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Robert Davis Recording 2 of 3
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RUSS: Now, Bob, where the tape ended, you were telling about Colonel Dewey going to Silver City from Virginia City, Nevada. Could you start over again there so we can pick that up?
ROBERT: When he made it to San Francisco, I understand it, in Virginia City, so when the strikes in Nevada had just been made, so he moved to, or came into Silver City, or into the area. And Ruby City was the town then, [00:00:30] but he helped lay out the new town site of Silver City, which was the county seat of Owyhee County in '66 or '67. He continued to live there until the late 90s and was a promoter of several mines.
RUSS: There's mines up there called the Dewey Mines?
ROBERT: No, there's Trade Dollar.
RUSS: Trade Dollar, okay.
ROBERT: And the Blackjack, and they called it the Trade Dollar Consolidated. One of them was on the Silver City side, [00:01:00] and the other was on the other side, I guess it's Blue Gulch, I think. What was later the town of Dewey, and one of the tunnels went through the mountain. I heard my cousin Jim Daly talk about delivering the mail in winter weather while he'd go in on the Silver City side and come out on the west side of Florida.
RUSS: Jim Daly is D-A-L-Y, and is [00:01:30] he still alive?
ROBERT: No.
RUSS: He was a Boise person, as I remember, wasn't he?
ROBERT: No, he lived up in Owyhee County until about the end of the Second World War, and then he went to Nampa.
RUSS: Just curious as to whether any of his records would be available.
ROBERT: Well, they talked about getting the tapes, but they never got around to it.
RUSS: Okay, so then, now, [00:02:00] in the mining period that he was up there, he was, this was when silver, the mining of silver was an important thing, wasn't it?
ROBERT: Well, silver and gold.
RUSS: Silver and gold both.
ROBERT: I think more of the gold in those days than silver.
RUSS: Do you have much recollection, Bob, of the construction of the railroad that now stops or stopped just past Guffey Bridge?
ROBERT: It went [00:02:30] to Murphy.
RUSS: It went to Murphy, that's right. Do you have much knowledge of that?
ROBERT: No, none at all.
RUSS: It's my understanding that he was one of the promoters of that.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: That's right, that he was, and that was, we refer to it as the Murphy branch, don't we?
ROBERT: Yeah, well, he also went to Emmett, and in 1912, after it had been sold to Union Pacific, they carried it on to McCall.
RUSS: [00:03:00] So then, now, you say Ed?
ROBERT: Ed was more or less...
RUSS: Ed carried it on after, obviously.
ROBERT: By that time, I think the interest had been sold to Union Pacific, and he just did the work. I don't know enough about it.
RUSS: It would be interesting to pursue, but that was Ed rather than William Henry, Colonel Dewey.
ROBERT: Yeah,, because that was until 1911 or '12.
RUSS: Okay, so then he, you mentioned, [00:03:30] and we talked about genealogy just a little bit, he was married twice, then came to Silver, and married Mrs., no, married...
ROBERT: He married, I don't know, Ed's mother's name.
RUSS: Yes, okay. And from that union, then, that he was Ed's father. Yes, okay. All right. [00:04:00] Now, anything else, Bob, that you can think of? Any early impressions of Nampa, that you were in and out of Nampa as a youngster? Any early impressions that you might want to talk about?
ROBERT: Really not. I lived in Portland during the '20s, mostly, and came up to McCall almost every year in and through Nampa, but didn't spend much time here until '29, I guess [00:04:30] it was.
RUSS: Okay, and then in '29 and the early '30s, you were at the College of Idaho briefly, and then what?
ROBERT: Well I finished high school in California in '31 and came to college, '31 to '34.
RUSS: Okay, I'm going to stop this for a minute, and then the next thing that we want to talk about is the thing that you know more about than most people in Nampa, and that is [00:05:00] something of the history of the Dewey Palace Hotel. So I'll stop this now. Now, Bob, I want to change the subject a little bit, and later on, if you think of anything concerning your genealogy that you think ought to be added, we can do it. I would like to have you talk now a little bit about your recollections of the Dewey Palace Hotel. What was your first recollection of that building?
ROBERT: I haven't any because I [00:05:30] was always there.
RUSS: So your first then was that it was a going concern. When you were a youngster, can you remember some of the people that lived there? That were permanent rooms of people who stayed there and ate in the dining room, apartments and so on. Can you remember any of those people?
ROBERT: Well, just Mrs. Kurtz. I know the Hammackers stayed there when they came to Nampa, [00:06:00] but whether they were still living there when I can remember or not, I don't know.
RUSS: Now, let the record show that Mrs. Kurtz was Bell B. Kurtz, and that her husband was an early real estate man who gave land to the city for what was Kurtz Park. Kurtz Edition. And Kurtz Park was one of his gifts in connection with that. Kurtz Park is now the site of [00:06:30] Northwest Nazarene College. And Mrs. Hammacker, who you and I both knew, her husband, Ed Hammacker, was a grocery department in the Nampa D in the early days under B. L. Johnson, and the store was owned by the Leo J. Falk family. [00:07:00] So those two lived there. Can you remember anything, hearing about where Colonel Dewey lived?
ROBERT: Well, over on 12th Avenue, there was a sign, there was an entrance to the apartment for the owners of the hotel, and that's where the colonel and his wife lived.
RUSS: And that was on the main floor, on the street floor?
ROBERT: On the street floor. [00:07:30] And later on, Dr. Kellogg had his offices there and Jack Garrity.
RUSS: And then, am I right, that the Knockleby ice cream parlor was on the corner, wasn't it? With an entrance, as I recall, on the corner.
ROBERT: Well, the porch at that time was around. Later on, when the first floor was extended to the street at that time, the porch curved around to 12th Avenue.
RUSS: [00:08:00] Okay. Now, can you remember, could you get upstairs from 12th Avenue? Can you remember going up to any apartments up there?
ROBERT: Well, no. That went up to the ballroom. Well, at the beginning, the stairway to the ballroom went up in the L of the hotel.
RUSS: On the inside L, off of Main Street?
ROBERT: Off the porch.
RUSS: Yes, okay.
ROBERT: And that had been closed when I can remember, and the ballroom [00:08:30] had been changed to offices, and the entrance was from 12th Avenue. And later on, that was the Elks Club for a good many years.
RUSS: I can remember the Elks Club, and the entrance to the Elks Club off of 12th Avenue.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: And then, that's right. And then, at a later time, after the telephone company was in there, weren't they?
ROBERT: They used a lot of it, yes.
RUSS: Some of that space.
ROBERT: For equipment, yes.
RUSS: Okay. Now, Bob, what can you [00:09:00] remember about, again, I was going to ask you, can you remember the early maître d there, Jess Ernst?
ROBERT: Jess Ernst was there for a good part of the '30s. I remember him, and later on, of course, he had the Union Hotel at Union, Oregon.
RUSS: Right. And then he was succeeded by Mrs. Webb.
ROBERT: Charlie Brogdon.
RUSS: Charlie Brogdon was the hotel manager.
ROBERT: And Mrs. Webb had the dining room.
RUSS: [00:09:30] Dining room. Okay. Can you remember anything about eating in that dining room?
ROBERT: Oh, yeah, very good. She, Mrs. Webb had a fine dining room.
RUSS: Can you, going back now in time, back to 1909, I had the pleasure of looking at some of your mother's souvenirs. It was a very elaborate cuisine there.
ROBERT: Well, the menu that she had was for [00:10:00] a New Year's Day meal on 1909.
RUSS: 1909. And it was a very impressive menu.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: Bob, can you remember hearing anything about, either from your mother, can you remember hearing about the events when the hotel was opened?
ROBERT: Not too much. I know they had a big celebration, a ball, I suppose it was. I think your grandmother was [00:10:30] there.
RUSS: My grandmother and my mother were there, both. And I suppose my aunt, she would have been a pretty young girl.
ROBERT: My mother would have only been 12.
RUSS: That's right. But my mother would have been five years older. I can remember hearing that women had gowns imported for that. Have you ever heard that?
ROBERT: I didn't hear that.
RUSS: Well, I've heard that story. My mother tells, not whether she did, but tells about people. [00:11:00] I know there were sterling silver souvenir spoons given out as souvenirs.
ROBERT: I didn't remember that, but I knew that they had plates with a perforated border that were china of some kind that was given out as favors to the women. And I believe the future Senator Borough was supposed to be there.
RUSS: Now, in that hotel, and I can't remember this, but it's possible you can, this was a center for traveling people.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: And [00:11:30] I remember they had sales rooms in the basement. Because I can remember my Uncle Bill Johnson, who was married to my Aunt Margaret, was a traveling man, sold Red Wing shoes and L.E. Stickle shoes. And I can remember when he would come, he would have a sales room in the basement.
ROBERT: Well, originally down there, there had been a kind of a skeet alley or like a small bowling alley.
RUSS: Small bowling alley, yes.
ROBERT: And barber shops [00:12:00] and baths and I believe the gambling rooms were there until they closed the, Idaho closed that down.
RUSS: And where was the bar? There was a famous well known. On the west end. On the west end of the main floor.
ROBERT: Later the state liquor store was there.
RUSS: That's right.
ROBERT: And then the Chamber of Commerce.
RUSS: That's right. Now, again, getting back to anybody else that you can remember upstairs, you spoke about Mrs. Kurtz, [00:12:30] Mrs. Hamger, there must have been others.
ROBERT: Later on, I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Duck lived there.
RUSS: Mrs. Duck and they were, he was manager of the PFE. People would come to town and apparently make a home there temporarily until they could get settled. Now, can you recall anything about the hotel in more recent years? It had its own water system, as I remember it.
ROBERT: Yes, that was torn down in oh '30... no '63.
RUSS: [00:13:00] You went at that time, you of course were the, you were the owner, the estate was the owner and you were the manager of the estate. You went on city water at that time.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: And the estate at that time encompassed the entire block? The entire block. It was between 11th and [00:13:30] 12th and 1st and 2nd Main and 2nd Street. That's right, the entire block. And there was a lot of buildings in behind. Did you take those down piecemeal or what?
ROBERT: Well, the hotel and then in the center there was the boiler room and the kitchen which had rooms over it for, well, Ms. Webb lived there and then others held. And that was all torn down [00:14:00] in '63. The only part left is used for the floor coming as a warehouse now, is the old laundry building.
RUSS: And then when was the main structure of the hotel, when was it taken down?
ROBERT: '63.
RUSS: In '63. And that was to make room for the First Security Bank, which is now undergoing addition.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: [00:14:30] You mentioned a photograph of the hotel. Where did you say that was?
ROBERT: In a yesteryear shop. It was just a postcard.
RUSS: Postcard.
ROBERT: It must have been taken in about the time of the opening or that summer because there are no trees evidence at all. It's just grass and the building.
RUSS: Can you remember from hearsay anything about the decorations? I recall, [00:15:00] and we were talking yesterday about the parlor, which was a very beautiful room to the left as you came in. Can you remember anything about that?
ROBERT: Well, just the painted ceiling and cherubs and things of that kind.
RUSS: And an ornate fireplace to my right.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: A very beautiful little fireplace. Were some of those artifacts saved out of there, can you recall?
ROBERT: Well, people who demolished the hotel probably did and sold them, such as the fireplace [00:15:30] and the writing room and things of that kind, bookcases in there.
RUSS: Anything else that you might think of? What are your recollections of Charlie Brogdon? Can you remember, he was one of the early managers, wasn't he?
ROBERT: Well, he was the manager, one that I remember best, from the '20s into the...
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ROBERT: When he made it to San Francisco, I understand it, in Virginia City, so when the strikes in Nevada had just been made, so he moved to, or came into Silver City, or into the area. And Ruby City was the town then, [00:00:30] but he helped lay out the new town site of Silver City, which was the county seat of Owyhee County in '66 or '67. He continued to live there until the late 90s and was a promoter of several mines.
RUSS: There's mines up there called the Dewey Mines?
ROBERT: No, there's Trade Dollar.
RUSS: Trade Dollar, okay.
ROBERT: And the Blackjack, and they called it the Trade Dollar Consolidated. One of them was on the Silver City side, [00:01:00] and the other was on the other side, I guess it's Blue Gulch, I think. What was later the town of Dewey, and one of the tunnels went through the mountain. I heard my cousin Jim Daly talk about delivering the mail in winter weather while he'd go in on the Silver City side and come out on the west side of Florida.
RUSS: Jim Daly is D-A-L-Y, and is [00:01:30] he still alive?
ROBERT: No.
RUSS: He was a Boise person, as I remember, wasn't he?
ROBERT: No, he lived up in Owyhee County until about the end of the Second World War, and then he went to Nampa.
RUSS: Just curious as to whether any of his records would be available.
ROBERT: Well, they talked about getting the tapes, but they never got around to it.
RUSS: Okay, so then, now, [00:02:00] in the mining period that he was up there, he was, this was when silver, the mining of silver was an important thing, wasn't it?
ROBERT: Well, silver and gold.
RUSS: Silver and gold both.
ROBERT: I think more of the gold in those days than silver.
RUSS: Do you have much recollection, Bob, of the construction of the railroad that now stops or stopped just past Guffey Bridge?
ROBERT: It went [00:02:30] to Murphy.
RUSS: It went to Murphy, that's right. Do you have much knowledge of that?
ROBERT: No, none at all.
RUSS: It's my understanding that he was one of the promoters of that.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: That's right, that he was, and that was, we refer to it as the Murphy branch, don't we?
ROBERT: Yeah, well, he also went to Emmett, and in 1912, after it had been sold to Union Pacific, they carried it on to McCall.
RUSS: [00:03:00] So then, now, you say Ed?
ROBERT: Ed was more or less...
RUSS: Ed carried it on after, obviously.
ROBERT: By that time, I think the interest had been sold to Union Pacific, and he just did the work. I don't know enough about it.
RUSS: It would be interesting to pursue, but that was Ed rather than William Henry, Colonel Dewey.
ROBERT: Yeah,, because that was until 1911 or '12.
RUSS: Okay, so then he, you mentioned, [00:03:30] and we talked about genealogy just a little bit, he was married twice, then came to Silver, and married Mrs., no, married...
ROBERT: He married, I don't know, Ed's mother's name.
RUSS: Yes, okay. And from that union, then, that he was Ed's father. Yes, okay. All right. [00:04:00] Now, anything else, Bob, that you can think of? Any early impressions of Nampa, that you were in and out of Nampa as a youngster? Any early impressions that you might want to talk about?
ROBERT: Really not. I lived in Portland during the '20s, mostly, and came up to McCall almost every year in and through Nampa, but didn't spend much time here until '29, I guess [00:04:30] it was.
RUSS: Okay, and then in '29 and the early '30s, you were at the College of Idaho briefly, and then what?
ROBERT: Well I finished high school in California in '31 and came to college, '31 to '34.
RUSS: Okay, I'm going to stop this for a minute, and then the next thing that we want to talk about is the thing that you know more about than most people in Nampa, and that is [00:05:00] something of the history of the Dewey Palace Hotel. So I'll stop this now. Now, Bob, I want to change the subject a little bit, and later on, if you think of anything concerning your genealogy that you think ought to be added, we can do it. I would like to have you talk now a little bit about your recollections of the Dewey Palace Hotel. What was your first recollection of that building?
ROBERT: I haven't any because I [00:05:30] was always there.
RUSS: So your first then was that it was a going concern. When you were a youngster, can you remember some of the people that lived there? That were permanent rooms of people who stayed there and ate in the dining room, apartments and so on. Can you remember any of those people?
ROBERT: Well, just Mrs. Kurtz. I know the Hammackers stayed there when they came to Nampa, [00:06:00] but whether they were still living there when I can remember or not, I don't know.
RUSS: Now, let the record show that Mrs. Kurtz was Bell B. Kurtz, and that her husband was an early real estate man who gave land to the city for what was Kurtz Park. Kurtz Edition. And Kurtz Park was one of his gifts in connection with that. Kurtz Park is now the site of [00:06:30] Northwest Nazarene College. And Mrs. Hammacker, who you and I both knew, her husband, Ed Hammacker, was a grocery department in the Nampa D in the early days under B. L. Johnson, and the store was owned by the Leo J. Falk family. [00:07:00] So those two lived there. Can you remember anything, hearing about where Colonel Dewey lived?
ROBERT: Well, over on 12th Avenue, there was a sign, there was an entrance to the apartment for the owners of the hotel, and that's where the colonel and his wife lived.
RUSS: And that was on the main floor, on the street floor?
ROBERT: On the street floor. [00:07:30] And later on, Dr. Kellogg had his offices there and Jack Garrity.
RUSS: And then, am I right, that the Knockleby ice cream parlor was on the corner, wasn't it? With an entrance, as I recall, on the corner.
ROBERT: Well, the porch at that time was around. Later on, when the first floor was extended to the street at that time, the porch curved around to 12th Avenue.
RUSS: [00:08:00] Okay. Now, can you remember, could you get upstairs from 12th Avenue? Can you remember going up to any apartments up there?
ROBERT: Well, no. That went up to the ballroom. Well, at the beginning, the stairway to the ballroom went up in the L of the hotel.
RUSS: On the inside L, off of Main Street?
ROBERT: Off the porch.
RUSS: Yes, okay.
ROBERT: And that had been closed when I can remember, and the ballroom [00:08:30] had been changed to offices, and the entrance was from 12th Avenue. And later on, that was the Elks Club for a good many years.
RUSS: I can remember the Elks Club, and the entrance to the Elks Club off of 12th Avenue.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: And then, that's right. And then, at a later time, after the telephone company was in there, weren't they?
ROBERT: They used a lot of it, yes.
RUSS: Some of that space.
ROBERT: For equipment, yes.
RUSS: Okay. Now, Bob, what can you [00:09:00] remember about, again, I was going to ask you, can you remember the early maître d there, Jess Ernst?
ROBERT: Jess Ernst was there for a good part of the '30s. I remember him, and later on, of course, he had the Union Hotel at Union, Oregon.
RUSS: Right. And then he was succeeded by Mrs. Webb.
ROBERT: Charlie Brogdon.
RUSS: Charlie Brogdon was the hotel manager.
ROBERT: And Mrs. Webb had the dining room.
RUSS: [00:09:30] Dining room. Okay. Can you remember anything about eating in that dining room?
ROBERT: Oh, yeah, very good. She, Mrs. Webb had a fine dining room.
RUSS: Can you, going back now in time, back to 1909, I had the pleasure of looking at some of your mother's souvenirs. It was a very elaborate cuisine there.
ROBERT: Well, the menu that she had was for [00:10:00] a New Year's Day meal on 1909.
RUSS: 1909. And it was a very impressive menu.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: Bob, can you remember hearing anything about, either from your mother, can you remember hearing about the events when the hotel was opened?
ROBERT: Not too much. I know they had a big celebration, a ball, I suppose it was. I think your grandmother was [00:10:30] there.
RUSS: My grandmother and my mother were there, both. And I suppose my aunt, she would have been a pretty young girl.
ROBERT: My mother would have only been 12.
RUSS: That's right. But my mother would have been five years older. I can remember hearing that women had gowns imported for that. Have you ever heard that?
ROBERT: I didn't hear that.
RUSS: Well, I've heard that story. My mother tells, not whether she did, but tells about people. [00:11:00] I know there were sterling silver souvenir spoons given out as souvenirs.
ROBERT: I didn't remember that, but I knew that they had plates with a perforated border that were china of some kind that was given out as favors to the women. And I believe the future Senator Borough was supposed to be there.
RUSS: Now, in that hotel, and I can't remember this, but it's possible you can, this was a center for traveling people.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: And [00:11:30] I remember they had sales rooms in the basement. Because I can remember my Uncle Bill Johnson, who was married to my Aunt Margaret, was a traveling man, sold Red Wing shoes and L.E. Stickle shoes. And I can remember when he would come, he would have a sales room in the basement.
ROBERT: Well, originally down there, there had been a kind of a skeet alley or like a small bowling alley.
RUSS: Small bowling alley, yes.
ROBERT: And barber shops [00:12:00] and baths and I believe the gambling rooms were there until they closed the, Idaho closed that down.
RUSS: And where was the bar? There was a famous well known. On the west end. On the west end of the main floor.
ROBERT: Later the state liquor store was there.
RUSS: That's right.
ROBERT: And then the Chamber of Commerce.
RUSS: That's right. Now, again, getting back to anybody else that you can remember upstairs, you spoke about Mrs. Kurtz, [00:12:30] Mrs. Hamger, there must have been others.
ROBERT: Later on, I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Duck lived there.
RUSS: Mrs. Duck and they were, he was manager of the PFE. People would come to town and apparently make a home there temporarily until they could get settled. Now, can you recall anything about the hotel in more recent years? It had its own water system, as I remember it.
ROBERT: Yes, that was torn down in oh '30... no '63.
RUSS: [00:13:00] You went at that time, you of course were the, you were the owner, the estate was the owner and you were the manager of the estate. You went on city water at that time.
ROBERT: Yes.
RUSS: And the estate at that time encompassed the entire block? The entire block. It was between 11th and [00:13:30] 12th and 1st and 2nd Main and 2nd Street. That's right, the entire block. And there was a lot of buildings in behind. Did you take those down piecemeal or what?
ROBERT: Well, the hotel and then in the center there was the boiler room and the kitchen which had rooms over it for, well, Ms. Webb lived there and then others held. And that was all torn down [00:14:00] in '63. The only part left is used for the floor coming as a warehouse now, is the old laundry building.
RUSS: And then when was the main structure of the hotel, when was it taken down?
ROBERT: '63.
RUSS: In '63. And that was to make room for the First Security Bank, which is now undergoing addition.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: [00:14:30] You mentioned a photograph of the hotel. Where did you say that was?
ROBERT: In a yesteryear shop. It was just a postcard.
RUSS: Postcard.
ROBERT: It must have been taken in about the time of the opening or that summer because there are no trees evidence at all. It's just grass and the building.
RUSS: Can you remember from hearsay anything about the decorations? I recall, [00:15:00] and we were talking yesterday about the parlor, which was a very beautiful room to the left as you came in. Can you remember anything about that?
ROBERT: Well, just the painted ceiling and cherubs and things of that kind.
RUSS: And an ornate fireplace to my right.
ROBERT: Right.
RUSS: A very beautiful little fireplace. Were some of those artifacts saved out of there, can you recall?
ROBERT: Well, people who demolished the hotel probably did and sold them, such as the fireplace [00:15:30] and the writing room and things of that kind, bookcases in there.
RUSS: Anything else that you might think of? What are your recollections of Charlie Brogdon? Can you remember, he was one of the early managers, wasn't he?
ROBERT: Well, he was the manager, one that I remember best, from the '20s into the...
END OF RECORDING