1 15 21 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/7e3b85f1c77b2a8c41e497bdb158e513.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=equaIRogdm7YtyaT96oV29Ms47ZnEaRQDAYlO2ZcygCEwEPHiNxA%7EF9wrQeToAMDI41kzMFbZx4vf1aWcFXhLAbXLYJLrWHfxy1t-GdlxNftbm2vLiuvpDYtL8h5u0EhUG4aORPNdD5knZO2Y9Joa5zIXwFKPCVqf58M0kHsjN25Z5YR0os%7EgZ7IkAJyXyzi%7E9F4XuovLcjq0TkvLOXBOmdGcooSpkZyEO5ieUR1aDRBHXL7KGHJLa8IHQlnyPBa-7vhqvGZt92ovbDH7SpRei-e%7Ej3sTDoRynqYD2rNNlUeCh5w1YjKM4x8MZiBohYF6RXCLEnE3gwcohuVPONYpw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f87fdba9e030e604abd446b4dcead742 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmers and horse drawn plows Subject The topic of the resource Farm life Horse-drawn vehicles Draft horses Description An account of the resource Two children standing in foreground with four horse-drawn plows in background. Agricultural equipment Draft horses Farm labor Farming https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/c8bfa5b8f958f57b89b284ee400c20a1.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=uT%7E9GpJjrS8i6GxlDbqUEaEHak5Ysy-KkeKmsc3j1sjIHoPJ2KWR8JVsAGUvI%7EF4tO9fuB6WiqyiLnrFvoC9UXlERdZDPNjJdsIf3EnFHE124Z68h8tzhqNil5B4JhHomrlr0aorconluZU628Z99WR%7Er9u8O1%7EN%7EQhFlNkGZQfz02fwHQd1Pyqc7uacOJCdY6CYZj3AOfNgQINzMbW-8-LcRtbVKCaeQOlId6B-0pnidfsTngxrNCZBhRe79FkfZk8ZmZAtdtmUq4ckCt7vDg-4ajhXDU60-lHI3dRCMW-ClI-O9jnbXsQa7tQ7xykUN2Ne3-vTqxVu%7EEGUe3TlrQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM af49826296032cbd0729144b3cfb1cb5 PDF Text Text KEN HARWARD: Okay, this is an oral history interview with Sumner Johnson as the narrator and Ken Harward as the interviewer. And we’re meeting here on May 16, 1985. That’s working. Okay. SUMNER JOHNSON: Did you give the introductions to it? KEN: Yes SUMNER: All right. Well, I don’t know where to start, Ken, maybe other than just a little family history. My grandfather and grandmother started their life in Nebraska. In fact, Ord, Nebraska, and Alonso J. Perkins, although he went by AJ Perkins, [00:01:00] he was a farmer and a banker back there. And he sold out, apparently, at the tail end of World War I and came to Idaho in late 1917. My aunt tells about the amount of money he sold the bank for, but I can’t believe it. She said that he sold it for half million dollars, but a half a million dollars in 1917 kind of staggers me, so I’m not sure that’s the correct figure. And he bought 80 acres out here, west of Nampa on Midland Boulevard, which is now the OK Subdivision, bounded on the north by [00:02:00] West Flamingo, and bounded on the east by Midland Boulevard. And that two-story brick house there that sits north of that mobile home court that’s on the property is a house that he had built. In fact, he shipped all the material and the carpenter and everybody from Nebraska because he didn’t figure anybody in Idaho was competent to build it for him. KEN: About what year would that home have been built? SUMNER: Well, I suppose it would have been in 1918 or thereabouts, shortly after he came out. And then, he bought a 21-acre piece that’s on the northwest corner of Midland Boulevard and Caldwell Boulevard, which is now I believe, [00:03:00] the Keener Industrial Park Subdivision. And the house that he had built there was a cobblestone and brick house that was just tore down a few years ago, prior to the Skipper’s Fish and Chip Establishment being built on it. I was real busy at the time, but I regret that I didn’t go out there now and get some historical items from it, but you know, you look back at those things you should have done. And my granddad, he was a great one to raise fancy, I believe they were Percheron horses, and Jersey cows, and Poland China hogs, and all kinds of livestock, [00:04:00] a large part of it in fruit trees. And of course, as kids we’d go over there, and that was great to get the cherries and peaches and apples and so forth. And he had a garden with Filbert nuts, and English walnuts, and things that are not common around here. And so, it’s quite an occasion to go to Grandmother’s for a Sunday get together because my mother, with her five sisters and one brother, and so of course, it was always a big gathering. KEN: The 21-acre farm there, was that for the orchard, the fruit trees, there in that? SUMNER: About half of it was pasture, and about half of it was fruit trees. He had a great good barn, and it was a fairly fancy place. He had said horses and registered Jersey bulls, [00:05:00] and provides breeding services around. Then, my parents got acquainted while attending University of Idaho at Moscow. And see, my dad was born in Idaho at Eagle Rock, which now is Idaho Falls, in 1896, and helped there with his father, and of course, there was 11 children in his family, eight boys and three girls. And you’d be interested in know, when he was a boy, he had eight years of perfect attendance at the LDS Sunday school. (laughter) (inaudible) but anyway. When he graduated from University of Idaho, he and my mother, Leta [00:06:00] Firkins, were married. That’d be in 1920. KEN: Now, what did your dad major in? SUMNER: Agriculture. KEN: And his name was Ambrose. SUMNER: Ambrose W. Johnson. And they came here to Nampa and were married here. And by then, Granddad had built the house on the 21-acre parcel. So, then my folks moved into the big two-story brick house on the 80-acre place. And Dad farmed that till probably the fall of 1925. So, then, I was born in October of 1924. And then the year later, we moved to an 80-acre ranch about two miles south of Star. And Dad bought the place, [00:07:00] and then of course, that was in the heydays after World War I, and he got caught in the Depression of the ’30s and actually last place, had to let it go back. He continued to rent it until the winter of ’34-’35, which at the time he bought the place out just north of Nampa, where the Upland Industries Industrial Park is, the 70 acres in there. And we moved in by horse and wagon, mostly from Star to there in 1935. And of course, I was just 10 years old, but I can remember taking off from the place with a team of horses on a hay wagon and taking a load of material over to the new place. In fact, I still remember, [00:08:00] out just north of Cherry Lane on Franklin Road about a quarter of a mile there’s four beautiful, I think, they’re split leaf white birch. They’re now great, huge trees, but they were young, modest sized trees then, and I’ve always been impressed with them. But most people have trouble dying around here but for some reason, those have survived. KEN: Over the years, many years. SUMNER: And anyway, Dad then farmed that place, and it turned out to be a successful venture for him. I was in the fifth grade that winter when we finally moved there in February of ’35 [00:09:00] and then of course transferred to Lakeview School. Before that, I’d gone to the what they called the Lower Fairview Grade School out near where we lived at Star. That school is not there anymore. In grade school, I was quite an athletic type, but my mother wouldn’t let me play football, and come along in the sixth grade, I remember we went to the Nampa High School football game at the old rodeo grounds, the same place it is now, but it was an altogether different bleacher setup. And the stands, [00:10:00] the grandstands were on the south side and there was a few portable bleachers on the north side. And us kids kind of hung around the portable bleachers, and I remember at halftime, the sixth-grade kids from Lakeview got out there, playing around with a football in the field you know the way kids do. Of course, now, they won’t let them, but back in those days they would. In some way, the ball got tossed to me and I ran the full-length field, outrunning everybody. And Leo Matthews who was the coach of the sixth-grade football team in Lakeview, he cornered me the next day and said I was going out for football. And over my mother’s objection, I ended up being a football player. Kind of. KEN: Well, what are some of your earliest recollections of school there, at Lakeview? Now, you started there in the third grade. SUMNER: Fifth grade. KEN: The fifth grade you started. Do you remember any of the teachers? SUMNER: Old [00:11:00] Flossie Stark was my sixth-grade teacher, and a fella by the name of Earl Cook was possibly my fifth-grade teacher. But Flossie Of course, ended up being the librarian at Nampa High School for a number of years, and in fact, there’s a Flossie Stark Library out in... What’s the name of it? KEN: Midland Manor? SUMNER: The retirement center, there on 12th Avenue. KEN: Oh, that’s the Sunny Ridge Manor. SUMNER: Yes, Sunny Ridge Manor. Anyway, and she was a very, very influential teacher and a good teacher, one of the better ones. I always had fond memories [00:12:00] for her efforts to get the most out of me. KEN: At the time, you were then living on the farm. How’d you get into school each day? Walk? SUMNER: Well, they had school buses in those days, and it came right by the place. And I would be the last one, practically, to get on because we were about a mile and a half from school, or whatever the distance was. And then when we’d go home at night, I was lucky, they’d reverse, and I’d be the first one to get off. But again, as I got older, I wouldn’t be caught dead riding the school bus. That was an insult. And so, in the grade school, I rode the bike in good weather. But in junior high school and [00:13:00] high school, if at all possible, I’d ride my bicycle, clear from there to Central, and then of course, this site here where the city hall is now, because it was the old high school when I was in high school, sleet, snow, whatever it is, I’d ride that bicycle before being caught on that school bus. Only sissies rode the school bus in those days. Going back to when we lived out by Star, one of the things I can remember there was a gravelly hill that’s about a half mile north of what is now Highway 20, because we lived on the southeast corner of Highway 20 and Star Road. And in those days, in the wintertime, when the ground was frozen and [00:14:00] so forth, you’d haul gravel, pit run gravel, and the wagons they used were kind of a box type wagon, but in the bottom of it, they had, as I remember, they were two-by-fours that were just laid loose through the bottom on crossing stringers, and you’d load the gravel in with a shovel by hand, and then when you get back to the ranch and want to gravel the driveway or whatever you’re graveling, you’d pull up with your team and stop the wagon, and then you’d work those bottom two-by-fours up, lifting up on them, and pretty soon, the gravel would fall through, so you didn’t have to unload by shovel. It would fall through. It was a bottom dump, so to speak. I don’t remember ever seeing one of those in a historical setting. KEN: I’ve never heard of one. SUMNER: So, that’s [00:15:00] kind of an interesting sidelight. Of course, now I had two older brothers. Wayne was three years older, and Gene was 15 months older. And things were tough. And I didn’t know what a new pair of britches was. I got the hand me down britches with patches on them by the time they got to me. But I didn’t know any difference and I was happy. And of course, in the summertime, barefoot continuously, the whole summer. I could run across the hay stubble field by fall, you know, because you had such calluses on the bottom of your feet. It was just one of those things. Then, in, I think it would be about the Christmas of 1933, the one Christmas present that I can remember the most, the folks had absolutely no money. We had food, raised it, Mom canned, [00:16:00] and rendered lard, and cooked. I mean, we butchered our own beef and butchered our own pork, and Dad would cut them up. And it was very common. But they didn’t have any money. And apparently, the day before Christmas, the folks went to Boise, and they found a broken toy that was a little steam engine type thing. It was round at the base, maybe about three inches in diameter, and came up as a cylinder, and on the top, it had a flywheel and it had a little petcock that you could turn, and so, when steam was generated, steam would come out there and make a whistling effect. And down at the base, inside that cylinder, [00:17:00] was a little place to put, I guess it’d be a kerosene lamp burner thing in it. And anyway, that flywheel had been broken and Dad figured out that he could weld it. They bought it at a very great discount because was broken, and brought it home, and that night, welded or soldered the thing back together, and that was the one toy for us three boys on Christmas morning. And of course, I was only eight or nine years old, and my mother was scared to death of me using it. But Wayne, my older brother would actually like the matches, and get the burner going, and put the water in, [00:18:00] and then that flywheel would get to going, and then we’d open that petcock, and the thing would whistle. Greatest toy I’ve ever had in my life. That was our sole toy for the three of us there, that Christmas. Far cry from nowadays. KEN: Yeah, sure is. SUMNER: So, that’s just kind of an indication of what you did. You didn’t have TV and so forth. And of course, I learned to play cards, pinochle, at an early age because in the wintertime, that’s what you would do. And we had a neighbor friend that would come down, and in the process, out of the whole family, we’d end up with four of us playing cards. That was a wintertime pastime. Then, another thing I can remember distinctly is, you see, we didn’t have refrigerators in the summertime. And we all had ice boxes. [00:19:00] You know what an icebox is? KEN: I do but go ahead and explain it. I’d like you... SUMNER: Well, it looks about like a refrigerator, except there’s one cubicle that you put a block of ice in, and then there’s a place for, as it melts, which it will, the water drains out, and you have a discharge out to, in those days, we didn’t have a whole lot of sophisticated indoor plumbing, but you’d drain it to wherever your sink drain went. And, anyway, we were about 1,000, maybe 800 feet, from Star Road. And the iceman’s route would be heading north on Star Road. He didn’t use Highway 20. It wasn’t there then, of course. And [00:20:00] so, mom had a sign that she’d put in the winter that had, in big red letters, “I-C-E,” on white background and when she wanted ice, she’d put that in the window, and of course, then, the iceman would turn down our road and deliver his ice. KEN: And was that a horse drawn wagon? SUMNER: No, that was a motor vehicle in those days. We had no Model-T, then. And my mother used to drive then, but she had a wreck or something, I can’t remember, it wasn’t too serious, but that would have probably been before ’35, and she has, to this day, never driven a car again. She’s petrified of it and will refuse to. And she’s still alive, but if she travels anyplace, [00:21:00] somebody has to take her. KEN: Where did they get the ice? Where’d they store the ice in the summer? What did they put it in? SUMNER: Well, you see, the icehouse was, the best I can remember, the old brewery over on Ninth Avenue North, there on the south... KEN: The Overland Brewery? SUMNER: Yeah. They had an icehouse there. And I remember after we moved to North of Nampa, we’d go there and get ice. And they made it and manufactured it there, you know. Now, up at places like McCall, in fact, there’s an old timer up there, still alive, I can’t think of his name now that tells it, that worked, and that was his business going out on the Payette Lakes in the winter and cutting blocks of ice, and then hauling them and they stored them in some kind of [00:22:00] – KEN: Insulated – SUMNER: -- setting, yeah. And of course, they’d put them in there at way below freezing temperature, the natural weather temperature, and then, they would apparently keep all summer long and they’d be able to supply ice to people. Of course, that was before my era. Down in here, the ice we talked about was manufactured by some electrical process. KEN: Well, what were the streets like here, your earliest recollections of the streets in Nampa? SUMNER: Okay. Well, I’ve got an unusual recollection. We moved there on Franklin Road, which at that time did not come on into 11th Avenue, as you realize. See, that was built in the late ’50s [00:23:00] or early ’60s, that section through there from the interchange at I-84 on in. And it used to turn around what is Third Avenue and come in on Sixth Street North there, at I guess it’d be Fourth Avenue probably now, I’m not sure. Anyway, it used to wind around and take a curve there at our corner and go due north. Well from our corner -- well, I guess all of that, was built as a federal aid secondary job and started in the summer of ’34 and wasn’t finished till the fall of ’35. And they paved that section road by our house on September 5th [00:24:00] my mother’s birthday 1935. And I’ve always remembered that because it was my mother’s birthday, and the dust was so terrible, and she considered that her birthday present. And then, of course, the streets in Nampa, they had a pavement coat on them in a form, and I don’t know how it was developed in those days. Now, the old Warrenite pavement in downtown Nampa, that was done in the late ’20s and Caldwell Boulevard, clear out, I think clear to Caldwell, from Nampa to Caldwell, was done with that Warrenite process. And they’d go in and fracture rock out of a quarry, and it was fairly large, not uncommon to have two-inch material, [00:25:00] and it would be placed by hand, and then they would go through a process of pouring Warrenite-type asphalt on it, and then putting fine materials in it and wedging it together. And of course, the street project this past year downtown tore out a bunch of that old Warrenite. It lasted all these years. It’s amazing. KEN: Yeah, that was a pretty thick base there, a lave rock base right now, at the bottom. SUMNER: And the real benefit is it was porous enough that any moisture that got in it went through it, and so, you didn’t have any serious problems of frost or excess moisture. A very expensive method because it was done by hand so much, you can’t use okay. And [00:26:00] then as I got involved in the city situation, I discovered that the Nampa Highway District was originally created and did take care of all the city streets, as near as I can tell. I haven’t researched the record. But then, when World War II came along, nothing was done on local roads in any place, probably, in the United States. And then when they came back, after World War II, as near as I can tell, the highway district had gotten in a good habit of not doing anything on the city streets and still do. Now granted, their function is farm to market Road. That’s a kind of a pet peeve of mine, I might add, that they should be doing the farm to market roads in the city limits because we’re part of their district. But they don’t. KEN: Right, [00:27:00] the city limits is part of (inaudible). SUMNER: And probably, someday, the city ought to get this annexed from them, and it would be an economic benefit for the city at least. But as such, they weren’t doing anything. And then, the city had to develop a system to maintain the residential streets, because the highway district had apparently been maintaining them. And of course, the old sprinkling tax was a tax that they put on businesses and property, and they would sprinkle with water, horse drawn teams. I can remember those as a kid, seeing them go through town before the streets were paved. And so, then, after the war, World War II, it was necessary for the city, [00:28:00] the, to create a street department which they did. And they started to maintain the streets. And the highway district was still working with the city and doing the farm to market stuff on a cooperative basis. But as that finally got into the period when I went to work for the city, why, they were starting to practically do nothing. And the city, then, had their own street department. And they had put on a tax for street and road construction, and apparently, they kept it on during the World War II. And they were able to build up quite a cash situation, where George Shellaberger, who was the city clerk, had it going so that he could pay cash for everything, didn’t have to worry about getting the tax receipts in before and borrowing money against them and so forth. I went to work for the city in [00:29:00] ’49 as assistant city engineer and the thing I found is that the records were a shamble as far as engineering office. Nobody had kept the sewer-service connection book up to date, and there was hundreds of those that we tracked down through the city clerk’s records and got recorded. And the maps, nobody had kept them up to date and they were a shambles. And we logged and recorded in an orderly fashion so that we could find the old sewer records and the old water records and so forth. And the water department maps hadn’t been kept up for a number of years. So, we had to work with the water superintendent to get those so we could record those. And in the process, they started to do a [00:30:00] little street construction Sure. But they really weren’t too well organized on it. The mayor, Peter Johnson, he was not a businessman, so to speak. And so, the economics of how to leverage the city’s street department was not his forte. And so, the streets really didn’t start to be a real good improvement to the city until Preston Cappell came in as mayor. And he was mayor, maybe six years. And during that era, he used up all the surplus, so to speak, and spent about twice as much money for street construction as he took in because he used up all the surplus and was able to get a lot of street work done in the old residential part of town. [00:31:00] I could be a little bit critical if you want to look back, because they didn’t put enough base in. And so, they haven’t lasted as well as they should have. But on the other hand, he was able to spread it farther and get all the potholes. KEN: Up to that time, were there mostly dirt streets in residential areas? SUMNER: Well, they were dirt with some kind of a strip of oil. KEN: Dust oil? SUMNER: Yeah, as I remember, it was a hard surface. It wasn’t like a dust oil. But it was only about 20 feet wide. Curb lines were out 40 feet wide. And so, there was a dirt shoulder between the edge of the paving, which was some kind of a penetrating oil with sand on it or something. And very [00:32:00] poor drainage. Drainage was a disaster. And nobody really addressed it until we got involved as city engineers, under contract from Johnson and Underkofler in 1957. And one of the early things we did was start a street program, as I mentioned, too, the other day, developing a five-year program. And then, the more streets we paved, the more drainage problems we created. So, we did a drainage study for the city. And there really was no way to fund it, because to do it as one project, we’d have to have a bond issue, but you can appreciate the only people who had problems are the ones who were in the low spots, the ones on the high ground, so to speak, they wouldn’t vote for [00:33:00] a storm drain systems because they didn’t have any problem. So, in those days, the city had, as I remember, some 30 -- well, I think they started out when we came as city engineers in ’57, I think they had like 35 or 36 employees in the street department. And through the process of efficiency, we got that down into the low twenties, as I recall, and did about twice as much work because we just got the thing organized better. But in the wintertime, we didn’t want to tear up residential streets and leave them a bog hole for people. So, we conceived with the council’s blessing to start the sections of the storm drainage system. And the street department, in the wintertime, would lay storm drain. Fortunately, we didn’t have winters like last winter, which here, [00:34:00] was terribly cold. We had fairly open winters. And after a number of six or eight years, they put in most elements of that storm drain system. And so, now that area is... KEN: Was that about the mid-50s? SUMNER: Yeah, that started probably in like ’58 or ’59, and then went on through into the mid-60s to finish it. Though it was a very efficient way, an economical way for the city to get a storm drain system, because they did have an extensive street department that up until then, wasn’t doing much in the wintertime. KEN: I’d like to get into more of your experience in the public works development, but let’s go back, because we left you personally back in Lakeview school, about the sixth grade or so. And of course, having been born in your grandfather’s house over where [00:35:00] now the Skipper’s restaurant is, and then going to Star, and then back to the farm there, just off Franklin. And a little more about your early childhood days in Nampa, sixth grade? SUMNER: Well, even before then I can remember coming to town and usually on Saturdays, with Dad, because that was farm day to come to town, you know. And where Firestone’s store is, there on the northwest corner of 14th Avenue and Second Street, there was some kind of a sale yard, a country sale yard where they’d sell livestock and people would bring their old used furniture, whatever it was. And Dad [00:36:00] would stop into the sale. And then catty corner from that was a feed store. I’m not sure it wasn’t Vale’s, but then and he’d stop into there to get the special mixes he might need for supplement for cattle feed, or calf feed, or pig feed, or something. And then, probably where Herb Carlson’s sports shop, or in that vicinity was the old Maclean’s hardware store, if I recall, and that was always a place that Dad had to stop, because of farm tools and so forth. And I’ve always had some inclination to like to browse through hardware stores and I [00:37:00] still do to this day. And I don’t know whether it’s because of that. And then another stop that we made is where the First Interstate Bank is, there on 11th and Third Street. That was the old Co-Op Oil gas station. And as a farmer, Dad was a member of that, and we stopped there. And then where Pioneer Federal is was the old Lindsay Ford garage. And Dad had Ford cars, and that was always one of the stops. I can remember those types of facilities very distinctly. The Subway there at 11th, for some reason, I don’t have a strong recollection of it. It was built in the mid or early ’30s, but for some reason that doesn’t ring a bell with me is as far as visually seeing it [00:38:00] go up. Now, when I was about in the seventh grade, I was going to Central, they built the gymnasium there as a WPA project. It actually was when I was in the sixth grade. And I can remember that we got out on the street, in I think it was in the fall of about 1936, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt came by in his car, and we all... KEN: Oh, he personally came through town. SUMNER: Yeah, came through town. And I suspect it had something to do with dedication of that gymnasium. The record might show, but at the time I didn’t realize, I just remember that we stood there, I think I stood on 14th, [00:39:00] just west of the Old Central School when he toured by. I can just vaguely remember that. And of course, when you’re in the grade school out there, Lower Fairview, the PTA was a big social event. And I think they’d have PTA one Friday night a month or something like that. And of course, as kids, we’d play, and run, and holler, and do everything but go to a PTA meeting. But one I can remember very, very bad situation at one PTA meeting were three of the sons of PTA members were in high school at the time, [00:40:00] one of the boys were able to get his folks’ car and they headed south on Star Road to come to Nampa. And that car had visors, or whatever you call them, over the headlights. And where the main line from Boise crosses Star Road there, it was on a fill. It wasn’t a smooth transition up like it is now. And those kids didn’t see the freight train going across the crossing, and they plowed... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 1 of 6 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/7435a9ec194c2de9d0854e40094e62af.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=ZR-vqRsP1T8ex0m5csuJZRcaM3nanruNaC%7ENwDU9dQh0ARTRqvrnRbeiOrShNBTbUu2e8qg77QYGaGYQBdDHNRVrC1k-9sCVEcrbmhl2KyHtUd%7EjTG0pGwsMswdCqGuN-ROH5JbDPpNDyerWbwrDHhjh93uTv7OePqtrjo6teGdHRQ2sJRQzcSARjJATGRCu60fYdWdA8ZVrVtL363D2dG4OvMHxT81fQgUYj28fDyLVwCC4LLZIeA0o1TT32VQ7a1%7EyhPTO91xR15P6BQnl7yE7xRCsckzX1hmhkdfh3t6zbjb1vKbcmJfkdBoqdwKdKHtvUfrq1D5WnYUr%7Eid9Bw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c11415d311fb822f01994cdd55b3fddc PDF Text Text SUMNER: And they plowed into that train. And the gas tank was in front of the windshield in those days, and it exploded and caught fire. And of course, that was the end of the three boys. And of course, that news came back to the PTA before it was over, and of course, that was just a nightmare. KEN: Oh, a real tragedy, yeah. SUMNER: Another thing that that was asked, out there, The Phyllis Canal, the swimming hole in the Phyllis Canal was about a mile from our house. And of course, we would go down to that swimming hole, where there was a ladder, and swim. And that would be in the summertime, after we got the haying done, or the threshing done, [00:01:00] or whatever the field work was, why, we’d go down there and go swimming. That was the form of a bath. And I don’t remember it, but my dad and people tell me that we used to swim in Boise River too, which is about a mile and a half north of us. And I don’t know how big it was in those days, but it wasn’t dammed up like it is now, but I supposedly swam across the Boise River when I was seven years old. I don’t remember it, of course. And then, when we moved here north of Nampa, that Phyllis Canal is right by the place, of course, and we swam in it every day as kids also, and believe it or not, went over to Mason Creek, which is in an area, which would be north of the interstate highway now. And we had a swimming hole there that we swam in. And it was... KEN: That [00:02:00] must have been one of the big summertime pastimes, recreations, swimming in the swimming hole. SUMNER: Oh, yes. Yeah, and laying around in the dust. And of course, quite frankly, the swimming suits were not vogue. (laughter) KEN: Well, those things you could do without, because you didn’t have them. SUMNER: Yeah, so we’d... Some of the other things that we did, we pulled our pranks too. As I got older, the neighbors would have cherry trees, we’d have to slip down and eat a few cherries. I can honestly say that we didn’t destroy, like some. I’ve raised apples and I’ve had kids get in apple fights with my apples, but what we went out and picked, we put our mouths. And then we’d [00:03:00] do the same with the apples. And my granddad of course, living over there where he lived, a guy by the name of Mossman lived on the east side of Midland Boulevard in what is the old Stan Keim place. And he had a watermelon patch where the Press Tribune facilities is now, that field, clear over to US-30, as far as that goes. And I remember the big boys telling about trying to steal his watermelons and he’d come out with his shotgun and pelt them salt pellets. But I never was brave enough to get involved in that kind of excursion. We’d even go down, a guy had a bunch of honey beehives and we’d slipped down there when they were kind of dormant, and [00:04:00] pull out one of those honeycombs and get us some bread. And we’d do our share of the pranks. One time, we got stung and my mother wondered, what happened to my cheek? Well, my friend’s elbow hit me there. I don’t think she believed me, but at least I thought I had her believe me. KEN: What was it like at Central, now that was called the junior high? SUMNER: Yeah, it was the seventh, eighth and ninth grade. KEN: What are some of your recollections there, and some of the teachers you had? SUMNER: Well, Vernon Woodman was math teacher, a very excellent teacher, somebody I’ve always admired and appreciated. I remember one day -- math was kind of an easy subject for me, and I enjoyed it, [00:05:00] and one day he called me up the room and gave me the key to his house. He called me up, he gave me a key to his house, and he had a little diagram drawn out, and I got on the bike and pedaled over to his house, wherever it was, and went in, and turned off the electric stove, because he’d left at noon and forgot to turn the stove off on something that his wife had cooking, and he was supposed to turn it off. I can always remember that. But we had a playground there that was just gravel. And played, actually, tackle football, believe it or not. KEN: On a gravel field. SUMNER: Yeah, on sandy gravel and it would pure wear out the knees of your britches. KEN: I’ll bet it would. SUMNER: And then of course, the gym had been just completed. KEN: That must have been a major thing, [00:06:00] that gym. SUMNER: Yeah, and we just were we just thought we were in hog heaven because we had that wonderful gymnasium and played basketball and I remember shop classes down in the basement classrooms, under the stage. And we thought the dressing room were superb. By modern day standards, of course, they were very mediocre. But it was it was something as far as we were concerned. Bill Gillam was our principal. And he went from there to principal of the high school, and then I think he went to Emmet as superintendent, I believe. But he was a former football coach here that ended up in administration. KEN: Who were some of your classmates during a time that we might still know around [00:07:00] here? SUMNER: Well, Reid Faylor, Dr. Reid Faylor was a classmate; our dear friend Marguerite Brown, Marguerite Spencer, she and I are classmates. And then Bob Brown, who’s the realtor now, his folks were in the trucking business, then, he had followed that for a long time. Gil Keim was a classmate, he at Keim Packing company. And Cal Flora, who’s retired now from the telephone company. Bob DeCoursey, a farmer out northwest of Nampa here, classmate. KEN: What were some of the, [00:08:00] what I guess kids today would call the in things to do, kind of dress, the dances, the parties? SUMNER: Well, the in thing to do was to go down to Peter Pan at night, especially on weekends. And that’s where everybody congregated. It was an ice cream joint, about where -- what finance company is that right there, just east of the entrances to Schiller’s Law Offices, now? KEN: That’s Capital Escrow. Oh, around the corner. SUMNER: Back towards the alley. KEN: Yeah, that was Pacific Finance. SUMNER: Yeah, I think it was. KEN: Even better. SUMNER: Yeah. And that’s where the Peter Pan was, and that was the hangout spot. And I remember this friend of mine, Bill Hunter. Alex Hunter’s the former city councilman for years and president of the council, his son. They lived just north of us, [00:09:00] about 1,000 feet or so, just far enough away that we could holler and hear each other. We had to wait for the sound wave to carry, but we could communicate that way. Didn’t have phones, you’d holler. And he and I would go down there to the Peter Pan. And I didn’t know too much about what girls were in those days. And we would each order a quart brick of vanilla ice cream, and a spoon, and sit there and eat a whole quart of ice cream, when we were in high school, of course. But that was the gathering place. And then they had dances in junior high school, but I was just embarrassed, and two left feet, and everything else. And I never took up dancing, [00:10:00] never got the hang of it until I was well into my senior year in high school. KEN: What about sports? Were they a big thing in the high school, in junior high and high school? SUMNER: Yeah, well, that was a very important thing. We had a real competitive basketball situation, with Boise as our big competitor, of course, Caldwell. And of course, football, as ninth graders, we would come over to the high school and play on the fresh-soph team. But in the seventh and eighth grade, they really didn’t have any organized football. Like I said, it was out there, noontime, on the sand. And didn’t have any organized baseball for the junior high school. We played softball at noon time and so forth. KEN: See now, [00:11:00] let me just be sure I got the perspective on the time period. That would have been, you said ’36 was about the year that the gym was completed. SUMNER: Yeah. KEN: And that’s right in the heart of the Depression. What was the Depression like, as you recall it, here in Nampa, in those days? SUMNER: Well, of course, I was young. I didn’t know any difference because I always had plenty of food, being a farm family that raised food. KEN: And never having any money, so it was nothing different. SUMNER: Yeah, but I didn’t even know that we didn’t have any money. See, and I think of my grandmother. This is an interesting, I’ll just throw in a little philosophical situation here. See, my granddad died in about probably 1933 or ’34. And then it left my grandmother with -- [00:12:00] ad he’d got caught in the Depression, and the only thing he ended up left with was the 21-acre place. And nobody would buy it. There was no money. It finally sold, I think, for something like 5,000 dollars, the house, barn... KEN: The 21 acres? SUMNER: Yeah, that’s not a factual figure. It was a very, very low figure. KEN: Was that in the Depression, that she sold it? SUMNER: Yeah, or she had to sell it to have some money to live on, and she couldn’t run it, and so forth. Anyway, in Granddad’s will a lot of the stuff, believe it or not, went to kids and didn’t leave it to his wife. And she ended up penniless. And my mother was the only one of her daughters that she could get along with. One of them she wouldn’t even speak to. [00:13:00] Three of them, she could tolerate, or they could tolerate her, whichever way it was. So, she lived with us for a while, then she’d go to daughter number one, then she’d come back with us. And then she’d go to daughter number two, and then she’d come back to us, and she’d go to daughter number three, then she’d come back to us, and then she’d go back to daughter number one. It was a cycle about every three or four months. And I have, today, an old rocking chair of hers, that Dad and I moved about 100 times. And Dad always said that he was going to have that chair and she left for him, and then, he gave it to me. And I’m very proud of it. And I have my granddad’s old rolltop desk, too, that he bought 1907. I’m very proud of that. But anyway, here, [00:14:00] my grandmother ended up being penniless. Well, it was no problem around our place as far as shelter and food, but she didn’t have any money. And so, if she needed a new flannel nightgown or a new cotton dress, Mom had to come up with the dollar or whatever it was to go buy the material and they’d make it. And the point I’m making is that was when Social Security had its founding. And Social Security was not created to live in luxury, which lot of people think today that it is. It was created to live in dignity. If she’d had 10 dollars a month in those days, she could have lived in absolute dignity because she could live with us, and had her food and shelter, but she would have had money to buy an all-day sucker [00:15:00] for each one of the kids on their birthday. She had have 25 or 30 grandchildren. And she could buy a little bit of Christmas presents, and so forth. And it’s unfortunate that we’ve got to thinking that Social Security was designed so we could retire and live in the luxury that we couldn’t afford while we’re working. KEN: Yeah, that’s interesting. SUMNER: And I don’t know how anybody ever got the message that it was designed that way, because it was designed so you could live with dignity. KEN: That’s a good point. SUMNER: It’s unfortunate that we’ve got away from that. Of course, digression back again to those days, and this started when I was probably about 11 or 12 years old, but I think that’s when the 4-H age limit was. Dad was a 4-H leader, and I think I went in one year early, because of that. But you see, we had Jersey cattle and I raised those and had Poland [00:16:00] China pigs, and I worked in those, and we’d take to the Caldwell fair, over at Caldwell, it was held there at the armory, at the Old City Park. I don't know what they call it now, but they’re going up to the west of Caldwell, there. And that was a big highlight. And then the Nampa harvest festival had a little dairy show and so forth down in the old cavalry bar. But the harvest festival was on Main Street. And they’d set up all the booths right down there, right down Main Street there, First Street south, going from 11th Avenue, as I recall, down to 14th, maybe 15th and there, and then, [00:17:00] some on the side streets over to Second Street. And all the carnival activities, and that was a big deal for everybody go down, mill around, and throw at the bottles or whatever. But I always got involved in the 4-H dairy shows. And then the big thing was over to Western Idaho fair, in Boise, which used to be where there’s an industrial complex now and the interstate highway goes right through it, this side of Orchard Avenue, west of Orchard Avenue and south of US-30 or Fairview, there. And we’d stay there in the lofts of the dairy show barn for about a week. Our bedding up there, and we had straws, we didn’t have air mattress, so you’d put down straw, and then your bedding. And there was no way to keep that straw from [00:18:00] out of your sheets. It was a mess. But anyway, we wouldn’t have had it any other way, because that was the highlight of the year to go there and stay a week. And Dad would show quite a string of dairy cows too, and so, in the process, we’d stay there and run the string of cows while he’d go home and do the chores at home at night. And anyway. KEN: That’s interesting. SUMNER: Another thing that I did in those days, the Oddfellows Hall, I was a junior Oddfellow. And they had a pool room up there. I used to go up there and play pool by the hours. KEN: Is that in the same location? SUMNER: Same location. And I haven’t been up there for years, but they’re still in the same facility. I suppose they still got pool tables; I don’t know. [00:19:00] I haven’t been up there in so long. Then, when we got into high school -- well let me back up. Junior high school, you see the points for your letter... There was some kind of a letter system and then you could get chevrons that you could put on, that was a big thing, to get two or three of those, and then to get a star. Now, that was the ultimate. Well, you could get points by participating in sports, being on student council, making honor roll and so forth. So, that’s what the whole goal of my friends was, was to get as many points as possible so you could put it onto your school sweater and end up with that star. I never did make the star, [00:20:00] as I recall. There was only about two or three people that made the star. They started that at the beginning of the eighth grade, as I recall, and it was pretty tough in two years to make a star. Jackie Everly did, I remember. I don’t remember who else did. She ended up being student body president of the high school. She was student body president of her junior high school, too. Anyway, we moved on into high school and played sophomore football and was a scrub on the baseball team. And really, basketball was not my forte, but I did go out and was second stringer, and enjoyed it just because of the comrade, the fellas and that. KEN: Well, it sounds like there were enjoyable times. [00:21:00] And I guess history talks about the Great Depression and the tragedies that went along with that, but the survival of that was a lot in attitude, wasn’t it? You enjoyed those times and probably didn’t know. Did you, as a youngster, and as a student at the time, have a perception of a great economic tragedy across the land? SUMNER: No, no. Now, my folks probably did. They probably went through all kinds of mental anguish. KEN: Yeah, I’m sure they did. SUMNER: But we didn’t, like I say, as long as there was plenty of food, and we’d work, worked hard. When I was, like, 10 years old, I was the derrick boy on the haystack and operations. [00:22:00] And that means you lead the horse that would pull the cable that was hooked to the mechanism to the derrick that raised the hay up onto the stack. And so, all you had to do was lead the horse, but then, probably the time I was 14, or even sooner, I was out running the wagon. And we use slings, so it didn’t take a whole lot of strength to make the connection. And then probably at 15, I was probably running a bundle wagon on a threshing crew. And you got your two bits an hour, that was spending money. But you were happy. Now, [00:23:00] I suppose, if we’d have been down and out and had nothing to eat, that’d be a different situation. KEN: Well here at the high school where we’re sitting now, where city hall is, you attended classes right here in this location. What was it like? What were your high school days like? SUMNER: Well, it was always fun. I probably didn’t socialize as much as the average high school kid because I rode my bicycle something like a mile and a half, and I had morning, and I played in participated in football, basketball, and baseball, so after school you were occupied, fortunately. And I think that’s wonderful. Kids should be. So, I didn’t have a whole lot of free time, [00:24:00] because when I’d go home, I’d have to milk cows, and feed dogs, and stuff like that. And I’m somewhat envious of some of them my buddies because they’d tell about their big date tonight before something and I was home doing chores, but probably better off for it. And it was just a fun time. In fact, I think high school was -- my mother tells about college days being her most enjoyable days, but high school was my most enjoyable days. Just fun times. And I did have a setback in the fall of 1940. I had a mastoid operation in the back of my left ear and was in Samaritan Hospital for 30 days. And my mother just ran [00:25:00] across that bill. The total hospital bill was just over four dollars a day. And I’m on the hospital board now, and I’ll tell you, it’s a different world out there, now. KEN: Indeed, it is. Indeed, it is. SUMNER: The basic room is 215 dollars a day, and it’s going to go up. And that’s just the beginning of the charges you can get. Four dollars a day in 1940. KEN: Who were some of your teachers, you remember here at the high school? SUMNER: Well, Paul Jones was one of my teachers. He was a track coach, too. Annie Laurie Bird was, of course, famous here. But I never did have her. [00:26:00] And she told me that I was the only football captain that she never had as a student. But I never did have her. She was kind of prone to take care of the football boys, they tell me, but I didn’t have any trouble with study, so a teacher didn’t have to take care of me. But of course, Leo Matthews was in junior high school. I don’t think he was ever -- yeah, he eventually came to high school. Was he here, then? I don’t think he was. Doc Caldwell was my science and math teacher, Webster. And then, Dr. Lyle Stanford, who went to C of I and quite a noted teacher over there. While he was working towards the doctorate, he taught biology and sciences here and I had him. [00:27:00] He was an excellent teacher. And Evelyn Haglund, God bless her, I loved the dear lady, but oh, she was English teacher, and I had some kind of a quirk that I was a prankster to English teachers. And I led her a merry chase and I’ve felt guilty about it through the years, but I can say that when I was on the school board in the late ’60s, she needed some special help, because in some way, she was about to lose her retirement, not lose it, but somebody was trying to get it away from her. And between myself, and Dick Reardon, her attorney, we were able to ensure that got rescinded and got back to, her and I always felt that I repaid for my sins. (laughs) [00:28:00] And of course, who were some of the -- Harold White was our football coach and of course, and baseball, basketball, coached everything. And I thought he was just God. A guy by the name of Bob Hard was our sophomore coach, and football, and basketball and he ended up over as principal at high school at Emmett, as his hometown. I can’t remember offhand who all the rest of them were. There was this pair -- Mrs. Billick, I think, was in the system then but I never did have her as a teacher. KEN: Well, after you [00:29:00] graduated, then you went on to the University of Idaho. SUMNER: Yeah, I went up there and I got a Union Pacific Railroad Scholarship for a grand total of 100 dollars. I thought that was a big deal. And that was in the fall of ’42 and then the war came along, World War II. And some of the guys were already signed up at the end of the first semester. Reserves and so forth took them. I went ahead and finished and then that spring of ’43 went took my physical for the draft, and unbeknownst to me, they said I had a perforated eardrum, and declared me 4F. That was probably the biggest shock in my life, because here I was thought I was... KEN: Perfect health. SUMNER: Yeah. And so, [00:30:00] I went on back to school, worked on the farms in the summer because farm hands were short, and you worked long hours, naturally, and then went back to school. And finally, in I think, late ’44, early ’45, they reached the bottom of the barrel to get bodies and so they called me up for a re-physical. Well, I had about five doctors looking in my ear, and there was absolutely no sign of perforation. All they can figure out is somebody saw a piece of wax or something, it was thought from that mastoid it had been perforated. And so, then, I was drafted and went into the Navy and Aviation Electronic School program and ended up coming out as an aviation electronics technician. [00:31:00] Went back to school in the fall of ’46. Well, I might add, war is hell. When I was in that school when the war was over, and so, they closed the school, but I couldn’t get discharged. So, I got transferred to the PE department of this base in Corpus Christi, Texas. And four of us were assigned as our duty to keep the baseball diamond in shape. And we were on the baseball team. And we flew all over the Southeast United States playing baseball. And all we had to do on the diamond was get the home base and the pitcher’s mound shaped up, the way you do, float the infield, and line the field. All the mowing was done by public works. And we just played baseball and had free access to the gym and a swimming pool and a golf course and the whole works [00:32:00] of it. I say, war is hell. That was for about three, four months. Probably the most carefree, unencumbered period of my life, because we were on the baseball team, we were fed in a special section in the chow hall, and just had the life of a king, really. Anyway, went back to school and graduated from University of Iowa in the fall of ’48 in civil engineering, I’d switched from ag engineering, and went to work for the highway department down at Rupert, State Highway. I worked there five months. And then they needed an engineering assistant here in Nampa and Peter E. Johnson [00:33:00] and Alex Hunter, who was my longtime friend, because I’ve run around with his son, he’s the one who sponsored me, to get me to come and interview. And they ended up hiring me and after I’d been there about a month, the mayor called me in one day and asked, well, was I ready to take over city engineer? “Well,” I said, “Wait a minute, Mayor, I’m not licensed. I won’t be for three and a half years.” And he didn’t realize that, and was, quite frankly, wanting to can the city engineer. But that was something I didn’t know about when I got into the thing. But it worked out all right, and I went on. John Griffin was the city engineer. And he left, then they hired Clark Murphy. And I stayed there for three years as an assistant. And it was an interesting period. [00:34:00] They let the contract for the first major waste treatment facility... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 2 of 6 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/6d772bf032324c5f861a9e5e107b86c6.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=K34--czK9J%7Eoaon0xNVNr7MLdbSxoUeTsT0Tf9-m5kKktyg5ZoDzv7f6A7Jaj6ZQEq8vFLUfKCHqvvRv3NM0FhwZdVno27Uldh8X73LVPr1DhiXh-0KlCqM0blJgI6fiPbgXd-f3R1Q2782m%7EbuU1yRg9NQA4CrB-8vurFy%7EB74qWxj1AneTqyhAcGWQw4efcoPiyRcdxX5db8bAkYBdOoo0Jx%7Ec8Dr8I88zkTu4M-JoAFO8A0GmWzmjCaFfawJ%7E3Zs7e8EmmkmL01MQZGNK3voS5duWDl9Ma%7E6wVYWaMXjoYucBmxOBKB5EK%7EEODmvubprfd2aephjguAO8xP3TCQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e8d9f387f5bff74f2765fa44c1626131 PDF Text Text SUMNER: That’s probably in about the fall of ’49. KEN: What was the treatment – SUMNER: Before that? KEN: Yeah. What did we have? Just septic, then? SUMNER: I think they were different versions of septic tanks. They’d put in a septic tank here and it outgrew, and they’d put in another, and down where the dog pound is now, there were some large septic tanks in there. And I don’t believe the city had what they call an Imhoff tank, that’s a little more sophisticated, but it was just a matter of collecting the solids, and then they discharged it direct to Indian Creek, the effluent, they didn’t go to drain fields. And I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that, because we hired [00:01:00] John Farthergale as the inspector out there. And of course, I would be involved in some of the decision-making. That’s where I got my first exposure to actual on the job construction of a sewer plant. KEN: I wonder if there any pictures available that you might have, or the firm might have of that project. SUMNER: Of course, I wasn’t with the firm in those days, and I doubt if I’d have any pictures of it. Can’t believe I do. I’m not much of a photographer, so I don’t think I’d have any. I don’t know. Later, when it was remodeled or expanded in the late ’60s, we might have some of that. There might be some, someplace on that. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the records, [00:02:00] the city engineer records were in a shamble. And, quite frankly, the first winter of ’48-’49, it was very cold, it got down, frost went over four feet deep in the streets, we had watermains frozen four feet deep. I don’t remember it ever getting that deep since, even last year, I don’t think it was bad. And so, I was kind of just on my own trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. The city engineer didn’t give me much instruction. And so, I went through the process of cataloging and getting all the records and finding out what we had as a basis to work from. And then, I started getting involved in surveying for curb and gutter construction. [00:03:00] People would call in want their lot staked for curb and gutter. It was a very inefficient method to go out and do 50 feet. But in that, you needed to know where the centerline of the street was. And before the Depression, there was good surveying procedures used, and there was monuments all over town in street intersections, but they were buried. And of course, with gravel roads, that’s all you can do, dig them down below... (break in audio) SUMNER: Anyway, and the surveyors during the Depression [00:04:00] got pretty confidential with their information. They didn’t change it back and forth. And they intentionally did not leave any evidence, so that they could go out and survey a piece of property cheaper than their competitor. And of course, I was on the public payroll, so I started a process of digging those up on a needed them, and reference tying them, and creating a reference tie book. And then the local surveyors, John Farthergale and Bob Ednee, primarily, John Griffiths a little later, and then later on Mel Davenport, they would come in and get my records from the city, and then in the process, I got them exchanging information and started the process of public exchange of all survey information. And then, years later, when we came back here in ’57, the city engineer, [00:05:00] we started a program of bringing those monuments to the surface and setting in the brush gap and concrete, which then anybody can walk out there and find it. And we’ve even gone more sophisticated than that in the surveying field that we require a surveyor to file a record of survey when he does a survey that shows new evidence, new information, and he has to file a corner perpetuation record of when he reestablishes, a section corner, quarter corner, or a point of beginning on a subdivision, so that that date is in the public record and it’s available for anybody. But I feel that that started when I was with the city in that period of fall of ’48 to the fall of ’51, when we right here in Nampa started the [00:06:00] exchanging of information much earlier. Then, at that time, also, they created I think it was LID number 40, which was the first modern, large local improvement district in Nampa to provide sewers for the unsewered area, basically, in the town at that time, at least I should say the west and south part of the town at that time. And Briggs and Associates did the engineering on it, and that’s where I got acquainted with them, and eventually then, when that went to construction in the fall of ’51, they needed an inspector and I saw the opportunity and went to work for them as the inspector that wrapped up this whole project. And that started my... KEN: What was here, [00:07:00] then other than the original town? So, when you say south and west, I’m assuming that’s south and west of the original townsite, basically. SUMNER: Well, Togstad’s Edition for instance was in, and of course, Canyon Street clear down to -- I think it even had been pushed through clear to Lake Lowell. Moad’s Addition was in its various stages, a lot of it was already in, Geesion Addition was in, and part of the Moad Addition and Moad subdivision and so forth were in. Of course, Kurtz’s addition was there for years. But here’s an old, old plat, but didn’t really fully develop, there was a lot of acreage, and so forth. And sewers were in the north and west part of it, but this south part down around Amity had no sewers and this LID 40 wrap basically [00:08:00] down Canyon to Elijah Drain, down Elijah Drain to Amity, and east on Amity, generally, and then branched off. It seems to me about a half million-dollar project. KEN: A big one. SUMNER: Yeah, in those days, you can say that. And then, of course, later, in the late ’60s, we did LID 49, 49A, which was a major sewer project for the whole of Nampa. And our goal was to get the entire corporate limits served with sewer. We got that done except for one area, and that was out south of the Nampa Livestock area, well, for instance, Brown Bus company and those are in there, [00:09:00] it took a very expensive railroad under crossing over to Railroad Street and down First Street North and that way to serve those people. And at the LID protest hearing, those people were so solid in their opposition to it that the council, in good wisdom, took it out. Historically, it was a bad thing, because those people still don’t have sewers. Yet, we had a project, there were some federal funds available, and so forth, if we could have done it, why, they’d have sewers now and they’d all be paid for, and they wouldn’t even realize it had been a burden. KEN: In the development of a city, and of course, we’re now in the 100th year from the original townsite of Nampa up to a population of some 27,000 within the city limits, an [00:10:00] additional 15 to 20,000 in the area immediately surrounding Nampa. So, the greater Nampa area, we’re talking of population now 40 to 45,000 people. How important is it in the development of a city, for some of these basic services we’re starting talking about, such as a sewer, and water, and streets? Starting with sewer first. SUMNER: And that’s, of course, the thing that should be put in first, because it’s the deepest in the ground. And so, you if you put the water line in first or the gas mains in first, you’ve got to fight those lines in your process. If you can get the sewer in, and then then once it’s in, then you can put the water line in and cross it over, and so forth, [00:11:00] not having problems. And you for sure don’t want to build the streets until you’ve got all those in because means you built the street without them in. And that’s when one of the problems of LID 40 and LID 49, is you had to go in and replace a bunch of streets, because all those areas had septic tanks. So, in my opinion, you want to get all those things in first. And you need to have an overall plan. Because if you don’t, you’re going to undersize them and put them in the wrong location and things like that. And when I say an overall plan, that doesn’t mean you have it perfect, because things are going to happen different than you can predict. But it’s better to have an imperfect plan than no plan at all. And that’s one of the things, [00:12:00] for instance, you can branch off onto the street situation. In the late ’50s, Bob Underkofler, my partner, became aware of a plan that the Federal Highway Administration was trying to foster. And he presented to the city council, and they went for it, and Nampa ended up being one of the first cities in the nation that developed a transportation plan that brought the Federal Highway Administration, or Department, the State Highway Department, the Canyon County Commissioners, the Nampa Highway District, the City of Nampa and the Chamber of Commerce, into a common meeting to develop a network for a major transportation, highway transportation, to serve Nampa. That has been updated maybe every five, six years. And today is still the City of Nampa’s [00:13:00] transportation plan, and you’ve seen it. KEN: I’ve seen it. SUMNER: And one of the highlights in that, to me, is, in the first plan, we as a city goal, said that Holly Street needed to be extended south of Hawaii on an S curve to the east to tie into Sunny Ridge Road. That is being done now, after some 20 -- no, about 18 years, I guess it is. KEN: Yeah, that’s the plan on the wall is the current project. SUMNER: And that was one of them. And of course, the interstate highway was programmed as part of that plan, the 16th Avenue routing and overpass as a function of that. [00:14:00] The Nampa Boulevard, one of the major connectors from the interstate for us was a result of that plan. And in fact, I can’t say his name, now. (inaudible) get it, a realtor gentleman here in town, and I represented the chamber and the city and went before the State Highway Board to sponsor the Nampa Boulevard connector and overpass. And as a result of that meeting, we got it approved and put on the highway system to be built and funded. But that type of thing, the plan is not perfect when you build it, but they’ve met every five or six years and updated it and put out a new document. And Lou Ross, who was the State Highway Planning Engineer, [00:15:00] whatever his title was then, left Idaho and went to Washington DC with the Federal Highway Administration. And he took the Nampa Transport Placement Plan and used it as the model for small communities in the United States. KEN: That’s quite a compliment. SUMNER: We were very proud that we had a part to do with it. KEN: Well, over the last 30 years, 35 years, you had a great deal, personally, to do the development of what we now call the infrastructure, the basic public works type projects in Nampa, either directly as a city engineer, as a consultant for the city, or in some cases, as the engineer representing some private developers. You’ve seen everything within that last 35 years, probably have a [00:16:00] more intimate knowledge than any other single person in Nampa. SUMNER: That could be true. For instance, we did a water study there, I don’t know, probably ’59 or ’60, that used as a basis for a long time of converting the old, four-inch diameter watermain, when it was put in, and 40 years ago, it was a big watermain. But nowadays, why, it just isn’t big enough. And so, we did that study, and that then served as a basis for the water department and replacing, putting in eight- and 10-inch main, sometimes 12-inch main, where they needed a new well source to fit the area. And I think almost all of that has been implemented. And now of course, the city has expanded beyond that, [00:17:00] as the new annexation has come about. And so, I don’t have any knowledge of what those basic plans are, but I know Larry has done a good job of continuing that plan. KEN: Yeah, he is. In fact, that’s something that Nampa has to offer, where we stand out, as companies, industries look for siting, is Nampa does have a good water supply. We have the sewer services and sewer capacity that’s just unmatched. SUMNER: And that’s because of a good forward looking city administration. If I had a part to do it, I’m pleased. But I know you’ve had a strong part in it, in recent years. KEN: Of course, yeah. But you have to have a good foundation to build on it, which you’ve provided. What are some of the major projects, as you view the development of Nampa, [00:18:00] since your professional involvement in public works in engineering since the early ’50s, up to the present time? SUMNER: Well, there’s many things that fit into a network, as you just said, that we as a community had our foundation or backbone structure for a water system, a sewer system, a transportation system, and a drainage system. So, that then, when an industry or a residential developer came to town, they saw what they had to do, and if they could make it fit into their economic projections, they were ready to go. And as a result, that permitted, I think, orderly growth where in other communities, they’d [00:19:00] go and they’d see the problem, but there was no pattern of how to solve it. And industrial, I think, is one of the big elements. I remember when I came as city engineer in ’57, the Nampa Industrial Corporation was kind of floundered out there and they had the right idea but weren’t getting it off the ground because they didn’t have sewer, and they didn’t have proper water mains. And so, through a result of the sewer and watermain plans and construction, I got involved, then with the Nampa Industrial Corporation, in fact, I ended up being on the board, and I’ve been on it 17 or 18 years now. And we brought a lot of industry to the community onto property that was owned and developed by Nampa Industrial Corporation preparation, but probably an equal amount we brought by just the fact that the NIC was in existence, and they’d come talk to us and we’d show them a whole bunch of other property. [00:20:00] Martin Wood Products, for instance, came as a result of activities in Nampa Industrial Corporations before I was involved, by the way. So, there’s a lot of industrial activities that are spin offs that Nampa Industrial Corporation take a little credit for. And it’s the economic base of our workforce. And it’s been good for the community, I think. KEN: Indeed, it has. SUMNER: The 16th Avenue overpass is a major project that we were able to help the city find the funding to get the thing going. KEN: In what year was that project completed? SUMNER: I’d say in the late ’60s. [00:21:00] Mayor Starr, I went to Ernie, and I said, “Ernie, we can get funding for it. But” I said, “We’ve got to get it on the federal aid secondary highway designation.” And I said, “As an engineer, I can’t do too much to get that accomplished, but you as a mayor can.” And Ernie took the bit and got it done. He got it done. I gave him the idea, but it was a political thing, not a technical thing. And so, he got that done. And then of course, on the 11th Avenue underpass... KEN: Yeah, you were involved – SUMNER: Behind the scenes. KEN: -- behind the scenes getting that done. SUMNER: And that’s the key. Everybody’s got projects if they can find some money to fund them. And of course, the Nampa Boulevard overpass, and rerouting, [00:22:00] and rebuilding was as a result of activities in the Nampa Chamber of Commerce and the city. And John Ray was that guy’s name. He used to live right across the street here on the corner. He was the fellow who was the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Highway Committee, when we met with the State Highway Board and got Nampa Boulevard approved. The school system has been a big impact. I remember they bought the 40 acres for the high school site. And the first thing they built there was the football field. They could build that without a whole lot of expenditure. And the only place we could play football was in the rodeo park, [00:23:00] and they were going to eliminate the football field and turn that into a rodeo stadium, you see, which it presently is, that was about 1951, maybe, that that was done. And so, they had to have a place to play their football games. And so, they contracted with Bill Hayes, the school district did, and they hired me, and I went out there moonlighted and laid out the track and the football field at nights. And, at the time, the experts were saying you should put a crown in the field, of a foot, I think. KEN: For drainage? SUMNER: Yeah, so that the water would drain away and not pawn. And we put that crown in that and I can sure remember the old timers saying, [00:24:00] “My heavens, that ain’t going to work. It’ll mislead the passer because he’ll be passing uphill from one place and downhill from another,” and so forth. But of course, now, there isn’t a field built without even more crown than that in it. It was one of the early ones that got it. And then next, they built the gym, and they’ve built classrooms. KEN: You were on the school board for how many years? SUMNER: I was just on three years. KEN: When was that? SUMNER: Oh, that was about ’65 to ’67, I think. It was quite an upheaval in the school system, then. KEN: Yeah, I guess it was all over the country, with the Vietnam protests. SUMNER: And then, of course, the innovative teaching, [00:25:00] team teaching and all those things were coming into vogue then. And we really had a strong element that was adamant for that. And, of course, I’ve always been somewhat willing to look at creative ideas. And so, through the process, we did move into some of that team teaching philosophy, but it’s kind of gone out of favor. And as Rex Engelking came in as superintendent, following the period that I was on the board, And I’ve told Rex this many times, that the best thing that ever happened to him is that we had a three-year period there where the liberals were really trying to do all those good things, and they found out they wouldn’t be good. And so, [00:26:00] then when Rex came in, he looks like a wild-eyed conservative, but really, he’s very liberal. (laughs) And he probably got a lot of his programs through that he couldn’t have got, if he’d have followed the Harry Mills superintendent. But the fact that -- I can’t say the superintendent’s name now -- [Oglesby, was in there for a couple of years, and he was very modern. And as a result, then, when Rex came, I think he was able to do a good job and did do a good job. At that time, we planned the both of the two junior high schools, and built the Sunny Ridge School out there in that residential section [00:27:00] that needed it. So, there was a lot of activities going on in the schools in those days. It was going through a lot of growing pains. We went from a three-person superintendent’s office to a few more and then in recent years, it got up to be a bureaucracy, but I think they finally settled back now, and it’s a realistic number. Those things happen. And, of course, Harry Mills was the superintendent and had a lot of talent in certain areas, but the one that was the vogue then was curriculum and modern teaching methods, and that wasn’t Harry’s long suit. And so, we as board, visited with him on it. [00:28:00] And I went to bat for Harry, quite frankly and said, “Harry, we’ve got a job for you here as long as you want to stay, but probably not going to be as superintendent in charge of curriculum.” And Harry was... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 3 of 6 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/1efc1270596e24949e307148f850f9cd.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=jUylZXiydKJPAAwLVmbS7aGZwPCWNhT0Xb%7Ef9GEGO-f2zHbdpa2izNaUoKO7C4KQhXS4EO8G5xkf85MAKucTBS4%7EepqGuZYeBptS50oAYPxB0ZgBYgomjDgq5SYJkuO96IBfILl%7EAe7dAE3hQx71OBnhYuhHGLxETn3jdoY6Kn4W84xpG0CWu23HaWJt2lRIzUNPvXDqAPvMQjFw-jTDyFBBtnNVUo4zJ-DWE2DZHT2ODNpaP7kG95YA9vgCxHKl0lvwbSw2fzrbWbOdtFbfnVzE8Rg-PQhkiP8%7EMgafi05EUJOJ%7Exu8OYJz2kmYXGr3k%7Et6qq-iEmltOUTrh1Cy9A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM fae5fd9891d1fb3873b52bcb02948289 PDF Text Text SUMNER: And you’ve got to commend Harry, he was big enough to say that “Hey, I better move on.” So, he resigned and went with the State Department. And I didn’t have a real good close relationship with Harry after that, it was a little strained, but I heard it was a much easier job than being superintendent of schools and got paid more. KEN: Yeah, I’m sure it would have been. SUMNER: Of course, you see, then, after I -- well, I don't know what you need to know anything personally about me. KEN: I’d like to. SUMNER: I married Betty Wisely in 1950, and had a home wedding at their family’s home, 512 19th Avenue South. We lived in a basement apartment at [00:01:00] about 12, 14, something like that, Seventh Street South for a while, and I worked for the city. And then, I went with Briggs and Associates in 1951 and lived in Nampa for four years and commuted but couldn’t develop any work in Nampa. I just couldn’t. Nampa businesspeople wouldn’t hire a Boise firm. And so, I did very little engineering work with the community of Nampa but did a lot around the state. Finally, did move to Boise, or Ada County, for two years. And then in 1957, contracted with the city to do their city engineering work under a contract basis, much the horror of the whole municipal community of Idaho, thinking it wouldn’t work. And the net result, [00:02:00] as I think history proved, is probably the combination was good for the city and good for us. KEN: Yeah, you brought an element of professionalism. SUMNER: Yeah. And I found that while I was on the staff, they had me doing everything but engineering, but once I came back as a consultant, they didn’t refer anything to me but engineering. You didn’t have to handle the errand boy duty, so to speak, you got to do engineering. They got more engineering for their dollar. And then it served as a basis for Underkofler and myself to develop and mature. And we were in on the ground floor of a lot of programs that were available to cities and were able to use that in the developing of our company. Then, we eventually brought Bill Briggs [00:03:00] in as a partner, finally incorporated in 1969, as JUB Engineers, maybe 1970. And of course, the rest is history. KEN: The firm grew rapidly through the ’70s. SUMNER: Yeah, and in 1978, and ’79, I think at one time, we had 146 people on the payroll. But now, you see, there’s a great reduction in expenditures for public works through the federal level, and even to the state programs. And so, the cities, and municipalities, and of course, through the financing of residential housing, that’s very dormant. There’s not near the demand for engineering work that there was in the ’70s. And so, [00:04:00] we’re down to about 75 people now. Lean, and mean. And we better stay that way. Because it’s a tough world out there today, probably the toughest, economically. And not only in engineering, you talk -- of course, my walks of life are engineering, surveying, contractors, construction, architects, realtors, that type of people, and all of those are in a very, very tight situation right now. And I think it’s probably as much as anything due to the agricultural economy in Idaho is bad, the mining economy is bad, and the timber economy is bad. You read about all the national growth and so forth, but I think it comes mainly in the Sunbelt. Here in the northwest, we don’t feel it. [00:05:00] And of course, it’s impacted Idaho from the state government on down. You probably feel it here in city government, too. KEN: Oh, yeah. Feel it a lot (inaudible). SUMNER: I guess I want to -- I’ve got some notes here. I want to see if I’ve covered everything. During that era when we were with the city, as city engineers for about four or five years, myself as engineer up until the last year when Joe Huckabee came to work for us, and he worked on our payroll as the city engineer, district would maybe review them. We did that street planning process where we would develop a [00:06:00] five-year plan and then each year updated it and projected it a year and got involved in that Nampa Transportation Planning that turned out to serve as the basis for nationwide small communities. The drainage study, which was implemented and developed, eventually constructed. The water plan for the transmission network and new well supplies. And of course, then we went into the major expansion of the waste treatment facilities as a result of a study we did in about ’61. And then that was expanded and built in stages in the late ’60s. KEN: No, mid-’60s, wasn’t it? ’62 and ’63? SUMNER: Maybe it was. KEN: The bond issue was in ’61. But I [00:07:00] assumed, perhaps it would have been ’62 or ’63. SUMNER: I guess it could be. Yes, that’s right. And then, later, we did some expansion for Birdseye -- or, not Birdseye, Carnation. It was some other name, then. But you probably don’t know that we had some pitfalls on that. I mean, you knew we had the pitfalls, but you don’t know why. An interesting thing, we did a pilot study on treating the sugar company’s waste where we took a pipeline from the sugar company and took about, it seems to me 2 million gallons a day of their waste and run it through the old plant and went through very detailed record keeping and so forth and developed our criteria and a pilot study of 2 million gallons a day really isn’t a pilot study, that’s a full-scale study. [00:08:00] And we did it all winter long. Built the plant as a result of that pilot study and we had digestive sludge running out our ears. Didn’t find out till sometime later that during that pilot study stage, the plant superintendent was moonlight dumping some of the sludge to Indian Creek and it wasn’t going through our meter, and he thought it was, and he was doing something illegal as far as that goes, I guess, and didn’t tell us and we ended up with way, way more sludge than we had programmed, and we couldn’t handle it. And we had to go through a process of building an [00:09:00] expansion for sludge polishing tank and so forth. Well, about time we got that done, then that Carnation Potato, whatever they were called, then, came into being. And the state, there was a demonstration, or a pilot study being done, but R.T. French company over -- not American Falls, between Idaho Falls and Blackfoot. Shelley. And based on that result, we designed an aeration basin here to take care of the potatoes. Harland Formal was the state engineer we were working with, and in the process of final design he had heart attack and died. And we submitted our final plans to the health department, [00:10:00] Vaughn Anderson has subsequently told me this, that just before we submitted our plans to the health department, they found out that somebody had salted the hole, so to speak, on that RT French study and the information that they published was erroneous. And we’d made our design on that whole study. And nobody told us. The health department got their heads together, and they thought, “Well, it’ll probably work anyway.” And we went out there and did it and it didn’t work. And we didn’t find out until afterwards why it didn’t work. In fact, [00:11:00] it was a disaster. We couldn’t make it work. Number two, the last day that I worked on that project, the city took it away from us, I found out that the potato people were supposed to give us a maximum load of so much, five days a week, or six days a week. And their average load for 30 days in the month was like 20 percent over any one day maximum allowable, and the operator had failed to catch that. And so, everything stacked up that it couldn’t possibly work. Then the third thing is the old digester dome, which we didn’t do anything with, and the sewer plant operator was going up there every day and taking a sample, had a crack in the top of it. And that sewage gas was coming out of there and was creating most of the odor that would [00:12:00] permeate. I’d drive down the interstate highway and I’d catch that odor, I’d swing over to the plant, and I couldn’t get it. And I could not figure it out. KEN: (inaudible) SUMNER: Well, the wind, you’d drive down Nampa Boulevard, or Caldwell Boulevard, same thing. What it’d do is, it was warm, and it’d come out and go up, and then it had to go through a temperature inversion before it’d come back down someplace. KEN: So, that’s the way it would spread. SUMNER: And Huckabee finally, some way, found out that, and they sealed that. And basically, the odor, that real serious odor problem disappeared. Well, anyway, I use tell Ernie, I said, “There’s no sense that everybody else be blamed on this, just blame it on us and just let it go ahead.” But you see, nobody was ever taking us to court. And you can see why. Because you see, if we had made all those blunders that appears we did, why, [00:13:00] we’d have a liability exposure. But the state goofed, the city’s operator goofed, and then there was a crack up there that went there for years that nobody knew about it. And it was wasting gas. So, anyway, I just got the digression from when I was going through these. Of course, we talked about the major sewer system extensions. And then that era of Karcher Mall groundbreaking came about. Interesting sidelight, Van Moad about that the land out on the boulevard in the late ’20s was selling for 1,000 dollars an acre. The crash came and the first piece of farmland, so to speak, that sold for 1,000 dollars acre after that was when Harry Daum purchased Karcher Mall, 30 some acres, [00:14:00] 34 acres for 34,000, something like that. It’s an interesting sidelight. KEN: That is. SUMNER: Of course, the I-84 planning, and John Brandt had a lot to do with that, because it was originally planned to go down Highway 20. And if it had done that, we’d have been dead. And to the Real Estate Association, they proposed what they call the Ridge Route, to go through on the ridge and leave the good farmland, and so forth. And of course, the goal was to get it towards Nampa. But the state dropped down below the ridge, where it is, going from here to Meridian. And then, industrial corporations... KEN: Now, what year did the I-84 come through, then? SUMNER: Well, I can’t answer that. [00:15:00] KEN: Late, mid-50s? SUMNER: Oh no. The planning was in the mid-50s, the mapping and so forth. But the actual interstate construction north of Nampa was when Huckabee was city engineer. KEN: So, ’60s. SUMNER: And in fact, I was instrumental in getting them to go out and put a watermain through the interstate on 11th Avenue North extension so that we could eventually hopefully serve the state school and hospital. He didn’t put a big enough one in, in my opinion, he put an eight-inch in there, I think. (inaudible) and then he did the same thing on Nampa Boulevard, as I recall, they put that in, we got the sewer line through before. But I think that was from, like, [00:16:00] ’61 to ’65 in there, I think. And the Nampa Industrial Corporation finally got going and momentum, the Hehr Manufacturing, Fleetwood, Western Stockmen’s, that Northland Camps, what was the name of that outfit? I can’t remember now. They all came in. Back to an interesting sidelight, through the history of the Nampa Industrial Corporation, we’ve averaged one industry about every two years, that’s average. And our presidents generally serve about a two-year cycle. In the two years I was president, I had the misfortune that we brought in four industries. Two a year, instead of one every two years. KEN: What two years were [00:17:00] they? SUMNER: Oh, that would have probably been ’77 and ’78. In fact, we were going through such a growth... KEN: Oh, the North American Plant Breeders is one of them? SUMNER: Well, I can’t remember which, it was Zilog, and I think the seed company east of Fleetwood. I can’t say their name. And probably maybe John Ward Plumbing, maybe North American Plant Breeders, there was four of them came in there in that two-year period. Probably the biggest negative thing in my lifetime that I could have probably done something about if I had the wisdom that I do now, was that they tore the Dewey Palace down while [00:18:00] I was city engineer. Didn’t even realize what a disaster when we were standing by. KEN: What are your recollections of the Dewey Palace, your earliest recollections? And then, as you were growing up, any recollections you have? SUMNER: See, I really don’t have a whole lot of recollection of the Dewey Palace. Because of my farm connections. I wasn’t involved in the city, so to speak. But the one thing I can remember as the student Rotarian, when I was about a senior in high school, they met at the Dewey Palace, and I went there for a month and ate lunch with them. And, of course, was quite impressed with the [00:19:00] linen and the whole thing. Now my aunt, Doris Farrell, who lives in the apartments Bart Westberg built, what do they call them? KEN: The Landmark Towers? SUMNER: Yeah. She worked in the Dewey Palace for years as a waitress. And she could give you a whole lot of history about the Dewey Palace, and Nampa, as far as that goes, more than my mother, I think. And she’s still of good mind. KEN: Yeah, we need to talk to her. SUMNER: But I just didn’t have anything to do, I’ve never had occasion to be in the Dewey Palace, other than through the entryway and into the dining room. So, I don’t ever remember being on the second floor. But it’s unfortunate that somebody didn’t have wisdom back there and keep that from being destroyed. It could be one of the things, but [00:20:00] can’t look back, I guess. In those days, we were trying to get comprehensive planning going, but we didn’t have much success. But we finally planted the seed and eventually did get the comp plan through for Nampa. We did start something that I think you’d used on Midland Boulevard, for instance, the highway department was going to reconstruct 12th Avenue Road, and they were going to do everything but the sidewalks. And we wanted sidewalks but they wouldn’t fund them. So, we said, “Okay, let us create a local improvement district to dovetail with your project and we’ll build the sidewalks with the LID,” which we did. And now since then, they’ve expanded and used it as city’s matching share and so forth on curb and gutters. And that’s used in several communities, too, not only Nampa. [00:21:00] And the city was putting together a local improvement history of some kind out there in Gold Subdivision for sewer in 1956. It was a complete failure. And they had to go in and replace it. And in fact, I’m not sure we didn’t get involved in replacing it because they had arbitrarily made a drop of three feet in a manhole, they got out there and they couldn’t serve two basements. Oh, it was as disaster. But that started the first LID. Then we went through, almost got tarred and feathered at the Council Chamber when we created an LID for curb and gutter and sidewalks in conjunction with street construction, out in Kurtz’s addition. And then, we carried it all through the town, the Fairview addition, and just all over the old parts of town. [00:22:00] And that finally got the town kind of finished. Up until then, it was just dirt shoulders and grass, and people’s front yards, and so forth. Oh, another thing that we got involved with that has been spread all over Idaho. When we came to the city, they charged 50 dollars for a sewer hookup. And they set that back in the ’20s. Well, it’s ridiculous. And so, after that big LID 49, we were able to show what the cost for trunk lines were, and what the cost for lateral were, and from that we were able to project those two elements of the sewer extension. And I don’t even remember what the numbers were now, but it was quite a bit more than 50 dollars. [00:23:00] Each one of them was in the neighborhood of 150 or 200. An interesting sidelight, George Schellenberger was city clerk, and we gave all this stuff to George, the council approved it and everything, and then he would issue the permits and collect them. But he didn’t tell his clerical staff. And pretty soon the sewer contractor found out if they went in while George was off to lunch, they could get it for 50 dollars.(laughs) If they got it while he was there, it was 150 for lateral and 225 for trunk line or something like that, or 375 dollars. And that went on for almost a year before it was caught. And so, the permit was taken out and all the records, but the dollar amounts were wrong. But it just typical of those things that falls through the crack in administration. And then at that era, we started the off-street parking down on Front Street, and we funded that with parking meter revenue. [00:24:00] And we’d run... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 4 of 6 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/15574b7371735c5d5917f7aa5b34a884.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=sR57HIr8b3nzfvS0z63qYJiChMU84y1PF-2HQZFn92gK--0Ec1Nluqjvg6a9Mh0EtuPHeMhx9iCHtpLJqmQYCLsUkURNakjqWlFe1SG4oMPHH6GahHOiiCEPrArQoftdOxjCQV%7EHCKNRUPgxlnNRCaIvcIRZ1y1h9nMuVfiUuAebzDT9hnfkff1EEYrYfCFtxUtowFlhyOp3Bny4b9HLgE9-e4KrB%7Esh59e90415pFROlWDiXly%7EAwoAjfCZuZuTMQFRb8Egz4i2LMU3ftTRv9YMBapWfEp84D8sjHawz4g%7ENTHjHWGYL3ebuvINJpCbmag6yfNh39nA-f-qoGQM8w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3c3dfe7b5b6003deda909986f2027e51 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 5 of 6 PDF Text Text SUMNER: anyway, on that off-street parking, the city owned some of that property down there, but the rest of it was old, dilapidated buildings that were off of the drag, or main drag, and deteriorated pretty bad. And through parking meter revenues, we were able to dedicate that funds and buy property, the city was, and then tore down the buildings with street department personnel and equipment, and then, contracted to build those off-street parking. And by present day standards, they weren’t as good as we’d like, but back then, they were pretty uptown. And that cleaned up an area, plus provided parking for people. But it really didn’t do the job, [00:01:00] because it was not near enough to the merchants. It was good enough for employee parking and so forth but wasn’t enough to merchants. So, then we conceived a large local improvement district type off-street parking. And I actually wrote the amendment to that old code by Dick Riordan and the city attorney, and he thought it was okay, run it by Hal Ryan, who was a state senator and city attorney for Weiser, run it by Jim McClure, who then was the state senator and the city attorney for Payette, and run by the legal counsel for the Association of Idaho Cities, I can’t remember his name now. All four of them thought it was fine, at least. We gave that to McClure, and he carried it to the legislature and had passed, [00:02:00] and we got it on the books, and we started to create a local improvement district here, and an enlarged district for off street parking, and Earl Reid read it as an attorney representing an opposition, and there was a flaw in it. Just like that, he picked it up. And here, we’d run it by all of the legal minds that we could that knew about city government and state law. And that killed us. But also then, I think we got it amended and then we started it again, and Sevren Honstead violently opposed it, because he had created parking spaces for his property and blah, blah, blah. And so, Frank Bevington was running around, scurrying around in opposition to it. And I remember one night about [00:03:00] eight o’clock at home, I got a call from San Francisco, from Frank Bebbington. He was in a panic. Stanford Variety Store and, what was that other store in there? Drugstore, Nampa Drugstore, had four years left on their lease and they’d given notice that they were moving out. He thought he was in -- Montgomery Ward’s had a number of years left... END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/91ac06058f860be990eeffdbf41a8387.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=E9EZJQiI9zquk59TeqeDfKCUFNMr2qqQ9RiaYyUn3yI9qEMM4TT7jONqkgjEZgybnVYXmsYqIk5ZpknnagznO%7EgxYTHjC8uyDNxwfbHooZ3HkTpGbTK8%7ESby2fKejrTJlYW20ls23OBkDRLSBleiCohGcCCZ-HdkAKzYmr1RFDwW3aIk5yhvHQJQ-omKLQRv6yKOrqOdvqb98v%7EpEfy-SdyEiIqom3Q5McLTwdK7Q2pN%7EwkDRrjP%7EvDJIH3RU7nfQAxJY%7Ebk0hBIk3pNZX7JY6AA45p0FeSnNcZe8nnW8f0xVaFg5N-lFcKlgrfyWjio70HWAU6WT7OqgH4VFORdJg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 070c23c98c74e7b665c0af3ec63aac3d PDF Text Text SUMNER: Anyway, and they had a number of years left when Montgomery Ward leaves, too. And so, they thought they were all okay Well, he called in a panic after they’d killed this second go at an enlarged LID. “What can we do to reactivate it?” I said, “I don’t think we can do anything because it’s down the tube.” And it never did get reactivated to this day. But I contended that we needed to really look into a major off-street parking, but to compete with the Karcher Mall, you've got to compete with (inaudible). KEN: Yeah, you do. And that’s been one of the major obstacles to the downtown renovation. SUMNER: And of course, when I first got acquainted with you, we were working on that city hall committee, [00:01:00] Citizens Committee. There was about 64 of us. And remember the meeting up there in the old city hall chamber where we put together a final plan? I think you were there that night, not as a member of the committee but as an observer. And we had a vote, I think, 62 to two to go with, I forget which plan we were talking about, but it might have been this location right here. But I think it was Kenwood. And of course, the two that voted no were Frank Bevington and Bake Young. So, then Frank’s on the council and it goes to the council and gets pigeonholed. KEN: I remember that. SUMNER: So, they threw it back to us a couple of times. And that’s where, see, I was involved with the Financial Analysis Committee, [00:02:00] and I submitted it, and I didn’t think you’d ever even heard of it before, and you picked up on it, and we had quite an exchange of ideas and I was just amazed that you had grasped it the way you did, because most people didn’t know what we were talking about, but you had a complete grasp of it. But we tried. Didn’t get the job done. Anyway, the net result, we finally got this side here. At one time, we had a chance through the Ida-Ore to get an about 50 percent grant for a modest auditorium center, here, but couldn’t get city administration off dead center on that. Fortunately, now, we have a new administration that’s very [00:03:00] progressive. If Winston had been the mayor, then, why we’d have had an auditorium in the city, here. I guess that probably gives you about all the blarney you need from me. KEN: That’s a good report. Could we maybe even keep the notes for when we transcribe the tape? Because there’ll be some names that are -- is that something you’d... SUMNER: Then, I put down some of those old stores and stuff on here. I don't know whether I spelled them right. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner Johnson Recording 6 of 6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Harward, Ken Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sumner M. Johnson Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sumner M. Johnson Description An account of the resource Sumner Johnson, born in Nampa in 1924, discusses life in Nampa in the mid 1900’s, as well as his job as an engineer for the city. Topics discussed include the Great Depression, and shares experiences working with City Public Works, Nampa’s transportation plans, and drainage systems. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, May 16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/586" title="Ambrose Johnson family">Ambrose Johnson family</a> Carnation Condensery Citizens Committee City engineer City planning Farming Great Depression Lakeview Elementary School LID (Local Improvement District) Parking meters Peter Pan Ice Cream Shop Phyllis Canal Public works School building projects Streets Survey records Teachers Toy Steam Train Warrenite pavement https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/818c7901db4df404f95181fb96a13950.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=T66Nt%7ESkC2oAopyBjqF6r2wfiu2lQmfcVgrDQuYygn74SEtu4mPrRXgkACRAXkK-%7E9pQkcHNA9AifGxuBk9il8qR9IDvAvdH0uBWNIp8YRk5rUa8m8dSB4sWLU0x-t3%7E4wzosBVaZE9ZHVaRlyA0dGk6YhHxfJ4rXR2HXvpIHwj1jSzAjI8wtL9iyX3i3VKtadqvVsYJP20llCDN1jXfVZZSeURWARYi3OAcqzb0vA3DhTwFPRvRPbfbK4H7l722%7E8r1ukcUxlQ5By3HWhDwz9VmrGFI33Urd1bHcfDFHCP7NX2AD76kzXwkvsVriFR7SkHswuAZgUqeH9xeEXy1hg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 66282163df1415ce45effa0411aeb982 PDF Text Text RAY: Leonard Bowles made right made by Ray Larsen for the oral history for the Nampa Centennial made on May 22nd 1985. [Break] RAY: [00:00:30] Well Leonard we understand you came to Nampa in about the mid-20s with your family and tell us what what brought your family and what was Nampa like at that time? LEONARD: Well Well we come in here in 1926 and the reason that we came came from Emmett over here and the reason was my father got a job as the farm boss or supervisor at [00:01:00] the state school that time the state school was quite self-sustaining they had the farm they had big dairy they had they raised pigs, they had gardens, they canned they done everything and so his particular job was to supervise the farming end of it that's the reason we come into Nampa. LEONARD: As far as what Nampa was like at that time [00:01:30] of course it was it wasn't the Nampa that we know today it was much smaller and if I recall right the first census I remember for Nampa was between eight and nine thousand people of course now we're up over 25,000 and it was a farming community at that time as it more or less is now and the big [00:02:00] business of course or was the railroad and PFE shops was going at that time, In fact they just had opened the PFE shops and that was the two big industries as far as Nampa was concerned. I can remember the farming district around town you didn't have to go very [00:02:30] many blocks from the main part of town until until you were actually you know in the in the farming community. 12th Avenue, the Kenwood school of course was there and the Kenwood school up 12th Avenue road like I can remember when they were oh one or two houses in each block or in other words there were a lot of empty lots that were built on [00:03:00] later on and when you got out to 12th Avenue where 12th Avenue goes on 12th Avenue road that was all farm. You went from Nampa to Caldwell and there was farms all the way from oh approximately I'd say 1st Avenue or right in there [00:03:30] where Consumers Grocery is from there on out there wasn't the building that we buildings or the business that we know today by any means it was farms and it was about that way going north way you as you cross the tracks on 11th Avenue of course you were in farming country. And as a matter of fact they farmed even this side of the tracks some of the ground [00:04:00] in there. I believe that probably from the main part of town you would go a mile in any direction you would be into the farming community at that time as I recall. RAY: You were saying something about I think when I talked to you earlier that there used to be well out where you live now and that there used to be a Chinese garden LEONARD: Yes it was that was the old Hasbrook place [00:04:30] and it was a Chinese garden in there and I remember that they raised all kinds of vegetables delivered to the stores and so it's farming from there on out including where the boat addition is now. RAY: Was there much of a Chinese population here or was this? LEONARD: Well supposedly I remember as a kid that down on Front Street there was a big house that isn't there across the street [00:05:00] from Lloyd's and we kids would steer clear and go around that because we always were under the impression that that's where the Chinese lived and that they'd get us so we would we'd take a wide berth around that big old house that sat in there. It was right across the street from where the Lloyd lumber is now on Front Street. RAY: Did the Chinese come in with railroad or do you just come drifting in? LEONARD: [00:05:30] Well the mines I think I think the mine Silver City and of course Idaho City and I think and the railroad I think I think a lot of Chinese coming to work on that and just more or less stayed and I don't recall of a big large Chinese population, there's stories about tunnels under 12th Avenue and [00:06:00] between Front and 1st Street and I would never in them myself I didn't see them. However Ed Huntley who come here in the 90s said that that there were such a thing and like I say I didn't see it myself but then supposedly they were in there putting there by the Chinese [00:06:30] and supposedly they're still there but sealed off with basement walls and things like that but I couldn't swear to it because I never was in them. RAY: What I gather probably when you came to here you were fairly young boy but what did you do for recreation what old forms of entertainment they had here? LEONARD: Well of course they as when we first come over here by [00:07:00] more or less you made your own recreation the old sugar beet factory out where Carnation Can is now they had a an old reservoir out there didn't have much water in it but we used to to go over there and go swimming and we swam in the Phyllis Canal we every place there was a puddle of water while you'd go swimming and just more or less [00:07:30] you made your own fun you didn't we didn't have organized recreation like we have this today and you had your friends your buddies and you'd get together and you'd fish Indian Creek you never got anything out of but a small fish or two but you went fishing. And we we made our own entertainment it was that's just the way it had to be of course when I got a little older got up in the teens why then we [00:08:00] started going to dances. They had the two main dance halls the Grand Casino which was set where the Idaho First National Bank is the main branch on the corner of 11th Avenue and 1st Street South and the old Moose Hall is was upstairs on the corner of 13th and Main there were there were the two places that [00:08:30] everybody went on Saturday night. And I mean they had crowds everybody went to the dance and so it was more or less that was the the way you amuse yourself that was the type of recreation that you that you had. A uh and I think I told you this before but Saturday night the big deal is to drive downtown and park [00:09:00] on the street and watch everybody walk by and if you seen somebody you knew I hollered and they come over and you talked and that's the way the way you more or less kept up with current events and how everybody else was in the town and around the town, or getting along and kept track of friends and families more or less that way and telephones weren't too plentiful as I recall. And so Saturday night was the big deal, the stores were all all open [00:09:30] till nine o'clock and you done your week shopping for your groceries if you lived out like we did and see when we when my father worked for the state school. It isn't there anymore but it used to be when you come from Meridian and it takes the corner you could look up on top of the hill there was there was a house set up there, so that was where we lived so we were out in the country and with [00:10:00] had a car but then it was a 1923 Model T and you didn't jump in it and run to the store every time you needed a loaf of bread. And my mother made our bread and canned in the fall she canned fruit vegetables things,m like I remember we used to buy the old Napa D was the Nampa department store [00:10:30] and it is there where Ben England's apartments are now. And they had a grocery department and it was the full department store and we go in there and buy five gallon buckets of jelly and 60 pound cans of honey and that's the way you bought your groceries, you just didn't run to the store every time you needed something you, and of course frozen foods were not the thing at that time, [00:11:00] in fact I don't recall even having them maybe they did but I don't recall and oh it was quite a way of life I'll tell you a lot different it is today RAY: You know I think a lot of us here and and you know but remember about the Dewey Palace and what do you remember about that that must been probably in this heyday when you first came in here LEONARD: Well yeah it was it wasn't [00:11:30] it wasn't near the what it had been. But it was still a very popular place people used to drive there. They had this beautiful dining room and it's too bad that everybody can't see the decor and the furnishings and the decorations that were in like gold ceilings, images on the ceilings. And [00:12:00] now these as I understood it were really really gold leaf you know they put those things in there and they were they were honest to God gold, and they had the parlor, and the dining room. And the dining room was quite quite well known through the whole valley that people come from Boise and all over to for Sunday to have Sunday dinner at the Dewey Palace. And then they had some businesses of course [00:12:30] in there and around the veranda they had rooms that Colonel Dewey had built in there for all different meeting rooms and things like that, and they converted those into some businesses, and I remember Taylor was downstairs in the basement. As I recall I think for a while as a real estate officer insurance officer something up in there. And [00:13:00] the that was that was really some building it was it was uh it's just too bad that it had to go and of course guess we can't stand in the way of progress and you know you can't you can't keep a dead horse, and it's not paying its way why you can't do anything about it but do what they did I guess, unless somebody would have come in and had a whole lot of money and it [00:13:30] wanted to spend it on something like. But it is it is too bad that they had to tear it down it was quite a thing RAY: I remember too when I talked to you a little bit earlier that oh you kind of mentioned some of the businesses were right there around the railroad, and I don't think many of us realize but you were saying a lot of them used to be kind of in a downstairs LEONARD: Yeah those buildings on 12th Avenue [00:14:00] between first and front whereas they had steps that went downstairs well the old gold Coin Bakery was on the corner and then Ed Huntley had a tailor shop downstairs there, and they there were several businesses downstairs. They had stairs that went down from the sidewalk down into them [00:14:30] they occupied the basement as well as the ground floor on them. And all there some of the old businesses that I can remember was oh I see the Blake hardware was the Blake variety store was on the corner of 14th and 13th [00:15:00] and 1st Street, and they had a ramp that went up the outside up to the upper floor now they this ramp went up to what later become the booth dance hall that I mentioned before. And of course George King his butcher shop was down there about where the Elks is now, and oh the corner there was a bank the old Idaho First National Bank was there on the corner [00:15:30] of 1st Street and 12th Avenue. LEONARD: And before they went down and built where they are, of course they built first across the alley from where they are now, then the old Grand Casino dance hall I mentioned set on the corner and they later took that over and built the present Idaho main branches of Idaho First in there. Alexander's [00:16:00] had a big marble fronted store in there too, and oh the Hickeys were an insurance business, of course Ed Ware was an insurance business. They've just a Walt Bullock's jewelry store it's still there, and it was a #Mankey and Scott [00:16:30] jewelry store in there too, and and they had a big pedestal clock that set out on the sidewalk. And I'm sure you've seen them, they probably 15 feet tall or something like that with a big round clock sitting on top. And of course there was a vacant lot in next to let's see what's in there now the Stockman, [00:17:00] and then between the Stockman and I guess the Little Kitchen or the call yeah the Little Kitchen restaurant in there. The part that they remodeled you know just there was a vacant lot in there and for years and years and years, and finally fella come in they set up a round root beer stand in there. And that was in there for quite a while of course now it's a building, but [00:17:30] there was there were quite a few vacant lots around town now like down on Front Street, of course the fire cleaned that out the big fire they had back in early 1900. And a lot of that never was rebuilt they just it was just vacant lots in there and they had second-hand stores down in there, and uh two or three of them shorty lives we had a second-hand store down there. Corsons [00:18:00] had a second-hand store at the corner of 14th and front, and then they later moved down on front and 11th Avenue above the underpass. But talk about a second-hand store there, you had one they had everything in the world, old coal wood ranges in there just set aside beside a whole just lots of and they sold them for $5 to $25. They were used but you get [00:18:30] a good coal range for a coal wood range for $25 and a good usable one for 5. And oh it's there's lots of lots of things taking place over the last years that since I have been around here. I went all through school here I at the old Lakeview school [00:19:00] up through grade school went to Central Junior High when it was well it was practically new, then I went to graduating high school in 1936, out where well right here with the City Hall. And it I've seen a lot of changes, but you know you go along from year to year and you you know the change will [00:19:30] take place but you know unless you just sit down and think about it concentrate on it, why it just comes so gradual it you don't notice it particularly. RAY: What what about prohibition here in Nampa when they they had I imagine that did Nampa have its normal share of bootleggers? LEONARD: Well yes, yeah we had those there was a couple or three [00:20:00] of them that I knew about and I guess every kid in town knew about it. And of course out in Owyhee County, they were quite prevalent. They had stills all over Owyhee County and they had they had some of them here in town that. Tell the story and I didn't see this and but they tell the story of Indian Creek flooded one year in the spring, and over the whole practically [00:20:30] the whole north side of Nampa was under water, and the floated said that barrels of booze and bootleg whiskey are floated out of basements, floating around all over the north side. But like I say I didn't see that and but that's the story that we were always told. So we've had our our we're [00:21:00] just typical town and always have been, I'm real proud of Nampa. It's given me it certainly hasn't done me any harm and what I education I got and what I've done with my life was done right here, and I'm thankful for it and I appreciate the town, I'm proud of it and I'm glad that I this is where I sat down RAY: But when [00:21:30] you've lived here continually ever since you came here in the mid 20s you pretty much lived right here at Nampa? LEONARD: Well yeah, I was I left here went to Boise for one year before I went into service and but that was just a more or less a temporary thing so practically all the time. RAY: When you mentioned Boise I got thinking about when you [00:22:00] first came here was the old inner urban line still running or is that pretty well closed down? END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Bowles Recording 1 of 2 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/bd75f2bd55728fbabaa863f342a7414c.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=nswvu4p4q0gNj26WfNAh-NKuxA6mywkus0o2ZPw8WY39s-RMxvVdZ7ojBsvPFGXg1bF4tGJeIFIDZkknQEGcGxNuEo1n74cLWehhOC02mMk4ynvr6I3NAwWIjpKOd7DbrQqhCu7N6YvokRojpUfWMG2plsY2Xo6MmEz-xgytssTQSILIubyoVvI8nTarfN0czMaTWDQAdn%7EhB2lO2dOAaiKvbATWc14lUVv9ASegn6tUDXmXcBWKW5SJiOCmGCVVSqHLnMzytzhhRN4lWlHcKrff%7EQfxb6Tar05iwYlnPmfhkt0SxIAkMGiQIft6tyi1EOMsi8zD9DxawR4Ab22DLw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 15286bd4aa49a1b237a12064377299da Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Bowles Recording 2 of 2 PDF Text Text RAY: We're kind of going along, taking this a little bit chronologically. Folks, can you remember about Nampa here during the war? It wasn't World War II. It doesn't seem like it's been 40 years ago we had that, but... LEONARD: Well, it has been, and of course, I was in the service, and like I said, I lived in Boise the year before and during the year, but I was back before it was over, and... It was here [00:00:30] about, I suppose, the same as it was every place. Everybody was... You got gas stamps, you got coffee stamps, you got meat stamps and food stamps, you know, you got staples, sugar, things like that, and... But I think as far as I knew, people were patriotic. [00:01:00] It was a job that had to be done, had to be finished, and everybody went along with it and got by the best way they could. They ran on some old wore-out tires and did a lot of walking when they ran out of gas stamps, but I don't recall any particular... rallies or [00:01:30] trouble around here or as far as it goes. I don't know of any place, but I think the people in Nampa had their minds made up that we were in it and we had to get out of it, and out of it, and I can remember the big to-do when everybody in the country was downtown when when it was over. I recall the night that it was over, and [00:02:00] everybody went downtown, and and the people were hollerin' and had a big time, but ,and I think that they were glad it was over, but they were never upset about the fact that we were in it. We were in it, and we had to get out of it, and it, and that's just more or less the attitude everybody had. It [00:02:30] was one of those things that happened, and there and there wasn't anything you could do about it, so it, so you just had to go along with it and do the best you could to get out. RAY: Get done with it best you could to get out. LEONARD: Right. with. Right. RAY: We were just kind of talking. We've kind of gone through the whole thing, but just kind of your recollection, what seems to be some of the biggest changes [00:03:00] you've seen in Nampa between really from the time we came and actually today? Have you thought about that? LEONARD: Well, Ray, like I say, when you live here and it happens gradually, you just don't notice it particularly. I think probably the big change is the fact that the fact that we are not a [00:03:30] town like we were. Golly, you know, you didn't have, I think they had three men on the police force, as I remember. I remember I knew them, and I think we didn't have planning and zoning. We didn't have uh if you wanted to do something with something you owned, well, you could do it, and of course you can't do that now, [00:04:00] and that's not only here. It's It's everywhere and probably for a good reason, and of course there weren't nearly as many people, and the businesses were, our businesses are much, much bigger now than they used to be. They used be. They used to be independent business people, you know, and they had their little shops and their stores with the exception of C.C. [00:04:30] Anderson and the Nampa Department Store, and they were the two department stores, and and then everybody else was around them and and like uh all your jewelry stores. Grocery stores, you used to have several grocery stores downtown. The Hostetler Grocery was downtown, and Shumates had a grocery downtown, and the and the Old Blue and [00:05:00] White Grocery, and Consumers. LEONARD: I think that probably the big change is just a matter of growth, you you know, and the good and the bad that comes [00:05:30] with growth, and I think it's been pretty well managed. I managed. I think we've done a pretty good job. I should say we, the powers, you know, the people that were responsible for it have for it have done a pretty good job on it, and it's a sense we're not going to go back. We're back. We're going to keep going from now on, and it's on, and it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. RAY: [00:06:00] We hope. Anyway, we'll stop you a [sec] You told me, Leonard, that you went to all through grade school and high school here in Nampa. What do you remember about the Nampa football team, the team, the athletic team? LEONARD: Well, we've had some dandies. We've We've had some real good ones through the years. Back in the late 20s and the 30s, we had [00:06:30] some real, real good athletic teams, football. real football. They had some real, real fine football players. Some Some of them still live around here, and of course a lot of them don't. I remember Nick Eastman, he's still here. He He was an outstanding football player, and then you had the Spoggi brothers. They were in the early 30s, late 20s [00:07:00] and early 30s. Then from 1932, 33, and 34, we had an exceptionally good football team. That team. That was when Howard Smith, who's down at the Smitty's Shoe Shop, was the quarterback on the football team, and Bob Huth was in the backfield, Dick Wiley in the backfield, and Dwight Savage. They had a line that was [00:07:30] exceptionally good. Of course, the big deal was to beat Boise, and they beat Boise three or four years in a row right through there. LEONARD: And basketball, they had exceptionally good basketball teams. And then later on, when Babe Brown was the coach here, they had another season [00:08:00] where they, several seasons where they'd done real well in in both football and basketball. And over the years, we've had exceptionally good athletic teams and good athletes in the high school. Of course, our football games were were played right next to the city hall out here, and basketball [00:08:30] began with the auditorium in in the high school. It was converted to the basketball floor, and floor, and then they later on built the gymnasium that still sits the gymnasium that still sits out in the back of the city hall, and they played the basketball there. Then they got to playing football out out at the old rodeo grounds. They had, at that time, they they had covered bleachers, and they played their [00:09:00] important, like like the Boise-Caldwell games, that were played out on the old rodeo field. But overall, over the years, we have nothing to be ashamed of as of as far as athletes and athletic teams are concerned. They've They've done real well. LEONARD: Of course, talk about sports. [00:09:30] Rodeo is considered a sport, I guess, and the rodeo, of course, has been a big thing in Nampa for 65 or 75 years. I don't remember now just how long it's been, but but it's been a long time. The Old Harvest Festival, that's probably the first big doing that I remember going to in Nampa was the Old Harvest Festival. They had that on the street. It would be on 2nd Street and 12th Avenue, [00:10:00] down 12th Avenue block, right down the main part of town. The of town. The streets were all blocked off, and they off, and they had each grange and club, and they had their own displays, and and they really all went all out for that. They had exceptional displays from the granges, and farm people would [00:10:30] take part in it, and it was really something. And then, of course, Carnival with it, and then the big rodeo. But uh, I guess it's probably that that was the first thing, the big thing that I can remember going to here in town. RAY: I was thinking, too, that when I talked to you before, you mentioned about how it got [00:11:00] started. You had a county agent got started. You had a county agent or something like that that came in. He wanted to show off the products, and they really started that by going down to the railroad station and displaying station and displaying the products you grew around here. That here. That was kind of the start of the festival. Am I right on that? LEONARD: I don't know, Ray, on that. I don't know. I couldn't say one way or the other. All I remember is that it was going when we landed was going when we landed here, and they and they uh [00:11:30] had their own booths, and they put their own displays up, and it up, and it was... Well, it was a fair, actually, like a county fair, only it was the Nampa Harvest Festival, and they had just done an exceptional job on it. It was really something job on it. It was really something to see and go through. RAY: And that just [00:12:00] kind of evolved into the rodeo we have now. LEONARD: Yeah, they dropped the... Well, see, they had that in the fall, and I don't the fall, and I don't know what reasons that it was completely dropped. I don't know why it was completely dropped. I was on the rodeo dropped. I was on the rodeo board for 16 years, which is part of the Harvest Festival Association, and [00:12:30] I know over the years they'd the years they'd always talk about why couldn't we do it again. And so the reason it was dropped, I just don't know. But...it uh Like I said, it was held in the fall. The weather was so unpredictable that that they changed the rodeo up into July where they were more or less assured [00:13:00] of decent weather and not so much rain, not much chance of rain. And so that's how the rodeo got separated from the from the Harvest Festival or the other ... But, you know, in July it's a little early to make their displays of their produce that that they raised through the summer, and so [00:13:30] it's never... If it stopped and why, I don't know. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Ray Larsen Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Leonard Ray Larsen Bowles Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonard Bowles Description An account of the resource Leonard Bowles who moved to Nampa from Emmett in 1926 discusses early industry and life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, May 22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Chinese Americans Dewey Palace Farming Sports Stores World War II https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/e8a1e9a2b2cecd221f793762093f9fc2.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=FI%7E7UyqxpyBvRaLmIlKIdSS4L4cHB%7EaBJdakRbMR%7EOKIY8XS3aVNaCjxUWclQ-dm1atifSLSKbGp%7E5Qp4cItheGg2Mjxe5zQKbdHceRM6iSQjZaQzUcXYIr6QztqH6h%7EaRCjUP6KUcZYmKH-o3MRHfWlyN73ONbkzrO7vyiMVtXG9%7ESvmp%7Er4jfPd1fUmMhCLndQHb-ieWI4FvZwQUMM44jDhCesKscnHiNOflIKzA207Jf2bmw0o%7EFBYvUV44yCBd4b0WNbmt5Ulfens7zBP9O3DW90D0tz%7Ev5T2IXn2lD6EqhHpRc5P84yNHpw--TO69rCDTe5D5Che9D7rIuYhw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f4dd19caff07a33bb5b963bc1a8de8d1 PDF Text Text HERB: Testing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I'm Herb Douglas and I have the privilege of interviewing John Brandt, 80-plus years young these days, and today is May 22 1985 and we are in Mr. Brandt's office at 203 11th Avenue South in Nampa. [00:00:30] He already has been recorded on a number of tapes as he has set forth his memory of how Nampa developed and how his family life impinged upon the development of Nampa for the last 80 years actually or plus but today we're going to try and and see how some of this felt and how his memories of the heart as well as a head come together today. And John you tell me that your [00:01:00] father came here 1900. Now why in the world did he come out to Nampa in the middle of a desert in 1900 and how did he get here? JOHN: Okay dad had been a farmer and stock raiser back in Nebraska started out with an ox team and a sod house he had considerable difficulties in the start for example after three years he had put all he had into a larger acreage [00:01:30] had a fine crop hailstorm came along and wiped it out but he still persisted and finally when he left Nebraska he had 16 quarter sections of land which he sold for $25,000. Those days that was a lot of money. He came out to Nampa because at that particular era or that time of history there were a lot of people immigrating from Nebraska to the West. [00:02:00] I think maybe dad came here just because he wanted a new challenge he'd done very well in Nebraska considering and he stopped off here at Nampa because there were others here from that area and he went on to Seattle. An interesting side light he went out with some realtors in [00:02:30] Seattle to see what investments might be available they showed him some of that harbor front waterfront he could have bought for his $25,000 but that didn't look good to a farm boy so he went on up to Alaska during the year following the gold rush had a very severe storm going up he said that first he's afraid the boat was going down and he's afraid it wasn't but he got to know him and spent that summer out in [00:03:00] the gold fields some interesting stories there but coming back to Nampa he did not invest in Seattle he came back here and he thought he he saw a great future for this so he bought sagebrush land and developed it into farmland. Now he wasn't married at this time. No he was not married and then because of the fact that he was interested in land he [00:03:30] opened a real estate office and had a partner it's rather interesting my mother then had been a schoolteacher in Kansas she'd saved her money and family who were friends of hers were immigrating to this area from Kansas in what the Union Pacific called an immigrant car with all their livestock their machinery their household goods and their family so she came along and [00:04:00] we used to kid her yeah you're you're looking for maybe looking for a husband and she wouldn't quite deny that at at any rate she came out here and dad was in the real estate business and had a good reputation so she told him she was looking for an investment he took her out in what's known as the lower Fairview district northeast of Nampa he had an 80 acres there which he considered one of the best that he ever owned [00:04:30] and he sold her one cornering that which she owned privately personally and looked after until she was 87 years old when she finally said asked me to take it over. HERB: All right your dad came in 1900 and they were married in 19... JOHN: My mother came out then in 1903 and we used to kid him yeah he sold her this 40 acres and then married her to get it back. June 1903 then they were married back [00:05:00] in Kansas. Dad built the house which is now 503 10th Avenue South a red brick which has since been stuccoed but that's where I spent my first 10 years and then at that that time they had three boys and dad said town was no place to raise boys so we moved out on the farm where... HERB: Now he felt you weren't getting enough work done or were you getting into too many... JOHN: Oh he thought there were too many too many [00:05:30] opportunities for diversion. HERB: Too many activities that he wasn't ready to... JOHN: Out there we were busy all the time. I've often said this the South Pastures we call it and a lot of lava rock in one. Dad couldn't find anything else for us to work at. Well dig some rocks out of the South Pastures a day boys so so we were always busy. HERB: Now that means that you must have spent the first few years of elementary school in Nampa. JOHN: My entire elementary [00:06:00] school was in Nampa. We walked walked back and forth and then there was a streetcar, an interurban streetcar which ran from Nampa to Caldwell to Middleton Star, Eagle, Boise and then Nampa again. So in bad days we could ride the streetcar or dad would take us. My earliest grade school was in old Kenwood school which is where now the home federal is and then Lakeview and then back to Kenwood. High school [00:06:30] was held there at that time. I went eighth grade. HERB: How many children in the elementary school? JOHN: Oh boy, I don't really know but I suppose that there are. Well by the time I was in 1904, and six'd be 1910, there had been quite a growth. Lakeview and Kenwood were the two grade schools and I suppose there were [00:07:00] several hundred by that time. HERB: Certainly not one-room schoolhouses. JOHN: Oh no. Not in there. HERB: Were you divided up into grades? JOHN: Yes, grades and even had A and B grades. I did that for a great many years. I recall I skipped the fifth B for example when we were having fractions and I always did have trouble with that as a result. HERB: And then the high school? JOHN: High school [00:07:30] was out where the present City Hall is. My class, which graduated in 1922, was the second class in there. We went in in the midterm. They had A and B grades. I skipped one so that put me into the midterm there. HERB: What was an ordinary day like when you were, we'll say, ten years of age? An ordinary day? JOHN: Well, [00:08:00] I suppose that I was about ten when I moved out on the farm. Prior to that time, I can recollect raising a garden. I remember one time I raised a lot of sweet peas. I was going to sell bouquets of sweet peas. I managed to sell one to our mailman. Other than that, I have a few recollections of that early time. For example, the [00:08:30] streets were not paved or gravel. They were dirt streets. Each morning, a sprinkler would come by with a water wagon, which would lay the dust. HERB: Horse-driven? JOHN: Horse-driven. And every kid in the neighborhood, we'd go out there barefooted. By the way, everybody was barefooted in the summer. As soon as we could get a chance to get our shoes off, we were barefooted. We enjoyed following that sprinkler and having that sprinkler feed. HERB: What [00:09:00] kind of books did you have in high school? JOHN: It was rather the normal and usual courses in high school. HERB: You felt you had a good education? JOHN: Yeah. It was somewhat scheduled toward college entrance rather than practical school. HERB: Did you take Latin and preparatory courses [00:09:30] like that? JOHN: Yeah, Yeah, I had Latin and geometry. HERB: You were pushed? You felt pushed all the time in high school that you had to make your grades? JOHN: Yes. Even those who were not quite as zealous as I was, I was always one of those little guys on the front seat waving my hand. Yes, I think there was considerable motivation. Probably more kids dropped out [00:10:00] many times because of work means. The academic didn't appeal to them. Unfortunately, that's about all there was at the time. HERB: What kind of games did you play in high school? JOHN: I was never very physically able. I did go out for track, but other than that it was just impromptu [00:10:30] playground activities. HERB: School was over what time in the day? Four day? JOHN: Four o'clock. HERB: Four o'clock? That's a long day. JOHN: We spent a full day. HERB: Did you walk home most of the time? JOHN: Yeah. HERB: How many miles? JOHN: Oh it was about, from high school. It was about four, four and a half miles. HERB: Every day, unless it was... JOHN: If it was real bad, there was a streetcar, fortunately, that came by [00:11:00] within a quarter of a mile of our place, so we could come by. Dad was pretty good at that. He said, I'll give you the money to ride the streetcar every day if you want to, but if you save it, it's your money. He taught us a little financial lesson there that was good. Eventually, before I got through high school, they had started a school bus, and that was a truck covered with a canvas with benches on either side, so that we rode in on that school bus. [00:11:30] In bad weather, when the bus couldn't run, there were no paved roads, and the gravel roads would break through and so on, so that they had a lumber wagon with a team. If one team couldn't pull it through the mud, they'd put on two, so we rode in that way. HERB: What time would you leave in the morning if you had a team? JOHN: It took a good hour [00:12:00] that way. HERB: Oh, they picked you up at 9? JOHN: No, school took up at 9, so we left home between 7, 30, and 8. HERB: What kind of chores did you have to do before, just part of the day? JOHN: Well, as a youngster, I was 10, 12 years old. In the summertime, or fall and spring, we raised a garden, but there again, Dad worked it so [00:12:30] that we had an interest. In In fact, I saved up my money before I was 10. It was rather interesting to think of it. We moved out on the farm, and he didn't try to dictate. I had $10, I had about $15 saved up. I bought a shovel, and a calf, a heifer calf, and a coyote trap, of all things. HERB: Now, Now, you've got to tell me about that. Now, this is unreal. JOHN: Coyotes often came right into the yard there and pick [00:13:00] up a chicken or so on, but I was kind of a nervous kid, and I thought, boy, I'd better trap those coyotes. And my mother took me down to buy these, and didn't bat an eye. She let me buy the coyote trap. HERB: And? JOHN: And, of course, I never used it. HERB: You never caught one? JOHN: Never, Never, never even. But they did come up right to the yard. I could tell my duty then, later, to look after the sheep. We had a bunch of registered sheep. Every morning, the [00:13:30] first thing I did was go out and see if the lambs were all right. One morning, I went out, and there was a coyote with a lamb in his mouth, and hit it off. I let out a war-hoop, and then after him, he dropped the lamb. But that's the way it was. HERB: You hadn't yet learned how to shoot the gun? Your father hadn't? JOHN: Oh, yeah. But, of course, I didn't anticipate a coyote there with a lamb in his mouth, either. I I remember one time, my mother tried to shoot [00:14:00] a coyote. A coyote came trotting along the road in front of her house. She got out 22 inches out at it, but didn't hit it. And these hawks, chicken hawks we called them, used to swoop down, pick up a chicken, and carry it off. So, it was a little bit primitive, all right. HERB: Now, obviously, this has changed someone. We don't have coyotes in the area. When did you begin to see this frontier-like [00:14:30] atmosphere change, or did it change so slowly? JOHN: It was such a gradual change that it wasn't really discernible. As I grew older, when I was being the oldest in the family, it fell on my lot to do the irrigating and to run the binder, for example. HERB: What kind of a binder was it? JOHN: Well, it was a seven-foot grain binder, three horses on it. HERB: Three horses. JOHN: He used to get so hot and tired. [00:15:00] He had a whip that you hoped to reach him with, but it was difficult. So, we had an orchard there, and one tree was what we called a sweet apple, and it matured a little earlier. So, I'd fill the toolbox on the binder with these sweet apples, and if they got too slow, I'd throw an apple at them. HERB: Now, you mentioned the irrigation system. [00:15:30] I am absolutely amazed at the enormous amount of work and planning that must have gone into the irrigation system here. Now, was it already in place when you were born? JOHN: No, no, it really wasn't. There were some little ditches taken directly out of the river. There There still are some, like the Middleton Mill Ditch, Eureka, and so on. The Ridenbaugh and the Phyllis were in, and [00:16:00] the New York Canal. They were irrigating isolated tracts, and that's what Dad would do, for example. He'd reel the brush off of the land and level it and irrigate it and sell it. HERB: How did they make the land so level so that the irrigation would work? JOHN: Well, by the end of the day, even after we moved out of the farm and I was there, we had three horses on a Fresno. HERB: What's a Fresno? JOHN: A Fresno was a sort of a scoop that [00:16:30] would pick up the dirt and carry it, and then you'd dump it in a low spot to smooth it up. Of course, I wasn't strong enough to lift that, except when they'd move ahead, then I could lift up on it, and the lip of the scraper would catch and dump it, and you tried to hold it back with a rope and a handle and spread it out as evenly as possible. It was slow going in that early day in leveling, a far cry from what it is now. HERB: Well, did you have a [00:17:00] surveyor's transit? JOHN: No, we just did it by eye. HERB: Really? JOHN: Of course, irrigating was much more difficult those days because it wasn't leveled as well. For example, we'd turn the water in a, we had what's called borders. We'd make a ridge down through it, maybe, oh, 50 feet wide, apart, and that ridge would confine the water in that particular land or several lands, and sometimes there'd be enough [00:17:30] sidefall in that that it all sidled over to one side, and then you had to, we called it, wing it back. You'd lay up a levee of mud and put it back to the other side and let it work over again, and and maybe you had half a dozen of those levees there before you got to the end of the field, picking up the water that sidled over to one dike and putting it over to the other. HERB: Now, we're talking about wheat now, I suppose. JOHN: Yes, wheat or any crop that's an annual [00:18:00] crop. After you've seeded it down to hay, for example, and you've got those borders and those levees pretty well in, and all you have to do is patch them up a bit. I remember one time I irrigated an orchard near in our area. That was a pretty forerunner of what we now have, siphon tubes. We had leveled that and had little corrugates or ditches down the [00:18:30] side of each row of trees, and had what we called a spile through the bank. It was four laths nailed together to make a tube, and my main duty after the water was turned on and the gate was put in and it was going through these was to go along with a willow and keep those from plugging up. For many years that was done with these so-called spiles. [00:19:00] Finally, someone conceived the idea of the siphon tube, which had the opening where the water entered underneath the surface, and although it would once in a while suck some moss or something in there and plug it, it wasn't like where it went straight in from the surface like the spile did, so it kept it clean and didn't plug up much. HERB: Who invented that, or [00:19:30] did that come from some other place? JOHN: I really don't know. I know the first time I tried it, I just about gave up. In fact, I did give up in despair. I couldn't I couldn't get that to siphon to save me. HERB: Well, Well, how do we do it so quickly now? What's the secret? JOHN: There's nothing to it. It's just a matter of timing. You breathe the suction and pull the water over, and if you let your hand off the end too quick or too late, you don't get it to siphon. There's no trick to [00:20:00] it after you once get onto it. HERB: But all those irrigation ditches had to be dug by horses or just plain... JOHN: Every farmer had a ditcher which he used to make the ditch with. One of the most frustrating things that came with that early irrigation was that you'd very carefully turn it out of the main ditch, maybe three or four places, and you'd go get some sod and [00:20:30] fit that in around the outlet and think you had it so that it absolutely wouldn't cut out. The next morning it was all going out one and cut a big gully through the field. Real frustrating. Finally, they got these siphons and more. Of course, many other types of irrigating now that are more or less foolproof. HERB: Of course, the concrete passageways and all that help. JOHN: [00:21:00] Of course, some of them have gates out through the concrete, but but most of them are by siphons, siphoning over the top. HERB: Now, surely you had to pay for the water. Somebody had to own the system. How did that work? JOHN: Well, in the very earliest time, there were companies who came out here. Much of it was New York Capital, by the way. They started several projects, and most of them failed to begin with. Finally, [00:21:30] the major ones that were the early developments were the Ridenbaugh and the Phyllis, the Pioneer in this area, over toward Meridian and the Settlers and the New York. These were all companies later organized as irrigation districts with the users, the owners. Finally, then, in about 1914, the Bureau [00:22:00] of Reclamation had completed the Arrowrock Dam in the Boise River and had made a deal with the Ridenbaugh and with the Pioneer both, mainly with Ridenbaugh, to supply water by using their ditch and enlarging and extending to other. For example, the place we moved out, when I moved out of town, had a certain number of inches and acres that were irrigated by the Ridenbaugh, and the rest [00:22:30] of it came in later and was serviced through the same ditch, but it was government water. That government water was the result of the storage reservoir, largely, although they still had some river flow, but mainly through storage. It was [00:23:00] really what made the area, because otherwise they were just more or less isolated farms. Only a small portion of the total was irrigated. HERB: How did you know, how did you negotiate the payment? JOHN: The irrigation district itself, like the Nampa Meridian, estimated as best they could what the cost was going to be to deliver that water to each of us. [00:23:30] It was an assessment and had to be paid before you got water there. Most of the older users went in. There's a small area, it's out in this lower Fairview district, where I first spoke of, that there were some holdouts. My dad and my mother, they wanted to go into the district, but remember a man named Cleek and some others had enough who didn't, so all these years, and still, they have what they call Ridenbaugh [00:24:00] rental water. They never became a part of the district at all. HERB: I hear there's some marvelous artesian wells around here. Have you had any on your land? JOHN: I've got a couple, just small ones, however. Up north of town, in particular, Herb Tiegs probably had the most. He had two or three very good wells there. But most anywhere here, one can get artesian water if he [00:24:30] wants to go down deep enough for it. Across the river, in the Oakley and Reynolds area, and up the river to the east, there's some very large flowing hot water wells there. They go down quite deep, 500, 600 feet or more. Even right here where we're standing, sitting here in Nampa, if if you want to go down far enough, you can get hot water. [00:25:00] But whether it would be economically feasible, that's a question. Well, of course, over in Boise, you know, they have geothermal water there. Even the state buildings with it now. HERB: What was your first job like here, the first time that you got some? JOHN: First time I ever hired out? HERB: Yeah. JOHN: Well, I guess it was either a haying job. I guess it was haying, driving derrick. HERB: What does that mean? JOHN: Well, hay was put into stacks by a [00:25:30] derrick. A derrick was a mast, usually supported by a framework, with a boom or a swinging pole on the top. HERB: I see a number of them still around. JOHN: There's still some of them. One gal told me, she says, that's just as characteristic of this area as the windmills of Holland. Every farmer had one. And old man Gowan, whose building is still standing on the corner of 1st and 11th North, built [00:26:00] most of them. He built a very sturdy, very usable derrick, which would be as safe and as trouble-free as possible. And we had a Jackson fork, they called it, which was a huge, either four or six-tine fork, with a nail on it which would hinge down. By setting that on its nose, as we called it, you could get a pretty good load. HERB: It was loose hay. JOHN: Loose [00:26:30] hay. It It was all loose hay at the time. We'd stack it, shock it in the field, pitch it onto a wagon and haul it in. And swing it on that stack, have a stacker up there, and you'd haul or dump while you pulled the rope, and that would dump the hay down, and the fork would swing and come on, and the derrick driver would back the horse up, and that, they'd fork back down, and you'd do it again. An interesting side light, after I got [00:27:00] a teenager, early teenager, there was a neighbor boy named Al Rosenbaum. Whereas now, they have their pool or some other game where they have their rivalry. He and I were rivals in unloading haystack, hay off the wagon. I used to get very disturbed. Most [00:27:30] of the forkers would take six or usually seven forks to seven forks to get their load off. He got it off at four every time, and I'd always have a cleanup, so I was five, and that used to really get me. But there we were, rivals trying to see who could get the... HERB: Now, how old are you at this time? JOHN: Oh, I was probably 14, 15. HERB: You graduated from high school at what age? JOHN: Well, I was 18, [00:28:00] because although I skipped a grade, which is a poor procedure, by the way, but at any rate, we had the flu epidemic here, and they closed the school for a season. HERB: Did you hire out for a year or two before you went to college, or did you go straight to college? JOHN: No, I went straight to college. However, I mentioned this interurban loop, which was a streetcar. There again, [00:28:30] Dad managed it, so we worked for our money. And so he said, "Now, each of you, by working through the summer this way, you can keep so many cows." I think we had four cows, and we could milk those cows and sell it and keep that money. And we started that, well, when I was probably 12, 13. All milk by hand, of course, at that time. At any rate, I saved my money, [00:29:00] and this is an interesting sidelight. I was saving that money to go to college, and what's now, well, it was the old Shakey's building, and we started remodeling it. It's boarded up right now, but that was the Nampa State Bank. I had saved up, I can't remember just how much, but three, four, five hundred dollars. The darn thing went broke and took my money. HERB: What year was this? JOHN: [00:29:30] Well, it was about 1920, about 1920, I guess, or along in there. Because I graduated in 22 and went over to the College of Idaho. But I went back and forth on the streetcar to the college. We could buy a book of tickets. So I milked my cows night and morning and went back and forth to college that way. HERB: What caused that bank to go broke? JOHN: Oh, it was bad loans, [00:30:00] without a doubt. HERB: He was a good banker. JOHN: There was nothing wrong with that, no dishonesty that, no dishonesty or anything. It's just the case that times got tough and they just couldn't make it. And that wasn't enough for the Stockman's National, which was over where the present library is. They did likewise, but they paid out. Nampa State Bank, I don't remember. We may have got some of it, but not all of it. HERB: This was 1920. And the good [00:30:30] years were yet ahead for this country, more or less, 22, 24. JOHN: Well, maybe. Although, actually, a farmer's depression sort of started in 19, now I'm thinking, yeah, 1921. We had pretty tough times there for a while. HERB: Generally, you were sheep and wheat and milk cows. JOHN: And milk cows. We were one of the very first customers of of the Carnation [00:31:00] Condensary, which the building still stands. Originally, there was a sugar factory there and the smokestack for that stayed there from 1903, I believe it was, clear through until, oh, it was only recent years, that was torn down. But at any rate, the Carnation Condensary operated there for a great many years. We were one of the first to deliver milk there. Later, they closed the condensary and turned it into a Carnation Can Factory, [00:31:30] which it is to the present. HERB: Then you went off to college. JOHN: Yeah. HERB: And you wanted to take what kind of a course? JOHN: Well, I don't know if I had any particular course in mind at the time. Like every kid, I was going to be a cowboy or a lawyer or something through the years. But when I went to the College of Idaho, I really planned to go to the University of Idaho in Moscow. College College of Idaho had what they called Founder's Day. [00:32:00] There was a church friend, a a girl from there, who was going there that there that sort of took me under her wing and took me around, introduced me and told all about the college. They had a May fete and one thing or another, a winding of the Maypole. You see a bunch of college kids wind the Maypole nowadays. They'd be too sophisticated, but that was really looked forward to at that time. So I found it so appealing and so friendly that I decided [00:32:30] I could go there two years. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Brandt Recording 1 of 3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/bde8bcd8ccc194e298c34fa628d44d7b.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=gw3s2spHF4CKEAj3HxJ-uDj9eqJ-b87pAUoyC5lWSKJVETsjMoLmmXjlMgjb5QO4wwLCj6sqV8Aj9zXgZi9D-yi80s1SyZysNN8GAdT6Xtdm8eWDVIrv1cjOy7skF9mAA4ggnOihO38IOALIcgnk2KcuvPPsIu5wBVmKef9b4p5%7EdFvOxNdrlh0U2YFq7Pab%7EYyD6gnj5I1mWea092Rj-kl4JochMNjXLEeZ9GsPy3MIRisC79Q-FizC8AWDSKmLtHmik1nnaVYt%7EFU1HTRapLJkUeSdnT74dc1J5chiENHC7ix-sDzAtTM4moeknA-7XP1J2U94kkXVIDvHX7oJ%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 445d41615892369a631458ba14b6f0d8 PDF Text Text JOHN: By having to milk my cows and go on the street, I couldn't get there for an 8 o'clock class. I never did get to take botany from Dr. Boone, who was quite an outstanding person. And I didn't get to go out for glee club or athletics. Of course, athletics, I was no good anyway. But finally, the fourth year, I did stay down, and that way I... Well, I made my letter in debate. In fact, I was president of the I Club as a result. And then went out [00:00:30] and got to take part in some of the light operas and so on. HERBERT: Were you a singer? JOHN: Oh, not much, but enough that I enjoyed it. HERBERT: You got by, huh? JOHN: Got by and got that experience. HERBERT: And you graduated in good time, and then you went off to study. JOHN: Some courses that I would change very much, I majored in Romantic languages and minored in English. If If I were to do it over, I'd [00:01:00] stress economics and sociology and geo logy and so on. And I probably worked for grades more than I should. I got a Magna Cum Laude, but I probably should have taken some harder courses and not worried about grades. HERBERT: You're a very modest man, but those must have been tough courses too. JOHN: At any rate, my ambition had been to be a college professor, and I went and talked to the dean. I was probably immature. I [00:01:30] didn't mature early like some people do, but at any rate, he recognized that. So he suggested I go out into the public school field. I wanted to be a teacher and get some experience, which I did. Fortunately, there were jobs available, and I had three of them. Well, it stood of them. After I graduated from college, through my dad's influence, I had the wholesale agency for a Texas company here [00:02:00] in Nampa, making $500 a month, in Nampa, making $500 a month, which in 1926 was pretty good. I quit that and took a $175 teaching school, I guess just to try out my own wings and see if I could make it on my own. I never regretted it. I still, at that time, had the ambition to be a college professor, so I went to Stanford University. My master's was in [00:02:30] educational administration. HERBERT: Who was your major professor or some of them at that time? JOHN: Almack and Coverley. Almack, I think, was my major professor, but I had courses with Coverley. I never had one with Terman. HERBERT: I was just going to mention that. I wondered if you had such a thing. JOHN: I did have **EOs**, and that's all I remember right now. HERBERT: Of course, at that time, Stanford was coming into [00:03:00] its own. JOHN: Stanford was the biggest school in the West for education, Columbia in the East and Stanford in the West. But by the time I got that far along, I had decided that academic life wouldn't appeal to me. It was too detailed. Who was it, Nicholas Murray Butler said, learn more and more about less and less. That detail would have killed me. I finally recognized it and came down here and started [00:03:30] in 1936 in the real estate business. HERBERT: Well, that was a great year to begin real estate, wasn't it? JOHN: Boy, it was a tough going. HERBERT: What was it like during the Depression here in Nampa? I can remember it. JOHN: Not bad. Let's say that advisedly, because every farmer at that time had a bunch of cows, maybe 10 up to 20 cows. That was always a meal ticket. He didn't have any money to spend, but he could exist. HERBERT: [00:04:00] Barter? JOHN: Yeah, a lot of barter. Even doctors would take a chicken for pay, you know. At that time, for a few years there, I believe it was a 10-mile radius around Meridian, Idaho, had a greater concentration of milk cows than anywhere in the United States. Now, it's a vastly different thing. In fact, before I quit milking, when I came down to Nampa and started in the real estate business, I moved on the farm where I now live and [00:04:30] I'd saved a little money teaching. Although they said it couldn't be done, I bought a few cows and milked the cows morning and night and came to the office in the daytime. HERBERT: You'd think that the price would be low if that many cows were in one place. JOHN: Yep, I sold cream. People would hardly believe it, but even when I was teaching school, I milked a cow. I sold cream as low as 13 cents a pound. HERBERT: Now, by this time, were you married? JOHN: I [00:05:00] got married while I was still teaching. My wife taught school for one year. She had taught before. I taught school 10 years. She taught 7, I believe it was. HERBERT: Now, you were teaching during the beginning of the Depression, weren't you? JOHN: Yes. HERBERT: What was your pay? JOHN: I was superintendent. I forget what I was getting at that time. I know I kept going downhill until I was... HERBERT: [00:05:30] Fifteen dollars a week? JOHN: No, no. No, it was never that low. I think I got down to $135 a month, though. I started in at $175. When I started in as superintendent, it seemed to me it was $2,700 or $3,100, something like that. At any rate, it was a tough going when I first started in the real estate business. I did two men's work. HERBERT: Now, why did you pick real estate? Now, your dad was in it to [00:06:00] some degree. JOHN: Yes. My dad had been in it. He'd quit then and had retired on the farm. Of course, he finally gradually turned the farm over to us. But after I was away from home teaching, he... Well, frankly, I was in the hospital at the time with a stomach operation. My mother was over with me, and he had a very [00:06:30] severe eye pain. We found out it was glaucoma afterwards. Didn't know much about it those days. My mother got home, and he was delirious. She took him to the doctor, and he said, Well, we should operate immediately. Well, he wasn't of any great authority to her, so she waited until the day and took him to a doctor in Boise and was too late. So at any rate, he practically lost his [00:07:00] eyesight. But he was so ambitious, and the old folk saying was, **Work well, you couldn't sit.** So he started in the real estate business again. So he was doing that. He had just a desk in a café when I came down here. And so I started in, you might say, with him. My first experience in the real estate business was from a desk in a café. HERBERT: Just in an open café where people came in to eat. [00:07:30] They rented out a little corner to you? JOHN: Yeah, just charged so much for having a desk there. HERBERT: That's pretty good. JOHN: I did that for, I don't know, a year or so. HERBERT: How many other real estate men were in town operating at that time? JOHN: Well, not very many. At that time, **Van Mode** was a salesman for H.E. Martin. And let's see, Walling, [00:08:00] who later was postmaster, was in business. And that's about it. There were only a few. That didn't last very long. They began to amend along about 1941 along in there. At that time, we then had one woman enter the business. And that's rather changed from now. Now there are more women real estate dealers, salesmen, than men. [00:08:30] But it's been a very encouraging business. It's been satisfying. I have done well financially, and I've been very active in the community. And I felt that every time I located a person on a farm where he made a good living or in a house where he was happy, I performed a service to him and the community. And so part of the reason you work is money [00:09:00] that exists. Part of it is satisfaction of doing something worthwhile. HERBERT: I'm sure that's how people came back by referrals and all that. When you were 10 years of age, what was Saturday night like? JOHN: That was a big night. Saturday afternoon, in fact, was a big day for all the farmers came to town. The stores were all open. They hitched their horses to the rack and spent the whole afternoon visiting. [00:09:30] And then people who were occupied, the wage earners or farmhands or whatever, often, and younger people too, came out Saturday night and shopped and visited. I know at that time there was no regulation against it. One of the things that we kids got the most kick out of was opening a cutout. So that they had a cutout, as it was called, in the [00:10:00] exhaust. They didn't have mufflers, but they had that cutout. It gave us great pleasure driving back and forth down Main Street and opening that cutout and making all the noise we could. We had a little movable, lighted radiator cap rotated. We'd drive back and forth and open that cutout for a while to attract attention and then and then shut it [00:10:30] off and seal the radiator cap. These were crazy things I hadn't thought of for years. But there was very little rowdyism, frankly. The chief of police then was named Larry Maloney. He had a good rapport with the kids. Of course, those days there were lots of hobos came through. He was pretty good at getting rid of them. That reminds me of a little story too. [00:11:00] Even before I moved on the farm, many of the people at least burned sagebrush in their cook stoves. They They didn't have electric stoves. Sagebrush, the virgin stand, was quite a sizable stock on it. They'd have a pile of sagebrush out back and chop that up and use that for their fuel in their cook stoves. My mother was rather tender-hearted. I [00:11:30] guess these hobos would come by. I found out later that they had it all marked. They knew where to go. They'd come by and ask for a handout. She'd get them a meal and set them down and feed them and so on. Finally, that got so common that Dad says, I'm going to put a stop to that. You're just working for hobos instead of having any leisure time. He says, next one that comes along, tell them, while I get your lunch ready, you go out and chop some sagebrush. He said that [00:12:00] soon stopped it. They weren't willing to chop sagebrush to get a meal. I guess they got the markers off our house and went somewhere else. HERBERT: You mean some actual physical markers or just word of mouth? JOHN: No, it was apparently a physical marker. I've seen research made on that later and found out that the hobos had a system of marking [00:12:30] where they knew where to find it and nobody else did, I guess. That got them to come to certain houses where they were soft touch, I guess. HERBERT: Now, as a youngster, I will say at 10 or 12 years of age when you came to town, you certainly weren't driving around in automobiles. There weren't too many automobiles. JOHN: No, we didn't have an automobile at all. Our house was at 503 10th. [00:13:00] We had two lots in front, which were landscaped, and Dad took great pride in that, I remember, the American Beauty Climber, for example. Then behind that we had a barn, and that took two lots. The rest of the half lot was sagebrush. Now, that's right downtown now. But he took great pride in having top quality horses when he took his customers out. He had a nice [00:13:30] buggy. Many, many times I accompanied him on these trips as a youngster. A lot of these what are now drain ditches were waste ways, creeks, or forded. That's another thing that makes the story come to mind. We had great big bullfrogs, green bullfrogs as big as a platter, a plate. Dad would have 22 long. [00:14:00] He didn't have to hit them. If he hit near 'em the concussion, it would knock them out. He'd let me shoot those bullfrogs and bring them in. They had a leg that was much bigger than your thumb. They were very delectable white meat. My mother would cook them. That's an early recollection. At any rate, we had horses for a number of years. HERBERT: Did you race horses between fellas? JOHN: No, [00:14:30] we just had top quality horses. They talk about the surrey with the fringe on top. I'll never forget one Sunday after church, we all got into the surrey and hitched up the team and drove out to where we later, where Dad built, where we moved out to when I got to be 10 years old. For some reason, I [00:15:00] hadn't thought of this for years either, but one story reminds me of another. They used to, it was just dusty roads. They developed what they called potholes. Dust would be a foot deep and you couldn't see it at all. Your wheel would drop in that and it would fairly jar your eye teeth. At any rate, we went out there and, of course, the buggies had kind of a burr on the end of the axle. You'd take that off [00:15:30] and grease your buggy and then put that back on. Apparently, they had failed to put that back on because it turned on the same way the wheel ran, so it kept it tight. Apparently, it failed to be put back on. We got out there and dropped in the chuck hole and the wheel came off. We were all more or less dressed up, t' the church, we scratched through that [00:16:00] dust two or three inches and the pothole was a foot deep trying to find that. We never did find it. Went back to the home and got another and put it on there and went on up. HERBERT: Now, I understand that Nampa, one story leads to another, that's for sure. In Nampa, they tell me that they went dry in 1910. JOHN: My dad [00:16:30] was very much dry. I remember the Deweys, for example. Ed Dewey was a close friend of my dad's. Ed told me this himself. He said, the main difference between me and Herman was he was dry and I was wet. I never could understand that, why an intelligent man and had to go for liquor. HERBERT: Apparently, many, many more people [00:17:00] agree with you. Was this for religious reasons primarily? JOHN: I don't think so. I'm sure that overtone was there because Nampa has always been kind of a church town. My folks went to the Baptist church. I can't remember, but they first were in a little cubbyhole downtown and they built the one where it is now. That was a frame building for many, [00:17:30] many years. I'm sure it was built when we were still in town, so it was built before 1913. Folks took us to church, to Sunday school, and they stayed on to church. We were little kids. I'll never forget that. At that time, there was [00:18:00] a strip of white clover along the edge of the church. For some reason, that was just filled with four-leaf clover. If all the folks were in church and we little kids were out there, we were hunting four-leaf clovers. Sunday school was over, understand, rather than trying to listen to the sermon why they let us go out there and wait. HERBERT: Obviously, when the state went dry in 1916, there were people who still got their liquor. [00:18:30] Can you remember any stories? JOHN: Yeah, bootleggers. Of course, I was reared in a very strict family. Liquor was not only out, but we didn't work on Sunday. There was no playing cards in our house, so we weren't in contact with the [00:19:00] element that were... HERBERT: Did it bring in any criminal element that came into that? JOHN: I don't think so. This is, I think, authentic, although somewhat hearsay. There were bootleggers, some of them out in the country. Those who wanted liquor, they did get it, but I don't think it brought any criminal element in. It may have made some law violators. In fact, it did make law violators out of [00:19:30] some otherwise law-abiding citizens. Make money by that. HERBERT: World War I, of course, was kind of a romantic war in a way. Do you think, did it have any particular change in Nampa? How did Nampa react in World War I? JOHN: Well, I think that I never heard that word applied to it before, but maybe so, because we call it idealistic. HERBERT: [00:20:00] Yes, a war to end wars. JOHN: I was too young to be involved directly, but some of my friends were. And I know that many of them actually volunteered. They were going to make the world safe for democracy. And Kaiser Bill was a demon and so on. And there was a lot of hoopla, would you call it, [00:20:30] songs and bands and so on. Many of the people who actually went and many of the parents felt that it was not only a duty, but that they were somewhat of a crusade. My dad was violently opposed to war. And that, [00:21:00] of course, may have been where I became so. I don't think that war is Christian in any sense of the term. There never was a war, but it was fundamentally commercial. Even the Crusades became very commercial. And I know Dad was so disturbed by that the minister of the Baptist church preached that this [00:21:30] was a worthy cause and so on. And Dad became so disenchanted that he quit going to church even over it. My mother continued and she took us kids. Dad said that's not the Christian religion at all and if that's what they're going to teach, they're not going to go to church. Whether that was right or wrong, that still was evidence of the fact that there were some people who felt that this was not justifiable. [00:22:00] But by and large, I think you're correct that there was a certain idealism that caused a lot of the people to go. And, of course, it became very personal because in a smaller community at that time, you knew all the boys that were going. In fact, Dad sent each one of them some money and sent them a letter. Sent money to [00:22:30] everyone who went from Nampa. And, of course, some of them didn't come back. Not only grieved their parents, but people like my dad. HERBERT: Would you say ten? Ten didn't come back? JOHN: That, I just don't have enough. I can name some who didn't. For example, Joseph Murray. Dr. Murray was the old family doctor. Dr. Kohler was the first one here. [00:23:00] Kohlerlawn the cemetery was named after him. But shortly, Dr. Murray came and I think Kohler must have died. He was our family doctor and everybody's family doctor for many years. And his elder son didn't come back. And the present legion, American legion, is named Joseph Murray Post. So he was one example. You know, they were close enough and everybody was [00:23:30] friends and acquaintances. HERBERT: High school friends. JOHN: And not only that, but in a small town, lots of close associations. HERBERT: And Nampa at that time in 1917 was what, 2,000? 3,000? JOHN: That would be a pretty good guess. HERBERT: About as big as Eagle or almost as big as Eagle? JOHN: When I came back here in 1936, it was only 10,000. So [00:24:00] I suppose that's probably not too bad of a guess. It was bigger than Eagle, I suspect. Probably more like Payette or, you know, Weiser. Probably could have been as many as 5,000. HERBERT: After World War I, we sort of settled down again, thinking there was going to be no more wars. Did anything particularly change here as far as agriculture or industry? Did [00:24:30] new industry come in? JOHN: It changed as a result of the war, yes. For example, labor was very short during the war because the boys were away and so on. The need was greater. There were two things that resulted from that. First of all, certain foods were short. [00:25:00] Wheat wasn't enough to go around, and they had substitutes like barley and rice and oats made into flour. In my dad's practice for many, many years, every time at threshing time, they didn't have combines. It was threshing machines. He'd take some of that wheat in and trade it for flour. We had usually a dozen sacks or more of flour stacked [00:25:30] up there for the year. When this came about, he took it all back. He said, we're not better than the rest of them, so he took it back. HERBERT: Why did he say this? JOHN: Well, just like I said before, he wouldn't teach us German because he said we're Americans. He wanted to be loyal. Although he had the wheat there, I mean the flour there, he took it back and we ate the barley. My mother got pretty good [00:26:00] at baking the rice flour bread. HERBERT: It must have been a bitter year or two or three for farmers because if there was a scarcity, the prices must have gone up. JOHN: It was, and I can recollect during that time we sold our wheat at $350 a hundred. You know, it was terrific, really. Goodness, it's only been, within the last decade, we got up to $350. HERBERT: Yes. [00:26:30] How many bushels an acre? JOHN: Okay, that was another thing. Dad, we had sheep, so he planted some Turkey Red wheat in the fall. It was a hard wheat, and that would get up and he'd graze those sheep on it in the fall. We harvested that, and I remember one time particularly we got 55 bushels an acre. And I was talking about that all over the valley, 55 bushels. Now if we don't get a hundred, we think it's nothing. HERBERT: Yeah, [00:27:00] more controlled. JOHN: Well, not only that, but the fertilizers and better strains of wheat. Not hybrids, but just better development. HERBERT: Have you noticed that you... JOHN: Excuse me, labor saving came in at that time. For example, Dad used to have us make little, very neat little shocks of hay and couldn't get help. [00:27:30] We took a bunch rake and just dumped them and made big, big old flat shocks. So we did everything we could to try to save time. They developed, instead of the Jackson fork, developed what they called slings, slips and slings. It's just sort of a sled, and you'd lay out a chain on that with the hooks on and take the whole half load up at a time. So probably the effect was it created more efficiency. HERBERT: [00:28:00] Now about this time, tractors must have started to come in. JOHN: I can recollect one of the two extremes. A fellow named Weerheim here had a Brumley oil pool. He pulled, oh, it must have been a dozen plows all one way. That was one. The other was, well, the Ford tractor. Not the Fordson, but the Ford came [00:28:30] out. It out. It had steel wheels and tipped over pretty easy, easily. But it's rather interesting that the farmer who took his tractor to the field and left his horses in the pasture was criticized severely. He says, no good, he's letting those horses [00:29:00] eat away and he's buying gasoline to run that tractor with. That was not very good husbandry. HERBERT: I can see some of that. Now, how many horses in a team could draw your largest plows? What have you seen around here? Four horses, obviously. JOHN: Yeah, I think in [00:29:30] our case about, I guess four is probably the most I ever had on a plow. HERBERT: What kind of horses were they, Belgians, Clydesdales? JOHN: Well, we had mainly Percherons. HERBERT: Percherons. JOHN: And I've got a Belgian stud, we had a cross. Most of the draft horses were, oh, 1,600 to a ton size. HERBERT: [00:30:00] They were beautiful things, weren't they? JOHN: Yeah, yeah. We always yeah. We always raised lots of horses. And there again, that was one of my playthings when I was growing up and a teenager. Nothing pleased me any more than to go out and curry my, I even rode the work horse, you know. HERBERT: John, how is it that Idaho, they tell me, [00:30:30] has been sort of a breeding ground or a growing ground for jockeys around the country? A number of jockeys have come from Idaho and many, many racehorses have come from here. How come it's become a place where just horses are raised in such abundance for rodeos and other use? JOHN: That kind of is a gradual change as they quit raising [00:31:00] the work horses. There were many, many people who still loved horses and they became breeders of lighter. Well, I guess we should go back because even when Dad was in the real estate business, as I mentioned, he had the finest of horses. Like trotters and buggy horses. So that carried [00:31:30] on and I suspect developed more into the saddle horses. When I first managed the rodeo parade, it was somewhat nondescript yet. I recollect even having to stand at the gate and turn back some people who came in with the work horse with the blinders on the bridle, that sort of thing. HERBERT: You turned them back for what reason? JOHN: I wouldn't let them go in through the arena. I didn't want them [00:32:00] to have that kind of a showing. I wouldn't let them go in with three or four kids on one horse. Just dress it up as much as possible. Very shortly, it did have an effect and we got much, much better horses. In fact, when Leo Kramer was the first rodeo contractor that we had here, at that time [00:32:30] I asked him if he had any suggestions on how to better our horses. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Brandt Recording 2 of 3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/e65b30f712ca66e488f0510fc325840b.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=Aebf3AEGeWspuyHN8%7EYV1DFVbclC7hO8brLjWG5Hdxr1%7E12bBQ1sfUjivIskukB22pS%7EcTVILNlfFSABxgCReusly8t3Qkxu7V3xuo%7E5%7E9YDcl0wc67HCUp34EemeqyGQt1g2ClYNbfvrN2FS3iCuV8pUYAEBLrYHko-vjbDQdD7rrI-imjPajWqevZsM9Rcn6xIXirEtuiUd72RdEMQuPDbQE59F543EaG9T0LBl5AiX1NT0-%7EX4xmvwpC%7ETiziqDHhXrz0VhfY7HmYZFP96IzEDIN%7Epys59Qx9tdsk-zMwqdMqq9I1wx7u8u8eURti5w5W9-8TNhaSD0ZDpAkBdg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8bd49cd44d9f3ea4ecdcc4468c9ceed6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Brandt Recording 3 of 3 PDF Text Text HERBERT: Herb Douglas here and May 22, 1985. At the present time we're just thinking back as to why and how Idaho has become such a center in this nation for its healthy horse stock and the fact that some of the best jockeys in the country have come out of Idaho and John is thinking back as to how some of that just [00:00:30] happened to be here in Idaho. Now rodeos, you said you were the master, grandmaster of the rodeo? JOHN: Well I was on the rodeo board here for a number of years and I think the thing that dressed up our parade more than anything else was certain requirements and certain contests we put on. Probably the rodeo did more to bring in these good saddle [00:01:00] horses than anything else. It was, it caused the development of riding clubs. Most of them were Western riding clubs although when I was managing the parade here we had two English saddle clubs from Boise. And the thing that probably made our rodeo, our particular queen contest, one of the best [00:01:30] in the whole country, was to have each riding club select their princess, their candidate for queen. At one time I had as high as 36 candidates for the queen contest and that meant that there were at least 36 riding clubs. I used to ride in the Canyon County Posse myself and they did County Posse and then there were various other groups all of whom take, took great [00:02:00] pride in it and a great rivalry. And although although this area is not an extravagant one, for instance you go to the, oh, Rose Parade at at Pasadena, you'll see more silver on one horse there than all the horses in this valley I expect. So it wasn't a matter of wealth, it was a matter of love for horses and pride and rivalry and trying to put on a better display and they did spend some money to have costume but [00:02:30] that's rather minor by comparison and from the time they were little kids, I remember my youngest girl, her mother was away one time, I let her ride in the parade as a five-year-old. I caught the dickens when she got home but nevertheless that was the attitude that people took, that this was a wholesome recreation for young people and the caring for that horse and the striving to excel in [00:03:00] horsemanship and so on, that kids that look after a horse, are in a riding club are not apt to get into trouble. HERBERT: I couldn't agree with you more. Well let's take a little bit more about, did the jazz age, the rag time age of the 20s, did that get as far west as Nampa? JOHN: [00:03:30] Oh yeah, to a degree. I'm sure that there were some who enjoyed the jazz music and there were some... HERBERT: The roaring 20s type of thing, probably didn't affect agrarian life. JOHN: Not as much, we were a lot more stable but I remember some of them, Charleston I remember, some of the girls would show off doing that, [00:04:00] but I suspect that it was rather less than some more metropolitan area. HERBERT: You just had to work too hard around here, I can tell you. Now in the 30s, you lost some money in the 1920s, early 20s, but you must have seen some more problems to drop in this area, the 20s, the 30s? JOHN: Yeah, it was tough going. HERBERT: What began to happen then? JOHN: It was tough going. HERBERT: [00:04:30] Okay, now after the bank crash, well the stock market crash, which led eventually to some of the banks going belly-up, did it affect this area very much? JOHN: Well I recollect even when I was teaching school, there wasn't enough money to pay the teachers, we got warrants, which eventually were paid, so there was some of that. [00:05:00] Frankly, farmers were able to exist because they had little debt and they... HERBERT: But not everybody is a farmer. JOHN: No, but then it was pretty well based on the farm economy, if they could have some, a little milk they'd come and they could help the grocer or the haberdasher or whoever it might be to exist. Although it was tough going, there's no doubt about that, but [00:05:30] we didn't have any riots or any... HERBERT: Any more banks go bad here? Maybe not. JOHN: No, I don't think so. We were on the bank guarantee by that time, weren't we? I can't recollect that. HERBERT: Well, I'm sure the banks went bad, but maybe out here you had stabilized things. JOHN: I can't recall, of course, as a youngster, and that, when I had just a few dollars [00:06:00] and that closed the doors, but no, I really don't, I don't believe that we had any. HERBERT: Did you have people suddenly who were hard-working people out of jobs, what happened to them? Did we have the WPA out here? JOHN: Yeah, yeah, and that disturbed me and some of my like. The mistake that was made there in the WPA was that they paid higher wages for fewer hours than some of us who were trying to make a living otherwise. [00:06:30] I said as I wasn't very old then, I had brains enough to realize that that was a poor system, and when they inaugurated that, they started the downfall of many, many people who became subservient on welfare. If they'da had to work longer hours for less wages they'da wanted to get off instead of on. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have had the work provided, but the [00:07:00] method by which it was done and the encouragement that it gave toward subservience or dependence was bad. HERBERT: Did they build some of your sewers in town? What did they do positively, build parks or what? JOHN: If I recollect, now I wasn't here at the time, but if I recollect the subway here was built with WPA. HERBERT: A subway? JOHN: I think so. HERBERT: Oh, you mean [00:07:30] under the train. I see. JOHN: But a lot of it was make work. For example, I was still the superintendent of schools at Cambridge, and they had, well that was not the WPA, but it was a similar thing. Well, they had a CCC camp there too, and they were perhaps better than some of the other. They were, they made them work a little [00:08:00] more, far more than the civilian camps nowadays, but in school, for example, we had to make work for some of them. They varnished some doors and that sort of thing. They, probably the objection was that the work wasn't really essential at all, and when times were tough, they could have got by without it, and that put a burden on the taxpayer. HERBERT: Did you have [00:08:30] a new kind of political party developing though, a New Deal kind of a party that began to outvote some of the rest of you? JOHN: Yeah. HERBERT: You meant in later 30s perhaps? JOHN: Of course, Harding was, I mean, Hoover was maligned and criticized greatly, and then along came Roosevelt, and he was a little like Hitler in Germany. [00:09:00] He was the fair-haired man on the white horse. Everybody thought, and I guess some of these things were necessary, but that was the start of the welfare system, which many of the programs that have later proved to be disastrous were in the initial stages with good intent and even good execution, but they carried to the extreme to [00:09:30] destroy the person. I'll never forget, as I said I was teaching at the time, there was a young boy named Stickney who got sick. Another of the men teachers there, and I took him home, and we could see that they were just destitute, so we came back downtown to the general store there. A man named Fred Jewel was on our school board, so we made up a basket of [00:10:00] staples and beans and flour and cheap stuff that had a lot of food value for the amount of dollars. At any rate, we took it out. No sir, they weren't going to take that. They'd make it some way. Finally, we prevailed on them. Well, that fall, here they came to my door with a basket of tomatoes and some squash. I could see that they were proud and they wanted to repay the favor, so eventually I took it. Well, [00:10:30] then I quit teaching, came down here and went back up to Cambridge and stopped in to visit Fred a little while, and of course the conversation, he said, you remember that Stickney family you you made up that basket of groceries for? And I said, yeah, they sure were proud people. I said, that's the kind we need. So that's why I brought it up. He says, now they're first in line to get their hand out. And we destroyed that kind of people with the welfare system, and that's sad. HERBERT: [00:11:00] Did it affect any of the politics of this town from then on? JOHN: Oh, I'm sure that it went strongly. In fact, I think the swing was toward that New Dealism for a time. Generally speaking, this has been rather conservative [00:11:30] area and still is. I think the agrarian society tends toward being that way because they have to work for it. HERBERT: Of course, the farmers have become as subservient a group, you see, now as any particular segment. JOHN: I've made the statement a number of times, if there's one group in the United States that's never going to be taking these handouts, I said, the farmers [00:12:00] are rugged individualists and he's going to paddle his own canoe, whether or no. All they have to do is put the green back on the stick and he follows right along. So that's no better than the rest of them. HERBERT: All right, let's come down to really this, the testing period of the 40s and the World War II. That was no longer a romantic war, it was a job that had to be done. JOHN: Yet, we had the same, D. Worth Clark, who was the representative from [00:12:30] Idaho at the time, and sayin' we had the same moth-eaten phrases, like, make the world safe for democracy, and it wasn't Hitler this time, I mean, it wasn't Kaiser Bill, it was Hitler, and so we lost the romanticism, but we still tried to sell the same... HERBERT: We thought it could be... JOHN: Same ideas. HERBERT: So you now saw many more people leave for the war. That was, it really disrupted talent then. JOHN: Yeah, it was bad. [00:13:00] And the main effect that I saw as a farmer was that we had no help. There were certain, what were called 4Fs, they were physically incapable of going, one cause or another, and floaters who were transients that they couldn't catch up with one way or another. So I operated, one time I operated 190 acres, that doesn't sound like much now, but it did then, with 4Fs [00:13:30] and floaters, and I had to run my business besides, and milk the cows besides. I had one good boy, one named Behrman, and I, he was from Wieser, I appealed to the Wieser board, the draft board, to exempt him, and they did once, but then he, he got so much pressure that he, he said, I don't want you to do that anymore, he said, [00:14:00] I've got to go. So it was a tough time, primarily for, because of the shortage of labor, they'd taken the boys all away. HERBERT: Did you have close friends who didn't come back? JOHN: Yeah, not what I'd call a real close friend, but acquaintances. None of those boys that had actually worked for me, they [00:14:30] all came back. HERBERT: Did we have any POW camps in this area? JOHN: Yeah, yeah, in fact, one was on a piece of land that I owned, about a mile east and a half north of where I lived, a little triangle cut off by a ditch, and I was approached to make a German war camp, and they said that they, about the only requirements [00:15:00] was that they had to have domestic water, so, and that's rather an interesting story, in a way, they, they set up there, and I employed a well driller, I said, now all they want is domestic water, doesn't have to be soft water, just so it's pure water. I said, I think you get that about 25 feet. Well, I was running the business, I'd be back and forth, and first thing I know, he was down close to 100 [00:15:30] feet, and I said, well, so I went around and talked to a number of the neighbors, and they had pretty good wells at 100 feet. I said, okay, you get just a little farther, you'll have good water, I want you to stop there. It may not be the softest, but it'll be good, good water. Well, the next thing I knew, I, he says, I didn't find any good stopping place, there was no, no clay bed there where I could stop. I know he wanted a job. HERBERT: [00:16:00] Yeah. JOHN: But at any rate, I ended up with a 475 foot artesian well, which I still have there. Well, that German war camp were there for some little time, and I know we employed some of them on the farm, and they, they had their own officers who actually disciplined them, and then they, our forces had people with rifles standing [00:16:30] around, but the main discipline came from their own German officers. And although I was very much averse to tobacco, they said, you want to keep in good with these guys, why bring them a can of tobacco, so I bought the first and only one I guess I ever bought, took out to them, and they were very, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and so on. Then later, that same camp moved over on Franklin Boulevard there, north of [00:17:00] where I now live. They built some towers there, and they're a little more formal. They cleaned things up good though, and the only thing is, I got a few dollars rent, but I spent all of it, a lot more for a well, which I didn't really want. I got it in the wrong part of the thing. HERBERT: The government didn't pay you? JOHN: No, no, I had to furnish the water, you see. They rented the, I don't even remember how much rent I got for it, but they weren't there very long, and so I know I didn't get near what the cost of the well was, but it's kind of an interesting [00:17:30] thing. Yes, and they had another, another PO, prisoner of war camp down in Deer Flat, south of Nampa, and maybe others elsewhere, but these two were the ones that were close here. No problems, and these, these prisoners were very courteous and pleasant, and they couldn't talk your **ant** language much, but I don't... HERBERT: They were very happy they were prisoners. JOHN: They were glad to be prisoners. You know, they, as an aside, [00:18:00] they criticized Reagan for going to this cemetery in Germany, and I thought his reply was very good. Most of those were boys who had no choice, who were buried there, you know. Maybe there was a few of the officers who were zealots and all, but I bet you most of those boys were just like the boys here we had in the prisoner of war camp. They were there because they were forced to be there, not because they wanted to be. HERBERT: Would you [00:18:30] say there were a thousand? Were there a thousand at camp? JOHN: Here? No, no, not that big. I would guess a couple of hundred. But that's a long time ago, and I... HERBERT: As soon as the war was over, they just went back to Germany, I guess. JOHN: One of the most tragic things to me in this area was the Japanese. Some of the present citizens, the Kondo brothers, for example here, were [00:19:00] numerous, numerous law-abiding, native-born Japanese farmers from the coast, were put in concentration camps. There's no other name for it. One was at Hunt here, and they were worked out, and I remember Henry Kondo told me he worked for Leonard Tiegs out here. He said he treated us like human beings. [00:19:30] Almost gets me to think about it. HERBERT: They come into town now and then? JOHN: But they held them there in that concentration camp, and then they turned them loose, and they... That's another good example of where if a person or a race or a group of people want to be industrious and [00:20:00] behave themselves and be law-abiding and so on, they can be accepted. The Japanese did exactly that, and they now are just as respected and accepted as white people. And that's with quotes. HERBERT: Yeah. JOHN: We've got some others who want to be other nationalities or races that don't take that attitude. HERBERT: [00:20:30] Why did they come to Nampa, this area? Because it was wide open space? JOHN: Why did the Japanese... HERBERT: Why did they bring the Japanese here? JOHN: Well, the concentration camp wasn't right here, but the Japanese came here then because of, yeah, because of the fact that this was a very productive agricultural area, which was along their line. [00:21:00] I don't recollect whether they brought some here while they still, or were released from the camp for work here or not, but, you know, they were mistreated, sadly. HERBERT: Yes. JOHN: Even here, even some of them who were here, why, they were felt like the Germans during the World War, World [00:21:30] War I, they were outcasts almost for a time. HERBERT: Well it's a troublesome period, of course. JOHN: People become so emotional, they don't think, they lose all their... HERBERT: When you're under attack, I guess, you just lose your grip and rationality. JOHN: Yeah, that's what happened. HERBERT: Now, the railroad, that probably is one of the greater reasons why Nampa developed. [00:22:00] Do you have any feelings about the railroad? JOHN: Yes. HERBERT: Have they been fair, or have they been big boy on the block and had their own way? JOHN: Had it not been for the railroad and the irrigation water and people, we would have been nothing. HERBERT: The Oregon Trail, you mean. JOHN: People who came out here, but the irrigation water and the railroad, and maybe the Homestead Act, but yes, the railroad [00:22:30] was looked upon with great favor. It had a certain romantic aspect to it. Remember, when I was was a little child, I went down to the depot and here, I still remember the big display of polished apples and oranges and how good they looked and so on. People would get on the train with sandwiches and when that old steam engine came up there and was spitting their steam and bell clanging, [00:23:00] well, that was a big day, you know. And by and large, the people were very appreciative of the railroad and recognized its worth. So, you know, Nampa was definitely a railroad town, about as well balanced as any town could be between agriculture and various other industries. One time the Pathfinder magazine, which is now extinct to an extent, [00:23:30] picked Nampa as one of the best balanced towns in the United States and played it up in their magazine. So, no, the railroad has been a real asset to us and although some hobos came in on riding the rails and that sort of thing and made Larry Maloney more or less trouble getting rid of them. HERBERT: Because some of those fellas [00:24:00] had a rough time back East. JOHN: Yeah. HERBERT: But when they didn't want to work for their meal, I suppose that separated the men from the boys. JOHN: I'm talking about hobos, not, they were the professionals. A lot of people rode the rails out here and that sort of thing. They were perfectly willing to work and they made no problem. It's the professional hobo whom I was referring to before. HERBERT: Because I can imagine [00:24:30] people who were down and out back East hearing about Nampa and farms and people needing work, they would drop off here. JOHN: Well, frankly, when I was growing up here, everybody practically had a garden and every farmer practically had chickens and a cow and raised his beef, meat and so on. [00:25:00] When I first started in the real estate business, for example, a five acre tract was a very popular sized parcel. They could have a job, but they could make their living on the five acres. Now there aren't very many of them. If they are out in the country, they want a half acre, at the most an acre, maybe to keep a saddle horse or maybe raise the beef. Even a lot of farmers don't raise a garden. Part of the reason is that they [00:25:30] can employ their time better otherwise. And secondly, that you go to the supermarkets and they've got high-class, high-quality produce there and a fair price. HERBERT: Costs money though, it costs money. JOHN: Yeah. So it's justifiable to a large degree. I still raise a big garden. I used to tell my wife that if I'd spend as much time on a tractor farm on 80 acres as I spend with the flowers in the garden, I'd be [00:26:00] about evened up. But I still do it. Partly I guess you get where you like to... HERBERT: Oh yes. How well I know. This is your recreation? JOHN: Yeah. And it's a relief. I used to say instead of getting all frustrated or disturbed by some deal or one that blows up or whatever [00:26:30] or somebody is very unreasonable, instead of taking it out on people, I go out and chop the dickens out of the weeds. So it has a certain psychological or physiological benefit as well. HERBERT: Now you weren't all work all the time. Did you ever take your wife on vacation? JOHN: Yeah. We've been in every state in the Union. The last trip I made with her was to Alaska. [00:27:00] When I was state president of the real estate group, we went overland and took two of the kids out of school. We'd never been in the Deep South. Our convention was at Miami Beach and then adjourned over to Cuba. And then to Hawaii. Every summer we'd take a trip to the mountains. We usually took a truck with a bunch of horses so we so we could ride around in the timber [00:27:30] and so on. HERBERT: Did you camp or did you stay at something? JOHN: Camped. Camped out. And that's the far cry from taking these modern campers or motorhomes and so on. One of the biggest thrills was to be able to build that bonfire and hear wood crackle and bacon sizzle and so on. HERBERT: And your wife joined in heartily? JOHN: Very much so. And all the kids certainly enjoyed it. [00:28:00] Even after my youngest daughter was at, I forget whether it was at Willamette or I guess she was at Oregon getting her MBA, she had a friend who she wanted to bring home. She says, I want to take a trip to the mountains and camp at Paddy Flat. So we did. HERBERT: Happy memories. Is your wife still with you? JOHN: No. She died two years ago. HERBERT: Two years ago. JOHN: After suffering many years. [00:28:30] She had a very, very severe case of shingles, which a few, a very few, never recover from. It creates a a pain pattern. And I had her everywhere, University of Washington pain clinic. Then shortly she developed Hodgkin's, which is cancer of the limbs. She recovered from that. They gave her chemotherapy. [00:29:00] Pain was with her from then on. And so it was kind of sad because she was extremely active in the community, church, YWCA, PTA, that sort of thing. Probably as much so as anyone in the town. HERBERT: I get the feeling that if you had your choice, you'd still begin and live your life here in Nampa. JOHN: No regrets. [00:29:30] Yes, I do. I have three children and none of them got married. So that's my one regret. HERBERT: None of them got married. JOHN: None of them got married. My son is in with me here and I'm very much gratified with that because he's following almost exactly my footsteps in every way. He doesn't smoke or drink. HERBERT: I've got to meet him some day. JOHN: He's very ethical in all of his dealings and [00:30:00] so on. And the youngest girl is, well she was product manager for the Pacific Northwest Bell. She got her MBA, she went there. With this divestiture, she went to AT&T and that instead of having an office in a skyscraper in Seattle, she now goes to Kent as a part of her commute. She has an excellent job. The oldest girl is a clinical psychologist on the Salt Lake. [00:30:30] So from only one standpoint, that I have no grandchildren. You have to, you know, build an estate and build a reputation where you kind of like to have the bloodline as well as the name carry on, you know. So I do have that one regret. Otherwise... HERBERT: Well, how old's your boy? JOHN: Oh, he's 40. He was born in 1937. He'd be 50, 40, what is he? HERBERT: [00:31:00] Well, he'll be 50 in 87, so he's 48. Well, he may find the right person yet. Maybe his ideals and so on. JOHN: First time in his life that he's been going with a widow lady over in Boise, but I'm about to give him up there. But there are many, many satisfactions and honors that I've had, [00:31:30] so I... HERBERT: You've given yourself to the community, obviously. It became natural. You headed up the real estate for the state. The rodeo has been kind of a side interest. JOHN: With farming, you know, the horses. And I was honored by the College of Idaho with an LLD degree, honorary degree. HERBERT: Well, now you tell me. I think that's a high honor when you get that [00:32:00] kind of distinction. JOHN: I consider it so. And more recently, my picture and my write-up was on the front of the statesman, telling of these various... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Herbert Douglass Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Brandt Location The location of the interview 203 11th Ave S, Nampa, ID Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Brandt Description An account of the resource John Brandt, born in Nampa in 1904, recalls his childhood and what life was like in early Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, May 16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/534" title="Brandt Family">Brandt Family</a> Agricultural equipment Coyotes Farming Irrigation Rodeo Sheep https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/644eb1bf91234c903abb449e65ae41df.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=MVCDlUjurXZEA9qoyzqPnjGVom5LRV-ibn9QS28u96UXKKdof1iwlRznTvelTTkcEuw30Qm4MGGbB4%7E1wQ0ozUBpMY3dKGbOtOoDyVOt71bv303lUEFJb77vNe18KgM2PB2m28IzpA%7EjLG7Su80EXibyCllnlWQPPYeOBuoK0DsE5ytitsaoq0SlZiphs6EOvzm5rqewQaR4glbMW1AeOj9vtozIUBuncFww-f8034CnSo3sfYaaRsQxMiGDrIsjq9y8tkL91gzzt-Jld7zvZDzZnX8we2OcVN59Zh9K-jE4D27nAppbbO59lmyZUF4QFAoQZeOySAobgCn6UbOK8Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 682c81fc3f28f729308fb38970e6ed00 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hand laborer and farmer on tractor Description An account of the resource Hand labor supplemented mechanization on the 1950s farm. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jerry Cornilles Crops Farming https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/3560df1a1b185301847f77cac88c9389.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=AnYYu8GgihU7YLfFJxkQIlHeljkEIH-1Rx2xLgpuushbgGbQ-B0HEbbv5KUt%7EI23ISdy8IxtLS4jTo5-0HPWiZfETr5bUqr9EypWY%7EKNYruiQxoH6BSj8scc3Km0nho5E88khOZ5pcwt92vDFwFCov-sP0-h4VFde7dL9-IFX%7EjWv65fN1xPCmRExCqlxXSk2v6GPTBx6%7E2grnv-yj2Ao4sMwJiRgzxoyxZdXho%7E3aYPFEuq-M1X%7EcDU0uRCNeIEi3xXjr-tdNZ-bpeRlW0Mxt9akunwKpPqL6s%7EUU4bYTA2O-H-ndPmjOzsJJntbstzBeyImynRzpywEJfUJ668iQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ee78ec4f9be0d446e3774ce41a1d9c58 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmers threshing wheat Description An account of the resource Farmers threshing wheat. Seven farmers standing in foreground with two children. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mary Henshall Crops Farm labor Farming Threshing https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/1b36fed645cd546d24666100de0f305b.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=jbqXxlicmm%7E10g-EugoFsfTOMCL3zqG6BWBOPvaUMlQuYR3IugNbJOmhOrOoBk5UYQHaqR60vgfQAT4%7E-8vz42TUxKtmeC1bPxbc0Y0ui4gme59n75q%7EtfgfsbF00hsCwz7aKXnZUONPh6jjn17txnDKMEpv1R9zYnuwYr1-O7aYn4oZsuvZz%7EKTP7aOivmmDl1Y--RnT--s42%7EY24SHANWAtTkzKX1F4z9tPGUdoNWtADrHKIhz474LXPRpN1IqRvf9JXUHFY4dGadLscGu80yoN6xWltxXGDHr2fKuan7Utm0DQx%7ESErKj21xnpx39lA4DmSZJ2lEZqZmkVvE-PA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e115fcb07269e06d2760e6ced31343d3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tiegs brothers on John Deere tractors Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tiegs Brothers' Five Tractors Description An account of the resource Albert August John Tiegs, his wife Anna Upham Tiegs moved to the Boise Valley with their five sons and one daughter in 1920. They settled on a farm on Cherry Lane near Nampa in 1921. All of the children attended Lone Tree School. Photo: Five Tiegs brothers pose on five John Deere tractors in a row - 1938. From Left to Right: (unidentified man in back,) Mervin, Herbert, Leonard, Edward and Elmer Tiegs. Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/668">Tiegs Family</a> Farming Nampa People Tractors https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/be48cfcc4c44bacd3b1ac6a51d647390.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=bIa2RFR8lL0HU0Y25m0WijdIetZzK%7EW%7E9HnzKkm5IK9M5118xhS0U0d0ldhiqptryHIQVnICBEpitUM4U1tAwqHNEe4Mv20AFB8ec3Z0ZBesKe--Qt%7EJDz6eV9gsAD7pSm88LWa0qlnlhORQRm4UQYeuAiSGRnX3dfBhCPuXg6PTC%7ET3GfNEWWtCRqoBPvkzB6eqMpkEWnBzEB8ox3cCAwGg4ztPzo4dFuEIufzkCOeNUEUyK6Wp26T-vtky7-PDtu-ndxT8MjiJdhfkAYzOthM70ejKSruEBeT2doePQScqP5bifCATlFbrvBgSwEyHodHMLsQBI5945V9A62Gh%7Eg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f87fdba9e030e604abd446b4dcead742 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmers and horse drawn plows Description An account of the resource Two children standing in foreground with four horse drawn plows in background. Farm labor Farming Tractors https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/3c84f21d921a1d473c76882aaabeaf8a.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=txr4clhpem4TlxYJmx6OPCigrMiOfLfq7XcDybVgluja6h-n8hzllx4RwL67-zQRS3EJPc3q49ZgxCeRkErBpPM76pYovrS%7EKiBxWimDNMJdVXhCbL2l%7EJpelwk2vC4qUYqqvlJutKD8CD6XatluS4VBuss8spvJIFzsvWXBHR6FShL6Wd6JzomXb-ZYGxXJs1Ke8bDnWHmLcyrChf91FA4Gn%7E%7EmeRVI1QRbn6NYL0aiiyLO4z7-e-y4-VQhfh3USuTiVXJauXJogFmOEf5tOmfSjmM-fz4TNdgVs5oFVDfpabGiLhmXbc5jHu9oxCPCr-KiPZYuR5%7ETYfTKRzbl-A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e71acab1022b75f9d4d17dc5555e4c35 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Making pickles Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Canyon County Historical Society Agricultural business Farming https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/bceb1d20ed4559d9b420bd61fecd2b51.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=jInmS8T5TBMF-w0Kncs5VIavbBUcDpo9Zi3nKlb%7EX0VZmTUZ5ZzVKxJa-S9fZBB9kDqAuv7RrzNL6kAEABGZ%7EGBSi5wnnn7bdtR9Rc7J%7EG3esn4JOu%7E0HoqS3%7Esa2OaSxRrkZydkkrVKa91bcdGQpfOLpk0B7TqFssuaAl8NGDpDYE2lDOnu68eWQUNYtWOGdlHlvPww-sCkIdBTrVaZUokWCjnMRnuBd9Z8Bqo21lo0gxQXa7dkTSGf7rG6nQKRoDbubllAiC2LH6CA1kAfnUGBz18m3n95-wkIT7WPm60Zfjfs7Ky-jszX9K2NKh38vmE-eIwuWtLtcog8kAOB0w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a372a0e0b20c977744d3924a8d012980 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sheep Shearing Camp Description An account of the resource Panoramic view of sheep shearing camp at the New York Canal. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Canyon County Historical Society Farming Sheep Sheep herding https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/9c72a7724079e724f13dd02ec0b39a75.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=lduwV0Kquxmu0rimvHKbHbX5mmAqgDLoCiixr-t7M-ZPYvn3z4LpogUoOzYJnhpmvgm5Ef0dGpdd9QFBxJLJ0gIUg0saThbWNGAGNxix5Oo7KJR5KQo74FrRzv0zhhlcVohtN35rr0n3MFSbeeUHMtN0Y2xbWlxpX5kbrm-HkAE2kdxvqAiq2oRa-Y-zQXASRr-gzth---Kg6I%7EGQ%7EQIy7y0dQ%7EaKT6qS1krkcTQJC8VbshY-Io%7ESCT%7EKfwTrKfbuIhTvtENKPYV9wuBe0%7EXf2%7EqR0dRwxHsPvODKtCShfj2RpJyPG0dinwsAICtaVwSdDueK66iE7ikH10LA7xr9A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM bc2b25506808ca3a80cb72ca61186cfe Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Early Hay Wagon Description An account of the resource 2 men loading hay on a horse drawn wagon. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mary Henshall Crops Farming https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/855b55e9b2fe5427e126ec4058b03c55.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=Rn9S4rs7hKxz7klSqyl-QJ9W5Ff5ICSU-DdAKnCR5rROEp0WJmK66A3Mqk9YRNQgd66%7EBrD7SuzoelfkVWrGZAuMoydcnw-huG%7E-yswsfN2vBxOtDdB8Ot2bpWs5Imb%7Ec-opVBg9Akl2M8iA1UCfuschQQVAnuF7eOL81LzQsx%7EgZvLN0eEdihkHiy3CBEoJoNZQzeltjNdg45rIS8WcaWG8HRsrfWIrqbBPqkjztnvyi3-rGLBw-kh-q1gHi1nuyBQ%7EvtOYA2Jbxe8HNQEJ5Pe6T%7E00yPMwb-OOQbcGUKSKhZV4tfShptuu8MjMrAHNd3IiXqFUXUdkH0Gwfil4qQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d88943256953cdafbf79b63ec47a4cc1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa's "Popcorn Man" and his wife Lydia Description An account of the resource Wiley H. Oliver was known as Nampa's "Popcorn man." Here, he is posing with his wife Lydia. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1926 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/eca077fd71313dcc911fa9f1a91e2d9e.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=ckfZm7Jbjagx%7E7FX2Smk66LhyIaS3y3llT2J5%7EmwOFNiV8QeAu-p4883uOAF-fGDcPeMVCNSr67CdTdOo6kKrM3YKCthEcncH4xpmdVl%7ETpUV2FXVBqF5IsVrG0yMgLAlwxdttg0LCF%7EpXbTCT0EmnD5sDKamM3NlGQSw%7EfPvcDDGKmxEQeX5-mz9ODJWbiggKnUvoiTl3IxQdhrM2oDXkSkZ3kOTHIH7U73uzi%7E%7EZdC3vTz7-Hlu9JReHRSBXvhLSVdo6G-tP7eL7QNL%7E%7EFwXML--%7E9sV1g53osbv7Y96Ui2O0apHMKExmCQn91ran2bOpXGKeVCTzObdX7etLLMw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a1aff4ea3cf3247921a83b4c2f5d1af8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wiley H. Oliver's Family Subject The topic of the resource Bennett, Clifton L. Benett, Esther Oliver. Oliver, Wiley Henderson. Oliver, Lydia Catherine Richardson. Description An account of the resource Oliver family photo: (from left) Clifton L. Bennett, Esther Oliver Bennett, Lydia and Wiley, with Ruth Bennett standing in front. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1927 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oliver Family Description An account of the resource In the early 1900s, Wiley Henderson Oliver started a farm near Melba and began to grow popcorn. After World War I, he and his wife Lydia Catherine set-up a popcorn wagon in Nampa at 12th Ave & 1 Street South. Farming Nampa People Popcorn https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/dd18ae7d81e045f8f60c03d02192da18.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=QPCr92i3hFc4H76jReb1eg23DfFKn6VFIfbXN7p51iXOu677ZfgU1vVzuKguaHL32ylk69REio49QME2%7EevXYrs-lGZOWoaU89bthsnqgtdh2oEYEjviOaKmUdujhXe0Gp9nXy-l697fEyiYGO-TGDCMAvEgKbEen6UeCfDFX6Lzwjg0FnT7OH0%7EMffOmD5foL5zeRFGSWRi3XYUZCNRjOdcDzvgKwdK-6ZmavOIrRI3WbrwUIMH6cRK%7E9yJ--b6J7a5BKCO5gm311Y9mGfr9JaWu-bAidPvV7sOe-E%7EOa2eWb9HjP9J6xB7UpyKi7LS3b5KxKCK3mwSouw108kQQA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 638e717a1233466eedb5b3a4ef0da655 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gordan McDonald Recording 1 of 4 PDF Text Text RICK COFFMAN: How old are you? GORDAN MCDONALD: Oh, 74. RICK: When did you first come to Nampa? GORDAN: 1918, the early part of ’18. RICK: Where’d you come from? GORDAN: Eagle. RICK: Oh, Eagle. So you didn’t come here from Kansas or – GORDAN: No, see I was born in Canada, crossed the line at the north of Ferndale, and that’s where my sister was born. Then we came from Ferndale to Bellingham, and Bellingham to Meridian, and Meridian to Eagle, and Eagle to Nampa. RICK: And you’ve been in Nampa ever since. GORDAN: Yeah. Well, except during the war time. I went -- I left during the war. RICK: Where’d you go then? GORDAN: I went over on the Defense list in Portland. RICK: Oh, in the shipyards? GORDAN: Mm-hmm. RICK: What brought your family to Nampa? GORDAN: Well, my dad [00:01:00] followed construction work for a time, and he came over here because there was an opening for work. He worked for the Carnation Milk company and drove a milk truck for years. RICK: And is that what he did in 1918? GORDAN: Yeah, well. This is before ’18. I mean, before we came to Nampa. He started driving there, so then that’s what made him decide to move to Nampa, and then he was closer to his work here, actually. RICK: But he came here to drive trucks for Carnation. GORDAN: Yeah. Let’s see, I don’t believe that’s what it was called then. RICK: Was Carnation located in the same place it is now? Or where was it then? GORDAN: No, Carnation was located out there on the north side, you know, by that place that they used to call Sugar Beet Lake, [00:02:00] which is where this new -- what’s this press out there. You’ve got that building – RICK: Oh, Pacific Press? GORDAN: Pacific Press down there. See they built -- they built on the north side of the lake, and Carnation was over on the south side. Part of the building is still there, but it’s called some kind of a can company now. But it was quite -- one of the big industries in Nampa at the time. RICK: What’s the first thing you remember about Nampa? The first thing when you moved here in 1918? GORDAN: When I started school. I started school there in Kenwood, and I think one of the – RICK: Kenwood is now where Home Federal is? GORDAN: Yeah, uh-huh. RICK: Go ahead. GORDAN: But I think that -- the biggest news [00:03:00] item thing that happened just a block and a half away from our place there, between Sixth and Seventh Street on Seventh Avenue, they were putting in a trunk line for the sewer, and that caved in and killed two guys and put a couple more in the hospital. It buried a lot of them, but they dug most of them out. I remember that so well. I was picking berries with my dad up in the upper lot and all this, and the big steam engine down there started blowing whistles because I think there’s problems over there or something, you know, well let me run over there. And there was one guy that got caught on a chain bucket. He was just getting out of the hole when we got there. There was another guy who was buried and just his hand was sticking up, and he was waving it around and they dug him out in a hurry. RICK: When was this? GORDAN: [00:04:00] Oh, that was in the early ’20s, I want to say around 1922 or starting there somewhere. They took the dead guys and they put them over on -- a friend of mine, Gordon Longwood, lived out on the corner, and they put them on the cots up out on his lawn, and well, Gordon Longwood came up to me and said, “You want to see something?” So he took me over there and he raised up the blanket, and this fellow named Whelan got squished between two of these big planks. Oh, he was a mess. That’s the biggest fresh news item that I -- big thing that I remember. We used to start out from home -- we lived on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street. When we used to start out from home, we could walk straight to the city hall. The [00:05:00] blocks were all laid out you know, but we cut across from one block to another, and we could walk from our house straight to city hall. RICK: To the -- where the -- oh, I see, where the – GORDAN: The old city hall. RICK: -- where the old city hall is. GORDAN: Yeah, without -- without turning any corners, we just cut across lots and we’d see -- wasn’t many places built along there. RICK: What were there -- back in the late 18-- or 19-teens and early ’20s, were there -- what were the roads, and what were the -- where did the town begin and end around here? GORDAN: Well, I am trying to think about that. Now, Twelfth Avenue seemed like the pavement had come down to Twelfth Avenue to about the middle of between Second and Third Street, but now I’m not positive of that because on Second Street, between Second Street, on Twelfth, between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenue, that was a dirt street because right in the middle of [00:06:00] the block there they had one of these big horse drinking troughs, you know, and the mud was always knee deep there. And going the other way -- but I think there was pavement that came down through there. It might have stopped right at that corner because right next to the old city hall used to be a great big -- oh, it was an enormous big livery stable there. It seemed like there wasn’t any pavement in front of that place. Now, coming down Eleventh Avenue, it seemed like the pavement stopped right there at Second Street, because there where the Idaho Power building is now, that used to be the Interurban Depot. And from there, again, then the track went down to Third Street and turned towards Caldwell, and that was all dirt there. RICK: So there weren’t -- there weren’t many paved roads. GORDAN: No. Just – RICK: Just a few – GORDAN: -- a little bit through downtown, yeah. RICK: [00:07:00] Where did the -- where did the town sort of begin and end, in today’s terms? I mean, somebody -- somebody living in Nampa today, if you had to say, “Here’s where the town sort of -- here was the boundary on the Caldwell side. Here was the boundary on the Boise side. Here was the boundary on the Melba side of Nampa.” Where did Nampa kind of begin and end? GORDAN: Well, I -- the fire station was between Ninth and Tenth Avenue, but they were kind of out in the country, it seemed like. The town really started, oh, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenue, on First Street, and went to, well, it went to between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Avenue, yeah. There was a garage over there. The Chevrolet Garage was located over there between Fourteenth and Fifteenth at one time. And then south, it just came out -- well, city hall was [00:08:00] the last, but a block away from City Hall was a blacksmith shop, and that was all the trail that went that way. All where that theater is over there, that was all empty. There wasn’t anything there. RICK: Where the -- where the Frontier Theater is now? GORDAN: Is that the cross street from the city hall? RICK: Yeah. GORDAN: Yeah, where that’s at. But there was that big building on the corner, and they used to have -- they had dances upstairs there, and down below was the grocery store. But that was the only building on that corner. RICK: So city hall was sort of the border on one end of town. GORDAN: Yeah. Yeah. See the town was only a couple blocks deep this way, and about three blocks the other way, so it wasn’t -- there wasn’t too much there in the middle. Of course, the railroad track broke it off the other way. And all there was on the other side of the tracks was, oh, that Gowen Machine shop there on Eleventh Avenue front and First Street north, and then [00:09:00] a block away from that was what they called the Spanish hotel. That’s really all there was on that part of town. RICK: How did people basically get around? Now, you know, you jump in the car and you go. Did people ride bikes? Did they walk? GORDAN: No, walk, and, well, there was a lot of horse and buggies, and Model T Fords. Horse and buggies and Model T Fords, there was a lot of them. I remember one time when some guy came in town here with a Baker Steamer. I think half the town turned out to watch. It was quite a wagon. RICK: With a Baker Steamer? GORDAN: A Baker Steamer, yeah. RICK: What was that? That was a car? GORDAN: That was a car. It was a steamer. They had a -- [00:10:00] it was powered by steam, with this steam generated by a wick like a coal oil stove, you know, back in that -- that generated the steam and the steam ran the car. That thing used to start up down the road and it could move, I think, one mile an hour, and then nobody ever did have it wide open or it would go too fast. RICK: Oh, the guy wasn’t just visiting here. The guy bought it and brought it here. GORDAN: No, I think he was just visiting because it was only here a short while. Just like several years later, some guy came to Nampa with a -- one of those old Stutz Bearcats, I think that was in the ‘20s series, and he parked in front of the -- in front of the bank down there, so everybody went down to look at it. RICK: What about entertainment? GORDAN: Well, of course we had the Majestic Theater, and then we had the Liberty Theater, which was [00:11:00] down there on almost the end of Fourteenth to First Street, almost to Fourteenth Avenue there. And on the corner of that place was the All Electric Bakery, so there was Electric Bakery and then there was the Liberty Theater, and then there was the Liberty Sweet Shop, and then I think they had some vacant lots in there, and then in the old building that’s there now, I think Fifer’s has it. RICK: Well but mostly people went to shows a lot? Is that – GORDAN: Well, yeah. RICK: What else? GORDAN: But they had two things that used to happen every summer. There was what they called the Chautauqua. You’ve heard of them. RICK: Mm-hmm. GORDAN: They used to come once a year, and they used to set up down where Central School now is. That was a vacant block, and now they used to pitch a tent in there and have the Chautauqua. They stayed, oh, [00:12:00] a couple weeks every year. Then there was another – RICK: Could you explain to me where -- could you explain what went out at a Chautauqua? GORDAN: Chautauqua was a group of people that came in, and they took local citizens’ talent and made stage players out of them. RICK: Oh. GORDAN: And then they’d put on shows. And I was fortunate enough to get in on the animal act. But yeah, they used to have some pretty good plays there. That’s what they were, and they were just plays put on my local talents. RICK: You -- and you were in on the animals? GORDAN: Well, I used to get in on the animal act. RICK: How did you get in on the animal act? GORDAN: Well, I used to -- that was one thing, when we always -- used to always do. When the circus would come to town, or that used to come to town, boy, we used to go there and volunteer to help or get little chores, you know? And then we got a free pass to the shows. And then there was another outfit that came, and it only come a couple or three times. [00:13:00] I’m trying to think of the name. I want to say the Miller Players, but that just doesn’t sound quite right. They brought their own troupe in and put on a -- they put on a big show, and I’ll say they pitched their tent there, too, and they would stay a couple of weeks, but they -- they were only here maybe like two or three years that they came. They didn’t come every year like the Chautauqua did. RICK: Okay. What were -- you said there were two things that happened every summer. What was the other thing? GORDAN: Well, those two, and then we had the theaters, and then every so often the circus used to come to town. The last circus I -- that came to Nampa was Al G. Barnes, and that was before they had that big split up, I think. That would be in the middle of the ’20s. It was the late ’20s, I think. They used to pitch their tent over there across the street [00:14:00] between Second Street and Third Street, on that vacant lot across the street from where the city hall now is. That used to be a big vacant field there. Oh, I remember that one year, Phyllis Canal runs back there, and the guy took the elephants out because it was hot weather, to give them a drink of water, and they got away from him. They got in the canal and flooded over the banks and washed some of it out. (Laughs)They had quite a deal. So they had some agreement with the city that they could water the elephants there, but only a couple at the time. I used to like to go there and get in there early and get in the cook shack of the circus. There you got all you wanted to eat and could see any show in the circus, side shows or anything. RICK: And you did this because you were in the -- you helped out with the circus too? Or – GORDAN: [00:15:00] Yeah I -- well, I’d go there and help pitch their tent and all, and serve -- wait on tables, you know? And then I got these passes, and then that could take me any place in the circus. Of course the circus came there early in the morning, my -- well I used to carry papers and carry the Free Press, and the circus would come in early in the morning, and they used to tell us when they were coming in. And they’d say, well, this guy used to say, “We’ll round up some boys,” and we needed all the help we could get, and so that’s what we used to do. Oh another thing we had here in Nampa I’ve got to tell you about that one. They made a hometown movie. I can’t remember the year that was in. I want to say around ’24. I wasn’t very old. Maybe in ’24. I was 13. They made a movie there in -- at the Dewey Palace. Just a little [00:16:00] skit was all, and I was a paperboy in that. I seen that movie several years later, but I think it was -- the film was destroyed when the Elks had that big fire here a few years back. And I think -- I want to say, always wanted to say, Richard Keim was a star in the show, and I thought his brother was the villain. I’m not -- I can’t positively say that. I talked to Mrs. Keim about that once, and she says, “Well if he was, he never did tell me about it.” Well, it was such a short skit, and he was only in high school then. RICK: Who -- was it the Dewey family, or somebody contracted the film? Or who did the film? GORDAN: No, no. Some -- some outfit came to town, and they went from place to place, and that’s the way they made their money, I guess, is shooting film and developing it, and then taking it down to local theaters, show it, and people would go down there to see it. [00:17:00] There used to be all kinds of ways to make money back then, anyway. RICK: What about schools? You went to school here. GORDAN: Yeah. RICK: What – GORDAN: I went to Kenwood School. Cleared through Kenwood School and then I went to the high school -- Nampa High School. I took my freshman year, and, well, my mother was sick. Well, when I was going to eighth grade Mother got hurt, and we went to the hospital, and I couldn’t continue school, and I had this opportunity to go work for the Free Press. That was in ’28, so I went to work for them. So I finished one year of high school anyway. And that was in ’28 [00:18:00] because I would have graduated in ’32. RICK: What did you do at the Free Press? GORDAN: I started out as a sterotyper. RICK: A what? GORDAN: A sterotyper. RICK: What’s a stir -- stair, like S-T – GORDAN: S-T-E-R-O-T-Y-P-E-R. Sterotyper. RICK: S-T- what? Would you spell that again? GORDAN: S-T-E-R-O-T-Y-P-E-R. RICK: What did that guy do? GORDAN: Well, we made the lead casts of all the different -- well see, nowadays you have all your line drawings and everything like that were lead casts then. Here’s how it’d be -- So there’s my big mounting pot, there and there, and there’s my casting box, now [00:19:00] that’s the place -- that’s the hole that I worked in. That’s kind of a better overall picture. And here behind the pot is the saw they used to saw that up in. That big casting box, everything was type high, which is -- I can’t tell you exactly what it is on inches anymore, but we used to put a mat in this box and then you’d put these bars on the side. Those were type high. Then you’d turn it up one end and you poured hot metal down there, and then it solidified. RICK: Okay, I understand. Well then you, you know, just in the newspaper business, and you saw a lot of changes from – GORDAN: Oh my gosh, yeah. RICK: From hot metal to – GORDAN: Yeah, this is all done by hand then, and first they had linotype done because [00:20:00] I can remember when I was a very little kid, Jim Allen would operate the linotype that belonged to the Free Press, and they had this, oh, where the Simla Hotel was now, across the alley from the library now. And I used to watch him run that machine, little knowing that I would eventually go to work there. Then all our type, anything bigger than what you read in the paper, you know, your body type, anything bigger than that is all hand set. You had the type cases, and you set it by hand. RICK: You worked in a print press from 1928 until when? GORDAN: Well then I -- then the union sent me away to Boise to finish my apprenticeship, and then I came back here, and that was about the time the war broke out, and so then I went into defense work, and then I came back here. [00:21:00] Must have been about ’40, I would say ’42 to ’46. I was gone about four years there. I finished my apprenticeship up at the Boise Capital News in Boise. RICK: Well an apprenticeship can -- how many years did that take? GORDAN: Six years there. RICK: Jiminy Christmas. So you’ve got 1928 to 1934. So you must have come back here for a while and then left for the war. GORDAN: Yeah. RICK: And then after the war you -- after the war you were here. GORDAN: Yeah, well I came back actually in ’46. RICK: Until you retired. When did you retire? GORDAN: Well, ten years ago. Let’s see. When I -- [00:22:00] when I was 65 -- I was 65, and then I worked on until June, which would make me 65 and a half, and then that would be ’76. 1976. RICK: Is there -- can you remember, looking back, that there was one thing where you thought to yourself, you know, this town is changing. This is becoming a bigger town. Or this town is changing, and -- can you remember back when something that sort of made you think to yourself, “Nampa’s -- this isn’t the same Nampa I came to in 1918?” GORDAN: I don’t know. Actually I can’t really say of any one thing. I noticed the gradual change all the time, like when they built the new depot across the track there. Of course you know they tore the building down. And they built that new bank there where the First Security was, [00:23:00] which is now the library, and they built the new post office where it now stands. That used to be -- well, that used to be the Free Press’s -- it had a baseball field when I was working there then, and that’s where we used to play, and then the post office kicked us off and built a building there. RICK: Really? That used to be a baseball field? GORDAN: Yeah, that’s where we played baseball. Yeah. RICK: So there wasn’t one -- any really big singular event that changed Nampa. It was just a gradual change. GORDAN: Yeah, that’s the way I would say. Now, every year they had what they call the Harvest Festival, and that was always located on the streets downtown, and that used to run from oh about roughly in front of the Dewey Palace down to not quite Fourteenth Avenue there and then from, you know, a little ways down in front of the city hall up to the old [00:24:00] depot there. And of course the rodeo, that was -- what was that called? That was called I think just a bucking contest. It was held in the daytime, and they held that out there where they’re now holding it, the stadium, but at that time, that place was out there, that was where the Nampa town team played baseball, and where Nampa High School played football because they had bleachers there. RICK: And they also had the rodeo there? GORDAN: And then also the rodeo. They didn’t have -- oh, and that also had a racetrack right out in the middle because I rode -- one year I rode a little white mare in the races, and they were running and running, but a guy named Kingster had a racing stream and he talked me into riding [00:25:00] his little white mare. Gosh, she was a beautiful horse. RICK: Now, where was this place located? GORDAN: Up where the Stampede grounds is now. RICK: Oh. GORDAN: Yeah, see, that used to -- that Stampede ground used to go clear and -- and they took in that baseball field they now have. When they -- when they built these bleachers and then the shoots, they cut all of that off and made a smaller stadium. There used to be a big, long racetrack. They used to play football, and they played baseball there, too, so -- it was kind of an all-purpose stadium I guess. RICK: Did -- when you wanted to go someplace, when you wanted to go someplace from Nampa, how did you get there? Was Boise where people went around here, or did people kind of pretty much just stay around? GORDAN: They pretty much stayed there because there wasn’t much going. Now the road between Nampa and Boise back at that time [00:26:00] was all gravel roads. That’s the old Highway 30. Now at that time, you’ve got to picture in my mind how that went. Now it seems to me like it went straight ahead up Airport Road, past the Gray’s orchard, which isn’t there anymore. Then it made a left hand turn, and you came off at what you called Dead Man’s Crossing. And the reason that was called Dead Man’s Crossing because the streetcar track used to come right down and follow that old highway, and it came down to Tieg’s Corner and that came up where the road now comes up, you know. And there was a row of trees there, and back in those days, they didn’t have such thing as a stop sign, and there was more people coming down that hill and meeting that streetcar right there. So they started calling that Dead Man’s Crossing. That was the first dead man -- place they called Dead Man’s Crossing, and then just a half mile on past that, [00:27:00] there were several people killed by the train there, so they transferred the name from there to there, but this was mostly caused with the streetcar accidents that they had. Because there was a big row of trees there, and you couldn’t see the streetcar coming for nothing. Now, everything I’m telling you is the way I remember it. RICK: Yeah, I’m sure. GORDAN: Another guy is gonna tell you something different. RICK: (Laughs) So, you know, today you and I just don’t think much of jumping in the car and going to Caldwell or going to Boise or something like that, but back then, that was sort of a major – GORDAN: Yeah. I remember once my old man took us all to White City Park in Boise, and we left early in the morning and got home late at night because it was -- it was a trip to go from here to Boise. And you drove about 20 miles an hour. Yeah, I remember even when I was in my early teens, a guy that drove between Nampa and Boise, [00:28:00] if he’d gone 60 miles an hour, he was speeding because that was all gravel road, so. RICK: Was the -- was the one thing that Nampa was built around there -- everybody tells me the one thing was the Dewey Palace. Did everything begin and end with the Dewey Palace? GORDAN: It seemed like it because you would say that was your meeting -- meeting center, you know, and all business things, transactions, and things were all discussed there. And I guess for all the years I can remember there used to be people coming from all over. Say, Dewey Palace used to have a deal where they met all the trains, you know. They brought the people there. Of course it was only a couple blocks away that they had all of them taken over. I remember a big old car that they had, [00:29:00] kind of like -- well, they used to call them stages then. And -- but from what I gathered, or the talks that I heard, they used to do that back in the horse and buggy days, and had horse and buggies there. Now, when I lived here that turnaround in front of the Dewey Palace, that was being used all the time. There was always cars driving through there, and I -- I know that -- I know it was probably, we didn’t have such a thing as a taxi around here then, but it seemed like it was quite a few years later when they started a taxi service in here. RICK: You ever remember -- who’s -- you ever remember, like, Colonel Dewey being around here, or was that just a name you heard, but you never really saw the guy? GORDAN: That’s right. I never had seen him, no. [00:30:00] You think when you’re young like that, you don’t pay much attention to that stuff. I used to like to go into the Dewey Palace and go into the lobby because it was, oh, luxurious looking, and, like say that big clock they’ve got in the city hall now, they claim that was there. And I can’t specifically say I remember, but I used to go in there any chance that I got and look around. Of course, when I used to carry papers, that was part of my route. See, I had the downtown route, and it was nice. It was a really nice place. Now when Jim and Kathleen got married, why, that’s where Jim held his -- oh, all the guys in his party, his wedding party, he rented rooms up there in the Dewey Palace, and that’s where they stayed. RICK: Oh is that right. [00:31:00] What about any other Nampa landmarks? Were there any other things that made Nampa -- that were kind of distinctive? You know, I don’t know -- you know, obviously I haven’t been around that long, but -- like the Hasbrouck House? Or were there other big things of when you were -- when you were younger and you remember saying, “My gosh, that’s really something?” GORDAN: Well, no, not really. You see famous things that kind of stand out in your mind, like one thing that always seemed like it was impossible to work, and that was how they used to put coal in the train engines down here. They had a big ramp, and the place where they used to pull these coal cars way up high in the air, and then of course they tripped the bottom out and the coal would come down in chutes and go to the trains. That’s the way that the trains were done, and that always seemed like quite a piece of machinery to me, to stand there and watch that run. [00:32:00] Of course there was another big building project they had around here was when they built the underpass. Now I can’t tell you when that was built because -- END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/2518e40662f9c9bdfd4761dff67fa02b.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=OWJgvaLMZmnc%7EWkRSN8u3xIBZ-dyBEyz3mtqlBCU8R6HMat62%7ETJrwcQbjq3lVD3E%7EVNLLdg8ViNCdQyU-utM34GjZH8Zyvb5%7EhuTcNSAIMW5kET4cZgOYcY0KT6fuIu-KY-8NyfCy5oAEznpUgsz2QAD09zv4RiG4br6B0yVyv5rOUsDnV5K8BxTVL1ZX07fmsOYyWP2q4wkwLFE6jIMJE9mOYCroxTMU5Agq8UyrzOr1U7QcwAxMm18GnVeGUJ7q3x7Q6A2q%7El9aQLKURLf17WOg9jl9tC12CcEkugTJ9%7EcIQswhXkhUq3GbTkf6R6Fk61x61vay4mV5tzXAaF2Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b6b2ae8ffb0035be5d4d0780716c141e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gordan McDonald Recording 2 of 4 Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/705" title="KKK Inter-State Convention">KKK Inter-State Convention</a> PDF Text Text RICK: [00:00:00] All right, I guess we’re going now. They’ll have to edit this. Anyway, they wanted to build it wide, but the stores on either side objected? GORDAN: Yeah. Yeah, there was probably a tussle about that. Well, I guess they would have had to shut their doors, but so anyway they built it narrow in there. RICK: Because if they’d have built wide it would have cut the stores out. GORDAN: Yeah, they wouldn’t have had any -- any way for any traffic to get up to them except for walking down the sidewalk, or going through the alleys. RICK: Any -- you remember any famous people visiting Nampa? GORDAN: Oh, that I wouldn’t know except [00:01:00] Harry Truman came through one time. Of course I was working at the Free Press then, and I didn’t even bother going down and seeing him. That’s when he was campaigning out of the back end of a train car. So that’s about the only thing I – RICK: Oh, so your first famous person you remember. GORDAN: Yeah. I guess there was a lot of famous people, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. Because that Dewey Palace used to draw a lot of -- a lot of people. I used to see a lot of people that came there, and they looked like they were very well off, but of course, you know, the Dewey Palace at that time, that was -- this was before Hotel Boise was built, and it seemed like they centered out of the Dewey Palace. From what I gathered, Dewey Palace had a reputation all over the United States. It was really something. RICK: [00:02:00] You were talking about that -- that accident involving the sewer trunk line. Do you remember any other major disasters, major accidents in Nampa that -- I’ve been told there were some explosions and some other kind of stuff. GORDAN: Well, yeah, there was. This was in -- in the ’40s there was an explosion of a restaurant over there on -- between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Avenue on First Street there. It was a gas explosion that killed a lot of people. You’d have to go into the files to find out anything about that because it happened, and I know at the time that it happened why -- we thought it was an earthquake because it made such a -- you know, I swore to God it shook the earth. It was a biggie. [00:03:00] What’d you say, drastic things. I was working for the Free Press, and my brother was working for the Ford Garage, and he used to have to get there at 7:00 in the morning to light the fire because it was cold in the wintertime. And I used to leave and right there at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Third Street, and he’d go a block to the Ford Garage and I went up two blocks to the Free Press. And while he was coming along that dark side of the Ford Garage he stumbled over a dead man. Come to be it was this guy Frank Nichols who was on the police department. He was shot there. Well the way the story’s supposed to go that somebody broke in there and -- on the alley side, and came around on this side where they done mechanic work, and he walked up there and put his head up against the window and was looking through the glass like that, and they shot him right through the eyes. RICK: Oh really. GORDAN: But [00:04:00] later on it came out that the window that was broke out where this guy supposedly made his entry, the glass was on the outside. So we never did hear the outcome of that story. RICK: What was that policeman’s name? GORDAN: Frank Nichols. Oh, before he became on the police department, right, back in those days they used to have what they call railroad bulls that used to watch the freight trains come through, and any hobos that got on there, they’d kick them off. And this guy used to like to jerk these guys off and beat ‘em senseless. He was a mean son of a gun. So I wasn’t really surprised that anybody wanted to take a pot shot at him. He was one tough railroad bull. [00:05:00] Outside of that, I don’t recall anything more. RICK: When was this, that -- when did that happen? Do you remember when that Ford Garage thing happened? GORDAN: You know, let’s see. I was married in ’33. I would say it was around ’30 or ’31. Somewhere around there. Might have been a little bit before that because -- that’s -- let’s see. Well, this is back about the same time this picture I’ve got here. This is -- well, that’s a guy named Don Young. He was advertising manager and circulation manager of the Free Press, and they had this turkey parade. So he made up that outfit for the turkey parade. And there at the Dewey Palace at that time, they were going to give away some turkeys. And the way [00:06:00] they were going to give them away -- they were going to throw them off the balcony. And they did. And the crowd down there literally pulled the legs and the wings and everything right off that thing. In fact, had guts all over everything (laughing) -- they only done that one year. They quit that. (Coughs) That corner of Twelfth Ave and First Street, that used to be the -- oh, what do you call it? The gathering place for anything Nampa had or anything they’d put on. Like at Christmas time, they’d put up a Christmas tree there, and the Elks Lodge would give away candy, and it was always held at that corner. So anything that went on, you know, it was always right there. RICK: Do you remember what year that turkey thing was? GORDAN: No. Let’s see. No, I don’t. [00:07:00] No, I can’t -- I can’t tell you that. That must have been see ’28 or ’29. Could have been ’28, ’29, somewhere in there. RICK: Late ’20s, huh. GORDAN: Yeah, late ’20s. And then one year they had one of these crazy guys came in with -- behind the Dewey Palace, on that very outside, on the corner of Twelfth Avenue and First Street, if you had a picture of that, you would see those little things are step back. He climbed clear up there, clear up into the top of it. That’s all he had. He just climbed like that. Then he got up there and tied a rope on the railing up there and he done a few crazy [00:08:00] swings and things. That was crazy. I expected to see the damn fool slip and fall off. RICK: You know one of the things -- one of the impressions I get is that you’re talking about the parade and that kind of stuff. It seems to me that maybe there were -- because you couldn’t leave town as easily as you can now, and because you had to kind of stay in town and rely on your own -- on your own self for entertainment, were there a lot more parades and community type activities? GORDAN: Yeah. Yeah. See, Mayview Park wasn’t there then. That belonged to Dewey, and they had a -- that had a big, high fence all around it. And I remember that because one time the Chautauqua outfit, they got permission from him to have some kind of a picnic up there, and they took all us -- all the people that put on these shows and all the Chautauqua, we went into that place and had this picnic. And it seems to me like [00:09:00] that that lake was there then. It just seems like it was. But at that time, Kirks Park was quite a place for -- that’s the park out by the Nazarene college. That was quite a place for gatherings. In fact, I can remember when I was a kid, the Ku Klux Klan took it over one time and burned a big cross out there, and had quite a show. RICK: You know, we’ve got a picture of that down at the paper. GORDAN: Oh, do you? RICK: Yeah, of the Klan marching, and that was like in 1923 or something like that. GORDAN: Yeah, that’s about right. Used to have -- Holy Rollers used to come to town all the time. Theirs was just dancing. And they used to set up their camp over there on Sixteenth Ave and First Street, and one night a bunch of guys got together and at a given signal, everybody tied a rope and knocked the tent down on top of them. RICK: [00:10:00] And were you in on that? GORDAN: No, no. I was just a little kid then. I don’t know how come I was there and I seen it done, but it was just a funny incident that happened. Then when Nampa had that -- when the Indian creek flooded over, I thought I read something about this in one of those books about that, but it didn’t seem to be very clear about -- the biggest of the north side was flooded over. We used to have an underpass there on Sixteenth Avenue, a subway there, and that thing filled up about three quarters of the way through with water, and a lot of the homes were flooded. I don’t know whether it was down over the golf course or someplace there, there was a jam that got formed and the water all backed up through here. RICK: [00:11:00] There was a subway there? At the – GORDAN: Yeah, there was the Sixteenth Avenue underpass. It was about wide enough for people -- two cars if you were really, really careful. The water stayed in that hole for a long time, because us kids used to get in there and there was a big old door there, and we used to float around through that, going under the railroad track, and we used to paddle back and forth. That stayed there quite a while. I don’t know why that was still there when they decided to build the overpass there now. RICK: Yeah, see, by the time I got around it, it was an overpass there. GORDAN: Yeah. RICK: What kind of a relationship -- do you remember, you know, that it’s kind of changed over the years. There are less and less migrant workers around here now, but how were -- how were things harvested? How were the -- how were the fields and agricultural interests around here tended to? GORDAN: Well I’ll tell you, [00:12:00] really before I went to work for the Free Press, that was one of the things I’d done. I used to -- and they used to let the schools out -- boys out of school to pick potatoes and things. And I used to work on -- travelled in a bunch, and we went from one hay field to the other and, you know, cut up the hay, stayed through the thrashing, and we used to get a leave of absence from the school to do that. A lot of -- lot of the young fellows in the school did used to work in the field, yeah. RICK: So that’s how a lot – GORDAN: That’s how most of the field work was done. Now, I used to do a lot of weeding onions. Back in those days, you’d crawl in on your hands and knees, you know, and done it with a little hand tool. Now I notice the Mexicans go along with a big hoe and chop it off. We used to do it all by hand. Like picking potatoes, why we used to pick those in a wire basket and dump them [00:13:00] in the sorter that was pulled by one horse right down the middle of the road. And thrashing, that was always a big old thrash machine that stayed close to the barn where you want your straw pile, and all the grain is hauled in there and picked in the separator and that’s one thing my old man done also while he was hauling milk during the daytime he used to run the thrashing machine. I used to do a lot of hay. I started out driving dairy when you drive the horse, the team of horses or one horse, whatever -- how big a load you’re hauling. Used to pull up and used to -- what did they call that? That dairy. [00:14:00] Anyway, you’ve seen them. RICK: Mm-hmm. You still see them every now and then around. GORDAN: You don’t see any of them working though. RICK: I think I’ve seen one of them by Meridian working. GORDAN: Oh? RICK: I think a guy just has it. I think he just wants to do it so he keeps it going. GORDAN: They’ve got it to pay full time in Jackson Fork, they call it. Stick it down in the hay and then you’d holler and then the derrick driver would start up his horse and cable was pulled up and it reached the top and then it would go and the guy on the stack would direct it where he wanted, and he’d yell, and the guy on the ground would pull the jerk rope and trickle down. RICK: Let me ask you another question. What about things that we take for granted today, like you and your wife going to the grocery store and buying stuff. What -- how did people eat, and what did they eat? GORDAN: Well, I don’t know. Most -- practically everybody in town [00:15:00] that I can remember had a garden, because that’s one of the jobs I used to do in the spring years go down and spade the gardens -- with a shovel, mind you. I made some spending money that way. But yeah, they had the grocery store. Now, we bought our groceries mostly from a place they called Lone Star Market that was located on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Third Street up there. Back in those days, you know, you didn’t walk in and pick out your own food. You walked up to the counter and you’d tell the clerk, “I want one of these, one of those, and one of them,” and he’d run all over the store and got it for you. RICK: Oh is that right now? GORDAN: Yeah. And you know, they had -- there was that store, and then we had -- well, we had two butcher shops in town that I can remember. One was Keim’s and the other one was [00:16:00] Mercantile. I can’t remember. So one was down between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Avenue, and the other one was -- Kind’s Market was right across the street from the Dewey Palace there. They used to do their own smoking and stuff right out in back. They didn’t do their butchering there. There was a place out here, across the street from where -- what do you call that now? It used to be Cane’s Packing Company. Now it’s got a different name to it. Anyway, across the street from that was a place called Anketell’s. Yeah, the other market was Anketell Market. And they used to do a lot of commercial butchering there. It was bigger than King’s, and then King’s started up a slaughterhouse over on the other side, and later on it was sold to the outfit that’s running it now. [00:17:00] What do you call those meatpackers? RICK: Armor? GORDAN: Armor, yes. You know, that was King’s. That’s the reason that corner out there is called King’s Corner with that King’s slaughterhouse was there. But -- let’s see there. I can say there was that big grocery store there across the street from the city hall, and oh, Falk's Nampa Dean had a big grocery store over there in the back of their building. That’s that building. It is now kind of a restaurant, I think. On the corner of -- those cross streets, and probably it was on the corner of Thirteenth Avenue and First Street there. RICK: Oh, I don’t -- I can’t -- I think it is, yeah. GORDAN: And that used to be the Falk's Department Store, and it had a big department store down below, and even back towards the alley they had a big grocery store [00:18:00] there. Upstairs was all offices then. RICK: So I mean on a -- so it was a combination of people growing their own stuff, plus you -- but you could -- there stuff was available to buy. GORDAN: Oh yeah, yeah. It wasn’t the dark ages. Yeah. RICK: What was the land like around here? Was it barren, or sage brush-y, or what? GORDAN: Well, when we first came here, there was sage brush right across -- right there where the post office now is. In fact, in there, that had sage brush. A lot of sage brush out here, yeah. Yeah, in fact, that’s what we used to burn. We used to go out -- the nearest we could get it, you know, and drag it out and bring it home and put it in a big pile and then burned all of it. And it kept getting further and further away back in the ’40s got so far [00:19:00] to hold you couldn’t -- you couldn’t use anymore. RICK: Yeah, I would think that in the earlier days in Nampa, that was one of the main things they burned first. GORDAN: Well, coal, if you had the money, but if you didn’t have the money, you burned sage brush. I used to like the smell of that smoke, too. RICK: The smell of the sage brush smoke? GORDAN: Uh-huh. RICK: A lot of people burn it in the winter. GORDAN: Oh yeah. They had great big piles in their backyards. It was always me that got to grow that bush. Some farmers used to take four or six horses and drag it -- they pulled behind them and dragged [00:20:00] it all across the sage brush to break it down, and then you’d go pick it out, back when he was clearing some of that land. Only other thing they used to have around here was rabbit drives. RICK: They had rabbit drives around here? GORDAN: Oh yeah. It was mostly over there by the lake. I didn’t like to go swimming. Those darn rabbits used to cry like babies. The last drive I went to was -- no, I didn’t go to that one either. It was just between here and Caldwell, on that point, just about where that outdoor theater is now. We had a point of land that sticks out over that way, and they drove them up to that point. RICK: How would they do it? Just a bunch of guys would get in a line? GORDAN: It took a whole bunch of people getting in line, and [00:21:00] they all had clubs, and they’d make noise and walk and drive them into a -- well, like a point or a blind place or something to corner them that way. They’d set up, like say like that point of land there. They’d set up a --just throw up a fence around there like that, and then they used to come back and drive all towards this point, and that’s where the big slaughter was. RICK: And then they just hit them with clubs? GORDAN: Yeah. Those things could sure cry. RICK: Did they get a lot of rabbits? GORDAN: Oh yeah. They weren’t any good because they had that -- some kind of a disease, or you would peel them, and underneath their skin there was blisters, big water blisters. So they weren’t edible. [00:22:00] If you found a cottontail, now the cottontail didn’t get that. There were a few cottontails around here, and if you found them, well, you would eat those (inaudible). Another way we used to -- we used to make a little money in the fall when they shut the Phyllis Canal down, the water would go through down and it left puddles, pretty deep puddles. We used to go out there and -- with pitchforks and catch the fish. We used to bring them home with a tub full, and sort out the good fish and take them down to the butcher shop, and the culls, there was always somebody who wanted them on the field or something. That’s just another way to make a dime. RICK: You’d sell the -- sell the culls to farmers? GORDAN: [00:23:00] No, we gave -- we’d give those away. We knew that we had to take them out somewhere and dump them in the sage brush, but the good fish, you know, like trout and perch and -- what’s that other one? Anyway, they were good eating, and you could always sell those. RICK: Sell them to the meat market or the farm? GORDAN: Oh, we used to sell them to people, even down the road. Had to sell them right away or they’d spoil. Once they had a pitchfork through them (laughs). The only -- reminded me, one time I was over there on the coast, and the neighbor guy came out, and he says, “Hey, come on, let’s go where the snout are running.” So we went up some little creek out there by Silver Creek Farms or somewhere anyway. And oh, there was hundreds of people out there catching these snout. And it just reminded me of when they used to drain these ditches (inaudible). [00:24:00] People all were catching them with a pitchfork. That’s why we (inaudible) because we didn’t have a pitchfork. Well otherwise the water would drain away and they would just lay there and die. RICK: You keep talking about you used to pick up a little extra money selling fish or – GORDAN: Apples. RICK: -- apples or something. How -- when you talk about picking up a little money, how much did you get paid for this kind of stuff? GORDAN: Oh, yes, if you made 50 cents you were rich. Yeah, I’d say a working man made -- if he made three dollars a day, he made big money. Did work for the city -- city owner. I’d go up, and I went to work for the Leader Herald. That was before ’28. I went to work there doing janitor work and helping put the paper out, and I got 50 cents a week. RICK: Three dollars a day was big money back then. GORDAN: Mm-hmm. RICK: Your first job was [00:25:00] what? How much? GORDAN: I got 50 cents a week working for the Leader Herald. That was -- that was before ’28. When was that? I don’t know. I done it after school. I wasn’t very old. RICK: Well when you would sell the fish and the apples, or when you would go dig somebody’s garden for them, would they give you a dime or something? Is that usually (inaudible)? GORDAN: Yeah, or 50 cents, 75 cents generally you got, what you averaged. And the average garden plot, you know, we used to -- well, we would do it after school, and that would take you almost a week to get it done. RICK: And for that you’d get 50 or 75 cents? GORDAN: Oh yeah. Yeah, and big -- like this lawn here, I mowed this lawn about this size and get 25 cents for it. We mowed lawns in the summertime, and [00:26:00] my brother was a hustler, you know. He was always lining up work like this, and like with the apples, we used to go out here. Well, over on the path that property now, there used to be an orchard out there, and we used to go out there and get apples, and what did we get for them? Or we used to get between 10 and 25 cents a bushel. The good ones were 35 cents a bushel, and the cheaper ones were 10, but I can’t remember what this guy sold them to us for. After he sorted them over and then he’d throw a pile out, and over there is a stock so we used to go buy them off of him, and then we could go down to the pile and sort out what we wanted. Yeah, we worked out here at [00:27:00] oh, what was the name of that big orchard out here? Out Orchard Avenue. I can’t remember the name of it. We used to go out there and when they pruned the trees, you know, and the branches, they’d lay them right on the ground. They used to take a team of horses and a slip. A slip was -- it’s like a big board, just like a hay rack bent without wheels, and just slide around on, and we’d pick up the brush there, and we used to work -- do that 50 cents a day in February. And yeah, there wasn’t really any place to spend money. Now we went to movies. When we were kids this -- they built this new theater there, and it was between Twelfth -- First and Second Street on Twelfth Avenue and outside the road there was [00:28:00] Electric Bakery in there, and they built a theater there they called the Grand Theater. It wasn’t very wide. It was only about four or five rows just here on this side of the aisle, and then four or five rows. And they used to show pictures there, and that used to cost us a nickel for the show. RICK: Do you remember – GORDAN: Hoot Gibson. RICK: Is that -- I was going to ask you. Who do you remember in the old movies? GORDAN: Yeah, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, and oh, what the heck was that other guy? He always looked so mean, but he – RICK: Who was it -- Hoot Gibson? Who else? Ken? GORDAN: Ken Maynard. These are all cowboys, yeah. (inaudible). RICK: And another mean-looking guy. GORDAN: Yeah, what the hell was his name? RICK: [00:29:00] What about -- what about people like W.C. Fields or Laurel and Hardy, those kind of things? Were they around here then? GORDAN: Yeah, when they started coming in, yeah, that was quite a bit later in life. When they came, you know, they -- their movies -- we used to go to them, but that was quite a bit later. RICK: All right. Do you remember going to movies that were -- were all the movies you went to, were they talkies? GORDAN: No, these are all silent before that. I remember Buddy -- Buddy, Buddy, Buddy, Buddy. What was his last name? I think the show was called “Wings,” wasn’t it? The first talking picture that came here? RICK: I don’t know if it was. Well I think that was the first talking picture, wasn’t it? GORDAN: Yeah. That came to the Liberty Theater. [00:30:00] Oh hell, they had him on TV last night. They gave him an award or the – RICK: Oh, they gave him the Hersholt Award, yeah. GORDAN: That Hersholt Award, yeah. RICK: He married Mary Pickford. GORDAN: Yeah, I remember her. I remember her, gosh, boy that was acting in those days. All the gestures and everything, but they didn’t say anything. A lot of -- lot of movie stars lost their job when they started having talking pictures because their voice wouldn’t modulate or something like that. RICK: The first talkie was at the Liberty Theater? GORDAN: Yeah. Well that I can remember, yeah. (inaudible). RICK: Yeah, I saw that last night. I don’t know -- Buddy Rogers. GORDAN: Buddy Rogers, yeah. RICK: He was the -- he was the other one you kind of remember? Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, and Buddy Rogers? GORDAN: Yeah, I remember all of them. [00:31:00] I can see it, but I can’t tell you what their names are. I’ll say this, the Strand Theater used to show these -- a lot of these Western pictures, and it cost you a nickel to go. Oh, and by the way, they used to have -- there was something to do with a Buffalo nickel. You had -- you’ve seen a Buffalo nickel, huh? Well they had a series of pictures of Buffalo Bill I think, and you had to have a Buffalo nickel to go to it. And Rick, you wouldn’t believe, we’d go to silent movies, and the kids and stuff would be yelling and hollering so loud your head would feel like it was gonna bust. Let’s see if you read everything on the screen, so there wasn’t any -- [00:32:00] didn’t curb the noise. When they switched over to start putting on the talkie movies, why it was hard to keep the kids quiet so you could enjoy a movie. RICK: Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. GORDAN: No, I reckon that when they had that -- END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/9cc07bc30352e0b837daf2108408faf1.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=sQkWNvleA6w4SITUhCME1UgPB5XeGuPp5mbx3PgCqwQ0fJX1y4HLvQpJ8uty0Hb47aVWu5hHzJzNc1mrjk2CO8-hbuSMpU3TRRfjQSAXWS8Pa%7ETpNnIjov71j2gXVj-fl1OSaakRmUleSc6x01ed06XQlKA2hZm1o6zHeZd3EAhPQDdeObsZbTxGH0HyTibNmYCppnauhJ7adBAz9cUuDvTsmRZ%7EbwDyTYOuD5dhEwQqd6PPU276ElioaqCB4cA9-MBuvn0m7xdboJu-XBrK99Su05aLLb-nJjubIRiAXUMImw0flXevi-6AlZTR7tfG06nijQJHwa2Ex3jXZaWAdQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 387b919e0d44bf4bc9cc7ab0aedf0a07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gordan McDonald Recording 3 of 4 PDF Text Text RICK: [00:00:00] You were talking about silent movies and how when that changed, you know, kids used to yell in the silent movies because there was no noise to worry about, and then in the talkies you had to kind of keep everybody quiet. Then you said, “Boy, there was one other thing I wanted to tell you.” Do you know what that was? I kind of broke your train of thought there. GORDAN: (inaudible) Oh, I don’t know. I remember the first Phantom of the Opera movie. That was made by Lon Chaney -- not Lon Chaney Jr., but Lon Chaney. That was shown at the Majestic Theater and they had the pipe organ in there then. That was a silent movie with the pipe organ, and boy was that a scary thing. I remember going to that one. The Majestic Theater was kind of like you would say the elite theater here in Nampa that had the best -- the best shows and everything like that. They used to put on, you know, [00:01:00] miniature stage plays, but nothing elaborate. I didn’t get into most of those because I didn’t -- I never cared much for that. The skating rink we had here was on the corner of Ninth Avenue and First Street. That building is still there, by the way. [Webster Kahlo?] has got an office in there, and there’s some pizza place on the corner. There used to be a skating rink on that – RICK: Roller skating? GORDAN: Yeah. I think a fellow by the name of Richards used to own that, and he later sold it to King’s, and then King’s went over and built the roller drome. That’s all over a period of years, now. I’m sure his name was Richards. [00:02:00] My brother, like I say, Norm, he used to always doing something. He got a job in there putting on skates so he’d get to skate free, and then he got me in there. So that’s when we first started skating if that was a thing. That was quite a place for kids to go. And just a half a block away was the fire station that had a great big bell up on top, and at 9:30 they used to ring that bell. That was curfew time. And if you didn’t start heading for home, well the cops came after you. I can remember old Sam Hunter being the night -- the head night policeman or something like -- well, he sure used to run us there across the street. Speaking of cops, about that time they had a -- they got a chief of police in here. I don’t know where they found him. He was just a little wiry guy. I don’t think [00:03:00] he weighed up over 150 pounds. But he was mean. They -- that was when Nampa bought their first motorcycle. Now that’s where I kind of get this other book that they had. Anyway, they bought their first motorcycle and this is before they had the underpass there, and all that gravel road on the other side of Eleventh Avenue coming into the railroad track. He was chasing a guy, and this guy made the turn right there into the -- to the depot, and he slipped on the -- well, his motorcycle slipped and flipped him up against the wall and broke his leg. He used to walk through town with -- on crutches, and if you happened to be in front of him when he walked down the street, he’d just poke you with his crutch and push you out of the way like that. He was a mean guy. He didn’t last long. [00:04:00] I don’t know whether anybody shot him or not, but they should have. Another thing they used to do in the summertime around here, you know, they had these baseball teams. Caldwell had their team and Nampa had theirs, and they used to play up at that -- what was that place called? Before it became the rodeo (inaudible). But they used to hold baseball games there, and I can remember Sam Hunter, this cop, and there was a guy that owned a[restaurant right across the street -- well right next to where Bullock’s now is there now. And he didn’t like the way some umpire called something. He jumped down over the railing and started -- pulled the heck out of this umpire, and old Sam Hunter had to come break them up, and I guess they both turned on Sam and beat him up too. There’s always some kind of entertainment going on around here. RICK: Were there different events in town? The Chautauqua, the baseball events, the parades and all those things. Were they all well attended? GORDAN: Yeah, it seemed like everybody would turn up because that was the only thing there was. When they used to have these Harvest Festivals, everybody came out. Of course, they came in from miles, you know. Farmers used to come in and everybody in town was out used to go down. It just seemed like it was just a gathering place where they could sit around and gab and talk about the price of butter, I guess. But everything -- like any small town, I guess, everything was community oriented or just -- you know, [00:06:00] and if something came up, well, everybody went. And on Saturday nights -- Saturday nights in Nampa was really a live one. Because everybody went to town Saturday nights. If they’d done nothing but walk up and down the streets, you’d meet people and say hi, and most of the boys used to chase the girls, and Saturday night was it. All the rest, during the week, well. And something kind of off the record, but I think it’s true – RICK: You’re saying not -- you’re just saying that. Not much happened except on Saturday nights. GORDAN: Yeah. Yeah, always Saturday nights, there was always something. All the stores would have sales and things like that, and things used to go on (inaudible). [00:07:00] Seemed like that’s when everybody came in and took a Saturday night bath and then came to town. I think that’s when we took our bath, was Saturday nights. Of course we didn’t -- we didn’t have sewers then. I can’t remember what they’d done downtown but I know where we lived out in there we only had outside toilets. RICK: Everybody had outhouses? GORDAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there was cisterns, and things like that. And we had had a mess here in Nampa when they started digging up the streets and putting in the sewer line. That was back when they only had to dig in that big trunk like that. Everything -- practically everything around here was done by the teams. RICK: [00:08:00] The teams of horses? GORDAN: The bigger the job, the more horses you put on it. You didn’t see very many trucks. There wasn’t any of them big enough to do it (inaudible) job. Used to -- they used to move houses around here once in a while, and they had a -- had a big old spool, and this cable would go back, and they had these houses set up on these -- well they looked like big roller skates, and this team of horses used to go round and round like that to unwind this cable at that old house and move it along just about that speed. Now they put them on a truck and they’re gone. But yeah, it used to take them all day to move a couple blocks. Oh, going back to that fire station, the reason they put that big bell up there was [00:09:00] they had a fire department. I can’t remember how many guys were there. Seemed like two or three or something like that, and whenever they had a fire they’d ring this bell, and guys all over town would drop their work and run. RICK: They had a volunteer fire department too, partially. GORDAN: Yeah, partially, yeah. In fact, one time I was with Ernie Starr when he was first in office, talking about some problems. So I stopped in wondering, I said, “Why the devil don’t you start that back up again?” I said. “You don’t need all these men standing around doing nothing. Why don’t you just have a standby crew and then call for volunteers?” He laughed me out of there. But no, that’s the way it was done. That’s the reason they had this big bell ’cause when they rang this bell, that was the sign for the volunteers to, you know, gosh. And they had a fire, why there -- [00:10:00] seemed like there’d be a hundred people there. Everybody would be helping ’cause they -- the old pump wagon didn’t pump so much, so they did a lot of carrying water from the neighbors and stuff like that. RICK: Everything was wooden construction back then. Was there a lot more fires? Or -- GORDAN: Oh yeah, a lot of fire. Yeah, and the funny thing about it, you used to hear the fire bell ring, and you just scanned the horizon, and if you see smoke, that’s it. It always seemed like when they had one man, it was curtains. Because boy, once they got started, they used to really burn. RICK: Nothing to stop them. GORDAN: Not really, no. See, most of the houses were built with two-by-fours and rough siding on the outside, and the inside was [00:11:00] boards covered with wallpaper. Now when a house was laughed and plastered, it was one of the ritzier houses. RICK: Okay. Anything else? Have I left out anything you want to talk about? GORDAN: (inaudible) seemed like all this territory here, there was nothing. Of course in 1946, when you moved here, why, our house, and there was a basement house over there and the white house down there, but that was the only houses down here on Tenth Avenue. Wasn’t really anything down that way, and Tenth Avenue, well, it stopped right out there and there was just a muddy road down here. That was in ’46. RICK: Do you remember when you first moved here [00:12:00] how many people lived in Nampa? GORDAN: No, I don’t. They were scattered around, probably. Like I said, when you start out from there and walk straight to town, you’d cross lots that looked like they could have been houses. And – RICK: The old Nampa city hall must have been -- next to the Dewey Palace -- must have been the biggest structure in town. GORDAN: The Dewey Palace and then the city hall, yeah. Yeah. You know, oh I don’t know. There was some taller old buildings that were a pretty good size. RICK: Those two must have just dominated everything. GORDAN: Yeah. Well, you think behind the Dewey Palace they had the -- oh, when Dewey built that Dewey Palace, he built their own water system, so he put up this water tank. Well, if you’ve seen pictures of that. And then the city hall, they [00:13:00] -- after they built the city hall, well, they built a water tank there. RICK: That was still here when I moved here. GORDAN: Oh, was it? RICK: Mm-hmm. GORDAN: Then on the other end of that block, Nampa built another water tank, but they tore that one down first. I seen them build that tank and I seen them tear it down. Of course I seen them tear this other tank down, too, between -- I seen that one being built. Me and my buddy Lloyd Easterbee, we climbed that one behind the city hall. I climbed about halfway up, and one night we dared one another to climb it. He climbed clear to the top. There was a catwalk around the top, and he climbed up there. I climbed about halfway, got scared, and come down. (Laughter) [00:14:00] Now there was always used to be things to do, but they were always having things over on the lawn at the Dewey Palace. (Inaudible) Maypole dances, and there were all kinds of things. There was -- they seemed like they, during the summer months, they always had something to, for kids to do. You had little kids that used to do the Maypole dance. You’ve seen them here. RICK: Yeah. They get all – GORDAN: Now, I was going to see -- yeah, I know what you was gonna say, but they also had a Maypole dance. They had a great big pole and had high school kids do it, and they (laughter) those little kids done a beautiful job. When it come to that (inaudible), they had that all set up. Though I remember one guy said, you know, “Little kids are smarter than the big ones.” RICK: [00:15:00] Well, let’s see. I can’t -- I can’t think of anything else. I better get a few more details. Married, and your wife’s name is Mildred. You’ve got one -- two kids? GORDAN: Two kids, yeah. Jeannie and Patrick. RICK: They both live here in Nampa. GORDAN: This sounds more like an autobiography than anything. Oh wow. Keep it handy. I might need it. RICK: Well, when I write this you won’t even recognize it probably. When did you get married? GORDAN: Thirty -- there’s something. Thirty-three. Flag Day. RICK: That’s right. You were telling me about that. GORDAN: [00:16:00] The Eagles Lodge had a convention here. They’d put conventions sometimes here it was held in Nampa. And they wanted something for -- probably an attraction or something. Anyway, so they ran things in the paper about people that were going to get married that would try to get married in this public deal that they had up at the park, and Mildred wrote a letter in, and I guess they selected the letter and chose us. Funny thing, you know, there wasn’t a photographer there. But they had a bowl there, you know, on a half shell, and it faced this way, and we got married up in there, and then the Eagles drill team had the, you know, swords out. [00:17:00] What do you call that? Anyway, we walked through the swords. RICK: This was in the -- where -- where’d the whole ceremony take place? GORDAN: Lakeview Park. June 15th, ’33. Then after that, I don’t think it was -- I think it was Homestead Motors gave us a big -- a big car at our disposal for the day, and then it had a chauffeur to go with it. Anyway it wound up that night with us, there was a dance, a dance I think was held at (inaudible) Hall. RICK: Were you the honored guests at the dance? GORDAN: Yeah. You know, [00:18:00] we had to get out there and dance the first dance. They had a thing or two. On June the 15th, it was hotter than hell. KFXD had a -- had a radio station here back then because I remember the guy -- seems funny, there was no cameras there, but yet this radio guy was there, and he just said, “I pronounce you man and wife.” And so he turned around and walked away. This guy reached up and grabbed me by the arm and stuck his microphone, and he says, “How does it feel to be married?” I says, “I don’t know yet.” (Laughter) Obviously. Oh, don’t put that down in the history. [00:19:00] And for some reason either I want to say his name was Sherl Black but I’m not sure. RICK: That’s too bad there wasn’t somebody to take some pictures or something. Nobody I guess thought about it. It must have been a big deal even then to get pictures taken. You know, now it’s so easy, but back then I supposed it was quite a process. GORDAN: You’re right, and the papers used those speed graphics. One of the reporters there were five reporters? and they took it down. I think they only took pictures on important occasions. Anyway, it’s hard to get a photographer around. And then we -- all of the pictures that we wanted to run in the paper, we had to send to Trent Balsner to get a zinc plate made, too. [00:20:00] So that was always two days. Took you two days longer. But no, the wedding pictures had to go there. And back then, they had a law that they said it was a woman’s day, so they wouldn’t run the man’s picture, and if they took a picture of the bride and ran that in the papers, but not the bride and the groom. They said it was strictly a woman’s page. RICK: Looking back at those first years here, would you change anything you did? GORDAN: No. [00:21:00] Only my big problem is I wanted to be a doctor, but then that -- there was no way I could get the education for that. And -- but I’m glad I got into printing because that’s something you have to work with your hands, and it’s constructed. Every page, every ad was created. You had to -- you had to build it. You think like you guys nowadays, you make -- the ad man made a layout. You made the layout, you know. But back then, the printer done everything. Everything come there, was dumped in the file you looked over here. Well, where are they gonna put this? So you’d start running around, and you made up the paper right there. You used to have a big old press. I can’t think of the name of it. It printed eight pages at a time, [00:22:00] but it only printed in one direction. And then when we got the -- then when the Free Press -- the Main Wire bought out the Free Press and the Meter Herald and combined them together, they had a duplex press. It was the same thing as an eight-page flatbed, but it printed both directions. It was twice as fast. I can’t think of the name of that old thing. I remember one night, well, the Free Press originally was a morning paper. And one night they stripped the drive gears on it. Of course, you know, you couldn’t get anything in there. You didn’t have airplanes to fly anything, so a team of horses drove in and brought it. But anyway, they -- Warner and Hughes worked all night long welding teeth on that thing and filing them off until we got the new gears in. That was a -- that was an all night session. I think it was all night and part of the next day [00:23:00] before the -- that paper finally got out. I don’t know what happened. I think something stripped up on the bed of the press and jammed the press and stripped the gears. RICK: Well there was more than one paper back then, too, wasn’t there? GORDAN: Yeah, there was two papers, the Meter Herald and the Free Press. The Meter Herald was -- well it was -- started out as a weekly and went to semi-weekly. Then it went to daily, yeah. I was working for the Free Press when that happened. I worked -- when I worked for the Meter Herald, before I even thought I was going to be a printer, see I started there by sweeping the floors, and then I went downstairs and when they used to put the paper out you can help empty the hopper off of the folder, you know, and pile the papers up so the guy running the mailing machine could handle it. That’s where I got my start, was there. That came out two (inaudible). And they were located [00:24:00] there where the Chinese restaurant is on Twelfth Avenue. RICK: Hong Kong? GORDAN: Hong Kong, it is, yeah. They were located in there and the composing room and press was downstairs and the office was upstairs, and there was only just -- only half a building. And probably wanted the houses here, and then out in back was where this Dewey Palace water tank stood. And there was no building there, so there was that, and then the downstairs. And that was -- that was run by Errol Guiness. And Errol B. Guiness was postmaster at the time, yeah. Errol Guiness. RICK: Where was the first Free Press building? GORDAN: Well, the first -- I don’t know. The first -- when I first knew of it it was in that hotel building across the alley from the park and library is now. That was their office. There was the Free Press composing room [00:25:00] was on half of the floor, and then the other half of the floor was the job shop. And then downstairs was the press room that pulled the stories and the staircase room. RICK: Oh, so basically it was across from where the Nampa Library is. GORDAN: Yeah, across the alley. RICK: Oh, across the alley. GORDAN On First Street, yeah. I think that was called the Seminal Hotel that was above it. The hotel was (inaudible). RICK: Well that -- let’s see. That hotel was across the street from Hong Kong’s the Greystone. GORDAN: Well, yeah, no. I’m thinking – RICK: Yeah, you’re up the other way. GORDAN: Yeah, I’m talking about down First Street. RICK: Yeah, I’m trying to think of; that’s the only hotel I’ve ever known about GORDAN: I never even known about that one. It was across the street from the Meter Herald was the Greystone Hotel, yeah, when it was located [00:26:00] where the Hong Kong is now. There was the Meter Herald, and next door there was the B.A. Schmidt women’s apparel store. I don’t remember what was the next one down. And then there was vacant lot on the corner, and next to the vacant lot, a guy named Johnny Price had an electric store there. RICK: How many stores do you remember in the downtown Nampa area were there? I mean, now you couldn’t count them. How many back then, do you think? GORDAN: Oh, gosh. I mean, there were more than just a few of them. I can’t -- I couldn’t give you a figure. I’m trying to think of a block -- you know where [00:27:00] that pawn shop is down there. Yeah. Peterson’s Pawn Shop there on the corner of First Street and Fifteenth Avenue, cross street there. Well, take the two delis there. There was his place, and then next to it in the upstairs there was a store there called Blake’s Variety Store, and that upstairs was just a balcony because there was a great big hole in the floor, and you could go upstairs and look down, you know. That was Blake’s Variety Store, and then after they went out of business, they said goodbye to that and filled that floor in, and that’s where they made the Moose Hall that used to be a dance hall. I remember that so plain because he had a parrot, and across the way over there, above that other store I forget what was there. [00:28:00] Anyway, there was people lived up there, and they had a parrot, and those two birds used to talk to one another all the time. It was great. And then right there on that corner, there were -- where that pawn shop, there’s now the merry-go-round. I always found a set there, and then on Thirteenth Avenue the Ferris wheel set there. And that Ferris wheel seemed like it was tall as the building there. RICK: This is going to sound like maybe a strange question, but were there a lot of -- I don’t know what made me think of this, but were there a lot of dogs, cats roaming around then? You know, now it’s kind of controlled. GORDAN: No, no. No. God, no cats. Dogs took care of that. No, there was a lot of dogs. Dogs were all over. Everybody had a dog. [00:29:00] They’d be running outside. Dog people built fences to keep them out, but, no, it wasn’t until quite a few years later before they started putting restrictions on dogs. I used to carry papers in the morning, and I used to -- well, I knew just about where these dogs were. You always carried some kind of a stick or something. Always remember one dog over there on the north side, and he was supposed to be a mean son of a gun, and I think he was, too, but he always used to meet me on this one corner, and I gave him a paper. RICK: Oh yeah? GORDAN: I didn’t look if he ever subscribed or not, but I gave him a paper one day and he took it, and ever since then, he’d meet me on the corner and I gave him the paper. See, we used to carry paper routes for three dollars a week, and oh, we carried between 90 and 150 papers, I guess. And we didn’t [00:30:00] do the collecting. This guy Don Young, he took care of all that. We just carried the papers, that’s all. Nowadays the kids sell the papers, and back then we didn’t. I guess that’s my first experience. I thought, well, I’d like to work for the Meter Herald, and I carried papers. And the reason I got this -- had this route, number one. Everybody wanted route one because that was the downtown district and you’d walk into these hotels, you know, and deliver them from door to door. You carried 150 papers, but you didn’t have to cover any ground because it was all right there. And I got this route from a Japanese fellow. His name was Max Rossman. He and his sister went to school. His sister was in the same grade that I was in back then, and then later on I found I bought [00:31:00] this route, and I gave him ten dollars for it. And Don Young was going to fire me because he said that wasn’t his route to buy, and I said, “Oh, well I didn’t buy the route. I bought the bicycle.” But I gave him ten dollars for his bicycle and the route. And I quit my other route which made Don mad because that was the route that went way out by Sixteenth Avenue. And I later heard that Max Rossman was killed in World War II. He was a, you know, Japanese fighter pilot. RICK: Oh, was that right? GORDAN: And see I later heard about that through the grapevine, talking to different old timers and they said, “Well, you remember Max Rossman?”. But there used to be a lot of Japanese people that used to come here like the Jap gardener. There was one not long story. A family had moved in there, and they farmed and just worked like the devil, and they made good money. END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/b54c23cf9bb84e85fe8df2b1819ad7dd.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=IGxtORr4uSDPMmNWy5InRV1lwFfKQZvVcSee4EH%7Emn2VZp-JnvxintJvzo4oXw1-0UBWrzX2u10I03CcHMznMkXXqEdrHz3oK4sDopl9HlagX2fKTtCBEP%7EaFeMmCHuiTNH00W0zNT%7EW6WurwVeqmry22ZcXlCvaPNQAzNMhu5Qo7XxXYLGYFGXtAvwSlo4-phDxvXUt8xFL8hLaDxf21cpKNCeMdmvaMX-9YX7sx6TZxGvEGsrtWSrAOaxcYtZIuFDp5SF59ds41fGudzwEMy2S0eMIZbgVI3gguUuhizunQ3p2Fqz2oNRa9YKmox-Wsv7W1u483X3%7EJSD8kCj9bQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM fd3fff97c8c483a0761bfe87364f3dc3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gordan McDonald Recording 4 of 4 PDF Text Text GORDAN: [00:00:00] If you take out the (inaudible) you got when you down (inaudible) by Hasbrouck House over that hand side going down, that was all gravel roads that ran along that side of the road was a whole big row of poplar trees, and then just over the bank there was another big Japanese garden. That stayed there for quite a time. And then you used to ride the streetcar into Boise, and seems it crossed over the Boise River going into Boise, and off to the left there was a great big Japanese garden. RICK: You know, one of the things that people that have lived around here for very long talk about, in addition to the Dewey Palace, was the old Interurban system. GORDAN: That’s the streetcar that went by. RICK: Yeah, that’s the streetcar. What -- that must have been the only way -- that must -- how did that -- where did that go, and how did that work? GORDAN: Well, that started in Boise, which is now the post office. That cross street from there, that was the [00:01:00] depot there that used to go underneath the building there. That started there, and came down to Main Street, and then, well, went off Main Street, went across the Boise River, and run straight into -- and then went through – RICK: Must have gone to Middleton. GORDAN: No. Well, it did, but it went through -- oh, God. Why can’t I think of the name of that little town just the other side of Meridian, between Meridian and Boise? RICK: Star or Eagle? GORDAN: Yeah, no, that’s on the other side. This was on this side. RICK: Kuna? GORDAN: No, no Kuna was right off over here. RICK: Well there was a town out there called Ustick. GORDAN: Ustick. You’d come through Ustick, into Meridian, turn through Meridian, and then you came down old Highway 30 and past Dead Man’s Crossing up over [00:02:00] the hill there by King’s Corner, and how exactly it got to Eleventh Avenue and then came down the center of Eleventh Avenue North. Crossed the railroad tracks and the Interurban streetcar place -- depot -- used to be there where Idaho Tar is now. They also had a little switch out that they could -- see, certain train, or cars, would come in, and they’d switch back and go back to Boise. The other ones would come in, make that round corner, and go straight down the middle of Third Street ’til it got out about to where -- just past the canal there, and then it went over the left side of the street, and the road, and followed Third Street clear on into Caldwell, and that old place to set them up in front of the College of Idaho there, on the curb. RICK: The hat. GORDAN: Yeah. There was a fellow – RICK: Yeah, well it looks like a hat. GORDAN: That used to be where the people used to catch the streetcar. Streetcar was on that side of us. So you [00:03:00] sat there and we’d sneak our faculty straight into there. Into Caldwell. I can’t remember exactly how it went through Caldwell. Then it went back and went to Middleton, Star, and Eagle and Boise. That was the loop. RICK: Did a lot of people use that thing? GORDAN: Yeah. In fact, the men car I remember -- how much did it cost? Wasn’t very much. RICK: How long did it take? I mean, how fast did the thing go? Was it powered by electricity? GORDAN Yeah. Yeah, it had a trolley up on top. Yeah. It could go either direction, too. Because the guy used to pull his handle off this end, walk up that end, plug it in, and go back the other direction. That was (inaudible). RICK: Well, I mean, [00:04:00] that was one of the best ways to get from town to town. GORDAN: Oh yeah. You could -- like if you’re going to Boise, why, I remember, well, I remember when we lived in Eagle, that’s -- and I was really quite low then. I got a disease called dropsy, and the doctor over there shook his head and said that was that. So my old man took -- I can remember this trip -- took me on the streetcar, and we went to Boise to a Chinese doctor over there. And he gave me a bunch of medicine. And then I came home. One of the things they had to do every night, they had to lay down on the table and pile me up on a roll of blankets and pour hot water over me. That was torture as near as I can remember. But it must have saved my life. But for years after that going on, some morning I’d wake up and [00:05:00] I’d have a foot swollen up. I couldn’t get a shoe on, and my hand the same. What is dropsy? It’s a disease of the blood or something. I don’t know where I got it or how it kind of came about. RICK: I never even heard of it. GORDAN: That’s what it was called then. It’s probably got a great big long name. RICK: So the Interurban, how long did it take to get from one town to the other? GORDAN: I couldn’t remember. I would say the thing traveled right around 30 miles an hour. RICK: Oh, that isn’t bad. GORDAN: Yeah, no, it rolled along, except when it stopped when cattle got in the way. Cars -- seemed like -- people weren’t paying attention to the darn thing. They just drove right in front of it and all. It’s a good thing it had good brakes. It had air brakes on it, but I can remember hearing them. Did I say that dang corner, Dead Man’s Crossing, there. There was always more [00:06:00] wrecks there to see. You couldn’t see it coming, and you know, the streetcar’s quiet. It didn’t make no noise. It seemed like all it had on was a bell that went “Ding, ding, ding, ding,” like that, and they only rang that when they got in the city. You couldn’t hear it coming. And those tracks were near the street. Like a train track, you know, you look down the side of the street. These things were right near the street. That old trolley used to go down the roads. RICK: Now we’re -- tell me where that Dead Man’s Curve was. GORDAN: Well, right there where the cheese factory is now, across the street from the cheese factory there. The streetcar track followed on the south side of that, by Highway 30 there. RICK: And you said that the reason that the -- well people didn’t pay any attention was there was a row of trees there. GORDAN: Yeah, there was. Across the street from the cheese factory there there was a row of trees there. [00:07:00] Well I know they used to call it Dead Man’s Crossing, and then they had -- they had a terrific wreck. A bunch of high school kids from Nampa quite a few years later that were headed for McCall and I don’t know if they were racing a train or what, but that train scattered bodies all up and down that track. So it crossed, and then the next thing you know, they’re calling that Dead Man’s Crossing. Then I can’t remember when the road was changed to go from the cheese factory through down to King’s Corner, and off up that way. I can’t remember when that road was changed exactly. You see, once you start working, you [00:08:00] don’t run around in that general area. But it used to be -- I remember when we used to go to Boise, we used to go straight up -- oh, it’s now Garrity Boulevard, but it didn’t used to be. And that was before Lakeview Park too, and we went straight ahead up what they called Airport Road. We went past Gray’s Orchard, and then they turned left there at the top of the hill and you came out at Dead Man’s Crossing and turned right and went to – RICK: And that road’s still – GORDAN: Yeah, the road’s still there, but I’d say that seemed like that was the way we used to go to Boise. We didn’t go very often. I remember that one time, my old man taking me to White City Park. RICK: I forgot to ask you one thing. What was the first -- first car, first kind of mechanized travel. Do you remember that? GORDAN: That we had? RICK: That you had. No, that you had. GORDAN: Well, we had horse and buggies there for years, and then we bought a [00:09:00] yeah, an old Model T. Yeah, an old Model T. And then my mother bought a Durant, a Star Durant. RICK: Well you know, with everybody having horse and buggies, did everybody -- well, did everybody have a little kind of a shed or something for them? What did you do with them? What did you do with the horse and buggy when you weren’t using them? GORDAN: We just parked it out in the back of the house. Yeah, there were horses right down -- I’d say horses right downtown. Everybody -- it seemed like every other place had a haystack behind it. We had a barn at our place. That’s where they stayed. They stayed out there in back there. [00:10:00] We had one horse and three cows there at one time. I think that -- I think -- I’m not sure, but my mother had a milker out there. She started selling the milk to this one and that one and the other person and kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Then we had a milk run, and I think it was one of the first milk runs in Nampa because it was -- and then there was another dairy that started up. I want to say Lokehurst Dairy started up, and they -- they started up, and they had this barn on Seventh Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenue there. [00:11:00] They had -- there was a big white house there and a big barn, and they had a few cows there, but they started out with buying most of their milk and pedaling it out that way. And they ran several wagons, horse-drawn wagons. Mom always carried hers in the buggy. I wasn’t too big then, but I used to go with her because she didn’t want to go alone. I used to sleep in the buggy most of the time. And the old horse, her name was Nellie. She knew that route. She knew just where to go, where to stop, and she carried the milk at night. We sold Jersey milk and this other dairy, when they started up, they sold Holstein milk. I can remember that very plain. [00:12:00] Did I say Lokehurst? I think that was the name of it. RICK: Yeah, you did. Lokehurst Dairy. GORDAN: I think that was the name of it. It seemed like he died either running it, or had a lot to do with it, and his name was Lake Everly. And he -- back in the ’40s, he’s the one that started the -- what is now known as Nampa Auto Parts. He started that business. RICK: I think he’s still alive. GORDAN: He lived on Tenth Avenue in Caldwell there. RICK: Hold on. Everly. I think his -- my gosh, there’s Everlys over there. GORDAN: He was in the big house there on Tenth Avenue. RICK: Yeah, the big brick house. GORDAN: Uh-huh. Yeah, I thought he died. RICK: I still see the -- when I used to live in Caldwell a few years ago, there was a signer called the Everlys. GORDAN: Yeah, I think that was his own. RICK: He had a bunch of -- he took the yard out and put a bunch of antiques and stuff in the front yard. And he’d gravel it and put a bunch of, like, [00:13:00] mining cars, and that kind of stuff there. I always thought to myself, if I bought that house, the first thing I’d do is put the yard back in. GORDAN: He’d be awful old. He’d be pretty old now. RICK: Yeah, must be maybe some relatives. GORDAN: He was (inaudible) at that time. If he was ten years older than I was at that time, he would seem like an old man to me. But… RICK: Well, I think I’ve got enough. Unless you want to -- is there anything you can – GORDAN: No. RICK: I’ve got plenty. And if you think of something, give me a call. GORDAN: Things just, you know, just kind of come to mind as you go along. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Gordan McDonald Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rick Coffman Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gordan McDonald Description An account of the resource Gordan McDonald describes how Nampa grew and changed throughout his lifetime, detailing various landmarks such as the Dewey Palace and the Interurban streetcar system. He also discusses what people in Nampa would do for entertainment. McDonald worked at the Free Press and explains how printing and newspapers changed with time. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Baseball Businesses Carnation Condensery Chautaqua Dewey Palace Farming Forbidden Palace explosion Free Press Hunting Interurban railroad Ku Klux Klan Maypole Dance Movie theaters Rodeo Streetcars Thanksgiving Turkey Toss https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/f07fcf65a6c297397d560ac94ddfbfdc.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=RT7pfQc01oULWv5ZxlgANzK3SoegIgFCLpKswzRtyN5WMQH7KIh3Erg-jZdeJU49pSZzV4tbm6jBk5ILaXeUFwpWHTXkhKqlPoPx1qlUxVDW686zof4ylt5eRFnkwW7Tbl7vY7PpWwcUJ7OktE3%7ETPyAZeaT1wf4RoIX4A9%7E4H6Gi5B4loMnzlZNXLFGOKECrVBX9fi2f5DNgGp161gsQPZ07qRPRb0H3fVZKOGnXOiIfiE-BBAIvYOiNJ%7E5%7Er-AeoF7s5y7iMQ50XjNh5xX%7Eey6Wq1LBqYX9ZvPG-TFvIftvS7PCTeVtYLdeQKQk1DBkEJhhWuL00XJw9hhmmkgsg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 32c460434fc506f041d60b6ed104e147 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clyde Derward Pethtel Recording 1 of 2 PDF Text Text (3rd person believed to be spouse Opal Pethtel) MARIE WADE: But you can find out how he wants to do these questions if he wants to read them or what. OPAL PETHTEL: Do you want her to read these questions? CLYDE DERWARD PETHEL: Up to you. OPAL: What were your common crops? What did do raise? CLYDE: Oh, cattle. OPAL: No, crops. Corn, or clover seed? CLYDE: Hay and grain. It’s all I’ve ever raised. Well, I have raised beans on this place, but the ground is too shallow for a grow crop. But most of our crops... OPAL: Early days you raised corn and alfalfa. CLYDE: I have raised corn, yes. As high as 112 bushel to the acre. (break in audio) [00:01:00] MARIE: All right now, what were your common crops? CLYDE: Now? OPAL: Yeah, it’s on tape. CLYDE: Well, when Dad first come on this farm in 1912, we raised clover, timothy, stacked it, and sold it to the sheepmen for four dollars in a half ton. And then, we raised rye, dry land rye. And we had couldn’t buy coffee, then. We parched the rye and made coffee out of it. And the first threshing we ever did, we cut it with a... OPAL: Scythe? CLYDE: In bundles and tromped it out with the horses. [00:02:00] You had to sweep where horses were around and tromped the grain out, and then we gathered it up. And the wind blew the chaff out. I don’t know... MARIE: What else did you grow? CLYDE: Well, at that particular time we just grew rye, and clover, and timothy. That’s all. They didn’t know anything about alfalfa in those days. MARIE: When did you start other crops? OPAL: When did you start other crops, like alfalfa? About what time? CLYDE: Oh, golly. OPAL: That must have been 1908. CLYDE: Oh, it was later than that. It was about 1910. OPAL: About 1910. MARIE: Was that the first? CLYDE: We had alfalfa in 1910. MARIE: And then what? CLYDE: This is way back, [00:03:00] years before that, when there were nothing but wild animals around here, horses, wild horses, and wild cattle. OPAL: About 1910, you started alfalfa. CLYDE: I think it was about 1910 or ’12, I don’t remember just when. My memory’s no good there. MARIE: Well, then what did you grow? OPAL: Then what did you go? About the same thing? CLYDE: Same thing. We didn’t have much water and we had to grow dry land stuff. The rye made 12 bushels to the acre. And alfalfa -- or, not alfalfa but clover and timothy generally run about two tons to the acre during the year. But in them [00:04:00] days, the sheepmen come in and we sold it all to them. That’s a long, long time ago. MARIE: Then you had to wait for irrigation. CLYDE: Well, very little. OPAL: We have to wait for irrigation. CLYDE: Oh, yeah. MARIE: Before you grew anything else? CLYDE: Well, we never really got water till the Arrowrock Dam come in. That was 1915, they finished the dam. OPAL: Then tell about your cops from there on. CLYDE: Well, we started to grow alfalfa, and wheat, and corn. Of course, I wasn’t in the farm business then. And we flooded the water. We didn’t know how to corrugate. The first corrugator was made with wood, and put tin on the fronts like that, you know, with tin? And that’s the first corrugated I ever knew. [00:05:00] We made it out of wood. I don’t know why (inaudible). MARIE: What type of farm equipment did you use? CLYDE: I know one thing, that if... OPAL: What type farm equipment did you use? Just a plow? CLYDE: Well, we had an old McCormick mower, and a dump rake, one horse, put him in the [ches?] and dumped it, and then we went through across the rows and made shocks out of it. And then, we picked clean the shocks up by hand. OPAL: What kind of a mower did you... CLYDE: It wasn’t easy, I can say that. MARIE: What kind of a mower did you start cutting the hay with? CLYDE: With wheat? Binder. Acme. The first binder I ever had was an Acme, [00:06:00] got it from the equity in Nampa. And I wore it clean out with three head of horses, cut all over the neighborhood and round here, made bundles, and we shocked the grain. And then, the neighbors all come in and we stacked the grain in round stacks. And when the thresher came, the first thresher that came here was a Case engine, and I went with it for three years. And we threshed all over this valley. It’s the first one in the Boise Valley. We went from the Highline here, towards Nampa, then around by Meridian and back by Kuna, and back home again. Frank White was the owner of that [00:07:00] first Case threshing machine. And I went with him all through that season. In them days, they had smut, what they call smut. It’s a dark fungus that goes on the wheat, and when you were working in there, you’d just get black as a nigger. And they docked on it, too. They had to clean it pretty good to make bread out of it. I can remember when I took 1,000 pounds of wheat down to the Scott’s Mill in Nampa and traded it for flour. We put the flour in the building here and kept it, made our own bread. Never knew what tailor-made cigarettes was, [00:08:00] or bakery bread, or anything like that. We made everything by ourselves. They had a prune orchard and a dryer over at Meridian. And we had a prune orchard, too. And Dad used to can prunes in five-gallon cans. He’d buy cooler oil in five-gallon cans and then he’d clean them up, boil them, clean them all up nice, and can the prunes in them and seal it over with a piece of tin, you know, the hole? And then, he’d open it up in the wintertime and that’s the kind of fruit. We had we didn’t care no fruit, then. No cans at all. MARIE: What other kinds of equipment did you use on the farm? OPAL: To mow your hay, what kind of equipment? What about a [00:09:00] mower for your hay? CLYDE: It was a McCormick mower. You mean a grass mower? OPAL: No, to cut your hay, like they have here. CLYDE: Oh well, we had just a plain mowing machine. OPAL: Horse drawn mower. CLYDE: Horse drawn mower, yes. Mule drawn. We had mules. That little span of mules did it all. Yeah, that was back in hard times. We could only have one wagon on a ranch, and we had to change the hay rack onto it when we hayed, and then put the box on it when we put up ice. We put up ice here, the 20 inches by 22 inches thick. Can’t get that, now. And we’d put it in an old cellar and covered it with sawdust, [00:10:00] and the people in them days was friendly, and they’d all come and get ice. Never charged nobody for anything like that. And they never got any sicker than they do today. They had typhoid fever once in a while. But we put up that ice, and we put a big layer of ice, and then about four inches of sawdust, and then covered it all over, and it’d last all year long, all summer long. We’d use it in the wintertime. OPAL: Tell about mowing your hay and putting them up in little and raking it in little windrows. CLYDE: Well, I did. We mowed the hay. We cut it down with the mules and went through with this dump rake. We’d put one of the mules in there, [00:11:00] and raked it all up into windrows, then we turned around and go down the windrow and make shocks out of it. Then, we’d go through with the hay rack and load it onto that and stacked it by hand. Boy, if people had to live like we do now, they’d be better people than they are now, I can tell you that. Well, I don’t know what else to tell you. And in summertime, when our wagon wheels were made of wood, and they’d had to be set. The tires would come off of them. So, my dad and I, we used to build a great big fire and take the rims off, the steel rims off, and put them in the fire, and heat them up, and put the wheel down on the platform, a flat platform with a bolt [00:12:00] in the middle that we’d bolt the wheel down so it’s flat. When that tire got hot enough, we’d put it on over there, and we had buckets of water, and as quick as we put the tire onto the wheel, why, we’d pour the water on, and it’d shrink that tire up so it’d be just as tight as it could be. That’s the way we set the tires. And then, we’d put rivets around on every felloe’s, they were called spokes and the felloe’s, and the hub. Hub and the spokes and the felloe’s. That was pretty hard for me to think about that. After 95 years on this dang farm, I’ve forgot some of it. But I appreciate being one of them. Lots better [00:13:00] than I would from what we’ve got ahead of us. Now, what else? MARIE: Did you have crop failures? CLYDE: Oh, once in a while – OPAL: Freeze? CLYDE: -- dry, yes. Yes, we did. And rabbits was terrible. Rabbit drives, we had big rabbit drives. I remember one time we had a little stack of hay out by the barn, and oh, I guess it had about 10 or 12 tons in it, stacked by hand. We’d put one guy on the stack, and two guys on the wagon, and we’d pitch it and piled it up that way. And then the rabbits come in in the night, and I’ve seen it when that stack looked just like a mushroom, and they’d eat underneath it. And later, on we took the apples and put strychnine on them, [00:14:00] and we killed almost a wagon load of rabbits around that hay pile. Coyotes and rabbits, we had a lot of them. We had to contend with all the wild animals in them days. Wild cattle would come in, or break the fence down and eat the hay, and the horses, they didn’t bother too much, but there was a lot of them here, wild ones. And they were dangerous, too. But rabbits were the worst, would eat out crops. Coyotes, I’ve seen coyotes come into our prune orchard, and prune trees wasn’t very high, they were about that high. And them coyotes would climb up in them trees and pick the prunes. They knew when they was ripe. People can’t hardly believe that now, but I stood right in the window and watched them do it. And we’d go out with the old double-barreled shotgun and fire a [00:15:00] round or two, scare them off, and about an hour and a half, they’d be back up there picking them. And I know when I was a kid about 12 years old, and I used to plant watermelons, and had watermelons there. And when they got ripe, them dang coyotes would come, and they’d stick their teeth in the watermelon, and they could tell whether it was ripe or not. The ripe ones, eat they’d eat them. And I used to cry and tell Dad about it, and he’d scare them off, and he covered the watermelon with thistles and weeds and everything, tried to keep them from eating them. But I’ll tell you, we had an awful time of living in them days. MARIE: Was the weather a problem? CLYDE: See, that was in 1898 or [00:16:00] ’99, I was about nine years old, about 1899. You see, I was born in ’90, June the 7th, 1890, and come out here on the ranch when I was 10 years old. And Dad brought us out here, my sister and I, and he’d run the farm, and the house, and everything all at one time. Mother died when I was five years old. So, we had to root it for ourselves. But we was happy. We rode an old mare to school about four miles, took a lunch. Gosh, if the kids today had to take a lunch, it’d make them sick, wouldn’t it? They’re getting too soft. MARIE: Was the weather a problem? OPAL: Was the weather a problem for your crops? CLYDE: No, not in the summertime. [00:17:00] But in the wintertime, I’ve seen snow three feet deep. And we used to always have sleigh rides. We had horses. Yes, at that time we had horses and had a big bobsled. We’d go to dances and parties, and put hay or straw in sled, and had more fun then than we would today. But no, we had lots of grief in the wintertime. It’s pretty hard on the stock. They didn’t have no sheds or anything, and they had to stay right out in the winter. MARIE: Did you lose crops? OPAL: Did you lose crops during the summer You didn’t, did you? CLYDE: No. MARIE: Well, I was just wondering how you survived if you did. CLYDE: I can’t hear her. OPAL: You didn’t lose your crops during the summer. You always raised [00:18:00] good crops. you always raised good crops. CLYDE: Well, I guess it was good for then, but it wouldn’t be today. No, we didn’t raise -- I think the best I can remember was about 12 bushels to the acre. It didn’t materialize like it did now. MARIE: You didn’t have any problem getting along. OPAL: You didn’t have no problems getting along. MARIE: From losing crops CLYDE: No. The one blessed thing was the people. OPAL: Well, she wants to know about the crops. CLYDE: Oh, the crops. Well, we did didn’t have many crops. I can remember here, we didn’t raise enough hay of our own and over where Tigg’s big ranch is now, and Up owns it now, they called that the company ranch. Now, [00:19:00] I don’t know who is the company, but my dad used to go there with the mules, and mow all day long with his McCormack mower, and he got five dollars for the team and him. And then, he took it out and hay it, four and a half tons, and hauled it over here, loose. Let’s see, that’s about five miles, something just like that, somewhere around five miles. And they didn’t have no bridges in the ditches, so we had to ford them, right down in the ditch. OPAL: Now go to the earlier days and crops. She wants to know in the last 25 years, isn’t that right? In the later years, [00:20:00] she wants to know about the crops you raised. CLYDE: Now? OPAL: Yeah, up till now. MARIE: Did you have crop failures then? CLYDE: Well, I’ve raised all kinds of crops. OPAL: Yeah, but you haven’t had really too many crop failures. CLYDE: No. No, in 1924... OPAL: Well, later on. CLYDE: Yeah. MARIE: That’s all right. OPAL: Nineteen twenty-four, then, tell about your crops. CLYDE: Nineteen twenty-four was the drought year. And we had two cuttings of hay. And the pasture dried up, it just looked like the road. That was the worst drought we’ve ever had. And most of the years, we’ve got water enough to grow a pretty good crop. We’ve not had too bad. That ’24 was the worst we’ve ever had. MARIE: Did that cause you problems, that year? OPAL: Did that cause you problems in your feed and stuff? It did, didn’t it? Did that cause you to lose hay and stuff for your cattle in [00:21:00] them years, that year? MARIE: In ’24? OPAL: In 1924? CLYDE: Yes, you bet. They had to sell down their cattle. OPAL: They sold them down in Nampa? [CLYDE?]: No, it was down at OK Sales, I guess. OPAL: I don't know, that’s too far. CLYDE: I don’t remember. No, it wasn’t either. We had King’s and Anketell’s bought most of the fatter stuff. But we had to cut our herds down. We milked, oh, most of the neighbor’s milk, from four to eight, nine cows, and milked them all by hand, fed the calves, took -- the first creamery was in Nampa, I don’t know whether it was Jensma or [00:22:00] not, but they used to take the milk down there, and separate it, and bring the milk back then and sell the cream. And I did that here for a good many years, run a separator. We milked about as high as eight and nine cows. And we wore out two separators. And the kids all helped, too, as they grew up, got a little bigger. Everybody knew how to work. That was probably all our income, was a little milk check, like that. And we’d grow our own cabbage and potatoes, we grew most of that. And we’d dig trenches, and put the cabbage upside down, cover them up with straw, [00:23:00] and dirt, and kept them all winter long. Potatoes the same way, we dug a pit, a round pit, and put straw in the bottom, and then we’d put the potatoes in, and covered them with straw, and put dirt on top of them. And they never froze in them pits, and in the wintertime, we had one place where they had a hole, and they generally put an oval rug or something over it, and covered it up. We’d go in there in the wintertime and get what we needed and cover it back up again. Oh boy, we had a lot of places. But in them days, they had ponds, quite a few ponds that rainwater filled. And I remember one pond we had over here, had carp. They grew carp. Gosh, they were [00:24:00] great, big fellas. And we seined them with gunny sacks. We made a seine out of a gunny sack, put bolts and stuff on the bottom, and we caught them big carp, and killed them, and cleaned them all up, and put them in barrels. They had wooden barrels, oak barrels, and put them in there and pickled them, put salt on them and brines. And then, they’d take them out in the wintertime, and we cut it in chunks, you know, and they’d take it out in the wintertime and parboiled it, what they called parboiled it to get the salt out of it. And then, we’d would do whatever we wanted to do with it. And we’d eat the carp. People won’t eat carp nowadays. But that was the first fish that we had here, in the prairie, was the carp. [00:25:00] MARIE: Do you remember the socialist movement in the ’20s? CLYDE: Nineteen twenties? OPAL: Do you remember the socialist group in 1920? CLYDE: Socialist? OPAL: Yeah. You don’t remember that. CLYDE: Well, it was... OPAL: Yeah, but the socialist group. CLYDE: Socialist. OPAL: Mm-hmm, you don’t. CLYDE: No. Eugene Debs was the first Socialist. OPAL: Yeah, but you don’t know about the valley. CLYDE: That was when McKinley and Bryan was running for president. OPAL: That’s too far back. CLYDE: But there was no socialist group. OPAL: That’s too far back, that’s too far back. CLYDE: Too far back? MARIE: Well, the ’20s, he should have been... CLYDE: No, there’s never been a no socialists or anything like that. OPAL: Yeah, I don’t think he knows anything about... CLYDE: No. MARIE: You don’t know anything about them, then? CLYDE: No. I don’t want to. MARIE: Why? CLYDE: Well, I don’t think it’s right. I think the free enterprise is all right, if they don’t abuse it. [00:26:00] But today, they’re abusing it. They’re abusing everything, as far as that goes. And no, I don’t go for the socialists, or the... MARIE: Can you tell me about when irrigation and electricity came to your farm and how it affected it? CLYDE: When it started? OPAL: No, we didn’t get electricity till 1935. CLYDE: Oh, no, ’35. OPAL: Nineteen thirty-five is when we got electricity. MARIE: Well, what was it like? CLYDE: No, we had the Coleman system. OPAL: Coleman light system. CLYDE: It had a six-foot deep hole, and I’ve got some of the material down there in the barn now, [00:27:00] the bell, and we’d buy carbide for 200-pound sacks, and put it in there, and it made about a pound and a half of pressure. And we had a three-burner stove. And we had lights with the shields on them. And you had to light them with a match. That was what we used for lights. And cooked it, we had a three-burner stove used that Coleman. And it worked pretty good. It was dangerous, we thought. We were scared all the time. MARIE: That was electricity? CLYDE: Yeah. We never had no trouble at all. OPAL: That was electricity. MARIE: Did it help you with your farm work? CLYDE: In that? OPAL: No. That was just (inaudible). CLYDE: We had that up to the time the first electricity come in, it was ’35, was it? Nineteen thirty-five they come out here, and wanted to put it in, and they wanted to charge me, [00:28:00] oh, what was it, 150 or something like that? And I told them no, I wouldn’t do it. And we had the Kuhlman system then. I told them, I can’t remember the names of them. Anyhow, in another year, let’s see, was it ’25 that we got it? OPAL: Oh, I don’t know. CLYDE: Well, it was a year later that they come back out and said, “Well, we’ll put it in. It won’t cost you anything to put it in, but you’ll have to pay seven dollars and a half a month to take up the slack.” So, that’s the way we got our first electricity. MARIE: When did you start using it on the farm? OPAL: Just our lights. CLYDE: Huh? OPAL: When did you start using it on the farm? It [00:29:00] was 1935. CLYDE: Thirty-five, that’s when they come here. MARIE: Then you used it for the equipment? OPAL: Yeah, to pump water for the cattle down at the barn. CLYDE: Mostly just for lights. We didn’t have much (inaudible). OPAL: Well, you put a motor on the old pump out there, and pumped water down for the cattle. CLYDE: Yeah. MARIE: Did this help? OPAL: Oh, yeah. You bet. CLYDE: I used to have it -- I’ve still got it down there. OPAL: Before that, we had a gas engine that we pumped water down there. We had to start that gas engine. CLYDE: Had a pump jack and a sucker rods, you know, and they had an engine on it. We had to pump it with gas before we got the juice. Well then, when we got the electricity, why, we turned over to a jet system, and did away with the sucker rods. [00:30:00] That was in 1935. My first well on this place was in 1925. We drilled a well, and by golly, that water is as good today as it was when we got it. Never has changed. It’s 205 feet deep here on this place, the deepest one in the valley, here. Ain’t that about all? MARIE: No. CLYDE: (laughs) Oh, Marie. MARIE: Tell me about irrigation CLYDE: About what? OPAL: About your irrigation, when you’re irrigating the farm out here. MARIE: Tell me when it started and how it affected your farm. CLYDE: Well. OPAL: When did you start irrigating? What year? CLYDE: The first irrigation I remember is we run ditches around the top of the field. OPAL: When did it come in? When did that irrigation well [00:31:00] come in? What year? CLYDE: I think 1916 or somewhere around in there. OPAL: No, Arrowrock -- well, maybe. CLYDE: Arrowrock went in in ’15, I know that. And we flooded, then. We didn’t know anything about corrugation. We had to flood it. Take a big piece of land, we’d have ditches about every 100 feet apart, and then we’d flood down to it, and turn it in the other ditch. But that wasn’t too good. It washed it pretty bad, washing. By golly, I don’t know. It's pretty hard for me to remember all them things, Marie. (laughs) Ain’t you got about enough? END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/e9d3e1b13ef9b1c9c1c10ab828ac3873.mp3?Expires=1777507200&Signature=GZTcUXpKlxVowwOsvFhpioctbMlEMLKmBBFT-a-3n5ZiV3qCs9oexd1wTv3ttfOIZ%7EcFt6pFcWRe9fvr6PEy4YrwJhT7UdZwWOC52atNrr%7E4JCbwrttoIWx1nrxFv4yli9h4jfhG-mIMDy9rk1eHtkS%7E26b89gVqnuGwUMfl2OlCRyoGAGWlD5VPLfoRQckp12%7Elx7bdhgLo%7EIvKnfZF9xPWd2OLuA1cqZbvxDHBnISUwn32v52-rjMIrtvOD2iM8Lo0wzxJ72G6haF8Awbz2PuWUazu9XgmX55KgZ6md8dxoVCYjTtN%7EqEA9UsGwmfbIxZCQtksUM8BvgG6ImAkAw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f840ddd8db3dbf18fedf8d1c57c5a573 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clyde Derward Pethtel Recording 2 of 2 PDF Text Text (3rd person believed to be spouse Opal Pethtel) MARIE: Irrigation. OPAL: More about your irrigation. CLYDE: Well, I know I took my lunch out in the field, by golly, and sat there and watch the water. We had to. It’d wash, you know, wash pretty bad. It flooded. It was a flooded system. That’s the first one. And I’ve stayed out there, oh, hour after hour, watching that water. I don’t know what else to tell you. MARIE: When the irrigation came? CLYDE: What? I can’t hear her, but I can hear you. OPAL: When the irrigation came? MARIE: Did you change your crops? OPAL: No, you didn’t change your crop after irrigation. CLYDE: No. OPAL: Same thing. CLYDE: No, we just went along, same old. OPAL: Same old hay and grain. CLYDE: We didn’t flash like they do today. No, we just [00:01:00] stayed with the same old crop. We didn’t take much to live. We had plenty to eat, had a good time, went to dances, and parties, and everybody liked everybody. Today, nobody likes anybody. All they think of is money today. MARIE: How did they change irrigating, so they didn’t flood out? OPAL: When did you change irrigating when you started corrugating? CLYDE: Oh, you’re getting too technical. MARIE: No, I don’t have to know when, I want to know how and why. CLYDE: I can’t remember. OPAL: You changed to corrugating after you quit flooding, after corrugators came in. CLYDE: Oh yes. It was after Arrowrock came in. OPAL: After the corrugators, they started making corrugators, you started corrugating. CLYDE: Yeah, [00:02:00] that’s right. MARIE: Was that better? OPAL: Yeah. CLYDE: Arrowrock come in, that’s about the time we made our own corrugators. That would be around 1916 or somewhere around there. OPAL: Later than that. CLYDE: I can’t remember exactly. OPAL: That’s later than that. MARIE: I’m not worried about the dates. OPAL: You don’t want the dates, but they just wanted -- you changed to corrugators after corrugators... CLYDE: Yeah. And we didn’t know beans about it, either. OPAL: After they started the corrugators, why then, they built the corrugators, why that’s when they started corrugating. That must have been... CLYDE: I know one thing, Marie, when we’d come out with the corrugator, the horses, you know, they’d come out here, and from here up there, there wouldn’t be no corrugates. And we had to take the hole, and finish them on out to the ends, every year. This one, now when you turn around, and you could back [00:03:00] up, and you’d get a full swath, you see what I mean? And then when they come out this way, why, your horses and your machine, that part of it you had to dig out of the hole. We didn’t know anything about it. If we’d have known what to do now, I see they turn around and rut out a little bit, and then they back up and then they go, and they come out here and dig a gutter. But they didn’t do that. We didn’t know that. So, the first corrugating was done about 1916, or somewhere around in there. That’s about all I can tell you about it. MARIE: Ask him what they did for entertainment over the years. OPAL: In the olden days, or now? What about the entertainment? About your dances in the early days? In the early days, entertainment? [00:04:00] CLYDE: We had literary, an organization they called literary, and they’d meet at the different houses. And oh, we’d have apples on strings, and everybody tried to eat an apple, and all kinds of plays -- OPAL: Games. CLYDE: -- and dance, we went to each place and danced. Later on, when I got old enough, I was about 18, 19, I played for dances, and we’d go to the houses. We had square dances, mostly square dancers. And they had round dances, polkas, and waltzes. And I don't know, everybody enjoyed themselves so much different. I’ve called, and I’ve played the fiddle, [00:05:00] and I always liked to dance. I’ve danced ever since I was eight or nine years old. The women used to drag me out on the floor when I was just a kid, and they wore them big, long skirts, you know? And I’d get tangled up in their skirts, and they’d had to come find me pretty soon. But I liked to dance. And I remember one time we went to dance over at the ranch, way over here, and we drove an old mare, and we tied her up there and danced until five o’clock in the morning, and Mrs. White got breakfast, she had -- they cured their own meat, their own hogs. They cured everything. And she had ham, and all kinds of stuff to eat. They never went hungry in them days. They fixed their own food. And [00:06:00] we’d eat breakfast, and then, in the night when the old mare got loose and come home, and she lost the bridle on the way home. It’d come off at the hame, and when we went to find it, the coyotes had eat the bridle up, just chewed it all to pieces. And all what was left was the buckles. They ate the leather right up. And we had to get another bridle. We had to walk home and get another horse, get the same horse and another bridle. But we had lots of fun in them days, dances, mostly, and literary programs. And we went to the schoolhouse, and the kids played games and all kinds. And they had ice cream socials, homemade ice cream, and the boys from Nampa come out and helped us celebrate. We had plenty of good, clean fun, [00:07:00] then. Pleasure. Girls and boys. Another thing we’d have, on Sunday, we’d have about 25 or 30 of us on horses, girls and boys, about even, and we’d have little races. The girls would race the boys. And then, I can remember, we went over to the Kuna Cave. We rode all our horses. Everything was horse drawn in them days. That’s the kind of pleasure we had. We made our own pleasure. We didn’t buy it. And I went in all the caves, Kuna Cave, I was one of the first ones that went into it with a saddlehorse. And this one up here, I’ve been back in it about, oh, a quarter of a mile. A schoolteacher went with me one time in [00:08:00] there, nobody else had nerve enough to go. I wasn’t much afraid of anything in them days. But we rode mules and horses. And I know at one time we went up to the cave, and Dad and a neighbor rode a horse, and he rode the other mule, and I rode one mule. And if that mule got behind and he decided he’d go catch up, why, he’d always ring his tail, or flop his ears, and he’d unload you right there. And then he’d take off. And that made me so mad, Daddy’d come back and help me pick up my marbles and junk that I packed in my pockets, get me back on that mule. That’s the way the mule would do, he’d wait until he decided to go, and then he’d just take out and he’d dump you off, first. You couldn’t stick on him. You couldn’t ride a mule without a crimper under his tail or something [00:09:00] to hang on to you, because he’d buck you off. That’s the kind of fun we had. MARIE: What did you do with the children? OPAL: What did you do with the children? MARIE: For entertainment? CLYDE: Children? OPAL: Yeah, children. You took them along. CLYDE: We didn’t have any children, then, when I was a kid. OPAL: Well, no. But after you got married. CLYDE: Oh well, we’d go take them to dances. The first wife and I took the first kids, take them to a bench and put a quilt on the bench, and fasten them on there, and they’d sleep all night while we danced. Sure, they took their kids. OPAL: Everybody took the kids. CLYDE: They never had no babysitters. No. I think that’s what’s ruined the country, too many babysitters. Too many people telling them what to do and that’s wrong. The parent should be the teacher for their first seven years, [00:10:00] anyway. MARIE: What did you do as a family? Anything? OPAL: What did you do as a family? Nothing... CLYDE: Family? MARIE: As a family? CLYDE: The kids were the family. OPAL: Yeah, as a family, what did you do? Well, you didn’t really do anything much, only when they met with the neighbors. CLYDE: Well, I remember the families used to visit each other. They’d come in a wagon, team and wagon, and tie the horses up to the wagon. And we played ball, and we played horseshoes, and little of everything, black men, little games like that, you know, the families, just two families. And we visited with each other then. But now, they go so fast, they don’t even stop to see them. They know where they live, but that’s about all. That ought to be enough, hasn’t it? MARIE: Well, no. (laughter) [00:11:00] CLYDE: That’s the last one. MARIE: Were there any great disasters or triumphs in your life? OPAL: Were there any great disasters or triumphs in your life? I don’t know, just off... CLYDE: What are you [doing?]? OPAL: Great disasters. I don’t know whether that’d be when his first wife died. I don’t know. MARIE: I don't know. CLYDE: I don't know how to answer that. MARIE: I imagine it would be related to farming. I don’t know. OPAL: I don’t know. CLYDE: What is the question? OPAL: Right here, this last one. I don’t know how you’d answer that, really. I wouldn’t know how you’d answer. I wouldn’t know how you’d answer it. MARIE: I think it means in your farming life. [00:12:00] CLYDE: Well, yes. OPAL: In your farming life. But I don’t know. CLYDE: In the farm life? OPAL: Farming life. I don’t know that... CLYDE: Well, we had a hurricane here one time that tore up the neighbor’s house. OPAL: That wouldn’t be farming. MARIE: Well, it’s all right. OPAL: Okay. CLYDE: That’s on our farms. Yes, sir. The neighbors was over here visiting us, and this hurricane come up and we all went down in the cellar, and it tore their house up and just scattered it all over, oh, I guess, 400 or 500 yards, just tore it all up. They had to stay with us. And I saw two houses moved off of their foundation in that thunderstorm. And then, of course, the first wife died in 1927, which is a disaster [00:13:00] here. And I took care of the kids. I kept them together. There were four of them. There was three boys and one girl. And I took care of them for three years, a little over three years. I baked bread, and washed, and did the farm work, milked the cows, all by myself. Of course, when the kids got a little bigger, they helped, of course, as they got older. But I did that for three years, myself. And there ain’t anything I can’t do. I’d ran a sewing machine, made the girl a dress, my aunt cut the dress out and I sewed it up. And they went to school and took lunches. And went the first wife was alive, she took them to Sunday school over here at the schoolhouse. We had different preachers come in. [00:14:00] And we had a Sunday school. It was nondenominational, just Christian belief. That’s all our religion, was Christian. Pilgrims, from the old pilgrim’s belief. MARIE: Did you have any one real bad year in farming? OPAL: Did you ever have one real bad year in farming? CLYDE: Just that ’24 is all. That’s all I can tell you. We had bad luck up and down all our life as far as that goes. That’d be pretty hard to tell. MARIE: Okay, what about your best times? OPAL: What about your best times? MARIE: The real good times? CLYDE: Well, the best time for me was, oh, I can’t tell you the date, but I grew clover seed and sold it. That was before the first war. I grew red clover seed and white clover seed here. I [00:15:00] made quite a lot of money on that. That was about the best year I ever had. And we sold it for 52 cents a pound, that red clover seed. I don’t know, that -- and I always had sheep. For 25 years I raised sheep and lambs. And I’ve had different herds. I’ve had jerseys, and cattle, milk cows, and milked eight, up to 12 milk cows. I had a herd of Guernsey’s. I used to love to trade and when I had Guernsey’s, a neighbor, he had the Red Derms and so, we decided we’d trade a little. So, he traded me his herd and I traded him [00:16:00] my herd, and things like that. And horses, I raised horses, draft horses here, for about 15, 20 years. And after that, I started raising hogs, and I raised a lot of hogs. Made good on hogs. And that’s the income, as far as I can say, hogs, sheep, and cattle. Horses, draft horses. I sold John Smead, the Smead’s in Caldwell, sold him big draft horses here that we only got about 180 dollars apiece for them. Now, they get about 500 or 600. But I grow some awful big horses. My dad and I, in the early days, [00:17:00] when Lake Lowell was built, we used to kill steers. A steer, two years or three years old, would weigh about 900 to 1,000 pounds. A longhorn, we’d shoot him here in the corral, put a tripod over him, and skin him out, and put him in the buckboard, and take him down to Lake Lowell, and that’s when Lake Lowell was built. Hubbard and Carlson built that, with all horses, and mules. Of course, you’ve gotta have a mule in there. Now they’re racing mules, did you know that, over in Emmett? Yes, sir, they’re breeding them, so they’ll run. And I’d like to see that but that’s what we -- we dressed them hogs, we put them on a platform, and put scalding water on them and scrape them. I’ve still got the scrapers down there. [00:18:00] And I’ve got a picture of one year, you ought to show that to Marie. OPAL: Which? CLYDE: Tom and I with that big hog. OPAL: Oh, I don’t know where it is. CLYDE: I don't know. OPAL: It’s in some of them books. CLYDE: We canned our own meat. We canned all that hogs and beef, we canned it in fruit jars, so we’d have it in the winter. That’s about all you could -- ain’t that enough? (laughs) I don't know who in the world wants to know all of it. (break in audio) CLYDE: Well. MARIE: Okay, talk to me some more. CLYDE: I knew Tom Cunningham was the lumberman, and Frank Page was the harness man. And oh, I can’t remember all their names, but I knew all of them (inaudible) [00:19:00] and all the Dewey’s, I knew all the Dewey’s. Used to dance in the Dewey Palace. I was in the service there for two years. They called it the militia. It was the National Guard. But I don’t know, there’s a lot of things. I can’t remember all of them. I can if you think about it, but -- I always rode a horse down there. That’s all we’d need. I had one little horse that I trained in the buggy, and I could drive him from here to Nampa in 20 minutes. Boy, he was a dandy. I sold him to a guy, and he took him to Los Angeles for the mounted police. He was a beauty, too. We called him Dan Patch. I broke him, took him right out of the wilderness and [00:20:00] broke him. And I used to ride a horse down there, and we drilled up and down 12th Avenue. I knew what all the military service is like, I went through that for two years. Oh, we had a lot of fun along with it. We danced and went to the assembly hall. We danced up there in our uniforms. But the funny part of it is, or the sad part of it, I call it sad, because I feel bad about it. When I was in the service, I wore blue with white stripes down the pant legs and sleeves and had our decorations on my cap and everything. And we never took a picture. Ain’t [00:21:00] that too bad? Get my big picture there. OPAL: You showed it to her the other day. CLYDE: I know, but go get it. I was 16 years and 17 years old. I served the two years and never got a picture. I’ve got a picture, or little snapshots, and I’ve just got the one big picture. OPAL: That’s the one we showed you the other day. CLYDE: And that was the year that we was in the service. But I didn’t take no uniform. I’ve got the crossmembers in there. The girls stole everything I had that looked like -- yeah. Yeah, that was the year. When I was 16 or 17, I was as big as I ever did get. I was a man, then. I was married when I was 19, [00:22:00] didn’t have any brains at all. But I got by, anyway. MARIE: Did farming have any effect on Nampa? CLYDE: (laughs) Huh? OPAL: Did farming have any effect on Nampa? Yeah, it made it grow, didn’t it? Nampa, did farming make any effect on Nampa? It helped to make it grow. CLYDE: Oh, yeah. Nampa was a swell town. And the Harvest Festival, up and down 12th Avenue, we had big racks with all the farm products on there. And the merchants in Nampa were hospitable. They treated the country just like a friend. And when I packed that to the judges stand, I’d get the plates, you know, the different stuff, packed it up and down the 12th Avenue. That was the harvest festival before they ever had a stampede. People liked each other in [00:23:00] them days, but they don’t feel that way now. If they got money, they like them. If they ain’t got no money, they got no use for them. Yes, sir. And us kids used to go up 12th Avenue and had -- on Sunday. We never worked on Sunday. And the girls would bet each other they could outrun them and all that stuff. They had little races up and down the 12th -- police never bothered us. We never caused any trouble or anything. Just had fun that way. And I had little horse that could outrun any of them, and the girls wanted to ride him. And so, when they bet on something, maybe an ice cream cone or something like that, they didn’t have none of that stuff, either. No. Let’s see, [00:24:00] the first pop was -- I can’t think of his name, big, tall fella in Nampa made the first pop that I ever knew anything about. And that was in a bottle. But I can’t even remember what it was like. But they’d bet and run races up and down 12th Avenue. But the people in them days was a lot better. And I remember we had a barbecue out there where the post office is, that was all in a big cow pasture. And we had a barbecue out there, and George King and I served, and I remember distinctly, that the wife, I think, had -- I don’t know whether my first boy was born or not, but she was sitting out there in [00:25:00] the shade of an umbrella, and George and I fixed up a big plate and took it out to her, and I think there was one kid, I don’t remember who, a boy, I guess, but Tom was the first one. And we served all them hundreds of people that’d come by in that big barbecue. And they had the pitch right out there in the sagebrush. (laughs) Well, I can tell you, if I could remember, there are a lot of things about Nampa that people there don’t know now. The Nettleton girls was the first post office. They had the post office in the shade of a great, big tree, the Nettleton sisters. And their old house is there, yet. I can show you their [00:26:00] old house. You know going out towards the -- going out that away, that big house, the last big house, the great big one in the trees, that’s the Nettleton home, still alive. I don’t know whether there’s any of the relatives alive or not, but the girls used to run the post office there in Nampa. That’s the first post office that I remember. Well, that’s about all of it, Marie. MARIE: Would you say that the farming... CLYDE: I can’t understand her. MARIE: Would you say that the farming community then built, or helped to build Nampa? OPAL: You would say the farming community helped build Nampa. It did, didn’t it? CLYDE: Oh, yeah. OPAL: Yeah. CLYDE: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve dabbled in everything. OPAL: Yeah, [00:27:00] she wants to know, did the farming help make Nampa bigger? CLYDE: You bet. The farmers built Nampa. You can say that out loud, too. And in them days, they appreciated it. And I was born in Boise. And I can remember them, we called them [mossbacks?], all us young guys called them mossbacks, and they didn’t want no [dinner bucket?] town. And they didn’t cater to a farmer at all, Boise didn’t, but Nampa did. Nampa was always good to the farmers, for many years, until they commenced to get the Snake River stampede, and then they got Hollywood tangled up into it, and that spoiled the whole cheese. OPAL: You shouldn’t have said that. (laughter) MARIE: Oh, well. [00:28:00] CLYDE: Well, that’s the God Almighty truth, Marie. If they would go back to the wild cows, and the wild horses, and trick riders, and dogs, and what have you, and leave the dang Hollywood down here in California, we’d be better off. People would go. But they want their big highfalutin stuff, and they charge seven and a half and eight dollars for a family to go sit in it. They just ruined it for the common people. So, that’s all I can tell you. That’s enough. That’s enough for... END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marie Wade Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Clyde Derward Pethtel Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clyde Derward Pethtel Description An account of the resource Clyde was a lifelong farmer in Nampa. He discusses the various crops he grew over the years, challenges including droughts and coyotes, and how developments such as dams, corrugated irrigation, and electricity affected farming over time. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, March 11 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Agricultural equipment Cattle Coyotes Dams Electricity Entertainment Farm labor Farming Harvest Festival Hunting Irrigation National Guard https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/c662171efbc08cce542b8e1426532066.jpg?Expires=1777507200&Signature=YJUVFVCE-IEVtQmNS6x6cMIPLDv-V8hK6qUkwCwgcT2Gb3Wjpe9UJiF5%7Eno6GGZmn3xnfcACDEd00n8uhTMfu5Tlj5E%7E7jncYCsLxj0e6ceq%7Eyr1d4KWI6RFZqV2YWly4hsEyOT8qZxEOarqRC9eAkjXPrXKyvlkeAkaJieH4HkhId1QJUqQPBYPng7X7STpVeW%7E1l92sTHXFR%7EtHOH5KmEiTnv0AT-kgd8WMR2YMGGzerGPdHo4o3qlmmc%7EsmHdZlIJjEN1N7FvIC3ptM730mLOtkHxEFS3c1CI9DHHVESBZ06T3zUFYNPk9rTByWceSCH9irH76mg7YxmYDYyuyg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3d64787720fb95b609100e33ca18c2aa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cars lining 12th Avenue Road Description An account of the resource During the Great Depression, crop prices dropped so low farmers could not get their money out of the labor to harvest. So, some farmers simply offered their crops to locals who were invited to come out to the farm and get food for their families. Photo here shows a line of cars for a "Farm Sale." Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1936 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ruth Allen Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farm Sale Auctions Farming Great Depression