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Clyde Johnson
May 10, 2002 This is Bob Hut and today is May 10, 2002 and I’m with Mr. Clyde Johnson in Bailey, Colorado and we’re going to be talking about his experiences in Park County, Colorado. Clyde, can you tell us for openers, where you were born and when. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska September 7th, 1928 and lived in Sioux City; I don’t even remember a whole lot, but that’s it. How long did you live in Sioux City? I lived in Sioux City for about fourteen years, fifteen years. And then what did you do? And then I went to Washington for about (inaudible) where they were building the atomic bomb to go to work but you couldn’t go to work in Washington unless you was eighteen… at that time. And then I went on Pocatello, Idaho and worked around quite a bit and landed up in Colorado and went to work on a (inaudible) out of Denver. So you came to Colorado in what year? ’55. Okay, you lived in Denver? No, I lived on the railroad way out (inaudible) that had those bunk cars and a mess car, so…and the first place was Wellington and we moved to Niwot and that’s where I met my wife. Niwot. Yeah. Okay. So you stayed in that area until roughly what time or what period? Well, let’s see – I’ve done several different things over my life and as a young guy I worked - that was for the C&S railroad. I worked for them; I was a flagman for them. I climbed poles for them on the railroad we strung two wires all the way from Denver to Houston, Texas. Really! And moved about every week or so and the second part of the job, we had a small trailer. I was married then, that was in 1947 when we got married and we just moved about every week or so. I done mostly construction work, that’s what I’ve done most of my life is construction. I didn’t want a steady job (laughter) ‘cause time went too fast. Okay. So you had no home during this period of time. You were on the move all that time. Yeah, yeah. No permanent home. Okay. And that’s about it, so… You got married in what year? 1947. Okay. And then I worked on the Big Thompson Project; do you know what that is? I’ve heard of it; I’m not that familiar with it. Okay, the Big Thompson Projects, they was started before the Second World War and finished after the Second War and what is was - - I think they had the Adam’s Tunnel run from Grand Lake through the mountains, through this area of tunnels that Bureau of Reclamation was the one that run the job and down through Estes Park and then down through the Big Thompson. Okay. So it supplies water for all the farmers – Horse Tooth; out there there’s another dam over there. I can’t think what the heck it is. There’s a whole series of dams. Eleven Mile? No. Eleven Mile is south of here I think. Yeah, but (inaudible) over at Horse Tooth, but there was several towns on the way out coming down there through the ‘50s. Okay. What kinds of things did you do for them? I was a miner. Oh okay, so you were actually in the hole? Oh yeah. That was hard rock mining. Yeah, hard rock mining. I worked road construction in between and then we was living in Lyons at that time; a shorter driving to Estes Park and let’s see – I worked in – it was Pole Hill, the tunnel’s about five miles and then the St.Vrain and Rattlesnake and tunnels like that I can remember. That’s good. The ?Short? and there was a highway tunnel that goes up south Boulder over to that, it’s about 300 feet and… in between why, a new job - - all the jobs was done over there. We got on the construction company, our project manager, whenever we got a new job, he’d put a call out to all the old hands, you know. Sure. Because I wasn’t old then! But ?Langore? Tunnel has and for this job up here at Grant and what this job at Grant was started in the ‘30s. Now is that - - well, okay. You were working your jobs and you were living up in Lyons. Is there a job here that you came for into Park County? Oh yeah. That’s what brought you to Park County? Right. What year was that? 1956, December. ’56. Okay, so that was the first time you came into Park County to live. Right. And what project were you working on then? You mean before that, I worked in Wyoming - the ice house; I worked in Kremmling ice house – during the cold weather and then when we come’d up Park County in 1956 to work at – it was called the Blue River Tunnel at that time. Okay, interesting. And there’s a (inaudible) for the Denver Water Board. Did the Denver Water Board - - They had their own engineers and everything else at the Water Board. Okay, now the Tunnel was started sometime in the ‘30s; I don’t know whether Warren told you that or not. No he didn’t. It began in the ‘30s? Yeah and then to keep the water right. Okay, they just had a small crew there and they just worked one shift a day and they would out and cut timber, stuff like that right out of the woods for (inaudible) and stuff like that. And then they shut it down during the Second World War. Oh yeah, I’m sure. Okay, and then Denver got scared for water I guess, and in 1956 they let it bids come for the job. It was in 10,000 feet when we started. From this end? Yeah, from the Grant end. From the Park County end. Now had they built the dam in Dillon? Oh no, no, no; that comes later. Oh okay, so the tunnel was started before the dam did. Yeah, okay and when the tunnel started, the first thing we had to do was widen out the tunnel because it was too narrow. It was the first 10,000 feet, huh? That’s what - - that was almost two miles right there. Yeah. Okay and then let’s see – it took about - - all that mining to start with there - and then I went fifty in the heading. The heading is where you drill and blast. Right. And then after that, why we concrete and I was (inaudible) through the concrete. There was a lot of bad places in there but no hole or nothing like that. Just hard rock, it just - - and …did he tell you about the shaft and everything? Yeah. We don’t know much about - - you know, what was it actually like working in that tunnel? Well, I didn’t mind it. Some people don’t like it but I didn’t care! It was pretty good money for a guy who ain’t got that much education. how much did you make a day or a week or a month? At that time, I can’t really remember but at that time, we worked three shifts, six days a week. Wow. Okay. For five and a half years. Five and a half years. Yeah from ‘56 to ’62 and a half. And that’s when it opened? Yeah, right after that. Right after that, okay. Okay, we went in – our side was supposed to have been the longest heading in the world; we went in thirteen miles (inaudible) That’s amazing! And they started a ?din? in and they come over, I think it was - I’m not sure – I think they come over nine miles and sank the shaft down so that way, they had four headings. Okay. So they dropped the shaft from the surface down along the path and so then they went out both directions both toward Park County and also toward Dillon. Yeah. Okay, so they had four working ends. Why did they do that – just to speed it up? Yeah, to speed it up. Okay, so they were anxious to get it down. Yeah and you know, about thirteen miles that a long ways. Thirteen miles, when we use concrete, back when concrete the temperature could get up to 130, 140 degrees. In where, in the tunnel? In the tunnel, yeah, because that’s a long ways in. 140 degrees? Oh yeah, it’s hot! The further in you go, the hotter it gets. Really! It’s that warm in there! Oh yeah well, the concrete throws off a lot of heat, too. Okay. So you had to - - of course, they had to mix the concrete outside… No, no. They mixed it inside. Oh, they brought it in and mixed it. Yeah, they had ore cars; ore cars, three sections. I think each section had a yard and a third or something like that. They put the gravel in the three sections and then they had a little bin for the cement and they brought it in on trains – railroad – and dumped it on a belt and it went up to the mixer – one mixer and mixed it – and then it went to another mixer and it was shot in. Shot in. Shot it with air pressure. So they actually blow it like I guess (inaudible). It sticks on. Huh! That was a valve. They (inaudible) to pour the invert first and then they - - I forgot all about - - went back and bring the truck back down and I went back and done that. When they were digging - - like now, were miners with - - they were blasting and then muck like they did in a traditional metals mines? Yeah, I imagine. Okay. Yeah, we drilled out - - you usually get three rounds a shift unless it was real bad ground, and we’d usually drill about nine, ten foot rounds. Okay, and then they would blast? Then we would blast and then we would muck it out… with a mucker machine. So did they muck it by hand or did they have tractors… Oh no, no they have mucker machines. I got picture and stuff of some of that. Well, if you’ve got photographs we could borrow I know that at the Historical Society, we’d like to copy them and then of course, we’d return the originals to you. Yeah, okay. Do you want to shut that off and I’ll go see if I can find some for you? Sure. (tape on pause). We’re looking at the pictures from your album and it shows a series of guys that are working on this like a track-mounted device that are upper and lower area and apparently it’s got drills mounted on it. What is that called? “Jumbo”. Jumbo. We used to call it drilling jumbo, drilling jumbo. Oh, there it is right there, okay. And you add to that two miners; each miner had a truck tender, okay, everything was run by air. You had a miner and a truck tender, a miner, truck tender and then down below, the same. They call these the lifters down here (gesturing) where they drags drill. So it’s like – four, eight guys on a team? Yeah. Actually, they’s guys and they always have an extra miner and what an extra would do, he would drill holes for the fan line up ‘cause he’d just drive a peg in – a steel peg to hang the fan line. I mean, they’d drill holes in the side to hang the air and the water line and the discharge line. The discharge – what was that? A discharge – well, you was always pumping water. Always. So water was leaking into the tunnel? Yeah, they’d go on out and some things like that. So there was always in the floor in the tunnel? Yeah, most of the time. It depends on the tunnel and this one we hit a lot of water in this one and this is the (inaudible) on a ?Imcome? mucker. Okay, was that a gasoline-powered or electric or what? No, you can’t gasoline underground. Ah! Or you’d get fumes. Yeah, everything air, except you have batteries, “lokies” and diesel lokies, but diesel lokies have to have a scrubber on them or that diesel smoke go through the scrubber and so that it ain’t so bad you know, the smoke. And then you add - - you have to use water to drill and everything else. So they had compressors outside the tunnel? Outside, yeah, big air compressors out there and you had a dry house… A dry house - what’s that? Dry house – that’s where you changed clothes when you come to work and when you got done, after your shift, you’d go and take a shower; most guys take a shower and change clothes again - their street clothes and go home. How long is a shift, how many hours was it? Eight hours. It was eight hours. Mm-hmm. Okay. Of course, we worked three shifts there so day shift would work from 8 a.m. to 4:30 m. with a half-hour for lunch. The swing shift would work from 4:30 p.m. to twelve (midnight) and a half-hour for lunch and then graveyard would work from 12 to 7:30 a.m. with a- - so when you worked the two shifts, you got paid you’re your lunch when you leave work. Days you didn’t get paid because you know, it could come out even. And we changed shifts every two weeks. Oh okay. So you always rotated. Always rotated every two weeks; we’d go from like graveyard to swing and swing to days and days to graveyard. Did you have a preference? Days was the best, but most guys like swing shift because you didn’t go to work ‘til 4 o’clock and got off late, but I kind of liked graveyard the best because that way you could - - I could come home and sleep the hours that I would usually be working and I could play with the kids you know, things like that. Where were you living during this period? We lived up the road up here at a place called Miller’s. They had a small trailer park up there to start with and we bought this place and moved here; there was nothing here when we bought it and been here ever since. And you’re just right here on the side of the creek at downtown Bailey. Yup. Interesting. So you were raising children at this time? Oh yeah, yeah. The first girl, we moved her, the oldest one, Marilyn, they didn’t even have a school or anything. They went up to the top of Crow Hill to I think Camp Id-Ra-Ha-Je or something that. Yeah, that’s what I understand is that Id-Ra-H-Je was originally the consolidated school. Yeah, yeah and the Tunnel Board, or the Denver Water Board built the school up here, the first school at Shawnee. The contractor had to pay $500 for each child that the workers had you know, for the first school , which is in the contract I guess so when they started, so that’s how the first school got built. And I think when my oldest daughter graduated twelve years later, there was only - - (to Margaret: How many was in Marilyn’s grade Margaret, when she graduated? Margaret: Oh, I don’t remember. Not very many; six, five. I would imagine that. Yeah, it’s up there on the - - in that one school that got all the classes from way back of the seniors. Hmm. Okay, so you working your different shift and this picture (looking at a photo album) shows the wooden trestle that crosses Hwy. 285 to where the tailing pile was. Right. Now here it shows these steel bars. Were they pre-formed into that arc shape? Yeah they were - - one piece, this piece (pointing to a picture) and this piece and you fold it There were two pieces. And when you put them up, you put like a (inaudible); see here? Yeah. There’s one, there’s one (pointing). They were about five foot. They went in holes, a nut on each end and you slipped this 4’ x 6’ in and then tightened them up. Ah, okay. See, that’s one; tightened them up. So that establishes that spacing between these bars here. Yeah and then you put laggen (phonetic) over the top, see to… And laggen is the boards? Yeah, 3 x 8s or this and that and then you had all sizes of blocks and everything else because it had to be tight because when you shot, you didn’t want it to hop. That would be a lot of vibration when there’s a shot at the end, so that’s what keeps it from coming down. Yeah. Interesting, okay. And this is a driller or a mucker? That’s a mucker (inaudible) of steel. Some places you would knock the steel down once and awhile. So you’d eat your lunch down there. You ate - - when he shot, either the first or second time and you’d go - - half would go back and eat and the other half would stay up there and scale down while you was mucking. Scale down – taking loose stuff off the face? Yeah, loose stuff. You had a pick or else a bar; there’s a guy with a good bar here (gesturing) That’s what these guys are doing. Oh, scaling down. Okay. So they just had a shot there and then they’re pulling the loose rock that’s still loose, but they can pull it down with a steel bar. Yeah, so it’s pretty safe. That doesn’t that safe! They’ve had hard hats, but they - - if a big chunk comes down, it would come right down on them, wouldn’t it? Oh yeah, but you kind of have to watch that stuff you know, that – whatever going on. And there’s me there (gesturing). That’s you. (pointing in photo album). Yeah, I was - - when I started, I was on the right wing; we call it the right wing up there, drilling on the right wing. In that case, it looks like there was a cavity there and they were filling it up to make it solid? In some places you do, but some places - - you don’t necessarily have to. Just so the rock solid and the steel solid butt in some real (inaudible). And here they’re spraying gunite on the wall. Yeah that’ might be a cut-out or something for a fan station or something. You know, thirteen miles, you’re sucking in a lot of air and they finally had to - - I forgot what year it was - - but they had to move fans outside and they just weren’t cutting it. They worked on - - you see, when you shoot, I’d call outside when we got ready to shoot, put the fans on “suck.” So they’d reverse the fans and then after they shot, and it sucked the smoke and stuff up and powder smoke. You know, you finally got outside and I’d call back and have them reverse the fans and it would blow cool air back in. But then it got so bad that we finally just shut the tunnel down one time. Everybody – all the crews got together, we shut it down and they said they couldn’t get another fan, but when we shut it down they - - Dave Morris was the Project Manager; he called New York, they took a big air conditioning unit off of a ship that set in the bay, flew it in here the next day and had it set up and it worked good! Oh I guess. Yeah. It’s amazing what you can accomplish if the place is shut down – I know that. It was a piston-type fan; almost all fans you have in tunnels are just about so big around (gesturing) just like a fan. But this was piston-type fan and it was - -they said it’s what they use on these big skyscrapers for air conditioning and things. Hmm, it looks like a compressor almost at that point. It’s got pistons in it. yeah, that’s the kind they used on the big skyscrapers and big office buildings for air conditioning and stuff. And that worked well. Yeah, it worked good. When they blasted like that, you said you only went back a couple of three hundred feet? Oh yeah. And that was safe enough. Use it to the launch batches, yeah. Okay, did you not get a big blast of air? Oh yeah. We always wore earplugs, things like that. You had to wear hardhats, safety-toed boots, rain slippers and stuff like that. Well, some guys did and some guys didn’t. Did you ever run into a scene where ea lot of water came in the tunnel? Oh yeah, I think if we go through here, we’ll find it (paging through photo album). That looks like it’s small, you’re up on the upper level; okay, I see. Yeah. Here this guy named Bill Rader; he’s on a 630. Now that was in when they was cutting the fan station… but the other’s on track. Now that was run pneumatically; there was air? Air. It looks like a miniature track, but he was on the ground with controls. No, he’s on a step. Oh, he’s in a - - oh okay. Oh yeah, you ride them, see. So you actually it, but it actually dragged cables or hoses? You had a truck tender that would watch the hoses. There were one or two truck tenders as they walk back and forth. It’s a track vehicle. Yeah. Where would he dump that? Is there a car? Yeah, he had a car he’d usually- - see, it’s on tracks, so he’d usually back up and now when they’re mucking with the regular mucker, they slide the cars in and it would hook to the mucker. So as he went back and forth, they stayed and with that load, he’d just signal the load runner and one of the crews would hook it up and they’d take off to the “California.” The California’s the run-around and it - - one side had empty; one side has the load. When you was loaded, the loader man with the loader cars could be right be pretty close. As soon as he got that muck, he’d kick the car loose and go back and couple; this guy take off (pointing) and the guy on the California would just - - they have the couples like this (pointing) Right. And you just make a run and whoosh! They fly down there and hook. Wow. Okay. Here now shows these have been drilled (gesturing) and some person would be the one that would actually load the explosives on there? Well, all the miners loaded. Oh, anybody would do it. No, just the miners. Okay. Yeah, the miners would load it and the truck tenders would have their wooden pole; they would tap it. You put in a primer and a stick of powder; you see, these was all made up (pointing). You had a powder cord coming in and you picked out your primers, whatever you needed. You put a primer in and a couple of sticks of powder and you’d tamp it and two more sticks of powder and tamp it. And they were all electric blasting caps. Right, so they weren’t done all simultaneously? Were they done in sequence? No, like you would start with the cut – it would be about in here someplace (pointing) Right in the middle? Yeah, you start with maybe “aughts” or “ones” and you go to “twos” and three, four, and by the time you got up here, you’d maybe be - - well, they go up to ten I think in most places. Say ten… Ten, ten (gesturing) Ten what – ten sticks? No, ten delays on the delays. Okay, so those are delay points. Yeah. So the middle is the first to go. Yeah. And then the rest collapses into the middle. Yeah. Okay. I believe they did do that at the turn of the century when they were doing hard rock mining for metals. Yeah, different time you know, like there’d be fours here (pointing) and the lifters would always be the last to go off. So that would just (inaudible). Yeah, it (inaudible) bring it up like this so it wouldn’t scatter too much. How deep are those holes that were drilled? I think if I remember right, we used to run about nine-foot rounds. So the dynamite was pushed to the end of a nine-foot hole? Yeah. Wow. And then it would just blast out that end. Now the (inaudible) it’s just like –strike (inaudible) - it’s really small. No, not always. Like I say, this was a probably one of the cut-outs. We have to make a cut-out every now and then for a water pump or something like that. A cut-out is a bigger side, like a (inaudible). Yeah, just like a tunnel here; you cut it like a station or something to… Okay, that would be a good place to be if there was an explosion or when they were blasting the face, you’d go off into one of those cut-outs? Mm-hmm. (affirmative). Now here (pointing) they’re watering it to keep the dust down. Yeah. So there was always water hoses coming in. Yeah, see he’s looking right into a car there (pointing). Okay and that’s the air … Fan line. Fan line, okay. And those would be 24, 30 inches. Wow. How did they know that they were in the right direction at the right elevation; that they weren’t going some angle left, right? The engineers had their set points and every so often, they’d come in – I don’t know how often they did it; they worked on a Sunday or something – the engineers come in and check their line and grade and put a little brass deal you know, like (inaudible) in the ground and they’d drill a hole they’d in the middle of the tunnel and get it pretty close and they’d what they’d go from that point. Okay and then they just went off of level from that point. Yeah. And left and right. Wow, that’s amazing that they were able to be that accurate. Okay, now what is this down here? (still looking at photo album). Okay, this picture’s this way. So this shows going down the tunnel and there’s your air line and has this been gunited? No, it’s just rock – plain rock. Oh, it’s really smooth. Yeah, there was a seal all the way through. Someplace is smooth, someplace it wasn’t. All the (inaudible) just start flying on whatever. Here’s a better picture of him mucking in the car- see that? (pointing) Oh yeah, it goes right into the car. Yeah, he had a belt; this had a belt that moved. When he started, this belt would go off so all he had to do was just keep - - and while he’s waiting for a car, which wasn’t’ very long – maybe half a minute or so, but by then, he’d have this belt – this side belt full and then he’d kick it on and start going. Here’s the hose that drives it. Now is that in water? IT looks like it’s just laying in water. it probably is or in mud or something. It looks like a nasty environment to work in eight hours a day. Yeah. It’s in the dark, because you’ve got light, but they electric lights in there, right? Yeah, you had batteries, you had a battery you carried on you know, like a miner’s light. Was this taken from a cut-out so you could… No, that’s going into the tunnel. Oh okay. You can kind of see it there. (pointing) That sure looks like a lunch station there. Yeah, that’s the engineer’s; that’s where the engineer, he always set back there, they didn’t have much to do until you’s got mucked out is all. This again is the end of the air? Fan line. Fan line, okay. This shows all kinds of hoses and things going to… Okay, this is where we hit the water, coming out of (inaudible). (Reading a photo caption) “Carry water back so we could clean up and pour a solid block of concrete 50 feet long and try to grout water off.” So you can actually grout against a stream of water? That’s what we did and we hit that water, this jumbo with John, it just pushed the whole thing - - it was a - - the jumbo was blocked, there was pot of (inaudible) behind it, there was a motor behind it with the brakes set and we hit that water, it had so much pressure it just pushed us back and pushed the steel out of the holes and bent them up. You were working the jumbo at that time? Yeah, uh-huh. (affirmative). That must have been scary. Yeah, okay and now what we did, there was so much water, we couldn’t go - - so we took two-inch pipe- you can see it there, a whole bunch of them hanging here - and went back fifty feet. We stuck them in the holes that we had drilled. Okay. Alright, we had drills. Fifty feet back and hung them on the steel right here. Yeah. Now we got that all done, we put a block ?cap? and now we pumped it clear full of concrete for fifty feet – solid. Oh my. And then we went in and grouted on these pipes - was grouted. See how these (inaudible) around. Nine hundred pounds of pressure. A hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. (Reading a photo caption) “They were drilled through concrete.” Wow. Okay, that was to shut the water off. Yeah, that’s one of doing it. And after we got it, we couldn’t shut it clear off, but most of it and then we drilled around and we put 2 inch pipe in. We drilled as far as we could get in and put two-inch pipe and they put a - - open and let (inaudible) and they take a string of oakum of about that (gesturing) wrap it around the pipe… What is oakum? I’m not familiar with that. Oakum is kind of a brown fiber, it’s kind of soaked in oil or something. They used to use it for cracks on ships and things like that. I haven’t any for years, but I imagine it’s still … Like a miner’s duct tape. Yeah, but it was a fiber like a like them rags all shredded up; you know what I’m talking about? Yeah, right. Is it thick? Yeah, you just pull a chunk off and wrap it around there and okay, and then they had another pipe, little bigger than a two-inch and the chuck tenders and the handles on it, they would poke that in, all the way to the bottom; tamp it and then you put a string of lead wool around. They’d push it in, tamp it. Lead wool. Yeah. Like steel wool, but it’s made of lead. Yeah. Huh, okay. And they’d tamp it and we’d do that. It took a long time to do all that and then they’d tamp it ‘til we got to the end and then we’d hook up and start grouting again. Wow. And we’ve pumped it with so much pressure that sometimes I get scared - - (inaudible) I was scared one of them hoses going to pop off with those high-pressure hose; that’s a lot of pressure and sometimes the pressure was so strong, we had to stop about every 15 to 30 minutes and clean that grout pump off because it would just set up, pumping so much pressure. I see the date was July 30th of 1959 when that happened. Mm-hmm. You had no indication or warming that that was going to happen. No. They couldn’t tell you there was some - - apparently it was an underground water stream that you would hit… Yeah. And was that the only one you hit in this trip? Just the main one, yeah the big - - okay, but then when we get that all done and filled it and everything, we would call it the “long hole.” Okay. And start about in the middle you know, because that would be the best place because your steel, as it goes in it, it grabs it and goes down if you’re drilling. Okay, but if you drill in maybe thirty, forty, fifty feet as far as we could… You actually drill a hole into the con - - forward, fifty feet. Well, just for water, that’s what we was doing, to see if we had any water and how much. See if it would give you a warning, yeah. And then we would go ahead and drill around if we could. That makes sense. In fact, that would make a lot of sense in a situation like that because at least you would know what’s coming, rather than break in to something like that. These are great pictures! Here is where the water is coming out of the tunnel like we hit that water. (pointing) Oh my gosh! (Laughter). So everybody was working in that! Oh yeah. It was about boot-high to start with. Was the floor of the tunnel flat, or did it slope down? On our side, we slope, we go up, but you can hardly tell it though. I forget what the grade was. That’s good it was up because it could flow out. I could hardly tell what the grade was, it wasn’t all that much. Okay, that was 1960, February 13 of 1960. Mm-hmm. (affirmative) And yeah, it looks like it’s a lot of water just sitting there in the tunnel. Yeah, that’s me sitting there. End Side A Start Side B Okay, this is the concrete in here (pointing) and they set the batch plant on the side, too so they had a span across there where the cement and sand and gravel would come over to it, beings like and they were dumping it in the cars and all and then …just about everybody here’s dead already. I can imagine. Were there injuries? Did people get hurt in the tunnel? Let’s see – on our shift, we had a chuck tender - - we had in some parts of the tunnel you have what’s red rock, or “popping rock” and it just sounded like a shotgun going off when it was break loose. And it just come off in slabs about like that (gesturing) and sometime you know, four or five feet long or so, a couple of three feet wide and no warning at all, they just: “WHAP!” Pop – we had one chuck tender come down on our shift that he hitting pottery out of a potter car, he was kind of short, he was a Mexican guy. It just hit the top of his hard hat, drove his hair through his hard hat! That’s how hard it hit. Holy cow! When it went down, it about it his foot off on one leg but as far as hurting him otherwise, he was alright but you know, he didn’t work again because his foot was bad and he was in the hospital to have rehabilitation for a long time… and Shorty Hernandez I think his name was, if I remember right. Sound like it was… Okay, now here’s something else. I didn’t work on this ,but you go back from the portal here okay, this is a shaft that goes straight down and it’s back about - I don’t remember now – I don’t know if it says here (looking at the photo). It says “Four hundred and twenty feet deep.” Okay, now what this is for - when they close these gates (pointing) this water has to go someplace. Okay. So when they close this gate, this water goes up. Oh okay. So the engineers had this figured out when they shut the water off, how much surge they got, they called them a surge tank. So the water comes about the top of this thing (pointing). And that’s in the mountain (inaudible)? Oh yeah, right over the tunnel. Pretty close to the (inaudible) but I can’t remember just how far it is. You can’t see it from the highway but anyhow, it’s all lined and everything. Is that open at the top to air or to the outside? Yeah, it’s probably got a dome or something. Got a vent of some kind because it has to get (inaudible) air’s got to come out. When they shut them (inaudible) off, why, this just goes straight up with a lot of pressure. When I think about it, a plumbing system there’s what’s called water hammer. All that water’s moving and all of a sudden if you shut the gate, it slams that gate so in this case, that provides relief. Yup. They had to all think it out there. Yeah, it makes sense. And there’s the batch plant (pointing) and there loading the cars up there, see. When was the tunnel complete? 1962. 1962. What was Bailey like in ’56? ’56, there was nothing here where we are now. Nothing on this side of the creek? Nothing, nothing. This is… This is the south side of the creek here. This land here up to the church up here – I don’t know if you know where the church is or not. Yup, mm-hmm. Belonged to Mrs. Fehling. She donated the church – it was in a barn; she donated that for a church and they’ve added onto it several times. Like Platte Canon Community Church. And then she lived in a half a house – I don’t’ know what you called them you know, it was down and about so much above ground (gesturing) and she built a couple of apartments for income there and then she sold all this land here for $500 an acre. Wow. When was that – do you know what period of time that was? About ‘59, ‘60. That’s when we bought this half-acre. Of course, we paid - - by that time, why they got maybe (inaudible) Guy Ordway and over here they owned it and it cost me $1,500. There was nothing on here. Nothing. No trees, we planted everything on here. Yeah, these trees we got here were about that big when we bought it (gesturing). I was told that the church originally was a potato storage barn. Yeah, some kind of barn. So there was farming up in this area. Yeah and I used to grow a lot of carnations up here I guess. This here I guess at one time was all a (inaudible) carnations or something the way I got it. I know there were ice ponds further up near Shawnee. Yeah. And they might have stored – I don’t’ know – maybe some ice up here at that point in time, too. Yeah, the weather was colder then I guess. Yeah, exactly. Because I worked in Kremmling in - what year was it – ’45, ’46 – something like that up there and they used to freeze ice there. Cut ice out up there and we loaded it in box cars with straw. Yes, straw I understand and sawdust; they used to use sawdust. It’s a packing material. I worked in Laramie the same time, same way one of those years. Forty below outside, but I worked in the ice house and you’d never know it, that it was that cold you know, because there’s no wind or nothing. Exactly. Was there a grocery store in Bailey? yeah there was a grocery store. Is it the same one that’s there now? Berger’s owned it. It’s the same building? The same building. They painted it though. Yeah just recently. Yeah because it’s got asbestos shingles on it and they’ve been - - and somebody wanted to take them off and they said, “No, you’ve got to have a special crew and everything and all that stuff,” so this last owner, he painted it like logs. Right, exactly. That’s different. And then Frieda and Howard Mason bought it from Berger’s because they worked for Berger’s for a long time and the Post Office was in the store, too. Okay, so the Post Office was in that same building. Yeah and we would come up here and then they sold it to Howard and Frieda Mason and he retired and he died not too long ago, but they built a house in Shawnee; they might even be on your list. Frieda Mason? Not mine; I’ve only got four names right now and I’m supposed to get a lot more so it will be… No, Frieda Mason and… That would be a good one though, I imagine. How about in the fifties when you were working at the mine, were there organizations, or what did you do for fun? I mean, you worked hard, you had your kids here … Well, during the time off, we had to - - the Fire Station - you know where the old Fire station was? Probably was - - there’s nothing there now. Coming down Crow Hill, just about - - just about right straight across there’s a fire station. Where the propane company is now? No, no you’re talking about Kingery’s; Kingery’s got that. That was a Standard station run by Al and Dick Kingery. Oh okay, a service station. Yeah, service station and right downtown, was a Conoco station about where the Crow’s Foot is now. Okay. And was run by …an old buddy of mine but he had the Conoco station. He worked at the tunnel when they first started. When the tunnel started, he bought that old station out, there was nothing there really but one or two pumps and a gravel driveway and everybody thought he was crazy for putting into that but you know hell, he made a fortune off of that! Oh, I’m sure. Because everybody in town traded there. Carl Smazing. That put a lot of people in here that hadn’t been here and came here all of a sudden. Oh yeah. For what, five years? yeah, six and a half years. Actually six and a half years. So that brought a lot of people in here that had never been here before so there was probably a lot of business then. Where was the Post Office then? The Post Office when we come here, it was in the store. Oh it’s in the store, that’s right. Interesting. And I can’t remember, you’ll have to ask my wife when they built this one – this used to be the Post Office, the first one they built. Oh, The Flume place? Yeah. Oh, that was originally the Post Office. Yeah, that’s what it was built for, a Post Office and then they moved it back over here a few years later. So what did you do for fun? Oh, we’d go to Denver, or (inaudible) or take the kids down to the zoo or go to drive-in movies; drive-in movies were popular in the summertime you know. Sure. There was really nothing up here in Bailey then. Well, they had the Girl Scouts for the girls and things like that. Our girls… How about 4-H or something like that? Yeah, they had 4-H. And what was the kids in … well, I don’t know, things were simpler then and nicer, I think. Sure quieter, that’s for sure. What we call here the Crow Hill Road? That wasn’t there. Where was it? Okay, you know where the store is? The grocery store? Yeah. When you go in front of the grocery store, just keep going around and then if you’re travel- - there’s still part of it that’s still there. If you want to travel the old Crow Hill – at the top of Crow Hill, turn right. Okay. And you go all the way down past where the old bank is there and come m out just about a mile or so above Bailey up here. Really! Back on 285 you get. And it’s a crooked thing, too. Why isn’t it that Crow Valley Road was originally 285? Yeah. Interesting. Well, they had to because - -well, I don’t know when that rock cut was done, but obviously they did a lot of work to remove a lot of rocks. Oh yeah. So that was probably in the late fifties that they dug through Crow Hill to straighten out 285, or in the sixties? Yeah, I would say late fifties or so. It was on the old road I remember there was an old hotel; maybe Warren told you about it. Two-story hotel with a balcony on it and a friend of mine, an engineer of the tunnel name Kenneth Hicks, he loved all the old windows. So (inaudible) we go up, we took all the old windows and doors and stuff out of this hotel. He stacked them over in Shawnee and they’re still there. I guess Phil broke them. Really, how come? The old hotel burned down. No, no they had to take it down when they built the new road. Oh, because I think I was told there was a hotel above where you know, that log home construction company that’s just on the – it would be on the northwest side of town. Yeah, the (inaudible) side of town. Yeah. It’s that log company that builds homes out of logs. Just above that hillside, there was a railroad hotel that had been built I guess back probably turn of the century and it burned to the ground and there’s no remnants of it now. No, this hotel, it looked like in its day, it was pretty fancy. It was as I say, two stories… And where was it located? You know where the ?Connie elf? stuff is there. Yeah, exactly. Well, that’s on the old road, but you can’t go very far. That’s actually the old road? But it was back in there someplace because did a lot of tearing down and road-building on the hill and it was tore down, it wasn’t … Okay, so the windows are still in Shawnee, huh? Still in Shawnee and somebody’s told me that Hicks - I don’t even know if he’s even alive or not – he’s in Denver. But he was the engineer up here, then he went to work for Becthel, traveled all over the world, I guess, made a lot of money. I just stayed here! OF course, I worked all around. After you got done with Roberts Tunnel, did you work other jobs or did you stay here? Oh yeah, I worked up at - oh, let’s see – one of the jobs I went down and worked Coors for a year and ten months. Okay. Got tired of it; I didn’t want a steady job, it seemed like time going too fast so I quit. But you put roots here down in Bailey. This is a permanent house and you’ve been here - how long have you been in this home? How long? Here? Yeah. ’56. Since ’56. So you’ve been here - - and prior to that, you were moving all the time. Well, we’s gone - - I went to work on a tunnel job over in the other side of Granby - Parshall - and we moved over there and we worked there a little over five years and we then come back. Oh okay, so you came back. Yeah, we bought a place over there and we’ve got it rented now and that was a good job, that was a nine-mile tunnel for Amax because you go up 40 okay, after you go through Empire then you start up the big mountain. It’s on the left-hand side, isn’t it? Well, when you start up the curve ? Right. Okay, the road that goes straight goes to the mine. Yeah, I’ve been by there, I’ve seen the sign; I’ve never seen any equipment there but yeah. No, it’s quite a ways up to the mine. Okay, their building the “libium” there. Okay, but they wouldn’t let them do nothing on this side, for the ore crusher or nothing like that, so they had to go around, over to Parshall and go to the mountain on the other side and run a nine-mile tunnel in and everything to haul the ore out. They built a mill over there pretty close to the tunnel over there. So you really worked a lot of mines and tunnels. I worked a mine in Jimtown near Parshall, I worked at NORAD. Oh my gosh, so you worked on NORAD tunnels? It’s not a tunnel, but… Yeah, really it’s a hole; a hollowed-out structure. And I worked over on the Western Slope; I worked in Basalt; I worked the Rampart Range Road over there for the Aurora Tunnel; worked on the Waterton – there’s tunnels down in Waterton. Did you belong to a union? Oh yeah, I belonged to the Laborers to start with and I got (inaudible) and I was working engineers, the last, I worked at Eisenhower – I worked a lot of tunnels around here. Colorado has a history of in the past – the distant past – of having a lot of problems - labor problems - with mines. Did you experience any problems with mine unions vs. management? The only trouble we had up here on the concrete, this guy named Don Ward was hauling concrete – you’ve probably seen his trucks? Okay. And he was hauling the concrete and they were non-union and they tried to shut him down because he was non-union and they finally resolved it some way or another. He’s union now I’m pretty sure, but that was the only trouble we ever had. That’s good. Of course, in them days, in the fifties and so and all tunnels are highball… Highball? Highball – you don’t stop. You just go, go, go. You got three shifts going; each shift is trying to beat the other shift and things like that. Did you have an incentive of any kind? I mean, if you achieved some certain goal, did you get extra income? No, on this one we didn’t; some jobs we did. Some jobs - the one over there at Dravo – Dravo, that was the one for Amax – they got so much for so much footage. They got so much… Oh okay, they were paid by the footage. Yeah, if they got more footage, but they had it set up down here. They had it set up down in Waterton; ?Sank Artichovich? had that and some ways, sometimes you’d make a little bonus, sometimes you make a few dollars, sometimes a little more, but most of the time it didn’t ‘amount to too much. Most jobs weren’t like that because when I started over on the Big Thompson, I forget what I was getting – a dollar something an hour in 1950, something like that. Chuck tender. It’s highball; you got with it or you didn’t last. Yeah, it sounds like pretty rigorous work. It keeps you in shape I would imagine. Oh yeah. Did you have any health problems at all from being in a mine? No, not really. A lot of guys got emphysema, things like that because most of that was caused from smoking I would say. I done the same thing; I quit smoking in 1966. The only thing the matter with me now besides my brain is my back. (laughter). I’ve had two steroid shots and I’ve got another one coming up the 21st. Do you think it’s because of the work that you did over the years? Yeah, my last - - I’ve been in No. Nine now Engineer’s for thirty-five years. All that equipment and stuff and then these machines really vibrate and then the loaders and stuff like that, they’re always shaking, so I lost about four inches in height. Really? From 5’10” to 5’6; 5’ 10 ½” in high school. That’s interesting. But at the Nine Health Fair, I stand at only 5’6” and I ain’t re-measured myself because I don’t believe it, because the time before, I went from 5’10 1/2” to 5’ 8”. Right. They said I was just 5’ 6”. Well, I was never checked (inaudible). Yeah, that might be worth checking. That’s a lot of … I got x-rays and everything of spine; it’s all (gesturing) spurs. Well, you’ve worked very hard over the years and that would probably take a toll on cartilage and things. Do you have any hobbies in particular? Woodworking mostly, cars and stuff. Cars, okay. Here’s some colored pictures (showing pictures). Okay, this is me – Where were these taken? Down at Waterton. Let’s see what years did you work down there? (inaudible). Were you living in Park County at the time you were working on this? Oh yeah, yeah this is down - - we went down south to Clear Creek Road, down to Waterton. Same kind of rails (looking at the photos) or beams I guess. Yeah, that’s the wire that caught this thing (pointing). In the years that you’ve been a miner, did you see changes in the way mining was done? Well, the only thing I know is they use a “mole.” A mole – which is a big drill. A big round thing with teeth on it. Yeah and it drills the whole face of the - - do they still blast? No. It just literally grinds out a hole. But they have problems. Now, they started on Straight Creek, which is Eisenhower. They had it on the west side. I don’t know, they come in about maybe six or seven hundred feet or so and the ground squeeze so hard it shut them down. They actually compressed it? Oh yeah. And locked the machine in? Oh yeah. Oohh. And that’s a big (inaudible) See, that’s a - - that tunnel itself is 50 x 50. There’s two bores, right? Now there’s two bores. Yeah, the first one is Eisenhower and the second one is Johnson. Really. You didn’t know that! No I didn’t! That’s interesting. Because they always just call it Eisenhower. If you look there, you’ll see it - “Dwight Eisenhower” on the first one and the one going west you see “Johnson” Ed is his name? You know, the President. Lyndon Johnson? Yeah, Lyndon B. Johnson up there on it. I’ll be darned – I never knew that. Because the first one was drilled when Eisenhower was President, or was named after Eisenhower; he was President long before that. And that was eastbound, or it would be the south bore. Is that correct? Eastbound coming this way, yeah. You never hear that. You always hear “Eisenhower Tunnel.” That’s interesting. So that mole has been a big change. And then after they dug it out, they had to get guys in there with those ?faders? no air? And they dug it all around, dug it out; the bore got started again and “BANG!” They’re hung up again, so they had to cut it all up. It cost over a million dollars, which is a lot of money at that time when - - was that 19—when did they drill it? ’69? Was it that late? Something like that. ’69 or maybe even before that. I didn’t work too long on the first one. I went over to Parshall in ’71, so they were drilling, they’s still working on it then. Are there connections between the two bores (inaudible)? Oh yeah. Okay. I never could understand that this monorail – where was it going to go? They were talking about a monorail going up I-70 but when it hits the tunnels, what were they going to do? I don’t know. Yeah, they’s talking about doing another tunnel for traffic. See to start with, they drilled a (inaudible) years before that over way on the left side. It’s about nine by twelve; went all the way through, checking the rock out. Now when they drilled the first bore, the tunnel’s kind went over the cross-cut. Okay. So actually, you’ve got as much room up above as you got down below. It’s not exactly round, but it is about like that (gesturing). So when did you stop mining? When did you retire? I retired in ’62 on account of my back. When I was 62, not 1962. Let’s see, the last tunnel I worked on I guess was … ’76 I guess. I worked Parshall. That’s a long career in mining. You said you had a limited education; what level of high school or grade school did you … A little bit in the tenth. Tenth grade and that was it, huh? Yeah. Wow. Well, it’s certainly a way to make a living, but it looks like it’s a lot of hard work, too. Yeah, I liked it. A lot of guys do, you know. You never missed any (tape pauses) So you never got injured, never had any problems. No, nothing bad, no. Got teeth cracked off once is all, jumped off the jumbo and turned around and cracked my teeth on it. Oh, gosh. Is there any particular event during your career or here in Park County that really had a big impression on you? Of course, you were here, so you came here in ’56 so from a national perspective, there really wasn’t a whole lot going on. The Korean War was over, World War II was over. This was a pretty sleepy community at that point in time except for the Roberts Tunnel work, this area was pretty sleepy I would imagine. Oh yeah, they had a big trailer court up there, you know. Oh really? For workers? Yeah, but it was privately owned. You know if you go by, right before you get to Grant? Yeah. You see that green - I think it’s still green – house or shack on the right side? Yeah, right. Okay, that was all full of trailers. Some people rented, some people had houses. It’s outside of Grant. Some people stayed at Mooredale and rented. Okay and then when the Tunnel was then, everybody just scattered and did other things? Yeah, there’s nothing else going. This is me (pointing to a photo). I also worked Henderson over at Parshall. Henderson, okay. I’ve got a backhoe all the way through there. I had hooked onto a lokie and I was going to clean out the sides and stuff. I had a “brakie” (inaudible). This is me (pointing) – I was running a lay-down there. A lay-down machine? It’s like they do at these highways you know, over the concrete? Well, the same thing. Like a paver. Yeah, same thing. See I had all these controls there to control the concrete and the level and everything else, I run that and we had a big Cat diesel for power. You say you went into Denver; what kinds of things - - you went to movies and did you get your groceries there or do you mostly get your groceries up here? Yeah, most of the time in Denver. You know with four kids, we couldn’t afford to buy them up here. Yeah, that’s probably true. Actually a lot of people were - - and they’re still that same way because they got a grocery store, you just buy a few things here and that’s about it. And 285 was paved all the way to Denver at that time? Yeah. This is Don Cooler (pointing) but they all quit. Really? Oh when they quit, I did. What did you do Coors? Down there, I was still in the Labor union then. We tore one building down; they call them cellars and then we built a new one. When that was over with why, they just kept three or four of us and I was the only one they kept; they had to sweep under tanks and stuff and I said “No, that’s not for me,” so I just left. You really like mining. Yeah, I do, it was a good way for me to make a living. Yeah, exactly. I got … (flipping through photo album) Oh, I did get hurt up in Cabin Creek. This is 11-03 of ’63, “Eight men were injured in a dynamite blast at Cabin Creek Project.” You were actually here? Yeah, I’m the one that drilled into it. Drilled into what – dynamite? Yeah. Oh, that’s a bad problem! You actually drilled in and they had somebody put dynamite in the hole? Well, what happened - -a lot of times they would bootleg. You know if you drill 8 foot or (inaudible) they was drilling a lot that was pretty good size. (inaudible) twelve- foot round (inaudible) pull eight feet. You say pull eight feet - what do you mean? So he had four foot of holes left, but they were all smashed together; he didn’t know what they were. Okay, when I drilled into that, of course that straight shift has gotten in down was on that one shift, the shift that - - they would two 12-foot rounds of shift where we was drilling like eight-foot rounds, three shift, pull and everything. They were drilling two-twelves and they were pulling seven, eight feet. This was from two rounds before when I drilled into it because we’d have to go in and we had a - - we take water and when we bootleg it we wash all the holes out with water. Make sure there’s no “potter” or nothing. Okay we washed all the “pottery” and everything out. Right. And we drilled in this one; I pulled over to the left - I was on the left wing - I pulled over, went to drill a ??rip? hole - WHAM! Just blue lights! I still got rocks in my head and stuff and nicks from it. It drove rock into your head? Yeah, doctor said, “Some we’ll just leave them in there,” he said, “They’d do more damage to take them out.” That is probably the worst injury you had in your career? Yeah. Did it knock you out? No, it hurt my partner on the other side because it threw rock in his leg. It crumpled his legs all up, but they took us down to Colorado Springs in an ambulance! That’s before I-70 was even built. Oh really. Yeah and that road was so crooked and that ambulance driver was doing about 90 miles an hour; we thought we was all going to die in the ambulance! I see you were 46 years of age at that time. I’m 73 now. Interesting. Let’s see if there’s anything else that we haven’t really covered. I know- is that you? No, that’s Boulder. Know where the Boulder Tunnel is? No. Going out of Boulder up the - - yeah, you go straight through Boulder and go up through Nederland and that ways, there’s about a 300-foot tunnel? Really. Yeah. It’s a water tunnel again. Yeah – no, a highway tunnel. Oh really. Oh, this ain’t that – this is on the lay-down machine. I got newspaper clippings. I got another scrapbook that’s got a hell of a lot more in it. Great pictures. These are all Waterton…Yeah, I could have holed through on our shift. Holing through, is when the two tunnels - - see, when they got too close and they shut the other side down, so then we’d have to drill what they call a ?potter? hole like I was showing you through there to see how far it was ‘cause they didn’t know exactly. And out on graveyard shift, they told me they said,” Don’t hole that through.” I could have holed through on graveyard because we want this - - what’s his name – Roberts - - we want him to pull the trigger on the last round. Because they said, “If you pull the trigger or if you hole through on that last round,” he says, “That’s the last time you work in Colorado!” Oh! They really want to give that distinction to the guy whose name is on the tunnel. Yeah. Here’s - these is the folders - ’52, they put that highway tunnel in. Now these drills had water in them to keep the dust down. Yeah, this is a - - the big one is air line and the smaller one here is a water line. In your experiences over the years, what was the most difficult thing you did in your mind? Probably sinking shafts by hand. By hand! Like you did with a pick axe? Oh yeah, some of us at Jimtown, the Forest Fall mine, when things would run out, slow, why some of us would go over there and work. It wasn’t union but it was a job and worked over there. We went down – see they were down 600 feet when I started. Course, we run 5’ x 7’ drifts and stuff and then they was going deeper and we went down 130 feet and then they went down another 130 feet. Before, they were 100 feet between levels and we would have to drill about - - the shaft itself on the inside was 6’ x 12’. Okay. And half of it was manway ladders and the other half was from skip (inaudible) that went up and down and we shoot half of it at a time; drill half, go on off and work at night because just one shift. Then we come in the morning and muck that out by hand. You’re mucking a vertical shaft. Yeah. That’s got to be a whole lot harder. Oh yeah, it was! It was (inaudible) because too many would work down there and we had to muck it. You ever seen those old mine buckets? On a belt? Just the bucket with a hook that went like this (gesturing) Oh yeah. Okay, that’s what you mucked into. So that’s what you were working with. So was it on a cable and everything was (inaudible) when it was done. Yeah, it was on a cable; he drop it down, lay it down and one guy here and one guy here (gesturing) - there was three of us – and we muck into it. Sometimes it would take us five or six hours to muck it out. And he could take that bucket up and dump it in less than a minute and bring it back down for us. Then we’d have to hang oak timbers, things like that; it was a lot of hard work. Yeah, I would think that would be particularly difficult to go a vertical shaft like that. Oohh! I quit one time early – what tunnel or something - went back a couple of years later and guess where I went? Right back in the shaft. Nobody’d touched it! (laughter). End of Tape |
