Everett Earl Deputy Oral History
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Churchill County Oral History Project
an interview with
EVERETT EARL DEPUTY
conducted by
ELANOR AHERN
August 1, 1997
This interview was transcribed by Raeburn Sottile.
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.
EA: This is Elanor Ahern of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project interviewing E.E. Deputy at his office at 601 S. Maine Street, Fallon, Nevada. The date is Friday, August 1st, 1997. The time is 2:25. Good afternoon, Mr. Deputy. For the record, could you please give me your full name?
ED: Everett Earl Deputy.
EA: How old were you when you came into Fallon?
ED: I was 17.
EA: And prior to that, where did you and your family live?
ED: Poke, Indiana.
EA: Do you recall the reason for your family moving to Nevada?
ED: Yes, my father's health. He needed a dry climate. That was about it.
EA: Why Nevada?
ED: Well, he went to- my dad left the family in Indiana, he went to Texas and he went to several western states, but the climate just wasn't dry enough. And he wound up in Reno, and he was over in Reno for about 4 or 5 months and one of the chiropractors over there told him that Fallon needed a chiropractor. So in 1938 he came over here. And 1939, he sent for the family.
EA: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
ED: I have two brothers and two sisters.
EA: Would you tell me their names, please?
ED: Yeah. My oldest sister, she just turned 85, she's – the heck is her name – Edith! [chuchles] Edith Marie.
EA: Edith Marie…
ED: Lilly is her last name now. And my other sister just had her 83rd birthday. That's Dorothy Emily James. And then I have a brother next – I'm the oldest, and I'm 76 now as of last Thursday – and my brother next to me, three years younger than that, is Terry William. They call him Bill. He used to be the Farmer's Insurance man here in Fallon. He's three years younger than I am. He'd be, say, 74. And my youngest brother, he – the heck is his real name – Robert Donald. I call him Don, I call him Robert anyways. So I really have a heck of a time remembering his second name, Robert Donald Deputy. And he's ten years younger than I am, so he just turned – December the 2nd he'll be turning 67.
EA: Could you give me your parents' names?
ED: Yeah, my father's name was Everett. Everett Terry Deputy, and he was a chiropractor. And he practiced here in Fallon from '38 until I came home '61 from chiropractor college. And my mother's name was Emily Pertha [?] Humphrey was her maiden name. And they were both the same age, they were school… sweethearts, dated in the horse and buggy days. And she's from Paris My folks were both from Paris Crossing, Indiana.
EA: Could you tell me your family- you and your family's first impression of Fallon when you moved here in, this would be 1939?
ED: Well, in 1939 when we moved here it was about the same size as the town that we came from in Indiana.
EA: What was the town in Indiana?
ED: Poke, Indiana.
EA: Poke?
ED: Poke, Indiana. But it's actually, far as the town goes, it was just like a country down, only paved streets was Williams Avenue and Maine Street. The rest were all dirt streets. And the town ended at the stoplight at Taylor- No, Spring is it?[Ed- I am unfamiliar with any street named Spring, he might mean Stillwater Street] Spring and Maine, that was the end of the business section. Except for I.H. Kents, they were down there. And the other end of the town went as far as the old Post Office. [inaudible due to dog barking] And the other end going towards Austin [Nevada], Oats Park School was the last house. And the other way the Bonanza [855 W. Williams ave] was an Alfalfa field. [To the dog] Shut up!
EA: So it really wasn't any-
DOG: [Several barks]
ED: Shut up!
PHONE: [Rings]
ED: Here's the phone now…
EA: So it really didn't surprise you, coming to Fallon?
ED: Oh, no. Because we were from a small town, anyway. And we enjoyed it, because when we first moved here, we met a gentleman by the name of Mr. Plummer, and he was a native of Fallon. And he took us all over the state of Nevada showing us old historic towns and everything like that, so and pyramid and...
EA: Do you recall Mr. Plummer's first name?
ED: No, I sure don't. We've been gone 50 years.
EA: When you moved to town, where the family settled, was it in town or out in the county?
ED: We were in town. We lived right… I don’t know, you know where the old Texaco station, which is an automobile shop now on Williams across from the courthouse? [Northeast corner of Williams and Maine, at time of transcribing a small park]
EA: Yes.
ED: That building right behind that gas station is where we lived. My dad had his office in the front and we lived in the back, you know, in '39. The family got out here in '40.
EA: So you finished at high school here in Fallon?
ED: Oh yes. Yes, yes. [chuckles] I played all my sports and everything here. Football, basketball, track, whatever, you name it.
EA: As a young man, what kind of activities were available to you outside of school?
ED: That was it. There wasn't any. He had no… We still had Oats Park. That was the only park in town. And there was only two schools, and that was Oats Park and the Fallon High School, or the Old High School. That was the only two schools in the whole town. But as far as activities, we had softball in the evenings during the summer and things like that. But during the school months, there was actually nothing for us kids to do except do our own. We did a lot of fishing and hunting and everything else in them days. Our parents were… more or less after the kids took us fishing and camping and everything like that. But around town there was really nothing for us to do, so…
EA: Any special place for fishing and camping?
ED: Mostly Stillwater [laughs]. Or Kingston Canyon.
EA: That would be up in Austin?
ED: Yeah. Austin, or Lahontan. Of course, we went to Elko for deer hunting, everything like that.
EA: When you first came to town, did they still use horse and buggy or were they strictly-
ED: No, they had cars. We had the cars. Because I can remember my mother and I and my- the oldest brother, then, next to me. In fact, he and Dad brought home a '41 Christer station wagon. We… there was cars. But I don't remember ever seeing any – Well, there was a few ranchers still used horses, but not many that I know of.
EA: In town were there a lot of businesses established?
ED: Well, your last business was where that Kolhoss' used to be [263 S. Maine]. From that- From Penny's [290 S. Maine] that way to William's Avenue was a few businesses. Plus the Post Office [90 N. Maine] and the banks on the other side of Williams Avenue. But that was the only businesses. There was none… only one out West Williams was Stockman's. That was the only store. Otherwise they were surrounded by Alfalfa fields.
EA: What about casinos? Were there any casinos?
ED: Oh yeah, yeah. The Esquire Club was here. The old Star Club was here.
EA: Could you tell me where these clubs were located?
ED: The Esquire was on the [Southwest] corner of Maine and Williams, and then we had the Sagebrush [70 S. Maine] that was on that little alley on Maine Street. I can't even think of what that little alley's name is now.
EA: They were next to the Esquire?
ED: No, no. No no. Next to the Esquire was the Star Club. And then beyond the the Star Club was the Palace Club and the Bank Club.
EA: So they were all the west side of the street?
ED: Always on one side. Businesses were on one side and the casinos on the other. Up to that little street. From there down, there was a couple of small bars, but they were mostly barber shops and insurance offices, and on the corner of Center and Maine street was the Corner Bar. Course, that's gone during the earthquake, back in '54 I think it was.
EA: On Sundays were the casinos open?
ED: Oh yes. 24 hours a day. And in my teen days, why, there was no limit on age for bars then. Teenagers could go in the bar and drink and gamble or whatever we wanted to do until World War II, and then that changed.
EA: Did your parents mind if you went?
ED: Oh no. No, if my dad said "I'd rather give it to you myself, let you taste it. Then you know what it's all about when you get older." Oh, we could go in the Star club and get a glass of beer for 10 cents. Right next to the Star Club bar there was a big open door, like that glass door there, that went into a pool hall. And that's where all of us kids hung out was in there shooting pool and everything. Of course, we had a glass of beer there too once in a while. Not too much, though, that mattered because most of us, well myself I was in athletics, though, I didn't want to do that. None of my teammates did because our coach was pretty strict.
EA: By letting the young men drink… if there was no age limit, were there any problems?
ED: No we had no problems at all. You didn't see the teens getting drunk or anything like that, because they knew they could get it whenever they wanted. No, I don't remember any of us getting drunk. Oh, I mean, if we got together and went out in the desert on the salt flat or something, we'd be getting pretty keen out there, but not in town. We didn't.
EA: Why is that?
ED: I don't know. I don't really know. I know down in Hazen, when they had the old town of Hazen, when the depot was over by the tracks and everything, we used to go out there on Saturday nights and have a heck of a ball, with the dances they had and everything out there. Oh, I- We'd gotten drunk as teenagers. But I mean it wasn't to the extent where we'd cause trouble. Seemed to always get home. [Laughing] so I don't know. It was just one of those things. And now I haven't had a drink in 30 years, so….
EA: In town, were there… tell me about the law enforcement.
ED: They only had one cop.
EA: Do you recall his name?
ED: [sighs] Yeah, I should, but I can't. What was his name? Hmm… I didn't think I'd ever forget his name… Of course, we never did… he never did bother us kids, because we never saw him, never thought about getting into too much trouble like nowadays.
EA: So just the one, one law enforcer supplies for…
ED: For the whole city.
EA: And do you recall the population then?
ED: The city of Fallon at that time was around 1100, and the whole county wasn't over 1500 at the most.
EA: And there's just one person to enforce the law…
ED: Yeah. And there was only about 3 sheriffs.
EA: Were they kept busy?
ED: Well… In a way I guess they were. I don't, you know, I don't really remember because I know us teenagers used to keep- Dang, I almost had his name [chuckles] Busy all the time, especially on Halloween. [Chuckles]. I remember I had an old Model T- Model A Ford when I was a senior in high school. And we'd run around on Halloween night turning the water plugs- fire plugs on. And when the cop was on this side of the park over here turning them off, we were over here turning them back on, and then he'd get over here, we'd go back over there. And he told my dad, the next morning after Halloween, he said "If I'd have ever caught up with those kids I would have thrown them in jail forever!" because the water tank on top of Rattlesnake Hill was almost empty by the time we got through, so if there'd have been a fire broke out… But kids, you don't think of that. You're just doing something to keep- I almost had his name again. Darn it. I'll think of it yet.
EA: Now, during the time when you came to Fallon did you see very many Indians in town?
ED: Oh, yeah, there was always a lot of Indians. But they were never in the casinos. They weren't allowed. They weren't allowed. In fact, there was no Indians drinking anything. If they drank they had to get out of town. And one time there up until about… Until the Navy base moved in the colored folks weren't allowed in city limits after dark.
EA: Were there very many Blacks then?
ED: There wasn't any. We didn't have any in town.
EA: Do you recall if the Indians were treated separately?
ED: No, they just weren't allowed in the bars. Cause they… they just didn't trust them drinking. You know, and things like that, so they didn't allow them in the bars. I was over where they got their booze, shouldn't admit this, but I know where they got a lot of their booze was the teenagers. We could buy it. So we'd go get beer and sell it to the Indians. Of course, if we got caught we'd have been in trouble. You say that and I'm gonna be in trouble [laughter]. But that's how a lot of the teenagers got their money, buying booze and selling it to the Indians. But they're nothing like they are nowadays. I mean, they don't… Well, they get drunk and they fall down, stumbling drunk and everything. Damn I just can't quite think of his name… Anyway, he'd just pick them up, put them in jail, and when they sobered up turn them out. I know Bud Hart would know his name… Bud Hart's been here 5 years longer than I have, and he's from the same state I am, Indiana.
EA: You said that in between… around town there were quite a few Alfalfa fields.
ED: It was all surrounded in Alfalfa, yeah. Yeah, they didn't raise too much corn in those days. It was mostly all alfalfa and turkeys. Fallon was noted at one time for the greatest turkeys there ever was. Just like our cantaloupes now.
EA: Where was the turkey-
ED: Out in the Stillwater area.
EA: Do you recall who ran the farm?
ED: No, I sure don't. All I remember is seeing the turkeys.
EA: And they would ship them?
ED: Ship them all over, yeah. Now they don't do that anymore. Why, I don't know. Of course, turkeys are hard to raise.
EA: Was the turkey farm in town long?
ED: Well, they were here when I moved here, so how long they'd been here I don't have any idea.
EA: So do you recall how long after you'd been to town that then they farmed…? Either sold out or closed?
ED: Well, they were gone I would say within 5 or 10 years after we moved here in 39, so… I guess they just, people just went into more agriculture instead of raising turkeys.
EA: You mentioned the Navy base [NAS Fallon]. When you had come to town was the base open then?
ED: There was no base.
EA: There was no base.
ED: The base didn't come here until World War II. No, that was all hunting land out there at one time. Was pheasant hunting out in that area.
EA: When school was out, did you have a part time job?
ED: Oh yeah. I worked for Andy Drumm and Dodge Construction in the summertime. Drove truck for them. Dump truck or whatever kind of truck they had, you know what I mean, that's what I drove. In fact, in 1940, 41, I helped build that US-80 between Fernley and Lovelock. That was only 2-lane road at that time. For the summer.
EA: Did most of the kids… was it easy for them to get summertime jobs?
ED: Oh yeah, if they didn't want to work on the ranch. Of course, most of the kids at that time, they were ranchers. There was a few of us here in town, but we all went into construction or something like that, or we went to Safeways and worked in the store, or I.H. Kent or the Lumber Yard, or some place like that.
EA: What kind of jobs would the girls have gotten?
ED: Mostly waitress. Waitress in town. [To dog] Shut up! Your getting on this recorder with your voice!
EA: Did you go to Reno often?
ED: Well, as a teenager no. I did… Well, we went a little… See, I was in sports all the time, so we had a curfew. Our coach always… we had to be in bed in a certain time, or else we got sidelined for a game or two. In fact that happened to 3 or 4 of us. When I was a senior we took off and went to Reno. Coach was waiting on us at the city limits when we came back about midnight, and he sat us on the sidelines and worked our tail off on practice, but he wouldn't let us play. So, heh, so we used to go to Reno. Probably… there was quite a rivalry at that time between Fallon and Reno High, because Reno only had one high school then, and it was quite a rivalry between Reno and Fallon. All good games. Of course, that was the time when Reno was only 5, 6 thousand people too, so it wasn't very big. Virginia, er, Truckee River, one block the other side on [Inaudible] and Truckee River, that was the end of Reno. And the University was the other end. And now look at it.
EA: What did your parents do for their recreation?
ED: Fish and hunt mostly.
EA: Were there many social events in Fallon?
ED: Rodeos or something? Oh yeah. We had our Indian rodeo and we still had our Labor Day rodeo and everything else. In fact, I think we had about 4 real rodeos every summer at that time. And as far as the other recreation was the theater. It's still there [Fallon Theatre, 71 S. Maine]. Used to go there on Friday nights for 5 cents and stay all night watching shows.
EA: What was the name of the theater then?
ED: Still the Fallon Theatre then. They haven't changed the name. Then they put another one down here on the corner.
EA: What corner.
ED: Maine and… Stillwater. But it's that high building. The second building on the west side of the street [360 S. Maine]. That was the Lawana theater at one time.
EA: Why that name? Any specific reason?
ED: Well, it was just the name, that's all I know. [ed- it's derived from the owner's names backwards, Walt and Ana Hull] I don't know who run it or anything
EA: But that used to be the second theater in town?
ED: Yep, mm-hmm. The stores across the street from there, they weren't there at that time. The bank was the last building there on that side of Maine Street at that time.
EA: Did you find that Fallon all of a sudden did develop, or was it sort of a gradual thing as they started getting rid of the alfalfa fields to make way for new business?
ED: Well, Fallon really didn't change for… until, gosh, after World War II. That's when it started changing, after the base came in. Things started spreading towards Reno…
EA: Can you give me a year?
ED: Well… let's see. I was in the service for quite a few years. I left in January of 41 for the Navy, and when I came home 3 years later, the base was already out here so it had to be in 41 when they first started building that base out here. But I never even heard of it before I went in the service.
EA: When you came back here, and you said from the service, that this was three years later-
ED: Yeah.
EA: And what year was that?
ED: It was 43 when I came back from overseas.
EA: 43 You said Fallon… did it change a lot while you were…?
ED: It hadn't changed really that much. The base wasn't that big yet.
EA: What about the town?
ED: The town hadn't grown that much yet. Probably shouldn't say it, but we had a bunch of city fathers that didn't want it to change, so they held everything down. They wouldn't let businesses in or anything else. It's only been in the last… 25 years that Fallon has started to really open up.
EA: When you came back, there weren't that many alfalfa fields around town, were there?
ED: Yeah, the Bonanza and those gas stations there, the Bonanza's never been built yet. There still wasn't nothing on the south side of Williams Avenue, except for Stockman's and what we call Mom's place down on the corner of Williams and… what is that street? Where the Hay Inn [?] was… I can't think of the name of that street… No, it's not Auction. Auction runs off up here by the… by that Best Western hotel. That's auction road. It cuts off there. Runs behind Stockman's. Stockman's the only one there, and the propane gas was the only one there for years. Other than that it was all Alfalfa and- Of course, the stockyards was out there. Gallager's [?] was there. That's the only thing out there. Otherwise it was all alfalfa. And when I came home from the service, that's when the town, you know, started growing, then. Probably in the late 50s, early 50s. But it didn't start going out towards reno until the last 20 years.
EA: Do you recall the earthquake?
ED: No, I wasn't here. I was in L.A. [Los Angeles, California] at that time. I wasn't here at that time. But that was when they condemned the corner bar and things like that, had to tear it down because of the cracks in it, I guess. No, I just happened to luck out during the Haylift in '48 and the earthquake in '54 I was in L.A.
EA: When you came back to town – To Fallon and this would have been in the late 50s?
ED: Yeah.
EA: Did you find then Fallon had really grown?
ED: Oh yeah, it started growing. And see, I've been home this time since… see… I went back… car crash in college [?] in '62? When I came back in '62 I didn't even recognize the town, it had grown so much.
EA: Were your parents still in town when you-
ED: Oh yeah. They never- Well, my dad did live out on the Reno Highway at one time, but he kept his office in town. His office is where the old bus station used to be at that time.
EA: And where was the old bus station?
ED: That was on Center and Maine. Across from that… do you remember where the Lahontan newspaper used to be? Right across the street in them little old buildings. And if he wasn't busy he was at the old Corner Bar. [Chuckles] playing Keno.
EA: Did your mother always stay home? Did she ever work outside?
ED: Never has. She's always been a home person.
EA: When did you first join the Lions Club?
ED: 19… 71. And my brother got me into that.
EA: How long… do you recall how long the Lions have been in Fallon? The Lions Club?
ED: Well, right up there's their charter. 1937. We just had our 60th anniversary this year.
EA: Could you tell me a little about the club? What they do?
ED: Well, we're a service organization. We… our main project is eyesight. I would say probably in 12 months' time we spend probably between 4 and 5 thousand dollars just on youth glasses – Kids who can't see but cant afford to buy them or get exams.
EA: You said on youth?
ED: Young people. And as far as our older people, we buy glasses for them if they can't afford them, but I would say probably 2 or 3 thousand a year just for the older people. Our main thing is our youth. And the Lions Club as an eye foundation down in San Francisco, and we send quite a few people down there for glaucoma and eye operations, cataracts and such, and that's all free. It don't cost them nothing. Lions club pays their transportation and motel and their food. They go down there and get their free everything.
EA: I understand that the Lions Club is into recycling used glasses.
ED: Oh yes. Yes. We recycle probably, just out of Churchill County here, we just sent 5000 pair over to [Dog barks, covering location name] with our eye doctor over there in Raley's. Actually he… I can't even think of his name now, but there's an eye doctor out here in Raley's that goes over to Cambodia once a year, and he takes… he wanted 1,500 pair this year, and so we gave him 1,500 glasses we're saving and the rest of them… we collect probably close to 10,000 pair a year. Just… Raley's will collect them. Raley's collects them for us and other places, and then I… anybody that has them brings them in to me, and we probably collect at least 10,000 pair a year, and they go to our eye chairman, who's in Las Vegas, and he- they go to Bangladesh and Brazil and every place else. And Mexico, and every place like that.
EA: Could you tell me some of the projects the Lions Club has done for Fallon?
ED: Well, that girls' softball field [376 N. Maine st.] that's a Lions project. We did that on our centennial, 200th centennial in the state of Nevada, that's when we built that park
EA: What year would that me?
ED: Ooh boy, 200 years, let's see 27 years ago [1970]. What would that be? 200… because what do we have… we had the 227th birthday, didn't we? This state?
EA: IF you said it was 27 years ago, 1980?
ED: Right in there, is that 1980?
EA: 70, 1970.
ED: No… we built it… it's after that. Let's see… I think we built that park around '76, '75, '75, '76 [ed- presumably he means this was done for America's bicentennial in 1976]. It's the last century so… I know we were gonna… we could put in a loan from the, at that time, the federal government. [End of side A]
EA: This is tape 1, side 2. Now you said that the federal government were giving out loans. Were they specifically for recreational development?
ED: Right. And the Lions Club had put in from a… for a loan for a girls' softball park, and at that time Mrs. Mills, Laura Mills, also put in one and she got the loan for Laura Mills Park at that time. So we didn't get our loan, so we funded that girls' softball field ourselves without… built the snack bar and a lawn. And they had trees planted out there, but they disappeared for some reason or another, I don't know why.
EA: Now, the girls' softball park, what's the address now?
ED: I don't have the slightest idea. On West Williams.
EA: But it's off of West Williams?
ED: No, west- Maine Street. Maine Street Ballpark. That's what they call it now. What the address is, I don't have any idea what it is.
EA: What are some of the others after that?
ED: Well, we put the score board in at Oats Park for the kids, and we put the score board in for the Men's ball field across the deal, and we sponsor the soccer leagues all the time, and we sponsor the barracuda swim team, plus we- well… It's a lot of that, and a lot of the youth, and then our eyes is our main one. All the fundraising we do we put back into eyes and youth and we sponsor two scholarships at the high school over there for the graduating seniors. But we never put nothing in the paper so people don't know that [laughs]
EA: Do they rather keep it low profile?
ED: No, we just haven't found anybody that's a good PR man in our club to put this stuff in the papers, you know? We should be able to, but we don't do it. Once in a while we'll… about a week or two ahead, we'll call Anne and tell her what we're gonna do and she says, "Well, I'll figure out something and put it in there." Like our Easter egg hunt on Easter.
EA: This is you're talking about Anne Pershing of the-
ED: Yeah, Of the Lahontan Valley News. With like our Easter egg hunt, she's the one that reminds us that we're having an Easter egg hunt, although we know it, but we go out to the base and use the mess hall and cook 6,500 eggs in about 3 hours' time out there in the galley, see, in them big cookers. And on Easter Sunday we have over 500 kids at Laura Mills Park picking them up, and that is a sight to see, I'll tell you. Takes us an hour to put them out, and it takes them… I think we checked them this year it was less than 50 seconds to pick them all up. So we have a lot of fun with it too, while we're doing it. And food baskets. Christmastime, we give out about 30 food baskets to the needy and stuff. We get the list from welfare and go around and give out food baskets at Christmastime.
EA: You actually go to the house to deliver it?
ED: Oh yeah. We deliver them right the night before Thanksgiving, Christmas… No, Thanksgiving or Christmas? Christmas. Yeah, it's Christmastime. And give the baskets out. The Saturday before Christmas or something like that. Of course, Raley's out there, they always give us $1000 worth of meat. Turkeys and hams and chickens, things like that and foodstuff, canned food. That's what those barrels is at Raley's.
EA: Oh.
ED: If you've got a can of food that you don't… That you wanna buy, you put it in a barrel and Lions Club picks it up. Puts it in our storage.
EA: Do you recall if prior to this when there was just one or two markets in town if the Lions were still doing these food baskets?
ED: Oh yeah. I.H. Kent was always here and Kolhoss and Safeways. That was the only three markets we had. And they would always give them – They didn't give us meats like Raley's does because they couldn't afford it. They were individually owned. There wasn't no chain. We always got canned goods from Kents and Kolhoss' and Safeways. They were always real generous for us.
EA: Did they include the people on the reservation too?
ED: Oh yeah. We didn't care who they were. We got the names from the welfare. Wherever we went, that's where we… were the address was, that’s where we were. Had no partiality to race, color, or creed.
EA: When you were in town, when you first came to town, did you ever go out to the reservation?
ED: Oh, I've definitely gone to the reservation a lot of times.
EA: Could you tell me something about the reservation back then? Were there a lot of people there?
ED: Well, I don't think at that time… Their houses weren't as nice as they are now. Of course, the government has built a lot of houses now. And the reservation by Rattlesnake [Hill] that was just nothing but huts. I mean, they were living in anything they could find to live in.
EA: Could you describe some of the houses? What materials were used to build them?
ED: From the looks of them, it looked like they just picked up old pieces of wood wherever they could find them, tacked it up. There was no new huts and they were small, they were very small. No lawns, no shade or anything like they have nowadays. And the reservation that they had in Stillwater, that… there was no one set area for it. It's spread all over just like it is today. But in them days they could have like ragweed roofs or anything they could put on the roof to shed the sun or rain, that's what they had on the roof. Pieces of tin or whatever.
EA: Do you recall how they might have heated their homes in the winter?
ED: Mostly wood. There was no propane here at that time.
EA: So then all of them would have had some sort of wood stove?
ED: Oh yeah, yeah. Or open fireplaces or something like that. Although, I think here in Fallon we had propane in. I can't remember who the company was. We still had propane here, but there was no natural gas or anything like that. Of course there was electricity in town, but out in the country they didn't have electricity.
EA: So on the reservation, their homes were small and they were made with whatever materials that were…
ED: Whatever they could find, yeah. Some of them were pretty good lumber, and some of them weren't. It's whatever they could find to shelter themselves. And there were several people in one room, living in one room, or something like that.
EA: Do you recall what kind of jobs they did at all?
ED: What?
EA: What kind of jobs were available to them?
ED: Oh, they were ranchers and everything. They had their land and everything. But in them days a bale of hay was nothing, probably 50 cents a bale in them days, not a hundred and something a ton like nowadays.
EA: Did they… they came to town to shop also?
ED: Oh yeah.
EA: They didn't have anything their own on…
ED: Well, a lot of times- See, most of these ranchers, they paid I.H. Kent, they run a bill. And once a year when they got their harvest sold, that's when they paid their grocery bill and they all came into I.H. Kent, or Kolhoss. They all had open accounts. Farmers and Indians and everybody come in there, and when they got their pay they come in and pay their bill, either monthly or yearly. All the ranchers it was yearly. So I.H. Kent was quite a savior for the valley out here as far as groceries and things were concerned. Of course, they got their lumber the same way at I.H. Kent's lumber yard.
EA: It was all on credit?
ED: Yeah, and then they'd pay for it later. [Long pause] or the barter system. "You bring me a pound of butter and I'll give you 100 feet of wood," or something. A lot of people… Kents got a lot of their eggs and milk and butter that way. Of course, Creamland Dairy's always been here, but where are they now I don't know. I think Creamland sold out to model dairy now.
EA: Could you describe the houses in Fallon then? Was there any exclusive area or…
ED: Well, Fallon's always had an exclusive area, like there on Taylor…
EA: Whitaker?
ED: Whitaker. That's always been an exclusive area for Fallon over in that area, but it's not near as large than as it is now, and the area my sister lives in was more a new section of Fallon, which is-
EA: Where would that be?
ED: Around… Between Taylor and Whitaker. Those are mostly newer houses. And from Maine Street East was the old part of Fallon, the older sections of the houses.
EA: Who were some of the families that live on Whitaker then?
ED: Oh, the Lofthouses. Sunny Lofthouse and his family and… who were some of the others? Oh… you know, I can't even thing of all of them. That was the main one I know of, because I was a buddy with him. We ran around together. Some of the others I can't think of. Trying to remember that lawyer that just passed away… The Dodge family lived out there. And… of course they had the big Dodge ranch, but the sons and them lived here in town here out in that area. And I'm trying to think of my lawyers, but he's dead now so… Used to be the District Attorney here in Fallon too. I can't think of his name now. Been gone too long. But I do remember those two.
EA: Were there large houses?
ED: Fairly large houses. Eighteen, two thousand square feet maybe something like that. Big houses. No swimming pools or anything at that time, but…
EA: And then on the other, somebody lived on the other side of Maine Street…
ED: Yeah. There were the older section of Fallon. The smaller one room houses and two-bedroom houses and stuff like that. [Coughs] Oats Park, see and all the houses around from Maine down to Oats Park, that's the old sections. [long pause]
EA: Is there anything else that you…
ED: yeah, I can't think of anything else.
EA: About Fallon that you can recall?
ED: No. All I remember is it was a pretty good place to live [Laughs]. I'm gonna call Bud Hart and see if he can remember that cop. That bothered me, that is… See, he used to give us boys a bad time [laughs]. Just waited for us to do something.
EA: You mention your father's occupation-
ED: As a chiropractor, yeah.
EA: Did he have… was he kept busy?
ED: Oh yeah. Yeah, he was very busy. Well, he was the only one here at that time. He hadn't- We hadn't been out here maybe 5 or 6 years and there was 2 or 3 others moved in, but they didn't stay. They'd tell my dad, he says, "We can't compete against you, so we're leaving." But he was always busy. [To dog] Sandy, shut up! But he was always busy. And he was one of these guys who didn't care what time of the day. If you were hurt, just give him a call. Midnight, two in the morning, or any time. He'd either go where you were at, or you'd come into the office. He was like those old fellows, 24-hour call if you needed him. He was one of these guys, he went on a vacation he only took a couple days. He'd never be gone a week or two at a time, because people needed him. And he started teaching me this line since I was 10 years old, so…
EA: And you just kind of fell into it because…
ED: Yeah, after- Well, I was 44 before I decided I'd- I used to drive line truck for P.I.E. for 22 years between Reno and Elko and Los Angeles and all over the place, and I just decided that's enough I wanted to do what I wanted to do so I quit at age 44 and went back to college. Got what I wanted to do.
EA: Is there anything you miss now that you wish remained the same in Fallon?
ED: Well, I liked the camaraderie. Now you can walk down Maine Street and you don't know many people. And you get up until about, oh, 20 years ago, you knew everybody in town. But now we're getting so influxed with retired people wanting to get out of the big city that you don't know anybody. But those days, I still got my old crowd that we'd run around with and do crap, oh… [?] We meet a lot of new people and everything, but it's not the same old Fallon it was 25 years ago, that's for sure. And it never will be, as far as I can… I threaten sometimes to move to Austin [laughs] and I says, "No, I don't wanna do that either."
EA: Why Austin?
ED: Well, it's a little town. Start all over again, see, with a small town. No, but I like Fallon. I've always come back here. I've left it several times, but I've always wound up back here again. Lived in Los Angeles probably… The family's been here since '38 or '39, and I would say I'd been gone most half of that time, either LA or here, see? Seems like between marriages I'd wind up here [laughs]. My first two wives were form LA and the other one was from Yerington. But I always wound up back in Fallon the weather… you can't beat the climate. I mean, it never gets that cold in the wintertime, although I have to admit when I was a kid I've see 10, 20 below 0 for a week or two here in Fallon, but that weather's changed now. The weather's changed so much you can run around in shirtsleeves all winter almost, but other than that. We'd have snow on the ground 2, 3 months out of the year when I was a kid. Them days are gone too, I think. But, you know, I always wound up back in Fallon. Never went anywhere else. No, I've… I've met a lot of people who'd like for me to move to Idaho and open a chiropractor office up there and I said, "No, your winters are too cold and your summers are too hot." [Laughs] Said, "I'm gonna stay in Fallon." As long as I stay here I'll probably have that door open. I got some people about your age, they say they can't go until I go. I says "Oh, 160 years old, huh?"
EA: [Laughs]
ED: I says, "That'd be something." Heh. Yeah, other than that I like Fallon. I like their climate. Well, it gets hot in the summertime. But I mean, well, you can put up with 30 days of that, cause it ain't gonna stay hot that long.
EA: Well, Mr. Deputy, well thank you very much on behalf of the Churchill County Museum. I would like to thank you for granting me this interview.
ED: Oh, you're welcome.
[End of interview]
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