Interview with Sloan Terrell

8/3/2019 Interview with Sloan Terrell

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Interview wittha N riCz"AFIELL

An Oral History conducted and edited byRobert D. McCracken

Nye County Town History ProjectNye County, Nevada

Tonopah1987


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COPYRIGHT 1990Nye County Town History ProjectNye County CommissionersTonopah, Nevada89049


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PrefaceviAcknowledgmentsviiiIntroductionCHAPTER (14E1Family beginnings; biking from B eatty, Nevada, to Petaluma,California; early days in W ashington and California; movingto Tonopah; enterprising youth; ethnic variety in Tonopah;the burros of Tonopah.CHAPTER TWO11Early jobs; the Weepa h boom; Solan's first car; Tonopah mines;boarding houses; working at Weepah.CHAPTER THREE25Rebuilding a mill at Millers; the Terrell venture at EdenCreek and the Eden Creek area; on building mills; desertsolitude.CHAPTER FOUR35Desert solitude continued; the Eden Creek area; the Reveillemill; a tungsten property.CHAPTER FIVE44A miner must be a dreamer; some mining mistakes; leasing inTonopah; silicosis.CHAPTER SIX54Mining in the Kawich; shipp ing ore; scrap metal for World War II.CHAPTER SEVE N65Kawich properties; working in Reno; joining the Navy; inCalifornia and Hawaii.CHAPTER EIGHT76The South Pacific; the atom bomb and thoughts on the invasionof Japan vis-a-vis today's protestors; home from the war andback in Tonopah; running a Ford agency.CHAPTER NINE87Working in Tonopah; back to mining; acquiring and transportinghouses; becoming a contractor.CHAPTER TEN96Rebuilding homes; a Justice of the Peace; renting property;memories of bomb tests; thoughts on inflation.iv


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CHAPTER ELEVEN105A Nye County Commissioner; thoughts on the State of Nevada; whySandia stayed in Tonopah.CHAPTER TWELVE114The education of a justice; typical cases.CHAPTER THIRTEEN124Views on law enforcement; problems with alcohol; Tonopah serviceclubs.CHAPTER FOURTEEN134Thoughts on Tonopah as a place to live; Tonopah's future;Sheriff Bill Thomas; politicians; Nevada characters; present-daymining.CHAPTER FIFTEEN145Delivering laundry; a Western Union messenger; selling firewood;"driving" over Westgaard Pass; working for Lambertucci; workingat Millers - a dangerous spot!CHAPTER SIXTEEN154Strong nen; scrounging for firewood; fixing fuel pumps; Englishcooking; Tonopah eateries.CHAPTER SEVENTEEN163Making money; taking Old Rudolph "fishing"; boys' life in thehills; the linotype operator.CHAPTER EIGHTEEN174The magazine rack; poverty and widows.Index178


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PREFACE

The Nye County Town History Project (NCTHP) engages in interviewingpeople who can provide firsthand descriptions of the individuals, events,and places that give history its substance. The products of this researchare the tapes of the interviews and their transcriptions.

In themselves, oral history interviews are not history. However,they often contain valuable primary source material, as useful in theprocess of historiography as the written sources to which historians havecustomarily turned. Verifying the accur acy of all of the statements madein the course of an interview would require more time and money than theNCTHP's operating budget permits. The program can vouc h that thestatements were made, but it cannot attest that they are free of error.Accordingly, oral histories should be read with the same prudence that thereader exercises when consulting government records, newspaper accounts,diaries, and other sources of historical information.

It is the policy of the NCTHP to produce transcripts that are asclose to verbatim as possible, but same alteration of the text isgenerally both unavoidable and desirabl e. When human speech is capturedin print the result can be a morass of tangled syntax, false starts, andincomplete sentences, sometim es verging on incoherency. The type fontcontains no symbols for the physical gestures and the diverse vocalmodulations that are integral parts of communication through speech.Experience shows that totally verbatim transcripts are often largelyunreadable and therefore a waste of the resources expended in theirproduction. While keeping alte rations to a minimum the NCTHP will,

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in preparing a text:a. generally delete false starts, redundancies and the uhs, ahs andother noises with which speech is often sprinkled;b. occasionally compress language that would be confusing to thereader in unaltered form;c. rarely shift a portion of a transcript to place it in its propercontext;d. enclose in [brackets] explanatory information or words that werenot uttered but have been added to render the text intelligible;a n de. make every effort to correctly spell the names of all individualsand places, recognizing that an occasional word may be misspelledbecause no authoritative source on its correct spelling was found.

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As project director, I would like to express my deep app reciation tothose who participated in the Nye County Town History Project (NCTHP). Itwas an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to obtain oralhistories from so many wonderful individuals. I was welcomed into manyhomes--in many cases as a stranger--and was allowed to share in therecollection of local h istory. In a number of cases I had the opp ortunityto interview Nye County residents wham I h ave known and admired since Iwas a teenager; these experiences were especially gratifying. I thank theresidents throughout Nye County and southern Nevada--too numerous tomention by name--who provided assistance, information, and photograph s.They helped make th e successful completion of this project possible.

Appreciation goes to Chairman Joe S. Garcia, Jr., Robert N. "Bobb y"Revert, and Patricia S. Mankins, the Nye County commissioners whoinitiated this project. Mr. Garcia and Mr. Revert, in particular, showeddeep interest and unyielding support for the project from its inception.Thanks also go to current commissioners Richard L. Carver and Ba rbara J.Raper, who have since joined Mr. Revert on the board and who havecontinued the p roject with enthusiastic support. Stephen T. Bradhurst,Jr., p lanning consultant for Nye County, gave unwavering support andadvocacy of the project within Nye County and b efore the State of NevadaNuclear Waste Project Office and the United States D epartment of Energy;both entities provided funds for this project. Thanks are also extendedto Mr. Bradh urst for his advice and input regarding the conduct of theresearch and for constantly serving as a sounding board whenmethodological problems were worked out. This project would never have

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become a reality without the enthusiastic support of the Nye Countycommissioners and Mr. Bradhurst.

Jean Charney served as administrative assistant, editor, indexer,and typist throughout the project; her services have been indispensable.Louise Terrell provided considerable assistance in transcribing many ofthe oral histories; Barbara Douglass also transcribed a number ofinterviews. Transcribing, typing, editing, and indexing were provided atvarious times by Alice Levine, Jodie Hanson, Mike Green, and CynthiaTremblay. Jared Charney contributed essential word processing skills.Maire Hayes, Michelle Starika, Anita Coryell, Michelle W elsh, LindsaySchumacher, and Jodie Hanson shouldered the herculean task of proofreadingthe oral histories. Gretchen Loeffler and Bambi McCracken assisted innumerous secretarial and clerical duties. Phillip Earl of the NevadaHistorical Society contributed valuable support and criticism throughoutthe project, and Tom King at the Oral History Program of the University ofNevada at Reno served as a consulting oral historian. Much deservedthanks are extended to all these persons.

All material for the NCTHP was prepared with the support of the U.S.Department of Energy, Grant No. DE-FG08-89NV10820. However, any opinions,findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those ofthe author and do not necessarily reflect the views of DOE.

--Robert D. McCrackenTonopah, NevadaJune 1990

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INTRODUCTION

Historians generally consider the year 1890 as the end of th eAmerican frontier. By then, most of the western United States had beensettled, ranches and farms developed, communities established, a nd roadsand railroads constructed. The mining boomtowns, based on the lure ofovernight riches from newly developed lodes, were but a memory.

Although Nevada was granted statehood in 1864, examination of any mapof the state from the l ate 1800s shows that wh ile much of the state wasmapped and its geographical features named, a vast region--stretching fromBelmont south to the Is Vegas meadows, comprising most of Nye County--remained largely unsettled and unmapped. In 1890 most of southcentralNevada remained very much a frontier, and it continued to be for at l eastanother twenty years.

The great mining booms at Tonopah (1900), Goldfield ( 1902), andRhyolite (1904) represent the last major flowering of what might be calledthe Old West in the United States. Consequently, southcentral Nevada,notably Nye County, remains close to the American frontier; closer,perhaps, than any other region of the A merican West. In a real sense, asignificant part of the frontier can still b e found in southcentralNevada. It exists in the attitudes, values, lifestyles, and memories ofarea residents. The frontier-like character of the area also is visiblein the relatively undisturbed quality of the natural environment, most ofit essentially untouched by human hands.

A survey of written sources on southcentral Nevada's history revealssome material from the boomtown period from 1900 to about 1915, but verylittle on the area after around 1920. The volume of available sources


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varies from town to town: A fair amount of literature, for instance, canbe found covering Tonopah's first two decades of existence, and the townhas had a newspaper continuously since its first year. In contrast,relatively little is known about the early days of Gabb s, Round Mountain,Manhattan, Beatty, Amargosa Valley, and Pahrump. Gabb s's only newspaperwas published intermittently between 1974 and 1976. Round Mountain's onlynewspaper, the Round M ountain Nugget, was published between 1906 and 1910.Manhattan ha d newspaper coverage for most of the years between 1906 and1922. Amargosa Vall ey has never had a newspaper; Beatty's independentpaper folded in 1912. Pahrump's first newspaper did not ap pear until1971. All six communities received only spotty coverage in the newspapersof other communities after their own papers folded, although Beatty wasserved by the Beatty Bulletin, which was published as a supplement to theGoldfield News between 1947 and 1956. Consequently, most information onthe history of southcentral Nevada after 1920 is stored in the memories ofit who are still living.

Aware of Nye County's close ties to our nation's frontier past, andrecognizing that few written sources on local h istory are available,especially after a bout 1920, the Nye County Commissioners initiated theNye County Town History Project (NCTHP). The NCTHP represents an effortto systematically collect and preserve information on the history of NyeCounty. The centerpiece of the NCTHP is a large set of interviewsconducted with individuals who had knowledge of local history. Eachinterview was recorded, transcribed, a nd then edited ligh tly to preservethe language and speech patterns of those interviewed. Al l oral h istoryinterviews have been printed on acid-free pap er and bound and archived inNye County libraries, Special Collections in the James R. Dickinson

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Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a t other archivalsites located throughout Nevada. The interviews vary inlength and detail, but together they form a never-before-availablecomposite picture of each community's life and development. Thecollection of interviews for each community can be compared to a bouq uet:Each fl ower in the bouquet is unique--some are large, others are small--yet each adds to the total image. In sum, the interviews provide acomposite view of community and county history, revealing the flow of lifeand events for a part of Nevada that has heretofore been largely neglectedby historians.

Collection of the oral histories has been accompanied by theassembling of a set of p hotographs depicting each community's history.These pictures have been obtained from participants in the oral historyinterviews and other present and past Nye County residents. In all, morethan 700 photos have been collected a nd carefully identified. Completesets of the photographs have been archived along with the oral histories.

On the basis of the oral interviews as well as existing writtensources, histories have been prepared for the major communities in NyeCounty. These histories also have been a rchived.

The town history project is one component of a Nye County program todetermine the socioeconomic impacts of a federal proposal to build andoperate a nuclear waste repository in southcentral Nye County. Therepository, which would be located inside a mountain (Yucca Mountain),would be the nation's first, and possibly only, p ermanent disposal sitefor high-l evel radioactive waste. The Nye County Board of CountyCommissioners initiated the NCTHP in 1987 in order to collect informationon the origin, history, traditions, and quality of life of Nye County

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communities that may be impacted by a repository. If the repository isconstructed, it will remain a source of interest for hundreds, p ossiblythousands, of years to come, and future generations will likely want toknow more about the people who once resided near the site. In the eventthat government p olicy changes and a high-level nuclear waste rep ositoryis not constructed in Nye County, materia l compiled by the NCTHP willremain for the use and enjoyment of all.

--R.D.M.


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Ro b e r t M c Cr a c k e n i n t e r v i e w i ng S o l a n Te r r e l l a t h i s h o m e i n To n o p a h , Ne v a d aOctober 16 and 19 and November 3, 4, and 22, 1987CHAPTER ONE

R M : S o la n , co u ld y o u s t a t e y o u r f u ll n a m e a n d y o u r a g e a n d bi r t h d a t e a n dbi r t h p la ce .S T : M y n a m e i s S o l a n C h e s t e r T e r r e ll. I w a s bo r n J u ly 13, 1916, i nM o n t e s a n o , W a s h i n g t o n . M y f a t h e r 's n a m e w a s C ly d e a n d m y m o t h e r 's n a m e w a sK i t t i e .R M : W h a t w a s y o u r m o t h e r ' s m a i d e n n a m e ?S T : W h e e l e r .R M : C o u ld y o u t e ll m e a li t t le bi t a bo u t y o u r f a t h e r ?S T : I d o n ' t r e m e M b e r w h e n h e w a s b o r n ( I ' m t e r r i b l e a b o u t d a t e s ) . H e w a sborn in Greenville , California, whic h is 70 or 80 miles northwest of Reno.Hi s f a t h e r w o r k e d i n t h e f o r e s t . M y f a t h e r h a d a n o l d e r s i s t e r n a m e dH a ze l. M y g r a n d m o t h e r , h i s m o t h e r , d i e d , a n d m y f a t h e r 's f a t h e r w a s ki lle din an accident out in the forest. M y f a t h e r a l w a y s b e l i e v e d t h a t s o m e b o d yh a d ki lle d h i m ; h e w a s n e v e r s u r e o f t h a t . W h e n t h e f a t h e r d i e d , t h et o w n s p e o p le o f G r e e n v i lle t o o k u p a co lle ct i o n . T h e y g o t a f a i r ly la r g esum of money for that time, and Aunt Hazel, his sister, went to stay withtheir paternal grandmother, who lived in Oakland. M y f a t h e r w a s s e n t t oTuscarora, Nevada, which is north of Elko, to stay with the grandmother ont h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h e f a m i l y . He w a s a b o u t 7 , I t h i n k , w h e n t h i s h a p p e n e d- 6 o r 7. A n d h e s p e n t p r o ba bly - o h , u n t i l h e w a s a bo u t 17 o r 18, Ib e l i e v e - i n Tu s c a r o r a .

When he was in Tuscarora he went as far as the 5th grade in school.He quit school and went to work for a fellow who had, and published, theT u s ca r o r a T i m e s . H i s n a m e w a s P e g le g P lu n ke t t ; h e o n ly h a d o n e le g . M yf a t h e r w a s r a i s e d i n t h e m o u n t a i n s . H e lo v e d N e v a d a f o r t h e o p e n n e s s , a n d

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he was very interested in mining, b ut of course he was a very young man.When Tonopah was discovered in 1902 (now, I might have the years mixed up ,but . . .) h e walked from Tuscarora to Tonopah in the wintertime. Ibelieve he was 17. I wouldn't want to walk it today.RM: Really.ST: Terrible weather. And he always remembered that when he was walkingdown Smoky Valley he could see this b ig plume of steam which was D arrough's.RM: Yes - the Darrough's Hot Springs.ST: He never did forget that. But he came to Tonopah, a nd went to work ona water wagon that hauled water from Frazier's Wells to Tonopah. Frazier'sis north of Tonopah about 9 miles. They had a spring out there. There wasa building out there, and a fellow had more or less homesteaded there. Sohe went in the water business, and my dad d rove this team in town with awater tank on back, and th ey sold it by the b ucket around town.

He stayed less than a year, then he went back to Tuscarora. AndTuscarora had more or less fallen upon hard times, so ab out a year later -once again in the winter - he rode a horse named Black Bart down toTonopah.

The boom had started in Beatty and Bullfrog, so he went down there andwas working for the newsp aper down there. He was about 20 or 21 by then.He'd already net my mother . . . I've forgotten the circumstances. Hestayed in Beatty for awhile, and h e would ride a bicycle from Beatty downto Petaluma, California.RM: He rode a bicycle clear to there. Good lord!ST: He certainly did. [chuckl es] He said he pushed it more than he rod eit. Anyway, he and my mother finally got married, and he brough t her toBeatty. They were there for a couple of yea rs and then the bottom fell out

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of the boom down there, on account of the earthquake in San Francis co.That's where all the money was coined, and everythin g dried up.

There was a family that lived in Beatty by the name of Redd enbaugh.And she gave birth to a baby girl - Muriel - the first white chil d born inBeatty. Then my mother gave birth to my sister Clydene, who was the secondwhite child born there. This was around the time of the earthquake.

Then they went to California. My oldest brother, Donald, was b ornsomewhere in the Bay Area. From California they moved to Monosano,Washington, and my father was working for a newspaper up ther e and he wastrying to invent things. He invented a chicken brooder. He loved to makeor invent things. My other brother, Starle, and I were born in Montesano.Then they moved down to Colusa, California - I think I was about a year old- and my father went to work for the Colusa Daily Sun.RM: Now, where's Colusa?ST: It's about 35 miles northwest of Marysville, out in the rice and prunearea. We stayed there; my father bought a little piece of land and buil t ahouse. And in 1925, when the Gilbert boom was really going, he got allexcited about mining once again, and decided to come back to Tonopah. Sohe and my brother Starle came to Tonopah. And my dad had a truck - it hadhard rubber tires, I believe, and gas lamps - it was a Vim. I'll bet younever heard of it.RM : No , I h a v e n ' t .ST: Oh, what a cantankerous old truck. Anyway, they came to Tonopah, andmy dad worked for a stockbroker - a big, heavyset, florid guy. M y dad wentto work for him, selling stock. And the Gilb ert was really hot; you couldsell stock to all these idiots coming in town, and he made a little chunkof money.

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After about a year, he came back dow n to Colusa, bought a 1925Chevrolet touring car and load ed the whole family into it; all but mysister. She was living in Oakland, going to school. (My brother Starlestayed in Tonopah.) My mother, my dad, and my older b rother Don, and Icane to Tonopah. We went over to Bakersfield, up through that way. Wecame over Westgard Pass - in January! We got up to the top of WestgardPass and it got dark. Of course, the old car didn't have a heater. It wasa touring car, with side curtains on it. I don't think I was ever so coldin my life. Anyway, we stayed up on top of Westgard that night and Ithought I was going to freeze. Oh, my Lord. Well, the next day - I don'tknow how we ever got down those terrible, narrow roads. My father was notwhat you'd call a superb driver.

We got into Tonopah fairly late in the afternoon, and he'd alreadybought a house in Tonopah. The woman next door on one side was namedNelson, and I think her husband had died. She had 2 daughters. And afellow by the name of Al Silver and his wife lived on the other side. AlSilver was a mining man. We lived there for quite awhile, and that was myfirst appearance in Tonopah. The very next morning I got up, and I'd neverseen a burro in my life. I got up and I was walking around, and there wasthis burro walking down the street. I think I was 9 years old, going on10. I tried to catch this b urro. And the burro ran d own the street - downtowards the high school, which is now Barsanti Park. And he went throughthis gate into a yard. Well, I was in the yard trying to get this burroout, and this kid came out, and he wanted to know what I was doing. Ididn't know who he was, he didn't know who I was. [chuckles] And I said,Well, I'm going to take this burro."

And he said, "You're not. This is my burro. That burro belongs to

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re."And I said, "I don't know you own this burro."He said, "Well, I'm telling you I own the burro."That was the first boy I net in Tonopah. His name was Jimmie Donahue.

[sounds like Dun-a-who] His house is still standing down there where AlVilcheck lives.

Lloyd Eason was th e next boy I met.RM: Well, can we back up a here? Tell me a little bit about your mother.ST: Well, it's strange. I really don't know too much About my mother.Her father was a carpenter - a cabinet maker. Her parents lived inPetaluma, California. My grandf ather died; I never did know him. But hermother used to come to Colusa and visit with us. I remember helping hermake decorations for the Christmas trees - stringing cranberries and . .She loved to make patchwork quilts, and she always h ad me hold my finger onwhen she tied the knots. I think sh e died when I about 6, so my memory ofmy mother's family is pretty faint.

My mother was born in Polermo, California. I took her and my fatherdown one time - she wanted to go down to this town. And it wa s such adisappointment to her, because she'd left there when she was a girl - shehadn't b een back in 50 years, I guess. I took my fa ther to Greenville onetime; the same thing. E verybody he'd known except one person had gone ordied, and h e was so despondent for a coupl e of days. It pays not to goback when you leave when you're young.RM: Yes; it's not the same when you go back. Did you start school here,then?ST: I started in - I think it was the 4th grade. E thel Robb was the firstteacher I had. She eventually married Tam McCullough, wh o was the Justice

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of the Peace here for years and years. And then I went to work . . .I should go back a little bit. My father was buying some gold cl aims

out at Eden Creek, and he was trying to promote them, main ly throughwriting letters - you know, mailing l etters to people. I don't know wherehe got the lists - maybe through his association with this stockb roker -and I used to help him run the j ob press; I'd feed it. I had to stand on abox, almost, to do it. That was my first introduction into working innewspapers.

Then I'd sell papers on the side and . . . There were different wayskids could make money. We'd sc out around and find whiskey bottles and sellthan to the bootleggers. There were about 6 or 8 bootleggers in town who'dbuy all the bottl es you could get. Jimmie Donahue and I were partners inthis business, because he knew all the Irish guys in town. We'd go aroundto their houses about every month or so and col lect the bottles that theyhad bought. We got 10 cents, I think, for a pin t bottle. And fo r a quartbottle I think we got 15. We'd get a gunny sack and go around and collec tthese bottles and sell them. Then you could sell cardboard boxes to thebakery - 5 cents for a small one and 10 cents for a bigger one. Becausethey were packing and shipping bread around the country.RM: They were making bread at the bakery .ST: Oh, yes. Fine French bread. And then, you could always sell gunnysacks to the water company. They would use them around the meters in thewinter time. You could sell scrap lumber. Old man Donahue had 2 trucks.One was a Federal, and one was a Republic; they had hard rubber tires onthem. I was probably 10, 11, maybe 12, and Jimmie and I would get one ofhis old trucks and we'd get it started and we'd go out to Divide. We'dstart tearing down sheds and we'd bring in a load of old boards, and we'd

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sell than to people for $5 a load. That was a lot of money.RM: What did your father do for a living at that t ime?ST: There were 2 newspapers in town: the Tonopah Bonanza and the TonopahTimes. I think he worked at the Tonopah Time s for Frank Garside. Infact, Frank Garside bought a newspaper in Vegas. He owned the ReviewJournal. He bought it in ' 31, I think, and moved to Vegas with his family,and he was appointed postmaster - he was postmaster in Las Vegas for year sand years. Frank was a very, very fine man. And my dad worked for him inbetween mining deals. Mining deals never paid off very well.R M : S o h e was still interested in mining.ST: Oh, yes, you bet. That was the love of his life, and he was the most- what's a good word to describe him - ineffectual min er, I would say, inthe world. A lot of heart, and a lot of get-up-and-go, but he didn't knowanything about mining; didn't know anything.RM: Tell me some more about what it was like to be a kid in the '20s inTonopah.ST: Well, I've discussed this with some of the old-timers that are stillleft. During the present age there's so much notoriety and so much writingabout people discriminating against people. When we were kids, there wasno such thing. I went to school with Indians, Mexicans, Serbians,Finlanders, Irish, Cousin Jack - you name it. And we were all just poor aschurch mice; everybody was poor. And I didn't look down upon somebodybecause he was an Indian or a Serbian or . . . We calle d the Serbiansbohunks and we called the Finlanders Finns, but it was a friendlyrelationship. I'm of English descent, and once in awhile they'd call me aLimey, or something. But we were all good friends; the ones who are stillalive are still good friends. Nowadays everyb ody is up in arms because

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they're being discriminated against. If they were al l poor at the sametime, I don't think they'd have that problem.RM: Did each ethnic group have its own part of town?ST: No, they were . . . the Serb ians, for awhile, had places up in WaterStreet; and so did the Mexicans. And there was a l ittle Indian camp northof the foundry, up in there. And most of the Finlanders were single, andthey had 2 Finnish boarding houses in town. And there were a couple ofboarding houses for the Cousin Jacks. But they associated together asfriends. They all worked in the mines, and there was never any of this:You're a . . . you're a bohunk," or "you're a wop," or "you'r e an Indian,"or "a Mexican." Everybody was alike, and never did think about a personbeing a different nationality. Maybe if I'd have had $10,000 I might havethought about it, but I didn't have $10,000. [chuckles] I was lucky I hadcardboard in my shoes!RM: Do you think that was true of the adults, too?ST: Yes. You had to work together in the m ines and the mills. And youcouldn't work with somebody you didn't like.1(: Yes, you'd get hurt.ST: If you hated him, or he hated you, down there . . . They were all goodfriends. They more or less socialized separately, you know. The Mexicanfamilies would go with the Mexican families, but . . . Gee, some of thefinest people in the world were b orn and raised in Tonopah. Of allnationalities.RM: Were there Italians?ST: Yes. I think for awhile the greatest collection were Cousin Jacks.And there were a few Finlanders, quite a few Serbians, and a lot ofMexicans. When you get thinking about it, they were pretty well all

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balanced out.RM: Could you say some more about what it was like to be a kid in the'20s?ST: We had a lot of fun. Our great pastime was riding burros.RM: Were there burros running loose all over town?ST: Yes, but they were all owned by kids. Jimmie Donahue's burro wascalled Goldfield Babe. As mean and cantankerous an animal as was ever bornwas a burro. If they couldn't bite you, they'd kick. If they couldn't dothat, they'd roll on you.RM: [laughs] Well, did the owner feed them, or . . .?S T: Ga r b a g e c a n s .RM: They just kind of - scavenged.S T: Y e s . D o w n a t t h e d u m p . Y e s ; t h e y s c a v e n g e d . Y o u k n o w , a b u r r o i slike a coyote. He can live anywhere; he can survive anywhere. Where anyother animal would sta rve to death in 30 days, a burro'll get fat.[laughter] A oyote's the same way. They're natural for the desert; theyreally work.

I would safely s ay there were 40 or 50 burros running loose inTonopah. And they were always having c olts. Goldfield had the same thing.The kids in Goldfield would come to Tonopah at night and st eal the Tonopahburros and ride them back to Goldfield. The Tonopah kids would go overthere and steal them and bring them back. The kids in Goldfield andTonopah were almost mortal enemies. If you went to Goldfield, you wentwith a group. And you didn't slowdown - you just kept moving as you went.RM: Otherwise, you'd get in a fight?ST: Oh, yes. The jealousy of the towns was interesting.RM: What was school like?

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ST: School was very strict. In fact, I think the greatest mistake thecountry's ever made was to allow all these diffe rent things in the schools.When we went to school you were taught certain subjects for 8 years. Yourbasic subjects that you need to survive: reading, writing, arithmetic,spelling, history, and geography. You had that year after year after year.And maybe you weren't the best speller , or the best adder, or the besthistorian, or anything, but you knew it. And when you went into highschool, then you stepped up to different things. Nowadays, kids are takingart when they're in the 3rd and 4th grades - can't read or write.

But I always wanted to work because I like money. Money buys things.My brother, Starle, was working for the Western Union. They had an officedowntown, just down below where the Mizpah is now. He wanted to go up toSalt Lake to the Citizens' Military Training Camp. They took young kidsfrom about 15 or 16 on up, and it was lik e a boot c amp - in the army. Sohe went up there, and I took his job for him while he was gone. This wasin the summer.RR: About what year would that have been?ST: It'd be when I was in - maybe in the 7th or 8th grade. I shoulddigress back before that.

The first job I had in Tonopah that was on a weekly wage was at theMizpah Hotel for Rube Kelly, the man who owned it. Be was a machinist. Infact, he was partners at Campbell and Kelly at the foundry. Down in thebasement of the hotel they had a laundry for the rooming houses an d theboarding houses and the restaurants and so forth. They would washtablecloths, sheets - all that stuff. Be had 4 or 5 young women workingdown there for him, and he had to have somebody to pick up and deliverthese things. So I got that job, and it paid $5 a week. It took me about

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2 hours a day to do it.RM: Did you have a delivery wagon?ST: No, I had to pack the darn fool th ings. Some were heavy. And therewere about 5 or 6, 7 cafes in town, and qu ite a few rooming hou ses, and afew private individuals whose laundry he'd do. There was quite a tour,walking up these hills carrying these big bundl es. I worked there forquite awhile . .

CHAPTER TWO

ST: Anyway, I had that job c arrying that laundry, and the Weepah boom cameon, and to me it was the most amazing spectacle of my life.RM : Y e s . No w , w h e r e i s We e p a h? Fo r t h e r e c o r d?ST: It was between here and Silver Peak, which would be kind of southwest- mainly west, on the other side of Lone Mountain. Peopl e came in here -they walked in, they rode horses in, they came on the train, the y came onstages - the town was absolutely jam-pack ed with people. And the MizpahHotel was jam-packed. Rube Kell y had a big, heavy-set old man who was thedesk clerk, and the elevator was self-operated - you'd push the lever oneway to go up, and one way to go down. He talk ed to me one day; he wantedto hire me to run his el evator. And gosh , I was only abo ut 10. I had theother job, but he was going to pay $10 a week . . . that was $15 a week I'dbe making. So I said, "Oh, I'll be glad to do it." I'd leave school,hustle down, deliver the laundry, pick it up, then I'd come home and eat,change, go down and run the elevator for 3 hours. It got to be that I wasrunning myself to death with the laundry.

So I decided to buy a car. There was an old fellow - an old Irishman -

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diagonally south of the courthouse, ab out 3 streets back. He had a Model Tpickup in the backyard that was up on blocks. Jimmie Donahue knew the oldguy, and he said, "Well, let' s go up and talk to him." So we went to hisdoor, and the old guy's wondering what we wanted. (We were always askingfor whiskey bottles.)

And he said, "What do you guy s want?"I said, "Like to sell that old Model T out there?""I don't know," he said. "I've had that a long time. I don't know.

How much you give me for it?"I said, "Well, I don't know. How much you want for it?" I was

dickering even then.He said, "Would yo u give me $5 for it?"I said, "Yes, I'll gi ve you $5."He said, "You got the money on you?"I said, "Yeah, I got it." So I dug out $5. (I went prepared, in case

he wanted to sell it.) Well, the old Model T didn't have a radiat or. Itdidn't have tires on it. I got it up to my house somehow - I think my dadtowed it up, or something. And there I am with a pic kup; no tires, noradiator. So Donahue and I . . . do you know the Ford garage right back ofwhere Dr. Dees has that building down there where Coleman's is?R M : Y e s .ST: Well, they had a warehouse out in back - the one that the mortuaryuses now. And they had all this stuff in there - old parts and things.So one night Jimmie and I went down there. We crawled in through the holesin the galvanized iron, and we got 4 tires, 4 tubes, and a radiator. Wegot the tires on it. They weren't very good, but they were b etter than theones that were on it! We put the radiator on it, but the engine wouldn't

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turn over. So I said, "Oh, Lord." I took the h ead off, and water had rundown the sparkplugs, and it h ad rusted the rings to the cylinder walls.And I thought, " Oh, I'll never get this thing running." So I made a roundblock of wood that fit right down in the cylinder. I would whack it withthe singlejack on top of the piston. And that didn't work, so I filledthem all with 1/2 inch of oil, and I let it sit there, and every time I'dgo by I'd put that block in there to whack it 3 or 4 times. I finallybroke them loose. God knows what kind of shape the rings were in - thecylinder wall. I put the head b ack on it, and got it running. So that wasmy laundry truck. I'd deliver laundry real fast, and I had a little bit ofspare time before I went to work. The Weepah boom lasted . . . about 2months, I guess he kept me on the elevator.

And I'll never forget a promoter in there by the name of Volmer. Hewas very famous, out at Silver Peak. Old Fred Vol mer would come to town alot, because he was p romoting stock; he'd been making himself some money.And I went up there one day. The deskman said , "Terrell, come over here.You've got to take th is up to F red Volmer in Room 212."

He had a suit that ha d been pressed, and a nice white shirt that hadbeen ironed and everything. So h e told me what room, and I went up on theelevator and went down to the door and knocked on the door and old F redsaid, "Come on in."

I went in. I said, "Mr. Volmer, here's the suit and shirt.""Oh, fine; fine. Thank you, boy." And he had a big pile of change on

the dresser. He just reached over and got a handful of it and said,'Here's a tip for you." I had both my hands out; he had a big hand. Hegave me almost a $5 tip - quarters, dimes, nickels. No p ennies in thosedays. I thought that was the brightest man ever born.

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RM: People didn't use pennies in those days?ST: Oh, no; we never saw pennies. What was there to use them for? Therewere no taxes . .

I thought Volmer was the greatest man in the world, up till the day hedied; I really did. That was pretty impressive to a kid, to get about a $5tip.RM: Well, what were you doing with all th is money?ST: I was putting it in the postal savings. When I graduated out of highschool, I had almost $200 in it. I spent a little bit, to o, you know,going to the movies. I had money to go to the movies - 15 cents for amovie, and when you went you'd wa nt to buy candy.

Well, anyway, after that I went to work down at the Times running ajob press.RM: Again, this is after school and summers.ST: Yes, after school. I went to work for Frank Garside feeding jobpress. I'd get 25 cents an hour for that, which wasn' t much, but it keptchange in my pocket.RM: Yes, it kept you in movie money.ST: Yes, it really did. We'd try and sneak in the movies to avoid payingthe 15 cents.RM: Yes. That was the old Butler's Theater, wasn't it?ST: The old Butler. There was one down the street, but it was closed -the Liberty Theater.RM: Where was it located?ST: Down there just about where Giggle Springs is now.RM: Was it closed when you came to town?ST: Yes. There was hardly enough to support the one, I think.

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RM : Wa s t h e r e a lo t o f m i n i n g a ct i v i t y i n t h e '20s?S T : E v e r y m i n e i n T o n o p a h o f a n y c o n s e q u e n c e w a s w o r k i n g . W h e t h e r i t wasproducing or not, they were working.RM : Co u ld y o u r u n t h r o u g h t h e m i n e s , a n d t e ll m e a li t t l e bi t a bo u t t h e m?S T : I ' m t r y i n g t o t h i n k . T h e r e was t h e Ext e n s i o n , w h i ch was t h e b i g o n ed o w n be lo w t o w n . Th e y h a d a n e le ct r i c t r o lle y f r o m t h e m i n e u p t o t h eE x t e n s i o n m i l l . I t was a bi g m i ll s i t t i n g r i g h t d o w n t h e r e a cr o s s f r o mt h a t g a s s t a t i o n ; I d o n 't k n o w w h a t s t r e e t i t i s . Th e n t h e r e was a m i l lbe h i n d i t ca lle d t h e We s t En d m i ll . Th e We s t En d m i n e was ju s t o n t h eo t h e r s i d e o f t h e mill. Th e No r t h S t a r u p o n t h e h i ll - t h e bi g o n e u p o nt h e b i g dump . .RM: The big one up on the hil l where the dumps t h a t a r e le v e l u p t h e r e?S T : Y e s . T h a t was w o r k i n g . D o w n b e l o w i t w a s t h e M o n t a n a . I t h a d a b i gm i l l . T h e r e was a m i ll d o w n by t h e f o u n d r y w e ca lle d t h e . . . I ca n 'tremeMber the name of that, b ut there was a mill d o w n t h e r e .R M : T h e r e w e r e mills a ll o v e r , w e r e n 't t h e r e?S T : A h u g e mill down at Millers that the ore was g o i n g t o by r a i l f r o m t h eM i zpa h .R M : N o w w h e r e ' s t h e M i z p a h m i n e ?S T : T h a t ' s t h a t s t e e l h e a d f r a m e u p t h e r e . T h e B e l m o n t , o n t h e o t h e r s i d eof the hill, on the north - on the east si de of that mountain - they had ahuge mill out there.RM .: Ye s . Th a t 's t h e o n e a cr o s s f r o m t h e B u cke y e .ST: Yes. The one over by where Fred Ketten has his lumber yard - that wast h e (o h , I ca n 't r e m e M be r t h e n a m e o f t h a t ). An d t h e B u cke y e w a s w o r ki n g .An d t h e Re s cu e - Eu la h was w o r ki n g .RM.,: Where was that?

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S T: Th a t 's t h a t bi g d u m p r i g h t a lo n g s i d e t h e h i g h w a y ju s t be f o r e y o u g e tu p t o t h e s u m m i t . A n old fellow named Frank Rapp promoted that.RM : Wh a t a bo u t t h e m i n e w h e r e t h e S i lv e r Qu e e n M o t e l i s . . . t h a t d u m pt h a t 's . . .S T : O h , t h a t w a s t h e J i m B u t l e r .RM: Was that Jim Butler's original mine?S T : No. Th a t w a s t h e M i zpa h . B u t i t w a s n a m e d a f t e r Ji m B u t l e r .RM : An d t h e M i zpa h m i n e i s lo ca t e d be h i n d . . .S T : B e h i n d t h e w a t e r c o m p a n y . T h a t w a s t h e b i g p r o d u c e r . T h a t ' s t h e o n ewhere the veins came to the surface.

RM : An d t h a t 's w h e r e t h e y m a d e t h e o r i g i n a l d i s co v e r y .S T: Th e n t h a t o n e . . . w i t h t h e li t t l e h e a d f r a m e w a s t h e S i lv e r To p.Th e r e m u s t 'v e be e n a t le a s t a d o ze n m i n e s w o r ki n g d o u ble . Th e y w e r e a llw o r ki n g . A lo t o f t h e m w e r e n 't pr o d u ci n g , t h o u g h .RM : We r e t h e y e xplo r a t i o n , o r pr o m o t i o n , o r w h a t?S T : S t o c k s . S t o c k p r o m o t i o n . T h e r e w e r e 3 o r 4 d o w n b y t h e c e m e t e r y .The Extension mine was just a stock promotion.RM : Di d t h e s e m i n e s e v e r pr o d u ce , o r w e r e t h e y ju s t s t o ck pr o m o t i o n f r o mja y o n e?ST: The Extension - today it'd probably be one God-awful silver mine.R M : W h y i s n ' t i t w o r k i n g ?S T: We ll, t h e y h i t t h e i r f i r s t o r e o n t h e Ext e n s i o n (I could be wrong)around 1600, 1700 feet. Big, flat veins - good ore. An d w h e n t h e m i n eclosed do wn in 1930 or '31 there were still big fl at veins of good o r e d o w nere, but the Extension had a terrible water problem - they had a hardtime keeping the water down so they could w o r k t h e m i n e . T h e y h a d b i gCornish pumps - the big pist on pumps - and they had to lower those down to

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t h e w a t e r le v e l, a n d t h e y 'd pu m p t h e w a t e r o u t . Th a t 's t h e r e a s o n t h e y h a dthe swimming pool down there, originally - because of the warm water camingo u t o f t h e m i n e .R M : I t w a s w a r m w a t e r ?S T : I t w a s h o t w a t e r . I t c r e a t e d a l o t o f t r o u b l e w i t h t h e m i n e r s ,b e c a u s e t h e y ' d g e t b o i l s , l i k e . T h e w a t e r w a s r e a l h o t . Y o u c o u l d p u ty o u r h a n d i n i t , bu t i t w a s v e r y u n co m f o r t a ble . An d t h e y h i t s po t s d o w nthere where they had bulkheaded the drift off completely, to keep the waterfrom coming into the shaft, they had so muc h water.RM : Yo u s a y t h e y d i d n ' t h i t o r e u n t i l 1500?ST: 1500, 1600.RM : Ho w w o u ld t h e y s i n k t h a t d e e p, S o la n?S T : S e l l i n g s t o c k . B u t o n c e t h e y h i t t h e o r e . . .RM : Di d t h e y t h i n k t h e y h a d o r e t h e r e , o r w a s i t ju s t a f ly e r?ST: A f ly e r , be ca u s e . . . a ct u a lly , a li t t le bi t w e s t o f t h e M i zpa h v e r yfew of the mines produced.RM : Oh , w e s t o f t h e M i zpa h t h e r e w a s n 't m u c h o r e?S T : Y e s . T h e r e w a s h a r d l y a n y o r e s o u t h o f M a i n S t r e e t . A f a u l t g o e salmost up alongside of the main street - a big faul t that cut the orebodies off. Now, the Rescue-Eulah up there was a stock promotion. Thiso ld g u y , Fr a n k Ra pp, w a s a m i n i n g e n g i n e e r . He s t u d i e d i t - t h e g e o lo g i ca lmaps they had at time with the mines and that, and he figured that thesev e i n s w e r e cu t o f f . An d n o o n e co u ld s w e a r i f i t w a s po s t-m i n e r a l o r pr e -m i n e r a l. He f i g u r e d t h e y w e r e po s t - m i n e r a l, a n d o t h e r s e g m e n t s w o u ld be o nt h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h a t f a u lt . In f a ct , i f y o u g o ba ck a n d r e a d t h e o ldpapers, about every month or so he predic ted he was going to . . . he'df i n d li t t le bi t s o f o r e a n d li t t l e s e a m s a n d t h a t . He w a s g o i n g t o f i n d

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t h e bi g bo n a n za , bu t n e v e r d i d . Th e B u cke y e d i d n 't pr o d u ce h a r d lya n y t h i n g , e i t h e r . Ju s t li t t le s t r i n g e r s a n d . . .RM : Th a t 's a d e e p s h a f t u p t h e r e by t h e B u cke y e , i s n 't i t?S T : V e r y d e e p , y e s . L e t s o n B a l i e t t e w a s t h e o n e w h o p r o m o t e d t h a t .R M : D i d t h e y h i t w a t e r u p t h e r e ?ST: No. The Belmont had a little bit of water in the bottom of it; that'sa l l . T h e E x t e n s i o n w a s t h e o n e . .RM : Th e w a t e r w a s d o w n be lo w t h e Ext e n s i o n ?S T : Y e s .RM : If y o u w e n t o n d o w n f r o m t h e Ext e n s i o n w o u ld t h e w a t e r b e d o w n t h e r e ,t o o?S T : O h , I t h i n k s o .RM: What did the ore look like? And, was it in veins, or . . .?ST: In veins. When a vein occurs - when the earth moves - it's like ith a s 2 w a lls o n i t . An d e v e r y t i m e t h e e a r t h w o u ld m o v e , t h e m o r e t h es o lu t i o n w o u ld co m e o u t . Th e To n o pa h o r e w a s i n w h i t e q u a r t z, a n d t h epr e d o m i n a n t s i lv e r w a s s i lv e r s u lf i d e , w h i ch i s bla ck. Th e r e w e r e a lo t o fca s e s w h e r e t h e y w o u ld f i n d r u by s i lv e r a n d h o r n s i l v e r . Ho r n s i lv e r i sg r e e n ; r u by s i lv e r i s r e d . An d i n a co u ple o f t h e m - I t h i n k t h e B e lm o n tand the Mizpah - they had places where they had a lot of both, along with-h e s i lv e r s u lf i d e . An d t h e o n ly w a y t h e y co u ld t r e a t t h e To n o pa h o r e s w a sw i t h cy a n i d e . Th e cy a n i d e d i s s o lv e d t h e s i lv e r , a n d t h e y co u ld r e co n v e r tt h a t ba ck i n t o s i lv e r t h r o u g h u s i n g z i n c. Y o u r u n t h e s o lu t i o n s o v e r zi n c,a n d i t s t i cks t o t h e zi n c. Th e n t h e y h a d t o s m e lt i t a n d s e pa r a t e i t , t o o .RM : S o i n a ll t h e s e m i lls t h e y m i lle d i t d o w n a n d t h e n cy a n i d e d i t?S T : O h , y e s . H u g e w o o d t a n k s . O l d s t a m p m i l l s ; t h e y w e r e a l l b i g s t a m p

. . ba t t e r i e s o f 5 - t h e r e 'd be 5 s t a m ps t o a ba t t e r y . I t h i n k t h e

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Extension, the one of Millers and the Belmont were about the same size.Th e y w e r e h u g e . An d w h e n t h e y w e r e r u n n i n g , t h e t o w n m o r e o r le s sv i br a t e d .RM: Yes, I think I read that one Millers mill had 100 stamps.S T : I t h i n k i t d i d . I t w a s a h u g e a m o u n t .R M : H o w d i d t h e y p o w e r t h e s t a m p s ?S T : W e l l , I w o u l d s a y o r i g i n a l l y b y s t e a m . T h e n w h e n p o w e r c a n i n , t h e yw e n t t o e le ct r i ci t y . It w a s a h e ll o f a lo t ch e a pe r t o u s e e l e ct r i ci t ythan to go out and buy wood and coal a nd stoke a big old steam bo iler - bigbelts, and everything.RM : Wh a t w a s t h e r a n g e o f v e i n s i n t e r m s o f w i d t h?ST: Fram the thickness o f a cigarett e paper to 12, 14, 20 feet wide. Thatbig hole up there on the hill - that big cav e-in - was one big stope at onetime.RM : Yo u m e a n , n o t t o o f a r f r o m w h e r e Do n Po t t s li v e s?S T : Y e s . T h a t w a s a b i g s t o p e o f s q u a r e s e t s . I t h i n k i t w e n t d o w n t o -i f m y m e m o r y 's co r r e ct - a b o u t 400 fe e t . Th e r e w e r e r a i lr o a d t r a cks t h a tr a n o v e r i t . B a ck f o r y e a r s t h e r e t h e 2 e n g i n e s w e r e r u n n i n g t h e r e , a n done day it gave away. Luckily, between shifts. In fact, a local fellow bythe name of John Bombassei - he was an oddball , because he was fromSwitzerland [chuckles]; Swiss-Italian - he used to go down and crawl backi n t h a t bi g ca v e - i n a n d pi ck u p . . . h a n d s o r t o r e . Th e o n ly g u y i n t o w nthat would do it was old John.RM : B e ca u s e i t w a s s o d a n g e r o u s .ST: Oh - you couldn't get a rat to go ba ck. [laughter] Old Jo hn did it.Se made some pretty good shipments out of there.RM: Yes. Well, what did the typical vein run during this period?

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S T: I t h i n k t h e a v e r a g e m i llh e a d o f To n o pa h , w h e r e a ll t h e o r e w a sprocessed, in the Tonopah mil ls, and the tons of ore and the amount ofbullion they g ot . . . I think the a verage amount was around $16, $17.r e a d t h a t s o m e w h e r e .R M : A n d w h a t w a s s i l v e r ?ST: Silver was $1. I think it got up around somewhere between $1 and$1.20 for awhile, but when we came to Ton opah, I think it was about 90ce n t s .RM : S o i t w a s r u n n i n g 20 ou n ce s o r i n t h a t r a n g e .S T : A n d a l i t t l e b i t o f g o l d ; t h e g o l d h e l p e d . T h e r a t i o i n T o n o p a h , It h i n k, w a s a bo u t 20 ou n ce s o f s i lv e r t o a n o u n ce o f g o ld . Of c o u r s e , w h e nthe stockmarket crashed, everything went down. Silver went down to 25De n t s a lm o s t o v e r n i g h t . Th e m i n e s s t a r t e d clo s i n g d o w n o n e r i g h t a f t e ranother. The last one that closed was the Mizpah. The Extension, and theB e lm o n t , la s t e d a lo n g t i m e . I t h i n k t h e B e l m o n t clo s e d a n d t h e Ext e n s i o nclo s e d , t h e n t h e M i zpa h f i n a lly cl o s e d . Th e M i zpa h w a s n 't a s d e e p a s y o u 'd

. . the Belmont was pretty deep.R M : H o w d e e p w a s t h e B e l m o n t ?S T : W e l l , I w o r k e d u p t h e r e o n e d a y - t h a t w a s e n o u g h f o r m e . F o r T o n yPe r ch e t t i - h e w a s w o r ki n g o n t h e 1100. An d y o u co u ld ba k e br e a d . .R M : I t w a s s o h o t . .ST: I swear, you could bake bread back there; yes. You'd sit down thereand the sweat would just run off you. One day - that was enough. I gotpa i d $6, w h i ch w a s a lo t o f m o n e y . B u t i t w a s n 't w o r t h . . . a n d I g o tout, quick.RM : Du r i n g t h i s pe r i o d w h e n y o u w e r e a ki d h e r e - le t 's s a y be f o r e 1930 -how many men would you estimate would be employed at a typical mine here?

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ST: They worked 3 shifts.RM: In the '20s they were working 3 shifts!ST: Oh, yes. They had to keep those mil ls going. You couldn't shut acyanide mill down. Those big tanks had to be stirring all the time. Inthe first house that we lived in, the miners who worked the Belmont wouldcame over the hill and they'd walk down where all those houses are up therenow. The fork in the road went down through there. There was a road thatused to go up there and go over the hill and down to the mine, because theyhad a office right up th ere in that little pass ; they had a 2 or 3-storybuilding up there. And they'd blow the whistl es . . . The Mizpah had awhistle, and they'd blow it at the change of shift. You'd l ook out and youcould see the guys going up and pretty soon you could see the guys caningdown. There must have been 500 or 600 men working up in the mines, atleast. Then down at the Extension they had a little c ommunity; there musthave been 30, 40 houses - 50 houses down there. No one had cars - they allhad to walk - so they built a little town there, kind of a company to wn.But the rest of tham walked o ver the hill to . . . the Mizpah, of cou rse,was close. The ones that worked up at the North Star . . . I woul dn't tryto walk up there every day. [laughter] That was a pretty deep shaft, too.RM: What was life like for your mother during this period? What kind of alife did she lead?ST: Well, like everybody else, pinching pennies, mainly. Because thepay wasn't good. Of course, living was cheap. When I go out to arestaurant a nd take out 3 or 4 or 5 people in Reno it costs n o $70, $80,590 - I almost die. You could get a fine meal in those restaurants. For75 cents you'd get a T-bone steak. The first haircut I got in Tonopahwas 15 cents. Breakfast was a bowl of mush, a stack of hotcakes - that

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w a s 15 ce n t s , a n d co f f e e . Ev e n t h o u g h y o u w e r e - s a y y o u w e r e b r i n g i n gin $5 a day - you still had to buy wood or coal - there was no such thinga s h e a t w i t h e le ct r i ci t y o r g a s . A lo t o f pe o ple r e n t e d , bu t i f y o u h a da h o u s e . .RM : Di d m a n y pe o ple o w n h a r e s , d o y o u t h i n k?S T : A g o o d s h a r e o f t h a n d i d , y e s . E x c e p t f o r t h e s i n g l e g u y s , a n d t h e ywould stay in the boarding houses.RM : An d t h e r e w e r e a pr e t t y la r g e n u m b e r o f bo a r d i n g h o u s e s , w e r e n 'tt h e r e?ST: Oh, yes; they were all over town. I don't know what they charged forbo a r d i n g h o u s e s . It co u ld n 't h a v e be e n m u ch - $30 a m o n t h , m a y be .Because I went to work down at Mill ers after I got out of high school,working for Mrs. Trueba. They were rebuilding that mill down there. MarkB r a d s h a w a n d Al S i lv e r s pr o m o t e d i t - r e bu i lt t h a t bi g m i ll. I g o t pa i d60 a month, and the people work ing on the building w ere probably makingS5, $6 a day. I thin k they paid $60 a month for board an d room. All yo ucould eat, and good food. The Cousin Jack ladie s who ran boarding houses

R.!: Oh, they tended to run the boarding houses?S T : Y e s . S o m e o f t h a n d i d . A n d t h e y ' d m a k e p a s t i e s - t h a t ' s w h e r e I a t e

f i r s t pa s t i e , f r o m a w o m a n by t h e n a m e o f M r s . Pr e s co t t . He r h o u s e i ss t a n d i n g o v e r t h e r e . S h e 'd f e e d t h e s e g u y s d i n n e r o n l y .

R M : W h a t ' s a p a s t i e ?S T: We ll, i t 's a Co r n i s h pi e . Y o u t a ke a r o u n d pi e ce o f pi e d o u g h , y o uroll it out, then you put in chunks of potato, chunks of beef, and onions.then I first made tham, I didn't k now how to do it. I finall y learned ahandful of each was a good mix . Then you mix them up, and you fol d it

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o v e r , a n d y o u cr i m p t h e e d g e s , a n d y o u ba ke t h e m . Ha v e n 't y o u e v e r e a t e n apa n t i e?R M : I n e v e r h a v e .S T : T h e s e a r e b i g - y o u c a n p i c k t h a m u p . I t h i n k t h e y ' r e b e t t e r c o l dt h a n t h e y a r e h o t .R M : I t s o u n d s g r e a t .S T : Y o u ' v e m i s s e d a p a r t o f h e a v e n . I l o v e t h e m !RM: Well, we've wo rked up to about 1930 or so. Let's see, when did youg r a d u a t e f r o m h i g h s ch o o l?ST: 1934. The first job I had out o f high schoo l . . . I was stillco r ki n g o u t a t t h e pa pe r t h e n , a n d t h e y w e r e bu i ld i n g t h a t m i ll d o w n a tM i lle r s .

M r s . Tr u e ba n e e d e d a w a i t e r , I g u e s s . Di s h w a s h e r , e v e r y t h i n g e ls e .S o s h e h i r e d m e - I w e n t d o w n t h e r e . S h e pa i d m e $60 a m o n t h a n d m y bo a r da n d r o o m . I w o r ke d d o w n t h e r e f o r 2 m o n t h s a n d t h e n t h e m i ll w a sco m ple t e d a n d t h e y la i d o f f m o s t o f t h e c r e w , s o s h e d i d n 't n e e d a n y bo d ythen.

Th e n I w e n t ba ck t o w o r k a t t h e pa pe r a g a i n , r u n n i n g t h e jo b pr e s s . Iwas walking up the street one da y and I bumped into Jim Perkins, and th eyw e r e bu i ld i n g t h e m i ll o u t a t We e pa h . I kn e w Ji m t h r o u g h h i s bo y , a n d h ekn e w m y f a t h e r . He s a i d , "Wh a t a r e y o u d o i n g?"

I said, "Nothing - looking for work."He said, "Do you want to go to work ?"An d I s a i d , "Y e s ."He said, "I need 2 guys going out to Weepah to help clea n out ditches

and that. Can you get a friend?"There was a kid here in town named Cl inton Stevenson, and he was

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looking for work. I said, "I'll get somebody and we'll be out."So he said, "Well, you net me tomorrow morning," or whateve r it was,

"down here and I'll take you out."So I got hold of Clinton and he jumped at it. We went out to Weepah

and we made $4.50 a day - paid $1.50 for board and room. The room washorrible - just an old shack with no windows in it. The food was what wasgood. But we were cleaning these ditches out by hand. They were laying apipeline down to the well north of Weepah in the valley.RM: Was there a community out there then?ST: No, but there were still a few of the old buil dings left. Those werechere we slept. [chuckles] They built a mess hall, and they were buildingthis mill, and everything.RM: Was it a promo deal?ST: Oh, no. Th ey ran up u ntil around 1940 - late '40. Then they movedthe whole mill to Northumberland.RM: So they had ore out there.ST: Oh, yes. It produced quite a bit of gold. And then th ey just movedthe mill up to Northumberland - the whole mill. They tore it down, movedit up there and rebuilt it. And Northumberland ran for quite a long time.Old Jim Perkins was a cagy old guy. He wasn't a promoter, he was j ustworking for the company. He was a mining engineer. That was one of myfirst terrible experiences of working, was working out at Weepah. I had somany blisters and . . .RM: Hag many hours a day was that?S T: Ei g h t h o u r s , 6 d a y s a w e e k . An d y o u n e e d e d S u n d a y t o r e s t . Al m o s tevery day I used to tell Cl inton, "I'm going to quit tonight. This isk i l l i n g m e . " It w a s . My hands were solid blisters. And I'd sleep that

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night, and I would say, "Let's try it again." We lasted until we got allthe ditches cleaned up, and everything. Built a reservoir up on the hill -they blasted it out - and they haul ed up a bunch of bentonite, and spreadit around to fill the cracks, then they had to lay us off.

Old Perkins reall y hated to lay us off. He said, "You kids surew o r k . "

I was glad to . . . [laughter] Oh. Terrible hard work.

CHAPTER THREE

RM: Solan, I was just saying, as we left off the last tape, that you hadgraduated from high school in 1934, and had taken a good, hard-labor jobout in Weepah. What did you do after that ?ST: Well, I've been thinking about that part. Before I went to Weepah, Iwent to work for Mrs. Trueba at Millers, where they were rebu ilding the oldmill. It was originally an ol d stamp mill, but they modernized it - put inbig ball mills and brand new cyanide tanks. I was hired as a combin ationdishwasher, potato peeler, waiting on tabl es, and keeping the mess hallclean. At that time, she had a cook and had no as a dishwasher, and wasprobably feeding between 30 and 40 men.RM: Were they working on the mill?ST: Yes. Also there was a 2-story building that had been a boarding houseyears before. She had rooms and there were also some small houses that hadbelonged to the original mining company which had been cleane d up; the menstayed there. I lasted until the job was completed, which was about 2months. I had been staying down there 7 days a week because I was gettingboard and room and $60 per month. Then I came back to Tonopah and went to

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work at the Times again, on the job press. And that's when I net Perkinsand went to Weepah.RM: Was the job press just for small printing jobs?ST: Yes; flyers and letterhead; things like that.RM: Was your father still working there then?

ST: No, I think he had gone mining out at Eden Creek. There was TomGriffin, and I think my father would fill in occasionally. He also woulddo some writing for the paper and worked on the linotype.RM: This is a good time to back up and talk about the whole Eden Creek

acquisition, and how your father got the mine and what it mea nt to you andthe family - because it's still in the family, isn't it?ST: Well, it's been sold, such as the deal is. Eden Creek is east ofTonopah. You go out to Warm Springs, turn down the Reveille Valley to theEden Creek Canyon where the old Fallini Ranch was, beyond the ReveilleMill, and go up the c anyon about 4 miles. The mine that my dad originallybought was owned by a fellow named Frank McMullen. I believe he bought itI n 1 9 3 0 o r ' 3 1 .

RM: When do you think McMullen acquired it?ST: I would say 10 or 15 years prior to that. There was a l ittle bit ofexcitement lower down at the Bradshaw proper ty, which was a discovery ofsilver. The reason it was called Bradshaw was because Mark Bradshawpromoted it. They drove a very long tunnel on the north side of the

mountain through to the other side. He never did go c ompletely through,and he didn't find any ore bodies.RM: What made him drive the tunnel?

S T: The other side is where they found the silver. There was a smalloutcrop and it was v ery rich - I would say about $50 or $60. It was a

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n a r r o w v e i n , v e r y n a r r o w . I w o u ld s a y u p o n t h e s u r f a ce , w h e r e m y b r o t h e rand another fell ow leased later on, it was ab out 8 to 12 inches wide and itc a s h a r d e r t h a n f l i n t . T h e y d i d p r o d u c e o n e s m a l l s h i p m e n t . T h e r o c k w a sjust too hard to mine by hand, and Bradshaw eit her ran out of money orfigured the vein didn't come down that far.R M : T h e y t r i e d t o c u t i t f r o m b e l o w .S T : T h e E d e n C r e e k s i d e w a s m o r e a c c e s s i b l e t h a n t h e o t h e r s i d e . E d e nCreek is fairly deep, and the other side goes uphill, up where the outcropw a s ; t h e y w o u ld h a v e h a d t o s i n k o n i t . If h e h a d cu t i t f r o m t h e o t h e rs i d e , h e w o u ld h a v e h a d s o m e ba cks . He s t i ll w o u ld h a v e h a d t o s i n ke v e n t u a l l y , b u t i t d i d n ' t p a n o u t . T h e y h a d q u i t e a c a m p t h e r e . W h e n w efirst went out there, there were 5 cabins that the compan y had built, andthey had a boarding house, and the mine was up on the side of the hil l.R M : T h i s i s t h e B r a d s h a w m i n e ?S T : Y e s . I t b e l o n g s t o J o e F a l l i n i n o w ; t h e y ' v e o w n e d i t f o r y e a r s .RM : Wh e n d i d t h e y m a ke t h e i n i t i a l d i s co v e r y o f t h e Ed e n Cr e e k m i n e t h a tyour father acquired?ST: I don't know. I w ould say 1920 or something l ike that, and I do n'tknow who found it - whether [it was] Frank or [someone else].RM: Was it gold?S T: B o t h t h e o r i g i n a l m i n e t h a t m y f a t h e r bo u g h t a n d t h e n e xt h i ll u p w a sw h a t w e ca lle d t h e Cr u ci ble M i n e . It be lo n g e d t o a f e llo w by t h e n a m e o fTom Bannigan. He was an old-time miner and kind of a promoter. It's aboutHalfway up, but it's pretty high and the winters are very bad.

My father had dreams, as all people do who are involved in mining,t h a t h e w a s g o i n g t o m a ke a lo t o f m o n e y . At o n e t i m e h e h a d a ch a n ce t os e ll i t t o t h e Ho m e s t a ke pe o ple , bu t m y d a d w a s i n lo v e w i t h i t . If m y

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memory is correct, they made him an offer of maybe $25,000 cash, plusanother amount of money in stock in the Homestake Mining Company.RM: This would ha ve been in the '30s?ST: Yes, and the Homestake stock was low, and $25,000 then was a fairlyLarge sum of money and of course the stock since 1930 has increased invalue just a few percent.RM: Yes, just a little. Could you say a few words about what the ore bodylooked like there?ST: Well, the main vein, which we c alled the South Gold vein, more or lessruns east and west. It's fairly large up on the surface. It's low gradeore; it might run $7 or $8 per ton, maybe more than that now. It's been so

y years.RM: You mean at prices th en? It would ru n about 20/100th?ST: I would say that. And it dips to the north and the strike of it ismore or less east and west. But on the west side of the mountain therewere some hot spots in the vein, because the overburden from the top of thehill almost to the bottom panned gold. Some of it is fairly coarse.That's what my father wanted to work first - the pl acer. You cannot workplacer by hand and make money unless it's high-grade - it's a losingproposition. Water was seasonal - you might have some up until July, thenafter that you didn't have any, so that was the end of your placerin g.There is a spring up farther in the canyon that separates the Crucible andthe South Gold hills, but maybe you could impound eno ugh water to run 3 or4 hours, and the sluice box is a very inefficient wa y to recover goldbecause you can't handle tonnage. So it was a losing proposition from thestart; we never did make any money.RM: Did you spend quite a bit of time o ut there during the '30s?

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ST: Yes, off and on. Then we formed a company cal led the South GoldMining Company, and h e sold stock and somehow contacted some people inPhiladelphia and they came out - Balthazar and another fellow, Bill Beatty,who was in the business of making the patterns for the looms to produce acloth. He raised quite a bit of money and built that mill, which is stillstanding. It was not a large mill; it was a Wheeler Ball Mill and it wasrated at 25 tons in 24 hours. We hoped to recover the gold through animpact amalgamator, plus a Diester concentrating table.RM: Could you explain what an impact amalgamator does?ST: Well, amalgamation plates are usually flat, and the pulp flows overthem and the free gold will stick to the quick silver that is on theplates. These pla tes were vertical and this thing moved back and forthlike a swing. The idea was that with the smaller amount of plates, youcould run more pulp through. It was very impractical.

We also had a jig. The principle of a jig is that you [haveessentially] a pulsating pump underneath, and on top you have a screen youcall the bed, and on th e bed you have something like very good-size leadshot. The pulp flows over that and the water pulsating up and down shoul ddislodge the bbs from the screen. As the gold is the heaviest, it wassupposed to work down through the bb's into the bottom. But the gold wastoo fine for that.MK: Oh, it was fine gold?ST: Yes; very fine. Then the only hope we had was the DiesterConcentrating Table. S o none of it worked. I think he started the mill in1936, because he bought a new Ford ton and a half flat-bed truck and that'swhat we hauled the supp lies out in. Myself, my brothers Starle and Don,and a couple of our friend s went out there to work.

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RM: Did you build the mill?Sr: There was a qualified millwrigh t in Tonopah by the name of Guy Birch.my dad hired him and he h ad a carpenter who worked with him, and the two oftham framed all that lumber by h and.RM: You have a p icture of it here and it's a huge structure. It must havebeen an incredible job to build it up that high.ST: I still can't believe the men doing it - cutting a 6x6 with a handsaw, diagonals. Everything was by hand - no power tools. Old Guy Birchwas an artisan and he was very well known and respected f or his ability.So we built the mill and a tram line, which is a way of getting the oredown from the mine - one car would pull the other car back up. In themiddle of it there was kind of an overpass - one car would go over theother car. One had 2 sets of wheels on it and it worked, but the wholeproblem was that we didn't develop the ore body; we built th e stupid millf i r s t .

I have to admit that my father was more of a dreamer than a miningmen. He was honest as the day is long and [through] the years he workedout there, if he made a nickel an h our he was quite lucky. I have to saythat the family did get a living out of it at the expense of terribly hardwork.AK: How long did it take tham to build the mill?ST: I think they started pretty early in the spring, because I remember Iwas driving the truck bringing th e material out and I got stuck down belowthe Bradsha w tunnel in an area that was kind of marshy in the spring. Ityes pretty early in the spring and th e creek was running real high. Ibelieve that the mill was under cover before winter. Have you seen it?

From down below. I've never been . .

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ST: It's 2 levels with an ore b in on the 3rd level, and in between the 3rdlevel was a crusher and another ore bin. The rough rock was dumped intothe 1st ore bin and it went to the crusher and it was crushed down to about3/4 of an inch in size and it woul d go into the 2nd bin and it was fed fromthere into the ball mill. That actually constituted the mill l evel . .RM: Did the water come from the sp ring?ST: No, we piped up. W e dug a well up by the camp, wh ich was a 1/4 of amile or less, and piped it down from there. We didn't have to pump it; itran downhill. But the well would not produce enough water for the millonce the creek quit running.RM Does E den Creek run year-round?ST: No. Old Billy Fa llini, whose father Giovanni homesteaded at the mouthof the canyon and came down from T y b o - I believe in 1901 - told me thatEden Creek ran year-round th en. It ran north as far as Twin Springs.That's the reason he settled there - it was virgin land, full of rocks,with this big creek running year-round.RM: Is it your perception that it's drier in this country than it used tobe?ST: Oh, I would say 5 or 6 times as dry. When I was a k id we regularlybad snow in Tonopah from around November until March or April. E verybodywalked, and the old cars wouldn' t go through the snow. We had severe, coldminters. In the early '30s it started to be more moderate, with less snow.Y o u know for yourself we don't have much snow now; you get 6 inches andpeople are horrified.RM: It just seems that th e country is drier.

Oh, Lord yes. I remember times when Tonopah would be snowed in, ormoved out. There would be 2 or 3 weeks that even the train couldn't get

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in. The roads between here and Goldfield would be impassabl e many timesduring the winter.RM: So the sagebrush and grass was more abundant, with flowers in thespring and everything.ST: I was trying to remember when we had the first real dry winter andsummer. I think it was in the early '30s. We have had one or two wintersthat were fairly bad, but they have never been long as far as snow isconcerned; it'll snow and then it'll melt. It used to snow and keepbuilding up.AK: You mentioned that wren you built the E den Creek Mill you neglectedthe ore body. Was that a common thing among many peop le who went hog wildan the mill?ST: I think it ha ppened more times than not. I know a lot of times, inthe excitement of finding an ore body, the first thing you do is build as i ll.RM: Before you've actually mapped out the dimensions.ST: Before you've blocked out any tonnage. Consequently you don't lastlong, because the ore b odies don't last. Now, I think th e Eden Creek veinhas a potential of being quite a producer; I don't know. The sad thingabout it is that I believe it's all going to be underground work. Whatgood is an underground min e nowadays, wh en they want to haul 60 to 80 tonsat once. Good Lord, an 80-ton truck th en would have run our mill for 3days, going 24 hours a day.RM I can remember back in the 1950s that you and your brothers would comeup there and you were d oing some work there.ST Just doing the assessment work.RM So you built the mill in the '30s, and then was that the end of the

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really hard work there?ST: The sad thing is that my father got enough money . . . Up on theCrucible Hills there was quite an outcrop of breccia. Breccia is aformation that usually is formed up through a volcanic pipe. They don'ttilt, they don't have a definite foot wall or hanging wall, it's like a bigpipe. The b reccia deposits in Arizona have been same awfully big mines;good mines. Up on top of Crucible there was a big breccia pipe and westarted to drive a tunnel in between South Gold and E den Creek. The tunnelis almost 1000 feet long.M

: When did you d rive that tunnel?ST: It was driven after the mill was built, b efore the war. I went out bymyself and started the tunnel. We built a blacksmith's shop and acompressor and cut a flat spot there, and we laid p ipe over to where we

re going to start the tunnel. My next brother, Starle's, wife wasexpecting a child. He came into town and I started the tunnel myself.

Were you living out there b y yourself?ST: I had to do the drilling, the mucking, th e blasting, sha rpen the steel- oh, b oy. We had a jackhammer, and everything else was by hand.R M : How far did you drive it in by yourself?ST: I must have been in ab out 75 feet. This was in th e fall. Then wecame to town to do something for Christmas and a terrible snow storm hitthe whole area and we didn't get back out until the next spring.MK: S o you drove this tunnel, eventually a 1000 foot tunnel, and you weregoing to came in under the pipe?ST: Yes. But, once again, my father was not a mining man. We should havehad a surveyor survey the tunnel. We went in about 90 feet and we made atorn. The last geologist we had out there, wham I respected, said that we

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m e r e p r o ba bly 80 o r 90 f e e t n o r t h o f t h e p i p e . B e ca u s e a s w e w e r e g e t t i n gbe ck i n , t h e g r o u n d w a s g e t t i n g m o r e br o ke n be ca u s e o f t h e a ct i o n o f a llt h e m o lt e n r o ck p o u r i n g i n t o t h e p i p e . I kn o w a co u p le o f t i m e s s i n ce t h e n_ . . The people who own it now have had geolo gists up there and they feelthat i t's proba bly 60 to 100 feet . .31E: Then you miss ed the pipe?S T : O h , y e s . W e c o u l d h a v e e n d e d u p o v e r o n t h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h e r a n g e .APL: Did the pipe show indications on the top?f: Yes. It's hard to remeMber bac k 40 or 50 years, but I be lieve it ranse the old price of go ld - about $6 - $30 gold.A K : T h a t s o u n d s l i k e a g o o d p r o s p e c t .S f : I t d e p e n d s o n i f t h e t h e p i p e g o t l a r g e r a s i t w e n t d o w n . I t w a s as e r i e s o f p i p e s 50 t o 80 f e e t a cr o s s . T h e r e w a s a n o t h e r o n e f a r t h e r u p t h ett.11, s o t h e r e w a s a lo t o f a ct i v i t y u n d e r g r o u n d a t o n e t i m e . W e d i d cu t a

u p l e o f v e i n s o n t h e w a y i n , b u t t h e y d i d n ' t r u n a n y t h i n g .M K : Y o u m e n t i o n e d t h a t y o u li v e d o u t t h e r e a n d d r o v e t h e f i r s t 75 f e e t bym cu r s e lf . I t h i n k p e o p le n o w a n d i n t h e f u t u r e w i ll w a n t t o u n d e r s t a n dm e a t i t w a s li ke f o r a p e r s o n t o li v e o u t i n t h a t r e m o t e a r e a a n d w o r ka c n e C a n y o u t e l l u s a l i t t l e b i t a b o u t w h a t i t w a s l i k e t o b e o u t t h e r ea L o n e a n d w o r ki n g ?S f : I e n jo y e d i t . I n f a ct , p r i o r t o t h a t , w h e n I w a s m a y be 16 o r 17 Io l d g o o u t t h e r e i n t h e s u m m e r a n d m y d a d w o u l d b e w o r k i n g i n t o w n . H e",mad a co u p le o f p la ce s h e w a n t e d m e t o w o r k a n d I 'd g o o u t t h e r e a n d w o r k_ m y s e lf m o s t o f t h e s u m m e r . I 'd e n jo y i t .

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CHAPTER FOURS T: In t h e e v e n i n g s I w o u ld co m e d o w n f r a u w h a t e v e r I w a s d o i n g a n d co o ks u ppe r , a n d i f i t w a s ch i lly I'd bu i ld a f i r e . I h a d a r a d i o a n d I a lw a y sLi ke d t o r e a d . Th e n a t d i f f e r e n t t i m e s m y f a t h e r w o u ld co m e o u t o r I'd g o

t o t o w n o cca s i o n a lly . We w o u ld g o d o w n t o t h e o ld Po li n s t o r e w h e r e t h eJim Butler Motel is now and he' d tear the covers off the magazines hecouldn't sell and send them bac k to the company to be reimbursed, then givey o u t h e m a g a zi n e s . I'd r e a d a n y t h i n g ; I lo v e d t o r e a d .RK: Was it by a kerosene lantern?ST: I t h i n k s o , a n d t h e n w e g o t r e a lly pr o g r e s s i v e a n d h a d g a s la n t e r n s -t h e y w e r e be t t e r a n d br i g h t e r . Th e s o li t u d e d i d n 't bo t h e r m e a bi t .

There was a man living over the hill abo ut 3 miles named GeorgyChubey. I believe he was S erbian. He was a fine littl e man, but as am i n e r h e w a s d u m be r t h a n m y f a t h e r . An d h e h a d m a d e a li t t le d i s co v e r yover there.RK: Wh e r e a bo u t s w a s t h a t?ST: If y o u w e r e s t a n d i n g o n t o p o f S o u t h Go ld Hi ll, y o u w o u ld lo o k d o w n t ot h e s o u t h e a s t , a bo u t 2 m i le s . He f o u n d a li t t le s t r e a k o f g o ld d o w n t h e r et h a t w a s u n be li e v a ble . He d r o v e t u n n e ls , h e s a n k s h a f t s , a ll d u g by h a n d ,a n d i t n e v e r pr o d u ce d a n i cke l. Wh e n h e g o t br o ke , h e 'd g o u p t o Ty bo a n dgo to work.3K: Wh a t w a s h a ppe n i n g a t Ty bo?ST: They had a big mill up there: lead, zinc, and silver. George woul d goup and work as a miner for 3 to 5 months, save every nickel and go right toEd e n Cr e e k. He w a s a f i n e m a n ; o n e o f t h e h a r d e s t w o r ke r s I e v e r m e t i n m ylife.RK: Whatever became of him?ST: Ge o r g e bo u g h t a ca r , a n d t o s a y h e w a s o n e o f t h e w o r ld 's w o r s t

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drivers would be to give him credit. He was c oming out of Tybo one day andhe turned the car over and was killed. He died in the County Hospital herea couple of days later. He had been married and had one daughter who l ivedin California, wham I never did meet.RM: When you were working alone, did you ever worry about getting hurt,breaking a leg . . . ?ST: It never entered my head. I really enjo yed the solitude. After 2 or3 weeks, I would like someone to talk to and on ce in awhile one of theFallini boys would drive by, or maybe one of the Indians, and I'd talk tothem. But it's not like talking to your family - these were real briefconversations.AK: I would like to get as much on the history of the Reveille Mill aspossible. I wonder if you can tell me what you know about it? You have apicture here, dated 1926, and from your first sitings of the mill, couldyou say a little bit about who was there and what happe ned?ST: We first went there in the early '30s and there was nobody there.RM: That was a water hole for a long time.ST: The original mill was fed by the springs that we al ways referred toas: "by the Indian Camp." There is a little basin up there to the west 2or 3 miles, and they had a nice big spring up there where the Indians hadtheir camp later on, and they might have had it then; I don't know. Theydid pipe the water down to the Reveill e Mill, and there is a storage tankthere yet where water goes for the cattle. But there were no buildings.The 5-stamp mill was still up, and the uprights, the cam was on it and thebig flywheel, but no buil dings. The roasting kiln was there.

You see, the ore at the Reveille silver mine had a little bit of leadin it. The only way they could treat that ore was to roast it. It was

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silver chlorides, I think, and silver bromides, and they roasted it and gotthe impurities out of it, and that left the silver. They put it throughthe stamp mill and then ran it over amalgamation plates and the silverwould stick to the quicksilver like gold would. In fact, l ater on somebodynamed Belleville worked on the tailings for the quicksilver that they lost;the quicksilver had some values in it.RM: Did Bel leville build the mill then? [Th e one] that was there when wegot there in th e '50s?ST: He had p ut up a building and they h auled the tailings up by truck, andI think all he was looking for was the quicksilver. There were not thatmany tailings. I have no idea how much ore the mill produced, because thatwas around the turn of the century.RK: So th ey were mining the silver ore over at Reveille in the Reveille

?ST: They used oxen to haul the ore over.RK: Because that was th e nearest water, I guess. It would have beencloser than Twin Springs.ST: Yes, and it would have been a haul down the hill and up a slight slopeto where they built the mill . There was another stamp mill a t the mouth ofEden Canyon, a small, 5-stamp b attery. The battery was still there andthere were 2 stone buildings. One was la rge - about 20' by 40'. Th ey hadlogs for the roof and it was covered with pine boughs with dirt over that.There was a smaller stone building closer to the canyon and no one knew thehistory of it at all. Mr. F allini came to Eden Creek righ t after the turnof the century and he didn' t know anything about it either. I would th inkthey were both built somewhere in th e 1870s to 1900. I think the small onewas a pilot mill for Reveille, b ecause you could still find small p ieces of

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ore, some silver chloride and some silver bromides, and they probablywanted to see if they could recover it. I don't remember any kind of aroasting affair, but they could have had a small one.RM: Was there a pretty good tailings there?Sr: No, no tailings whatsoever.RM: So they didn't run much.ST: If they did run it, the littl e mill was sitting right up on the bankabove Eden Creek and they probably used the cre ek for water to turn themill. But there was no sign of a boiler or anything, so they must haveused water power and the tailings from the mill probably went dow n to thebottom of the gulch, and when the creek ran heavy, it just washed thanaway.RM: You say they were probably getting their ore from Reveille too, but wedon't even know, do we?Sr: No, but there is no other silver mine in the area. The only othermine in the area was up at Bellehelen, but it wasn't that kind of ore.RM: You were saying the other night that you thought perhaps theyeventually moved their milling operation down to where the Revei lle Mill isnow and saved a couple of miles o n haul.ST: A good 3 or 4, and uphill, too. And there was plenty of water up atthe Indian Camp, and they piped it down. I think I've seen sections of thepipe and it was rolled pipe, riveted the full length. When 'Tonopah builttheir first water line, the water pipe was wood wrapped with steel coil.They must have hauled this metal pipe down and it must have been quite anundertaking; it was all buried. They probably worked during the winter,too.

RM: So the sequence of development at Reveille was that originally they

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were hauling ore out of the Reveille Mine in the Reveil le Range.Originally it must have been at Eden Creek.ST: I would assume that the little mill was a trial mill to see if theycould recover the silver. [Then] they built th e bigger one and the ovensd o w n s w h e r e t h e R e v e i l l e M i l l s i s n o w , w h e r e t h e p r e s e n t r u i n s a r e , s o m e w h e r ein the 1870s, '80s, or '90s.RM: By the time you got there 50 years later, what was there?ST: Nothing. Somebody had taken the stamp stems or rods. The cam wasstill there, but they took the vertical part. That was usually a big steelshaft that was keyed to a cast iron stamp, which rais ed and dropped on theore. The front of the box had a screen, and every time this hit withwater, it splashed up against the screen and what was groun d would gothrough the screen. It was very inefficient, but it was the only thingthey had.RK: And, there were no buildings at the Reveille Mill?ST: There were no buildings there but the remains of a few stone cabins.I think it was kind of a very austere camp. Maybe some of the minersstayed over at the mine, but I would think the teamsters would stay at thesill location because of the water.RK: They built that huge stone corral, which showed that something wasgoing on there.ST: They might have had tents in those days. They had them during theCivil War, so . . .

I know farther up in the hills, where they were cut ting wood for thekiln, there are some little log dugouts dug into the hillside, with rockfaces. They're all caved in.RK: So there wasn't much there when you got there in the

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Interview with Sloan Terrell