Harvey Kolhoss Oral History
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CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
HARVEY KOLHOSS
November 24, 1992
This interview was conducted by Eleanor Ahern; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norine Arciniega; final typed by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum.
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.
PREFACE
A confirmed bachelor at age 78, Harvey Kolhoss certainly did not look his age. He looked at least fifteen years younger.
This was probably due to the fact that he has always kept himself busy. As a young man he had served his time with Uncle Sam and then came home to help run the family grocery store and in his free time he goes hunting and fishing. Now in his retirement, Harvey Kolhoss still keeps busy tending his leased 116 acre ranch in keeping the weeds and brush under control.
Although the information does not appear in the interview, Mr. Kolhoss reported that he had participated in some public service activities for Churchill County. He served as a member of one of the first Churchill County Planning Commissions, being appointed for a one-year term on June 6, 1966. A major focus of this particular Commission dealt with the decision as to whether the residential zoning on Williams Avenue should be changed to commercial zoning. Later, he was appointed and served a second term [1967-1968) on the Churchill County Planning Commission. This time, major discussions of this Commission focused on what should be the smallest size of water-righted land permitted per residence.
During 1952-1953 Harvey served on the Churchill County Hospital Board of Trustees. He vividly remembers the "heated" discussions that occurred when Hobart Wray, D.O. was being considered for admission to the medical staff.
Interview with Harvey Kolhoss
AHERN: This is Eleanor Ahern of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project interviewing Harvey Kolhoss at his home at 420 South Allen Street, Fallon, Nevada. The date is Tuesday, November 24, 1992. It's five P.M. Good afternoon, Mr. Kolhoss. How are you?
KOLHOSS: I'm fine, thank you.
AHERN: Would you please give me your full name?
KOLHOSS: Harvey Oliver Kolhoss.
AHERN: And could you tell me your birth date and birth place?
KOLHOSS: I was born on the sand hill here in Fallon just opposite where the junior high school is now. It's the old high school. September 15, 1914.
AHERN: When you say the sand hill, that's the present site of the junior high school?
KOLHOSS: Well, Front Street goes along there past the old football field and so forth.
AHERN: When you say you were born on the sand hill, is that where you lived or . .
KOLHOSS: We had a house there.
AHERN: And this house belonged to your parents?
KOLHOSS: Right.
AHERN: Would you please give me your parents' full name?
KOLHOSS: My dad's name was Harvey Kolhoss, and my mother's was Nannie R. [Matthews] Kolhoss. To start witn, they came here because an uncle, my mother's brother, came here sometime in 1904. 1905, 1906. I'm not sure. And he went in business there, mercantile business, and they called it Monzelle and Matthews.
AHERN: When you say he went in business there, where?
KOLHOSS: Here. Fallon.
AHERN: And could you tell me the exact location of the business?
KOLHOSS: On Maine Street there somewhere.
AHERN: It was on Maine Street?
KOLHOSS: That's about all that was there then, and then he contacted my father and told him that this was a kind of an up and coming place; why didn't he and my mother come out here and settle. So, in 1908, they came to Hazen and ran that little grocery store there in Hazen for quite a few years. The one that Tony and Agnes Severs have now. And even some of the old fixtures were still in there when they took over because she was going to give some of them to the Museum I read there one day. The old showcase.
AHERN: The way you say they had a store, was it called the Hazen Store?
KOLHOSS: I imagine it was.
AHERN: And is that what it's still called right now?
KOLHOSS: I think it is Hazen Store.
AHERN: Where did your parents come out from?
KOLHOSS: My mother was born in Brandy Station, Virginia, close to a place called Culpepper. They're both little towns in Virginia. She was born there, and she lived in those two little towns. My dad was born in Poolesville, Maryland, and that's where they came from when they came here. I think they were in Poolesville at the time. Now, what else would you like to know?
AHERN: Do you recall how your parents met, got together?
KOLHOSS: No, I'm not sure.
AHERN: Going back to your mother's brother, your uncle, he had the store. The other name of the store was Monzelle?
KOLHOSS: Monzelle and Matthews.
AHERN: Where did the name Monzelle come from?
KOLHOSS: I don't know.
AHERN: Did he already have a partner then, or was he there alone?
KOLHOSS: I think they probably opened it together because they weren't there very long because Dad came in 1908, and then it was shortly after that, maybe 1910, 1911, I don't know, prior or a little before that maybe. He went down and went into business with my uncle, and they called the store Matthews and Kolhoss. Maybe it was the same store because this guy Monzelle gave up and left. Then after that Matthews left.
AHERN: When you say left . .
KOLHOSS: He left Fallon, and Dad for awhile, I think, worked for a Grobin and Bingham. Then in the house down here on Front Street--it's called Front Street; they used to call it Sandhill--he stocked one of the rooms with groceries, and in the back end he had a corral, and he had a horse and buggy. He used the horse and buggy to go around the little town here and take orders, and then he'd fill them and deliver them, and that's how he got started there. I think sometime down a little later on, and I'm not too sure of it, he opened up a store on Center and Carson Street, and after that in 1920, he built the store that's there now next to the bank, next to the Palludan building [263 South Maine St.]. At that time the Palludan building on one end of it had Grey, Reid, and Wright, and Bible and Jarvis were in there.
AHERN: Your uncle, Mr. Matthews, left Fallon. Where did he go?
KOLHOSS: California. Where in California, I don't know.
AHERN: Was he fairly young when he decided to leave the business, or did he retire?
KOLHOSS: Oh, no, he was young. I think he was younger than my father was.
AHERN: And what age would that have been?
KOLHOSS: I don't know. Dad was born in 1871 and died in 1962, and Mom was born in 1886 and died in 1969, and they're both buried here in Fallon.
AHERN: Do you recall where your dad got his supply?
KOLHOSS: No, oh, boy, no, I wouldn't have the faintest idea. Probably Reno. I wouldn't know how they got them.
AHERN: The store was called Kolhoss Cash Store.
KOLHOSS: That's in 1920 they called it Kolhoss Cash Store.
AHERN: Was there any significance as to the word cash?
KOLHOSS: Well, no, because he did a credit business to a lot of it, but that was just the way he named it, Kolhoss Cash Store. And then in 1946, my brother and I took over the store. He retired.
AHERN: Prior to that, when you were a young boy, did you ever help in the grocery business?
KOLHOSS: Yeah, used to help. We always helped in the store.
AHERN: What kind of work did you do in the store?
KOLHOSS: We'd help them stock and wait on the customers and so forth.
AHERN: Can you remember when was the earliest age that you started helping out in the store?
KOLHOSS: No. (laughing) I don't remember.
AHERN: Does it seem like you've been there for a long time?
KOLHOSS: Yeah, quite a while. They used to advertise with these circulars, and I always took those around town and put them in the houses.
AHERN: Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you want to tell me their names and ages?
KOLHOSS: Munsey Lee is my brother; Alice is my sister; and Elizabeth was my other sister. She's dead now. And I can tell you this: Munsey was born July 5, 1922; Alice August 22, 1918; and Elizabeth June 14, 1916.
AHERN: What were your sisters' married names?
KOLHOSS: Alice was married to Harold Chism, and Elizabeth was married to Jack Tedford, and she's deceased, of course.
AHERN: Your brother's name is Munsey. Did he get that name from a relative?
KOLHOSS: Yeah, Dad's brother was named Munsey.
AHERN: Could you tell me a little bit about your growing up years? Did you grow up in town?
KOLHOSS: Yeah. Went to school here. Went to all the schools here, and then I went to the University of Nevada, class of 1938. After that, as a mining engineer, I went to Walker Mine, California for Anaconda Copper Company, and I worked there 'tit Uncle Sam caught me. I got there on that year deal that they had before Pearl Harbor, and then when Pearl Harbor hit, I signed up and went to officers' school.
AHERN: What branch of the military were you in?
KOLHOSS: I was infantry there.
AHERN: In the Army?
KOLHOSS: Yeah, because that's what they put you in. I wanted to go as an engineer, but they had other ideas. They just put you where they wanted you, and I went to Fort Lewis, Washington, which was infantry. Company I of the Fifteenth Infantry and took all the basics there, and then I signed up to go to officers' training and had to pass a test and one thing and another, and then I was a ninety-day wonder.
AHERN: Would the rank have been a second lieutenant?
KOLHOSS: A second lieutenant and I ended up a captain, but that was after the war was over.
AHERN: After Washington, were you posted anywhere else?
KOLHOSS: Man, we maneuvered everywhere.
AHERN: What were some of the places that you got to?
KOLHOSS: Up and down California, and then after I became an officer, they needed some officers for tank destroyers, and I went to Fort Knox. Then we maneuvered from there. We even went out to the California desert for Africa training and one thing and another.
AHERN: Were you ever sent overseas?
KOLHOSS: I was in Fort Huachuca, and they were going to disband the outfit that I was in because they were getting different equipment, and the bulletin board came up, "Any junior officer who wishes overseas duty, sign here," and I went. I landed at Bristol Harbor, and we trained there for a while. Eleven days after D-Day I landed on Omaha Beach, and then I was in all through that. I was in four different [campaigns]. I was in the 813 Tank Destroyer Battalion. We [were] mainly, with the Seventy Ninth Infantry Division, but I was also with the One Hundred First Airborne. We were battalion troops. They'd take us and put us where they needed us a lot.
AHERN: Where was Fort Huachuca?
KOLHOSS: Arizona. Almost on the Mexican border.
AHERN: How many years did you spend in the service?
KOLHOSS: I went into the service in 1941. I was at Walker Mine when I went in, and I'd already been in when Pearl Harbor hit. I must have gone in somewhere around 1940.
AHERN: When were you discharged?
KOLHOSS: That'd have to have been 1945, sometime in 1945, because we went into the grocery store in 1946, and I'd been out a little while.
AHERN: So, after the service you came directly back to Fallon.
KOLHOSS: Yeah, after the service, I came back to Fallon, and I was going to go back to the mining, and then I didn't go. I had offers, and then I decided that I liked the hunting and the fishing around here and would give this a whirl for a while. I'd done enough traveling for a while, and then I stayed here in Fallon.
AHERN: Recalling back in your growing up years, you were the oldest of the children, correct?
KOLHOSS: I was the oldest.
AHERN: Did you have any fond memories as a child of growing up in Fallon?
KOLHOSS: Ah, we enjoyed ourselves. We went through the Depression. We didn't have anything. No one did, but we ate. (laughing) We always had some buddies. We'd go with a bicycle and go out to Indian Lakes, ride out there, look the country over. Did the usual things. We kept busy.
AHERN: When did you get into your hunting and fishing? Were you into it as a youngster?
KOLHOSS: Not very much. I did that after I came back after the service because then I joined Greenhead Hunting Club and we'd go duck hunting all the time. Then we always went deer hunting and chukar hunting.
AHERN: The game that you killed, did you eat it, or did you just give it away?
KOLHOSS: I gave some away and ate some. Get too many ducks, you always had to give some of them away.
AHERN: Did you cook the game yourself, or did you have it smoked or prepared for you?
KOLHOSS: No, no. The deer we always took it over to the butcher shop and had them cut it up and package it. Ducks something different. We had to pick them.
AHERN: While you were tending the store, who were your main clients?
KOLHOSS: We had a lot of clients. We had a lot of good ones 'cause we ran a charge account there, and we had a lot of real good customers.
AHERN: Were these people just from Fallon?
KOLHOSS: Local, and then we had some people over from Dixie Valley and Austin, and one of our big customers during the years was Scheelite Mine out there because we took care of a lot of their people there, charged them when Scheelite Mine was going real good.
AHERN: Did you have any problems with some of the people and their charges?
KOLHOSS: You always have some of that.
AHERN: Was it unpleasant in taking care of it and trying to collect?
KOLHOSS: Ah, the usual. We were lucky, though, because we had very few. We had some very, very good customers over the years.
AHERN: What was your product that you stocked in the market?
KOLHOSS: Levy Zenter was our produce man, and later on most of the time we bought our groceries from Valley Wholesale. Prior to that there was Reno companies that we bought from, but later years it was all Valley Wholesale because it was a little better.
AHERN: So you sold a little bit of groceries.
KOLHOSS: Groceries, yeah, it was a regular grocery store.
AHERN: And what else besides groceries?
KOLHOSS: There for a long time we'd sell some shotgun shells and Levis. We were the first Levi in the state, and we were the first here in Fallon, and that's why we kept them for a long, long time. It was long time that we were the only ones that had them. Levi, Strauss Company.
AHERN: Your mother helped tend the store also?
KOLHOSS: No, no. She was a homebody. She took care of the house.
AHERN: Tell me what you remember about your mother.
KOLHOSS: What you remember was the good food, (laughing) for one thing, and a lot of other things, of course. Boy, pert near every Sunday we drove back quite a ways. We'd have rabbits and chickens in the back yard, and every Sunday we had chicken dinner or a rabbit dinner. She was a great cook.
AHERN: What do you remember most about your father?
KOLHOSS: He's a hard worker. He's a hard worker, and he always took care of us real well. Took care of his family.
AHERN: Do you ever recall him taking a day off, a holiday or anything?
KOLHOSS: I tell you, during those years back in there in, oh, the twenties and even to the thirties he'd lock the store up once a month, just lock it up, and we went to a fair back East. We went to the fair in San Francisco, and we'd go see this Uncle Charley which was Matthews. Had a ranch in La Mesa, California, and we'd go down there, and we'd spend a month and he'd come back. During the summer. Just quite a few summers. He loved to go.
AHERN: How long did this continue?
KOLHOSS: Well, it continued 'til up say almost to the time that we went to school in Reno. All of us went to school in Reno. To the college. University of Nevada, and that stopped that kind of thing.
AHERN: So, your family trips continued well until you were out of high school, then?
KOLHOSS: Yeah. Yep, we took a lot of trips. He liked it.
AHERN: And the rest of the family liked it too?
KOLHOSS: Oh, you bet. In the early days (laughing) it was kind of a camping deal 'cause you'd go and hit these camp grounds with a tent and one thing, the real early and set up. It was fun.
AHERN: Your brother and sisters all went to the University, also?
KOLHOSS: Yes, my brother didn't finish. He went into the Navy when he was about a sophomore and never went back, but both my sisters graduated from the University of Nevada.
AHERN: What was their major?
KOLHOSS: Elizabeth, I think, was a school teacher, and Alice was home ec, that kind of thing, because she worked for one of the hospitals up there with their food deal.
AHERN: When your father retired, what did he do in his retirement?
KOLHOSS: He didn't do a lot because he wasn't feeling too good. He didn't do a heck of a lot. He did some little bit of traveling, but his health wasn't too sharp. However, he lived to be ninety two.
AHERN: Where were they living after his retirement?
KOLHOSS: Well, we were living on Nevada Street for most of that, and then after he died, I built this house here and my mother stayed with me here, and I took care of her for a number of years.
AHERN: Do your brother and sisters still live in Fallon?
KOLHOSS: No. My sister, remember, died, and Alice lives in Reno.
AHERN: Your brother?
KOLHOSS: Right now they bought a motor home, and he spends his time in the wintertime at Yuma, Arizona, and in the summertime they go to Coos Bay, Oregon, and then he does traveling around.
AHERN: When did you and your brother decide to retire from the grocery store?
KOLHOSS: We retired in 1984. We both gave it up, sold it, in 1984.
AHERN: Was it by mutual consent?
KOLHOSS: Yup. It was deep enough. (laughing)
AHERN: Was it because you're just tired?
KOLHOSS: Well, at the time I was seventy one when I got out of there, so it was time to quit.
AHERN: Could you tell me why you never married?
KOLHOSS: I don't know. Had too many other things, I guess.
AHERN: Was there anybody special before that time?
KOLHOSS: Mmm, I met a few people. After the war, for quite a while I went with a lady in LA [Los Angeles, California], and then at Walker Mine I went with a gal there for quite a while. However, when the war came, I gave that up, too. I was working the Walker Mine when I went into the service.
AHERN: Do you think that if you didn't go into service, you might have contemplated marriage?
KOLHOSS: Oh, I probably would have. Who knows?
AHERN: But, after that, you just didn't have the time?
KOLHOSS: Didn't have time and did too much hunting and fishing, I think. (laughing)
AHERN: Did you do almost the same thing as your father would have? Did you ever close the store to go to your hunting and fishing?
KOLHOSS: No. We'd take turns staying if we took a couple weeks’ vacation, and we always had somebody hired, too. Help the guy out that was there alone. We hired an awful lot of high school kids. We'd hire them when they were juniors, and usually they'd get off early in the afternoon and Saturdays, and then when they got to be seniors usually they'd take off and go somewhere else, which is okay. We hired a lot of people like that. I'd like to have the names of all the people we had hired. We hired other people, too, sometimes because we'd had two helpers. We went through a lot of (laughing) people.
AHERN: It seems you didn't have much of a choice going into the business. Did you mind that?
KOLHOSS: No. No, I never regretted it. You see, I could have gone, and maybe should have, they tell me, gone on with the mining, but at the time I was making as much in the Army as they were paying engineers. The one offer I had was in Utah, and the engineer said, 'Well, you'll start three hundred dollars a month." Well, I was making more than that in the Army, and I said, "Well, heck, I'll try something else." But, later on, mining engineers were really paid. Why, it changed. Right after the war it was slow. But I had no regrets.
AHERN: When you're, as your capacity of a mining engineer, did you enjoy doing what you did?
KOLHOSS: Oh, yeah. That Walker Mine was one of the best places I ever worked. It was a good one.
AHERN: What did you do as a mining engineer?
KOLHOSS: You survey underground. I did some maps and book work, that kind of thing.
AHERN: What were they mining at that mine?
KOLHOSS: Copper and gold.
AHERN: Did you ever put your training to use to maybe do some prospecting here in Fallon?
KOLHOSS: Not in Fallon, but I used to go out and do a little prospecting around.
AHERN: Was it worth your time?
KOLHOSS: I didn't have that much time because that grocery store kept us busy.
AHERN: Was your grocery store open seven days a week?
KOLHOSS: When we first took it over, it was, but then after awhile--in the evenings, too--but we'd rotate working at night.
AHERN: How late in the evenings were you open?
KOLHOSS: Eight o'clock. [End of side A]
AHERN: We were talking about your grocery store being open in the evenings.
KOLHOSS: We took turns. One of us one night, one the other. We'd alternate Saturdays, too.
AHERN: Then you were closed on Sundays?
KOLHOSS: Closed Sundays. Not at the start, but toward later years we always closed Sundays.
AHERN: Was there any incident where you had to turn somebody away or refuse credit?
KOLHOSS: Oh, sure, that always happens. We had excellent customers through the years.
AHERN: Now that you're retired, what are you doing in your spare time?
KOLHOSS: One thing we're doing, there's some of us, gets up to be about six or seven or eight, that have coffee twice a day at the Nugget, but this started a long time ago when Don Cooper ran Frazzini Furniture, and he and I started going to coffee twice a day.
AHERN: Where did you go for coffee?
KOLHOSS: All over town. We'd hit one place and then another, and then we gradually got other people going with us and got up to high as four or five, six people going all the time. Breaks the day up.
AHERN: You said you went twice a day?
KOLHOSS: Yup. Ten in the morning and three in the afternoon. (laughing)
AHERN: And how long would these coffee breaks last?
KOLHOSS: Maybe a half an hour or less.
AHERN: Who were some of the people in your coffee group?
KOLHOSS: We had some of the bankers and J.C. Penney people. The last one was Jack O'Connor and Lloyd Miller on down the Sporting Goods store. He was a steady, and that's the way it'd go. Ray Alcorn joined us quite a little bit even in those days and is still with us. Changed a little, but a lot of the fellows went.
AHERN: How many people are there in your coffee group now?
KOLHOSS: Well, let's see. There would be Don Cooper, Bob Rysh, Lyle Beeghly used to be with us, now it's Wen Beeghly, Joe Keller, Louie Erquiaga, Kenny Kent, and sometimes somebody else comes in, wants coffee.
AHERN: Do you call each other?
KOLHOSS: No. They just know when we're going to be there.
AHERN: But, you said that you're at different places.
KOLHOSS: Not now. For the last few years we've been over at the [Fallon] Nugget. [70 South Maine]
AHERN: And that's where you always meet now?
KOLHOSS: That's where we meet. In years gone by we had different places, but the last few years--quite a few in fact-- it's been there at the Nugget. Just one place 'cause they come from all over to go. (laughing)
AHERN: Give me an idea of your normal daily routine now.
KOLHOSS: Well, I have a ranch out there, and I go out there quite a little bit.
AHERN: Where's 'out there'?
KOLHOSS: It's on Harrigan Road, and I got 116 acres. I have it leased, but I go out quite a bit to weed control and spraying and burning and a few things.
AHERN: What is it mainly in?
KOLHOSS: Alfalfa and grain. It's leased to Louie Erquiaga at the present time.
AHERN: You don't have any livestock?
KOLHOSS: He has livestock on it. He has cows.
AHERN: But you personally do not have any?
KOLHOSS: No. I used to raise horses. There for a while I had five, six, or eight quarter horses. I played around with quarter horses quite a little bit.
AHERN: Did you train them?
KOLHOSS: To ride. I rode them, but I'm not a very good trainer. But it's a good hobby.
AHERN: Did you sell them to anybody in particular?
KOLHOSS: No, no one in particular. Sell one or two now and then, and then I went clear out of the horse business. (laughing) You do something for a while and then you . . . We used to, on Sundays, ride a lot. Another fellow and I. We'd go out in the hills and ride quite a little bit, but find something else to do. Right now each of us have one of those Hondas--four-wheel Honda--and we ride those out in the hills.
AHERN: Do you ever go out to the Sand Mountain recreation area?
KOLHOSS: Nah. That's for the kids. (laughing)
AHERN: Are you busy all year round with your hunting and fishing?
KOLHOSS: Oh, I've slowed down quite a little bit on it. I went deer hunting this year, and the fishing's got where--we used to go to Midas [Nevada] quite a little bit to fish and also to hunt, but fishing's been terrible the last couple of years 'cause we haven't any water and the hunting so so. We had tags this year, and we didn't fill them. We had six tags, got two deer.
AHERN: I'm not familiar with Midas. Where is it?
KOLHOSS: You go to Winnemucca, then you go to Golconda, and you go east. It's about sixty miles east. It's in Elko County. It's an old mining camp, and now a lot of people just live there year round. There isn't much mining there.
AHERN: Going back to your childhood and Fallon was a young town, has a lot changed since then?
KOLHOSS: Oh, you bet it's changed. It's growing all the time. It's really grown since those days. Mainly, I think, because of the Navy.
AHERN: You think the Navy has an impact on Fallon?
KOLHOSS: Oh, you bet it has an impact on Fallon. There wouldn't be any . . . What else is there? Kennametal's out here. Kennametal and the Navy. That's the big payrolls.
AHERN: Would you like to see Fallon grow?
KOLHOSS: I like it the way it was. (laughing)
AHERN: And which was that?
KOLHOSS: Ah, just a small town.
AHERN: Why would you like that?
KOLHOSS: It's just one of those things. I'm a small-town person, I guess. I liked it back in the thirties and the forties. (laughing)
AHERN: What was in the thirties and forties that you liked so much?
KOLHOSS: You know all the people. Now you walk down the street, and you don't know anyone. Walk down the street in those days you knew everybody you'd meet. It changes. Any big town, same way. And Reno used to be an awful nice little town, too. Now it's too big. That's just a matter of opinion. (laughing)
AHERN: Were you ever interested in gambling?
KOLHOSS: No, I don't gamble. I think most natives don't. (laughing)
AHERN: When you were going to school, did you walk to school?
KOLHOSS: Right. I always walked. Even when I had a bicycle I walked. I lived on Nevada Street and walked wherever I went.
AHERN: The schools were fairly close then you could walk?
KOLHOSS: Oh, yes. We walked to school. Back when I was in high school, I think there was one or two people had a car, and that was it period.
AHERN: Did you attend a lot of socials as a young man in Fallon?
KOLHOSS: There was always something to do, be interesting, keep you going. I always find something to do. Kids complain now that they haven't anything to do, but in those days you made things.
AHERN: What kind of things did you make as a child?
KOLHOSS: You had a bicycle, you took a ride, and as we used to . . . there's a man down the street by the name of Lloyd Parrish. He and I ran a little trap line out in Oats' field back along the drain ditches. We'd catch muskrats, and of an evening when we'd come home, we'd skin them, and that's the way I bought my first twenty -two. Money I got from trapping.
AHERN: You'd sell the muskrat skins?
KOLHOSS: Um hum.
AHERN: Who bought them?
KOLHOSS: Well, there was always places you could ship them, or there was buyers in town that would take them. Yeah, we always did all right. Get up early, catch them, and then when we come home after school, skin them.
AHERN: What did you do with the carcass?
KOLHOSS: Throw it away. (laughing)
AHERN: What else did you trap besides muskrats?
KOLHOSS: Mainly muskrats is all I ever trapped.
AHERN: Were there a lot of beavers during then?
KOLHOSS: Very few that I knew anything of back in those days. They came in later. I don't know whether they were planted or what. We'd see a lot of beaver and beaver dams when we'd go to Midas in some of those little streams up there, but around here in those early days … They're here now though. The duck hunting was excellent. Oh, man, was it good duck hunting in those days. No more. Thing of the past. And we used to hunt pheasant here. Had quite a few pheasant. Even out on the place I got now. Now you never see one. The swathers and machinery now raises heck with pheasants, and there isn't a habitat for them either.
AHERN: I notice that your companion now is a little poodle. You said you received the poodle as a gift?
KOLHOSS: Well, a guy was leaving town and--I had a big poodle, one of the standards, I had a big poodle, and it was in pretty bad shape, and shortly after that she died or we had to put her to sleep. The people down there at the veterinarian shop knew that I liked dogs, and they told this guy about it, and he was leaving town. He couldn't take the dog, and I took her. (laughing) I wonder! (laughing) She's a wild little fellar.
AHERN: When you go hunting, do you take your dog with you?
KOLHOSS: No, I don't take her. I used to in days gone by. I had a black lab, and I took him all the time when we'd go hunting, and he was known, really known, in this town. He slept by… he'd lay down in the street by the store there, and he went over every morning to the butcher shop, and they gave him a great big bone. He'd go out there and bark 'til he got a big bone. There was a fellow by the name of Smith running the Dairy Queen, and he'd go over there and get a Dairy Queen. He'd get an ice cream cone everyday. He was all over town. Everybody knew Bart. (laughing)
AHERN: What do you remember as being the best moment in your life?
KOLHOSS: Oh, Gripes, I don't know what the best moment was. (laughing)
AHERN: Tell me something you remember vividly either as a child or an adult that still sticks in your mind.
KOLHOSS: (laughing) Oh, I can tell you something that was real funny. This fellow, Lloyd Parrish, and I were always doing things that we shouldn't do, and down here, on I think it's A and Nevada Street, there was a pipe run underneath the street. They used to have a water pipe there and probably a little ditch or something, and we crawled in it one day. I was real small and he was quite big, and I got about half way through there and turned the corner there, and he got stuck in the thing, and we didn't know whether we were going to get out. They never would have found us. Finally (laughing) he got to yelling and a twisting and scared enough that he backed out of it. We got out of it, but boy, if he hadn't of got out of there we'd of been there yet. (laughing)
AHERN: (laughing) How old were you?
KOLHOSS: Oh-h-h, maybe six, seven years old. You do foolish things when you're a kid. That stuck in my mind. (laughing)
AHERN: Is there anything else that you'd like to remember about Fallon as the growing town that was somewhat significant?
KOLHOSS: We've grown.
AHERN: When the War broke out, do you recall how Fallon took the news?
KOLHOSS: I wasn't in Fallon at the time. I was in the service at the time when Pearl Harbor hit. I was just standing there in the day room trying to get a pass to go to Tacoma, and when that hit that solved all those problems.
AHERN: Do you recall any natural disasters hitting Fallon?
KOLHOSS: Earthquake.
AHERN: Which earthquake would this be?
KOLHOSS: Back in the fifties, somewhere in there.
AHERN: Did it destroy . .
KOLHOSS: Oh, boy, it knocked stuff on the floor there in that store of ours. It really, we were picking up stuff, broken stuff.
AHERN: Where were you when the earthquake hit?
KOLHOSS: The first time I was in Midas, and we felt it up there, too, and the second time I was here in the store.
AHERN: Basically, it just rattled the store?
KOLHOSS: It did more than rattle it because some of the buildings, see, they had to tear down afterwards. Oats Park there, the school, they condemned that after that, but it's still standing.
AHERN: Do you recall some of the buildings that had to be torn down?
KOLHOSS: The one over there on Maine and Williams Avenue across from the courthouse, a great big rock building there that they tore down and a few of the others.
AHERN: What was that building?
KOLHOSS: Oh, they had different things in it. It was a garage there at one time and quite a few things. It was an old building. But they had a hard time tearing it down, too. That old rock building stood pretty good. A lot of people had roof trouble and one thing and another that they had to repair, and some of them had to repair the sides of buildings and strengthen it.
AHERN: Did you have to do any repairs to your house?
KOLHOSS: To the house? No. No, it didn't hurt the house.
AHERN: What about your grocery store?
KOLHOSS: We had to brace it in a few places. It did knock some brick off right along the top, but not bad. We didn't have too much. We strengthened it up after that.
AHERN: Is there anything you would have done differently?
KOLHOSS: I don't think so, or I'd probably done it. (laughing)
AHERN: Do you have any plans in changing what you're doing right now? You say you're seventy eight, and you still go hunting and fishing.
KOLHOSS: Yes, I can still do that. I used to do a lot of skiing, too. Sundays mainly, or Thursdays. After we retired, I went on to Thursdays, but then we used to do it on Sundays. We used to go skiing all the time, Mt. Rose, Heavenly Valley.
AHERN: You don't do that anymore?
KOLHOSS: I haven't for the couple of years. We haven't had any snow!
AHERN: If we did have the snowpack, you'd be out there.
KOLHOSS: Well, I'd be tempted to go try it, I think, although I am getting a little ancient. They tell me that your bones get brittle, but (laughing) I might give it a little whirl. That's a great sport.
AHERN: Have you ever had a desire to do something else? Say, like sailing or sky diving?
KOLHOSS: No, (laughing) I haven't been around where I could do that.
AHERN: And if you were, would you be tempted to try it?
KOLHOSS: I'd like that sailing. I have a friend in California that had a sailboat, and I went out with him a few times. He had a nice one. You gotta keep doing something. Right now we're drinking coffee. (laughing)
AHERN: Drinking coffee and going hunting and fishing.
KOLHOSS: Well, the fishing is poor and that hunting the same way. Haven't done too much of it. I'm losing all my partners. They're (laughing) giving up the ghost. In the early days we had quite a few people that were going all the time. We went somewhere pert near every Sunday.
AHERN: Where were some of the places you'd go?
KOLHOSS: We'd go to Austin area for fishing.
AHERN: These are just day trippers?
KOLHOSS: Yeah, just day trippers mainly and then weekends a lot of times. Take a weekend. Last few years I been taking a couple of weeks off and going somewhere, either visit my brother in Coos Bay or we go different places. Go to Ferndale. Ferndale's a nice little place for that Humboldt County fair. They have horse races there, and I got interested in that because my brother had some race horses for awhile, and he went up there, so we got going up there. It's a nice place. Interesting. For about ten, eleven days they have it.
AHERN: Do you go to your brother's or to one of your other relatives for the holidays?
KOLHOSS: Right, I'll go to my niece's in Reno this Thanksgiving. I always go, and then we have a lot of birthdays. We're always going to birthdays because one of my nieces has two children, the other one has two children. They're always having a birthday. So I have a nephew that has a couple of kids and we're always going to his place. Munsey has two boys, one of them in [Las] Vegas and one in Moapa. So there's always something. I keep busy. I'm not so old that I don't mow my own lawn and do that thing and go out to the ranch and putter.
AHERN: Mr. Koihoss, on behalf of the Churchill County Museum, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to interview you.
KOLHOSS: Okay. It isn't very good, but it's true. (laughing)
AHERN: This is the end of the interview.
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