
SA: Thank you. This is the end of the interview.
Firmin Ascargorta Bruner Interview
Index
Apples Pages
Ascargorta, Pio (father)
Ascargorta Ranch 5-9, 12,
Basque language
Dairy
15-17, 1-2,
2, 4, 16-17 15 5 21-23 19
Hearts-O-Gold cantaloupes 10
Irrigation 3, 9-10
Irrigation ditches 3, 5, 20
Lahontan Dam 4
Orchard 12
Swingle Bench 10
TCID [Truckee Carson Irrigation District] 20-21
Water rights 9, 11

Sylvia Arden

Firmin Ascargorta Bruner

47 North Broadway, Fallon NV 89406