Ray Weaver Oral Histories
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Churchill County Oral History Project
an interview with Ray Weaver
Fallon, Nevada
conducted by unknown child.
1982
This interview was transcribed by Marilyn A. Goble
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.
Weaver: Let’s start.
Kid 1: Okay.
Weaver: Growing up beyond um… Southern Edge Ridge. You know.
Kid 1: Okay. How different are schools now than back then?
Weaver: Where are you now? What que…
Kid 1: It’s question Two.
Weaver: Six? Different now than back in those days…Well uh…you know in those days they had 10 or 12 districts here in the valley. They had no consolidated school, if you want the names of those I can give you most of them.
Kid 1: Ok we appreciate…
Weaver: Or do you want after the consolidated.
Kid 1: Sorry, just tell us how the schools are different…
Weaver: Well there were usually one room, one teacher had all grades, first through the eighth inclusively. If there were ever two rooms, they would…one to four and five to eight. That’s about the…I only know one school that had two rooms and that was in Union. That was consolidated…you know the uh…Wightman School was moved north and west. The Smart District School was moved south and a little east. They merged into what was later Union School. Now that’s the, that’s the first merge that I know of.
Kid 1: Okay.
Weaver: In the valley.
Kid 1: Okay, are you saying um, they went one to eight. Is that when you got out of school? Or didn’t they have…
Weaver: One to eighth grade. No, one teacher taught all grades.
Kid 1: Okay, but didn’t they have like ninth through twelve? Or did you get out of school in eighth grade?
Weaver: Oh that was in town. I was out in the country. Oh yes, they had those later in town. Yeah, all grades. Yeah, the high school then is where the juniors are now.
Kid 1: Oh okay.
Weaver: You know right, right…
Kid 1: Yeah.
Weaver: West of here. Or south, maybe going west.
Kid 1: Okay. Describe how your advantages…describe how your advantage…average school day was like and…?
Weaver: Well there was very little difference. Classes, recess, classes, the noon hour.
Kid 1: Okay.
Weaver: Noon classes, and recess and out. I had to walk about 2 miles to school. I don’t…
Kid 1: Okay. How long were your um recesses? Were they just like 10 minute breaks or…?
Weaver: Maybe 15. Oh, I guess the noon hour was uh 1hour. I guess that is what you have isn’t it? 1 hour at noon?
Kid 1: Yeah we have one hour. Okay. What kind of…when you were older what kind of like in high school or did you do this but what kind of pranks did you play on the teachers?
Weaver: We didn’t play any pranks.
Kid 1: You didn’t?
Weaver: There were no pranks in those days and I’ll tell you why…well not if you valued your hide. You know…
3rd Person: Oh.
Kid 1: It’s like if you did something the teachers would really…
Weaver: You were whipped. They had switches in the schoolhouse. Not as stiff you know or some of them used a ruler, beat your hands. But there was no pranks though, didn’t have time for that the teachers were busy.
Kid 1: Were the teachers really, really strict?
Weaver: Yes, they had to be strict. The kids would get out of control, they were very strict.
Kid 1: Okay, um, um, kay. Where did you usually, when you were old and you started dating, where did you usually take girls? Did you just take them out to the movies or…?
Weaver: Well, there’s only a few places to go. There was the uh…the theater you know.
Kid 1: Mm-hm.
Weaver: Well that would be about 10 cents for admission.
Kid 1: 10 cents just to…
Weaver: Each, yes. And 10 cents for ice cream a piece. That’s about the limit, you spend 40 cents maybe 50 if you want to splurge. Now you mean out on a date. Picnics were…we had picnics then.
Kid 1: You took them on picnics?
Weaver: Oh yeah. Groups, big groups.
Kid 1: Well like what special places, like where you take picnics you like to?
Weaver: Well, usually over on the…
Kid 1: Like is there a certain hang out?
Weaver: Sinclair District, the river you know? Over on the Young Riverson[?] the Carson River out there before the dam was finished. Get in the lake, that wasn’t finished until the 15th but we had a little water prior of that date.
Kid 1: Okay
Kid 2: How did you usually ask a girl to go out with you?
Weaver: Usually on the telephone, they had those.
Kid 1: You wouldn’t just go right up to them and ask them that?
Weaver: Many years ago. Um…
Kid 1: You wouldn’t just go right up to them and ask them that, you would just call them up?
Weaver: What did he say?
Kid 2: He said you wouldn’t usually walk up to them and ask them?
Weaver: Oh yes if you’re around somewhere. Sure, if opportune time certainly. No need to be bashful.
Kid 1: okay. How were the teachers different back then than they are today?
Weaver: Well I, there was very little difference. Uh…
Kid 1: Except they more stricter.
Weaver: Well maybe they were better qualified to teach four grades or eight.
Kid 1: Definitely.
Weaver: They had to have a vast knowledge of every subject you were teaching. Now I assume that today one teacher would usually have one or two subjects. Don’t you?
Kid 1: Well, yeah a teacher will just teach…one teacher like will teach geography and then…well see we…
Weaver: Yeah, one for each…
Kid 1: Subject.
Weaver: Yeah. But that didn’t exist when I was a kid.
Kid 1: How did the kids act different? Or how did the kids act back then than they do today?
Weaver: Well uh, the kids…well the boys that…well you know I tell you all boys know they had to work. I don’t say all them…all out town, out of city, just the town of Fallon. They worked after they got out of school and uh there was chores to do.
Kid 1: Okay, what kind of chores would they do?
Weaver: Well, there was cattle to feed, milking to be done.
Kid 1: What kind of chores did you do?
Weaver: Well, I milk cows, fed the horses and cows. Between then and afternoon[?], I chopped wood. I chopped more wood until I was about eighteen, I think than anybody in Churchill County. You buy a tree, we used to buy trees well we on the St. Clair District. Then on granddad cut them into about 8foot length, put them on a wagon, haul them home, then cut them up. Saturdays morning, all day on that day, and, and after school especially in the longer days when the sun was getting farther overhead.
Kid 1: Okay. What was um…how was Fallon you know diff…how was Fallon back then when it…
Weaver: Well Fallon those days had no paved roads.
Kid 1: It was dirt?
Weaver: It was dirt roads. (phone ringing) It was a…yeah…and uh well…you know we, we got, we missed the girls. When you see kids and the girls in those days way up until maybe after the second war. They didn’t, they wore dresses no slacks. They didn’t paint their face, they didn’t rouge uh their lips. They didn’t cut their har, now I mean bobbed they called it, that came after the second World War. They never… oh I guess up until I was a man…ever saw a girl smoke a cigarette…or take a drink, they didn’t do it! Nowhere not out behind the barn or out in public. Well, the boys worked hard, the girls done homework. They had to come home feed the chickens, cook, do housework…some of them worked in the field a little bit. There was a team up until they was sixteen, seventeen.
Kid 1: Okay. Um, what kind of…did they have…how many stores or…well…
Weaver: Stores?
Kid 1: Well kind of buil, you know what kind of stores did they have here and what all stuff did they have here? Like stores and….?
Weaver: Well, they had uh, they had uh you mean Fallon had grocery stores.
Kid 1: They didn’t have that many stores did they?
Weaver: N-not many stores. They didn’t have any chain stores like uh…like Ridley’s and Safeway’s. Kents was the big store for you and you.
Kid 1: Yeah.
Weaver: Until the last decade. Earl Harley[?] was in…well they had a little store on Maine Street. I think his name was Matthews course that was oh maybe on 1915. And…but the main store was Kent. That is, they had everything. They had, they had [?] one time and groceries
Kid 1: [faintly] Tell me something…
Kid 2: Well, when you took a girl out for a date how much would you usually spend? Or would you spend any money on them? Like…when you, if you, do you, did you take them out to a place to eat and spend some money?
Weaver: Well uh, I don’t, I never, I never did. No, at that time. Well you see if we went to a dance, we danced a lot in those days. Square dances, round dances, it was the best dancing in the world. The admission was 50cents for the boys and the girls furnished the cake. That’s uh, coffee and cake that was about the limit.
Kid 1: Mm-hm.
Weaver: You know that was for [?]. No we didn’t go out much for…to dinner at the restaurants. There was uh…all, all the saloons out there. Grills in those sometimes. The first place, the first meal that I ate in Nevada was in oh…the Palace Club operated by a fellow named McDonald. I came out here in a boxcar, took me 10 days to ride arrive in Fallon from the state of Illinois and my brother and I… ate in a nice place, the first warm meal we had…
Kid 1: Had in a long time.
Weaver: In 10 days! 10 days we hadn’t tasted any warm food.
Kid 2: Pardon me, but when you’re talking a minute ago. What, what are boxcars?
Weaver: Immigrant cars. Well uh, you see them today on, on the tracks.
Kid 2: Oh.
Weaver: We had horses, 3 horses. Three thou…all the ponies are in there[?] and my kid brother, he had a game cock, a kid gave him back…Had a dog and a old yellow tom cat.
Kid 1: Okay.
Weaver: That dog…disappeared for about three or four weeks. We think he started back…back home. Got as far as Salt Lake and came back because the pads on his feet were worn through.
Kid 1: Okay and would you please tell us a brief history of your family and how they, when they came to Churchill County.
Weaver: Well my dad made several trips west about three. He went to…He came out 1909 to a fair. I think it was AYPE, Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, in the state of Washington, around Lanasa[?] country. He went out there in…let’s see about 1883 and he stayed in the west…
Kid 1: Okay, did your…
Weaver: Four years.
Kid 1: Did your father come over in a covered wagon?
Weaver: Not from the…when my granddad…no he came in the car. My, my granddad was born in a wagon drawn by 2 milk cows. If you want the family history.
Kid 1: No, just a piece.
Weaver: Well, my granddad, my great-grandad Alfred We…Alfred Weaver was born in Virginia, but I don’t know my great-great grandfathers name, he was born in Virginia in 1790. When he was 19 he married a girl name Louise Kirkwood. Well he was a sailor on a rig down…great-great granddad was a sailor. When they headed west…and my grandad Abraham McFife Weaver was born in that wagon I was telling you about.
Kid 1: Mm-hm.
Weaver: Well west those days was Illinois, that’s as far as he got. You know he settled there, my dad was born too.
Kid 1: Okay and your mother. Did your dad meet your mother in west or…?
Weaver: No, met her in little town, Maples Mill…Illinois. My mother came…folks came from Kentucky. Her grandmothers name was Abigail Meeker and she married David Butler Wilcoxson. And she was a Wilcoxson and she’s married to my dad. Now, what else do you need?
Kid 1: Well, that’s…
Weaver: You want the family way back or the family up to now?
Kid 1: No, just a brief history.
Weaver: (chuckle)
Kid 2: Well I got, I got one more question. Um, would you like…well which do you like these days? Like the stuff we have now or would you rather like it back then?
Weaver: What you mean back?
Kid 2: Did you like living back then or now?
Kid 1: More back then?
Weaver: Well I don’t, people didn’t have much worries in those days. All they thought about…very little luxuries, there was no parks…no swimming pools. You had to make your own recreation…and they weren’t always… you know looking for a change looking for something better, better. They were more contented I think in those days, more relaxed, they lived just as long. Is that about to run down?
Kid 2: No.
Kid 1: I was just making sure it wasn’t stopped.
Weaver: And uh, they, I think the young people…they worked. I don’t, you know when I was a kid we agreed getting up was a big teenager. There were, there were I didn’t know one boy in my life that was lazy, dilatory, they just had to work that’s all and they didn’t mind that. They ended up just coming, in the time they was young, younger than you boys. Time was coming where they were going to have to work.
Kid 1: Okay, I have one last question. Um, how much money would the boy back then or day…?
Weaver: Earn?
Kid 1: Yeah, like…
Weaver: Well I was a big kid and I, I earned a dollar and a half a day in the hay field. You know maybe loading by hand or they had the old Jackson Fork in those days too and they were heavy. About as heavy as I was, I was pretty light when I started fork that hay out the way. Yeah, about a dollar and half a day.
Kid 1: How much would the average boy use?
Weaver: Pardon?
Kid 1: How much would the average boy use or make?
Weaver: A dollar and a half a day.
Kid 1: Kay, that was the average?
Weaver: Nine hours. Yes. Average sure it was. We went out to work somewhere you know 45, 60 dollars a month and your board. You slept in your own bed, you had a bedroll with you, everybody carried a couple blankets wrapped in canvas you know.
Kid 1: Mm-hm.
Weaver: They call them bindles. They had bindle sticks we call them, they’d travelled from hay field to hay field, season to season like the fruit pickers in various parts of California, Pacific Coast.
Kid 1: Okay.
Weaver: Money? Money, money there wasn’t much money. But what money we had when I was a kid, they didn’t have currency in town. They had silver and gold. Gold in the racks where silver is now. There was very little…there was no $1 bills in this country to my knowledge until the CC boys started in here and they started to use $1 in lieu of the coin. And at 35, I was in a public place at that time where I saw money. I was in the post office, writing money orders. And that was the… coin of the realm…legal tender.
Kid 1: Well, we…that’s all the questions we have and we appreciate you letting us interview you.
Weaver: Well, that’s great. I’m glad you did it. That was good.
Kid 2: Well.
Weaver: Can you…?
-----
'CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
RAY R. WEAVER
APRIL 25, 1991
This interview was conducted by Bill Davis; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Sylvia Arden; first draft typed by Glenda Price; index by Gracie Viera; final typed by Pat Boden; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum and Sylvia Arden, Consultant.
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.
Content Warning: Racist and antisemetic phrasing used. This has not been edited out as doing so denies the racism that was present in Fallon throughout the 20th century.
PREFACE
Ray Weaver is ninety-four years old. He tells of arriving in Fallon with his folks as a young boy. He describes the family ranch and raising sugar beets in the Union District; the old flour mill; the early freight teams and the Indian camp near the family ranch. He worked on the roadbed for the proposed electric train and tells of his work in the several post offices. He also tells of building the Weaver [Bob's] Market. He discusses his four years as a city councilman, relates a story he once wrote and also tells his memories of the big drought of 1932.
There were two interview sessions--April 25, 1991 and May 7, 1991.
Interview with Ray Weaver
DAVIS: My name is Bill Davis and I'm with the Churchill County Museum Oral History Program. Today is April 25, 1991, and I'm at Ray Weaver's home. We are at 5650 on Harrigan Road in his small apartment house and I'm talking with Ray Weaver. Ray, tell me about how the Weavers got to Fallon.
WEAVER: Well, as I said, Dad came out three or four trips and he finally located here. Laid over in Hazen one day for some reason and somebody give him the idea to come out here to Fallon.
DAVIS: Where was he headed?
WEAVER: I don't know where he was going. He was just looking around in the west. He came over here and he saw this country, it was brand new then, the railroad company sponsored this ad to get people to come for transportation pay. They came over here and they liked this country very well. That was in, let's see, he came in 1910… I don't remember if that was in '09 or early 1910, probably 1909. That's my guess. Well, he sold out back there-
DAVIS: Where was "back there?"
WEAVER: Illinois, he sold out back there in Illinois, and they came west, been here ever since. (laughing)
DAVIS: You said you and your brothers were stowaways?
WEAVER: My brother and I were, yeah.
DAVIS: How did that come about?
WEAVER: Well, the main reason was to save passenger fare. Two other fellows came as far as Cheyenne. The two Fredericks, they had just been admitted to the bar in Champagne, Illinois. Well, they stayed a few days, went back to Illinois to their hometown.
DAVIS: So you stowed away to Hazen, right?
WEAVER: Right.
DAVIS: And what do you remember about that? What was Hazen like in those days?
WEAVER: Well, they had a big hotel there--a big hotel at the railroad junction. I remember going down to the end of the platform and I jumped off about four or five feet and I think that was one of the most severe headaches I've ever had in my life.
DAVIS: How did you get to Fallon? By buggie or?
WEAVER: No, by car. Harrigan [?] car and nipped down from Hazen. Ed Frazier, this was the Frazier Ranch [5555 Weaver Road] one time, originally the old Lee Ranch. Well, he came in with a team and freight wagon and loaded the furniture on and the livestock, they must have drove them out or led them out, I don't remember.
DAVIS: What kind of livestock did you come with?
WEAVER: Well, we had three horses and two cows, that old sow, you know, I found it on the train, and a Scotch Collie dog,' an old yellow tom cat and a banty rooster my youngest brother had, a little kid gave it to him back there. That's how we come to Fallon and we came out to the ranch. That night my brother and I came out with a wagon in October. The nights back east are warmer. I thought we were gonna freeze to death before I got to the ranch right up here west of where we now are. Well, Dad wanted me to go up on the stack and the alfalfa and weeds was as coarse as brush. All we had to come out with was clover, red clover, I used to bale that. Well, after the stock got a taste of the alfalfa, they never would take another bite of that clover. That went to pot. I couldn't make the top of that haystack, I had to climb up with a pitchfork through the hay and Fraser's hired man, Steve Davis, got up and threw down hay for the horses. And there was one red cow about a yard wide across the rear, a Hereford that stayed there, no she was a Durham, red Durham, the biggest cow I think I've ever seen.
DAVIS: What was the country like around here then?
WEAVER: Well, that was up on the house up here. The house west of town was sagebrush and greasewood. That was a freight station. The freighters stopped there in route to Fairview.
DAVIS: What did they call that place where the freighters stopped?
WEAVER: That was Beckstead.
DAVIS: Beckstead Ranch. [425 E. Corkill Lane]
WEAVER: Yeah, it was the Long place before that. That's where the freighters stopped over, overnight, the Long line skinners.
DAVIS: And they were headed out east, or south?
WEAVER: No, they went to Fairview and Wonder. They had about twelve horses. Tedford had a couple of sixteen-horse string. I've seen 'em come around that bend up there. I don't think you know what I'm talking about, but I do, but when they made that turn there, they would point. Do you know what a pointer is?
DAVIS: Yeah.
WEAVER: . . . four, and they'd point up to six of the points. They'd go over that chain, you know, a mule is a smart animal. I've seen them come around that bend, old Jake was one of the mules Tex used to haul with. He'd come back over that chain and get his arm straightened out and he'd land. He'd jump over that chain foxy as a dog. About two sixteen-horse teams and they'd run down to about twelve individuals. Tedford had the biggest chain.
DAVIS: There was an old flour mill out here then . . . or was that later?
WEAVER: Right down below there [on river channel between Berney and Depp Road]. It was there when I came here in 1910. That was on the river, they dammed the river [south of 500 Berney Road] and went around and made a race to the mill, the flour mill, that was run by Inman.
DAVIS: Inman?
WEAVER: Yeah, he was married to Louise Lee, one of the Lee girls, the original old families in this valley. This is part of the Lee Ranch. I think he had eight sections in this area all around here. They had water from the river and I don't know where that river fed Charlie Wightman's place way up north, I don't where that took off.
DAVIS: Up that way?
WEAVER: Out west of town. There was that river and New River. They come down right south of town and the original, Old River, went out north, of course.
DAVIS: So the flour mill was really pretty active in those days?
WEAVER: Oh, that was the only mill in the country. Evans sold his water rights to the mill and that thing has no more…
DAVIS: They had a water wheel there.
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, a big wheel. It was this way.
DAVIS: It went horizontal then?
WEAVER: Yeah. I didn't know they made them that way.
DAVIS: No, I didn't either.
WEAVER: But they did. That turned the mill, the grists. They made flour, germia, that's the hull from the today it's top in those days it was just-
DAVIS: And they called it germia?
WEAVER: Germia. That was a breakfast food.
DAVIS: Wheat germ.
WEAVER: Yeah. And they fed the bran, of course, they fed that to the pigs. That was more nutriment in value than the white flour, but they didn't know that then. That's like the potato peel and the white spud. Well now let’s see [tape cuts] Are we on?
DAVIS: You’re on.
WEAVER: Well, the farms in those days were terraced, they'd put in four or five acres as quick as they could, then they'd move around maybe another five or ten . . .
DAVIS: Each of them a little lower than the next.
WEAVER: Yeah, yeah. They'd get a quick crop, get somethin' growin', alfalfa. I've done lots and lots of hard work . . . four horses and that Fresno--people today don't know what a Fresno is and you finish with a tail board. Four horses is all we ever worked. But that's the way they all were. Slow process.
DAVIS: What about the irrigation?
WEAVER: The irrigation was about three feet of water.
DAVIS: Where did you get it? Did it from come a canal or the river or what?
WEAVER: It came from that canal up there, but it come in back, right west of our place, up in back of Becksteads, the... freight station. That's where the Indians had their camp.
DAVIS: Tell us what you remember about the Indian encampment. They'd been there a long while?
WEAVER: They'd been there long before we got there.
DAVIS: And that was their camp then?
WEAVER: That was their camp.
DAVIS: I never knew that.
WEAVER: That was George and Annie, George, Annie, Lizzie married Louie Givens, that was Lizzie Cushman. They took the name of the Cushman family.
DAVIS: Do you remember what their camp looked like?
WEAVER: Yeah.
DAVIS: What did it consist of?
WEAVER: About three one-by-twelve high and a tent over that. I don't think they had a stove. I know I've seen Annie's hands after she makes bread. She never washed her hands. That dough would be on there until it wore off.
DAVIS: What type of work were they doing?
WEAVER: Well, I don't think they worked. I don't know how they lived, jackrabbits mostly. They'd have big rabbit drives and they'd hang them on about three barb wires north of our place. All of those rabbits came in a big drive. Well Dave was born up there after Lizzie.
DAVIS: Who was?
WEAVER: Dave Cushman, he was next to Lizzie. But Dave died young, then they had a Benny, he was a little guy and Hunchback Joe and Blind Willie. I do not know what his name was. Well, the boys they'd get pneumonia, they go out and slop around, they'd wade in the ditches with their shoes on, get wet, they died of pneumonia, Dave and Benny and Hunchback and Big George. Big George lived there. Let's see and Joe, the Indian doctor. Indians die over there and get sick, they would sing all night, would sing until they get hoarse.
DAVIS: Did they have drums or . . ?
WEAVER: No.
DAVIS: Just the singing?
WEAVER: Just the singing, same old tune. I think that was to keep the spirit away, the evil spirit, and as soon as it was daylight, old George would sing, the old man, and then Billy Boney, that was his name.
DAVIS: What did they do with the body?
WEAVER: I don't know what became of Dave. I think they buried them out in that field because when they were leveling that piece of country out there they found skeletons.
DAVIS: Did they have the Indian stones, the grinding stones?
WEAVER: What kind of stone?
DAVIS: Well, to grind the pinenuts or corn or anything?
WEAVER: I never seen one. That was getting up to modern then in those days, 1910. I know they used to grind the pinenuts in that camp and they had their big baskets.
DAVIS: They had those?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah. Then they made willow jugs. Did you ever see one of those?
DAVIS: Well, I've seen willow baskets.
WEAVER: No, jugs, water jugs.
DAVIS: Out of willows?
WEAVER: Yeah.
DAVIS: Maybe I have. I don't know.
WEAVER: I've seen lots of them. They bring them up like a jug, [to the] mouth. They make them out of willows like a matchstick, real fine, then they rubbed paste on the outside and make it waterproof.
DAVIS: Oh, I see.
WEAVER: Yeah, the big baskets they'd shake the pinenuts up in.
DAVIS: They went to the mountains for pinenuts?
DAVIS: And they had horses?
WEAVER: They had ponies poorly fed always. All Indian horses in those days were skinny, they'd graze along the highway, whatever they could get, hobbled, and that was it. The Indians used to bring the big fish over in those days from Pyramid Lake. They were fifty cents a head until War I, then they jumped them to a dollar-(laughing) great big old trout.
DAVIS: I've heard about them.
WEAVER: Dad had forty-one pounder he got up there. It's on record now as the biggest, that wasn't the biggest, records right now, bigger than that by over twenty pounds officially in the records in the University of Nevada, La Rivers. When Bub went to school up there, he studied history. They had sixty-three pound trout iced to ship to Winnemucca to ship to railroad men and they opened it up and weighed it. It was sixty-three pounds, but people bought 'em, they'd eviscerate 'em put a wet sack on them, come in from Pyramid Lake, two horses. Johnny Cleveland used to sell at Walker Lake, they called them Walker Lake bass. They have a name but I don't know what it is. I've read it since. In the last thirty years they've given it a name. It's a perch, what it is. Originally those fish come from the San Joaquin and Sacramento River. That was the original home of that Walker Lake bass, they call them. They used to sell those for two bits apiece. Johnny Cleveland had a big seine, they'd scoop 'em up, get into a school of them.
DAVIS: Was Johnny Cleveland an Indian?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah. I don't think any white man has sold any fish that I can remember. These came from Walker Lake though.
DAVIS: What do you remember about going to school, Ray?
WEAVER: Well I remember the first day us four boys went, let's see, that was me and Kelly and Tater, Ted, and one we called Nig, that was Harry. I think Larry was too young to go.
DAVIS: What did you call him, Nig?
WEAVER: Nig Harry.
WEAVER: When he-was a little kid, he got typhoid 'and his hair came out. It was blond like all the rest of the Weavers, but it came in black.
DAVIS: (laughing) Oh, I see.
WEAVER: So the kids started calling him Nig.
DAVIS: So this was your first day of school?
WEAVER: Well, we all went in there to that school, let's see, that was the Smart School then, way up there another mile on the Break-a-Heart [Lazy Heart] Road.. Well, we cut out through the sagebrush there. I think the only house on the left was the old Hardy Ranch, it's on Weaver Lane up here where Weaver Lane pinches out, then way up on Drumm Lane it comes back this way again, but there's no open road there. Well, we went up to that place . . .
DAVIS: That would be about what, four, five, six miles?
WEAVER: No, no. I think about a mile and a half from this place, little over a mile. I remember we cut across up on Weaver Lane, went this way. . . I think Volkerts lived there then.
DAVIS: What was it?
WEAVER: Volkert. Jake Volkert, later Bud William's ranch. No, that wasn't Smart, that wasn't the Smart Road. Well, we went to school there and I remember the school ma'am was a Jenkins, her name was Jenkins, to me she had about as much qualifications as I have now of being an astronaut! But she got away with it, anyhow. She was tough on me.
DAVIS: What was school like?
WEAVER: Well, they had one room in those days and eight grades. They had a few minutes to every kid. They didn't have two grades, well, they cut that in two when the unions organized. They had reading, writing, arithmetic, and I think the kids knew just as about as much as they do today, maybe a little bit more. By God, the teachers would make them learn if ever you were capable. (laughing) I didn't like school very well. I didn't excel in anything. I was way down, way down, and well, we dragged on there until one year I know I'd flunk and I had to stay out. The next year with four horses started releveling this old place and I remember over here was a high spot. We dragged that in over in there. There was a tree over there and a pond. There was a little catfish in that pond somebody had planted. I remember when I filled it in scraping down it got down low I. filled in with a Fresno. I started on the west. I'd get up close, I'd swing the horses, the Fresno you can push it over, you know, three or four feet and I'd dump that, of course, and come back for another load. I finally got that filled in. I was always afraid the horse would step on a catfish (laughing) and get that horn in its foot. It's possible, I think. I was very careful with the team, although I didn't like them, anyhow. But, now that's got nothing to do with school. But, like I say, I don't remember who was on tap the next year. I know we had one teacher there, Fred Woods, he was a teacher later and I think I learned more from him than all the rest of the teachers I had that went to school. Fred, he was late, the last teacher I think we had out here, that I went to.
DAVIS: And you made it through the eighth?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, after a couple of years. I was very dull in school, I didn't like it. Grammar, I never did learn, but I knew everything in the arithmetic book, math, I learned all that easily.
DAVIS: Maybe we can go back now, I'm interested in what route the wagons took from Becksteads'.
WEAVER: From Beckstead?
DAVIS: Where did they travel on this end of the valley? They were headed east.
WEAVER: They come out by the old Lee ranch, then went down by the same old road now . . .
DAVIS: That connects up with . .
WEAVER: Maine Street, but they went straight ahead. They went down by Gobel and Basses and the old Van Buren Ranch, George Ernst's place, Cushmans, on to Grimes, that was another stop.
DAVIS: And there was a toll bridge down there or a bridge across the stream, or . . . ?
WEAVER: Someplace down there there was a toll bridge. Lem Allen's granddad operated that. He had a ferry there. If they had money, Lem told me this, he would charge them. If they were broke, it was free. That was down there somewhere--they called it the Grimes' Slough.
DAVIS: Now you said you learned some good language from those guys?
WEAVER: Swear words. That's only the second language I ever learned in my life was profane. (laughing) They knew every word in the book.
DAVIS: I'll bet. [Tape cuts] You were remembering Steve and Tex?
WEAVER: Oh, Steve, I remember those two men. I know Haggerman had a team and the Douglas boys had a little team and…
DAVIS: What do you remember about them?
WEAVER: Nothing.
DAVIS: Steve and Tex.
WEAVER: Well, out here, I don't know if it was Salt Wells or Sand Springs, some old fella's horses got loose in the night, and he got after Steve. I don't remember, by god, whether it was Steve or Tex, I think it was Tex. He was in bed and this old man whacked him, they claim, with a pitchfork and he shot this Fraser, I remember, and the other one swore to it. What actually happened I don't know. He went free. I remember that trial. That must have been in 1912 or 1913.
DAVIS: They had a regular court trial then?
WEAVER: I don't know whether they ever indicted him or not, . . . I can't remember that . . . maybe he shot… maybe it was Haggerman, I don't remember for sure. I don't remember who was shot.
DAVIS: But it was because the horses got loose?
WEAVER: Well, they got into his feed or somethin' like that.
DAVIS: Kinda rough and ready days?
WEAVER: Oh, they were. A man's word was as good as his signature is today, you know. They were a hard-drinking bunch too. Old John Fittish and I heard John say when they run this old electric railway out through there, I was whacking sticks.
DAVIS: I don't remember anything about the electric railway.
WEAVER: Doc Haskell and Berney was president of that railway, electric railway going out to the salt works. They were going-to haul salt in here on the electric, (laughing) electric train. Old Doc Haskell was promoting that. Haskell, and Charlie Kinney, they were promoters.
DAVIS: Where did it travel through the valley?
WEAVER: It come right out here in front on this side . .
DAVIS: On Harrigan Road?
WEAVER: Right here. It come right down here. Went down here through the old Matthewson ranch, Matthewson place, and way down there on the Beach. I saw it down there one time. It may be there yet, I don't know. [The old railroad bed can still be seen today along Macari Lane]
DAVIS: And it had rails on it and everything?
WEAVER: No, no, just the grades on it, that's as far as you ever got. Yeah, they were going out to haul salt in. It was a stock proposition.
DAVIS: Did somebody take off with the stock?
WEAVER: Oh, it was just like Broken Hills and Quartz Mountain, it died in the shell, didn't amount to much. It was promotion.
DAVIS: Was that about the same time as the sugar beet factory?
WEAVER: The sugar beet factory was running. I remember that beet. We raised beets.
DAVIS: Oh, you did?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah.
DAVIS: What was the family's experience with sugar beets?
WEAVER: Well, I know it was a lot of more hard work in raising beets than a regular truck garden. I don't how long it lasted, but out there at Beckstead they had scales. They would weigh the beets. You know, if there was a little dirt on there, they'd dunk them. We raised beets, big beets, but they were about as long as they were wide.
DAVIS: Eight inches, nine inches around, maybe?
WEAVER: No, eight or nine inches in diameter and about as long, but the sugar contents are low. They like a long, slim sugar beet; you know, get more sugar out of it. That went for I don't know how many years . . .
DAVIS: Did the family make any money on them?
WEAVER: Well, they made a living. That's all they wanted in those days, just another meal or two, you know, nobody thought about two cars or gettin' rich, it was another meal. Probably was that way when you were a kid.
DAVIS: Oh, sure, sure.
WEAVER: And, let's see, the next stop was from Grimes--Salt Wells . .
DAVIS: That was on the railroad, huh?
WEAVER: No, that was the freighters. [End of tape 1 side A]
DAVIS: How far do you think that electric railroad track went?
WEAVER: Right down the left of the valley.
DAVIS: It didn't get to Grimes really?
WEAVER: I don't know.
DAVIS: So the freighter then went on out to Wonder and Fairview?
WEAVER: Well, yeah, Petersons at Salt Wells was a stop, then Brock up on the hill, that's Sand Springs. They went over the hill there down to Frenchies'. That was a stop. He had to haul water in there from the Lucky Boy Springs, you know for traders.
DAVIS: They started out in Hazen, right? They picked up freight . . .
WEAVER: No, they picked it up here in Fallon where one of the oil companies has a loading dock there yet. That train came in from Hazen to Fallon, I don't know, that was operating when we came in on that line.
DAVIS: You said you worked for Likes at one time?
WEAVER: George Likes.
DAVIS: When did you leave the ranch and start working town or…
WEAVER: Well, I left the ranch in February the ninth, 1916. That was the day of the big snow, ten inches of snow here in the valley.
DAVIS: What time of the year?
WEAVER: All over the valley, it was December and January. I left the ninth of February. I went to Westwood.
DAVIS: California?
WEAVER: Yeah, up over the hill, a lumber camp, worked there in the Pullens stickers, if you know what that is. All the lumber up there is cribbed, you know. There's AD for air dried and KD for kiln dried. All lumber is cured, especially that fir, it's wet, it'll sink. Lots of fir logs will sink, you know. In those days, bull pine, sugar pine they call it.
DAVIS: How long did you work up there?
WEAVER: Thirteen months.
DAVIS: And then you came back to Fallon?
WEAVER: Came back to Fallon and then I went to work for Dick Bass on the Bailey Ranch. I think Stella's still living, isn't she?
DAVIS: I think so.
WEAVER: She's about my age. The old Bailey Ranch, I worked out there for Dick. I… I think it was April.
DAVIS: What did you do for Dick?
WEAVER: Farmhand. I raised beets, I cultivated beets over here what's now the Cock N'Bull. They had the back of that place, I cultivated beets over there and I went back there, you know, to take care of them, keep the weeds down. I worked there until that winter. Then I went into the service.
DAVIS: Went into the Army?
WEAVER: Yeah.
DAVIS: Where did you serve?
WEAVER: I served on the coast, I was in Fort Leavenworth awhile, a bunch of us in there, we went to Camp Dix.
DAVIS: Is that in California?
WEAVER: No, Camp Dix is in New Jersey. Then we went across from there. We went across the pond there about September.
DAVIS: What was happening over there? What were your adventures over there? What happened to you overseas?
WEAVER: Well, just like everybody else when you're in the service, you know, and I don't even know where some of the towns were.
DAVIS: Was-it England or France or…
WEAVER: France. Saint Lazarre. There's where we lit. We got off there.
DAVIS: How long were you over there?
WEAVER: I was over there in September until May--next spring, next May. I never was under gunfire. I was close enough in Commercy. I could hear the guns, you know.
DAVIS: Which part of the service were you in?
WEAVER: The Signal Corps.
DAVIS: Oh, the Signal Corps!
WEAVER: The Signal Corps, yeah. They attached the Signal Corps to any division. I was attached to the twenty-eighth.
DAVIS: Then you came back to Fallon?
WEAVER: Come back the twenty-fifth of May, 1919.
DAVIS: That was after the Armistice?
WEAVER: Yeah, oh, yeah, I remember it was November the eleventh, 1918. Yeah, and we came back. Are we on there the… Are we on that?
DAVIS: Yeah.
WEAVER: Well, I’d better not tell it, then.
DAVIS: (Laughs)
WEAVER: Why not tell it?
DAVIS: Why not?
WEAVER: Well, the twenty-fifth of May we came back, I did, rather, and they had that May the thirtieth parade, you know that was . . .
DAVIS: Armistice Day, right?
WEAVER: Well, we had a skeleton platoon. It was pleasant that day, and Larry Crehore commanded it, he was the Captain, I think. Well, we paraded north, I know where we started, up Maine Street and there were more in the parade than there were spectators, you know. (laughing) They petered out, they quit, the war was over. Just like this now, six months and . . . people forget quickly. And, yeah, that's the last time I ever put on my uniform. (laughing) Never put it on since.
DAVIS: So then you went to work somewhere?
WEAVER: Well, let's see, in July, my brother-in-law had the mail route from Frenchies' to Camp Bruner, old Phonolite line, the stage line…
DAVIS: Camp Bruner, where was that?
WEAVER: Old Phonolite.
WEAVER: Phonolite. It was a stock proposition. It was from a Kansas City promoter puttin' that in there. Well, Fermin Bruner was named after old Bill Bruner. Fermin was an Ascagorta. He's about ninety, he's still living. I carried that mail from Frenchies' to old Camp Bruner. I think it's ten to twelve miles from what is now Camel Creek Ranch up over the hill. They packed water in there--they went across the valley. There's a spring over there and Bucky O'Neill owned that place and they had a lot of pipeline. They dug it by pick and shovel. That water was gravity. They run it across that valley, I don't know, ten, twelve, maybe fifteen miles, and run it over there to that mill. Then they had the mill, of course, yeah, that was Bucky O'Neil's place.
DAVIS: Now what kind of a mill was this, a mining mill?
WEAVER: Yeah, ore, gold or silver, it never produced anything. It was just a stock proposition. Well I carried mail to there, they had a few men working there all right and I had a chance in July, then George Likes, I don't know how it come, but I went in to see about work and he had three or four girls in there. Lots of heavy parcel post comin' through those days.
DAVIS: That was at the post office?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, the old Williams Ranch, you know, the old Williams store on the corner there? Well, we had to drag the mail up and he had some girls in there, you know, they're not very good and had to drag it over a big scale about as big as this up into the back of the room, and some of them not very anxious to work. I went in, so on the fifteenth day of October, 1919, I worked for George out of the post office department. Well, George, he got eighteen hundred dollars a year then, the postmaster did. He give me a five-dollar bill out of his pocket that night, and the sixteenth I went on the payroll, October, 1919, for thirty-five cents an hour I think it was. And you done ten hours work, you got paid for eight. (laughing) A.S. Burrelson was the postmaster general. He was a tight one if there ever was. He was the tightest of all tight, tight men. They wanted you to work long hard hours and small pay. But that's the way they operated. Well, I worked there for a long time. I guess I worked there until 1943.
DAVIS: That's a long time. What kind of work did you do there, little bit of everything?
WEAVER: I started out parcel post and in about, I guess, a year I went into the money ordering department. Grace Latta quit in about a year. And she married Walter McCall and quit. They had nobody in mind, so I got the assistant postmaster's job about 1922 and I had that work. . .
DAVIS: What was the post office like then? How was it different then?
WEAVER: Well, it had no carriers, had boxes. of course, and regular mail service.
DAVIS: Everybody came to the post office for their mail?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, no carriers until 1928. That was in what now is the, I think, the Elks' building.
DAVIS: Yeah, the old post office was in the Elks' building.
WEAVER: Yeah, that was built for the post office. Tip Depp built that and the basement work was all done by Al Marker. He was a blacksmith.
DAVIS: Depp, you say, is that the name that Depp Road was named for?
WEAVER: Yeah, Tip Depp. Ellen, his wife, she was a widow, of course, she was a Ferguson and that was Dean Ferguson.
DAVIS: And they lived down in this area?
WEAVER: They lived right down there by that canal.
DAVIS: To the south here?
WEAVER: Yeah, right there, that road doesn't go down by Inmans there, it stops. You have to go around, go over there, come down over that canal bridge and back. I don't know if it's over there yet, I doubt it.
DAVIS: I don't know either.
WEAVER: Yeah, Depp, that was Tip Depp's place. The lake come way up into that country there.
DAVIS: The lake did, you said the lake did?
WEAVER: Yeah, the lake. Geese by the thousands and thousands-snow geese.
DAVIS: When did they start mail deliveries and where did they deliver mail to first?
WEAVER: Well, they had a rural route in those days.
DAVIS: Was that daily?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah. When Charlie Wainscott was driving, he used to change horses, one horse. He'd stop at Brandt's place, change everyday. If he wasn't too far behind, he'd tie up his horse and go over there about a quarter of a mile, some sloughs, and kill a couple of ducks, come back. (laughing)
DAVIS: He carried his mail then in a pouch on the horse?
WEAVER: No, buggy. They had buggies. Well, I don't know what happened, I know after awhile Pat McDonald carried two horses and a buggy. Pat carried it for a long time. That was before I left home when I was a kid, before I was sixteen. I forgot where I left the story
DAVIS: We were- [tape cuts]
WEAVER: Well, I worked there until April 1943.
DAVIS: Can we back up just a little bit because somewhere in through that time you got married?
WEAVER: I got married the last of July 1920.
DAVIS: How did you meet your wife?
WEAVER: Her name was Oma.
DAVIS: How did you meet your wife?
WEAVER: Well, Oma Lattin came in, she was taking care of her mother and sister. Her old man had left, and she was hashing there, waitress.
DAVIS: Which business was this?
WEAVER: Restaurant, right across the street from the mission. You don't remember that?
DAVIS: No.
WEAVER: Well, I met her there, Oma Lattin and Mae Schindler. Remember the Schindlers?
DAVIS: Yeah, I know the name.
WEAVER: Schindler Ranch out there. Well, they asked me about it, yeah I went on a date. That was in the fall of… must have been 1919. It was in that old Williams building.
DAVIS: Where was this restaurant? I'm not sure where it was. Where would that be, on Maine Street now?
WEAVER: Oh, it's on Maine Street about where the jewelry shop is now, along in there someplace and the Mission was on the other side of the street. The Mission operated for years and years there.
DAVIS: And that was a restaurant?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah.
DAVIS: Then you soon got married after the first date?
WEAVER: No, I guess we got married the next summer, July.
DAVIS: Where did you set up your home?
WEAVER: Oh, up on the hill. [in Fallon] There's a lady had two or three of those little houses there. About as big as this kitchen.
DAVIS: About twenty by twenty, or fifteen by fifteen?
WEAVER: Had a stove there, four lids on it, I remember that, and a privy, no water up there in those days.
DAVIS: Outdoor privy?
WEAVER: Yeah, yeah. There were no city sewers then. I remember when they put that in.
DAVIS: About when did they put sewage in and water in, do you remember?
WEAVER: No, I remember when they built the first concrete slab through Maine Street.
DAVIS: Oh, when was that?
WEAVER: Well, you know, they used to drive cattle up Maine Street. I seen them bring cattle in from the south to the north on Maine Street, then turn west on Williams, right out west of the stockyards.
DAVIS: The auction yard out there.
WEAVER: They call it Auction Road now. I don't who had that. Ed Cornell had that yard, didn't he?
DAVIS: That sounds familiar.
WEAVER: I think he had it. Yeah, they drove cattle. I know the first pipes they put in were wood wrapped with wire.
DAVIS: That must have been about six, eight inches around?
WEAVER: Yeah, in diameter.
DAVIS: Wooden pipes with wire wrapped around them?
WEAVER: Wrapped in wire, maybe some tar, I don't remember… I remember when they built the first concrete slab down through Maine Street.
DAVIS: No mud holes after that?
WEAVER: No, it just had a strip down through the middle. The sides hadn't been filled in yet. Chuckholes--those big freighters'd tip way over, well, they had big wheels, likely to tip. They pulled about a pound to the horse- er, a ton to the horse!
DAVIS: You don't remember when the water came in?
WEAVER: I don't.
DAVIS: Then the sewage came after that?
WEAVER: They had no sewage. They had a sewage when I was married.
DAVIS: But not in your end of town?
WEAVER: Well, they had it there on Douglas Street. I guess I bought a house in there on Douglas Street, maybe the next year. That house is still there. Well, the sewage in those days, you know, had to go through the yard. They had a standpipe and they capped on it, you know, they didn't need that, but they thought they did. When they went into the sewage line they had a one lined pit. There was a few of them, and everyone of them plugged up, had to be changed. They had that where my youngest brother lived. I think maybe it was twenty years ago. They all ended that way into the sewage.
DAVIS: Now when did they build the building we called the old post office at the Elks' Club now. When did they build it? It was quite some time ago…
WEAVER: Well, it was built in the 1920s, cause the post office was in the Williams' building and we went up there.
DAVIS: Now, the Williams building was where?
WEAVER: On Williams Avenue and Maine, right on that corner.
DAVIS: Isn't that where Clod Hopper Morton had a store there?
WEAVER: Yeah, Clod Hopper Morton had a store in there.
DAVIS: Then it moved from there down to the old post office, and then when did they build the next post office?
WEAVER: The brick?
DAVIS: Yeah.
WEAVER: We moved in there in… 1930. The supervising architect, James Whitmore, was in 1929. Maybe it was 1929 we moved in there. It's on the corner, it's on the southwest corner.
DAVIS: Right across the street from Tony Caselton's place?
WEAVER: Yeah, Caselton's, right straight south of the current post office.
WEAVER: I don't remember when it was built.
WEAVER: I remember. I remember the guy that built it.
DAVIS: What position did you have at that time?
WEAVER: I was the assistant.
DAVIS: Assistant postmaster.
WEAVER: Under Likes, Jim Johnson, and Lem Allen.
DAVIS: Likes was first?
WEAVER: And before him, I think, was a guy named Johnson. think Al Johnson had that.
DAVIS: Al Johnson?
WEAVER: Jim Johnson's brother.
DAVIS: It was Al Johnson, then Likes, and then Jim Johnson and then Allen?
WEAVER: And Lem. But now, let see, Jim Johnson, and I don't know who was postmaster before Al was. I think maybe Callie Ferguson was the postmaster once, I wouldn't say for sure. That first post office they had was out in St. Clair, Lem Allen's granddad. That was St. Clair, to my knowledge, was the first one.
DAVIS: That was way back in the what, 1900?
WEAVER: Probably.
DAVIS: Something like that.
WEAVER: There was a lot going on, a little bit of history there, before I got there. I lived out here. I didn't know, I got some facts from George Likes [who] told me about the history of Fallon more than anybody. George came out here from Ioway.
DAVIS: He ended up with a fuel and hardware…
WEAVER: No, that was his brother. You see, George W. Likes, George Washington Likes, that was his name, and C. B. Likes, his brother, was a wood and coal man. His name was Columbus Bolivar. Christopher Columbus and that Bolivia.
DAVIS: Bolivar.
WEAVER: Bolivar. (laughing) Like my cousin, you know, his
name is Pershing and he had two brothers older, one was Grant and one was Lee. That was Grant Lee and Pershing Lee, he was named after Blackjack. I saw old Blackjack.
DAVIS: Now, Blackjack, who are you referring to?
WEAVER: Pershing, General Pershing.
DAVIS: From World War I.
WEAVER: He was from the Presidio.
DAVIS: Okay when did you… You had Bob's Market at one time, didn't you?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, I built that. Well, I bought a place out east of town during the Depression and eighteen hundred dollars, a good house, and I mean a good one. It wasn't modernized but the building was good. It may be there yet, I don't know. I wanted to sell that, I think I can make some money, so I'll advertise it for six and whoever buys this is going to jew me down and I'll come down to five. I advertised it for six and a fella come here in from Tonopah, a fella named Crook, no relation to this Crook, and he looked it all over and wanted to buy and he was going to leave. Well, I said, maybe we can shave it a little bit, try a thousand. Well that's what I was waiting for. By god, he gave me a thousand dollars down right there. Well, he paid for it and we moved in town. I was living out there when a boy in the Navy was killed. Yeah, I was living there when those two boys was killed. That was after 1941. I know I took that money and went in town and bought that lot there.
DAVIS: Across from the swimming pool?
WEAVER: Yeah, bought that from old man Buerer for six hundred dollars. Hugh Wilson's wife was a Buerer. I bought that and built that out of those blocks that Ed Frazzini sold and I put a stud in there about ever two or three feet, a steel a rod, and some concrete. I'd lay one this way. Well, they stood up during the quake, anyhow. Some of those things up town shook down. They junked that thing three or four years ago, tore it down. It's still vacant there. Yeah, I run that for, I don't know, I know I run it until that school, Oats Park, and then they put in free lunches, you know. Well, that wrecked my business, so I took the fountain out. I had a goddam big business, believe me. In the old days, you know the stores used to close on Saturday night and holidays. I had a after five o'clock trade, I had holidays, I was right there close to the Methodist Church, Catholic Church, I had a perfect location. Long hard hours.
DAVIS: The family helped you run it?
WEAVER: Well, no, before it was closed we had three girls working there at noon. Oh, we had a big business with lots of help. Only forty-five minutes or so, but they crowded in there. Yeah, we had a good business, a little grocery store. Then I built that apartment on the other side. We operated that.
DAVIS: Your wife was real active with the VFW, wasn't she, Auxiliary?
WEAVER: Yeah, she was president of that.
DAVIS: And she was with a number of organizations?
WEAVER: VFW, past president of that, and the Pythian Sisters then later, active in the Eastern Star. I think she was a star point in it, yeah. [End of tape 1]
[The following listed in transcript, but cut out of recording:
DAVIS: My name is Bill Davis. I'm back talking with Ray Weaver at his home on Harrigan Road. Today is May 7, 1991 and we're going to continue our interview today. Ray; I wanted to ask you] where the place was that you sold to buy the Bob's Market. You said it was county property?
WEAVER: It was a place built by Magnus Carlson on Stark Lane. It's that turn there by Royal Crook's place. I would say there was about three-quarters of a mile east, halfway between that corner and Baumanns. [There were] lots of delinquent taxes in those days and [I] bought that.
DAVIS: Looking through my notes, I wanted to ask you what you remember about Pete Cushman's parents. They were old-timers here.
WEAVER: Well, I knew all the boys. I met Joe and his wife. The first time I met the Cushmans was when we were surveying that Fallon Electric Railway out to the Salt Flats.
DAVIS: And how old were you about then?
WEAVER: Well, maybe sixteen. I imagine about that. I was whacking stakes. Now the engineer was Herb Lattin and Jess Taylor. They lived out east of town. Then the rod man, a fella named Cassidore Gibson. I was a stake whacker. (laughing) Driving the stakes. We stayed there Christmas, I think, I remember that now. We ate breakfast there. I think we were there for some stock, I don't know for sure whether any stock changed hands or not, but they granted a piece of land--we were on their property. We put a man on their property on the south side way back in there.
DAVIS: They were running a ranch?
WEAVER: Yeah, the Cushmans were real old-timers. I think Bert was the oldest [Louis was the oldest, Bert was second], there was two girls [three girls: Madge, Gertie, and Irma], [and] Frank and Pete. One of the girls [Irma] married [first] Austin Bussard [Harry Bussert]. I think he was a butcher. And one of them [Irma] married [second] Earl Allen.
DAVIS: What was the ranch and ranch house like down there?
WEAVER: Well, I don't remember much about the ranch. And the old two-story house, we ate there, I think breakfast and went on from there into Beach country.
DAVIS: What kind of a crew ate there in the mornings?
WEAVER: Just the four of us. I mentioned those names, you know. Well, I had two horses and a spring wagon. I carried the machinery, the engineers, Herb and Jess, and the rod man and the stake whacker. I can't remember much about the ranch, I wasn't very old in those days, and I wasn't much interested in anything. Like everybody else, they don't know what they're going to do and nobody else knows.
DAVIS: Now we could jump ahead a lot of years. When did they name Weaver Road up here? Do you remember that?
WEAVER: Well, Weaver Lane up here, yeah, up north, well that doesn't go straight through, you know. That cuts off way back up in there. That went north and on the first ranch on the left side was the Hardy Ranch--old man, you know, and Charlie and Soss, Nate wasn't home then. Then there was a girl older than me named Alice and the youngest of the family was Nellie. After War I, Charlie left here, I don't know where he went.
DAVIS: That was Charlie Hardy, right?
WEAVER: Yeah, I don't think he ever came back.
DAVIS: If you turn off on Corkill Lane and head north, was that Hardy Place, the first one on the left?
WEAVER: No, the Hardy Place was right straight up this road right here, right here on the ranch, the old home ranch, right straight north. The first house on the right was a Puritan, he had a little place there.
DAVIS: What was the name?
WEAVER: Puritan. He married Mrs. Page. There was a boy, Lester Page--we called him Boots--and there's Emma and Homer, then the half brother was Wilbur, but his name was Puritan, he was a half brother.
DAVIS: They were ranchers?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, but I don't think they produced anything. I don't know what he done for a living. Then that thing went on up the Smart Road. I don't think it went any further than the south side of the Smart Ranch, that I can remember. Then they dropped that and go on up the road there a mile or two and then come back this way, you know, up there by the old Spoon Ranch.
DAVIS: Isn't that what is known as Drumm Lane now? I mean, it comes off of Drumm lane?
WEAVER: I would say, south, it comes back south on Drumm Lane.
DAVIS: Yeah, but there's a gap in there.
WEAVER: McCart in there, yeah, the gap is closed.
DAVIS: I've heard some tales, or some of your story about being shanghaied. Can you give us a brief overview of that?
WEAVER: (laughing) That's fictional. I just wrote that down, nothing else to do.
DAVIS: Oh, I see.
WEAVER: I still have a copy of that. No, most people believe that.
DAVIS: My knowledge was that it had actually happened.
WEAVER: That's what most people thought.
DAVIS: Oh, I see.
WEAVER: Oh, yeah. Oh, sure they did. (laughing)
DAVIS: Have you written quite a little bit?
WEAVER: No, I just wrote two articles in my life. They were very short, both untrue, fiction.
DAVIS: (laughing) What was the other one about?
WEAVER: About the time Inman and I went duck hunting down here, that Beach country, down at Grimes' Slough. That was in Grimes' Slough, Lem Allen's granddad had a ferry there one time across the slough. Well, as we went down duck hunting there and there was an old lame horse there with a big ankle caused by the strike of a rattlesnake, they claimed. Well, that old horse was there and we shot some ducks down on the slough and we came back home and the next day that little horse followed the buggy, I guess, he was standing out there, so, as the story goes . . .
DAVIS: Now, is this true? (laughing)
WEAVER: (laughing)
DAVIS: None of it's true?
WEAVER: No. (laughing)
DAVIS: Okay.
WEAVER: You went for that?
DAVIS: Well, yeah, briefly. (laughing)
WEAVER: Well, we made an old shay, you know, on the side of Sand Mountain, on the north end of Sand Mountain where that spring is and camped there. We had had heard there were some clams down in that spring water, big clams, edible clams, so we went out there, hitched that old horse up and made a shay out of some old wheels and went out there and camped overnight. Allen Inman and I went out. We were gettin' supper, I made Dutch oven biscuits, I still had that old Dutch oven in that house, and I suggested to Allen to dig some clams for supper, about six or seven inches across. So he dug clams and we got the water all hot and soused those in there, about seven or eight and we had clams and biscuit bread that night. Well, in the night, we slept good, of course, and in the night we heard a disturbance. I remember that, and I woke up and I couldn't imagine what it was. So whatever it was, left, so the next morning we had our breakfast again, and there I found out the traces on the harness, some coyote had chewed all the leather off of the harness. They'll do that too. He chewed that. Well, we had our breakfast, we packed up and decided to come back to Fallon. We found the spring all right and, by god, the old outfit broke down right on the east side of a sand dune. Well, we had to go on into Salt Wells and get some wire to patch everything up. So we tied the old horse, gave him lots of room and tied him to the wheel of the buggy. Yeah, we went into Salt Wells, it must have been six or eight miles--that was no distance in those days for anybody who traveled, that was common. Common even to walk from here into town and back. Nothing unusual. Well, we got our wire and when we got there, why, come a mighty big sandstorm. Well, when we got back all we could see was the hinges of the harness stickin' up out of that cart we made. The horse was still on top so we cut him loose and he headed back for the water, Sand Spring. Well, on the hinges of those harness, they were long, and they had big bells in those days, the long line skinners, well on those hangs, they put some wire that we got there at Salt Wells and the wind was blowin' to make it chime.
WEAVER: That's a story written by young Chester from Stillwater, he saw that. He heard that noise, but then he thought it was different, like a harp to him. Well, we cut the horse loose and the wagon and everything was completely covered up, well he galloped back into Salt Wells and we were laying in there resting. Well, I'll tell ya', when we got in there we were thirsty, and the stage had arrived. Four horses come in there from, I don't know, Fairview or Wonder, I don't know which and, the story goes, Tedford owned that outfit and that team was driven by . . . who was that, Steve Davis? No, I don't remember what the skinner's name was but they had passengers and we were just young kids and one of the girls decided to stay there. That was the first time either one of us had ever seen a girl, a woman, drink a small bottle of beer in one gulp so as we said, that girl had marketable merchandise [laughter] on her person, so she decided to stay there. And we came on in and as a fella was getting on the wagon he slipped and he fell, stumbled around. He cussed a little bit and got on top. He got those horses straightened out and he threw the silk at those horses and we were off headed for Fallon. Well, about a half a mile out somebody looked back and there was a fella running towards us, had his hat in his hand and his coat over his arm. Well, he just swung the horses around, there was no grades in those days, put in there and stopped. Well, he climbed aboard, of course, a puffin' and a huffin' and puffin' he was cussin’ and he had a whiskey tenor voice (laughing). He was sure put out. Well, we got him aboard and we headed on into Fallon and down here, what is now Berney's Road where it heads north into Fallon, right down there, and we decided to roll out there and go back up to the place. Well I rolled out on the right, the horses were still on the run. We had to get off, it's nothin', no hard rock but sand. I rolled off and I spooked the off-wheeler and away they took off again and Allen left on the left side. He rolled over three or four times in the sand and had a mouth and fistful of sand. When we got up and got 'back to that road, Berney Lane, I think it is now, it didn't have any name in those days. Well we gotten up there and he lived south by the old flour mill. I lived north. We went down there and Mrs. Inman took one look at us. "By golly!" she says, "what happened, what happened to you kids? Are you hungry?" Well, you know, a kid that age is always hungry, so she put a stick of wood on the fire, dove into the kitchen, come out with a big side of bacon. That's all you had in those days, a side of bacon, and she cut off a couple of slices of that--big slices, put 'em in the pan, come out with the biscuits. She got some flour to make biscuits, got those all goin,' cookin' that bacon on top and she made up some biscuits and got those in the stove and, I don't remember, there were fifteen or eighteen biscuits and she come out there with that bacon, cooked bacon and cooked bacon and she made a pan of gravy, you know. You stir in the flour and brown that, regular old country gravy and oh, about a half an hour she had our lunch, brunch, supper, I don't what you call it. But I remember we ate bacon, biscuits and gravy. Well, I remember there was fifteen biscuits in that pan and we ate fourteen of them. That's about all there was to that, so I galloped up home and I guess Allen's still there. (laughing) That's about enough of that.
DAVIS: Now, you kinda put it together out of what you knew about the country, right?
WEAVER: Well, there's more to it, you know, goin' out cookin' rabbit out there. But, that's just a little bit of it.
DAVIS: Sure. But, even though it isn't true, it could be true.
WEAVER: It's possible.
DAVIS: It was all feasible.
WEAVER: Many people believe that.
DAVIS: Now, the big clams weren't really true?
WEAVER: No.
DAVIS: No, okay, but it sounded logical. (laughing) What kind of changes have you seen here and what do you think about the changes that taken place in the valley?
WEAVER: Well, the changes have been vast, Bill, and… I don't know, in the last twenty years I think there's been more progress apparent to me than it was fifty years prior that. Date.
DAVIS: What was your awareness of the base building up and then being dismantled and so forth?
WEAVER: Yeah, it was built up. Then that was all over. I think they gave away most of that base, I think the Indians have a lot of it. It was completely abandoned.
DAVIS: That was after second world war?
WEAVER: Right. They got it all cleaned up then somebody started it again and they rebuilt it. It's big now. It was a auxiliary station first, then it augmented--NAA, the auxiliary part of it. Naval Air Station now.
DAVIS: Were you ever involved with any of the political activities?
WEAVER: Well, I was civil service and I paid very little attention to any politics. After I left the store and built the market down there by the swimming pool I went in there a few months and they said there'd be a city election. That was ward three, that was the biggest ward then by far. It was as big as both one and two. Yeah, I was on the council there. I split two good men and I got in there between 'em. (laughing)
DAVIS: Who were they?
WEAVER: Bob Ogden and Bill Foster. They lived in that ward. So I was in there four years. I didn't run the second time.
DAVIS: What were the main things that happened during those four years?
WEAVER: Well, it was right after the war, and I know we got out of the city of Fallon, I think it was down to about two bits on a unit and I don't know what a unit was, whatever they called it, it was down to nominal. We had about eleven or twelve thousand dollars in the treasury. Ernie Hursh was mayor, Roy Stewart was councilman on Ward One and Ward Two was Walter Richards and we had no money. Well, of course, nobody had money then. Well they hardly have any now, either, far as that goes. (laughing) Never did have and never will have. I was there four years and I don't know what happened. You just have to run that business, the happened. You just have to run that busiriess, the city, just like you would your own business is all I can see about it. What's good for the community is good for you. (laughing) I'm not much of a politician, never was, I don't care much for that.
DAVIS: We've been talking about fishing and you were beginning to tell me about the dry, dry year of, what was it, in 1932?
WEAVER: 1932.
DAVIS: Fishing at Lahontan. So, what do you remember about Lahontan and low water up there? What was it like?
WEAVER: Well, it was low, it was just a little stream of water comin' in.
DAVIS: Above the dam?
WEAVER: Comin' down through the dam. That was back seepage comin' through. That couldn't be nothin' else. Well there was hundreds of people out there catchin' those fish before it got too low, of course. Well, it was dry and down the river, on both banks, down to the picnic grounds we used to call it, there was millions and millions of little--I guess shiners, minnows, you know they don't get large. Just young fish. I remember they got pretty rank so they put lime on those.
DAVIS: They were that thick?
WEAVER: Oh, yeah, dead, of course. The water receded, they done died. That was really the dry year, far drier than any they've mentioned since. I've seen the trees up there, low enough to see those trees. Did you ever see those?
DAVIS: Yeah, I went up this year and we could see the top half of them way up the Narrows.
WEAVER: Yeah, the Narrows. They've been submerged there since I guess before 1915 and they're still erect.
DAVIS: What was the main fish up there in those days in the dam?
WEAVER: Well, they had a silver trout planted up in there. And that Sacramento crappie, they call it. They have a name for that now: perch. It's a perch that's been named since. That crappie and silver trout. They lived pretty good. The biggest one I heard of was nine pounds. They had a red flesh like a salmon. They are related. Al Powell told me that they really are a close relative to the sockeye, I think, pink flesh, pink meat.
DAVIS: Is that what they call a silverside?
WEAVER: No. I think is was silver trout. That's as I remember, yeah. And that crappie and bass, you know, they've been put in just the last few years. Maybe twenty-five or thirty, they're new, and the wall-eyes since that time. I was up there when they caught a bunch of those white crappies and took 'em over and put 'em in Rye Patch.
DAVIS: Now, when was that?
WEAVER: It must have been before 1950.
DAVIS: They seined them out of there?
WEAVER: No, they caught 'em with hooks.
DAVIS: Oh, and transported them over there?
WEAVER: Took 'em over to Lovelock. I was absent from the post office from 1943 to 1951 and I went back and worked five years and I had a ventral hernia, you know. I had two operations. My duties up there, about every ten days was picking up that silver that come into the bank, coins you know, twelve, fifteen sacks of that, probably thirty to forty pounds to a sack, you know. They had to come under a lock to go into a vault and they put that in the pouch and had to have them twice. I quit rather than to go back, you know, what I figured might break me open again. I had all that I wanted. About all I could take. But I guess I'm okay. Gettin' along all right anyhow. Well they're talkin' about a dry year this year but I doubt if they'll open the gates and drain that lake like they did before. You know, open that gate and there's a lot of back seepage in there, but nothin' like a runoff. You know it goes back into that back, it'll come out. It's too bad. That water in 1932, there was no third crop, no water for the third crop. Now this year, I don't know whether they're gonna get a second crop or not. They don't know yet.
DAVIS: They might.
WEAVER: I'll tell you what I think, Bill. All this new method of laser-leveling land, I think the production today is twice of what it was in 1932.
DAVIS: Could be. Okay, this pretty well finishes our interview, Ray, and I want to thank you for sharing all of this with the Museum and this will be the end of the Ray Weaver interview.
WEAVER: Well, I'm glad I could be of some assistance to you, Bill. I hope they find that some of it interesting at least.
DAVIS: Well, I'm sure we will. (laughing) Thank you again.
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