Growing Up in Central Nevada 1941-1959

A journal of memories of my life in Alkali, Goldfield and Tonopah,
Nevada, 1941-1959
William J. Metscher
These are memories of experiences, people and times associated with my childhood and
young adulthood. They are roughly in order beginning with my earliest recollections. I
won‘t delve into my years after graduation from high school. I‘ll consider myself lucky to
get this much done.
I haven‘t had a lot of experience writing and some of this may not ―flow‖ as well as it
should, but hopefully I will get the story across so please bear with me.
Cover Photograph:
From Left: Philip, Allen and William J. “Bill” Metscher
In front of the Metscher home south Central Street, Tonopah, c1947
Desert Road Sign
2
To Bill and Lisa,
Here are a few of the stories Mom would never let me tell you
And to
Billy and Robby
I wrote this to give you an idea what my childhood was like
May 2010
3
This book was created as part of Lifescapes, a cooperative project
of the Washoe County Library System, the University of
Nevada, Reno English Department, and the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute (OLLI) at the University of Nevada, Reno
For additional writings from this project, see:
http:www.lifescapesmemoirs.net
Copyright © by William J. Metscher
May 2010
Edited by Margo Daniels
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Nevada, Reno
401 W. Second Street, Suite 235
Reno, Nevada 89503
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Page
3
Table of Contents
Page
5
Part I
ALKALI
My Memories of Alkali
Family Photos at Alkali
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7
11
17
Part II
OFF TO GOLDFIELD
Dad Goes Back to Mining
Goldfield, The Later Years
A Few Goldfield Photos
1940s Goldfield Family Photos
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19
29
33
41
43
Part III
TONOPAH
Our New Nest
Mom and Dad ―Hit the Slave Market‖
Metscher Family Photos – The Early Tonopah Years
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45
47
49
59
Part IV
THE HOOD
Neighborhood Friends
Picking Up a Few Bucks
Our ―Back Yard‖
The Mountains
Other Places We ―Played‖
Earning Our Place in the Pecking Order
Winter Fun
Weekend Trips
An Assortment of My Ghost Town Photos c1957-1960
Divide, My Favorite ―Ghost‖ Mining District
Harvesting Pinon Nuts
Firewood
Barbara Graham‘s House or the ―Little Cabin‖
Shoot ‗Em Up
Furry, Feathered and Scaly Friends
Deep, Dark and Dangerous
What A Blast!
The Blacksmith Shop
Religion in My Life
Favorite Holidays
Hobbies
A Walk Down Tonopah‘s Main Street c1950
Scenes Around Town
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73
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79
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85
91
93
95
101
105
109
110
111
113
117
121
125
129
130
131
137
139
155
Part V
SCHOOL DAYS
Grade School
High School
My Teenage Years – Cars, Girls, Booze and Jobs
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Page
159
161
169
177
Part VI
OTHER LOCAL CHARACTERS
Odds and Ends
Postscript
Page 193
Page 195
Page 197
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O.K., here goes……
6
ALKALI
7
Alkali Hot Springs c1945
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We lived at Alkali Hot Springs during World War II. Alkali is located about 10 miles west
of Goldfield, Nevada on the road to Silver Peak. We made our home here while Dad worked
for the Nevada California Power Company. He manned the substation and was a lineman.
As a lineman, it was his responsibility to patrol the transmission lines on a regular basis and
make repairs when lightning or snowstorms knocked out the power. When he was gone,
Mom was in charge of the substation, a position that paid $15.00 a month. I am not sure
what Dad made but he supplemented it by trapping coyote and fox and selling the pelts.
Alkali was a terminal point on the power lines that served Tonopah and Goldfield. Two
different lines crossed the White Mountains from the generating stations on Bishop Creek in
California. One was aluminum and the other copper. They paralleled each other as far as
Silver Peak, where one continued on to Alkali and the other was routed around the north edge
of Lone Mountain to Tonopah with a connector line between Alkali and Tonopah. The idea
was that if a storm knocked out one line, the other would act as a backup, thus insuring
service to Tonopah and Goldfield. The company furnished a Model A Ford pickup that Dad
used to patrol the lines and drive to Tonopah for supplies. If we went to town (Tonopah or
Goldfield) as a family, we had to take our private car, a 1930‘s vintage Chevrolet sedan.
Our home was a company house at the top of a rise over the springs. The complex
consisted of the house, a garage, transformer building with poles and switches, water tower
and pump station. It was a nice house, rent free with all electric appliances and electricity
furnished by the company.
At the base of the rise a tunnel delivered a stream of hot water from the springs. Nearby
was a swimming pool, bar, dance hall, residence, duck pond and corral. The swimming pool
was originally a reservoir built by the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company around 1908
to hold water that was pumped to Goldfield for the company‘s 100 stamp mill on Columbia
Mountain. Water to fill the reservoir came from wells at Alkali Dry Lake about five miles to
the west and was supplemented with the hot water from the springs. When the mill ceased
operation around 1920, the company no longer needed Alkali‘s water and pumping stopped.
Apparently they sold or leased the reservoir and hot springs and the reservoir was converted
to a swimming pool using the hot water from the springs. A large building was built over the
pool with dressing rooms on either side. The dance hall/bar was erected near the west side
of the pool building. The residence, which probably dated back to 1908, was on the east side
of the pool. The stream of hot water ran behind the complex to the duck pond and from there
under the road to Silver Peak and through the corral, eventually disappearing into the sand of
a wash.
The pool/dance hall/bar was in operation from the early 1920‘s through the 1940‘s and was
a retreat for Tonopah and Goldfield residents. Proprietors I am familiar with were a Tonopah
family, the Juistis (1920‘s-1930‘s) and the Kellisons (1930‘s-1940‘s).
An ad in the 1926 Tonopah High School yearbook, The Nugget, read ―Alkali Hot Springs.
Swimming, Dancing and Meals Served At All Hours. Spend Your Hot Summer
Evenings at the Springs. Joe Juisti, Prop.”
Alkali was a lively place during the early years of World War II when it became a hangout
for the airmen stationed at the large Tonopah Army Air Field, but it was eventually placed
off limits. Too much partying. Of course this didn‘t stop the Air Force boys. The Military
Police would come out once in a while, but there always seemed to be ―advance warning‖
9
and no servicemen were around. Dad tended bar on his days off and said it was very
interesting at times. The guys would bring booze from the base, but usually ran out and
would have to buy from the bar. They brought their wives and girlfriends as well as generous
picnic lunches supplied by the base commissaries and usually gave Dad what was left over.
He was always bringing home hot dogs, buns and large bottles of mustard, mayonnaise and
pickles. He also had an inexhaustible supply of shotgun shells that they gave him by the
boxful. The only problem was he couldn‘t use them for hunting birds. The shot was too fine.
The shells were for training purposes shooting clay pigeons at the base‘s Poorman Gunnery
Range. I think there are still some of them around the house.
Alkali c1944 looking northwest from the N.C.P. Co substation. The large building
in the center housed the swimming pool with the proprietor‟s house and garage on the
right. The duck pond is on the left behind the small shed with the peaked roof.
The war was the reason we wound up at Alkali. Dad went to work for the railroad in
Sparks, Nevada in early 1941. He didn‘t really like what he was doing and was planning on
moving back to Goldfield, but was informed he was ―frozen‖ on the job which was deemed
necessary to the war effort. If he quit he would be drafted. Somehow he learned there was
an opening with the power company at Alkali and secured the position. The Alkali job was
also deemed a necessary part of the war effort thus Alkali became our home for the next four
years. After the war we moved back to Goldfield. I was approaching school age and Dad
wanted to get back into mining. And, the family had grown with the addition of my brothers
Philip, born in 1942, and Allen who arrived in 1945. We were the last ones to live at the
substation. After we left the power company never manned it again.
10
MY MEMORIES OF ALKALI
The house had a water tower south of the front porch. There was a small pump house near
the mouth of the tunnel where the hot water stream emerged from the hillside and when the
water in the tank got low, Dad would start the pump and refill it. Mom thought this was
great. The water was very warm the first few days, the perfect temperature for bathing,
washing the dishes and doing the laundry. Dad would let Philip and me stand by the pump
house while he ran the pump but we couldn‘t go inside. Beyond the pump house, the water
was channeled into a wood trough about 10‖ x 10‖ for the next thirty feet or so. The trough
had a gate where it could be diverted into the pool to warm it or refill it after it was drained
and cleaned. If it wasn‘t detoured into the pool, it ran into a ditch and down to the duck
pond. A slimy moss grew in the trough and had to be cleaned out from time to time. Phil
and I would take sticks to scoop it out and play with it, but we were careful. The water was
hot enough to burn us.
There was a garage and outhouse behind our house with a stand of tamarisk growing
around it. I guess the outhouse was from the early days. We had indoor plumbing. Across
from the garage was a large building housing transformers that we were told to stay away
from. You could always hear a buzzing sound coming from it, due, I guess, to static
electricity. That itself was enough to keep us away. Near the garage there was a pole where
Dad had placed a weather vane he made. It was there for years and I remember seeing what
was left of it as late as the 1950‘s. I think Philip may have finally taken it home as a
souvenir. Dad installed a merry-go-round for us near the garage. He found an old buckboard
axle with a wheel, dug a hole for the axle, and placed it upright in the ground. The wheel
was the merry-go-round. The axle with the wheel‘s hub remained in place through the
1970‘s although the wheel had long since fallen apart.
On one occasion Philip and I crawled under the front porch of the house through a small
door near the foundation that had been left open. There was a cast iron drainpipe that came
out of the floor, probably from a sink or the bathroom. Just as we got near it a large ―T‖
shaped flash seemed to come out of it, held for a few seconds, and disappeared. It scared us
and we ran up and told Mom and Dad. Dad decided to check it out and couldn‘t find
anything but looking back now, I imagine it was a static spark, probably a result of all the
electrical equipment in the area. It sure made an impression on Phil and me! If there was a
thunderstorm anywhere in the vicinity, the telephone would buzz constantly and the bells
would tinkle. Mom was afraid to touch it, but I guess it didn‘t hurt anything.
Another time, Philip and I were playing on the hill in front of the house when the ground
under him gave way and he fell into the hole. It was barely the size of his body and his
shoulders caught on the top edge, holding him there. I ran to Mom for help and she pulled
him out. An investigation revealed that a section of the roof of the hot water tunnel had
given way. Fortunately, he didn‘t go down any farther. If he had, he would have been
scalded. Dad placed a piece of corrugated sheet iron over the hole and we were told to stay
away from it.
One day a coyote showed up at the back door. Phil and I thought it was a dog and were
trying to call it when Dad came out. He ran it off, but it came back later, probably looking
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for something to eat, and he shot it. He was afraid it would attack one of us. It really
bothered me. It is my first memory of an animal being killed.
At Christmas Santa would come while we were asleep and he always left some of his
whiskers behind. To fool us, Dad had planted horsehair he picked up at the corral on the
doorjamb. It worked.
Near the transformer house there were two sets of poles with switches that had to be thrown
by hand. To get to the switch controls, platforms accessed by stairs were installed about four
feet above the ground between the poles. We were told NEVER to play on them so we
stayed away -- except one time. Dad and Mom were sitting near one of the platforms
plucking and cleaning a couple of ducks Dad had shot. We were playing around the steps
and up I went. Sure enough, I fell off. Apparently it didn‘t hurt me too badly, the alkali dirt
furnished a soft landing, but it scared Mom and Dad. Dad decided to build gates on the steps
and fence the outside with chicken wire so I couldn‘t repeat the adventure. The gate hinges
and chicken wire were still in place as late as the 1980‘s.
Our grandfather and grandmother, Joseph and Annastacia Novick (Mom‘s parents), came
out from Brooklyn, New York a couple of times. Grandpa made us a wood bird with wings
that would spin in the wind similar to the yard decorations that are popular today. Dad
mounted it near the corner of the house and told us it was a Watch Bird that would keep an
eye on us and report if we were getting into trouble. Needless to say, we kept a close eye on
it when we played on that side of the house.
There was a hill east of our place that Grandpa and I walked out to. I thought it was miles
away and very large, although years later I figured out it was nothing more than a small lump
about a quarter of a mile away. Grandpa was picking up liquor bottles c1900‘s from an old
trash dump to take back to New York and fashion into cut glass objects. He worked as a
glasscutter for many years, a profession that eventually gave him silicosis that led to his
death. He also made violins and taught music. I still have one of the violins and played a bit
when I was a kid. I also have one of the bottles with the designs he cut into it. And he made
ashtrays, leaves and other decorative items from the pieces of the broken bottles. On the
walk we came across an old lard can that had paint or grease in it. It had rained recently and
there was some water in the bottom. Residue floating on the water reflected all the colors of
the rainbow, something that for some reason has stuck in my mind all these years.
And he made us numerous toys. One was a large button on a loop of string that we put
between our hands and by pulling the string, could make the button spin. Another consisted
of a piece of broom handle and a shaft fashioned from a nail with a propeller attached. A
string was wound around the shaft that was placed in a hole in the center of the handle.
When you held the handle and pulled the string, the propeller would sail out.
There was a hole similar to the one Philip fell in beside the road that led up the hill to our
house. It was a cave-in from another tunnel that had been driven into the hill many years
before, apparently in an attempt to develop more water. Dad would stop and dump our
garbage into it if we were going to town.
Mom would take us down to the swimming pool once in a while. The pool had a
distinctive smell from the mineral water that is unforgettable. There were six or eight
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dressing rooms on the east and west sides of the building, each with a small bench and a few
hooks on the wall. The doors had old porcelain doorknobs, some white and some black. The
rooms on the east side were the men‘s and the women‘s were on the west side. Being an old
water reservoir, the pool was about ten feet deep. A tapered shallow section constructed of
planks was built into the north end for the kids and adults who couldn‘t swim. It took up
about a quarter of the pool and had a fence near the deep end so you couldn‘t fall off. There
were a couple of heavy ropes hanging from the building‘s rafters with large iron rings
attached for swinging out over the water. The diving board was at the south end. Near the
front of the bar there was a ditch with a large valve used to drain the pool for cleaning, a job
Dad did from time to time when he worked for the folks who ran the place. Due to the age of
the reservoir, the sides were beginning to crack and bow inward. No one could figure out
what to do about it until Dad came up with the solution. He drilled holes in the pool walls a
few feet to each side of the cracks and then placed old road grader bits against the walls
across the cracks. Cables were then run from the bits through the holes and out under the
dressing rooms to ―dead men‖ driven into the ground. They held the concrete in place and
can still be seen on the sides of the reservoir.
There was an old model T Ford sedan body in the back yard of the house on the east side of
the pool that had been converted into a chicken coop. I was fascinated by it and played in it
whenever I had the chance. In later years when Philip and I began building old Fords, we
hauled what hadn‘t rusted away home for parts. The alkali ground is very corrosive and
anything that comes into contact with it deteriorates over time so there wasn‘t a lot left.
On one of my forays to the chicken coop I found a mother-of-pearl brooch that someone had
lost between the pool and the coop that I gave to Mom. I thought it was huge, but it was
probably only an inch or so long.
Another thing I found interesting were the outhouses behind the pool/bar complex. There
was a men‘s and women‘s built over the stream that ran to the duck pond. The stream carried
the waste away. In addition to a large and small hole in the men‘s there was a trough
fabricated from a stovepipe on the inside wall to pee into. For some reason, I thought it was
a neat setup. And it was always a challenge to peek in the women‘s. When we did we
thought we were getting away with something. There were a couple of small bathhouses
upstream from the outhouses with tubs supplied with hot water from the spring.
A ―steam room‖ was built into the mouth of the tunnel where the water ran out of the
hillside. It consisted of a small room with a heavy door and a bench along one wall. The hot
water stream ran under the floor which was porous to enable the room to fill with steam. Dad
would go down to ―soak out the poisons‖ once in a while. I went with him once, but I didn‘t
like it being shut up in the room.
Beyond the outhouses the stream ran into the duck pond formed by a small earthen dam.
There was a corrugated sheet iron blind on the dam for the duck hunters. Dad took me duck
hunting with him a couple of times but I don‘t recall him shooting anything. Overflow from
the pond emptied into a small marsh, drained out under the road to Silver Peak and continued
on to the corral. The corral had tamarisks growing around the north side where there was a
chute for loading livestock into trucks and a small shack for the cowboys. The shack was
nestled in the tamarisks, a mysterious place I loved to visit. The shack caved in sometime in
the 1960‘s. The last time I checked, the deteriorating walls were still in the trees.
13
Me, left, and Philip on the edge of the duck pond c1945. Our house and water tower
appear on the hill in the background. The building on the left is the
Bar/Dance Hall.
When the flying ants would swarm during summer, the water tower seemed to be a favorite
haunt. They would get into the top of the tank and their bodies would cover the surface of
the water. Dad would have to scoop them off periodically or they would plug up the faucets
in the house. Another time one of the young Kellison boys got lost and as a last resort, Dad
climbed the tower and began searching the area with his field glasses. He spotted the boy‘s
dog near the small hill east of the substation with the boy nearby. He had wandered off
following his dog. I think it was a case of him following the dog and the dog following him.
He was very lucky, it was just about sunset when Dad saw him.
Dad was also a volunteer spotter for the Tonopah Army Air Field. In the beginning, the
base trained P-39 Aircobra pilots and, due to the 5,000 foot altitude and inexperience, crashes
were common. If Dad saw the smoke he would call the base, give them the location and they
would send out a rescue crew. Unfortunately there usually wasn‘t anyone to rescue. The
same was true when the base converted to B-24 Liberator bombers. On one occasion four
P-39s were diving at the Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad train as it crossed the flat east of
Alkali. On the last dive one hit the ground. Dad saw the smoke and called the base, then
drove over to see if there was anything he could do. He said that all that was left of the pilot
was the parachute harness with the midsection of his body in it. The airplane was nothing but
pieces. On another occasion he witnessed a bomber go down near Klondike, about ten miles
north of Alkali. When he called it in, they told him he was seeing things, saying they didn‘t
have anything in the air that day. He insisted, and eventually they agreed to send out a rescue
crew. He was right, it was a B-24, but it was from a California base. One crewmember died
in the crash. The others parachuted to safety. They were lucky. In most instances everyone
on board was lost.
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On another occasion, a B-24 developed engine trouble and had to set down on the salt
marsh at Silver Peak. The pilot thought it was a hard surface like the dry lakebeds that dot
central Nevada. Needless to say, the plane was hopelessly mired in the muck. Dad said they
worked for weeks getting it out of the mud and were eventually able to fly off. Many of the
fighter pilots and bomber crews partied at Alkali and would buzz the place when they flew
over. The B-24s would come in so low Mom was afraid they were going to take the top off
the water tank. Once in a while one would make a predetermined landing on Alkali Dry
Lake. The crew would have someone waiting at Alkali to drive out and pick them up so they
could spend a few hours enjoying the facilities. I only have a few vague memories of the
airplanes.
I had to have my tonsils removed while we were in Alkali. I was taken to the hospital in
Tonopah and was supposed to stay overnight, but apparently I raised so much hell they called
Mom and told her to come get me. Another medical emergency was the result of a bench in
front of the pool building. The wood was dry and full of splinters and one day I was playing
around and slid down it, getting a large sliver in my butt. Mom and Dad debated whether or
not to take me to the doctor and decided to take matters into their own hands. Mom held me
down while Dad cut the sliver out with a razor blade. I was left with a nasty scar from the
―operation.‖
When Dad was out on the lines during summer storms, the lightning would kick out the
switches on the poles near the transformer house and it was Mom‘s job to reset them. They
were near the tops of the poles with handles that ran down the sides, but there were a few that
had to be reset using a long pole with a hook on the end. She said it was horrible trying to
get the hook in the small hole with the wind blowing, especially when she was pregnant, and
it usually happened in the middle of the night.
About six months before we moved to Goldfield, the pool complex wound up under new
management. The man who took it over (I want to say Carl Reich who ran the bar at
Coaldale, but I am not sure) had two young women with him, I would guess in their midtwenties. Phil and I were the only children in the area and they ―took us under their wings.‖
Of course we thought they were beautiful. One had long black hair and a dark complexion,
probably of Mexican descent. The other was fair. Their names were Sally and Lou. They
built two concrete barbecues near the front of the pool building and engraved their names in
the concrete. The remains with the names are still there.
Around this time our dog bit Philip on the hand and his arm turned blue and swelled up.
Mom thought he had blood poisoning and kept soaking the wound in Epsom salts.
Apparently it worked. After a while the swelling went down and he was okay. It was my
fault. We were playing with the dog and I had a small ―windmill‖ I had fabricated out of
some sticks. I don‘t know why, but I gave it to Philip and told him to put one of the sticks in
the ―hole‖ under the dog‘s tail. When he did, the dog turned around and bit him. He still has
the scar.
15
Remains of the Nevada-California Power Company Alkali substation May 1963
looking southwest. The old garage is on the left and the transformer house is in the
center. The residence would have been in the open space to the right of the transformer
building. It was torn down sometime in the late 1950‟s. The switch platform that I fell
off is near the bottom of the group of poles on the far right. The other switch platform
appears near the base of the two poles in the foreground to the left of the transformer
building.
16
FAMILY PHOTOS AT ALKALI
(Left) Mom, Philip (sitting on Mom‟s lap) and me pose on a wagon axle similar to the
one dad used for our merry-go-round, July 1944. The dog that didn‟t care for
homemade windmills is in the foreground. (Right) Philip (front) and me near the back
steps of the house, June 1944.
Dad and Mom with me (right) and
Philip (left) flanked by two servicemen
from the Tonopah Army Air Field on
the back step of our Akali house, 1943.
17
Coyote pelts from Dad‟s trap line
on the fence near the garage, 1944.
Dad, me (standing) and Philip
near the edge of the duck pond,
1944. The duck blind is the
structure in the background
on the left.
18
OFF TO GOLDFIELD
19
Our neighborhood c1946
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My parents were living in Goldfield when I came along. Goldfield‘s hospital wasn‘t
capable of delivering babies so I was born in the Miner‘s Hospital in Tonopah January 26,
1941. Dad was working a gold mine at the time. He, his brother George and Milt Childers
were leasing a block of ground from the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company on the
Combination Fraction claim. Shortly after I was born they had to give up the property when
the government shut down the gold mines as ―not necessary to the war effort.‖ Our family
moved to Sparks where Dad went to work for the railroad. I have no memories of any of
this.
When we lived at Alkali we would stay in Goldfield when Dad had a few days off, but
again, my memories are fleeting. My real association with Goldfield began when we moved
in from Alkali, although I do recall going to town when the Masonic Lodge on the corner of
Sundog Avenue and Crook Avenue burned in 1945. Dad and Mom saw the large cloud of
smoke from Alkali and thought the whole town, including our house, was going up in flames.
As it turned out, the house, located on south 5th Avenue, wasn‘t near the conflagration.
A note before I continue: Philip is eighteen months younger than me and Allen is four
years my junior. Philip and I were very close and shared many adventures while growing up.
Throughout this book when I use ―we‖ I will usually be referring to Philip and me.
Our Goldfield home was a typical miner‘s house, a wedding present from Dad‘s mom
Mamie in 1939. It was nothing more than a couple of cabins joined together. The living
room and kitchen were on the north side with two bedrooms on the south. The structure on
the south side was a tent house dating back to the early days. The miners set their tents up on
wood floors and if things looked permanent, they framed them in, covered them with wood,
and presto -- a house.
There was what I called a ―diamond‖ window in the front wall of the living room. It was a
square window a previous owner had installed at a forty-five degree angle, thus the diamond
configuration. The roof leaked when it rained, there was no inside bathroom, and the only
running water was a faucet at the kitchen sink serviced by the town water system. We used
this water sparingly. It was expensive and poor quality, so most of the water for domestic
purposes was hauled from Rabbit Springs at the base of the Malapai near the west edge of
town and stored in a tank beside the wood-burning kitchen stove. Our baths were taken in a
large washtub with water heated on the stove. There was a wood/coal stove in the living
room for heat and in the winter Dad would get it so hot the stovepipe would glow cherry red.
There was also a faucet on a pipe that stuck up in the front yard but we never used it.
Apparently years before someone had watered the locust trees and maintained a garden but
Mom would draw water from the well for the trees and her small garden.
The kitchen sink drained by a pipe through the outside wall. Philip and I would dig ditches
for the water, channeling it around roads we built for our toy vehicles. We collected the
metal rings that held the caps in the cone shaped milk cartons and pieced them together to
make culverts under the roads. Our toys included cars, trucks and a couple of metal steam
shovels. In addition we had a wagon and a tricycle, that to Philip‘s dismay, I broke in half. I
was pretending I was Henry Dahlstrom, a local mechanic, and hit it with a large hammer to
―fix‖ it.
21
The outhouse was in the back yard next to the woodshed. Behind the back fence a hill
sloped down to Columbia and Main Streets that were in a large wash. The streets were
nothing more than dirt roads, quite different from the busy thoroughfares of the town‘s boom
years when the population was near 20,000. The outhouse was an ―updraft.‖ Whenever the
wind was blowing from the north or west, which it usually was, and you threw the paper
down the hole, it came back up. There was a chemical toilet in the house but we never used
it. On his trips to the outhouse, Dad would tease us saying he was ―going to see a man about
a horse.‖
Every fall Dad cut firewood on a large table saw powered by a belt driven off a pulley that
was bolted to the rear wheel of our pickup truck. He cut scrap wood, old mine timber or
pinon pine we would haul in from the Montezuma Mountains about five miles west of town.
The cut wood was stacked in the woodshed. He would let us play in the sawdust when he
was done, but we couldn‘t get close while he was sawing. Later, in Tonopah, we had to help.
He built a garage beside the house by erecting a framework of poles and covering it with
corrugated sheet iron. Philip and I found some chalk and drew a line of telephone poles
around the outside walls with a pole on each of the lumps in the corrugated pattern. We
imagined it was the telephone line beside the highway between Goldfield and Tonopah.
There was a well in front of the house with a framework over it that held a pulley for the
bucket‘s rope. We were told to stay away from it and in this instance did as we were told. I
guess the sternness of the message got through to us.
Frank Horton was our neighbor on the south. His outhouse was in line with ours and had a
small glass window in the side that I decided to use for target practice. I threw a rock
through it and it wasn‘t long before Frank came over and told Dad. Boy was Dad MAD! I
was careful where I threw rocks after that. Frank was an old miner. His son, Frank Jr., and
Leonard Traynor made the strike that started the Weepah, Nevada gold rush in 1927. Frank
Jr. drove a Chevrolet coupe with a rumble seat. When he would visit his father, Philip and I
would climb up the small steps on the back fenders that gave a person access to the seat.
Apparently it didn‘t bother him -- we never got in trouble for it.
A lady we knew as the Old Widow lived next to Horton. Beyond her was Chris Dahlstrom
and across Crystal Avenue was a building we called the Cowboy‘s House. Mary Ann
Czarevitch, her sister Georgine Miyovich and their mother lived across the street from us.
Mary Ann was a few years our senior and we considered Georgine a ―big girl.‖ She gave me
my first black eye. Apparently I was giving her a bad time and she hit me with a tamarisk
branch.
There were the remains of the walls of an adobe building south of their house that we
carved grooves into. These were our rock candy slides. We would slide broken pieces of
colored glass down the grooves, pretending it was the candy. In addition to broken glass, the
vacant lots around town were littered with trash, remnants of times past when Goldfield was
Nevada‘s largest city. There was an abundance of broken ornate china I was always picking
up. I loved the beautiful designs and vivid colors.
22
Our home in Goldfield c1940. The well is in the foreground and behind it is the
living room section of the house. The dark building behind the house was rotated
around and attached to the house as the kitchen before I was born. The woodshed is
in back and the wash where the Wigaboos supposedly lived is down the hill behind
it. The mountains in the background are known locally as The Malapais.
Our Goldfield house, summer, 2007 with the “diamond” window frame in the insert.
The section of the house with the bedrooms had been torn down.
23
Mrs. McCulloch lived on the north side of the Czarevitchs and across the alley behind her
was the home of Otto Grimm. Otto would walk by our house a couple of times a week
wearing a yoke with two large cans attached on his way to Rabbit Springs to fill them with
water. There was also a collection of old mining equipment stored across the alley. I think it
belonged to Curly Wright or Tony Nottie (sp). The menagerie included a couple of vintage
trucks that Philip and I spent hours ―driving‖ and it was a treasure hunt digging through the
cabs and old toolboxes. We loved finding the old tire patches that came in assorted shapes
and colors. In the block behind Czarevitchs and near the county hospital there was a
structure known as the Pigeon Tower. It was a water tower that had been boxed in to form a
building and was where most of the local pigeons roosted. Looking in the door at the bottom
one could see a set of stairs that led up to the tank. A dare in the neighborhood was to climb
to the top. I never made it. I would get to the base of the stairs and chicken out. It was too
dark and scary.
The winter after we moved in from Alkali, Dad had our dog shot. He said he was afraid he
was going to bite one of us again, but I think there might have been complaints from the
neighbors. I know he liked to chase cats and would try to climb the poles after them. The
local night deputy, Pete ―Ace‖ Wadika shot him and hauled the body away on a sled. Pete
owned a photography business and reprinted many vintage photos of Goldfield as postcards.
Most of his work is identified with ―Pete‖ or ―Pete‘s Photo‖ somewhere on the print and they
are collectable today.
On one occasion we wandered down to the cowboy‘s house. There were old clothes and a
lot of junk scattered around the place and we rooted through it to see if there was anything
interesting. A few days later we came down with Chicken Pox. Mom told us we got it from
playing there. Of course that didn‘t have anything to do with it but it was enough to keep us
away from the place after that.
In the block to the east there was an abandoned building with an outhouse behind it. Mom
had a set of small glass boats her father had made for her that she kept on a shelf in the living
room. We were never to play with them but one day they got the best of me and I took one
outside. In the process of playing that day, we wandered over to the old outhouse and I
dropped the boat down the hole. When Mom found out, I learned a lesson about playing with
her things. I imagine the boat is still in the hole.
When the weather was nice Mom would take us for a walk to the post office. On one of
these walks we crossed the lot where a large house had just been moved to Tonopah and I
found a silver dollar. Mom told me I could spend it the next time we went to Tonopah for
groceries. One of my purchases was a giant Hershey‘s candy bar, but I don‘t recall what else
I bought. We would travel to Tonopah to do any serious shopping. Once in a while we
would ride over with our uncle George and his wife Margaret in his Chevrolet sedan or with
the Symmonds family in their Packard. The grocery in Goldfield didn‘t carry much more
than the basics while Tonopah supported four grocery stores. In Tonopah we usually
shopped at Coleman‘s on Florence Avenue or Safeway on Main Street. Coleman‘s was a
grocery/general merchandise store and had almost anything a person might need. The
grocery in Goldfield was on Columbia Street next to the Goldfield Hotel. There was a sign in
the window made up of sections depicting different railroad cars advertising Swift products
that etched itself into my mind.
24
The walk to the post office was always an adventure. We would pass the closed Goldfield
Hotel where we would stare in the windows hoping to see a ghost and when we got to the
post office, a block farther on, we would play in the ruins of the Cook bank building while
Mom was picking up the mail. The Cook bank was destroyed in the great fire of 1923 and
concrete sections of the floors and walls had fallen into the basement at odd angles forming
caverns we would crawl into. On the way home we walked on the other side of the street.
Across from the hotel was a large steel beam that was part of another building destroyed in
the fire that burned fifty-three downtown blocks of the city. Unfortunately, by 1923 Goldfield
was just a ghost of its former self and only a few buildings were rebuilt. The beam would
make a ―ping‖ sound when you stamped your feet while walking along it. Next we would
pass Parker‘s Garage, where we would look at the large model airplanes that hung from the
ceiling of the office. Orlo Parker was the local Ford dealer and a good friend of Dad‘s.
Thanks to Orlo, Dad was able to get a new 1946 Ford pickup after the war when it was
almost impossible to procure any new vehicle. The pickup had been ordered for the power
company, but the war ended and they decided they didn‘t want it. Parker knew Dad needed
dependable transportation so offered it to him, letting him pay it off the best he could with no
interest.
Our parents didn‘t want us wandering down the hill behind the house so Dad came up with
a story to keep us home. He told us Wigaboos lived in the wash and they would grab little
kids and drag them into their holes, give them brooms, and they would be trapped forever
keeping the dens clean. To prove his point he showed a county road grader that was on a
road behind the house with the front tire missing. He said the Wigaboos tore it off. It
actually had a flat tire that had been removed for repairs. It worked -- we never ventured
beyond the back fence.
There was an old lady, at least we thought she was old, who lived north of Mrs. McCulloch
and had a fancy birdhouse in a tree in her front yard. Don Brawley, who we played with
from time to time, decided he wanted it and talked me into going into the yard and taking it
out of the tree. I guess she saw us because our parents found out in no time and we had to
take it back and re-hang it. Thereafter, I always walked on the far side of the street when I
went by her house.
Philip and I went to Sunday school every week and Mom always gave us a dime for the
collection. One week we lost it and were afraid to go to church. I don‘t know if she found
out or not, she never mentioned it, but we were very careful after that.
The first birthday party I ever attended was at Breen‘s house. We played Pin the Tail on
the Donkey and had ice cream and cake, a real treat. In the summers the Felis Brothers Drug
Store, across Crook Avenue (Highway 95) from the Goldfield Hotel, would get a delivery of
Chism Ice Cream from Reno every couple of weeks. It arrived on the Las Vegas-TonopahReno stage in large insulated containers. It seemed like everyone in town would show up for
ice cream cones. They received just enough to last a day or two. I guess they didn‘t have
any way to keep it. The store‘s owner/manager was Pete Felis who everyone referred to as
Pete the Greek. The bus, ―stage‖ as it was known locally, came through town twice a day,
once in the afternoon and again around midnight. The afternoon bus stopped at the post
office to drop off the mail and freight.
25
Downtown Goldfield
26
On Christmas we attended the community party in the Elks Hall where Santa would hand
out stockings and toys. The Elks hall was a large two story building on the northwest corner
of Columbia and Ramsey that housed the post office and a couple of vacant storefronts on the
ground floor and the lodge upstairs. One year Philip and I both got red hard rubber balls.
(Everybody else probably did too.) We had them when we moved to Tonopah and after a
few years the red wore off, turning them black. I think Philip still has his. Seeing Santa in
the flesh the first time scared me and I had a hard time getting close enough to be handed the
stocking. On one of these occasions it was snowing and by the time the festivities were over,
quite a bit had piled up. Mae Symmonds gave us a ride home in her Packard and got stuck
turning around in front of Mrs. McCulloch‘s house. Ed Ryan, another neighbor, helped her
get the car out.
Every year the town held a July 4 celebration (on the 3rd so folks could attend the
celebration in Tonopah the next day) with kids‘ events and free ice cream. Once in a while
they had the swimming pool at the old Turkish Baths filled. I enjoyed the swimming, even
though all I could do was splash around. It was a real treat. Water was scarce and the pool
wasn‘t filled very often. Goldfield had a water problem after the pipeline from Lida froze
and broke in the winter of 1933. The water company couldn‘t afford to repair it so the town
had to depend on local wells with a limited supply of very ―hard‖ water.
About this time color film was coming into vogue and Mom purchased a roll. We drove
out to the abandoned mining camp of Diamondfield, a few miles north of Goldfield, where
we had our pictures taken with the wildflowers that were blooming. Diamondfield was one
of the satellite camps in the Goldfield district and supported a small town with stores, homes,
and a school during the Goldfield boom, although there was little evidence of this by the
1940‘s. Dad drove up to a large stone house on a ridge nearby. It appeared as if the
residents had just moved leaving almost everything behind. There were dressers and beds in
the bedroom and the kitchen had the table, chairs and stove. There were dishes in the
cupboards with a drawer with silverware nearby. When we left, Mom picked up a handful of
wood curtain rod rings that were lying on the living room floor.
In 1946 my parents wanted to enroll me in first grade, but my birthday was a few weeks too
late (January 26). They went to the School Board and got permission but the teacher, Mrs.
Crane, thought they should have waited a year. She told them that she would not pass me
and she kept her word. Before the next school year began, we moved to Tonopah, where I
had to start over. I have always told people I was one of the few kids who flunked first grade
Grade school only had two teachers, one for grades one through four and another for grades
five through eight. High school classes were also held in the building.
I was kind of wild in school (maybe Mrs. Crane was right). Even into adulthood, a few of
the older kids never let me forget it. One was Lydia ―Nubby‖ Baird. I sat behind her in class
and would pull her hair, which was always in pigtails, and stick it in the inkwell. She razzed
me about it almost every time I saw her.
27
A couple of the colored photos taken by Mom near Diamondfield. I am in the photo on
the left holding a bouquet of Indian paintbrush and (from left) that‟s Allen, myself, and
Philip in the photo on the right. The pictures have changed color a bit due to age and it
appears that I had room in my pants to grow a little.
We had an art project that required pasting pieces of colored paper on a glass jar we
brought from home. I think it was for mother‘s day. Walking home after school, I dropped
mine and broke it and was afraid to go home. Mom had to come looking for me. She wasn‘t
upset at the loss of the jar but I got a good scolding for not coming home.
Dad would visit ―old timers‖ he knew and we were introduced to some real characters.
These are a few I recall: There was Joe Cecchini who lived in the large wash that was the
center of the 1913 Goldfield Flood. He had a livestock business and drove an old cattle truck
with the gas tank on the roof of the cab. A man named Stevenson lived near Joe where west
Crook Avenue crossed the wash. He had rigged his car to run on kerosene and repaired
radios. There were piles of old radio parts lying around his place. When the knob on the
windshield wipers in Dad‘s pickup broke and he couldn‘t get a replacement, Stevenson found
a radio knob that fit the shaft for him. It worked so well it was still on the truck when Dad
gave it to Philip years later. Then there was Pedro, a Mexican that drove an old panel truck.
He screened the ruins of the large Catholic Church that burned in 1943 for bits of metal from
the crosses and other adornments that melted in the fire. Mom, accomplished on the piano
and violin, played the organ for church services before we moved to Sparks.
28
DAD GOES BACK TO MINING
After leaving Alkali, Dad went back to mining. He had worked in the mines since he was
seventeen, usually in Goldfield. If ―nothing was doing‖ there, he picked up jobs at outlying
operations. A couple he mentioned were the Lady Ester talc mine near Lida and the B & B
quicksilver mine in Fish Lake Valley, two places where he was employed after he and Mom
were married.
Around 1940 Dad, his brother George and Milt Childers took a lease on the Combination
Fraction claim, but as I mentioned, had to give it up in 1941 when the gold mines were closed
due to the advent of World War II. In 1945 he and George took up where they left off and he
would take Phil and me out to the mine once in a while. I was fascinated with the hoist and
air compressor, especially the large belt that drove the compressor. From time to time there
would be a Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad hopper car under a chute at the end of the waste
dump where they were loading ore. The railroad cars were well used and the hopper‘s doors
didn‘t seal well. In order to keep the ore from dribbling out on the trip to the smelter, Dad
and George would stuff the cracks with rags. Once when they were getting a shipment
ready, Phil and I were home playing in the yard and an automobile pulled up behind the back
fence. A bunch of rags and old clothes came flying over the top and a guy we knew as the
Jeep Man was driving off. He was a friend of Dad‘s and had brought him the rags to use to
seal the railroad car. We didn‘t know the names of many of Dad‘s friends so remembered
them in other ways. To us, this man was the Jeep Man because he drove a Jeep. He lived
down the hill on Columbia Street near the local brothel run by a gal known as Happy Days.
The Combination Fraction mine headframe, hoist house, and blacksmith shop
c1960.
29
There was an open mine stope (a cavity where the gold ore had been removed) on the crest
of a small hill beside the road to the mine. When Dad would drive by, it scared me. I
thought the car was going to fall into it.
They only leased for about a year this time. The cost of supplies had gone up so much after
the war that they couldn‘t make it. Leasing was a tough game. You could go a month or
more before making a shipment of ore and when the returns came in it seemed as if
everything went into paying the bills that had accumulated. It was so bad that Mom had a
problem getting the necessities at the local grocery run by Mr. and Mrs. Loeb. She related
that on one occasion she needed milk for us and Mrs. Loeb wouldn‘t let her have it because
she didn‘t have the cash and her bill was so big. Mom started crying as she left and Mr. Loeb
happened to see her and asked what was wrong. When she explained, he directed his wife to
give Mom what she needed whenever she came in. It made a lasting impression on her. She
swore that when our family ―got on our feet‖ she would never charge again. After we moved
to Tonopah and she went to work for Nye County, she kept her promise. The lesson rubbed
off on me and I have always been careful never to buy anything I couldn‘t pay for.
Dad‘s health was deteriorating. He had contracted silicosis from a lifetime of working in
the mines, and had a difficult time breathing. He also had back problems brought on when he
slipped while unloading a portion of one of the mine‘s ore shipment at the railroad scales at
Millers, Nevada when the car was determined to be overloaded.
1947 was hard for the family. Dad‘s lungs got so bad he couldn‘t work and Mom became
our provider. Goldfield was the county seat of Esmeralda County and the courthouse was the
major source of employment. She had a background in office work, she had held a position
with Kress & Company in New York before she met and married Dad, so she was able to
pick up enough part time work in different offices to pay the bills but she couldn‘t get on
steady. Goldfield was a small town and in order to get a permanent position you had to be a
―native.‖ Mom was considered an outsider. Dad met her in the late 1930‘s on a trip to New
York. She was born and raised in Brooklyn and they were married in 1939. She traveled
back to Goldfield with him and has lived in Nevada since.
Dad eventually got so bad he was sent to a hospital in Las Vegas where he was
misdiagnosed as having tuberculosis. After a month or so of rest he was feeling better and
Mom loaded us in the car and drove down to visit him. We sat on the lawn at the hospital
and for the first time I saw and played on grass. It made an impression on me that I have
never forgotten. Dad wanted to come home but they wouldn‘t let him out. Mom didn‘t
know what to do but a few weeks later there was a knock on the door in the middle of the
night and Dad was back! He had borrowed enough money for a bus ticket, ―borrowed‖ some
clothes (his were locked up) and hopped the night bus for home.
While he was unemployed, he was our caregiver and took us everywhere with him. On
one occasion he stopped by the Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad shops to visit someone. There
was an engine sitting in the roundhouse fired up and ready to leave. We begged him to let us
climb into the cab. He finally gave in and up we went. It wasn‘t what I expected. It was hot
and flames were visible in the firebox. Steam was hissing from someplace and it sounded
like it was growling at me. I wanted down immediately but it didn‘t seem to bother Philip.
But, I loved the railroad yards, there were cars and equipment everywhere. Whenever we
were near that end of town we insisted Dad drive by so we could look. In addition to the
30
depot and roundhouse, there were spurs lined with gondolas and flat cars and near the
Standard Oil bulk plant was a line of tank cars.
Unfortunately, the T&G was on its last legs. What had been one of Nevada‘s most
prosperous mining railroads was barely hanging on. The only thing that kept it from being
dismantled for scrap at the beginning of the war was the part it played in the war effort. It
was the supply route for the Tonopah Army Air Base, but after the war, business dried up
when the hoped-for mining revival never materialized. In October 1947 it was abandoned
and scrapped in 1948.
These are my early Goldfield recollections. After we moved to Tonopah, Dad and Mom
would drive over frequently to visit friends. On these visits, Philip and I would spend our
time wandering around town exploring the old buildings and running wild with local kids,
including Ben Baird and sister Nora (Tootsie), Betty Symmonds and Boots Farnsworth,
generating a new batch of adventures.
Goldfield c1950 looking southeast down Crook (US 95). The buildings are: 1-Elks
Hall/ Post Office, 2-School, 3-Courthouse, 4-Stevenson‟s place, 5-Mozart Bar, 6Goldfield Hotel, 7-Parker‟s Garage, 8-Starks Bar, 9-Loeb Grocery. At the time the
town‟s population was around 250.
31
32
GOLDFIELD, THE LATER YEARS
On our Goldfield visits, our parents always seemed to end up at one of three bars (there
were five in town at the time): The Goldfield Club run by George and Clara Starks, the
Mozart owned by Alex LaBarth and his wife or the Santa Fe that belonged to Fred and Clyde
Bremer. Clyde ran a small restaurant in conjunction with the saloon and served three meals a
day. She catered to the miners working for Newmont Mining Company at the Florence, the
only mine operating in Goldfield. Most of these visits took place from late 1947 through the
mid 1950‘s.
The first stop would usually be the home of Bill and Mae Symmonds, close friends who
lived a block or so south of the Santa Fe. After a few drinks at the house the adults would
head for the Santa Fe to ―see what was doing.‖ It was great for us kids. We would run
around with Betty exploring until it got dark, then head to the bar where we would lounge
around outside drinking sodas. One thing I will never forget was sitting in front of the Santa
Fe and listening to the mournful sound of the wind as it blew through the power lines. It was
a unique resonance that is hard to forget. Apparently it had something to do with the location
of the buildings in relation to the wires.
Bill, Mae and their daughters Judy and Betty lived in a typical miner‘s home. When first
built, it only had an outhouse and running water in the kitchen, but someone had added a
small room with modern plumbing consisting of a sink, shower and toilet. There was also a
―solar heated‖ shower in the shed that was nothing more than a tank on the roof filled with
water that was warmed by the sun during the day. It was probably good for about two
showers per fill. This was a common practice in central Nevada mining camps. The
reservoirs were usually old Model T Ford gas tanks that held about nine gallons. They
seemed to be the ideal size and there was an abundance of them to be had.
Judy was a couple of years older than us. When she was 16, she was diagnosed with
leukemia and passed away within a year. I can‘t be sure, but from what I have learned about
the above-ground testing of nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site, she was more than likely
a ―downwinder,‖ or fallout victim. The fallout killed hundreds of people living downwind of
the test site and many times Tonopah and Goldfield were directly in its path. Most of those
affected early on were children who wound up with leukemia or thyroid cancer and long-term
effects on the population of the area are still being felt. Everyone who lived in Central
Nevada at the time was exposed.
A wood plank sidewalk ran beside 5th Avenue from the Santa Fe south to Crook Avenue
(US 95). It was built in the 1900‘s and originally went as far as the mines in Jumbotown
north of the saloon. It was a convenience for the miners, considering how horrendous the
mud is in Goldfield in wet weather and the fact that everyone walked to work in those days.
The sidewalk was a unique piece of history and had been used so much the miner‘s boots
wore the soft wood around the knots away, leaving them sticking up.
There was a group of shacks north of the Santa Fe that caught our attention. Dad
mentioned that an old fellow known as Coyote Bill lived in one of them and had operated a
still during prohibition. The cabins were empty but we kept Dad‘s story in mind when we
33
were poking around them and a close inspection revealed what appeared to be a trap door in
the corner of one. We pried it open and found a cellar larger than the cabin. It extended
behind the house and had a roof of planks and sheet iron that was covered with dirt so one
wouldn‘t suspect it was there. We got a couple of flashlights, used a stick to brush aside the
spider webs and ―dropped in‖ to look it over. There were bottles, a couple of old kegs, a
square five-gallon gasoline can with a copper coil used to condense distilled booze and other
odds and ends. (Gasoline was shipped in square five-gallon cans before the advent of service
stations and empties were used for everything from carrying liquids to being filled with dirt
and stacked like bricks to build small dwellings.) Among the items was an old powder
(dynamite) box with ―Coyote Bill‖ written on the side in pencil so we knew we had the right
place. Unfortunately the copper still wasn‘t there, but we took the still‘s coil and the two
kegs. The kegs were dried out but we were able to soak them up so they would hold water
again. Philip claimed one and I got the other. I still have mine but it is in pieces now. I
don‘t know what happened to the coil -- we probably ended up selling it for junk.
The shacks north of the Santa Fe Saloon, 1963. Coyote Bill‟s place was the house on
the left. The road between the buildings ended at Pius Kaelin‟s.
Pius Kaelin, an old miner, lived a little north of here. He had a yard full of vintage mining
equipment, but we didn‘t know him so we kept our distance. He had a lead mine near Gold
Crater on the bombing range east of Stonewall Mountain and had built a small mill to process
the ore at Stonewall Falls. Stonewall Falls is a spring and waterfall on the west side of
Stonewall Mountain about fourteen miles east of Goldfield. During deer season, we would
camp at the falls and hike up the mountain hunting with Dad. We never got a deer, but the
experience was rewarding. To get to the trees, it was necessary to walk up a canyon north of
the falls -- the mountain is a sheer cliff at the falls. The canyon we hiked had an old dugout
34
that supposedly housed a still during prohibition and there were sites where Indians had lived
during the 1800‘s and early 1900‘s. Our headquarters was an old cabin at the falls.
But back to Goldfield: Many of the old houses around town still had quite a bit of ―stuff‖
in them. When people died or moved the places sat pretty much the way they were. No one
seemed interested in what was left behind. A lot of the items would be considered antiques
today but I guess most of them wound up in the dumps. A house that belonged to Dr.
Howland west of Symmonds looked as if he just moved out although he had died years
before. There were dishes in the pantry, clothes in the closet, furniture in all the rooms and
dressers full of items. The dishes in the pantry were clear glass that had started to turn
amethyst from the sun. There were two old wagon umbrellas in the garage featuring
advertisements for early Goldfield businesses. For some reason I remember one of the
names -- St. Pierre the Shoe Man. We were going to pack them home, but when we opened
them we found they were brittle and cracked. Our plan was to jump off the shed roof using
the umbrellas for parachutes like Dad told us he and his brother George had done when they
were kids. The household items didn‘t interest me, but I found a bunch of neat old padlocks
in the shed.
A bit further down the street was John Boesch‘s house, or I should say, shack. It too
appeared as if he walked out leaving everything behind and I guess in a way he did. He was
an eccentric old fellow that worked at the Santa Fe washing dishes for his meals and he
looked like he never bathed or changed his clothes. He would amuse us kids by eating hand
lotion. He lived like a bum, but was wealthy. He was an inventor with a number of patents
in his name and had made a great deal of money investing in the stock market. He had no
electricity or running water and used carbide lamps for light. Dad told us that when they
worked in the mines together in the 1920‘s and 1930‘s, John would collect the spent carbide
the men threw away when they cleaned their lamps after shift, sift it through window screen
and take home what was left to use to light his house. His water supply was the Santa Fe
where he filled cans a couple of times a week. When he worked with Dad he never brought a
lunch, he would ―bum‖ whatever anyone else had left over.
Sometime in the early 1950‘s he left saying he was going to New York to get married. He
must have been in his sixties at the time. Of course no one believed him but apparently he
had a girlfriend or, as some folks speculated, a mail order bride. They were married on a
popular New York TV show that featured weddings and received a number of fabulous gifts.
Everyone who knew him was wondering what he would do with something like a washing
machine in his Goldfield place! He called Fred Bremer and told him he was bringing his
bride to town on their honeymoon, but didn‘t want her to see his house. Fred had a number
of rentals near the saloon and John asked him to get one of them ready for him. The plan was
to tell his wife that was where he lived. Fred got the place ready and John showed up with
the gal, stayed about a week, and left. A few people kept in touch with them for a while but
eventually they faded from the scene. It was quite a thing in Goldfield. Everyone knew what
was going on and played along with it.
Another attraction near Symmonds was the Love Tree in the wash near the old high school
gymnasium. The tree was a large, dead cottonwood used for years by the younger set to
record the initials of their first loves. After checking out the tree, we would wander over to
the gym. Like most of the old buildings, there always seemed to be an open door or window
and if there wasn‘t, we usually ―found‖ a way in.
35
During our wanderings around the old shacks and trash dumps I picked up my first trade
token. The tokens were issued by businesses in the early 1900‘s when coinage was scarce
and are collectables today, especially the Nevada pieces. It was a round brass coin with a
―B‖ on the front and ―12 ½‖ on the reverse. It wasn‘t long before I found two more, one
from Goldfield‘s California Beer Hall and another from the Goldfield Home Dairy. As time
went on I added others thanks to the old Tonopah dumps and eventually built a collection of
over 700 Nevada pieces including 400 from the Tonopah and Goldfield area.
When Dad and Mom visited George Starks‘ place on the south side of Highway US 95
(Crook) we would wander over to Parker‘s garage and root around in the junk piles. We
searched for old bottles that were part of the early storage batteries. They were probably
1900‘s-1910‘s vintage and many were buried in what was the basement of a building
destroyed in the fire of ‘23 and used as a trash dump in later years. The bottles were square
and about 2‖x 2‖x 5.‖
Starks would let us into the bar to drink soft drinks or use the restrooms if we needed but I
didn‘t like the men‘s room and would avoid it whenever possible. The great outdoors
worked just as well. The men‘s room was nothing more than a toilet placed in an outhouse
behind the place and it had a clown‘s mask on the outside wall that I found unsettling. In
1953 Starks moved the bar, building and all, to North Las Vegas.
Bill Symmonds was working for Newmont at the Florence Mine. When the company shut
down their Goldfield operation and relocated near Elko, the Symmonds and most of the other
employees were offered jobs there and the family moved to Carlin.
After the Symmonds left, Dad and Mom didn‘t visit Goldfield as much, but would still
drive over from time to time to have a few drinks at the ―watering holes‖ with other friends.
On occasion they drank more than they should have and some of the trips home were real
adventures.
Many times they wound up at the Mozart where they would park out front while they were
socializing and we were into everything we could get into in that end of town. We always
had our .22 rifles along since we would usually stop for some target practice on the way to
Goldfield. When it got dark and we had nothing to do (we couldn‘t go into the bar like we
did at the Santa Fe, there was a strict ―no children‖ policy at the LaBarth‘s), we would open
the back window of the station wagon or lie in the back of the pickup and shoot at the
windows in the Goldfield Hotel across the street. You could hear the glass break when you
hit one. The town was so dead nobody ever noticed us. It was a good example of the old
saying, ―They rolled the sidewalks up after dark.‖
Another Goldfield Hotel Story: It was during the winter of 1957 when Bud Saunders and I
decided to take a ride to Goldfield in my 1923 model T Ford coupe for something to do. It
was cold and spitting a few snowflakes. When we got to town we drove around a bit, then
decided to walk up and down the streets looking into the windows of some of the old
buildings. I parked on Columbia Street in front of the hotel and across from the BrownParker Garage. We were walking up the alley between the hotel and the old grocery store
when I noticed a window of one of the hotel rooms was ajar. I tried it and it opened so we
crawled in to take a look around. We found the building in the condition it was in when it
closed after World War II in 1945. We went through a number of rooms upstairs and
36
checked out the bar, restaurant and lobby. We looked into the basement, but didn‘t venture
down the stairs, it was dark and we didn‘t have lights. The guest rooms had the old brass
beds and antique dressers complete with large mirrors and washbowls with pitchers in them.
The beds were made up. In the restaurant there were menus and silverware on the tables and
the bar was furnished with glassware.
I saw a couple of things I thought I needed, including an old slot machine. We grabbed the
slot, some glasses and a few other items from the bar to carry back to the room where we
came in. When we passed through the lobby, I noticed that the telephone in the booth was
the old hand crank type so I picked up the receiver and gave the crank a spin. To my
surprise, the operator came on. It was Gertrude Cordova at the telephone exchange.
Needless to say, it didn‘t take me long to hang up. We stashed our loot and grabbed a couple
of blankets from the room‘s bed. It was getting colder and the T didn‘t have side windows or
a heater so we figured we could wrap up in them. That evening we drove back in my ‘41
Buick to look around a little more and pick up the things we had stashed. Philip was with us
and decided he liked the old telephone so he unscrewed it from the wall of the booth. It had
an unusual conversion unit on it to accept coins.
When we got home, Bud made the mistake of showing his share of the haul to his father
who raised hell, telling him to get rid of it. He brought it over and gave it to me. I still have
two of the blankets in my camping bedroll and I was able to scrounge enough parts to rebuild
the slot machine. The blankets are a wool military issue. Apparently they were furnished to
the hotel by the air base in Tonopah when the building was pressed into service to house
airmen and their families. We eventually tore the telephone apart for the magneto.
A few weeks later there was a high school dance and instead of going, Philip, Louie Alfred
and I figured it would be a great night to go back to Goldfield and explore the basement of
the hotel so we picked up a couple of flashlights and headed over. We got there around 6:00
p.m. It was getting dark, and again, the weather was nasty and on the verge of snowing. We
parked in front of the alley and sure enough, the window was still unlocked. We headed
through the lobby and into the bar, intending to go into the restaurant and look around, but
the door separating the two we had used before wouldn‘t open. Apparently someone had
locked it. We filled our pockets with ornate shot glasses (I still have a few of them) then
decided to go down into the basement using the stairs behind the bar. We figured we could
get up to the dining room and kitchen from there. We had just gotten into the basement,
when we heard footsteps on the floor above us. By then it was dark, a storm had blown in
and the wind was howling through the building. We stood still listening with our lights off
and sure enough something or someone was walking around near the bar. When the
footsteps moved away, we quickly made our way up the stairs and backtracked to the room
where we came in. Needless to say, we didn‘t take any time getting out of there! Our
imagination was working overtime. We had heard stories about the ghosts in the building
and thought we may have heard one. To this day I wonder about it.
Speaking of strange things that happened in the hotel, my grandmother (Metscher) told us
her ghost story about the building. During the ‘30‘s she worked in the hotel as a cleaning
lady. She was on an upper floor and noticed a man walk down the hall and go into a room
that she knew was in a block that hadn‘t been rented for quite a while. One of the things that
caught her attention was his dress that reflected the 1910‘s. She went downstairs and asked
Mrs. Murphy, a family friend who was working the front desk, who she had rented the room
37
to. Mrs. Murphy replied it wasn‘t rented so they went up to see what was going on. The
room was locked and when they went in, nothing was out of order. In fact the room was
quite dusty with no signs of anyone having been there. A ghost? Who knows, but my
grandmother swore it happened.
Another time, we were running around town while Mom and Dad were at the bar and we
discovered a hole in the roof of the hotel kitchen that was between the two wings on the east
side of the building. It was possible to climb onto the roof from ground level. We lowered
ourselves in through the hole and took a look around. There was a large range, sinks and
dishes piled on shelves, but we couldn‘t get into the rest of the building. All the doors were
locked or nailed shut. It was a scary place so we didn‘t stay long.
There was a fire escape on the east side we would climb when it was starting to get dark
and there was less chance of anyone seeing us. It was a dare to see who could get to the top.
It was unnerving since it required going by the windows of the rooms and with all the ghost
stories about the building, one‘s imagination had a way of running away. On many of these
occasions, we were with a Goldfield friend, Ben Baird.
The old school where I spent my ill-fated year was another great place to mess around. It
had been vacated about 1950 when a new, smaller building with a couple of rooms for grade
school students was built nearby. There were only eight or ten high school kids by this time
and they were bused to Tonopah.
The building, erected in 1907 as the town‘s high school, was three stories with numerous
classrooms. It had a large open attic with a water tank, apparently intended for fire
protection. The school was closed off, but, like the gym, there always seemed to be a way in.
We spent hours roaming through it. There was a tall slide, four teeter-totters, a set of swings
and a set of graduated climbing bars in the playground on the south side. From the top of the
slide you could see into the second story windows of the building and in order to fit in with
the local kids you had to be able to climb it and slide down. It took me a while to master it.
The playground equipment was there until the 1970‘s when the county had it removed,
probably for liability purposes.
The old structure is still standing, but is deteriorating rapidly. The last time I ventured
inside, the attic and third story rooms had been taken over by the pigeons and were a mess.
The roof leaks and much of the foundation on the south side is crumbling.
The family trips to Goldfield gradually tapered off as my parents made new friends in
Tonopah so as we got older, about the only time we would visit as a family was Memorial
Day when we decorated relatives‘ graves.
After we got our drivers licenses but no one was twenty-one, Phil and I would load up a
few friends and drive over from time to time to buy beer at Ken Kirby‘s Silver Dollar Bar or
Fred Bremer‘s Santa Fe Club where no questions were asked. We usually picked up a case
of Lucky Lager at $5.00 or A-1 $5.50. It was a diversion from driving up and down the street
in Tonopah.
38
Grover Carpenter alias Ken Kirby in front of his Goldfield saloon c1964.
When we were in high school, his place was one of our “pit stops”
when we were in Goldfield and wanted beer
but no one had an ID.
I have undoubtedly overlooked a number of my Goldfield adventures, but it is time to move
on to Tonopah.
39
40
A FEW GOLDFIELD PHOTOS
Clockwise from top left:
The old gym, built in 1907, was a roller skating rink during the boom years when
Goldfield boasted a population of over 20,000.
Orlo Parker‟s garage and Ford dealership.
A section of the wood plank sidewalk on the southwest corner of 5th Avenue and Miners
Avenue. The sidewalk ran from the Santa Fe to Crook Avenue (US 95).
Fred and Clyde Bremer‟s Santa Fe Club. The restaurant was to the left of the bar.
All photos are c1963.
41
Clockwise from top left:
Goldfield High School c1910.
The Goldfield Hotel looking south across the intersection of Crook Avenue (US 95) and
Columbia Street c1945.
The stone house at Diamondfield c1964.
The Goldfield Elks hall on the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Ramsey
Avenue c1945.
42
1940s GOLDFIELD FAMILY PHOTOS
s…
Top row from left: 1. Me, six months old, June 1941 with the house‟s “diamond”
window behind me. 2. My grandmother Mamie holding me, April 1941. 3. Dad and
me in front of Grandma Mamie‟s house, Fall, 1942. Dad is holding Philip. I was
standing on the board sidewalk that, at the time, ran as far out as the mines.
Bottom row from left: 1. Mom holding Philip (L) and me under the large Joshua tree
beside the Tonopah highway west of town, May 1944. The Joshua, a local landmark,
was uprooted to make way for highway renovations in the 1970‟s much to the chagrin
of the locals. 2. Philip and me in front of our house, April 1947. The corrugated iron
garage is behind the well. The insert with me in March 1942 is the same view before the
garage was built. 3. Me with my “garden,” April 1947. Philip is sitting against the
house behind me on the left and Allen is on the right.
43
44
TONOPAH
Tonopah, looking east from Mt. Brougher, c1949. 1. Our neighborhood. 2.
Tonopah Army Air Field housing project. 3. Highway US 95 south to Goldfield and
Las Vegas. 4. Highway US 6 east to Ely. 5. Location of Tonopah Army Air Field
nine miles east of town. 6. Nye County courthouse. 7. School. At the time the
town‟s population was around 2,500.
Tonopah, looking east from Mt. Brougher c1949.
1. Our neighborhood. 2. Tonopah Army Air Field housing project. 3. Highway US 95
south to Goldfield and Las Vegas. 4. Highway US 6 east to Ely. 5. Location of
Tonopah Army Air Field nine miles east of town. 6. Nye County courthouse. 7. School
At the time, the town‟s population was around 2,500.
45
46
OUR NEW NEST
Our house looking west across Central Street c1947
With Mt. Brougher in the background and the
Forest Service residence on the right.
We moved to Tonopah in the fall of 1947 in time for me to be enrolled in school.
Mom purchased a house on Central Street near the south end of town. She paid $25.00
for it and our new home was spacious and comfortable, a marked improvement over the
Goldfield place. It was built in 1909 and by the standards of the time, must have been
considered very modern with electricity, running water and inside plumbing.
The kitchen had a wood-fired range and a small adjoining room with a sink and hot
water heater. The range was the primary heat source during winter when the kitchen
became the ―hub‖ of the house. As time went on Dad installed a gas stove to use during
the summer but Mom preferred the wood range and used it most of the time. When we got
older, it was the responsibility of whoever got out of bed first to get the fire started and the
coffee on. The house was damn cold on winter mornings but there was just enough space
between the stove and the wall to stand in and warm up while the room was heating. The
only insulation the place had was layers of newspaper under the linoleum on the floors and
three or four layers of wallpaper
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Mom was an accomplished cook and, by the standards of the day, prepared wellrounded, nutritious meals while holding down a full time job at the courthouse. There was
always a substantial breakfast centered around eggs prepared a variety of ways, complete
lunches and dinners with meat or fish, a vegetable, potato, bread and dessert. When Dad was
home donuts, coffee cake or similar goodies were part of our breakfast fare. There was never
an excuse for missing breakfast or dinner, but as we got older it was possible to skip a lunch
from time to time. We were expected to clean our plates and not leave the table until we
were done (although once in a while the dog helped out if he happened to be under the table).
Dinner was a time to catch up with the day‘s events and everyone participated.
The living room was heated with an oil stove that Dad eventually replaced with a propane
heater. The stove put out plenty of heat but required regular cleaning, fuel was expensive and
the oil stored in the barrels beside the house had to be measured periodically and the
containers kept full. When we switched to propane, the gas company checked the tank on
regular intervals. The living room was where we did our homework and, before television,
listened to the radio.
The two bedrooms were at the front of the house. Mom and Dad had the small one and the
three of us boys shared the large one. Phil and I slept in a double bunk bed and Allen had a
regular bed. Around 1950 Dad built a larger bedroom on the back of the house for him and
Mom and Phil moved into their room. About the same time the living room was enlarged
utilizing what was the front porch.
In the bathroom there was a small sink, a claw foot bathtub and a toilet with a tank on the
wall flushed by pulling a chain. Off the bathroom was the house‘s only closet, a small ―add
on‖ that overlapped on our neighbor John Anderson‘s property, a fact he reminded us of from
time to time. Apparently a previous resident had garnered permission to build it. The only
other storage was in the small hallway between the kitchen and bathroom and didn‘t amount
to much more than a few shelves accompanied by hooks for hanging coats.
Under the house was the ―cellar‖ where the canned goods were stored. It wasn‘t much
more than a large hole with dirt walls and some shelving, but it served its purpose.
Over time outbuildings came and went including a chicken coop, another garage and
a blacksmith shop. The chicken coop and blacksmith shop were torn down to make way for a
shed to store Model T Ford parts when Phil and I began gathering them. The configuration in
1959 was the house, garage, woodshed, ―little cabin,‖ large two-stall garage and a storage
shed. The little cabin had an interesting history I will get to later.
Dad‘s mother Mamie had a small house on St. Patrick Street a block off Main Street near
the mortuary and had moved to Tonopah from Goldfield a few years earlier. She was in
charge of vegetable preparation, was head dishwasher and waited tables at the Tonopah Club
Café.
48
MOM AND DAD “HIT THE SLAVE MARKET”
Mom and Dad did not have jobs, but Mom found work right away. Her first job was ―pearl
diving‖ (washing dishes) at the Town Hall Cafe. The restaurant adjoined the Town Hall Bar
on lower Main Street and was run by the Olivers, a man and wife from Goldfield. Mom
didn‘t like the job, but it brought in a few dollars. References from folks she had worked for
in the Goldfield courthouse, including Judge Peter Breen, soon helped her get part time work
at the Nye County courthouse and she became the family‘s primary breadwinner when she
secured a permanent position in the Recorder-Auditor‘s office working for Margaret
Henderson Booth. In 1970 Mom ran for Nye County Clerk, was elected, and held the office
until she retired a few years later with more than thirty years of county service.
Dad‘s health was improving and he began to pick up odd jobs to help ―make ends meet‖
until something permanent came along. His jobs weren‘t as prestigious as Mom‘s, but being
rambunctious young boys, Philip and I were much more interested in what he did, coupled
with the fact he took one of us to work with him from time to time.
One of his first part time jobs was working for Dave ―Shorty‖ Roberts who had a house
moving business. As the name indicates, Shorty wasn‘t a big man but could ―keep up with
the best of them.‖ His niece, Dorothy Casner, was also on the crew. A mother of two young
girls, she didn‘t have a problem keeping up either. The work was labor intensive and
unpredictable. Dad was only on the payroll if there was a house to move, but he didn‘t have
a choice. I loved going along with him. I had a keen interest in the huge jacks and large
moving timbers and was fascinated by the way the crew raised and lowered the buildings, but
in 1950 Roberts shut down and moved to Las Vegas.
While employed by Roberts, Dad was working part time for Warren ―Mac‖ McGowan,
owner of The Studio, a combination second hand-department store across Bryan Avenue
from the Post Office. In addition to ―The Studio,‖ Mac also had the fitting nickname ―The
House of 50,000 Useful Items‖ on the store‘s sign. Dad‘s job entailed helping Mac move
―stuff‖ from one place to another, and again, the days and hours were unpredictable.
On one job I tagged along on, he helped Mac clean out a warehouse of office equipment he
purchased at an auction at the Tonopah Army Air Field (T.A.A.F.) when they were
deactivating it in 1949. Items included new and slightly used office equipment and hundreds
of boxes of new pencils, paper clips, staples and other supplies. He stored the material in a
couple of large sheet iron warehouses on St. Patrick St. behind his store and next to grandma
Mamie‘s house. I loved looking around in warehouses when Dad was moving merchandise
in and out. There were old cabinet model crank phonographs, beds, vintage dressers with
large mirrors, coal and oil fired stoves, chairs, tables and boxes of things I couldn‘t identify.
On one occasion McGowan picked out a box of Billy Whiskers books from the stock and
gave it to Dad for us kids. The books were a series detailing the adventures of a goat
c1930‘s. I think Philip and I read them all three or four times. They made such an
impression on me I purchased one on eBay a few years ago for ―old time‘s sake.‖
49
McGowan was a little guy, Jewish I think. Philip and I thought his wife Hilda was a great
looking lady. She must have been in her thirties at the time, a bit younger than Mac, and tall
with a great figure. Mac also had a photo studio and specialized in taking portraits. When he
first arrived in the area in the 1930‘s, he was photographing Tonopah and surrounding
mining camps including Silver Peak, Manhattan, Gold Point and Goldfield, all active towns
at the time. Unfortunately World War II put an end to mining in all of the districts except
Tonopah. Tonopah‘s mines remained in operation due to the silica content of its ores that
was necessary for the war effort. Many of Mac‘s pictures from the era are in the files of the
Central Nevada Museum in Tonopah.
The Tonopah Army Air Field was a city in itself with hundreds of structures of all shapes
and sizes. It was one of the Army Air Force‘s major training bases for B-24 Liberator
bomber crews. When the base was auctioned off, the buildings had to be dismantled or
moved within an allotted time and a number of moving companies showed up to cash in on
the work. Among them was Robert Campbell, a black man, who had a couple of old trucks
and a set of moving timbers. He was looking for help and Dad got on with him, again a
temporary position. During the summer of 1950 they moved buildings from the base to
Warm Springs, Smoky Valley, Tonopah and Goldfield and Dad would take Phil or me along.
Some of the buildings were recreation halls and there were framed pictures of the World War
II aircraft on the walls advertising Coca-Cola and other products. Campbell would let us take
them and in no time we built up a sizeable collection. After the base was cleared, Campbell
stayed in Tonopah filling the void Dave Roberts had left. In addition to moving houses, he
opened the local junkyard under the name Hillside Auto Parts that, before long, acquired the
handle ―Nigger Bob‘s.‖ One memorable ―relocation‖ Dad took me along on was moving
George Starks‘ bar from Goldfield to North Las Vegas, a long two-day journey. The trucks
were slow and the roads weren‘t great in those days. We stopped somewhere south of Beatty
and camped overnight. The next day we arrived in Las Vegas, unloaded the building and
drove back to Tonopah. I didn‘t think we were ever going to get home. Another move I was
involved in was relocating a large structure from the base to Warm Springs, forty miles east
of town, where it was remodeled as a bar and café.
A few things about the old Army Air Force Base: While many buildings were moved,
others were dismantled for the lumber. Dad even purchased one, a large outhouse near what
appeared to be a radio station of some sort outside the west fence. He paid $25.00 for it and
we tore it down board by board and hauled it home. The lumber was like new and Dad used
it to build the bedroom on the back of the house for Mom and him. What wasn‘t used in the
construction was sawed up as firewood and burned in the kitchen stove. There was a huge
pile of double bunk beds outside the fence near the outhouse and dad decided to take one for
Phil and me. It was dark and as he was loading it a security truck pulled up and spotlighted
us. The driver yelled ―What the hell are you doing!‖ Dad replied, ―I need one of these beds.‖
It was quiet for a minute and security hollered ―Is that you Bill?‖ To which Dad answered,
―Yes.‖ The security man replied, ―Take whatever you need‖ and drove off.
After everything was auctioned off, it was no longer necessary to keep the base secure.
Anyone could drive around the streets and wander around in the buildings that hadn‘t been
moved or torn down. One that hadn‘t been dismantled yet was the gymnasium. About this
time we needed a basketball backboard and hoop so Dad, Philip and I went down to check it
out. Sure enough, the hoops and backboards were still there. We removed one and took it
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home where Dad mounted it to a couple of uprights at the edge of a level spot near the corner
of Jensen‘s fence.
The base soon became a recreation facility of sorts for the local kids. There were large
concrete floors where the warehouses and other buildings stood that were great places to
roller skate. We would sweep the nails and other debris off and spend hours enjoying
ourselves. Our skates were the fit-all type that needed a key to fasten them to our shoes. We
only had one key and had to share it, we had lost all the others. Philip and I would ride down
with one of our friend‘s families, usually the Buckhouses. A few times we attempted to ride
our bikes out, but only got to the ―bridge‖ a couple of miles from town. The bridge was
actually two large concrete ―boxes‖ in a wash under the highway that drained cloudburst
water from the hills east of town, but we always found it an interesting place to visit, the
walls were covered with ―illustrations‖ and graffiti the older kids had added that seemed to
be updated periodically.
One of hundreds of buildings awaiting its fate at the airfield c1949. Many
structures were moved to nearby central Nevada locations while others were
torn down for the lumber.
When the base was cleared of the majority of the buildings, the site was transferred to Nye
County and became Tonopah‘s airport. Bonanza Airlines made it a stop on their Reno-Las
Vegas route when they served the area through the 1950‘s. When the county took over the
complex they wound up with a number of buildings including three large hangars. The
hangars are still standing, and, with one small structure, are the only original wood frame
buildings remaining. There are also three earth covered concrete munitions vaults east of the
runways.
The base‘s level streets were a great place to learn to drive. Dad took me down to practice
in our ‘46 Ford pickup a few times, but you had to be sure to stay on the pavement. The
ground was covered with boards, pieces of sheetrock, slabs of roofing paper and thousands
and thousands of nails.
51
Around 1954 we discovered we could salvage the lead rings from the pipes where the
toilets were bolted to the building‘s floors. With the exception of the barracks, all of the
buildings had concrete floors in the restrooms. We used single jacks (sledge hammers) to
break the rings out. Each ring weighed a couple of pounds and every building had at least
four toilets. The barracks had a shower-toilet building for each four or five units and each of
these had at least six toilets, so there were quite a few rings considering there were hundreds
building sites. When we got the lead home, we would melt it down in the blacksmith shop
forge and pour it into used assay crucibles resulting in ingots the size and shape of the
crucible. Usually we couldn‘t get the ingots out without breaking the crucible, but there were
hundreds of them around the old mine sites where the assay offices were located so we had a
ready supply. We also used old restaurant soup bowls. They were interesting. The hot lead
would open the pores and gobs of grease would run out. It discouraged one from eating off
restaurant china. We sold hundreds of pounds to traveling ―junkies.‖ We would store the
ingots in the back of the little cabin and one batch was over 800 pounds. In fact, we had so
much piled in the back of the cabin the floor caved in. We got around 8c to 10c a pound and
thought it was a lot of money.
In places there were large vaults similar to bank vaults left behind where buildings were
torn down. All the vaults had the doors removed with the exception of two that still had
locked doors in them. Many times when we were exploring, we would stop and play with the
combinations hoping to get them open. They sat there for years and we assumed they were
empty. Then, in the late ‗50s, someone used a torch to cut them open. We happened to be
driving around drinking beer and looking for relics when we noticed them. The vaults were
empty with the exception of one that contained three metal boxes about 14‖ x 14‖ x 10‖.
They were sealed in brown paper, but whoever cut the door open had unwrapped one.
Apparently they didn‘t figure they were worth anything and left them behind so we took
them home to see what they were. We unscrewed the lid on the open one and found
gyroscopes, cables, pulleys and other strange devices in it. Nothing looked familiar so we set
them in the back of the Model T parts shed and forgot about them. Years later we learned
they were the controls for guided bombs being developed at the base during the war. We
donated one to the Central Nevada Museum for the Tonopah Army Air Force display and the
others are still sitting in the shed.
Back to Dad‘s jobs: He finally got a semi-permanent position delivering stove oil, coal and
mill ends for ―Brownie‖ Brown, owner of the National Coal Company. (Mill ends were the
short pieces of wood left over when lumber was cut at the sawmills. Fuel yards sold them in
bulk or by the sack as fuel for wood stoves.) In addition to delivering products, he sacked the
coal and mill ends and did other chores around the fuel yard. As usual, he took one of us kids
along when he could. Fall was oil stove cleaning season, a dirty job the fuel companies did
as a courtesy for their customers. To clean the oil stoves, Dad would chip the caked carbon
out of the firebox with a couple of special chisels and use a large vacuum to clean up. He
hated the job, no matter how careful he was he always wound up covered with the soot.
The winter of 1951-52 went down in the records as one of the West‘s worst. In Tonopah,
the snow had drifted so deep Dad couldn‘t get the delivery truck close to the houses to pump
the oil into the storage barrels. Most houses, including ours, had a couple of fifty-five gallon
drums beside an outside wall to store the oil for the heaters. The fuel was fed to the stove by
gravity through a ¼‖ copper line. The oil stoves were a primary source of heat and almost
everyone had one in the living room. (Propane units were just coming out and were usually
52
only available as kitchen ranges.) In order to deliver the stove oil, Dad had to carry it over
the snowdrifts in five-gallon cans and dump it into the tanks. The same was true for the
people still burning coal. He had to lug the ninety-five pound gunnysacks of coal to the
houses for the customers and would come home wet, tired and cold.
The winter of 1948-49 was just as bad but all I remember was that the snow in the yard on
the east side of the house had drifted to the point we could almost walk over the fence and the
electricity was off for three or four days. A real adventure as far as we kids were concerned
but our parents weren‘t amused. Our oil heater and kitchen wood stove kept the house warm
and we used gas mantel lamps and candles for light. We lost our power again in 1952. The
lines over the White Mountains couldn‘t handle the snow loads.
Dad was working for Brownie when Allen, my youngest brother, cut his little finger off on
the hood of the ‘46 Ford pickup. Dad had taken him to work and Allen was playing around
the fuel yard near Brownie‘s house. He climbed onto the front fender of the pickup and
started to slide off. To catch himself he grabbed the louver in the hood, but kept sliding. His
little finger was in the louver and when he reached the end the sharp metal sliced it off at the
first joint. They rushed him to the hospital where Doc Joy sewed the end up. Later, they
looked for the finger, but it was nowhere to be found. Dad figured the cats got it.
Sometime later Brownie was killed helping load scrap metal into a Roy Nettles truck. Roy
delivered coal to Tonopah from Utah and backhauled the scrap to pick up a few extra dollars.
The axle shaft on the loading mechanism‘s sheave broke and the sheave hit Brownie on the
head. Death was instantaneous. Gladys, Brownie‘s wife, wasn‘t able to run the business so
she sold it to Clair Dahlquist and Dad lost his job. The Dahlquists had four children, two
boys, Ralph and Joe, and two girls, Mary and Andria. Ralph was my age and over time we
became close friends.
After losing the position at National Coal, Dad went to work delivering fuel for Cavanaugh
Brothers who sold Mobil gas, diesel, stove oil and propane, his first permanent job in
Tonopah. Again, part of the regimen was cleaning oil stoves every fall. Since he had to
work Saturdays, most jobs were six days a week, Philip and I took turns riding with him on
weekends during the school year. In the summers, one of us would go if he had an out of
town delivery, no matter what day it was. I rode to Beatty, Carver‘s, Manhattan, Round
Mountain, and numerous other places including many of the outlying ranches and mines. I
liked going to the ranches, I would wander around the buildings and junkyards while Dad
was filling barrels and tanks scattered around the place. We delivered aviation fuel to the
Finn Brothers who had an airplane (they were fighting the government over its ownership)
hidden near Bonnie Clare dry lake on the highway between Slim‘s Place (Scotty‘s Junction)
and Scotty‘s Castle in Death Valley. We dropped off 55-gallon drums of fuel and loaded the
empties from the previous delivery. The airplane was hidden in the brush on the other side of
the lakebed.
Dad took me to Salt Lake City with him twice when he picked up underground fuel storage
tanks from Lang Company for Cavanaugh‘s new gas station, Main Street Service, they were
building in Tonopah. What an adventure! Both times we stayed overnight at a motel and
took in a show at one of the large downtown theaters where I saw my first 3-D movie and, I
got out of school for a couple of days! These were long trips, a day to drive from Tonopah to
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Salt Lake, load the tanks early the next morning and head back to Tonopah. I loved crossing
the salt flats east of Wendover, Utah.
Dad performed other duties for the Cavanaughs as well. They owned the ChryslerPlymouth dealership and he would travel to Mina from time to time to pick up new cars that
had been shipped in on the railroad and occasionally he went to Reno to pick up new
vehicles.
He was also a carpenter‘s helper when Cavanaughs secured a contract to move a group of
houses from Tonopah to Round Mountain and remodel them for the Round Mountain Gold
Dredging Company. The houses were moved from the Tonopah Army Air Field housing
project just southeast of our house. One of the men Dad worked with was Carl Hurley, a
carpenter who was living in one of the houses prior to its being moved. He had a large
family and kept a milk cow in a corral at the old dairy on the east side of the Goldfield
highway. My parents bought his excess milk and it was my job to walk over and pick up a
bottle about once a week. The milk was in a large-mouth one-gallon jar and we skimmed
the cream off before we drank it. Two of the boys, August and John Galvin (apparently it
was a ―second marriage‖ situation) were friends of ours and although they were a few years
older, we played with them quite a bit.
Each of the housing project buildings had four apartments and there were around twenty of
them. All were vacant with the exception of the one Hurleys were living in. Four were
moved to Round Mountain and the others were scattered around central Nevada. South of
the apartments was the ―community building‖ that was used for meetings, dances, dinners
and other functions and beyond it, a water tower. There were two of these complexes, the
one near our house and another across town at Mizpah Terrace on the south shoulder of Mt.
Oddie. The houses were built for T.A.A.F. officers who had families. Unfortunately, due to
the large number of men training at the base, it only scratched the surface when it came to
housing everyone. All the available apartments in Tonopah were taken to the extent families
were living in remodeled chicken coops and sheds and as far away as Goldfield and
Manhattan. Even the Goldfield Hotel, which was on the verge of closing before the war, was
pressed into service. All the buildings near us were moved by 1953 to make way for the
Nevada State Highway Department complex. A number of those on Mizpah Terrace are still
in place. One became the Lion‘s clubhouse and another the locker rooms and snack bar for
the swimming pool. Others were remodeled as homes.
In the early ‗50‘s the townspeople got together, and, with volunteer labor and donated
equipment, built the swimming pool. Through 1956, I spent a big part of my summers
swimming. We would buy season tickets and swim almost every day of the week with the
exception of Monday when it was closed. We were usually at the pool when it opened at
1:00 p.m. and stayed until 5:00 p.m. when kids had to leave for ―adults only‖ swimming.
Before this, our only pools were at Warm Springs forty miles east of town, where I learned to
swim, and Darrough‘s Hot Springs in Smoky Valley. Both used warm water from nearby
mineral springs. When we were lucky enough to be able to go, we were guests of our
friend‘s families. Mom and Dad never wanted to take us, I guess they got their fill of
swimming at Alkali.
By the late 1950‘s I was too involved with other things to spend much time at the pool.
About the only time I swam was in the evenings when a bunch of us would be riding around
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and someone suggested climbing the back fence. This was after closing, usually in the dark,
and without swimming suits. Once in a while, a neighbor would come over and yell at us or
call the cops who would spotlight the place to scare us off, but no one ever made the effort to
chase us down.
The abandoned housing project near our place was a great place to mess around. When I
was ten or eleven we found we could crawl under the buildings and get into the apartments.
The houses were on concrete foundations with about three feet of ground clearance and each
apartment had a trap door in the closet floor. The front steps of the units were fabricated
from 2 x 4‘s with spaces between them and we discovered that if we pried them up, there was
a treasure trove underneath. Apparently the residents would sweep debris from their floors
out the front doors and onto the porches where it would fall through the cracks. Items we
came up with included coins, small plastic models of World War II aircraft and military
uniform buttons. There were brick incinerators built at intervals around the outer edge of the
complex that also held treasure. When we sifted through the ashes we found additional
buttons and coins and best of all, sets of the sterling silver flying wings from officers‘
uniforms. For years we wondered why people had burned their uniforms, but I think I
figured it out when I was researching the history of the base for the Central Nevada Historical
Society. I believe what happened was that some of the men living there lost their lives in
crashes and their wives probably burned the uniforms without bothering to removing
anything. There were over a hundred killed training at Tonopah and it was a sad time for the
women, many with young children. I imagine some just wanted to distance themselves from
anything associated with the base before they left.
Another attraction was the water tower that we would climb and run around the catwalk.
One of our dares was to take off our clothes and throw them over the side. We didn‘t think
anyone saw us until Jim Jensen, whose home was between our house and the complex, teased
us about it. He had watched us with field glasses. Of course his sons, Lamont and Raymond,
were with us. We all hung around together. We realized if he could see us no telling who
else was watching, so that ended that.
Dad left Cavanaughs around 1954 and went to work for the Nye County road department
where he was assigned to one of the crews maintaining the rural roads. They had four of five
crews and his covered the area from Smoky Valley east to the county line near Current
Creek. This included Smoky Valley, Monitor Valley, Little Fish Lake Valley, Duckwater
and Railroad Valley. They would start at one end of their district and work their way to the
other, then start over again. Dad‘s crew consisted of the road grader operator and himself.
He was the ―rock picker‖ who followed the grader throwing the large rocks it turned up off
the road. They worked together fueling and greasing the equipment, changing tires, replacing
grader cutting bits and taking care of anything else that had to be done. Their home was a
trailer they usually parked at a nearby ranch or mine, repositioning it as they moved along.
The first two or three years, Dad worked with Charles Keller, a nice old guy. When Charlie
left, Pete Boni took over with Dad. Pete was OK but more standoffish. His wife Pearl was a
nurse at the hospital in Tonopah, and his son Tom and my brother Allen became lifelong best
friends.
It was a five-day workweek and Dad was out of town Monday thru Friday. During the
summer he would take either Philip or me with him about once a month. I loved it. He
would let me drive the truck, a one-ton flatbed used to haul supplies, and I would explore the
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old ranches and homesteads checking out the trash dumps. I was always on the lookout for
soda bottles, one of the ways I earned spending money. We would turn the empty bottles in
at Kretschmer‘s Coca-Cola bottling plant in Tonopah for a couple of cents each. They took
Coca-Cola, Mission, Big Chief and 7-Up bottles. I did find one bottle I wish I still had, a
Tonopah Coca-Cola. At the time it was only worth the few pennies I got when we sold it, but
today it‘s a valuable collectable.
My favorite stop with Dad was Duckwater. Duckwater is an Indian reservation in the far
northeastern edge of Nye County with miles of roads around the small farms where no one
paid any attention to a young driver. There were a number of abandoned homesteads with
houses the government had built for the Indians, great places to look for old stuff, and a large
natural hot spring that furnished water for the valley. The spring formed a swimming hole
and the water was the ideal temperature for bathing. My day usually went like this: Get up
with Dad and Charlie for breakfast about 6:00 a.m., pack our lunch, and take up where they
had finished grading the day before. If we were close enough, we would come back to the
trailer for lunch. I would drive the truck as we followed the grader and Dad would hop out to
remove the rocks from the road. We shut down about 2:30 p.m. so Dad and Charlie could
lube and fuel the grader and check it over, then we headed back to camp. Before dinner,
which was usually around 6:00 p.m., I would take the truck and drive around the reservation
roads. After dinner, Dad and I would go over to the springs where I would swim for an hour
or so. I always took my .22 rifle out with me and if things got boring, I would hunt
jackrabbits or get in some target practice.
Another great place was Manhattan where we camped near Pete Boni‘s old family home at
the lower end of town. I would spend the days wandering around town while Pete and Dad
were out working on the roads. By this time I was interested in old cars. Philip and I had
started building Model T Fords from parts so I would check all the old dumps for car parts.
There was an old miner‘s cabin across the street and up the hill a bit from Boni‘s with an
outhouse that had a padlock on the door. This was unusual. Outhouses were never locked.
The old guy that had lived there had died, probably in the hospital in Tonopah, and his place
was closed up the way he had left it. I used a ―pass key‖ I carried with me to open the lock
and found the outhouse stacked full of Model T parts. I packed a bunch of them down to the
house, but had to stash them until we could come back and pick them up, Dad didn‘t want to
haul them home in the county truck. He figured the less Boni knew, the better. I didn‘t
understand this until years later.
Speaking of passkeys, when I was a teenager, I always had a set with me. Somewhere
in his travels Dad learned the old padlocks that took the flat keys could be opened with a
key that had all the segments ground off with the exception of those on the end giving it a
―T‖ shape, information he passed along to us. This also applied to many of the newer
Master locks. There were a few different size locks so it required a ring of three or four
keys accompanied by a ―skeleton‖ key that fit many of the old door locks. Most old
houses and sheds had these locks. Tonopah, like other Nevada mining towns in the
1950‘s, had numerous abandoned buildings resulting from residents moving to ―greener
pastures‖ when the mines shut down. Many left with the intention of coming back
―when things picked up‖ and stored what they didn‘t think they would need. Of course,
the mines never reopened and the people never returned. Phil and I figured out which
places had locks we could pick and checked them out. There usually wasn‘t much of
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interest with the exception of the buildings at the mines. They always seemed to have
something to entertain a couple of curious boys.
But back to Manhattan: It was on one of my walks around town that I found my first
Manhattan trade token, a North Ferguson & Co. piece. I picked it up at the lower edge of
town where the Red Light district was located in the ―early days.‖ I also removed the
porcelain emblems from old auto and truck radiator shells when I found them and there
were a lot of them around. I picked up quite a few at the junkyard that had been
Manhattan‘s old Wittenberg Freight Depot and was where Larson brothers, Bruce and
Jim, stored mining equipment. In fact, I gathered the emblems and metal auto I D plates
for years and built quite a collection I eventually sold off on eBay.
The county trailer we stayed in the first few years was a primitive affair. It was wood and
resembled a railroad boxcar. It was furnished with a propane cook stove, refrigerator and
heater along with beds, a table, chairs, a few cupboards and Coleman mantel lamps for light.
It was hot in the summer and Dad said it was cold in the winter. If there didn‘t happen to be
an outhouse in the vicinity, the great outdoors served the purpose. Shortly after Charlie quit
the ―boxcar‖ was replaced with an aluminum Airstream trailer, quite an upgrade.
Dad worked for the road department for about six years before quitting and hiring on with
the Nevada State Highway Department as the night watchman and office janitor. His
silicosis was causing problems and his health was deteriorating. The highway department job
was good for him. It was only a few yards east of our house and Dad worked there long
enough to add a few more years to the time he had accumulated in the state retirement
system. Unfortunately he passed away January 3, 1972, a few months after he retired.
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58
METSCHER FAMILY PHOTOS -- THE EARLY TONOPAH YEARS
1. From left, Philip, Allen and myself in front of our house c.1947. 2. From left:
Me, Allen, Mom (Alexandria) and Philip beside our 1941 Buick, March 1949. I
inherited the Buick in 1957 when Dad upgraded to a 1956 Plymouth station
wagon that had been used as a demo by Cavanaughs. 3. From left: Me, our dog
Spot, Philip and Allen on plywood cart made by our neighbor Carl Hurley
c1950. 4. Mom (Alexandria) and Dad (William H. Metscher) c1952.
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5. Mom and Dad (Alexandria and William H.) with (from left) Allen, Philip and
myself at the Reno airport May, 1950 where Aunt Lucy was boarding a plane for
her return trip to Brooklyn after a visit to Tonopah. 6. From left: Allen,
myself, Philip and Red, December 1948. 7. From left: Philip, Allen, myself and
our grandmother Annastacia Novick who was visiting from Brooklyn pose with
Silver State Flying School‟s AT-6 at a dirt airstrip two miles north of town. 8.
Me beside the house January 1949. The barrels behind me stored the fuel oil for
the living room heater.
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9. From left: Back row-our grandmother Mamie (Marie) Metscher, uncle George
and Dad (William H.). Center-Philip, myself and Allen. Front-cousin Georgene.
Taken in front of Grandma Metscher‟s house on St. Patrick Street c1953. The
corrugated iron building in the background was one of “Mac” McGowan‟s
warehouses. 10. Showing off my Christmas present, a new Hawthorne “twowheeler” January 1950 with Philip, Allen and our dog Red on the left. 11. Philip,
Mom, Allen and myself on Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad engine #53 north of town,
1948. The engine was on its way to Tonopah Junction to be scrapped.
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62
THE HOOD
Our neighborhood looking east from Heller Butte, (Green Mountain) May 1950.
1. Highway 6 east to Ely. 2. Highway 95 south to Goldfield and Las Vegas.
3. Baseball field (fenced to form the arena for 50th anniversary celebration boxing
matches). 4. Tonopah Army Air Field officer‟s housing project. (Hurleys lived in
the project house closest to the highway). 5. Future home of Bob and Essie Mae
Campbell. 6. Jensens. 7. Our house. 8. John Anderson. 9. Forest Service
(Buckhouses). 10. Weeks. 11. California-Tonopah mine waste dump. 12. Old
Quas Sanitary Dairy.
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Our neighborhood boasted a variety of folks. There were the Hurleys who lived in the
Army Air Force project house but they left in 1952 when the houses were sold and moved.
Bob and Essie Mae Campbell‘s house was on the hill south of us behind Jensen‘s barn. She
was a black lady and a good friend. Her husband Bob ran the junkyard and we got to know
her when Dad worked for him moving houses. She cooked the meals for the moving crews
when they had out-of-town jobs. In our teenage years when we were running around
drinking and raising hell and were too drunk to go home, we would stop by her house where
she would feed us and let us sober up a little.
The Jensens were our neighbors up the street. Jim and Virginia owned the lower or ―old
Keough Ranch‖ at Peavine Creek, 30 miles north of Tonopah. There were four Jensen kids,
Lamont, Yvonne, Raymond and Marie. Virginia and the kids lived in Tonopah nine months
of the year so they could attend school, but Jim stayed at the ranch year round. Their house
was rented out in the summer.
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The first renters I recall were the Dwyers. Their daughter, Jackie, was my age. Her father
Bud was the body man at the Midland Motors Ford garage and her mother had a rock and
bottle shop downtown. Jackie had an older brother, Wayne, who also followed the body
repair business. I worked with him in later years at the Midland Motors and Nevada
Department of Transportation. He was a good guy but had a ―battle with the bottle‖ that was
eventually his downfall. It seemed to be a trait of most body men I was acquainted with. I
don‘t know what the family‘s religious convictions were, but the mother would hold what we
were told were séances at the house from time to time. The family, with the exception of
Wayne who had married Ann Quas, moved to Las Vegas around 1953. Mrs. Dwyer left
behind boxes of old bottles. We found a way into the house through the basement and played
around in the building quite a bit when it was vacant and rummaged through the bottles from
time to time. There were probably some collectables, but we weren‘t interested. She had
gathered them in old trash dumps scattered around the desert and most dated back to the
mining boom days of the early 1900‘s. Many were turning amethyst from the sun.
In 1954 when the state began construction of the highway department shops, one of the
bosses rented space from the Jensens in front of their fence a few hundred feet from our place
and moved in a small trailer. There was a man and his wife, but we never got to know them
very well.
We did become acquainted with some of the others they rented to. In 1955 there were the
Campbells (no relation to Essie Mae and Bob) with four young children, three girls and a
boy. The boy was David and his sisters were Janet, Olive Ann, and, I believe, Carol. Their
father was a boss or inspector on the construction of the Air Force early warning radar being
built on Mt. Brock. The children were quite a bit younger than us and we didn‘t become
friends.
Around 1957 Mrs. Jensen and the kids moved in permanently. Virginia went to work full
time behind the soda fountain at Wardle‘s drug store and later got on as a teller at the First
National Bank. I think they needed the money to keep the ranch afloat. Eventually they sold
the ranch and Jim moved in too, taking a job as the local agricultural extension agent.
Lamont was Philip‘s age and Yvonne was a year younger. Next was Raymond, a year older
than Allen, and Marie, a year younger than Al. We were introduced to the family in 1949
and over the years Lamont became a close friend.
Across the street were the Weeks, Shoshone Indians with roots in Reese River. There were
John and Pansy, with daughters Lucile and Gardenia, six or seven years older than us, and
Schenida. (I am not sure of the spelling -- it was an Indian name so I have spelled it the way
is sounded.) I think she was Pansy‘s sister or cousin. John worked at the Nye County
courthouse as janitor and Pansy and Schenida were employed at the Nye County Hospital
where Pansy was a nurse.
And, there was an old man everyone called Ninamoochi (again an Indian name I am
spelling by sound). His ―white man‖ name was Oskar Jeff. The family always had kids from
Reese River staying with them during the school year. One, Dorlan Dixon, moved in
permanently and became one of our best friends. Others were Thelma and Deloris Smith,
both a couple of years older than us, and their brother Lester, a few years younger. Dorlan
joined the navy after he graduated from high school and was killed in an auto accident on the
south side of the Tonopah summit when he was home on leave. A couple of girls I recall
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from the 1960‘s were June and Amy Boots. John, Pansy and Schenida retired and moved to
Fallon in the late 1970‘s.
―Johnny‖ Weeks, as we referred to him, was quite a character. He always had his Beech
Nut chew and on the only occasion I ever tried it, it was at his urging. He invited Phil,
Dorlan and me to each take a large pinch and needless to say, before we knew it we were in
the back of the garage throwing up. He had a great sense of humor, always had an off color
joke to entertain us with and I remember his old Indian adage he reminded us of from time to
time – ―If a man had big feet, he had a big—,‖ -- well anyway he was, as I said, quite a
character. He also taught us a few words in his native dialect. I have forgotten them and
probably for the best. Most were cuss words anyway. In addition to a pen of chickens,
Johnny had a cage that always held a wild animal of some sort, usually a badger or a
porcupine. They were interesting, but boy, did they smell!
John Anderson and his mother were our neighbors on the west. John was employed at the
post office, eventually becoming postmaster when Ed Slavin retired. We had a rocky
relationship with him. We were wild and John didn‘t like us. The feeling was mutual and we
stayed away from him. He married later in life, sometime in the early 1970‘s after his mother
passed away. We were gone by then, but while we were around we kept him on his toes. We
always thought it was strange that a grown man was living with his mother. They still used
an outhouse and it wasn‘t until the late 1950‘s they had an inside toilet and shower installed.
There was a large lilac bush in the yard that always seemed to have toilet paper hanging in it.
We didn‘t pay much attention until one summer night when we were sleeping in the back
yard. Early in the morning we heard Mrs. Anderson come out of the house and to our
surprise, dump her ―thunder mug‖ on the bush. We made it a point to steer clear of their yard
after that, not that we went around the place anyway.
During the hot summer months Phil, Allen and I would set up cots in the garage or the back
yard and sleep outside. Air conditioning was unheard of at the time and our bedrooms were
unbearable. As we got older this afforded us an opportunity to roam around after dark and
there wasn‘t much going on in our end of town we weren‘t aware of.
Before John went to work at the post office he was the hoist engineer at the Desert Queen
mine and picked the copper dynamite detonation wire out of the waste dump after shift,
rolled it into balls, and threw it behind his garage. There was quite a bit of it and when we
started selling scrap, we decided to take a couple of small bundles to add to our supply,
figuring he wouldn‘t miss it. Years later he apparently decided to sell the wire. By then the
pile had almost completely disappeared with the exception of some we left for ―seed.‖ He
jumped us about it and of course we played dumb, but I am sure he knew where it went.
Next to Andersons was the U. S. Forest Service house where the Toiyabe District ranger
and his family lived. When we moved to Tonopah, it was the home of the Jones‘. They had
two boys, Pat and Chris, the same ages as Phil and I. Around 1949 their father was
transferred to Deep Springs, California and the Jack Buckhouse family moved in. There was
Jack, his wife Barbara, and three children, Susanne, my age, John, a year older than Allen,
and Patricia, a few years younger than Allen. Susanne resembled her mother but John and
Pat were redheads. They were there until 1957 when Jack was transferred and the position
filled by Shag Tayton, a single man. We had a decent relationship with the Buckhouses, but
weren‘t close. We were wild and their parents were what we considered goodie-goodies, the
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―Ward and June Cleavers‖ of the neighborhood. Their parents let us play together, but they
kept a close eye on us. At first we always played at their place, although this changed
somewhat as we got older. Susanne was one of the first girls I ―made out‖ with although she
wasn‘t a girlfriend. We had a telephone line to their house we rigged up with a couple of
army field phones Dad found someplace. Later we replaced them with a couple of old hand
crank magneto telephones we scrounged up. Hooking up the telephones required running
our line over the Anderson‘s house and since they liked the Buckhouses, we let John
Buckhouse garner their permission.
Beyond them, on the northwest corner of Central and Magnolia, were the Birds. The
family ran Bird‘s Cash Market on Main street north of the Mizpah Hotel. Joe Bird was the
―Old Man‖ and the market‘s manager and butcher. The market was well known for its
quality meats. I don‘t remember much about his wife, who we considered just another older
lady. Their son Robert lived with them and worked at the market as a butcher. He was very
heavy, probably pushing 400 pounds. I can still visualize him behind the counter at the meat
market panting and puffing with sweat running down his face. An interesting note: He had a
1950‘s vintage Plymouth sedan he traded for another car in the 1960‘s and Allen wound up
with it. It was comical to see Al driving down the street. The car had a distinct lean from
Robert‘s weight that had collapsed the springs on the left side.
Fronting Erie Main Street (Highway 95) north of Birds were John Bombasi and his wife.
John, an old miner, was a friend of Dad‘s. Mrs. B. had a small business selling ―purple‖ (sun
colored) bottles from their house. They had a daughter Mary and son John, both quite a few
years older than us. Son John was an epileptic. John Sr. was Swedish with a heavy accent
and was entertaining to listen to.
Just beyond Birds on the northwest were a couple of small homes and a corral where they
kept a donkey. One of the houses faced Erie Main Street and the other was on Central
Street. William Hyde, who we came to know as the Deaf Man, lived in the house facing Erie
Main. My first recollections of him date back to around 1948 when I knew him only as an
―old man who lived down the street.‖ At the time he was living in the cabin on Central
Street. My first ―real‖ memory of him came one day when we were walking to school with
Lamont Jensen and he decided to throw a rock onto the roof of the house. He missed and the
rock went through a window. Of course we didn‘t stick around to see what happened, but
after school a board had been nailed over the window and Mr. Hyde was standing nearby
with a bandage on his head. I don‘t know if it was a result of the rock or not, but we assumed
it was, and to avoid him, we took the ―long way around‖ for a while. Sometime later he
moved into the house on Erie Main Street.
His ―new‖ house, like the old one, would be considered a shack by today‘s standards -cold running water, no electricity and an outhouse in the back yard. The kitchen wood stove
was the only source of heat and he used a kerosene lamp for light. The shortcut we took to
walk downtown crossed the property near the back of his house and in the summer he spent
most of the day sitting in the sun near the back door. We didn‘t know him then and
considered him ―different‖ so we would run by his place if he happened to be outside. We
eventually learned he was deaf and communicated using an old ledger to write notes between
himself and his visitor. After we became aware of this we decided to try to ―talk‖ to him and
soon learned that along with his deafness, he didn‘t speak, just nodded his head ―yes‖ or
―no.‖ Thinking back to the rock incident, this is probably why he didn‘t confront us. Over
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time we got to know him quite well and realized he was a nice old guy. He was short,
balding, and had a great smile.
Through ―conversations‖ we learned he was a veteran and lived on a small retirement. His
living conditions were primitive. The house was lousy with flies in the summer due to the
proximity of the outhouse and corral. He kept the place clean, but throwing the dishwashing
water out the back door didn‘t help matters. In the summer when I needed flies to feed my
pet lizard, his place was my source. Whenever mom was baking we made sure there was
something for him, especially on holidays. In the winter the only way to visit him was to
open the door and walk in but he never seemed surprised to see us. I don‘t know if he bathed
regularly, but at least to us, he never seemed dirty. His clothes were worn but clean. His
place did have what we kids considered the ―old peoples‖ smell typical of many of the old
men living alone. A few kids from around the area would tease him, which infuriated Philip
and me, and on Halloween the big kids would tip his outhouse over where it remained until
Mr. Bird took the time to right it. Once Phil and I took it upon ourselves to stand it up, but it
was a bit out of plumb when we finished. It was over the hole though.
Then, in the fall of 1954 he disappeared. Bird told Mom that with winter coming on he was
moved to the old folks section of the county hospital and would be back in the spring, but
Phil and I knew better. We had heard the story before! It seemed once a person was taken to
the County Poggy as it was known, that was the end of them and thus he faded from our
lives.
Most of the old folks around town who didn‘t have relatives eventually wound up in the
Poggy or were ―shipped off‖ to the ―nut house‖ in Sparks. As I look back, I think the
majority of the poor souls suffered from dementia or Alzheimers, words we never heard at
the time.
This brings to mind the dreaded ―black bottle.‖ Once in a while when someone in the
poggy died, we would hear the adults discussing the possibility that Doc may have slipped
them the black bottle. We conjured up images of a bottle with skull and crossbones on it
sitting on the shelf in his office and when we had to visit for one reason or another, we were
on the lookout for it. Maybe it was all speculation, but it must have had its origin someplace
and I suspect there was a grain of truth to it.
I didn‘t see the doctor very often. If I did it was usually for something that required stitches
and a tetanus shot. Fortunately I never broke any bones, but had plenty of cuts and bruises.
Mom would treat us with her remedies if she could. Cures ranged from Iodine or CamphorPhenique for the cuts and scrapes to cod liver oil and castor oil for internal problems with
liniment smeared on my chest to fight off colds or a stuffed-up head. Then there was Epsom
Salt for infections from things like a dog bite or stepping on a nail. When I wound up with
the mumps it was serious enough to rate a visit from Doc Joy, who thought nothing of
making house calls.
After Mr. Hyde was relocated, the Pontons, a Shoshone Indian family, moved into the
house. They didn‘t have much more than Mr. Hyde. There was Babe, the mother, two
daughters, Pauline and Betty who we came to know quite well, a young son, George and
Babe‘s partner, a white man whose name I never learned. Pauline was three years older than
me and Betty was a year younger than Philip. Pauline was a bit on the heavy side, typical of
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most Indian girls we knew. I remained friends with Betty for years. After she married she
moved to Hawthorne and I would run into her from time to time at the El Capitan where she
was a dealer. The last time I talked to her she said she was moving to northern California,
where her husband, a pilot, was going into business. Pauline married a Hawaiian boy and
moved to Hawaii. Both the girl‘s husbands were airmen stationed at the Tonopah radar base.
Babe worked at the hospital, and although poor and living under less than ideal conditions,
the girls and George were healthy, clean and wore decent clothes. Betty graduated from
High School, but Pauline dropped out when she got married.
There were quite a few Air Force guys in town and they became a sore spot with the local
boys. They were competition for the limited supply of girls, many of whom wound up dating
and eventually marrying them. It wasn‘t long before they earned the not-so-endearing
nickname Scopies, a take-off from the radar‘s scopes on Mt. Brock that they manned 24/7.
And, there were other folks in the neighborhood we never paid much attention to. One guy
lived in a little house on Central Street above Mr. Hyde‘s place. I think he was a dealer at
one of the casinos. He wasn‘t married and picked up the nickname ―the bachelor.‖ Near him
was the Harris family, all old folks.
Mrs. Banovich lived across Erie Main (US 95) on the southeast corner of Erie Main and
Magnolia. We figured she had to be about a hundred years old, but in reality was probably in
her seventies. She had a herd of goats she grazed on the hills east of her place and when she
herded them she would call to them in Serbian, her native tongue. She had a large garden
where she raised vegetables and apparently she made pretty good wine. Her grandsons were
the Banovich boys who, in the early years, were our ―enemies.‖ There were four of them,
three close in age to us. They stayed on their side of Erie Main Street and we stayed on our
side, but we would have occasional rock fights and yelling matches. They actually lived on
Ellis Street but we would run into them when they stayed with their grandmother. It seemed
every neighborhood group of boys had their forts and would raid each other‘s from time to
time. Theirs was a chicken coop in the wash below their house and ours were rock walled
structures we built in the outcrops above our house. We would get into theirs and throw
things around, drop off a homemade stink bomb or two, and mess the place up. They would
attack ours, pushing over the rock walls, but by the time I was about ten this phase had
passed.
When we were younger, summer entertainment included baseball games on the lot in front
of Buckhouses, hide-and-seek, building forts, playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers
or army, building roads for our toy cars on the side of the mine waste dump across the street
from the house, hiking the nearby hills and riding our bikes. As we got older we built carts
using wheels and axles from old wagons and bikes. Norman Sharp built the neatest one in
the neighborhood for the Jensens using a steering wheel and shaft from a 1930‘s vintage Ford
and with a gearshift lever dummied onto the floorboard. Norman was a high school student
from a ranch in Railroad Valley who lived with the Jensens during the school year.
We spent a lot of time inside during the winter playing board and card games. A few of my
favorite board games were Monopoly, Parcheesi, checkers and Chinese checkers. The card
games started out simple with Old Maid and Fish and over time evolved into Pinochle and
Cribbage. I did a lot of drawing and was rather good with pastels and colored pencils. When
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there was snow we would build snow forts, ride our sleds and there was always time for a
good snowball fight.
With the exception of the movie theater, about the only ―commercial‖ entertainment was
radio. We listened to programs such as the Lone Ranger, Fibber McGee and Molly, Red
Skelton, Suspense and The Great Gildersleeve in the evenings while we were doing our
homework or playing games and Dad would tune in the news when he was home. We only
had one radio and it ―lived‖ on a table in the living room. There was no TV. TV didn‘t
arrive until 1954 and there were only two channels, one that was usually unwatchable. It was
―piped in‖ (local slang for ―wired in‖) by Tonopah TV, a local company. They had installed
antennas on a hillside near Laundry Spring north of town, the only place the signals could be
picked up, and ran cable to everyone who subscribed. Because we were on the south end, we
were among the last to get our hookup. Dad was looking forward to it as much as us kids and
was constantly badgering Ed Lee, the company‘s installation man. When it finally arrived
we drove to Bishop where Dad purchased a new black and white Zenith set to enjoy the
fuzzy picture on. We soon graduated to a color set. Actually, all it was was a colored screen
secured over the picture tube of the old set giving our picture a color effect, but it was better
than nothing and made us the hit of the neighborhood for a while. It would be years before
we got a real color television.
When I was about eleven, I purchased a used radio from, as we knew him, ―old man
Pribbernow,‖ the maintenance man for the telephone company, Nevada Telephone and
Telegraph that served Tonopah and Goldfield. He installed telephones, repaired lines and
maintained the company‘s equipment, driving around town in a beat up 1930‘s vintage
Chevrolet pickup with the telephone company logo on its doors. We had the old crank
telephones and almost everyone was on a party line so there wasn‘t much privacy as far as
calls were concerned and I think everyone listened in once in a while. Our ring was a long
and two shorts. Dial telephones didn‘t arrive until 1960.
Pribbernow had a shop in the rear of the telephone company building repairing radios as a
part time business. I think I paid $5.00 for mine. It wasn‘t the best, but picked up enough
stations to keep a kid happy. My favorite was from Del Rio, Texas featuring Wolfman Jack
playing the latest rock and roll tunes. I was becoming interested in popular music and could
pick up Lucky Lager Dance Time Friday evenings. I still have the radio and although it
doesn‘t play anymore, it‘s an interesting antique.
At thirteen I ordered a portable record player from Montgomery Ward and began to
accumulate a collection of records. It started with a handful of 45‘s my uncle Stan in
Brooklyn sent out but it wasn‘t long before I graduated to the 33 1/3 LP‘s. My 45‘s were the
popular rock and roll tunes of the day but the 33‘s were primarily Jazz and Blues that I
ordered through the Columbia Record Club. Some of my favorite jazz artists were Duke
Ellington, Lena Horne, Jo Stafford, Dave Brubeck, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Billie
Holliday and Earl Garner. I listened to a variety of Rock and Roll and enjoyed singers such
as Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, The Diamonds, Jody Reynolds,
The Coasters, Fats Domino, Patsy Cline, Patti Page, Little Richard and The Platters to name
but a few. In fact, I still have most of the records.
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Our end of town c1955
71
72
NEIGHBORHOOD FRIENDS
Names are listed from left to right in all photos: 1. Philip, Allen, myself and Pat
Jones, February, 1948. 2. Yvonne and Marie Jensen in their front yard, Mt. Oddie
in background, 1950. 3. Back row-Philip, Lamont Jensen, Mom (Alexandria
Metscher), John Glavin, August Galvin, Front-Allen, Raymond Jensen, 1950. 4.
Philip, Allen, Raymond and Lamont Jensen sitting on fuel oil tank behind Forest
Service house, 1950. Mt. Oddie in background. 5. Philip with our duck Peep and
Dorlan Dixon holding Spot, 1953.
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74
PICKING UP A FEW BUCKS
We didn‘t receive allowances. If we wanted spending money, we had to figure out how to
earn it and we devised a number of ways to pick up a few dollars.
The first was gathering bottles to sell at the Coca-Cola plant. On Saturday and Sunday
mornings Dad would load us in the pickup and we would drive over the ―summit‖ and south
down highway US 95 a few miles, then east out US 6 to the airport and finally take US 6-95
to the turnoff to the T.A.A.F. fuel depot about three miles west of town picking up the bottles
teenagers riding around the night before had thrown out. We usually found a dozen or so.
We would also check the baseball field if there had been a game the night before. It was a
short distance from the house just east of the old T.A.A.F. housing project. Spectators
watching the games from their cars always left a few bottles behind. There would usually be
a couple of empties under the bleachers, too. I don‘t think the teenagers drank as much
liquor as we did when we reached that age, there didn‘t seem to be many empty beer bottles
lying around, or maybe we just didn‘t notice them. The first thing we would do when we
picked up a Coke bottle was read the embossed town name on the bottom to see where it was
―born.‖ Nine times out of ten it would be Reno or Las Vegas, but every once in a while one
would show up from as far away as New York.
The bottles had to be reasonably clean before they were turned in so after we collected
thirty or forty we would fill a washtub with water and rinse them. We held onto them until
we had over a hundred. We made a bigger chunk of money that way.
While I am thinking about it, a few words about the baseball field. There were a number of
teams supported by local business and civic groups including the 20-30 Club, Lions, Elks,
Pastime Bar, Wolfe‘s Desert Hardware, Tonopah Club and Naismith Insurance. Summer
was baseball season and there were games every Friday and Saturday evening and living so
close, we would wander over, not to watch the games, but just to play around. The
concession stand was a two-story affair with a counter on the bottom and the announcer‘s
booth on top. When there were no games, the lower section was locked but the announcer‘s
booth was open and was a good place to kill time during the day when we couldn‘t think of
anything else to do. There were two outhouses, one for men and one for women. It was in
the men‘s I was introduced to ―outhouse poetry.‖ We thought it was great reading the
sayings on the walls and checking out the ―art.‖ I still remember one of the verses: ―Here I
sit all broken hearted, came to s--- but only f-----.‖ I guess you could call this my earliest
adventure into the world of poetry. The women‘s was a disappointment with only a few
names and initials. And, it was about this time we were being introduced to the Little Johnny
jokes that were circulating, but it would be a few years before I understood what most of
them alluded to.
During the summers the traveling carnivals and circuses would set up at the field or on a
few level sites a little further south on the Goldfield highway, convenient for us. We would
help them set up. They always had something for a kid to do if he wanted to work. Our
reward was free tickets to the rides. In 1954 the baseball field was moved up the hill to its
present location when the buildings comprising the hospital at the old Air Field were
relocated at the ballpark and remodeled as the new county hospital.
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In late summer-early fall we would walk around town asking people if we could pick
weeds and clean their yards to earn a few dollars to supplement what we made selling bottles.
Among those who always had work were Mrs. McCulloch, Mrs. Kniefel and Sheriff Thomas‘
wife.
And, it didn‘t take us long to realize that if we gathered brass, copper and aluminum, we
could sell it at Bob Campbell‘s junkyard or to traveling junkies. Over the years we became
good friends with Bob and his brother John (although I am not sure John was actually his
brother). Bob was well liked and tended to be easy going, at least with us. In the 1960‘s
Essie Mae left Bob and he took up with a local white woman, Dorothy, who had a reputation
as a real bitch.
Anyway, we found there was good money in copper and brass and there was a lot of it
around. It didn‘t take long to figure out abandoned houses usually had copper wiring that
could be salvaged from the attics and brass faucets and valves in the plumbing. We became
experts at ―liberating‖ anything we could sell. The old mine buildings were great, yielding
copper wiring that was heavier than residential wiring. In fact, Philip and I were junk
collectors until he moved to Palamino Valley and I moved to Reno in 2000. We picked up
any scrap we ran across and made a run to Reno once or twice a year to sell it earning enough
to pay for the gas and buy a few extras. A few times there were some substantial paydays.
I was a saver and tried to put a little bit of what I made away. I picked this up from my
parents. They paid cash for everything. If they didn‘t have the money for something, they
wouldn‘t buy it, and they always held a few dollars in reserve for a ―kicker‖ as Dad called it.
The First National Bank had instituted Bank Day at school every Tuesday and beginning in
third grade I was always given a dime or quarter to bank. I would also throw in few cents
from my bottle money and was one of the few who always had a deposit. I liked watching
the total grow and the way interest was added. Previous to this I had homemade bank I had
fabricated from a condensed milk can. I cut a slot in the top, cleaned it, painted it, and
dropped my extra change in until it was full. When I opened it, the money smelled like sour
milk. Apparently I hadn‘t washed the can well enough. This doesn‘t mean I didn‘t spend
anything. I always had enough to buy candy at Charlie Stewart‘s or Reischke‘s or for model
airplanes or cars at Lion‘s or Clendenning‘s.
One of the earliest business ventures Phil and I were involved in was selling mud pies. I
was probably seven or eight. We had some old dishes and biscuit tins and would make the
mud pies when we could get hold of some water. Mom and Dad wouldn‘t give us any to play
with so the only time we could ―bake‖ was after the summer thunderstorms filled the rain
barrel in the yard. We decorated the pies with pieces of broken glass and colored rocks. Dad
would drive the pickup down to get the mail and parked in front of the post office. We would
ride in the back and wait while he went in which took a while since he always ran into
someone to talk to for a few minutes. We decided this would be a great time to set up a store
in the back of the truck and sell some mud pies that were the size of large cookies. We
placed them on a couple of boxes and started asking everyone walking by if they would like
one and before long we had sold most of them. There wasn‘t a set price-people just paid
what they thought they were worth. When Dad got back and saw what we were doing he put
us out of business, but we wound up with a handful of change.
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A couple of years later Dad went to the dumps to throw out the garbage and found a case of
unopened packets of Christmas labels in a pile of building debris. The decorative envelopes
contained assorted gift tags and sheets of glued-back stickers. The price, I believe it was 25
cents, was printed on them. Dad said if we could sell them we could keep the money. It
wasn‘t close to Christmas but he figured it was something to keep us busy. We started going
door to door around our end of town offering them for 10c. Some people wondered what we
were up to and asked where we got them, but to our surprise, they ―sold like hotcakes,‖ many
at the list price on the package. We peddled them all within a week. We never figured out
who threw then away. At the time they were tearing down the Silver State Bar and New
York Chinese Restaurant on the northwest corner of Main Street and Oddie Avenue to make
way for the L & L Motel expansion and Dad figured they were from there.
In those days the dumps were pits in the desert east of town where everyone threw their
trash. Periodically the county would cover them and dig new ones. It was an adventure to
―go to the dumps‖ with Dad. We always found something to pack home. People threw out a
lot of neat stuff when they cleaned out old houses and sheds. I still have some nice pieces of
mining company paper in my collections I picked up. Residents on the west end of town who
hauled their own trash used a few old mine shafts behind Mt. Brougher (known locally as T
Mountain) for their dumps. The mines were near the original ―old‖ town dumps c1900‘s1930‘s, a treasure trove of antique bottles, coins and tokens for me in later years. The old
dumps are spread over hundreds of acres and are great for screening, the method I used to
search them in the 1980‘s and 1990‘s.
A garbage truck picked up the trash for people and businesses that did not want to haul it
themselves. George Robertson was the Garbage Man. He had a Studebaker dump truck and
dumped the trash down abandoned mine shafts on the outskirts of town. When one shaft was
filled, he moved to the next. On one occasion Ken Eason and I were hiking behind Mt.
Brougher and decided to check out the shaft he was using. There was a tire and wheel
assembly from his truck laying where he turned around. Apparently he had had a flat and left
it until he could haul it home. Ken and I decided to roll it down the shaft to see what it
sounded like. It made quite a noise, but I have regretted doing it for years. It probably set
him back a couple of day‘s wages. One of the mistakes of youth!
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Mining Camp Telephone Line
78
OUR “BACK YARD”
Tonopah was the ideal place for kids. There was always something to do, especially for
boys like us who never left a stone unturned. We had quite a bit of freedom. Mom and Dad
both worked so we had to take care of ourselves during the summer vacations and after
school. We had chores, but plenty of free time. The hills, desert and abandoned mines were
our playground and we considered them our ―back yard.‖ The way things are now, we would
probably be considered unsupervised and our parents charged with child neglect, but I
wouldn‘t trade a minute of those days.
We spent a lot of time hiking the mountains on the south side of town. We usually didn‘t
go north of Main Street. The largest hill on that side was Mt. Oddie with its smaller sidekick,
Mt. Rushton, neither of which had much personality. We stuck to Mt. Brougher
(T Mountain), Mt. Butler (Butler Mountain) and Heller Butte (Green Mountain). ―Green‖
was near the house and derived its nickname from the green and orange lichen covering the
north face.
We started climbing Green within a year of moving over from Goldfield. It was a ―cool‖
place to play. From the top one had a fabulous view of town and our parents could see us
and call if they wanted us home. The call was the family pickup‘s horn, mainly used at
dinnertime. It would alert us wherever we happened to be in the neighborhood. When we
heard it was time to get home. If we couldn‘t hear it because we were too far away, we
wound up in major trouble. We always sat down as a family for breakfast and dinner and
were expected to be on time.
Green had a fissure in the north face we called The Crack. This was the route we usually
took to the top. There was a large iron bar anchored into the crest that was bent at a ninetydegree angle. We were told it had once supported the antenna for a local radio station. The
antenna‘s pole was laying half way down the side of the butte. There were a couple of small
indents northeast of the crack we referred to as the Eye Caves with a level spot at the base
where one could sit. To the west of the crack was The Cliff. The rear of the mountain
tapered to the south and was the easiest way to the top, but to us it was for chickens. I spent
hours on top of Green, many times with Dad‘s binoculars looking over town. Once in a
while, we would carry a large mirror from an old dresser up and start flashing things. Cars,
people, houses. Eventually someone would complain and the cop car would show up on one
of the streets near the northwest flank and we knew it was time to leave. We would run down
the back, hide the mirror, head around the east side where there were no roads and go home.
There is no doubt they knew who we were, but we were never confronted about it. And, the
mountain was a great place to hunt lizards and horned toads.
Mt. Brougher, or ―T‖ as we called it, was an adventure, but you had to be careful. It was
the territory of the kids living on the northwest edge of town west of Cross Avenue and they
didn‘t want us up there any more than we wanted them on Green, although it was okay if we
were with one of them, just as it was okay for them to climb Green if they were with one of
the kids from our side of town. There were four redwood tanks on the east shoulder of T that
stored the town‘s water supply, two large and two small, all with peaked roofs. The large
ones were constantly leaking and there was always runoff under them. Over the years kids
had drilled holes in the sides and inserted wood plugs so it was possible to get a drink by
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pulling a plug. There was a ladder between the large tanks to access the tops where there
were dormers with doors. They were supposed to be locked, but the lock hasps were always
broken and it was possible to get onto the rafter beams just above the water. I heard stories
of kids swimming in the tanks, but never tried it. If a group was playing around the tanks
someone had to watch for the water company‘s pickup coming up the road, but like Green,
there were plenty of ways to disappear.
From the tanks one could hike to the top of the mountain where there was a small building
housing the radio equipment for the Nevada California Power Company. About a third of the
way down the front, or north side, was a mine tunnel known as Devil‘s Cave. It was 40 or 50
feet in length and one the rites of passage around town was to ―make it to the back of
Devil‘s‖ at least once. A trail from the water tanks led to the large whitewashed T the
mountain derived its nickname from. The T represents the high school and Block T Club, an
organization for students who ―lettered‖ in sports. As a sophomore I lettered in track and had
to help spruce it up as part of my initiation into the organization.
Tonopah was loosely divided into four of the ―territories‖ I mentioned. We lived in the
southwest section roughly bordered by Cross Avenue and Erie Main Street. The northwest
section was north of Cross down to Main and took in the area from the school to the power
substation. Another was on the north side of Main from the intersection of Main Street,
Florence Avenue and Erie Main Street to the north edge of town and encompassed the old
railroad yards and Midway Gulch. The last section was the southeast side of town east of
McCulloch and Main. By the time I was twelve or thirteen we had grown out of these
rivalries and moved on to more mature things, leaving the feuding to the next crop of little
kids, although Phil and I did have a run-in with a group of kids from the northeast side of
town before we were able to fit in.
Mt. Butler was the largest of the surrounding mountains with two major peaks. The peak
on the northeast was Brock and the highest peak in the center Butler. The range gleaned its
name from the town‘s founding father, Jim Butler. In 1955, construction of the Air Force
early warning radar station began on Brock. This required building a road that would
severely disfigured the mountain. Bids for the road were let in March of 1955 and
construction began in April. The ―invasion of the Scopies (servicemen)‖ followed in
February of 1956 when the Air Force took over the instillation. Building the road was a
major feat requiring heavy equipment and considerable blasting and created a bit of
entertainment for townsfolk.
The mountain was a great hike and we eventually explored almost every inch of it. The
peak we enjoyed climbing most was Butler where the Tonopah Army Air Field had a beacon
during World War II. There was a road from town to the foot of the mountain and a trail to
the top used by the servicemen to carry fuel to the beacon‘s generator. Similar beacons were
located on other mountains surrounding the base. We usually hiked the trail to the top then
climbed down the back, or south side. From there we would walk either east or west around
the base of the mountain back to town. There was a concrete pad at top where the beacon
was mounted and the remains of the building were scattered down the back. I imagine it was
blown apart by the wind or maybe pushed over. Looking west to north from the peak one
could see the White Mountains, Lone Mountain, the Monte Cristos, the Toiyabe Range and
Smoky Valley. To the south was the Montezuma range flanked on the east by Goldfield,
Columbia Mountain and Cactus Peak. Looking east one caught sight of Table Mountain and
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the Monitor range. We didn‘t hike to the summit of Brock much. Once in a while we would
cross over from Butler, but we found Brock boring. Like Oddie, it had no personality.
When we took extended hikes we always carried water and something to eat. Each of us
had a quart wine bottle wrapped with cloth for our drinking water. Before we left, we would
soak the cloth with water to help keep the bottles cool for a while. We used a couple of old
G.I. packs to carry the food and we always took a snakebite kit. We seldom saw a snake, and
when we did we left it alone. I doubt if we would have known how to use the kit if one of us
had been bitten, but it was a security thing. It would probably have been a panic situation. It
was on the south side or back of Butler where I had my closest run-in with a rattler. I was
climbing a cliff to a small rock shelf following a vein of brown jasper when I heard rattling. I
wasn‘t sure where it was and as I reached the top of the cliff, I looked the snake right in the
eye. Needless to say, I made a quick retreat. It would have been a bad place to be bitten.
There were no roads behind the mountain and it would have taken at least an hour for
someone to get back to town for help. I had a similar experience climbing the butte behind
Lambertucci‘s farm on the west edge of town.
On the northwest flank of the mountain is a rock formation known as Saddle Rock
composed of yellowish sandstone and shaped like a large saddle. It was a popular ―dry‖
picnic spot dating back to the town‘s early days.
When we did venture across town to Mt. Oddie and Mt. Rushton it was usually because we
wanted to explore the ruins of the Belmont Mine‘s 100 stamp mill on the east side of
Rushton. The Belmont was one of the district‘s largest operations and the mill and mine
foundations, coupled with the large waste dumps, always afforded a new adventure. We
were intrigued by the Belmont Mine shaft, an ―upcast‖ (a wind always blew up the shaft due
to its underground connection with other mines in the district) that smelled like it was on fire,
a result of the shaft‘s timber being burned out in 1939. The mine was being worked on a
limited scale at the time, but the fire put it out of business for good. There was one more
mountain, Ararat, beyond Oddie but we seldom ventured out that far until later years when
we began exploring mines and discovered Wingfield Tunnel on its north side.
Then there were the large rock outcrops across Erie Main (the Goldfield highway) and east
of California Avenue we spent a lot of time climbing when we were new to town. They were
behind what we nicknamed Bob Williams‘ Corral and the Old Dairy. Challenging when we
were younger, but as we got older, they got smaller so we moved on to the larger mountains.
Near California Avenue east of Erie Main was a rock outcrop known as Dead Girl‘s Rock.
The tale behind the name indicated that year‘s before a girl was killed when she was climbing
it and fell from the top. I don‘t know if it was true or not, but it was one of Tonopah‘s urban
legends and sounded good to us. Everyone had to climb it for bragging rights. Adding to the
mystique was an old man living nearby who ran kids off when he saw them around it.
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82
THE MOUNTAINS
Two views of Heller Butte (Green Mountain) and the Butler range. Both are early
photos but the town had barely changed by the time we arrived in 1947.
Top: The south side of town looking southeast from Mt. Brougher, 1915. 1. Heller
Butte 2. Road to Goldfield. 3. Our neighborhood. The shoulder of the Butler
range appears behind “Green” on the right.
Bottom: Heller Butte (foreground) and the Butler range looking south from near
the Nye County Courthouse c1920. 1. Mt. Brock. 2. Mt. Butler. 3. Heller Butte.
(The radio station antenna can be seen to the left of the “3”). 4. Nye County
Hospital. Our house was out of the photo to the left.
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Top: Tonopah looking east from Mt. Brougher (T Mountain), 1950. 1. Mt. Oddie.
2. Mt. Rushton with the ruins of the Tonopah Belmont mine on the back. 3.
Ararat Mountain. 4. The Stopes of the mines where we gained access to the
underground workings.
Bottom: Mt. Brougher looking northwest from the top of Heller Butte (Green
Mountain), May 1950. 1. The water tanks. 2. The T that represents the local high
school. 3. Devil‟s Cave (just beyond the ridge). 4. School. The small building on
the peak housed the Nevada California Power Company‟s radio equipment.
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OTHER PLACES WE “PLAYED”
There was an abandoned mine tunnel on the lower shoulder of Mt. Brock we called Butler
Cave. It was about 100‘ in length and was one of the first mines we ventured into. When we
began exploring it we fashioned torches from sagebrush that burned long enough to get us in
about half way. We graduated to a couple of old kerosene railroad lamps and finally reached
the end, but we were lucky we didn‘t suffocate from the fumes. The only flashlight we had
access to was one Dad kept for emergencies. We used it once in a while, but batteries didn‘t
last long in those days and we didn‘t want to take the chance of using them up and him
finding out. We were supposed to ―stay the hell away‖ from mines.
Closer to home, there was an incline (slanted) mineshaft on the small hill behind the Forest
Service house where the Buckhouses lived. It was two doors west of our home near the trail
we walked to school on. It was fenced, so we didn‘t pay any attention to it. One day on our
way home from school there was an old miner, Gilbert Anderson, who did odd jobs around
town, building a plank cover over it. Either the town or county was on a safety kick and were
securing some of the open shafts to keep kids away from them or Jack Buckhouse had
ordered it done to protect the neighborhood children.
As we watched Gilbert work, one of us asked what the name of the mine was.
―Lumbago,‖ he replied. (It is mispelled Lombago on the maps.) From then on, that was the
name we knew it by. In later years we learned lumbago was an ailment afflicting many of
the old miners. Apparently his was acting up at the time so that was what he threw out to us.
The plank top was a great place to play, a large open floor. A few years later, when we
began to explore old mines in earnest, the shaft aroused our curiosity and we decided to pry
one of the planks loose and take a look at the hole. We pulled up one of the smaller ones that
became our ―door.‖ Under the door was a small level spot with the shaft angling down from
there. We tied a rope to one of the braces and over a period of a few weeks of small
advances, made it to the first level, a tunnel cut to the right and left. We eventually reached
the second level that also had a nice tunnel. This was about two thirds of the way down.
There was nothing of interest at the bottom. The shaft was about seventy feet deep.
After we got the ―feel‖ of it, we could get to the first level without the rope and it became a
great place to play or hide out if one just wanted to be alone. It was also a safe place to stash
stuff we ―found‖ and didn‘t want to bring home. As we got older and our interests changed,
we forgot about it. Sometime in the 1960‘s, the owner of the lots had it filled and built a
house on the property. Later, my brother Allen and his wife Candy purchased the house,
enlarged it, and raised a family there.
A fellow who lived a few blocks west of us on Central Street across from Wolfe‘s had built
a house we called the Red Barn. It was designed and painted to resemble the real thing.
Apparently he had some personal problems and parked on the road to the garbage dumps
near Campbell‘s junkyard and committed suicide by shooting himself. He had a set of trucks
(the wheel and axle setup) from an old mine ore car in front of the place and since he was
gone, Phil and I figured we would push them home and build a railroad on the hill behind the
house. They were heavy and it was an all day effort to drag them up the street.
85
The plan was to build the railroad‘s track from mine car rail, but we couldn‘t find any so
we used hardwood floorboards we scavenged from an old shack near Essie May Campbell‘s.
We nailed pieces of tin dividers from an old electric transformer on the boards to give them a
―rail‖ look. In the meantime, we had hidden the set of trucks behind the little cabin near the
garage. Philip and I were looking them over and visualizing our future railroad when Dad
came home and caught us. ―Where did these come from?‖ was his first question. I, in my
youth, replied, ―Ask me no questions and I‘ll tell you no lies!‖ Boy did he get mad. He
raised hell and told us to take them back, which of course, we didn‘t do. We never did run
the trucks down the track and it was probably for the best. More than likely, it would have
run over one of us and cut off an arm or a leg.
The Cyanide Caves, a maze of cavities eroded by water in the Montana Tonopah Mill‘s
tailings (ground up waste rock) that had filled a gulch on the north edge of town near the
New Midway mine, were another place we spent a good deal of time. The ―caves‖ were
created over the years by water flowing through fissures in the tailings. They were big
enough to crawl through and were made up of horizontal tunnels and vertical shoots leading
to the surface. There was one long section only the bravest of us ventured into. We got to
know complex so well we never used light, just felt our way. They were usually damp and
anyone crawling around in them would come out coated with white mud. This was one place
in town that was neutral territory and everyone had the opportunity to explore them. We
were probably eleven or twelve years old when we first started venturing into the labyrinth.
They were quite a ways from home so visiting them was a weekend project. By this time I
had become good friends with Ralph Dalhquist and hung out with him from time to time.
Since he lived at that end of town, we usually headed over to the caves if we couldn‘t find
anything else to get into.
Beyond the caves is the 80 foot steel headframe of the Victor mine. Built in 1919, it was
the largest in the district and stands today as a landmark testifying to the town‘s mining past.
It was another rite of passage to climb to the top, a feat that took me at least three or four
tries. A badge of honor upon reaching the top was peeing off the side. Near the headframe
were three large corrugated iron buildings housing old mining equipment. One thing in the
buildings that caught our attention was a pile of brick size blocks of water pump grease. The
blocks were sealed in wax paper and someone started the rumor they were nitroglycerin.
Everyone was afraid of them but in our Model T Days we figured out what they were and
retrieved a couple to use to lubricate the car‘s water pumps.
The old community swimming pool was a bit north of the Victor mine. Put in around
1920, the large fenced pool and dressing rooms adjoined Victor Park. The complex took
advantage of the excess hot water pumped from the mine‘s underground workings. After the
mine closed in 1931, the town was able to keep the pool going for a while using water
purchased from the local water company, but by the time we were running around it was
abandoned and had fallen into disrepair-even the trees in the park had died. I think the last
time it was used was around 1948, but it was a fun place to look around.
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Headframe and buildings at the Victor mine c1950
From left: Philip, Lamont Jensen and Keith Scott on top of the Victor headframe,
1957. Insert: Lamont standing beside one of the sheave wheels.
.
87
In addition to furnishing water for the pool and park, the mine‘s runoff was used by Victor
and Dominic Lambertucci to irrigate a farm a few miles below town where they raised
vegetables, hogs, tended an orchard and operated a small store and a gas station on the
Tonopah-Reno highway. The mine was pumping about 3,000,000 gallons of water a day at
the time. When the mine shut down, they lost their primary water supply but were able to
hang on on a smaller scale using the local sewer and water from a few small wells they
developed north of town near Laundry Springs.
This brings to mind the sewer ponds, another ―must see‖ for boys with adventure in their
souls. Adding to the thrill of visiting the ponds was a chance to prowl around the cemetery,
or ―bone orchard‖ as Dad called it.
Tonopah has two cemeteries, the ―old‖ cemetery on the west edge of town and the ―new‖
(present) cemetery about a mile farther out. The old cemetery was used until 1911 when the
Tonopah Extension Mining Company decided to develop the surrounding property and
donated ground to the county for the new cemetery. The old cemetery was interesting, even
though it had fallen into a state of disrepair. The majority of the markers had vanished over
time, and it was small, only a few hundred graves, but one thing fascinated us. The
Extension‘s mill tailings had covered the outer two rows of graves on the east side and after
the mill closed, erosion cut a ditch through the area, exposing portions of a few of the grave‘s
coffins. They were wood and had deteriorated to the point that there was one we could
actually see bones in. It was that way for years and no one paid any attention. The ditch
was finally filled in in the early ‗60s when Rich and Jane Logan built a mini-mart between it
and the highway. The Central Nevada Historical Society restored the cemetery in 1979.
But back to the sewer ponds: There were two ponds west of the cemetery fence, an upper
pond and a lower pond, that the Lambertuccis maintained. Every year a great crop of
tomatoes grew around the edge of the upper pond, apparently from seeds that had gotten into
the system. No one picked them unless, as we speculated, the Lambertuccis sneaked a few in
with their farm vegetables. Then there was the urban legend alluding to the ―big kids‖
throwing anyone they didn‘t like into the ponds, a threat they would use to terrorize the
younger kids, myself included. And, there were the jokes about the poor folks buried in the
cemetery who had to ―live‖ near the ponds. If the wind was from the north, the odor
permeated the lower reaches of town, much to the dismay of the folks living there.
Beyond the sewer ponds were acres of fallow fields, once under cultivation by the
Lambertuccis when Victor mine water was available. The fields were littered with piles of
bleached bones from their slaughterhouse they had intended to till into the soil as fertilizer.
Between the cemetery and the highway were two dynamite magazines used to store
blasting powder for the local mines. They were square stone buildings, both about 20‘ x 20‘
with heavy iron doors. We would ―check them out‖ whenever we were in the area hoping to
find one of the doors unlocked but were never that lucky.
A short distance east of the cyanide caves was the New Midway or Midway Number Two
mine we would visit from time to time. The headframe had been dismantled, but the
buildings remained in place. The hoist house was empty, although there was a fully equipped
blacksmith shop and an assay office nearby. Ralph had figured a way into the assay office
through a hole in the roof where there had been a stovepipe. Inside, there were some old
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crank telephones and numerous bottles of chemicals. We played around with the chemicals
and I think Ralph took a couple of the telephones. He lived close enough that it wasn‘t a
problem for him to sneak them home. Beside the blacksmith shop was a 1916 Model T Ford
roadster that had been converted to a pickup. It hadn‘t run in years and was missing the
wheels, radiator and numerous other parts, but it did have the engine block, transmission and
front and rear axles. Someone had removed the engine‘s cylinder head and the pistons were
rusted in place. When we started building T‘s we needed a transmission and the old car came
to mind. We walked down to the mine and unbolted the engine block from the oil pan to
retrieve it. At the time our assortment of tools was meager, but it served the purpose, even
though it took a couple of weekends to get the job done. Over time we eventually wound up
with the rest of the car, a piece at a time.
The vacant Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad depot was practically in Ralph‘s front yard. The
depot was all that remained of the famous mining boom railroad that had served the town
from 1904 thru 1947. The railroad‘s equipment was scrapped and the rails taken up in 1948.
The large two-story building seemed to call to us and we knew we had to get inside and look
around. We discovered it was possible to crawl under the freight platform at the back of the
building and up through a hole in the floor. From there one could get around inside.
Someone had stored a bunch of slot machines containing coins we thought were nickels in
one of the rooms. We broke into a couple of machines only to find the coins were tokens the
size of a nickel embossed with a ―B‖ and ―For Amusement Only‖ on both sides. I still have a
couple of them.
Around 1952 the Northern Transportation Trucking Company shop, located across Main
Street from National Coal, caught fire. At the time, the Northern had a couple of loaded
freight trucks parked in the building. The fire pretty well destroyed the structure and the
trucks, but a lot of the contents of one trailer survived. Among them were cases of toys that
only suffered smoke and minor water damage. Many of the boxes held plastic pistols that
launched a blade similar to a helicopter propeller. Some older kids picking through the
wreckage after it cooled discovered this and began throwing them out. By this time almost
every kid in town had showed up to see what had happened. It was a big fire and one of the
most exciting events that had taken place in a while. No one seemed to mind, I guess they
figured it was all going to the dumps anyway. Needless to say, the plastic propellers were all
over town for a while.
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Kerosene Lamp
90
EARNING OUR PLACE IN THE PECKING ORDER
Being from Goldfield and not born into the local social structure, we didn‘t really fit in with
the Tonopah kids in our early years. Tonopah and Goldfield had always been rivals and,
although the populations had dropped considerably, some of the antagonism still remained
and it affected us. Wearing worn out clothes that gave us the appearance of being poor,
which I guess in a way we were, didn‘t help. These things, and the fact we lived on the south
end of town and didn‘t have a lot of locals to run around with made us the targets of a group
of kids who had a tendency to bully. It started out gradually and by 1954 had gotten to the
point something had to be done. This meant standing up on our part, and we had to take on
the tough kids to do it, but once we proved ourselves, we were okay.
It took us a couple of incidents to gain their respect. The first was in the summer of 1954
when the Nevada State Highway Department complex was being built. To make way for the
Highway Department and the new Nye County Hospital, the baseball field was relocated up
the hill and a couple of kids got into the habit of picking on us at the games so Philip and I
devised a plan. They were laying the foundations for the equipment stalls at the Highway
Department and there were ditches, concrete forms, and obstacles of all kinds over a large
area. We decided this would be our ―minefield.‖ We were familiar with the site, we spent
hours roaming around the place watching the progress of the builders. In addition, the old
mine waste dump of the California Tonopah mine lay between our house and the front of the
Highway Department and would play an important role in our scheme. About half the dump
had been removed to make way for the highway shops, leaving a vertical wall at least ten feet
high. Our plan was to wait until dusk and taunt the gang of kids into chasing us, then lead
them into the minefield. Next we hoped to get them to the dump. There was only one way
up and we could attack them from the top when they tried to follow. It would be dark and
everything would be in our favor. The lights of the field didn‘t illuminate the area. As an
added precaution, we strung wire between some of the poles at the construction site just high
enough for them to run into. As a last stand, we placed bags of fertilizer we found in a
building at the old dairy at the top of the dump to bombard them with when they came up
after us.
As usual, they started to give us a bad time but instead of trying to ignore them, we egged
them on, finally making them mad enough to chase us. By then the group had grown
substantially. A number of others that usually didn‘t bother us had joined in, an example of
crowd mentality. We headed for the minefield and sure enough they followed us. They were
falling in ditches and running into the wires. This eliminated quite a few of them, and we
went just fast enough for the ―survivors‖ to keep up. When we got to the mine dump and
they followed us up we let them get just about to the top and opened up with the powder.
They were getting it in their eyes and it must have burned because some were yelling they
were being blinded. After we exhausted the powder supply, we ran down the hill to the
house. There were only a couple of them left by this time and we were ready with the last
line of defense. I had stashed my .22 outside and when they got close to the yard I fired in
the air. That was it. They took off. We were able to get away with using the gun because it
was a Saturday and Mom and Dad weren‘t home. They usually went downtown to have a
few drinks with friends on Friday or Saturday nights and it was late when they got back. It
worked. That particular group never bothered us again. In fact, we eventually became close
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friends with a few of them. They thought for months the white powder was poison or
cyanide, a rumor we didn‘t dispel, and one of the kids, Don Riggen, broke his nose on a wire
we strung up.
Unfortunately this wasn‘t the end of the matter. It took another incident that winter to
finally clear things up. The organizations that had summer baseball teams also sponsored
basketball teams. We usually attended the games where one of the older kids, your typical
bully, singled us out to pick on. I told Dad and he figured we needed some type of selfdefense to equalize the odds. At his suggestion we cut sections of chain about a foot long
and tied a loop at the end to place around our wrist, the idea being if he got hold of the chain,
he couldn‘t pull it away. Dad said if he bothered us, try to lure him into a situation where he
would be at a disadvantage and defend ourselves. The location of the basketball games was
perfect. They were held in the High School gym on Brian Avenue. There was a sloped
driveway on the east side of the schoolyard where the water ran down from the day‘s
snowmelt. As soon as the sun would set, the water turned to ice. We decided to make the
guy mad enough to chase us onto the ice slick. This didn‘t take much. When we ran around
the building, Phil stood against the wall and I lay down on the ice faking a fall. Our
antagonist came around at full speed, hit the ice and went down. I jumped up while Phil
came off the wall and we gave him a few sound whacks with our chains. This did the trick.
He steered clear of us from then on and that was the end of our problems. It was unfortunate,
but a lot of new kids never did fit in. I felt sorry for them, especially when it happened to
teenagers. After what we went through, I always made it a point not to pick on anyone.
Allen didn‘t have to worry about this. He was a few years younger and by the time he got
into school, he was accepted as a Tonopah kid from the start.
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WINTER FUN
Riding sleds was one of the big events of winter. The first snowstorm usually blew in
between Halloween and Thanksgiving and by Thanksgiving we had enough snow to sled on
K.C. Hill (Brougher Avenue). The streets weren‘t plowed or sanded in those days and
traffic packed the snow making it possible to ride anywhere, but K.C. was THE PLACE!
Phil, Allen and I all had sleds. I received mine as a Christmas present in 1948. It had been
on display in the window of Wolfe‘s Desert Hardware. The minute I saw it I wanted it and,
miracle of miracles, it showed up under the tree Christmas morning. It was an unusual
design with pipe runners and flexible steering joints. There wasn‘t another one like it in
Tonopah.
We would spend hours on weekends and after school at K .C. It was possible to take off
from the top and coast to Main Street or turn at the corner where the Lydon family lived on
Prospect Street and ride down to Oddie Avenue. Another choice was turning at Mrs. Porter‘s
house on University Street, but the street wasn‘t very long so we usually passed this up. The
problem with the turn at Prospect was a fire hydrant on the corner. You had to be good to
make it. If you didn‘t have control there was a chance of hitting the hydrant. Allen went
home with a goose egg on his head from a collision, as did a number of other kids. There
was little traffic on Brougher once the snow was packed.
K.C. derived its name from K.C. Hall, the old Knights of Columbus lodge near the top
where Brougher, Booker and Stewart Streets converge. This ―Y‖ was where everyone
gathered to socialize and warm up. A 55-gallon drum with the top cut out would show up at
the beginning of the season and served as the heater. Scrap wood from two nearby shacks, as
well as shingles torn off the walls of K.C. Hall, furnished the fuel. It was everyone‘s
responsibility to rustle up the wood as part of your ―ticket‖ to use the hill. Over the years, the
shacks were reduced to skeletons -- victims of the burn barrel. Taking shingles from K.C.
Hall was against the ―rules‖ of the hill but it happened from time to time. Florence Butler, a
local realtor, owned the building and took a dim view of anyone attempting to use it as a
ready supply of kindling and no one wanted to have the hill closed. On weekends, the first
kids to arrive in the morning would start the fire in the barrel. There was always a can of
diesel fuel nearby to get things going. Many times we were among the first ones there.
On weekends we would head over after our chores and stay until dinnertime. Chores
included helping wash the dishes, making our beds, assisting with hanging out the laundry
(Saturday morning was wash day), splitting kindling, filling the wood box for the kitchen
stove and feeding and caring for whatever animals we had, usually chickens. Because of
those Saturday morning breakfasts I can‘t stand hardboiled eggs to this day. They were quick
and easy for Mom to prepare and were all we ever had. Saturdays were busy for Mom and
Dad as they caught up with the housework, did the wash, went grocery shopping and took
care of anything else that had come up during the week. By this time Dad was working for
the county and had Saturdays off, a break for Mom.
We wore gloves, usually mittens that had holes in them after the first week or so, knit hats,
heavy coats and overshoes and we carried a candle to wax the sled runners with from time to
time. Waxing the runners increased the speed. It was possible to warm up at the barrel, but
93
the trips home were long and cold. For snack breaks there was Wardle‘s Drug Store, Charlie
Stewart‘s or the Corner Store on Main Street where we could purchase candy to keep us
going.
The hill was one of the places that was off limits regarding kids picking on each other.
Everyone was equal, but you had to be able to ride with the big kids. They would sideswipe,
flip or run you off the side, but it worked both ways. You could always return the favor,
which we got quite good at, and eventually we were the big kids ourselves. I usually rode
alone, although I did double up from time to time. The more weight you had the faster you
went. And, we would form chains of sleds of as many as could hold onto each other. The
lead sled would make the decision whether to head down the hill to Main or turn at Lydons.
If they turned, the kids near the back of the chain had no chance of making the corner. They
would be whipped off, causing a pileup.
Most weekends it seemed every kid in town was on the hill. As we got older, we would go
back after dinner -- night sledding was the most fun. The roads would glaze over with a thin
coat of ice and a lot of the older guys who worked during the day would show up. They were
a little rougher, but it made for some memorable evenings. The pipe runners on my sled
eventually wore through and it was relegated to the junk pile, but by then it didn‘t matter. I
had graduated from high school and was facing a new set of challenges.
Years later, my wife Judy and I purchased a home on Booker Street and our children, Billy
and Lisa, used the hill. It was convenient, only a half a block away. Then, around 1980, the
county started plowing and sanding the streets and K.C. always seemed to be first on their
list. I don‘t think there has been sledding there since, a real shame. It was the end of an era.
And, it may be my imagination but I don‘t think the winters have as much snow as they did
when we were kids.
I mentioned Mrs. Porter. She was a talented black musician, who lived on the northeast
corner of Brougher Avenue and University Street. I got to know her through my friend Keith
Scott when he was taking piano lessons from her. She was probably in her 70‘s and boy
could play the piano! She was a professional jazz musician and entertained around the
country when she was younger. She had lost her sight and played by ear when I met her.
Her son George worked for the Las Vegas-Tonopah-Reno stage line. He was killed in a car
accident a couple of miles east of town on US 6. A group of Goldfield kids were in town
celebrating the 16th birthday of one of the Hargrove boys and were racing another car when
they tried to pass on the blind spot where the road drops over a little hill on the Tonopah side
of the ―bridge,‖ hitting George head on. It killed George and his dog as well as Jack
Brawley.
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WEEKEND TRIPS
Until I was about fourteen, an important part of my life was weekend trips. During the
summer Dad and Mom took us fishing or exploring old mining camps and every six weeks or
so we made the drive to Bishop, California, 112 miles west of Tonopah, to shop.
The Bishop trip was a big outing. For years the only vehicle we owned that could
accommodate the entire family and the groceries was the 1946 Ford pickup and Philip and I
had to ride in back. Dad, Mom and Allen got the cab. If it was bad weather we would take
turns changing places with Allen but he never lasted long outside so it didn‘t do us much
good. A couple of times Dad attached a canvas top to the bed, but it was worse than nothing.
We couldn‘t see where we were and exhaust seeped in. After a couple of these trips, the top
was left home and we wrapped up in blankets and toughed it out. During the summers this
was fine. The trip to Bishop was via US 6 over Montgomery Pass and we would entertain
ourselves watching for the landmarks. First came the pump at Millers (a hand pump
motorists used for radiator water) that is presently the Nevada Department of Transportation
rest area followed by Blair Junction and Coaldale Junction. Next was the pass at Sally Rand,
site of an inactive tungsten mine, and then the diatomaceous earth processing plant at
Dicolite and Basalt where the old Carson & Colorado railroad water tower furnished water to
the traveling public and supplied the nearby highway maintenance station. These preceded
Montgomery Pass where there was a bar, and later a casino and motel and for a few years in
the early 1960‘s, a brothel run by Joe Conforte. After descending the pass and entering
California we were stopped at the Bug Station (the California inspection station) at Benton
Station. Beyond Benton Station was what we knew as the Wigaboo Holes, tunnels where
pumice was mined at one time, and a number of abandoned farms that were victims of Los
Angeles‘ 1905 ―water grab.‖ Our last landmark was the bridge over the Owens River a few
miles east of Bishop.
The first stop would usually be Joseph‘s Market to buy cases of canned goods including
condensed milk, vegetables, fruit, tuna and dog food along with sacks of potatoes, sugar and
flour. The dog food was supplemented with meat scraps Grandma Mamie brought home
from her job at the Tonopah Club. She would fill a ―gunboat‖ (the large one gallon cans
vegetables came in) for us once a week. We would pick it up on Sunday afternoon when, as
a family, we stopped by to visit her. I looked forward to the visits. She would give Phil,
Allen and me each enough to buy a comic book at Wardle‘s Drug Store with change left for
candy, but by the time I reached eleven or twelve, I thought I had better things to do than
spend time with her, something I would regret later. I figured she would always be around,
but it wasn‘t to be.
The flour came in colorful cloth sacks that, when emptied, Mom used to make dishtowels,
handkerchiefs and other small items. The canned goods supplemented vegetables, fruit and
jams and jellies Mom ―put up‖ (canned). Raw material for canning was purchased at stands
selling whatever happened to be in season or from peddlers traveling through Tonopah.
What we couldn‘t get at Joseph‘s we would pick up at Safeway. Our last stop was Meadow
Farms Market on US 395 north of town to buy a side of bacon and, once in a while, a ham.
The majority of our meat was purchased at Bird‘s Cash Market in Tonopah. We seldom
bought anything that had to be kept cold or was frozen. Large refrigerator-freezer
95
combinations we take for granted today weren‘t available and our refrigerator‘s small freezer
wouldn‘t accommodate much. Everything was stored in the cellar with the flower and sugar
sacks placed in 15-gallon cans with lids to keep the mice out.
Once in a while we would buy something for lunch and stop at the river to eat and as we
shopped, Mom let us pick up snacks for the trip home. I always selected a box of Cheeze-Its
and a box of lemon or lime Jell-O. I loved to eat the powdered Jell-O out of the package.
Since we had to share the space with the groceries, the ride home was tight.
I particularly enjoyed the Christmas trips. It was a treat to see the decorations and store
window displays, but winter journeys were dependent on the weather. A snowstorm meant
Montgomery Pass, a steep, narrow, two-lane highway, might be closed. If it appeared a
storm was on the horizon, our trip would usually be postponed. In 1957 things took a turn for
the better when Dad purchased an almost new (1956) Plymouth station wagon from
Cavanaugh Brothers that had served as their demonstrator.
Once in a while Dad would decide to take the Westgard Pass road. This route took us
through Goldfield, Lida, across the lower edge of Fish Lake Valley and over Westgard Pass.
We dropped out at Big Pine, California a few miles south of Bishop. It was about the same
distance but more mountainous and far less traveled.
With the exception of the Bishop excursions, we only took a couple of other out-of-state
trips. The longest was in July 1952 when we drove to Brooklyn, New York to visit Mom‘s
family. It took two attempts. The first only got us a bit beyond Ogden, Utah before we were
forced to turn back. This was in 1947. Our transportation was the ‘46 Ford pickup. It was
spring of a very wet year. Dad installed the canvas top he purchased a few years earlier on
the bed and the plan was to camp along the way. By the time we reached Utah it was raining
incessantly and the weather had deteriorated to the point that rivers were flooding and most
of the highways across the Rockies and Midwest were closed.
We took a second shot at it in 1952. This time we took the1941 Buick four-door sedan.
Before the trip Dad had a new engine and set of tires installed. Instead of camping, we spent
the nights at auto camps, the forerunners of today‘s motels. The only one I recall had a yard
full of large weeping willow trees. Philip and I, together with a few other kids who were
staying overnight, had a ball swinging from them pretending we were Tarzans and on one of
these overnight stops I saw my first fireflies.
We were introduced to Dairy Queens, something we had never seen, and a stop for ice
cream was a real treat. And, I was amazed at the seemingly endless corn and wheat fields of
the Great Plains. Steam locomotives were still in use on some railroads and the smoke of the
oncoming trains was visible for miles. Reading the Burma Shave signs and looking for
interesting license plates took up some of our time and by the end of the trip I had memorized
most of the signs‘ jingles. Crossing the Mississippi River was kind of scary. The bridge was
huge, high, and I thought it would never end. Worse yet, the river was visible through the
deck. Other unusual attractions were the lightning arresters on the barns with the glass bulbs
in the center, the advertisements painted on the barn‘s walls, usually for Bull Durham
tobacco and lawn decorations in many of the yards that were large glass balls of various
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colors on pedestals. Even with the distractions, it was a long trip for three restless boys who
couldn‘t keep their hands to themselves. I‘m sure our parents were ready to lock us in the
trunk at times.
We seldom ate at restaurants and if we did, it was usually breakfast. Our folks were trying
to save money and picked up food for our meals at grocery stores. We ate at picnic grounds
along the road or in our auto camp rooms. The trip out took seven days and the return trip
five. On the trip back Mom and Dad were in a hurry to get home and took turns driving in
order to increase the daily mileage.
In New York we stayed with Mom‘s parents at 584 16th Street in Brooklyn. It was a short
distance to Prospect Park and Philip and I were able to explore a portion of it. Our family
visited Coney Island with our cousins Lance Wilkins and Carolyn Widmer and Carolyn‘s
mother Alvina where we swam and walked the boardwalk. We took in Steeplechase Park
and had a great time on the rides but to our dismay didn‘t get to experience the roller coaster
(I think it was the Cyclone) or the parachute jump. We visited the top of the Empire State
Building and climbed the circular staircase to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The
subways were another adventure. We used them to get around and I was fascinated with the
tiled stations with the one cent gum machines on the walls. A penny yielded a small box
with two pieces of gum. Other memories were driving through the Holland Tunnel, crossing
the Brooklyn Bridge and buying my electric train set in Macy‘s bargain basement. It was
quite an adventure for a kid from the Nevada desert!
Closer to home we made occasional trips to Carson City where Dad‘s cousin, Martha Joost,
owned a ranch in Ash Canyon west of town. There was a large orchard so the trips were
usually in the fall when we could pick fruit for Mom to can. Not only did we have to pick the
fruit, we had to help with the canning, peeling fruit and cleaning jars for Mom while she
prepared the final product. The jams and jellies were placed in jars that were sealed by
pouring hot paraffin on top of the contents. The wax was melted in pans on the kitchen
stove. Fruit and vegetables were placed in jars with screw-on lids and rubber gaskets, a timeconsuming job. When canning was completed we stored the bottles in the cellar. In addition
to fruits and vegetables, Mom prepared pickled watermelon rind and Dad made horseradish,
his job because he was the one who ate it.
The trips to Carson were one-day affairs that entailed hours in the car. On one trip we
visited Virginia City and on another, in 1952, we went through the Nevada State Museum in
Carson. With the exception of the ranch, I enjoyed the museum most. Phil and I loved the
underground mine display and spent most of the time going through it over and over. I
attribute this display, coupled with Dad‘s stories, as major influences that led us to eventually
begin exploring central Nevada‘s underground mine workings. On another trip we witnessed
the last run of the Virginia and Truckee Railway as the train steamed across Washoe Valley.
And, we visited Scotty‘s Castle in Death Valley on a more or less regular basis. Whenever
Grandma Novick, Aunt Lucy or Uncle Stan would visit from New York it usually meant we
would take a trip to the ―Valley.‖ The Castle wasn‘t as commercialized as it is today and
Phil, Allen and I were free to run around checking out everything. Following our stop at the
Castle we would take in Ubehebe Crater and once in a while venture as far south as Furnace
Creek. After being introduced to the Valley, the lure was so great that over the next forty
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years Phil and I returned hundreds of times exploring the old mining camps and the back
country.
Our fishing trips were also adventures. Our favorite streams were Chiatovich Creek in
Fish Lake Valley; Pine Creek, Hunts Canyon and Barley Creeks in Monitor Valley and the
Dredge Ponds at Manhattan and Peavine Creek and Twin Rivers in Smoky Valley. We
usually camped overnight if we went to Chiatovich, Pine Creek or Hunts Canyon. Our
sleeping quarters were the pickup with its canvas top and a large tent. We survived the hot
summers, rainstorms, lightning, snowstorms and some very cold nights. I always enjoyed
eating breakfast and dinner cooked over the campfires. Dad put together a camp box with
frying pans, dishes and everything else that was required for the outings. My favorite dinner
was a grilled cheese sandwich toasted in a two-piece grill held over the campfire.
We each had our own poles and I was good at fishing the small streams. Our creels were
the old desert water bags that were carried on auto bumpers. We cut a slit across the top to
put the fish through, added a little water, and the catch would stay cool and fresh all day. In
the early years the limit was 20, but was lowered to 15 and later, 10. The limit didn‘t mean
much though. If there were a lot of fish, we caught a lot; if there weren‘t many, we didn‘t
catch many. We seldom saw a game warden. Occasionally Dad would learn where Fish and
Game had planted and that would be our next destination. Fish we caught were native
Brookies or planted German Browns and Rainbows. The Brookies were the best eating, but
the hardest to catch.
Fall was set aside for deer and chucker partridge hunting. Dad liked to hunt but I didn‘t
really care for it. I made a halfhearted effort but could never really get into it. I did enjoy the
overnight camping trips and target practice. Dad‘s favorite hunting sites included the Kawich
Mountains east of Tonopah and Stonewall Mountain southeast of Goldfield. When we
hunted the Kawichs, we would camp at the abandoned Breen Ranch at Silver Bow where I
would do more arrowhead hunting than deer hunting or Stonewall Falls on the west side of
Stonewall Mountain. Stonewall Falls is a unique setting, a picturesque waterfall tumbling
down the face of a steep cliff, something one would not expect to find in the Nevada desert.
There was a cabin near the falls where we camped and Pius Kalen‘s mill, where he processed
lead ore he hauled over from his mine at Gold Crater on the east slope of the mountain, was
nearby.
I loved our visits to the deserted mining camps. These jaunts were one of the reasons I
developed an interest in central Nevada history. Dad would tell us what the places were like
when he was young, describe characters that lived in them, name the mines and relate what
they produced. There was Hannapah, Montezuma, Cactus, Black Butte, Chicken Petes,
Gilbert, Diamondfield, Lone Mountain, Manhattan and Royston to name but a few. I tried to
visualize what they were like and began collecting anything I could find associated with
them. When I turned sixteen and had access to a car, I purchased a newer camera and Phil
and I revisited the sites taking pictures and exploring the mines. It wasn‘t the best camera
and the pictures aren‘t great, but at least I have them. Most of the buildings, mine
headframes and pieces of equipment are gone now.
Phil and I would head into the hills exploring any time we had a free day. At first all I had
was the 1941 Buick (from the New York trip) and it wasn‘t made for the back roads, but we
went anyway. We got into some tight fixes a few times, but were always able to work our
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way out. I had researched the history of the area well enough to realize there were hundreds
of old camps and mines waiting to be explored. During the next 40+ years, we visited as
many of them as we could, but there are others I will never get to see. My favorites were the
Divide and Cactus districts. Divide was close, only five miles southeast of Tonopah, and I
spent hours walking the old town site and mine locations searching for bottles and other
collectables. There were numerous headframes and buildings scattered around the district
and Phil, Allen and I explored many of the underground workings of the mines. Street signs
still designated thoroughfares that had been reclaimed by the desert years before.
Examples of some of our early experiences: We wanted to visit the old town of Weepah
and all we had to go on were some maps published in the ‗30s. After studying them, we
figured we could take a road that turned off US 6-95 about twelve miles west of Millers and
head south through the hills. We took off after school one afternoon, thinking it would only
take four or five hours round trip. The map indicated it was only about fifteen miles from the
highway. It was spring and we had plenty of light. We found the road and turned off the
highway but before we were able to get out of the valley, the road turned into a sand dune.
Next thing we knew we were buried. The Buick didn‘t have much clearance to begin with
and it didn‘t take much to bottom out. We jacked it up and put brush and a few pieces of
wood we found nearby (left by someone else who apparently had the same problem) and
inched back the best we could, but it took hours to free ourselves. What we didn‘t realize at
the time was that there was a well maintained road into the camp from the Silver Peak side.
Things like this were the norm. You couldn‘t rely on old maps -- they would get you to the
general area, but many times it was trial and error. Regardless, each trip was worth the
trouble.
Another time we wanted to cross from Jefferson Canyon over the pass into Monitor Valley.
Again, we had the Buick. We got a few miles above the old town of Jefferson and the road
began to deteriorate into large rocks, washed out shoulders and heavy brush. Next thing we
knew the oil pan was hung up on a boulder and beginning to leak. After a bit of a struggle,
we were able to get off the rock and head back down the canyon, but we had lost a lot of the
engine oil. We figured we could buy some from Herman Schapals who lived at Jefferson,
but he wasn‘t around. We fixed the leak the best we could by loosening the drain plug and
tamping a string coated with soap into the hole and then tightening the plug, but we still
needed oil so we broke into his garage and ―borrowed‖ enough to get us going. We left a
note telling him what happened with a six-pack of beer to pay for the oil (we always had
plenty of beer and food with us. We started our drinking careers early). We made it home
and repaired the leak, but it always seeped a little after that.
A couple of years later Herman was killed when his place in Jefferson was destroyed by an
explosion and fire. There was quite a bit of speculation as to what happened and it remains a
mystery to this day. Some thought it was an accident, others swore he committed suicide and
a few speculated someone from Round Mountain or Smoky Valley killed him for money he
was believed to have. The only body part that was recovered was a piece of his hand.
Herman was from Germany and had a heavy accent. He was a large man with a laid back
disposition and got along with everyone. He had come to Jefferson in the early 1900‘s as a
young man to work for his uncle in the mine and eventually inherited the mine and the town.
Of course the town wasn‘t much more than a few houses, some sheds and the remains of a
mill. He worked for the Forest Service, and my first recollection of him stems back to
around 1950 when he came to town to dig a basement under the house the Buckhouses were
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living in. Of course all the neighborhood kids had to supervise so he put us to work hauling
wagonloads of dirt across the street and dumping them on a vacant lot. He would pay us a
few cents a load and we were happy to help.
We never told Dad about these trips, he would have raised hell, but how else were we going
to see these places? If he thought we were planning something, he would call us ―damned
fools‖ and remind us we would eventually really get ―our tits in a ringer.‖ He used ―damned
fools‖ a lot. We were ―damned fools‖ when we drove our Model T Fords to Death Valley in
the middle of the summer, when we were exploring the old mines, drinking and driving, etc.
etc. and when you get right down to it, we were. Actually, he had a lot to do with our
wanderings. He helped ―create the monsters‖ when he took us exploring when we were
younger. It instilled an enormous curiosity in us that had to be satisfied. I have it to this day.
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AN ASSORTMENT OF MY GHOST TOWN PHOTOS
c1957-1960
From left: Nancy Donaldson mine north of Goldfield and the cabin at Stonewall
Falls
From left: Ghost town of Klondyke. Klondyke was where Jim Butler was headed
when he discovered the rich silver veins at Tonopah in May 1900. Post office at
Gilbert.
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From Left: Ruins of Monitor Belmont mill, Belmont and the Schoolhouse at Alum,
near Silver Peak.
Cactus Springs. Left is a portion of the camp and right, the boardinghouse.
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Sulphur, California south of Fish Lake Valley, Nevada.
Remains of a tent house at Volcano, with a close up of its
wood burning “Occidental” cook stove c1960.
103
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DIVIDE, MY FAVORITE “GHOST” MINING DISTRICT
.
1920 photo of Divide looking southwest with Gold Mountain in the background.
The Divide townsite was out of the photo on the right. All the buildings and
structures have vanished.
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MY DIVIDE PHOTOS c1950s-1960s
From left: Tonopah Divide mine (our personal powder magazine) and a street sign
in the Divide townsite.
From left: Divide City mine and Belcher Divide mine headframes.
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From left: Nevada Telephone-Telegraph line to Goldfield west of Divide townsite
(notice the “stubs” at the base of some of the poles) with Alkali Dry Lake in the
background and the ore bin at Brougher Divide number 2 shaft.
From left: Headframe at Tonopah Divide mining company number 2 shaft and
headframe and ore bin of Victory Divide mine.
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Remains of the hoist at the Divide
Extension mine
The Nevada-California Power Company line to the district from
Tonopah with Mt. Butler in the background on the left
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HARVESTING PINON NUTS
Every fall we would gather pinon nuts (pine nuts). In September when the rabbit brush
began to bloom, we knew it wouldn‘t be long before it was time to harvest the cones. Dad
would start watching the trees on our fishing trips to decide where to go. His first choice was
Trail Canyon in Fish Lake Valley, followed by Montezuma, Manhattan or Lida. We checked
different areas because the nuts seemed to run in cycles. The crop would be good for a few
years in one place, then the trees would seem to rest a year or so and we would move to a
different location.
There were two ways of harvesting the nuts. One was waiting until the cones had opened
on the trees, then spreading tarps on the ground under them and striking the trees with long
bamboo poles to shake the nuts out. Everything that fell on the tarp was floated in a washtub
of water to separate the needles and other debris from the nuts that would sink to the bottom.
Dad didn‘t like this method. Too many nuts were lost and timing was very important. Once
the cones opened, the first breeze would shake the nuts out and when they were on the
ground, they became food for the deer, chipmunks, coyotes, birds and mice. We used the
second method that entailed picking the cones when they were a few weeks from opening,
placing them in gunnysacks and throwing the sacks on the woodshed roof. As they dried out,
the cones would begin to open and we would shake and jostle the sacks around until the
majority of the nuts were free.
Philip, Allen and I didn‘t really like picking them. It was hot, dirty, sticky work and there
was no good way to get all of the pitch off of your hands or out of your hair. No matter how
hard you tried to avoid it, you always came home covered with it. We tried everything to get
it off, from kerosene and gasoline to commercial hand cleaners, but usually wound up letting
a lot of it wear off. One of our assignments after school was picking the nuts from cones that
hadn‘t opened completely, another nasty job, but the baked or roasted nuts were terrific
eating and the dried cones made good kindling for the kitchen wood stove.
Where we harvested nuts at Trail Canyon there were large boulders covered with ―Indian
writing,‖ or petroglyphs we would attempt to decipher. Obsidian and flint flakes littered the
ground indicating that Indians had set up camp there, probably to take advantage of the pine
nut crop just as we did. If we were fortunate, one of us would run across an arrowhead. A
side benefit were elderberry bushes near the stream where we would gather berries for Mom
to make jelly.
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FIREWOOD
Cutting firewood was another fall ritual. During the summer Dad would begin gathering
scrap wood and hauling in loads of railroad ties from the abandoned grade of the Tonopah &
Goldfield Railroad west of Klondyke station where the Alkali road crossed the grade.
Around the first of October he would harness the ‘46 Ford pickup to the old table saw he
used in Goldfield. This meant there would be no playing around for a few weekends. On
Saturday Dad and Mom did the laundry. The washing machine was the wringer type and
after the clothes were agitated they were run through the wringer, rinsed and put through the
wringer again. It was up to Phil and me to hang them on the line. After everything was
washed, the dirty water was dumped on the trees.
When the wash was done, Dad would begin sawing. As he ran the wood through the saw,
Philip and I would throw the stove length pieces into a wheelbarrow and a wagon, haul them
to the woodshed, and stack them. When the shed was full we would rack it up outside. The
wood in the shed was only used if rain or snow dampened the outside supply. After the wood
was cut, our next job was shoveling the sawdust and chips into the wheelbarrow and pushing
it up the wash beside Jensen‘s fence, where we dumped it. With the exception of washing
the clothes, we would repeat the process Sunday. Dad wouldn‘t let us help with the sawing.
He felt it was too dangerous. He had known men who had lost fingers and arms feeding
wood into the saws or been injured or killed by flying pieces from blades that had fractured.
The blade was about three feet in diameter and had to be sharpened at the end of the day
using a large, flat file. He eventually let me help with the sharpening. We would inspect the
blade for cracks near the teeth and if we found one less than half an inch long, he drilled a
small hole at the end of the crack to stop it from going any farther. If it was more than half
an inch, the blade was thrown out. He was careful with the blades. They were hard to find
and the worst thing on them was hitting a nail. This meant the wood had to be nail free,
another chore that fell to us kids.
Around 1955 the job got easier when Dad purchased a David Bradley chain saw. The saws
were just becoming popular and it was heavy and cumbersome, but it saved a LOT of work.
We would make four or five trips to Montezuma every fall and cut dead cedar or pinon. We
sawed the wood to stove length when we loaded it so all that was required later was splitting
the larger pieces. It was still work and tied up our weekends, but it beat the table saw and it
was always a treat to eat lunch in the hills. A great byproduct of the trip was the excitement
of finding an Indian arrowhead or an old bottle left behind by some turn-of-the-century
prospector.
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BARBARA GRAHAM‟S HOUSE OR THE “LITTLE CABIN”
When we moved to Tonopah, there were two small houses in the wash south of our place
near the corner of Jensen‘s fence. One was square, about 10‘ x 10‘, with a flat roof. The
other was about 5‘ x 8‘ with a peaked roof and was originally a home built house trailer. We
discovered this when Mom purchased the lot for back taxes around 1951 and Dad relocated
the cabin beside our garage. It became the ―little cabin‖ we used as a clubhouse and later as a
place to store things we packed home. Dad tore the larger building down for firewood.
In 1949 Barbara Graham and another woman, Kay Lynch, moved into the cabins. Barbara
became infamous in 1955 when she killed a woman in California and was executed in the
state‘s gas chamber. In 1949 her name wasn‘t Graham, but apparently she had a reputation
because Mom and Dad told us to ―stay away from them‖ in no uncertain words. I think
Barbara was working at the Tonopah Club Café as a waitress. There was no running water or
electricity in the cabins and no outhouse. Phil and I were playing in our yard one day when
the women came over with a gallon jug and asked us to fill it with drinking water. We didn‘t
know what to do. For one thing we weren‘t allowed to play with water, and for another, we
didn‘t want our parents to know we had talked to them. At the same time we were scared of
them so we took the jug. Dad had a barrel on a rack behind the garage where he stored
rainwater for the trees (this was before we began hauling it from Laundry Springs). The only
thing we could think of was to fill the jug from the barrel. When we gave it back one of the
women asked if that was the way it looked when it came out of the tap. Of course we
answered yes. It was rusty from the barrel and I am not sure they believed us, but they took
it.
A short time later we were playing on the rock outcrop beside the smaller cabin. Some of
the tarpaper had blown off its roof and there was a knothole in one of the boards. Phil and I
had a dead mouse we found and we knew the women were inside sitting on the bed talking.
We put the mouse in the knothole and pushed it through with a stick. When it fell there was
a lot of hollering and screaming. We took off and hid for a while, but when we came home
Dad was ready for us. They had told him what we had done and we both got a spanking.
From then on we steered clear of the cabins. I don‘t know when the women pulled out, but it
wasn‘t long after that.
Dad was the disciplinarian and a believer in the old saying ―spare the rod, spoil the child.‖
He had a belt hanging behind the kitchen door and when he reached for it we knew we were
in trouble. I never talked back to Mom and don‘t remember her ever having to punish me.
When she asked me to do something I usually followed through without much discussion. If
we were exceptionally bad during the years Dad worked for the county road department,
Mom would give him a full report when he got home for the weekend and we would get our
due. When we got older Dad would just holler at us, but his ―bark was worse than his bite.‖
I never used foul language around her or Dad and they didn‘t use it around me with the
exception of Dad‘s reference to the Lord once in a while if something wasn‘t going right. He
also had an assortment of off color sayings he used when he was dealing with our behavior.
I didn‘t swear much until I started working around guys that used a lot of coarse language.
The more I was exposed to, the more it rubbed off on me, but even at that, I still watched
what I said around the female set and my elders.
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Barbara Graham‟s house, or the “little cabin” as we called it, is the building with
the peak roof on the left in the two photos above. In the upper photo Dad is in the
center and our garage with the family‟s ‟56 Plymouth station wagon parked in the
driveway is on the right. That‟s me in the lower picture on the hood of my ‟41
Buick repairing the radio antenna. Both photos are c1958.
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SHOOT „EM UP
I developed an interest in real guns when I was around eight or nine years old. I had a
couple of cap pistols that came in handy when we played Cowboys and Indians or other boys
games but a few of the kids had BB guns and I wanted one as soon as I saw what they would
do. Dad was dead set against them -- said I was too young. No matter what my reasoning,
the answer was always the same and I would hear the old excuse, ―You‘ll put out
somebody‘s eye.‖
It was by accident I got my first rifle, a .22, when I was about twelve. Ralph Dahlquist and
I were prowling around what was known as the Midway section of town near the Midway
Mine north of the old T&G railroad yards. We didn‘t have much to do so decided to explore
an underground cellar Ralph had found in the midst of some tamarisk trees. We figured it
would make a good fort. When we realized we would need lights, we gave up on that. The
next thing to attract our attention was an abandoned outhouse. The obvious course of action
was to tip it over. We commenced toppling the defenseless little building onto its back and
then checked out the hole. Sticking up from the bottom was the barrel of a rifle. I pulled it
out and found it was a bolt-action .22 single shot. Ralph and I decided we would share it if it
would clean up, but he knew his father felt the same as Dad about guns, so I was delegated to
take it home. When I showed it to Dad, he wasn‘t too pleased, but said if it was salvageable I
could keep it. It turned out to be in pretty decent shape. The only rust was on the bolt and
the gun became my constant companion whenever we went on trips into the hills. In the
beginning, he wouldn‘t let me shoot it unless he was present, but I could live with that. I did
question his reasoning in light of the fact he and his brother George had .22‘s at my age
without any supervision. Different time, different situation I guess. I decided sharing the
gun with Ralph wasn‘t feasible and told him Dad took it away. I don‘t think his father would
have approved anyway. I still have the gun and it shoots as well as it ever did. And finding
the gun opened the door enabling Philip and Allen to get rifles as Christmas presents sooner
than later.
And Dad hated pistols. I realized he would never let me have one and it wasn‘t until 1958
when I was seventeen that I bought a .22 revolver from John Strong, a friend I worked with at
the Mizpah Garage. I never did tell Dad about it. I did have another pistol, a .32 five shot
revolver, a real ―Saturday night special‖ Keith Scott and I found in the glove compartment of
a car in 1956. It wasn‘t very accurate and backed up the old saying, ―you couldn‘t hit the
broad side of a barn‖ with it. The bullet always went someplace other than where the gun
was aimed.
This pistol almost got me into a lot of trouble. One evening a group of us including Philip,
Ken Eason and Keith Scott were riding around in my old Buick drinking a few beers. The
loaded pistol was in the glove compartment. We were driving down the street near the
railroad depot and someone threw out a beer can. About the same time, a cop was coming up
the street and we thought he saw it. I turned off Main Street and sped up the hill near the
Shell Oil bulk plant and into the yard of Cavanaugh‘s Mobile Oil bulk plant. We tossed out
our beer and I reached into the glove compartment and grabbed the pistol, handing it back to
Philip and telling him to stash it under the seat. Somehow it went off and the next thing I
knew Eason was yelling he had been shot. I skidded to a stop and everyone except Eason,
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Phil and me bailed out and ran. Eason said it was his foot. We pulled off his shoe and saw
the bullet had traveled down between his foot and sock and exited through the shoe‘s sole.
When the gun went off it was pointed at the back of the front seat where Scott was sitting.
Luckily the old Buick had a heavy metal backing on the seats. The bullet ricocheting off and
into Eason‘s shoe was bad enough, but had it not been for the metal it would have hit Keith in
the back. Eason‘s foot was bruised and he limped around for a couple of days, but that was
the extent of it. When Phil and I dropped him off at his house we told his mother he had
stepped on a board with a large nail in it. To top it off, the cop didn‘t see the beer can thrown
out! Years later I sold the gun to Sonny Mitchell for a couple of bucks. Eason still has the
bullet‘s slug.
Around the time I found the rifle, Philip and I ran across three more guns. They were in a
shallow mine shaft on the hillside near the old dairy‘s corrals across the Goldfield highway
from the ballpark. We were climbing the rock formations on the hill behind the dairy and
decided to take a look down the shaft. A few years before we had thrown a couple of hard
hats we had ―liberated‖ from Mr. Masters‘ shed on California Avenue into the hole and we
were curious to see if they were still there. To our surprise, along with the hats were what
appeared to be two guns. The shaft was about fifteen feet deep and we had to figure a way to
get to them. We tied a rope around a nearby fence post and eventually were able to reach the
bottom. As it turned out, there were three guns, two .12 gauge shotguns, a double barrel and
an automatic, and a .22 automatic pistol, but they appeared to have been in a fire. We took
them home, soaked them with penetrating oil and cleaned them up the best we could. The
shotguns were not much good, although they looked great from a distance. We eventually
gave them to Robert Campbell at the junkyard. We didn‘t think the pistol was going to be
salvageable, but we found we could slide the mechanism with the firing pin back, load it and
cock it with the safety latch. With some strong rubber bands, when the safety latch was
released, the section with the firing pin would slide forward, and presto, a single shot pistol!
A ―zip gun‖ of sorts. (Zip guns were homemade .22 caliber pistols using a section of car
antenna as the barrel with a firing mechanism activated by rubber bands.) It looked good and
was accurate. From then on it was our companion whenever we went hiking and when we
got older and started driving, we took it along when we ventured into the desert exploring.
Allen has it now.
We were always curious as to why the guns were in the shaft and came to the following
conclusion years later: We learned there was a house near the hole (long gone when we
found the guns) where the Chief of Police lived during the 1940‘s. I don‘t know his given
name but everyone called him Alabam so I assume he must have been from Alabama.
Apparently the guns were confiscated and it was up to him to get rid of them. We figure he
burned them and tossed them into the hole. I have always wondered if they were used to
commit crimes of some sort.
And I had a .20 gauge shotgun I found in the cellar of an abandoned house in Duckwater.
Phil, Allen and I had driven out to spend a couple of days camping and swimming. Our
campsite was one of the abandoned Indian homesteads. There was a lot of junk around the
house and sheds left behind by whoever had lived there. One item was the shotgun. It was
pretty beat up and had no trigger mechanism. I took it home and fabricated a trigger from an
old skeleton type house key that was tripped by pulling a wire. Next I sawed the barrel off.
It worked okay but was too much trouble to shoot. I eventually forgot about it and years later
when we were cleaning up for our move to Reno, I ran across it. I didn‘t know what to do
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with it so I tossed it down a mineshaft behind Mt. Brougher I was using as my trash dump,
one that‘s deep enough no one will ever see the gun again. Another thing I found at the
Indian cabin was an oversized 1914 panoramic photo of Tonopah. It wasn‘t in great shape,
but it was original and I still have it in my photo collection.
Long before I had a gun, finding a live bullet was always a source of entertainment. The
first thing I would do was pry out the projectile and touch a match to the powder. If it was a
shotgun shell or a .50 caliber machine gun bullet (there were a lot of them around,
compliments of the old Tonopah Army Air Force training base) it doubled the thrill. The
shotgun shells yielded a palm full of lead BB‘s and a .50 caliber slug made a great
conversation piece. This was where carrying a pocketknife came in handy and I don‘t think
there was a boy I knew that didn‘t have one.
Another ―must have‖ was a match shooter fabricated from two clothespins and a rubber
band using the spring as the trigger. A match shooter could send a burning stick match quite
a distance and ―match gun fights‖ were common occurrences. It required two clothespins
with the extra arm used to cock the gun. They were responsible for starting fires on more
than one occasion. The most destructive I remember was when the Grizzly (ore bin) at the
Mizpah Mine was burned to the ground by a group of boys having a match shooter war in the
structure.
Your typical Match Shooter. The photo on the left illustrates the necessary
components and on the right is the shooter loaded, cocked and ready to fire.
The Ohio Blue Tip matches worked best.
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FURRY, FEATHERED AND SCALY FRIENDS
We always had dogs, accompanied by a menagerie of other pets. I don‘t recall our first
dog‘s name. He showed up shortly after we moved to Tonopah and we didn‘t have him long.
We were playing at the Jones‘ house one winter evening and went out the front door when
we left. We weren‘t aware he was lying near the back door waiting for us and he froze to
death during the night. Dad said no more dogs but it wasn‘t long until we got Red. Red was
a larger longhaired dog that appeared to have some Irish setter in his blood. Soon after he
arrived, Spot, a smaller shorthaired black and white mutt of, like Red, unknown pedigree,
moved in. Spot had followed us home from school and stayed around over ten years. He
was great with kids but he had a chasing streak. Whenever a bitch was in heat and he caught
wind of it, he was off. When he made it back home he was usually beat up pretty bad,
especially in later years, but it didn‘t deter him. He eventually disappeared. We always
suspected Don Duncan, the constable, shot him. He vanished about the time Duncan was
riding his horse around the outskirts of town shooting dogs he thought were wild.
The dogs were our constant companions. There was one instance when I had to call on
Red to protect me. It was in 1951 and the polio scare was in full swing. It was decided
everyone in grade school would get immunized. They were giving shots at the county
hospital near our house and I had a deathly fear of anything to do with hospitals or doctors.
We were loaded on the school bus and taken to the hospital and as soon as the bus stopped, I
ran home, got Red and went back threatening to sic him on anyone trying to get me into the
building. It worked. They left me alone and I was the only one returning to school without
the shot. I don‘t think they were scared of Red, they saw how scared I was. In 1953 he was
shot by a hanger-on at the local brothel on the hill behind our house. Apparently he had
killed some of their chickens.
The brothel was new to our end of town and was only there for five or six months. Prior to
this the houses of prostitution were bars and cribs on St. Patrick and Central Streets between
Knapp and Oddie Avenues on the west edge of town. The ―joints‖ were clustered there in the
early 1910‘s when a couple of square blocks were unofficially designated as the red light
district. The district was behind the Big Casino, one of the largest dance hall-brothels on the
west coast. It was a very lively area until the mines began to play out and the economics of
Tonopah changed. By the late 1930‘s there were only a half dozen houses left, but during
the first few years of World War II business picked up when the Tonopah Army Air Field
was in full swing.
In 1943 the district was placed Off Limits and the brothels closed after an airman died in a
fire at one of them. They didn‘t reopen until the base was deactivated in 1945. When we
were kids there were only four or five survivors. Names I recall were Taxscene Ornelas‘s
Taxscine‘s Bar, the Cottage Bar, Inez Parker‘s Nugget Bar and Bobbie‘s Bar owned by
Bobbie Duncan.
On many summer Friday or Saturday evenings from the late 1940‘s thru 1951, Dad and
Mom would load us in the back of the pickup and drive through the district to see if there
were any ―live ones‖ at the ―honkytonks.‖ We didn‘t know what ―honkytonks‖ (brothels) or
―live ones‖ (customers) were, but the trip was always good for a stop for an ice cream cone
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on the way home. I remember Dad‘s comments: ―There‘s Bart‘s car‖ or ―That‘s Buster‘s
pickup,‖ things of that nature referring to single friends. On paydays Dad and Mom would
head downtown to the bars on Main to socialize with friends themselves, leaving us at home
to ―keep an eye on the place,‖ freedom we enjoyed to the utmost.
In 1951 things changed in the red light district when Alice Nashland, a prostitute, was
killed in Inez Parker‘s place. It was a crime that was never solved but it was speculated
Bonny Ornelas was responsible. Two years later Ornelas was shot and killed as he sat on a
barstool in Carver‘s Bar in Smoky Valley by a man named Welsh. Most folks considered it
justice served.
After Nashland‘s killing there was an outcry from the locals and the joints were shut down
again, but in late 1952 a brothel going by the name 711 opened in the house behind Jensen‘s
barn where a man Philip and I nicknamed Mad Ax lived. The proprietors figured it was far
enough from the center of town no one would mind, but the only access was Central Street in
front of our house and traffic picked up, a dangerous situation considering the number of
children living in the neighborhood. Add to this the fact everyone who lived near our end of
the street was being disturbed all hours of the night by guys knocking doors trying to find
―the place.‖ This didn‘t sit well with Mom and Dad and it wasn‘t long before Dad and a few
neighbors went to the County Commissioners and raised enough hell to have the place
closed. Before long a new operation sprang up in a house near the National Coal Company
where Ralph Dahlquist lived. The new brothel was run by Margaret Cox and known as The
Trees, a name gleaned from a couple of large cottonwoods that were nearby. It was between
the coal company and the Midway Mine and in the center of the area I prowled with Ralph.
Christmas lights were strung in trees and the place was only open for a year or so. Again,
we probably had a hand in it being closed. Philip, Ralph and I knew a bit more about what
was going on by this time and decided it would be enlightening to crawl up after dark and
look in the windows to ―check things out.‖ There was a bar in the house and a couple of
cabins in the yard the girls used to entertain customers. We had a great view of the bar, but
about the only thing of interest, with the exception of women in skimpy clothes sitting around
drinking with the men, was one evening when Rodger Nicely, a local mining promoter, was
running around in his underwear with a plate of beans yelling ―Follow me men!‖ We would
watch the outbuildings and when a girl took a ―date‖ into one, we would throw rocks on the
roof. It didn‘t take Ralph‘s dad long to catch on and he went to the Commissioners and
complained. Again the house was shut down. Shortly thereafter, Bobbie Duncan opened a
brothel at the old Buckeye mine about a mile east of town on US 6. Known as Bobbie‘s
Buckeye Bar, it became a local landmark until she passed away in the 1980‘s bringing an end
to legal prostitution in Tonopah.
About 1956 Prince came into our lives. We were hiking the hills near Campbell‘s
Junkyard when we noticed a dog run into an abandoned mine tunnel. Further investigation
revealed a female with a litter of puppies. She was friendly and didn‘t mind us handling the
pups, which were only a few days old. The mother was a nice looking dog and the puppies
were adorable. Feeling sorry for her, we began taking up food and water. After feeding her
for a week or so we decided to take one of the puppies. We picked a male. His eyes were
just opening and he needed a lot of care. He was white with black spots and grew into a large
dog resembling an Irish setter. I don‘t know what breed the father was, but the mother
appeared to have a lot of Hound in her. Needless to say, Mom and Dad weren‘t too happy,
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but in no time Prince was accepted as a member of the family. We fed the mother for another
couple of weeks, then one day we went up to check on her and she and the pups were gone.
We never saw her again. We thought she may have come from the junkyard, but Campbell
said she wasn‘t his.
Every summer we had an assortment of horned toads, lizards and snakes. I kept one lizard
for a couple of years, feeding it flies I would catch at Mr. Hyde‘s house or from the flytrap at
our house. There was an abundance of flies in those days and Dad made a trap from an old
dynamite box he fitted with short legs and window screen on two sides. He cut a hole in the
bottom and installed a screen cone over it for the flies to crawl up and enter the box. To lure
the flies a small pan with bait was set beneath the cone. It was a common design and worked
well.
We had chickens that were kept for the eggs. They were a burden to us kids. We had to
feed them, clean the pen, gather the eggs and face a nasty rooster. When the hens quit
producing, they wound up in the soup pot. Eventually, the rooster did too. And ducks.
When the traveling carnivals came through, they had the usual games of chance. One was
tossing dimes at an arrangement of plates and the prizes included ducklings or chicks. We
thought the ducks were cute and we played until we won a couple of them. We couldn‘t put
them with the chickens so had to build another pen. They were fun for a while, but when
they matured, they were as nasty as the rooster. They had a habit of grabbing your skin and
twisting and boy did it hurt! Dad finally gave them to Joe Florez. Joe had an assortment of
animals at Rye Patch, where he lived. Rye Patch, northeast of town, was the well field for
Tonopah‘s water supply and Florez tended the pumps. I went to school with his son Dennis
who was my age.
One of our more interesting pets was Ebony the raven. Bud Saunders snatched two of
them from a nest on the old Victor mine headframe shortly after they hatched. One died and
Saunders couldn‘t keep the other so he gave it to us. We named him (?) Ebony and he
became the terror of the neighborhood. He would pull clothes pins from clotheslines
regardless if there were clothes on the line or not and he had a habit of diving at whoever was
hanging the wash out. No one had dryers in those days and everything went on the line. (In
winter our pants and long underwear would freeze solid requiring us to stand then behind the
kitchen wood stove until they thawed.) By the time Ebony was full grown, he was all over
town pestering people. We got quite a few complaints, but there was nothing we could do.
We didn‘t want to cage him. Eventually he disappeared. We figured someone shot him.
Two other birds we brought home were a pair of baby great horned owls that hatched in a
nest in the rafters of the Silver Top Mine grizzly. We kept them in the garage. We didn‘t
know what to feed them so started with canned dog food. We added meat scraps when they
got older and they became somewhat tame. Unfortunately, we didn‘t realize how big they
would get. When they were small it was great to have them sit on your arm, but soon their
talons were digging in and we had to cut sections of old tire inner tubes to put over our arms
before we let them perch. And they were eating more and more. We didn‘t know what we
were going to do with them, but one morning when we went out to feed them, they were
gone. They had ―flown the coop‖ which didn‘t hurt our feelings at all.
Another pet I had for quite a few years was Iggy, a white rat. He was the result of an 8 th
grade research project. Mr. Lepore had purchased three rats that we put on different diets.
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We kept logs of their weight and size to evaluate what effect different food had on them. At
the end of the year he had to get rid of them and I volunteered to take Iggy. When the rats
arrived, the class chose names related to the area. Iggy was derived from the Ichthyosaur
fossils that had recently been unearthed near Ione. I built a double deck cage from old
dynamite boxes with an exercise wheel in the top section and a place for his nest in the
bottom. He was an ideal pet. He only used the cage for sleeping. During the day he had the
run of the house. He was always under the table or sitting in my lap at dinner. The dogs
ignored him and he would come when called. When he was four, Mom accidentally stepped
on his tail and the outer covering on half of it was pulled off revealing the bone structure.
We didn‘t know what to do so Mom placed him on the cutting board, grabbed a knife and
chopped the exposed bone off. The result was a rat with half a tail, but it didn‘t seem to
bother him. He was with us for over six years. I had gone away to college and when I came
home for Christmas vacation in 1961 he had what appeared to be a cold. He was sneezing
and very listless and died while I was there. I carved a small tombstone, fashioned a coffin
from an old square tobacco tin and buried him in the Divide mining district southeast of
Tonopah.
And then there was Pedro, a desert tortoise that we found wandering up the street near our
house in the mid 1950‘s. We didn‘t have to guess at his name, it was painted on his shell
with fingernail polish. We figured he had been chained up someplace. There was a hole in
his shell with a loop attached. We asked around but no one claimed him so he met a similar
fate with us. We had him for about ten years and after numerous escape attempts, he
eventually got free and continued on his way.
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DEEP, DARK AND DANGEROUS
By the early 1950‘s we developed an interest in the old mines and in no time had explored
all the tunnels on our side of town. At first we used matches for light but after numerous
singed fingers we graduated to torches of dead sagebrush. The light was better, but they
burned quickly and the smoke was horrible. Next we tried candles, but they didn‘t furnish
much light. As I mentioned previously, we switched to kerosene lamps but the smoke was
worse than the sagebrush and we couldn‘t afford flashlights so they were out of the question.
Our salvation arrived when we learned how to use miners‘ carbide lamps.
Around 1953 Dad located a turquoise mine in the Gilbert mining district about fifteen
miles northwest of Tonopah. The mine had extensive underground workings dating back to
the 1920‘s. He was working for Cavanaugh Brothers and Glen Jeffrey at the Y Service
Station told him Indians from Arizona and New Mexico came through town periodically
buying turquoise. Dad figured he could make a few bucks sorting the old dumps and since
no one had located it, he filed on it. In order to inspect the workings, he introduced us to his
carbide lamps. It only took us a minute to realize they were just what we needed. We had
seen them in old sheds and around the mines and it didn‘t take us long to gather enough parts
to assemble a couple that worked. In fact, I still have my first lamp and it functions as well
as it ever did. Carbide was available at Wolfe‘s Desert Hardware in one-pound cans, so we
were in business. The lamps furnished plenty of light and the flame was great for writing on
the walls making it possible to ―mark our territory‖ by leaving a bit of graffiti behind on our
visits.
There was a tunnel on the north side of Mt. Oddie everyone called Scary Cave. From the
minute we heard about it we knew we had to check it out. It was quite a ways from town and
we had to hike out, but it was well worth the effort. It is a long tunnel with a couple of rooms
and was a great place to test our new lamps. From here it was a natural progression to
larger, deeper mines in town. We had to see what they were like and what was left behind.
As usual, Dad would have been madder than hell if he knew what we were doing, but we did
pick up a few safety tips from him. Most of the time we carried plenty of matches, extra
water and carbide, and a couple of candles for backup. We were aware of underground
dangers including rotten timber, hanging slabs and pockets of methane gas, information we
picked up talking to old miners around town. Hard hats weren‘t part of our equipment and
over the years I had my share of bumps on the head from low backs (roofs). The primary
mistake we made was not letting anyone know when and where we were going underground.
The first major mines we explored were the Mizpah and Silver Top properties of the
Tonopah Mining Company. We found we could climb down the stopes (caverns where the
ore was mined out) that surfaced behind Jim Klapper‘s house on Florence Avenue. The
stopes took us to the first three levels of the Silver Top that in turn gave us access to the
Mizpah, Montana and Desert Queen workings. The mines were a different world, an
underground museum untouched after the miners left. There were ore cars, dynamite
boxes, blasting cap tins and a variety of tools. The workings were extensive and we spent
years exploring them, barely scratching the surface. The Tonopah mines were active from
1900 thru the late 1940‘s and produced over $147,000,000 in silver with an estimated 500
miles of workings not including the stopes. I would guess thirty miles were accessible when
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we started exploring them and I figure we only got through five miles at best. I have to admit
it was dangerous and there were times we could have been hurt, or worse, but we were lucky.
When we became ―mobile‖ at sixteen and began visiting nearby mining camps we always
had our lamps and carbide with us. If something caught our attention, we would check it out.
The workings of the Tonopah and Divide mines were the most interesting. Divide was the
site of a silver mining boom five miles southeast of Tonopah in 1919. Other districts we
ventured underground in included Manhattan, Goldfield, Rhyolite, Death Valley, Round
Mountain, Virginia City and Silver Peak to name only a few. When we acquired a camera
with a flash attachment, we got some great photos. It was probably fortunate we explored the
mines when we had the chance. The past forty years have been rough on Tonopah‘s
workings and most are caved and inaccessible now. I imagine this is the case with many of
the others.
We ran into a lot of strange things. A few examples: We were on the 200 foot level of
the Silver Top crawling down a stope when I heard an intermittent buzzing sound. At
first I couldn‘t figure out what it was but soon found a rattlesnake that had apparently
made its way down from the surface. I don‘t know what it was living on, maybe mice.
We detoured around it. Another time we were salvaging brass valves from the air and
water lines in the Brougher No. 2 in the Divide district. We were on the second level and
I started to unscrew a valve when it began to hiss. I put my carbide lamp closer for a
better look and cracked the valve a bit. A blue flame, ignited by the carbide lamp, shot
from the opening. The pipe ran down a nearby winz (shaft) that apparently had caved
shut someplace below, creating a cavity of rotting timber that was generating methane
gas. I turned the valve off and left it where it was.
A few of the first photos we took underground.
1. A timbered stope in Tonopah‟s Mizpah mine.
2. The 200 foot level station in the Mizpah.
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3. Ore cars on the 300 foot level of Tonopah‟s Silver Top mine. 4. A caved drift on
the 240 foot level of the Silver Top. 5. Equipment abandoned on the Silver Top‟s
200 foot level.
About the time we began exploring mines, Phil, Allen and I started our own mining
operation in the gulch on the west side of Jensen‘s fence. It was easy digging and it
wasn‘t long before we were down around eight feet. This required building a ―collar‖
around the hole and installing a hoisting device to replace a small steel headframe we
built which was nothing more than a large toy. We needed some real tools now. We
rounded up a mine windlass (a drum with crank handles that was placed on standards
above the hole for the bucket‘s cable) and set it up. As the hole got deeper we hit a solid
rock ledge that dipped east at about a forty-five degree angle and the shaft became an
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incline from there. It was easier to follow the ledge down than go through it. We
decided the mine needed a name and chose Phoenix Divide Mining Company taken from
a book of stock certificates we found in the Tonopah Mining Company office building.
Within a year or so we were down about fifteen feet, but progress was slow. Allen was
doing most of the work. Phil and I had started building up Model T‘s and forgot about
mining.
As Allen went deeper, the ground got harder and he needed help. He would single jack
(hand drill) holes in the ―face‖ (bottom of the shaft) and I would load them with a small
dynamite charge, just enough to break some rock but not attract a lot of attention. On one
occasion we set the charge and went to the garage to wait for it to detonate when Mrs.
Jensen came out to hang clothes. By this time the shaft dipped under their fence and
beneath their clothesline. There was nothing we could do but hope she didn‘t pay any
attention but it was not to be. About the time the blast went off, she was hanging the
wash. She jumped, dropped everything and ran to the house. She never mentioned it, but
after that we were careful to make sure no one was around when we blasted. I don‘t
know how much deeper Al went, he had learned to do his own blasting and was still
mining after I left for college in 1959. I think the hole eventually reached a depth of
around thirty feet.
Our mine in the wash near the house c1960 with a windlass installed to hoist
the broken rock. Essie Mae Campbell‟s house is in the background
adjoining a bevy of cars from Bob‟s junkyard. Butler Mountain can be seen
in the distance with Butler peak in the center. The road that disfigured the
range was built in 1955 to access Brock Peak where the Air Force radar was
installed.
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WHAT A BLAST!
It was around the time Dad located the Gilbert property we learned what dynamite
could do. Someone had told him about a turquoise prospect on the Alkali Springs side of
Lone Mountain that he thought might be worth looking over. The only access was by
walking in the last couple of miles. The property had been prospected in the early days
and there were a few small cuts and some old equipment lying around. Dad decided we
would need to drill and blast the vein to see if the turquoise was more than surface stain.
This would require ―single jacking‖ holes for the explosive. Single jacking was a method
the miners used to drill holes by hand. A piece of drill steel was held and rotated while
being hit with a hammer (the single jack), pounding the hole into the rock. It wasn‘t new
to us. We had heard oldtimers talking about it and a few years previously Dad had
showed us how it was done. After we got the hang of it, we proceeded to drill holes in
the rock outcrop behind the house, so we had some practice.
We went back the next week with a few pieces of drill steel, a single jack, water,
dynamite, fuse and caps. We drilled a couple of holes in the formation and Dad got out
the dynamite. Boy were we excited! This would be better than the 4th of July! He
showed us how to place the cap on the fuse, insert it in the ―powder‖ (dynamite) and load
the holes. He introduced us to the crimping pliers and told us never to use anything but a
wood rod for the tamping. The blast was great, but it didn‘t uncover any turquoise and
that finished off the Lone Mountain prospect, but the dynamite was something we
wouldn‘t forget.
The next time we used powder was at the Gold Seam mine in the Divide district
shortly after the Lone Mountain experience. There was an old hoist at the mine and Dad
figured if we blasted it apart we could break it up enough to haul it in and sell it as scrap.
This time he let Phil and me put the caps on the fuse and crimp them. We plastered the
powder on the hoist and it did a great job. We were able to get most of the iron and it
illustrated the power we had at our disposal.
We had run across blasting caps and fuse in our explorations of abandoned mine
buildings, sheds and old houses. We didn‘t touch the caps, Dad had drummed into our
heads that only damned fools (he used the term a lot with us) messed with them, but the
fuse was fun to play with. I loved the smell of it burning, still do. We tried to recall
where we had run across caps and went back and gathered them up, hiding them in the
little cabin. Dad had his caps, fuse and a couple of sticks of powder put away in the
garage but we didn‘t dare mess with them. He knew exactly what was there.
The next thing we needed was dynamite. The first time I remember seeing it was at
Diamondfield, a few miles from Goldfield. There were a couple of sticks on a shelf in
the corner of an old blacksmith shop. I pointed them out to Dad and he stressed never
touching it. He warned us that if it had ―whiskers‖ growing on it, and this did, the ―nitro‖
was leaching out making it unstable to the point it could blow up at the slightest
disturbance.
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When Phil and I were exploring old mines we would run across a few sticks here and
there, some old and unstable and other pieces that looked great. We always left it where
it was, but now we had to have some to experiment with. It wasn‘t long before we found
a few sticks and set it off. After that, whenever we ran across any that was in decent
condition, we would detonate it in the desert, preferably in old car bodies. The best find
we made was at the Tonopah Divide mine in 1957. The Tonopah Divide was the largest
and most productive mine in Divide district. It had produced millions in silver before
mining ceased in the early 1940‘s. We were climbing down the shaft exploring the
workings level by level when we ran across about a dozen cases of dynamite someone
had stored in one of the drifts (tunnels). We took as much as we could carry and after
that, whenever we wanted any, we would pay the mine a visit. It became our personal
powder magazine.
There is an old concrete bullion vault near the Montana Tonopah mine ruins on Mt.
Oddie above town and this was one of our favorite sites to ―shake things up.‖ The vault
faced town and a few sticks of dynamite hung in the center and detonated would echo
across the area. We would usually time our fuse (it burned a foot a minute) so we would
be downtown, at a basketball game or attending some other function when it blew. Once
in a while we would tell friends what was going to happen, and sure enough, it would
reverberate over town right on time with spectacular results. The mountainside would
light up with spotlights and car headlights as the local cops drove around the roads on the
hill trying to determine what had happened. They could never figure it out. Word
eventually got around that we were behind it, but no one was able to prove it. Because of
this, and our wild reputation, we became sore spots with Don Duncan, the constable. He
was always trying to pin something on us, but could never catch us doing anything. It got
to a point it was an obsession with him. When he dropped dead riding his horse near
town shooting ―wild dogs,‖ it was cause for celebration as far as we were concerned, and
we weren‘t the only ones who felt that way.
Dad had told us that in the early days when they were dismantling buildings, a small
piece of powder hung by a string in the center of the structure and detonated would
―loosen it up‖ making it easier to tear apart. We thought we would try it on an old
miner‘s shack at Divide. I think it belonged to Pete Mosher from Goldfield, who had a
small mine nearby. It was his base when he worked the property. We made one mistake,
we used a couple of sticks stuffed into the center section of an old fire extinguisher and it
was a bit much. Not only did it blow the house apart, the remains caught fire. Scared the
hell out of us. We figured we would hear about it, but I guess they attributed it to ―mice
chewing on matches,‖ one of the explanations we heard numerous times explaining fires
of undermined origin.
Another thing we discovered was that sodium metal dropped into water would
explode. We learned this by accident when we came across a sealed can containing a
couple of pounds of it in the rafters of the old Tonopah Mining Company assay office.
When we opened the can to see what it was, we found blocks of the metal packed in
kerosene. They were about the size and shape of sticks of modeling clay. We cut a
couple of pieces off one and while examining them, they began to react with the moisture
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on our skin and burn us. We dropped them on the floor of the assay office, and, thinking
it was going to catch the building on fire, peed on them. Needless to say, this hastened
the reaction and we really did almost burn the place down. We smothered the fire with
dirt and took the can of metal home. We knew we had come across something that was
going to be fun to mess with. It didn‘t take us long to figure out that a chunk dropped
into a container of water at night emitted a bright light, a cloud of white smoke and then
exploded. As one might expect, our supply didn‘t last long.
When I was in high school, I found a container of potassium metal in the chemistry lab
that apparently had been around for years. Remembering the sodium metal, I figured the
potassium would react the same. It did, but it burned faster and more violently. We tried
a couple of small pieces in the lab when Ralph Dahlquist came up with the idea of
flushing some down the toilet to see what would happen. We took a chunk down to the
boys‘ bathroom, flushed the toilet, and he threw it in. It went off a lot faster than we
anticipated. There was an explosion and cloud of smoke. We didn‘t stick around to see
what happened but the next day the janitor, Mr. Carr, and our principal, Art Lepore, were
in the bathroom inspecting the toilet, which had split in half, and looking over the burned
spots on the walls of the stall where pieces of metal had landed. They never did figure
out what had happened.
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THE BLACKSMITH SHOP
About the time Dad started prospecting for turquoise, he decided we needed a
blacksmith shop. We helped him scrounge up old mine headframe timber and sheet iron
for the building, which we helped build, but it lacked the blower, forge, hood, anvil, drill
press and vices. Eventually we were able to find everything we needed around the old
mines. Dad had a few blacksmith tools and when we became familiar with them, Phil
and I began gathering others we had run across. Soon we were picking up anything
related to blacksmithing or metalworking and over time wound up with a well equipped
shop.
There was a house on University Street that yielded a ―bumper crop‖ of tools. The
house itself was empty, but it was on a hillside and had a cellar with an outside door at
the back. Apparently a previous resident was involved with blacksmithing. The cellar
was full of blacksmith and mining tools. We discovered this in our travels a few years
earlier and when we went back to check it out, the tools were still there. Over a period of
time, we packed them all home. I think the only reason someone else hadn‘t carried them
off was that blacksmithing was a thing of the past by then. A few years later Ed Lee tore
the building down for the scrap wood.
The shop took up a lot of our spare time. After we learned to fire the forge we were
able to fabricate items of all kinds -- swords, spears, knives and assorted brackets and
metal objects. And, Dad taught me how to sharpen picks, drill steel and digging bars,
something that came in handy years later. We spent a lot of time in the shop after school.
It was a great teacher. Our biggest problem was coal. Blacksmith coal was expensive
and not readily available. This led to picking up all the coal and coke we could find
around the abandoned mine‘s shops. We used household coal when nothing else was
available. It wasn‘t as hot and it smoked, but if you ―coked‖ it with water, it would
suffice.
We were probably lucky no one got hurt with the exception of small dings and burns. I
think the worst thing to happen was when we were making spears. Bill Crowell was
holding a flat piece of red hot metal on the anvil and I was cutting off a piece to form the
point. The piece flew into the air, hit the roof of the shop and fell onto Phil‘s collarbone.
He flipped it off and it went down the back of his shirt. When it reached the bottom it
burned a hole in the shirt and fell out. Needles to say, he jumped around pretty good for
a few seconds. He has a scar on his neck as a reminder. In 1957 we tore the shop down
to make way for a larger building we needed for Model T parts storage.
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RELIGION IN MY LIFE
Mom was Catholic and when I was younger she attended church on a regular basis.
Dad was raised Lutheran and I don‘t remember him ever going to church (there was no
Lutheran congregation in Tonopah). One of the byproducts of Mom‘s faith was fish for
dinner every Friday, usually patties fashioned from codfish that came packaged in small
wood boxes. We had trout if there happened to be any left from a fishing trip, or once in
a while halibut or something along that line she would pick up in Bishop on our shopping
excursions. Because of this I have an aversion to codfish to this day.
She never insisted we go to church. My religious beliefs began to take shape when the
Presbyterians invited me to their vacation bible schools. I think I was about ten the first
time I went. It was two weeks of church, swimming parties, picnics and the best part,
crafts. I loved the crafts. I still recall pictures we drew, crosses we made and painted
with glow in the dark paint, hot pads knitted for Mom, paperweights made with a liquid
plastic and an assortment of other things, most related to religion. I went every year until
I was a sophomore in high school and it wasn‘t ―cool‖ anymore.
One summer bible school stands out. It was after we had learned to handle dynamite.
Our class took a trip to Belmont to pick pine nuts. Our leader, Mr. Tom, chose a spot on
the southeast side of Belmont road about four miles west of town. The trees were thick
and everyone spread out to fill boxes and sacks with cones. Philip, Dorlan Dixon and I
chose a large tree that was covered with them. There was a burlap sack hanging in the
tree that caught our attention and when we opened it we found it contained dynamite,
fuse and some caps. There was evidence of recent mining activity nearby and it had
probably been stored there to keep it safe. We took one of our pine nut sacks, hid a
couple of sticks of powder in it and stashed it in the back of the station wagon. When we
got back to town we were able to hide it behind the church and pick it up later. I guess it
was lucky we didn‘t get caught. We probably would have been excommunicated.
Bible school led to attending Sunday school on a more or less regular basis. This
dictated my involvement in Christmas and Easter programs. It seemed as though I was
always a shepherd and my costume was Dad‘s old bathrobe. And although I didn‘t
realize it at the time, the church had sown the seeds of my future religious beliefs.
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FAVORITE HOLIDAYS
We celebrated most holidays but Christmas, July 4th and Halloween were the big ones
as far as us boys were concerned.
Christmas
The season began with the arrival of the Montgomery Ward and Sears & Roebuck
Christmas catalogs around the first of October. Phil, Allen and I called them the ―wish
books,‖ a term we picked up from Dad, and we spent hours looking at the vast array of
items. The catalogs were great entertainment, but it was seldom anything from the pages
appeared under the Christmas tree. About three weeks before Christmas we would make
a trip into the Montezuma mountain range near Goldfield to cut our tree, a pinon pine. It
was an occasion for a picnic, arrowhead hunting and some target practice with my .22
and Dad always insisted on loading up some cordwood ―to make the trip pay for itself.‖
And, there were years there was snow on the ground or it was freezing cold and our only
goal was cutting a tree and getting home as soon as we could.
When we got the tree up, we would decorate with our store-bought ornaments and
lights and finish up with homemade ornaments and chains we fashioned using strips of
colored construction paper. We hung the chains around the house as well. The storebought ornaments I liked best were the plastic icicles that glowed in the dark and a set of
glass birds with fiberglass tails. Our lights were the standard fare and I envied those
fortunate enough to have ―bubble lights‖ on their trees. A few days before Christmas we
helped Mom bake cookies and make fudge and in the evenings she played Christmas
carols on the piano.
The local merchants sponsored a town tree that was placed on Main Street, usually at
the intersection of Main, Erie Main and Florence Avenue where, a few weeks before
Christmas, Santa showed up riding in the back of a pickup truck to hand out stockings
containing small toys, comic books and hard candy. He also made appearances at
Coleman‘s Grocery and Clendenning‘s Department Store distributing stockings and
listening to the younger children‘s want lists.
Christmas was kind of sparse as far as presents went, but we didn‘t realize it. All our
friends were in the same boat and we were glad to get whatever Santa left. There would
be a couple of board games, craft sets and some books. Allen seemed to get the toys. We
could depend on socks, underwear, a shirt and pair of pants each and Grandma Novick
always sent a package of presents from Brooklyn.
When we were younger, Phil and I didn‘t have much money but always managed to
buy Mom and Dad something at McGowans, usually one of the ―Me & Jim Found
Tonopah, Nevada‖ souvenir burros or thermometers that they would dutifully display on
a shelf with those from previous years.
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One of my most memorable Christmases was 1949, the year I got my two-wheeler bike.
I was seven and can still visualize it sitting in the living room. It was a 26‖ Hawthorne
and I was barely big enough for it. The previous summer I had learned to ride on an old
bike Mr. Jensen had picked up someplace. It was a 26‖ also. I would lean it up against
their fence, climb on and push off. I had my share of crashes before I finally was able to
balance it but I wasn‘t about to give up.
My new bike was a beauty with a horn, headlamp and all the trimmings, but through
the years its personality changed. First to go was the headlamp followed by the horn.
They required batteries, which were an extravagance I couldn‘t afford. Next came the
fenders. The drawback of no fenders was riding when there was mud on the streets. The
rear tire would throw a streak of it up your back but in Tonopah‘s dry environment, mud
was a rarity so that was easy to live with. Repairing flat tires was the norm and I soon
learned a few other things: The coaster brake had numerous small parts that had to be
reassembled in the proper order, there were a bunch of small balls in the front and rear
wheel bearings, one of which always seemed to disappear when they were taken apart
and the fork would bend if you ran into something solid. It was a learning experience but
the bike served me well and I put hundreds of miles on it.
Accidents weren‘t unusual but there is one I remember in particular. I had a siren that
was attached to the front fork and activated by pulling a chain that pressed it against the
tire. The faster you went the louder it was. It sounded like the real thing and I imagine
they would be illegal today. The mishap occurred when I was headed downtown with
Ralph Dahlquist sitting on the handlebars. We were speeding down St. Patrick‘s Street in
front of Bill ―Highway‖ Wilson‘s house with Ralph holding the chain and the siren
blaring. Suddenly we came to a dead stop. Ralph flew off the handle bars and slid down
the street with me on his tail. The siren had come loose on the fork and caught in the
spokes of the wheel, tearing about half of them out. We only suffered a few scratches but
when I repaired the damage I got rid of the siren.
When I was a freshman in high school I sold the bike to Robert Wilson (Paulette‘s
brother) for $2.00. Thinking back, buying it must have been a burden on my parents.
They didn‘t have a lot of money at the time.
Another gift I got hours of enjoyment from was a Montgomery Ward Happy Time
toolbox with a hammer, saw, chisels, screwdriver and an assortment of other tools. The
box eventually fell apart, but I kept those tools for years and considering they were made
for kids, I got a lot of use out of them. I still have one of the wood chisels around
someplace. And then there was my sled, another biggie.
Of course, a week of Christmas vacation from school didn‘t hurt either. There would
usually be snow that meant sledding (we always called it ―sleigh riding‖) at K.C., snow
forts and snowball fights with the neighborhood kids.
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July 4
July 4 was my favorite. It meant fireworks, a kids‘ parade and street and swimming
events with plenty of prize money. Our holiday began a couple of months early when we
started doing anything we could to earn extra money while we waited in anticipation of
the arrival of the Rich Brothers Fireworks catalog. There was no such thing as an
allowance and earning money for helping with household chores was out of the question.
We helped because we were expected to. Almost everyone we knew received a
fireworks brochure. Philip and I spent hours going over ours deciding which set would
give us the most for our money. It had to have a well-rounded assortment: firecrackers to
Roman candles, rockets to cherry bombs and everything in between. There was one
problem. The fireworks were shipped via Railway Express, the post office wouldn‘t
handle them. Everyone in town would get their orders in as soon as possible and when
the fireworks arrived in Mina, 70 miles north of Tonopah, someone would drive down,
pick them up and distribute them to whoever placed orders.
We usually had enough for a medium priced set we would divide up, giving Allen the
ladyfingers. They didn‘t pack enough punch for us. For a couple of weeks the town
echoed with the sound of firecrackers from morning till night. We blew up cans, toy
cars, bottles, anthills and anything else we could think of. It was a wonder no one was
seriously injured, although there were a number of minor mishaps from year to year.
Once in a while someone would start a small fire and there would be talk of banning
fireworks, but nothing came of it. The Perchetti family always ordered one of the biggest
assortments with abundant evening display pieces. The night of the 4th they, and anyone
else who wanted to participate, would take their pyrotechnics to Test Hill near the
summit on the Goldfield highway and set them off. Townspeople parked nearby to
watch. There was no community display by the Chamber of Commerce in those days.
By the 4th Phil and I had already used most of our evening pieces. We couldn‘t resist the
temptation. And when we got older, detonating a few sticks of dynamite was a
requirement.
Test Hill, a knoll near the east shoulder of the highway, derived the name from its use
as a test facility by local teenagers to establish bragging rights for their cars. There are
two ways to the top, one quite a bit steeper than the other, and it was a challenge for the
automobiles of the period to negotiate it. There was one catch, if you made it to the top
you had to continue down the other side, there was no room to turn around. Phil and I
used it from time to time to evaluate how well our Model T‘s were running. As
automobiles improved, the hill fell out of vogue. I doubt it would be considered much of
a test today.
On the day of the 4th two blocks of Main Street were closed for events that included the
parade, races and boxing. The parade began with kids‘ floats, walking groups and bikes
placed in categories determined by age and sex. We always decorated our bikes. Every
entry in the parade would receive a silver dollar and a small American flag. The
―walkers,‖ kids that didn‘t have bikes or floats, brought up the rear and also received a
dollar and a flag. After the parade winners were announced (we were always good for a
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first or second place), and the races started. There were bike, foot, sack and three legged
races and again, we were always good for first and second places in our age groups.
After the kids ran, it was the adults turn followed by the boxing matches. A ring was
cordoned off in the center of the street and matches went two rounds. There were no
winners or losers and everyone who participated got a couple of bucks. It was usually the
older girls or boys who fought. I tried it a couple of times, but didn‘t like the idea of
someone hitting me. In the afternoon, swimming events were held at the pool. Again,
Phil, Allen and I did well. We spent so much time at the pool we were great swimmers
and divers.
One holiday Dad and Mom took us to Goldfield to participate in their celebration that
was held on the 3rd so folks could go to Tonopah for the 4th. I think I was twelve or
thirteen. Anyway, there was very little competition and we cleaned up with firsts in all
the events. It didn‘t sit well with some of the Goldfield people and the next year they
changed the timing so their events coincided with those in Tonopah ―to keep the
Metscher boys home.‖ I don‘t believe they ever changed back.
Halloween
Halloween was another favorite. We had a great time trick-or-treating until we were
teenagers, then it was just tricks. I don‘t know where the custom originated, but we
always went out two nights, the night before Halloween and Halloween. Our costumes
were whatever we were able to put together from around the house. There were no store
bought outfits, but everyone looked great and there was quite a variety. We carried
pillowcases for our loot and tried to get to as many houses as possible. The first night we
would hit the east side of town in the Florence Avenue area and the next night the west
side of town. We would head out after dinner and stay until about 9:00 p.m. Our parents
never worried about us and we never had a problem.
As we got older we began to add the tricks. If someone gave us a bad time, out would
come the candles and windows of their house or car became fair game and it wasn‘t long
before we learned how to remove the valve cores from car tires. If a person was really
mean, and there were a few people who didn‘t like kids, we might sneak back and cut
their clothesline or turn off their power by removing one of the fuses and throwing it
away. (Almost everyone had the round screw-in fuses at the time.) We finally left trickor-treating to the little kids with one exception, Lorraine Johnson‘s house where her
mother made the best popcorn balls. Now we concentrated on tipping over outhouses
and bugging the cops by setting up roadblocks of garbage cans or whatever else happened
to be handy. If someone had a few leftover firecrackers, they could be put to good use
too.
There were plenty of outhouses. We would scout town for a few weeks looking for
easy targets and on Halloween night a gang of us would tip over as many as we could, a
tradition that had its roots in the past. Other groups were running around doing the same
thing and it was a competition to get to as many as possible. It was a challenge not to
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―fall in the hole,‖ which happened from time to time, and there were a few nobody went
near. These were reportedly ―guarded by an old guy with a shotgun.‖ I don‘t know how
true it was, but none of us wanted to find out. The next day the cops would show up at
school and round up a bunch of us to stand the ones still in use back up. Others were
donated to the high school for the Homecoming Rally fire.
Thanksgiving
Preparations began when Dad came home with a young turkey to fatten up. It was
housed in a cage near the chicken coop and a couple of days prior to Thanksgiving it was
time to butcher. It usually fell to me to chop off the head while Dad held it. I didn‘t
mind this, but cleaning it and removing the feathers were jobs I detested. As with
Christmas, Mom would begin baking pies and other goodies a couple of days before and
the meal was always memorable. It was a family day, not as exciting as Christmas,
Halloween or the Fourth-of-July, but still an important part of our lives. And there were
other holidays we celebrated, most related to school, including Easter, Nevada Day,
Washington‘s Birthday, Lincoln‘s Birthday, Columbus Day and Valentine‘s Day.
Birthdays
Birthdays weren‘t the big deal they are today. Most folks considered birthday parties
an unnecessary extravagance. Mom would bake a cake and we received a present or two.
Once in a while we were allowed to invite a couple of the neighbor kids over for a piece
of cake, but that was the extent of it. This was another thing that seemed to change as
Allen grew up, probably the result of our parents being a little more prosperous.
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HOBBIES
Like most boys, I had numerous hobbies. I collected bottle caps, rocks, railroad date
nails and stamps. I drew with colored pencils, ink, pastels and charcoal and tried my
hand at oil painting. I had a large matchbook collection representing central Nevada
businesses with an extensive coverage of Tonopah and Goldfield saloons. My uncle in
New York sent others from Brooklyn, but somewhere along the line the collection
disappeared, probably thrown out while I was away at college. I would sure love to have
it now. It would make a fabulous addition to my Nevada paper collection. I eventually
gave my stamps to my brother-in-law, Richard Katz, and like the matchbooks, the bottle
caps vanished somewhere along the line. I still have the T&G RR date nail collection,
something I started when we helped Dad gather railroad crossties to cut for firewood. I
dabbled a little in photography using a Hopalong Cassidy camera I purchased from a
comic book ad around 1950. My subjects were neighborhood friends and later the old
mining camps we would visit. My problem was coming up with the cash for film and
processing.
There are two things I started collecting when I was a kid that I still dabble in, Nevada
merchant tokens and paper material related to the history of central Nevada revolving
around mining and railroads. Earlier I related how I started collecting tokens. My paper
collection began under similar circumstances around 1952 when I found a vintage mining
stock certificate from the Bellehellen Development Company on my way home from
school. It was weathered from lying outside, but for some reason I was instantly attracted
to it and it became the foundation of my present collection. A short time later I picked up
another certificate from the Nevada mining camp of Seven Troughs and I was hooked. I
began collecting everything I ran across related to mining. Next came railroad paper
followed by vintage postcard photos of Goldfield. By the time I was in the 8th grade, I
had the foundation of a great collection.
Whenever we visited an old mining camp I always searched the shacks looking for
interesting items and when we were prowling around in the mining company buildings,
abandoned houses and sheds in Tonopah I was on the lookout for paper material related
to the area. As time went on, I began to realize how important these pieces were.
Unfortunately I passed up things I didn‘t find interesting at the time that would be great
to have today, but as I look back I figure I was lucky to wind up with what I have. Philip
was never interested in these things but Allen developed the same love for them that I
have and has amassed a stellar collection of his own.
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138
A WALK DOWN TONOPAH‟S MAIN STREET c1950
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Four photos of Main Street taken during Tonopah‟s 50th anniversary celebration
May 19-21, 1950
Top: Upper (South) Main Street looking south across the intersection of Main and
Brougher. Bottom: North side of Lower (North) Main looking north from the
intersection of Main and Brougher. The building on the right is an example of the skill
of pioneer masons who used locally quarried stone to build numerous homes and Main
Street business blocks c1902-1910.
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Top: West side of Lower (North) Main from the intersection of Main and Brougher
with Mr. & Mrs. Bill Harrah in one of his antique autos. Bottom: West side of Lower
Main looking across the street from the Town Hall with the Hawthorne High School
Band in the foreground. The four photos are from the John “J. J.” O‟Leary collection.
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Tonopah‘s ―downtown‖ stores supplied most anything a person might need, but prices
were high, the primary reason Dad and Mom would make periodic trips to Bishop,
California. In fact, prices of some things were so outlandish a few merchants were
referred to as ―Stickum-up (insert name).‖ This worked both ways. There were folks
who charged using what the merchants called ―The (insert family name) plan‖ requiring
the customary ―See you the 15th‖ or ―I‘ll be in the end of the month‖ which never seemed
to come.
The following tour relates what one would have run across walking down the north
side of the street from the intersection of McColloch Avenue and Erie Main Street to the
railroad depot and up the south side with related comments thrown in. The approximate
time frame is 1950.
The house on the northeast corner of Erie Main and McCulloch was the home of a
classmate, Edith Ann Adams. Around 1952 the family moved and Dan and Rose Beko
Skanovsky and daughters Danra and Debby moved in. Dan was a professional gambler and
Rose worked at the Nye County courthouse. The house is still in the family.
Next came a couple of residences and the equipment storage yard and office of the Nevada
State Highway Department. ―Big Smitty‖ (a large man whose nickname was derived from
Smith) and his wife lived in the house nearest the highway yard. He drove a Chevrolet sedan
and on weekends they would pick up a bottle of wine and park at the intersection of US 6 and
8A (now 376) east of town to consume its contents. They were responsible for a large
collection of empties scattered around the junction.
This brings us to Cross Avenue. Across Cross was the Midland Motors Ford Garage and
auto parts store with a couple of pumps dispensing Richfield gasoline. I am not sure who
owned it at the time, but Allen ―Red‖ Douglass eventually wound up with it. Next was the
Texaco service station and Pontiac dealership belonging to Steve Balliet. The filling station
had pumps on Erie Main Street and Florence Avenue, a bay for servicing automobiles and an
auto showroom. Last on the block was the Y Service Station, a Mobil station owned by the
Cavanaugh Brothers, Charles and John. It derived its name from its location at the
intersection of Main Street, Erie Main Street and Florence Avenue. Like the Texaco, it had
pumps on Erie Main and Florence. Two brothers, Harold and Glen Jeffrey, managed it.
Across Florence is one of the longest blocks on the north side of Main. The first business
was Cavanaugh Brothers Chrysler-Plymouth dealership and garage. In addition to cars,
Cavanaugh‘s sold Philco radios and General Electric appliances. The building was fabricated
from structures moved in from the air base and ―put in‖ around 1948. The building is
presently the home of the Tonopah Fire Department (2010). Their used car lot was on the
north side of the auto dealership. Next was a small vacant structure with an unusual façade.
It was a house remodeled as a shop with a shingle-covered wall facing the street. Each
shingle was painted a different color. In the early 1960‘s it was moved to make way for the
First National Bank of Nevada‘s new building. Beyond it were a couple of stores that would
be remodeled as Bird‘s Cash Market. One was a shoe repair run by a Mr. Canclini. Around
1953 he committed suicide in the shop by shooting himself with a shotgun. The other shop
was vacant. These were followed by Desert Hardware owned and operated by Roy Wolfe.
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North of the hardware store was a dress shop that was damaged by a fire around 1955 and
rebuilt by Roy as a men‘s clothing store.
There were two more vacant storefronts preceding Bob and Gloria Williams‘ Barber and
Beauty shops, two businesses in one building. Bob ran the barbershop and Gloria was the
beautician. Bob was interested in horse racing and kept a couple of thoroughbreds in the
corrals of the old dairy near our house. The corrals and a portion of a bottling plant were all
that remained of the Sanitary Dairy owned and operated by the Quas family during the
1930‘s and early 1940‘s.
Adjoining the barbershop was Marshall Robb‘s Butler Theatre that had been a family
enterprise for decades. In fact, according to Dad, when ―old man‖ Robb, the local assayer,
ran the theater he ―laundered‖ gold highgraded (stolen by the miners working in the rich
veins) from mines around the area. At the time a number of gold mines were active in Round
Mountain, Manhattan and Goldfield and there was a lot of purloined gold available. When
Dad and his brother George were working for Eastern Exploration Company at the
Claremont mine in Goldfield in the ‗30s they were able to get away with some themselves.
They would take the highgrade to the theatre in a miner‘s sample bag, hand it to whoever was
working the ticket window ―for an assay‖ and come back later and pick up their share of its
value.
When we were kids Milka Beko or Marshall‘s wife Deloris sold tickets. Admission was
25 cents. Mary Lou Merlino was the ticket taker, usher and bouncer. She walked the aisles
with her flashlight and if anyone got rowdy she kicked them out. The theatre had a stage that
dated back to the turn of the century when live entertainment was popular, a large screen and
a balcony. Younger kids weren‘t allowed in the balcony that served as the smoking section.
Every once in a while we would try to sneak up, but Mary Lou was always on top of things.
When I was dating in high school, and finally old enough to sit in the balcony, it was a great
place to take a girl to ―make out‖ during the movie. At the time I was dating Gloria
Bertalino.
We started going to the Sunday matinees when I was six or seven and my favorites were
the cowboy movies -- Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and so
on. The main feature was accompanied by a ―serial‖ that was continued from week to week
along with a cartoon. Once in a while there was a double feature. I don‘t think I ever missed
one. And, every once in a while Mike Kellar, better known as Lone Mountain Mike, would
show up to entertain us while we were waiting to purchase our tickets. The building had four
pillars supporting the balcony over the street that leaned inward from being hit by cars, a
result of Main Street‘s diagonal parking. Mike would begin butting the supports with his
head threatening to knock them and the building down, much to our horror. It was upsetting
at first, but eventually we got used to him. On one occasion he bit the head off a bird he had
in his pocket. I don‘t know if it was real or not, but it was real enough to us!
At first Mom or Dad would drop us off and pick us up. Within a year they were letting us
walk home by ourselves and eventually let us walk down and back. By the time I was twelve
we were allowed to go to the evening shows as long as we came home immediately after the
picture let out around 9:00 p.m. Usually we got home without any detours. One distraction
during the winter months when the sun had set early was attempting to break a couple of
streetlights, entertainment pursued by all the boys our age.
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The streetlights were nothing more than light bulbs with a porcelain covered metal shade
on a bracket attached to the power poles at the intersections. I would throw a couple of rocks
and if I missed, move on to the next one. Every once in a while I lucked out and hit the bulb.
It would flare up, dim and go out while the glass and a small glowing ember fell to the
ground. The light would be out for a few weeks before the power company replaced the bulb
and it became a target again. Looking back, I imagine this kept the power company
employees pretty busy considering the number of kids running around town. The light by the
school had been hit so many times over the years, there was no porcelain left on the shade.
The most challenging light in town was in front of the mortuary on the corner of St. Patrick
and Bryan. It was on a tall pole and it took a good arm and a good aim to hit it.
Some of the poles along Main Street had small red lights hanging from them. They were
signals to alert the local deputies they were needed someplace and were turned on by a
telephone operator. There were no such things as police radios at the time, at least in
Tonopah. If we noticed they were lighted, we knew something was up but seldom learned
what it was.
The police station was on the west side of Brougher Avenue a block west of Main Street.
In the early 1950‘s the police department sponsored the Junior Police program and it seemed
most of the kids in town signed up. It didn‘t affect anyone‘s behavior, though. Phil and I,
like the majority of our friends, joined to get the bicycle plaques they handed out. There
were two law enforcement agencies in Tonopah at the time, the town police and the Nye
County Sheriff‘s Department. By the late 1960‘s, all the law enforcement duties were
consolidated under the Sheriff‘s Department.
It was on one of these evening walks home after the show, and at a very impressionable
age, I saw my first nude woman at the M&M Auto Court. The M&M took up most of the
block on the south side of Erie Main between McCulloch and Tonopah Avenues. I assume
M&M was derived from the names of the owners, Mike and Martha Wooldridge. They had
purchased the majority of the houses on the block, fixed them up a little and rented them out
to travelers. The buildings were all shapes and sizes. A couple of young ladies who were
teaching our summer bible school at the Presbyterian Church were staying in one of the
cabins on St. Patrick Street. It was summer and they had the bathroom window open (there
was no air conditioning in those days) and one had just stepped out of the shower. It took her
a while to dry herself and it was a great show for a couple of boys just figuring out a few
things about girls. We made sure we took the same route again for a while, but there was
never a repeat performance.
A small storefront in the north corner of the theatre building housed Tony Cassier‘s
barbershop. After Tony retired Robbs converted the space into the Butler Pantry, a pizza and
snack shop.
The next business in the block was Naismith (later Titlow) Insurance followed by
Stewart‘s. Charlie Stewart was one of the few blacks in town and had owned the business for
many, many years. He relocated to Tonopah in the late 1910‘s from Georgia after his wife
died. He wanted to open a cigar store with a shoeshine stand and a card table but because he
was black, the bank wouldn‘t loan him the money. At the time he was working for Nick
Abelman at the Big Casino and when Nick became aware of the problem, he advanced
Charlie the funds. The story is related in Al W. Moe‘s book, The Roots of Reno. Charlie
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opened the cigar store with a slot machine, shoeshine stand and the card table. The business
was virtually unchanged when I was a kid, although he hadn‘t dealt cards for years.
Stewart‘s was the hangout for the ―big kids,‖ boys like Ernie Longden, Pete Shirley, John
Maslach, Tim Lydon and Howard Sammons who gathered in the back where they played
cards and smoked. It was a hole-in-the wall, long and narrow. There was a candy and cigar
counter, shoeshine stand and a few slot machines up front. Farther back was the oil heating
stove, two pinball machines and a couple of card tables. The restroom was behind the stove
and had an old toilet with the tank on the wall and a pull chain for flushing.
Charlie was a nice guy. When we were younger and needed cigar boxes for projects of one
sort or another he always had empties for us. I loved the smell of them and was really
excited if a box happened to be wood, which I could sand down and varnish. I finished a
couple of them as presents for Mom to keep her jewelry and other trinkets in. Since the
theater didn‘t have a snack bar, Charlie‘s was a necessary stop to pick up candy before the
show.
When we were young it was accepted that you didn‘t go any farther back than the restroom
or the big kids would run you out. As we got older we were ―allowed‖ to play the pinball
machines and by the time we were teenagers we were becoming the next crop of big kids. It
was a pecking order that had been established years earlier.
Charlie always seemed to be messing with the slot machines. I think whenever one paid
out, he would open it to see if it was functioning to his specifications. He was funny about
anyone under age playing them. If you put a few nickels in he wouldn‘t say anything unless
you hit a pay combination, then he would run around the counter and chase you out before
you could grab the winnings. I put a nickel in from time to time, but what I regret most was
using a few nickel size trade tokens. They were given to me by one of the older kids who
was afraid to use them fearing they would jam the machine, but wanted to play them. They
worked fine, but we didn‘t win anything. Probably wouldn‘t have gotten out with it if we
had.
Charlie did have a problem. He would go on a drunk from time to time and close up or
have one of the kids he trusted run the counter for him while he sat in the back at one of the
tables drinking. This was his downfall. The locals understood the situation and everyone
worked around it. When the Air Force brought in the servicemen to man the radar on Mt.
Brock in 1955, the blacks started to hang out at his place. By 1959 it got to the point the
locals stopped patronizing him. The Air Force guys learned he liked to drink and kept him
on a bender most of the time. It eventually put him out of business. It was too bad. His
place was an important part of a boy‘s coming of age in Tonopah.
The last business on the block was the Corner Store owned by Gerald Roberts. He sold
newspapers, magazines, RCA radios and had a soda fountain. I didn‘t go in the place much.
It had a ―cold‖ feeling I didn‘t care for.
Here we cross Brougher Avenue. The first business on the northeast corner of Main and
Brougher was the Mizpah Hotel. The only time I ventured in was to sneak a ride on the
elevator. Beyond the steps leading to the hotel lobby was the Mizpah Bar run by George
Boscovich. The entrance was framed with a couple of wagon wheels and a canopy that was
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supposed to resemble a covered wagon. George was Bob Bottom‘s stepfather. Bob was
Philip‘s age and a good friend of his. When the hotel was remodeled as a casino in the mid
‗50‘s the bar was closed and Boscovich moved across the street and took over the Ace Club
with Fred Del Papa. The sidewalk in front of the hotel was built up to eliminate the stairs
into the casino and in the process the entrance to the bar was sealed.
After the hotel lobby was converted to a casino the new front sidewalk was the ideal
location for our ―penny trick.‖ We would braze a nail onto the back of a penny and hammer
it into one of the cracks in the sidewalk near the entrance and watch as people walking in and
out of the casino tried to pick it up. There were varied reactions from laughter to
embarrassment to those who would have liked to ―kill whoever did it.‖ Invariably the penny
would be gone the following day.
The next structure was the hotel annex housing Bird‘s Cash Market run by Joe Bird and his
sons Robert and Wallace. As I mentioned, my parents purchased most of their meat there.
Joe was the butcher and Robert was his assistant. The main attraction of the store for me was
a large artillery shell, probably World War I vintage, hanging on the wall behind the meat
counter. The market was also a victim of the hotel‘s remodeling that forced the Birds to
move up the street into the building south of the Desert Hardware.
Beyond the Annex was another shoe repair shop with an interesting façade decorated with
colored rocks and minerals Mr. Canclini, the shoemaker-owner, had gathered in the desert. A
few sun colored amethyst bottles were imbedded in the wall as well.
Next door to the shoemaker was the Central Market owned by Emery Marty. It was a
grocery and meat market but my parents thought his prices were outrageous and never
patronized him. This was followed by the vacant Tonopah Divide Mercantile building and
the Town Hall Bar and Café where Mom worked for a short while after we moved to
Tonopah. The Town Hall was the hangout for the local swingers from 1947 until it went out
of business in 1952. Numerous photos in the Central Nevada Museum collection illustrate its
popularity. In addition to the bar and restaurant, there was a small casino and a banquet
room.
In the 1960‘s LeRoy David and his brother-in-law Nick Barbarich got hold of the
shoemaker shop, Central Market, Divide Mercantile and Town Hall buildings and replaced
them with the Silver Lanes bowling alley and a small parking lot. The shoemaker‘s location
became the parking lot.
North of the Town Hall was the Central Nevada Newspaper office, home of the Tonopah
Times, or as Dad would refer to it, the Tonovich Times, a takeoff on our large Serbian
population. The paper came out on Friday and any kids who were willing were welcome to
sell it. The paper sold for 10c but the paper kids (I won‘t say boys, there were a couple of
girls who sold papers including one I remember, Penny Nicely) purchased them for five
cents. During the summers kids would line up to get papers at 10:00 a.m. When school was
in session, the papers were released after we were let out at 3:30 p.m. Friday was ―paper
day.‖ I always sold two, one to Grandma Metscher and one to Mom and Dad. I wasn‘t
interested in establishing a route or selling on the streets. I was shy and had a hard time
asking folks to buy one. Grandma (―Dugado‖ to us) and Mom and Dad always gave me a
substantial tip.
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I always wondered where Grandma‘s nickname Dugado came from until Philip informed
me Mom told him it originated when we were babies and she would coo to us saying
something like ―Dugado, dugado, dugado.‖ She did the same with Allen when he was a baby
and Phil and I picked it as a name for her. She wanted to be called ―Grandma‖ but she
couldn‘t break us of the habit.
In the early ‗50s the Cavanaugh Brothers leveled the property beyond the newspaper office
and put in Main Street Service, a Mobil gas station. The tanks Dad hauled from Salt Lake
were for the station‘s fuel storage. Previously, the lots were the site of the Las VegasTonopah-Reno Stage Line depot. The ruins of a burned out building took up the last lot on
the block. Around 1953 Ira Sipes cleaned up the ruins and installed a Douglass gas station,
but it was destroyed by fire a couple of years later and its walls were all that remained.
This brings us to Oddie Avenue. The street‘s name was derived from Tasker Oddie, one of
the town‘s founders who made a fortune from the local mines and went on to become
Nevada‘s governor and later, state senator. On the northeast corner was the Shell service
station owned by Frank Murnane followed by McCulloch‘s Union 76 gas station managed by
Clarence ―Hub‖ Hubbell and finally the Campbell and Kelly Chevrolet agency belonging to
Horace Campbell.
Here we cross Corona Avenue with the Mizpah Garage and Chevron gas station on the
northeast corner. The Mizpah was owned by Lee Henderson and boasted a full-service gas
station and garage. Les Harper was the mechanic and Scott Mullins and John Bradford were
long time employees that manned the filling station. It was a 24-hour operation. In addition,
the Mizpah was the local Buick-GMC agency.
Beyond the Mizpah Garage was the old Del Papa store, a partial dugout built into the
hillside, followed by the Coca-Cola bottling works that belonged to the Kretschmer family.
North of the ―Coke Plant‖ was the old Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad depot where we will
cross the street and head back.
The first business on the south side of the street is the Tonopah Motel (still in business as I
write this), a collection of old houses and cabins moved together, thus none of the rooms are
alike. This differed from the M&M Auto Court where the units were former homes
remodeled in place.
Across Knapp Avenue was the Check Motel, one of Tonopah‘s two ―real‖ motels, followed
by a corral owned by Lee Henderson (the corral was the site of Jack Cloke‘s Blacksmith
Shop in the early days) and a large automobile storage building belonging to the Mizpah
Garage. The storage building was rebuilt from the ruins of the Big Casino, a famous casino,
dance hall and brothel destroyed by fire in 1922. Beside the auto storage building was the
town‘s other real motel, the L&L. The L&L Motel derived its name from LeRoy David and
his wife Leona. The last two businesses in the block were the New York Restaurant, a
Chinese eatery that adjoined the Silver State Bar on the northwest corner of Main and Oddie.
LeRoy demolished both buildings around 1952 to enlarge the motel. It was in the L&L
manager‘s apartment that millionaire Howard Hughes married actress Jean Peters in a secret
ceremony January 12, 1957.
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The first business south of Oddie was the two-story Ramona Hotel with the Ramona Club
on the ground floor. The club was a bar akin to the Mozart in Goldfield with potted plants,
no kids allowed and a sterile personality that didn‘t suit my parents as a ―socializing‖ stop on
Friday or Saturday nights. All of Dad‘s friends were miners and workingmen and weekend
nights out was the way of life at the time. The thing that changed this, at least for my
parents, was the arrival of television. They found it easier to stay home, watch TV and have
a few drinks rather than taking the trouble to hit the bars. Much to the dismay of the bar
owners, this was the case with quite a few people. When Dad and Mom did go ―downtown‖
they preferred Tokyo Tony‘s (Tony Buffum‘s) Coors Bar, the Antler‘s Bar, the Ace Club or
the Rex Club.
The Ramona, or Mc Kim building, is constructed of white Siebert Tuff (Lake Bed) quarried
from the base of Siebert Mountain a mile or so southwest of town. It is typical of a number
of Main Street business blocks and local residences built during the boom of 1902-1907. The
stone was cut at the quarry and hauled to town by team. The quarry is littered with
unfinished blocks left behind by the early-day masons and is an interesting place to visit. I
am not sure who the masons were. Some speculate they were Italian but I have yet to find
any information on them. Judging by the buildings that remain and considering that all the
work was done by hand, they were skilled craftsmen.
Adjoining the Ramona is the building‘s annex, originally a hotel at Millers, Nevada that
was moved to Tonopah in the 1930‘s. Next came a vacant lot with a couple of large
billboards.
Beyond the lot was the small hole-in-the wall Bank Café and Bar. When we were in high
school, this was one place we could buy beer without an ID. We always sent Keith Scott in
since he looked the oldest. Scott was a close friend from 7th grade through high school,
although I became acquainted with him years earlier when his grandmother, Mrs. Tanner,
babysat Allen while Mom worked.
Beside the Bank was a large concrete block structure with the Nyco Rooms upstairs and
Glen Jones‘ Jewelry store and an empty storefront on the ground floor joined by the Pastime
Club, Clendenning‘s Department Store and the Cutting buildings immediately to the south.
The Pastime was another of our beer suppliers. They had a back entrance we could park near
while Keith ran inside. There was one problem with Scott. We had to make sure he had the
exact purchase price ($5.00 for a case of Lucky Lager or A-1) or he would put our change in
one of the slot machines. He never did win anything.
Clendenning‘s had a toy department in the basement and supplied us with our model car
and airplane kits when we were younger. The airplane kits were the most fun to work with.
They required using a razor blade to cut out pieces printed on sheets of balsa wood that were
then glued together to form the framework. The framework was covered with thin tissue
paper and when the model was completed, the paper skin was wet and as it dried, it shrank to
the frame. A rubber band could be installed for the propeller, but they didn‘t fly very well.
We used tubes of LePages model glue that was readily available. There were no regulations
on its sale. No one had heard of sniffing it in those days, at least no one we knew.
The Cutting building was the home of Al‘s Barber Shop and the Coors Bar on the ground
floor and the Alaska Rooms upstairs. Dad would get his hair cut at Al‘s once in a while,
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although Mom usually took care of it. When I was about thirteen he took me down for the
one and only barbershop haircut I had until after I was married. Dad cut my hair for years
but when I got into high school and wanted it left longer so I could comb it into a ―DA‖
(ducktail), Dad didn‘t like it and threatened to cut it his way. We had some heated arguments
on the subject and I ended up letting Mom do my barbering from then on. She was more
open-minded. Dad was also peeved by how low we wore our pants, another source of a few
lively discussions, but it was the trend, along with the mandatory pair of ―shades‖
(sunglasses) and a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve.
Beside the Cutting Building was Toni Buffum‘s Coors Bar. Toni was a colorful local
character and a World War II veteran who served most of her time in the Pacific theatre.
Before the war she had run a joint in Tonopah‘s red light district. At the end of the war she
was stationed in Japan and was General Douglas MacArthur‘s personal driver. When she
was discharged she came home with a surplus army jeep she nicknamed Geronimo.
The next buildings were Wong‘s Café, our Chinese restaurant, a vacant storefront, the
Model Bar, Nick Banovich‘s Rex Bar, the Ace Club and Tom McCulloch‘s Men‘s Clothing
Store. McCulloch‘s was destroyed by fire around 1954. This reminds me of a fad Tom
started among the boys my age. In 1952 he brought in a bunch of caps, one in the style worn
by the Confederate soldiers and the other was the Yankee version. It wasn‘t long before
almost every boy in town had one. Of course, this divided us into two groups. You were
either a Confederate or a Yankee. If one didn‘t know better, he would have thought the Civil
War was still raging. I bought the Confederate version but Phil was left out. He couldn‘t
scrape up the couple of dollars necessary to purchase one.
These businesses were followed by the Tonopah Club‘s café, casino and cocktail lounge
that occupied the next three buildings, all substantial stone structures dating back to the early
1900‘s. ―The Club‖ was downtown‘s centerpiece with Tonopah‘s largest casino, saloon and
restaurant. The café was popular with the local teenagers who could afford a hamburger and
fries. I didn‘t patronize the place very often. I didn‘t feel comfortable eating in a restaurant
until I went to college, probably because my parents never ate out unless we were traveling
and then only occasionally. Our meals were usually something picked up at a grocery store.
The Kendall Rooms were in the three-story center section of the complex above the casino.
Last on the block was the Masonic Building on the corner of Main and Brougher with
Austin Wardle‘s Rexall drug store on the ground floor. Wardle‘s boasted a cigar counter,
newsstand and soda fountain and was a hangout for the teenagers. The Masonic lodge was
upstairs. I liked Wardle‘s. It had a great personality. Austin, the local druggist, could
usually be found standing behind the cigar counter talking to one of the customers and, like
Charlie Stewart, always had empty cigar boxes when we asked for them.
This was the corner where most of the old timers hung out. There were two poles on the
edge of the sidewalk with what seemed like a million tacks, staples and nails in them from
years of people using them as billboards. A low concrete retaining wall along Brougher
Avenue and a bench against the wall of the drugstore served as seating. The wall was built to
keep the water out of the drugstore during the cloudbursts when Brougher Avenue turned into
a river where it met Main Street.
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On the southwest corner of Main and Brougher is the Bank Building that housed the
Tonopah Branch of the Nevada First National Bank and Wolfe‘s Men‘s Shop on the ground
floor. The Belvada Apartments occupied the upper floors which were originally offices. In
the 1960‘s the bank relocated to a new building up the street that took the place of the shop
beside Cavanaugh‘s auto dealership. The Bank Building and the Mizpah Hotel are the tallest
on Main Street, both five stories. Stairs in the corner of the bank building directly across
from Wardle‘s lead down to Ralph Swaford‘s jewelry store in the basement.
The Bank Building‘s rear corner on Brougher Avenue and St. Patrick‘s Street was the site
of the old Nevada Club saloon with its polished cut glass façade. The saloon had been vacant
for years but the ornate entrance was something I always stopped to admire. It was sold to
Knott‘s Berry Farm and moved to California in the mid-1960‘s, in my view a tragic loss of a
valuable piece of Tonopah‘s history. And on the Brougher Avenue side of the building
midway between Main and St. Patrick was a small lobby with an elevator that provided
entertainment for us. If we were downtown wandering around with nothing else to do, we
would ride the elevator to the 5th floor and take the stairs down. I think every kid in town
tried this at least once. When we got older we would sneak up the back fire escape to the top
of the structure.
Beyond the bank building were six storefronts housing an assortment of businesses
including Tonopah Taxi, an ice cream parlor, the Block T run by the Quas family, Dr. Danks
Chiropractor office, Tonopah Cleaners belonging to Art and Tutta Sorensen, the Shields
family‘s Zenith radio and appliance store and a dress shop, Margaret‘s Sport Shop. There
were four large cottonwood trees in front of the stores, local landmarks until they were
removed when the street was widened in the 1960‘s. Mac and Hilda McGowan‘s Tonopah
Studio, on the corner of Main Street and Byran Avenue, was the last business on the block.
We always referred to the Sorensens as the Scandahoovians, a term we picked up from Dad.
Across Bryan Avenue was the Post Office followed by the Elks Building. The ground floor
of the Elks was the home of Lions Dress Shop on the post office side, the Antler‘s Bar in the
center and the Nevada-California Power Company office on the east side. The Elk‘s lodge
was upstairs. The dress shop sold model airplane kits and other small toys. If
Clendenning‘s was out, we could usually find a model there. The Antler‘s went out of
business in the early ‗50‘s. Mom and Dad paid cash for everything and after the first of the
month drove around town paying the utility bills. They let us take turns running into the
various businesses with the remittance. The power company was one of our stops. Milka
Beko and Eunice O‘Bryant manned the office and Eunice‘s husband, Howard, was the power
company‘s district supervisor.
Beyond the Elks was the town‘s largest grocery, Coleman‘s, owned by John Harrington
and his sister Josephine. It was a Safeway store until 1948 when they closed and sold the
building to the Harringtons, who relocated from the old Coleman‘s store a few blocks east on
Florence Avenue. The old store derived its name from the original owner, Dave Coleman.
John and Josephine went to work for Dave when they were teenagers and eventually wound
up with the store, keeping the Coleman name. The old Coleman‘s store had a half dozen
storage buildings associated with it. There were a few near the store and others across
Florence Avenue. They contained a lot of obsolete stock left behind after the move. Over
the years people broke into the store and sheds scattering things around and when we
happened to be in the vicinity we would ―stop in‖ to see what we could find. I still have a
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mining stock certificate made out to Dave Coleman in the General Thomas Mines Company
on Lone Mountain I picked up and Philip found a new round miner‘s lunch pail c1905 he still
has.
There was a small shed concealed by tamarisk trees west of the main store building that
was ignored for years. When I was 16, we were cruising town in my old Buick and noticed
someone had broken the door open so we stopped and checked it out. The only thing in the
building was ten or twelve cases of Tahoe Beer that had been there for years. We decided to
take a few bottles home to see if it was any good. We had to pick through the boxes to find
full ones. Quite a few had leaking caps and an inch or so had evaporated. The beer was
cloudy, but we cooled it down and drank it. It wasn‘t really too bad. In fact we went back
and were able to get together another couple of six packs.
Back to Main Street: Everett Avenue, a small lane two blocks long, ran southwest beside
Coleman‘s. Across Everett was Arthur Cox‘s hardware store where one could purchase
General Electric appliances and DuPont paint, followed by Reischke‘s, a small grocery run
by Alvina Reischke. She was a little old lady with a nose resembling a strawberry who we
figured must be at least 100 years old. We knew her by the nickname Beaverpuss that we
picked up from Glen Jeffery at the Y Service Station across the street. Her daughter Erma
had a photo studio in an add-on upstairs. Alvina had a candy counter we frequented when we
walked downtown and she sold groceries. She didn‘t have much of a selection, though. The
store was an old, old frame building with thin walls that we took advantage of to tease her.
One of us would go inside to buy candy while a couple of others remained outside and kicked
the east wall. The whole building shook and once in a while things would fall off shelves.
When I started dating and happened to be downtown and wanted to call my girlfriend, Gloria
Bertalino, I would use Alvina‘s phone. I liked to call from there because she couldn‘t hear
very well and I wasn‘t embarrassed to talk in front of her. We had the old crank wall
telephones at the time and they didn‘t afford much privacy. With the exception of the
businesses, most of the lines were party lines that gave anyone on the line an open invitation
to ―listen in.‖
Erma started her photography business around 1950. She took our school pictures and
photos of local celebrations, weddings, parties and groups inside businesses. There are
hundreds of her pictures in the Central Nevada Museum files thanks to Philip who was lucky
enough to get hold of most of her original negatives in the 1970‘s.
Beside Reischke‘s was a vacant lot adjoining the Kelly Hotel. Next to the hotel was
Kelly‘s Garage, owned by Steve Balliet, another lot and the VFW hall. Across Cross Avenue
were a couple of small, dilapidated buildings Robert Campbell moved to the junkyard where
they sat until they collapsed. Beyond them was the Nevada State Highway Department shop
(they relocated to the new shop near our house in 1954), a couple of homes and we are back
where we started at McCulloch. If one continued up the street the next business would be the
M&M Auto Court.
There were a number of businesses off Main Street. One was the mortuary on the
southwest corner of Bryan and St. Patrick owned by our mortician, Wm. F. ―Bill‖ Logan.
When we were six or seven years old, it scared us, but it gradually became a source of
mystery. We always wondered what went on when someone died. Through urban lore, we
heard quite a few stories and eventually learned where the room with the ―slab‖ was located.
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It was on the Bryan Avenue side and had the windows whitewashed from the inside so you
couldn‘t see what was going on, but someone had scratched a couple of peek holes in the
whitewash. If you were standing on the sidewalk and looked through the holes you had a
great view. We would check the place out if we happened to walk home from school via
downtown, but never saw anything. Then, we started checking after the movie at night and
would run up and take a look if the lights were on. The first time I saw a dead person lying
there it was shocking, but I couldn‘t resist looking.
The Water Company office was at the east end of Brougher Avenue next to the Fire
Department and was a monthly bill pay stop. There was a high counter, a large safe in the
corner and the place smelled of floor wax. By the time I was in seventh grade I figured I was
too ―big‖ to pay bills anymore and left it to Philip and Allen. The same was true of picking
up the mail at the post office. Our box number was 148 and my mother held it until we
moved her to Reno in 2000.
When there was a fire, the siren at the firehouse was sounded to alert the volunteer
firefighters. As young boys it was a call to action for us and a trigger that seemed to start
every dog in town howling. We would scan the horizon for smoke and if we detected the
source of the fire, drop whatever we happened to be doing, mount our bikes and head for the
action. Most of the fires during the day were extinguished in a timely manner. The night
fires, which we usually missed, seemed to do the most damage, probably due to delays in
their being reported.
Another place I liked to go with Dad was to John Connolly‘s Verdi Lumber Company north
of the T&G RR depot. I was infatuated with the large lumber storage sheds, the truck scales
and the scale house that served as the office. It was said Connolly was ―tighter than the
paper on the wall‖ and it was years before he had a bathroom put in the nearby residence
where he and his family lived. The only running water was a faucet at the kitchen sink. It
was also rumored he still had the ―first penny he ever made,‖ but when it came to the
Catholic Church, he was one of the biggest supporters. He also had a reputation as a
domineering husband and father.
Then there was the Nye County Hospital about a block west of our house. We walked by it
on our way to school and it became a fixture in our lives. It was a large building with a
fenced yard and a couple of houses on the east side where the old folks were ―kept.‖ We
were told one was the TB Ward and it seemed to be the home of coughing old men. Dr.
Joy‘s office and a couple of sheds were behind the hospital and there was an incinerator in
the southeast corner of the lot we referred to as the ―gut burner.‖
We could always tell when an operation was underway in the hospital. The whole
neighborhood smelled of ether. And after the operations, they burned the soiled dressings
and whatever else was ―left over‖ in the incinerator which emitted a cloud of smoke that was
very unpleasant. Fortunately there was a small hill between our house and the hospital and
the smoke never came our way, but the people living on the west side of the complex weren‘t
as fortunate. The incinerator‘s ashes were dumped along the outside of the back fence.
Among the ashes were hundreds of vaccination and transfusion needles, small vaccine vials,
buttons and coins, mostly pennies. We would check it out every once in a while to see what
we could find. I think the most unusual thing I found was a wire with a number of gold teeth
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strung on it. We were not sure if it was a necklace or just something someone was saving
teeth on, but it was strange!
The hospital was closed in 1954 when a new facility was built east of the highway
department yards. After it was relocated, we roamed around the old buildings from time to
time rooting through the ―stuff‖ that had been left behind. On one occasion we were running
down the hall to the operating room when Keith Scott raised his arm when we got to the door
and hit the plate glass window. It cut a gash in his arm that required over thirty stitches. I
think that was the last time we messed around the place.
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154
SCENES AROUND TOWN
Tonopah c1949 looking southwest across lower Main Street with Mt. Brougher (T
Mountain) and the water tanks (1), Tonopah High School‟s “T” (2) and “Devil‟s
Cave” (3) in the background.
The Town Hall Café (left) where Mom worked as a “pearl diver” and (right) Alvina
Reischke‟s grocery/candy store.
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Left: Robert “Bob” Campbell‟s Hillside Auto Parts junkyard after it was
abandoned in 1962. Right: Kretschmer Distributing Company on lower Main
Street where we sold soda bottles. The Mizpah Garage can be seen beyond the
“coke plant.”
Corner of Main Street and Brougher Avenue looking south after an early season
snowstorm, 1946. The cottonwood trees on the right were the only large trees in
town at the time. The storms, coupled with minimum plowing, made it possible to
sled on almost any street most of the winter.
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The polished cut glass façade of the old Nevada Club saloon, something I always
stopped to admire when I went by. The photo was taken shortly after the business
opened in 1907 but was virtually unchanged in the 1950‟s.
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158
SCHOOL DAYS
Our school c1950 looking southwest with Mt. Brougher (T Mountain) and the
water tanks on the right and the west flank of Mt. Butler in the background on the
left. The grade school rooms were in the wing left of the veranda and the high
school took up the center and right sections. A streetlight like those we used for
target practice can be seen on the pole in the foreground. The shack in the lower
right corner was near the sheds where we held our recess “contests.” The insert is a
view of the building looking northwest down University Street c1965. Scaley‟s shed
appears on the corner to the right of the station wagon parked near the school.
The center section of the building was a “modified mission” style and was built in
1912 as the high school. By 1918 the wings had been added to accommodate the
grade school. The building was torn down in 1965.
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GRADE SCHOOL
My grade school teachers were Mrs. Curiex, 1st: Mrs. Falvey, 2nd: Miss Mullins, 3rd: Mr.
Salvialoni, 4th: Ruth Walters, 5th: John Jennings, 6th: Nellie Burke, 7th and Art Lepore, 8th.
Mr. Lepore was also the grade school principal.
I don‘t remember the exact time, but I think 1st and 2nd grade hours were 9:00 a.m. to 2:30
p.m. and what we did for lunch eludes me. From 3rd grade on, class began around 8:30 a.m.
and was dismissed at 3:30 p.m. We had an hour for lunch to walk home, eat and walk back
to school. Mom and Dad worked so there were no rides from them but we did catch a ride
with Mrs. Buckhouse once in a while.
The school was a three-story structure comprised of a large center unit with two wings. The
east wing housed the grade school and was the only section with three full stories. The center
section and west wing was the high school. On the grade school side 1st and 2nd grades and
the boy‘s bathroom were on the first floor with a playground for the smaller children on the
south side of the wing. On the second floor were 3rd, 4th and 5th grades with 6th, 7th and 8th on
the third. There was a large veranda style porch across the front of the building with the
doors to the grade school on the east end, the high school entrance in the center and the doors
to the west wing on the west end.
All I recall about 1st and 2nd grades were the Valentine‘s Day and Christmas parties.
During class I paid attention. Both teachers had yardsticks handy and if you got into trouble,
you laid your hands on the desk and took a whack across the knuckles. After seeing it
happen to a couple of classmates, it didn‘t take much to figure out what not to do. Besides, I
was shy and stayed ―under the radar.‖
At Christmas everyone brought a present for a person whose name he or she had drawn a
few weeks before. The first couple of years Santa showed up, but he seemed to forget us
after we moved upstairs. It was during the Christmas season in 6th grade I kissed my first
girl. Someone had hung mistletoe over the cloakroom door and we were expected to kiss the
next girl that walked in. Everyone chickened out at the last minute but I finally decided to go
for it and kissed Marie Murdough. She was considered the best-looking girl in class and I
was glad I took the chance.
Before Valentine‘s Day, we brought empty cereal boxes we would decorate with hearts
and our names and hang on the wall. Students bringing cards for classmates dropped them
in the appropriate boxes that were then passed out at the party. Other times there was one
large box everyone dropped their cards into. It was exciting to look through your cards and if
one had a sucker attached, it was a real treat. This was the norm through 5th grade. After that
we still had parties, but without the Valentines.
In 3rd and 4th our playground was the yard in front of the building. There was little to
occupy our time save playing marbles in the spring. During recess, a group of us took to
ducking out the front gate and across Prospect Street where there were some old sheds to play
around. We could hear the recess bell and run back into the yard when it was time to return
to class. One form of entertainment was holding a ―peeing contest‖ every day to see who
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could get their stream the highest up one of the buildings‘ walls. We would mark the spots to
keep track. Andrew Jackson, a big Indian kid, was usually the winner. This came to an end
when one of the girls saw us and told a yard duty teacher who ―caught us in the act.‖ No one
left the yard after that.
Andrew was a good friend and a great artist who always did well in our class art contests.
He left after 5th grade and I always wondered where he wound up. I know he was from the
Reese River reservation and my guess is he completed school in Austin, Nevada. The art
contests were sponsored by a local women‘s organization, the AAUW (American
Association of University Women). There were 1st and 2nd place winners in each grade
including high school and the winning entries were forwarded to a state contest. Even though
I placed first locally, I never did well in the state competition. I still have my ribbons and the
artwork. The first exhibit I won was in 4th grade in 1951 where I came in second. In 5th I
picked up first, as well as in 6th and 7th. My 6th grade entry was a drawing of the mines on
Mt. Oddie and after my win L. V. Itel, a local artist, gave me a painting of the scene he had
made. Most of his paintings featured desert scenes, cowboys or Native Americans but he
earned his living as a house painter. He was responsible for a number of murals on the
interior walls of local businesses. Dad worked with him when they were remodeling the
houses for Cavanaughs at Round Mountain. He was well known, at least around the bars, for
his ability to paint local scenes on bottle caps. I understand it was a great tool for winning
free drinks.
In 4th grade I became acquainted with the Sand House. The sand house was a shed behind
the library on Central Street. It was about 10‘x10‘ with a floor of sand and missing its doors
and windows. Since it wasn‘t advisable to fight on the playground -- it was a good way to
end up in the principal‘s office -- anyone with ―problems‖ would meet at the sand house after
school to ―settle things.‖ It didn‘t take long for word of a pending ―meeting‖ to spread and it
seemed everyone would head down when school was dismissed. If you agreed to meet, you
didn‘t want to back out. Being branded a chicken was far worse than losing a fight. I wasn‘t
a fighter and was able to avoid confrontations, but Philip and Joe Maslach were the main
attraction on one occasion. I don‘t remember how it came out, but over the years they
became good friends.
Until 5th grade I went by Jay, short for Joseph. In 1951 I decided Bill suited me better. It
took a while for everyone to get used to, but it finally took hold and I have been Bill ever
since. There are still those who call me Jay from time to time. Robert Limon is one and a
short time ago I ran into Fred Carlson at Costco who referred to me by Jay after all these
years.
We had recess outside regardless of the weather. In 5th and 6th grade our playground was a
vacant lot across Bryan Avenue east of the school and the teachers on yard duty seldom came
around. I guess they had their hands full with the younger kids in front of the school. If
someone came up with a bat and ball we played softball but during the winter months there
wasn‘t much to do. If it snowed, we would build snow forts and sneak a few snowballs at
passing cars. If it was windy, we would congregate next to John ―Scaley‖ Donahue‘s shed to
try to keep warm. I am not sure where the nickname Scaley came from but it had been
handed down to us from the older kids. Maybe it was because he always seemed to be
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wearing the same clothes and it was assumed he probably never took a bath. On top of that,
his house was old and looked ―cold.‖
The snow on the streets would turn to slush where the cars churned it up and by 3:30 p.m.
when we got out of school, it was frozen solid. The teachers parked their cars on the edges of
the lot and along the street. One of the cars, a new Ford station wagon, belonged to Mrs. Del
Papa who taught Home Economics in high school. Trying to find something to occupy our
time a few of us guys (Ken Eason was one who comes to mind) would shove as much slush
as we could up the tailpipe of her car. By the time she left school, the slush would be ice.
She would start the car and take off, blowing out the seam of the muffler. For a few weeks
you could hear her coming for blocks, then the car would be quiet again and we would repeat
the process. Years later I learned she would take the car in to Red Douglass‘ Ford Garage
where it was covered by warranty and they would install a new muffler. The mechanics tried
everything they could think of to correct the problem including having the car examined by a
representative from Ford, but couldn‘t figure it out. Of course, by the time she took it to the
garage heat from the exhaust had eliminated the evidence. We tried this on a couple of other
teachers‘ cars, but nothing happened. They must have had too many exhaust leaks.
When the snow would begin melting, it created a substantial stream on the east, or
Episcopal Church side of Scaley‘s shed. To entertain ourselves, we decided to build a dam
across the stream using one of the walls of the shed for its side. It took us two or three days
to build a respectable reservoir. Each day it would fill up more as we increased its height.
What we didn‘t realize was that the wall of the shed wasn‘t such a great dam. Water began
running through cracks in the wall, out the front door and into the back door of his house. By
the time Donahue realized what was happening, school was out but it didn‘t take him long to
figure out who was at blame. The next day we had a ―meeting‖ with the principal and spent
the next couple of recesses removing the dam and for a few weeks we had a little more
supervision. The result put a dent in the aspirations of a group of young engineers
endeavoring to understand dam construction.
Scaley had a couple of old Dodge trucks that dated back to the late teens with wood spoke
wheels and narrow tires and Ralph Dahlquist had a railroad torpedo he found someplace.
The torpedoes were explosive charges with a lead band or strap. They were placed on the
rails with the band holding them in place to signal problems ahead. When the engine‘s wheel
hit it, it would explode as a warning to the engineer. We thought it would be interesting to
attach the torpedo to one of the tires of the truck Scaley drove most often. Ralph and I
strapped it on and Phil, Ralph and I waited for him to drive off. He didn‘t show so we finally
gave up. A few days later the truck was parked down the street near the post office with a
blown out tire where the torpedo had been attached. Apparently it worked, but we missed it.
During recess in 7th and 8th grades a favorite pastime was playing dodge ball on the tennis
court on the west side of the building. The ―sides‖ were the wall of the school and the tennis
court fence. After years of abuse the chain link fence was bowed out a foot or more and all
the plaster had been knocked off the wall of the school but no one ever said anything. Every
once in a while someone would get hurt and we would have to stop for a couple of weeks but
it didn‘t take long for things to get back to normal.
In 6th grade we were so rowdy we ran our teacher off shortly after school began. She was
new and we sensed she didn‘t have control the minute she walked into class. She tried
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everything to settle us down and would end up sitting at her desk with her head down crying
which made us all the worse. This went on for a couple of weeks and one day she didn‘t
show up. Someone from the school was sent to her place to see what was wrong and she was
gone ―lock, stock and barrel.‖ We got a substitute, a retired teacher who knew the ropes and
settled us down, then John Jennings showed up. He took control fast and there were no more
problems. It was a sad affair and although I still hadn‘t really ―come out of my shell‖ so to
speak, I was as responsible as everyone else.
6th grade Valentine‘s Day was noteworthy. It was the year our class won the King and
Queen of Hearts contest, a competition between the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Our candidates
were Sandra Holliday and Billy Crowell. Students from 3rd thru 8th voted to select the
winners. Our campaign consisted of heart-shaped pins we made and adorned with a picture
of Sandra and Bill and passed out, along with candy, to the lower grade students. It was a
great lesson on how to influence others with gifts. It worked and our class won! It
culminated with the crowning of the king and queen after a basketball game followed by a
Valentine‘s Day dance. I had a good time even though the only dances I participated in were
the Bunny Hop and the Hokey-Pokey. I was too shy to dance with girls on an individual
basis, most of the boys in our class were. It wasn‘t until the next year that I found out
dancing wasn‘t so bad. One memorable grade school dance was held in conjunction with our
8th grade graduation party at the Lions Club when Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and
his Comets was popular. I recall dancing to the tune with Sharon Breslow (Kessler) because
it was the first time I felt comfortable ―rocking and rolling.‖
Another 6th grade incident involved Robert Limon. Robert was one of our wilder
classmates and one day when Mr. Jennings left the room for a minute, Robert lit a cigarette.
Someone watching the hall saw Mr. Jennings returning and warned Robert, who put the
cigarette in his geography book and closed it. Naturally, there was a cloud of smoke and it
didn‘t take Mr. Jennings long to figure out what happened. Robert was kicked out of school
for the rest of the year and demoted to Philip‘s class.
Around this time I had my first experience with death. Dad was working on the county
road crew and was out of town during the week. On one of these absences ―Freck‖ Lydon, a
local deputy, appeared at our door and told Mom ―Better come with me, something‘s wrong
with the old woman,‖ referring to Grandma. She hadn‘t shown up for work and didn‘t
answer her telephone. Her boss at the Tonopah Club thought someone should check on her.
I went with them and when Mom didn‘t get an answer at the door, she used a spare key to get
in. We found Grandma in the bathroom lying on the floor. She was dressed in her work
outfit and apparently died of a heart attack. It was the first dead person I had seen up close.
Someone called Doc Joy, who came in, looked at her and decided she was indeed dead. The
next person to show up was Bill Logan, the mortician, with his old Ford panel truck and the
wicker basket he used to transport bodies. They placed her in the basket, loaded it in the
truck and hauled it over to the morgue a few doors east of her house. She was buried in the
Tonopah cemetery and the funeral was another first for me.
Our 7th grade teacher, Nellie Burke, was my favorite. She nurtured my art ability and I did
well in her class. I still have the book of maps I drew for our geography lessons.
Around 1953 I learned from friends who lived near the school it was possible to climb onto
the roof of the building and run around. The top of the boiler room on Booker Street at the
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rear of the high school was just a few feet above ground level. Near the boiler room‘s roof
there was a place you could lift yourself up to the roof of the gym and then climb up another
low wall to the top of the building. The challenge was negotiating the various levels of the
roof to reach the front of the structure, but you had to be careful. The neighbors kept an eye
on the place and would call Mr. McInnis, a school board member, when they noticed
something amiss. He lived behind the school and would come over and run you off.
Depending on where he was, a person could ―ditch‖ him by going back the way they had
come or by climbing down one of the fire escapes. When Phil and I ventured up, we
preferred to use a fire escape to get down. It was more fun than the route down the back.
I was in seventh grade when they began holding weekly dances in the high school
auditorium for the 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. Mrs. Burke was one of the chaperones. It
was a lot of fun, but as I mentioned, I was usually a ―wallflower.‖ When the whole group did
the Bunny Hop it felt as if the floor was going to collapse into the gym below, but the
building was well built. Unfortunately it was condemned in 1960 as the result of a group of
locals wanting a larger gym. I have to admit the gym was small, but it was fine for us. I
think with the addition of a sprinkler system and some updating the building would have
lasted quite a few more years. In fact, in 1965 when the school board decided to raze it,
Parson‘s Construction figured it would be a cinch to pull it down with a D-8 Caterpillar
tractor, but it wouldn‘t budge. Demolishing it turned into a major undertaking.
At one of these dances Mrs. Burke fell down the steps of the auditorium and broke her hip,
ending her career as a teacher.
I played on the Jackhammer basketball team in 7th and 8th grades, (the high school team was
the Muckers), but was never much good. The reason I stuck it out was to use the locker room
showers and go on the out of town trips. The showers beat the hell out of the bathtub at
home and were an incentive to compete in high school sports as well, although in high school
we had physical education twice a week and had access to the showers then.
The school didn‘t have busses so the coaches and a few parents would haul us to the games.
This meant a lot of long drives in Art Lepore‘s Plymouth sedan. One of the most memorable
trips was to a tournament in Pioche. We stayed two nights and were farmed out to different
families. I was given the bedroom of a local boy‘s sister while she stayed with a friend. It
was a great trip but I wasn‘t enthused with all the dolls in her room.
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Fifth Grade, 1952
Kneeling, from left: Andrew Jackson, Larry Bingham, Ralph Dahlquist, Bill
Prichard, Dennis Florez, me with my dog “Red,” Bill Crowell, Keith Scott.
Standing: Lupe Gonzalez, Susanne Buckhouse, Loraine Johnson, Virginia Sharkey,
Loretta Lee, Josephine Viscarra, Vera Mae Wilson, Allene Roberts, Suzie Bogdon,
Sandra Holliday, Edith Ann Adams, Eva Jean Taylor, Marie Murdough.
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Jackhammer Basketball team, 1955
Kneeling, from left: Junior Herrera, Philip Metscher, Joe Maslach, Allen Douglass,
Bob Bottom, Ken Eason, John O‟Leary. Standing: Art Lepore (coach), Jim Luna, Bud
Saunders, Ralph Dahlquist, Keith Scott, myself, Ken Siri (manager), Joe Friel (coach).
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8th Grade Graduation, 1955
From left: Seated: Josephine Viscarra, Ann McLeod, Allene Roberts, Lupe
Gonzalez, Loretta Lee, Emily Priester, Susanne Buckhouse, Virginia Sharkey,
Lorraine Johnson, Virginia O‟Berg. Standing: Art Lepore (8th grade teacher),
John O‟Leary, Alex McLoud, Ralph Dahlquist, Keith Scott, Sharon Breslow, Suzie
Bogdon, Bud Saunders, myself, Ken Eason, Dennis Florez.
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HIGH SCHOOL
I graduated from 8th grade in the spring of 1955 and entered high school that fall.
It was quite a change, the major difference being classes for various subjects were
scattered around the building and each grade had a homeroom where we gathered at the
beginning of the day. The first floor housed the gym, bathrooms, locker rooms, furnace room
and a couple of classrooms assigned to Mrs. Del Papa where she taught her home economics
and home and family living classes. On the second floor there were a couple of science labs,
additional classrooms, the assembly hall, offices and the library.
The first thing we learned was that there was a social structure with rules the
underclassmen had to live by. One rule was related to the stairs. There were two sets of
stairs to the second floor inside the front entrance, one on the right and one on the left. The
underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) used those on the right and the stairs on the left
were reserved for the upperclassmen (juniors and seniors). If you got caught on their stairs
and a group of the upper class boys were able to get hold of you, you had a good chance of
getting ―pantsed‖ (when a couple of guys held you down while a couple of others yanked off
your pants and hung them over the railing at the top of the stairs). I kept to the right!
Another rite of entering high school was the freshmen initiation, or ―rush,‖ held the first
few weeks of school. It entailed hazing at school and ended with a parade through
Tonopah‘s business district. On parade day, boys were required to come to school wearing
diapers and bras. The girls wore pajamas and were covered up a bit more. The seniors drew
on us with lipstick and covered us with Tabasco sauce, ketchup and anything else they could
think of. After we were thoroughly messed up we were marched downtown and through the
businesses. Mom picked me up after the parade and I was so dirty I had to kneel on the
floorboards in the back seat of the car, our 1941 Buick, and there was a stain that never came
out where I rubbed against the back of the front seat.
During initiation we were the upperclassmen‘s ―servants‖ while school was in session,
carrying books and running errands. It got rough at times and we were the last class to have
it that bad. Lack of control by school staff was part of the problem. A few senior boys
carried it too far when they forced some of the kids to take a chew of tobacco or worse yet,
chew a cigarette as punishment for minor infractions. This was the ―straw that broke the
camel‘s back‖ when two of my classmates, Loretta Lee and Ralph Dahlquist, got sick. Their
parents went to the school board and raised hell demanding reforms. A few of the seniors got
in trouble and the worst of the hazing ended, although future classes were still required to
dress up and parade through town. I survived it okay, but they really picked on some of the
kids.
In high school my goals began to change. Cars became a top priority and girls were
attracting my attention. These interests would eventually require a dependable income
stream, or in other words, finding a job.
There were plenty of activities at school. Dances were a big one and during our freshman
and sophomore years we were required to attend an assortment of them. If you didn‘t have a
date, the upperclassmen would pair you up with a girl from your class. It was hard because I
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wasn‘t sixteen so couldn‘t legally drive. I always tried to pick a girl living close to the school
so we could walk. I was still kind of shy so the dates were only to fill the requirements. A
couple of girls I took were Allene Roberts and Paulette Wilson. Other activities I
participated in were Boys Chorus -- not because I could sing but because it was mandatory -Junior Varsity Basketball, Track and the Carnival and Variety Show.
The Carnival was a fund-raiser that helped support school projects (sports) and was a lot of
fun. It was held in the gym and everyone was assigned a task from setting-up and tearingdown to manning the booths. Each class nominated a Carnival Queen contestant and sold
tickets to support her. The girl whose class sold the most tickets was crowned queen.
Apparently our lesson from 6th grade didn‘t stick with us. Our nominees never won. And,
every class was required to enter their queen candidate in the Carnival Parade that meant
building a float. Main Street was closed for the parade that was an advertising tool for the
Carnival. A prize was awarded for the best float, and again, we always missed out. The
Variety Show was held in conjunction with the Carnival and all the classes had to participate
with a couple of acts, usually one by the boys and one featuring the girls. Ours were always
pantomimes involving music. And, there were other functions I participated in including the
Junior-Senior Spaghetti Feed (another fundraiser), Pep Club (again, mandatory the first
couple of years), Block T club (for athletes and cheerleaders) and when I was a senior I
somehow wound up vice president of the Spanish Club. (After taking Spanish for a year, the
only thing I had picked up were a few cuss words and I didn‘t learn them in class.)
I became involved in high school sports in my sophomore year when I played junior varsity
basketball and went out for track, where I ran the mile. I didn‘t really like basketball and that
was the only year I played. I didn‘t care for football either, but track was another issue. I
had great endurance and running the mile suited me perfectly. I earned my varsity Block T
letter as a sophomore and lettered again when I was a junior. As training, Philip, Joe Fallini
and I would run around Mt. Brougher (T Mountain) every day, a distance of about three
miles with hills and sandy stretches that helped build stamina. I was doing great during my
senior year, but got kicked off the team midway through track season because of this training
routine.
Here‘s what happened: The main power transmission line to town from Alkali Springs
crossed the road we ran on near the west shoulder of the mountain. Joe came up with the
idea of throwing a wire over the line to see what would happen. Of course this sounded great
to Phil and me so the next time out the three of us stopped at John Robert‘s horse corral and
picked up pieces of bailing wire we tied together in a couple of long strands. We planned on
throwing them over the three wires of the power line but the line turned out to be higher than
it appeared. We ended up tying rocks to the wire strands and launching them using a method
similar to that that David used when he faced Goliath. It took a couple of tries before one of
them dropped over all three wires. When it did there was a loud ―crack‖ and a flash like
lightning, both of which we hadn‘t anticipated. It scared the hell out of us, and worse yet, we
saw that the antenna of the radar on Mt. Brock had stopped turning. We knew we had
shorted out the town‘s power. We finished the run, moving faster than usual. When we
reached school all was dark and quiet but in a few hours the power came back on and we
figured we were in the clear.
A couple of days later we were called into the principal‘s office. Sitting at a desk with Mr.
Lepore were a couple of guys from Nevada-California Power Company and in front of them
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was a piece of bailing wire with a rock attached. We knew ―the jig was up.‖ It was one of
the slings that had hung up on a power wire. When the company was patrolling the line
trying to deduce what had happened, they found it. Upon further investigation they noticed
the tennis shoe tracks under the line that pointed directly to us. We were lucky in one
respect, everyone in town knew everyone else and although Phil and I had a knack for getting
into trouble, Fallini didn‘t and he took responsibility for thinking up the trick. The NCP men
let it go with a warning and an explanation of the dangers and consequences but Mr. Lepore
wasn‘t so lenient. Fallini had never been in trouble so he let him off with a warning and Phil
got a good chewing out but I had faced Mr. Lepore for a number of previous infractions and
was kicked off the team. Philip figured they didn‘t need him either and quit. Actually, if it
hadn‘t been for the piece of wire with the rock hanging from the line, we would never have
been caught. The power company had checked everything they could think of and were
about to give up when they noticed it.
As I mentioned before, Art Lepore was my 8th grade teacher and grade school principal
and I got along with him okay. I was quiet and minded my own business, figuring I would
not have to deal with him after I graduated into high school, but in my sophomore year, there
he was again, this time as our high school principal! By now I had come out of my shell, and
as a rebel of sorts began to challenge authority. After taking over, Mr. Lepore decided there
was not enough structure and began issuing directives on noise, hallway conduct, study hall
manners, affection between the sexes, etc. etc. Everyone was talking about it, so I decided to
do something that led to our first confrontation. I drew a handful of posters depicting the
long arm of the office choking the rights out of the students and hung them on walls and
bulletin boards. It didn‘t take long for him to trace them to me and when I was called into the
office to explain he realized I was someone he had to keep his eye on. I became a ―thorn in
his side‖ causing just enough trouble, with a couple of exceptions, to keep from getting
kicked out of school.
One of these exceptions was in the spring of 1957 when Keith Scott and I did something,
what it was eludes me at the moment, and were told to leave until we came back with our
parents. We decided to walk over to the northwest end of town to check out the New
Midway Mine buildings and a few of the old shacks looking for copper wire and brass. On
our way back from the mine we passed the outhouse hole where Ralph and I had found the
.22 rifle. Nearby were numerous sites where buildings had been located, some with cellar
holes full of weeds and junk. When we walked through the area, there was a strong scent we
attributed to a dead animal.
About a week later (Mom had gotten me reinstated), Philip, Dennis Florez and I were
walking downtown after school. Dennis was headed to the morgue to meet his dad, Joe, who
worked part time for Bill Logan digging graves and cleaning the cemetery. When we got to
the morgue, Logan and Joe were standing out front and Logan asked us if we would like to
help with a little project. Having nothing else to do, we figured we might as well so he had
us load one of the rough boxes in the back of the hearse. The rough boxes were wood crates
caskets were shipped in and many times they were placed in the graves to protect the coffins.
When the box was loaded he handed us some rakes and an old blanket we threw into the
back of Joe‘s pickup. Next he passed out what appeared to be some torn pieces of sheet
saying, ―You‘ll need to tie these over your nose and mouth.‖ This got our attention! We
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crawled into the back of the pickup and started off after the hearse, which Logan was driving.
He drove straight to where Scott and I had noticed the smell. We pulled up to one of the
cellar holes and lying in the middle of a pile of weeds was a body. We learned later it was
Joe Rupert, an old miner. Apparently he had disappeared during the winter but no one paid
any attention. There were quite a few of the old boys around town who came and went with
the seasons, many times not telling anyone they were leaving. He was renting a cabin from
Jim Malory in the Midway Gulch section near Toni Buffum‘s house. Malory figured he
―went south‖ for the winter, probably to Beatty or Tecopa, California. When he didn‘t hear
anything for a few months, Malory, who didn‘t have the shiniest reputation, sold Joe‘s stuff
for back rent and forgot about him.
We grabbed the blanket and rakes and spread the blanket out beside the body. We were
directed to use the rakes to roll the body onto the blanket. Joe grabbed a leg and Philip and I
each manned a rake. Decomposition was further along than it appeared and while we were
pulling on the body, the leg came off in Florez‘s hands. We finally got Joe‘s body onto the
blanket and Logan took out a pair of scissors and cut his back pocket open to get his wallet.
The maggots had started eating the body and only about half of the wallet was left. We lifted
the body into the box and Logan dumped a couple of bottles of embalming fluid over it, then
we loaded the box into the hearse. Logan left, I guess for the cemetery where a hole was
waiting for the corpse, and Florez dropped us off at the morgue. An interesting afternoon to
say the least.
Another time I got kicked out of school for smoking in the parking lot. Our parking area
was behind the school on Booker Street. Philip and I were sitting in my car after lunch and I
had just lit a cigarette when Mr. Lepore happened to come out the back door. He saw me,
came over to the car and in a raised voice said, ―Metheeer (he had a lisp and when he was
agitated he could never pronounce our name) go home!‖ so we left. When he saw Philip
leave with me he called Mom and she had to meet with him the next day to get us back into
school. When he asked Philip why he left, Philip answered: ―You said ‗Metscher Go Home‘
and my name is Metscher too.‖ This didn‘t sit too well with him but we did get back into
school. Like I said, I had my share of run-ins with him.
I really don‘t recall much about my classes. In spite of my conflicts with Mr. Lepore, I got
along well with my teachers and maintained my grades without a problem. This brings a
couple of things to mind: Mrs. Rumaugh was our commercial teacher and I was in one of her
typing classes. Ken Eason and I had a habit of unclipping the rollers on our typewriters when
class was over so they would jump out on the next person who tried to insert a sheet of paper.
She never said anything about it, but the next user probably had a fit. Then there was Mrs.
Del Papa‘s home and family living class. We sat around large tables and Lorraine Johnson
was usually across from me. I had a habit of reaching under the table and playing with her
leg. Just when I thought I was getting away with it Mrs. Del Papa would holler, ―Hands on
the table Mr. Metscher!‖ Study hall was in the library and if you didn‘t have any homework,
you could read the magazines the school subscribed to. The Saturday Evening Post was my
favorite and I always started at the back because that‘s where the cartoons were. It became a
habit and I still read magazines back to front.
I took a few classes that required lab work. This gave me a chance to experiment with
rockets and pipe bombs using different combinations of fuels and explosives I would blend.
Ralph Dahlquist and I came up with some novel ideas for our powder from match heads to
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saltpeter (potassium nitrate), sulfur and zinc dust. I don‘t think you could get away doing
some of the things we did in this day and age. The ATF or Homeland Security would haul
you off and lock you up. We were lucky someone didn‘t get hurt although Ralph did burn
his face and singed his hair when a concoction he was mixing ignited. We had to do some
fast-talking to explain that one.
As a junior I took Driver‘s Education. Our car was a Ford sedan furnished by Allen ―Red‖
Douglass‘ Ford Dealership. It was getting close to the end of the semester and we didn‘t
have the mandatory driving time in yet so our instructor, Mr. Christopoulos, set aside a day to
take one long drive so everyone could complete their hours. If I remember right, we each
brought a lunch. We headed for Goldfield and while driving around town Lorraine Johnson
and I were talking about some of the interesting sites in the backcountry. Lorraine‘s father
ran cattle in the area and she was as familiar with it as I was. Someone suggested driving out
to see what was there so we took them the ―long way around‖ that led us east to the fringe of
the bombing range then south to the abandoned Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad grade that
had been converted to a road and back to town. The roads were unpaved (―dirt‖ roads to us)
and we were quite a ways from ―civilization.‖ If anything went wrong it would have been a
long walk in for help. As it was, we had one flat tire (rock puncture) and scraped the car‘s
undercarriage a few times, but we made it home in one piece, much to the relief of Mr.
Christopoulos. I think he had seen more of the desert than he wanted to. We got credit for
the time, but I don‘t think the circumstances were recorded anywhere. It was good
experience for a few of the kids who had never driven on desert roads.
We had a conglomeration of teachers in high school. The majority stayed a year or two and
moved on, I suspect literally to ―greener pastures.‖ Three were with us from start to finish:
Mrs. Del Papa (Home Economics and General Science), Don Logan (General Math and
Music) and Lillian Rumbaugh (Commercial and Girls P. E.). All were ―locals‖ who taught in
Tonopah for many years. One ―traveler‖ I got to know fairly well was Mrs. Hitchcock who
taught math during my freshman year. She rented a house a couple of blocks from our place
and I became acquainted when Phil, Keith Scott and I helped her build a barbeque in her back
yard.
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Showing off my new THS letterman‟s sweater, 1957.
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Tonopah High Class of „59. From left: Lupe Gonzalez, Dennis Florez,
Emily Priester, Joaquin Limon, Allene Roberts, Roger “Bud” Saunders,
Paulette Wilson, John O‟Leary, Loretta Lee, Ken Eason, Loraine Johnson,
myself, Suzie Bogdon, Keith Scott.
Ken Eason, Keith Scott and I appear taller than
normal -- we stood on our tiptoes for the photo!
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176
MY TEENAGE YEARS – CARS, GIRLS, BOOZE and JOBS
Philip and I became aware of the power of the automobile at an early age. I learned to
drive at fourteen thanks to water. Water was something that wasn‘t played with or wasted.
Bath night was Sunday and when we were younger, all three of us took turns in the tub. I
don‘t remember the order, but we all used the same water, with a bit of warm added to
supplement it as it cooled. The water was heated by coils in the firebox to the kitchen wood
stove during the winter and in kettles on the stove in the summer. The kettles were used in
the summer to keep the stove from heating the house too much. Dad eventually installed a
propane hot water heater and we had a ready supply after that, which helped a lot. When we
were through bathing, the tub was bailed out for the trees and garden.
It was the same with electric power. You ALWAYS turned the lights off when you left a
room and if you were using anything that required electricity, you were damn sure it was
turned off, and preferably unplugged, when you were through. Of course, there weren‘t that
many electric accessories available. The only things I ever ―plugged in‖ were my radio,
portable phonograph and a wood burning iron from a craft set I received for Christmas
around 1950.
Back to the water: Our first trees were tamarisk Dad planted along the fence. They were
cuttings from those at Alkali and weren‘t particular about the water they received. In the
early 1950‘s the Lambertucci brothers, Dominic and Victor, who had the farm below town,
imported Chinese Elms and began to sell saplings. Dad got hold of four or five and planted
them around the house. This meant we would need more water. Dad‘s solution was to
secure a couple of fifty-five gallon drums and haul water from Tonopah Springs, known
locally as Laundry Springs, about five miles north of town. The nickname Laundry Springs
was derived from the early days when a laundry was located near the springs. Before the
elms showed up about the only trees in town were the four cottonwoods on Main Street or
locusts whose forerunners had been brought over from Owens Valley near Bishop, California
in the 1910‘s. The locusts didn‘t grow over eight or ten feet tall and the branches were
adorned with thorns so there wasn‘t any tree climbing for young boys. And, there were a few
Joshua trees that found their way to town from Goldfield, two in front of the Anderson house.
We would drive out to the springs, bail water from a cattle trough and fill the barrels, then
transfer the water from these barrels to others on racks beside the house. One of our chores
was using the water to soak the trees once or twice a week. At first we didn‘t mind helping
but as we got older Philip and I thought we had better things to do than bail water. In order
to placate us, Dad began letting us drive the pickup from the edge of town to the springs and
back. The road to the springs paralleled the Rye Patch-Tonopah water line. Tonopah‘s water
is pumped from Rye Patch, about fourteen miles northeast of town, one of the reasons it is
expensive. The water company had a couple of pump stations and holding reservoirs along
the line that ran within a mile of the springs. Dad knew what he was doing. Phil and I loved
driving like the dogs loved riding. All a person had to do was rattle the pickup keys and the
dogs would jump in the back. With us, all Dad had to do was start to load the barrels and we
were ready to go. It didn‘t take us long to become good drivers, but at the same time you
might say he created a couple of monsters. We couldn‘t get enough of it.
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Since Dad was out of town during the week and Mom was working all day, Phil and I
decided to ―borrow‖ the pickup. Dad unwittingly made it easy for us, he hung the key on a
nail in the kitchen. We would head out to the old roads behind Mt. Brougher or near
Campbell‘s junkyard. This worked for a while, but Dad started wondering why the truck
always seemed to be low on gas. He had an idea what was going on so he recorded the
speedometer reading then checked it again when he got home. He had a ―discussion‖ with us
and we were told to leave the pickup alone, but ―boys being boys‖ we couldn‘t resist the
temptation. We figured that if we siphoned gas from one of the Forest Service trucks to keep
the pickup‘s tank full and unhooked the speedometer cable when we used it, we could get
away with it. It worked for a while, but the next time we were caught ―red handed‖ when we
took the pickup for a little drive while Mom and him were gone. They came home early and
caught us returning from a run on the back roads near the hospital. After that there were no
more keys on the wall and no driving without him.
About this time Lamont Jensen bought a 1916 Model T Ford from Joe Fallini. It was
parked beside a house on the other side of town and Philip and I helped him get it ready to
drive home. None of us had driver‘s licenses, but that wasn‘t a problem. We would sneak
home on the back streets. The T had sat for years and before we could drive it we had to
repair the tires and fill it with gas, water and fresh oil. They were simple cars and even after
sitting as long as it had, we didn‘t have any trouble getting it started. Driving it was
something else. It had three peddles on the transmission -- the brake, reverse and low gear.
High gear was engaged when the emergency brake was full forward. After the ride home we
were hooked. We really wanted a car now and began to pester Dad big time.
He suggested we build ourselves a Model T. He reasoned it was a simple car and parts
were everywhere. It would be just the thing to keep us occupied. I don‘t think he thought we
would get any place with it, but we began to gather up what we thought we needed, although
it took us a while to differentiate between Model T parts and other old car parts. Luckily we
had Lamont‘s T to compare components with. Among the first things Philip and I brought
home was the transmission from the old car at the Midway Mine. It wasn‘t long before Dad
caught our enthusiasm. Soon he was taking us to every old mining camp and ranch he could
think of in search of parts. We found a frame here, a body there, a couple of old engines, a
front end, a rear end and on and on.
This created another dilemma. Our tools were an assortment of odds and ends with the
exception of a new ½ inch drive socket set we found among some items stored in Jensen‘s
barn. It was military issue and didn‘t have a ratchet, but it was more valuable than gold as far
as we were concerned. I suspect it was something Mr. Campbell acquired from the Air Force
when he was inspector on the construction of the radar station on Mt. Brock. Dad‘s tool
selection wasn‘t any better than ours. I had a few dollars saved and ordered a set of
Craftsman combination wrenches from the Sears catalog that was a lifesaver. Power tools
were out of the question. If it was necessary to drill a hole in wood, out came the ―brace and
bits.‖ If the object was metal, we could use the manual drill press in the blacksmith shop or
a small hand cranked drill. Our selection of drill bits wasn‘t any better than the hand tools
but we ―got by.‖
We completed our first T, a 1916 roadster, in the summer of 1956 and it had been an uphill
battle. When the time came to see if we could start it we were beside ourselves. We would
crank and crank and just when we were ready to give up it would cough and blow out a puff
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of smoke and we would start cranking again. Dad finally took pity on us, hooked it to the
pickup and towed us down the street. Miracle of miracles, it started. We were ecstatic! We
knew it would run and when we got it back home we ―ironed out the kinks‖ and were able to
get it started by cranking it. Soon it was time for our maiden trip. We drove to the top of the
hill on California Avenue a few blocks from the house and when we turned around to come
home, a front wheel fell off. They were wood spoke type wheels and we weren‘t aware the
rivets holding the rim to the wheel had rusted through. We finally got home and realized a
couple of things. We would need a lot of extra parts to keep it running and we would need
some new tires. We were using a couple we borrowed from Lamont and a few we found that
we were able to repair. The wheels were ―clincher‖ type and the tire size was 30‖ x 3 ½.‖
Tires could be ordered from Montgomery Ward but this created another problem, we would
need money.
The results were twofold. We began to raise money in earnest and decided we would
gather up every T part we could find. By the next summer we had accumulated enough to
build another car, the solution to a problem that had arisen. We both wanted to drive and had
some major disagreements over whose turn it was. Philip wound up with the roadster and
we assembled a coupe for me. And, it wasn‘t long before the cars became a source of
income. We had the hill behind the house and a shed we built to replace the blacksmith shop
and chicken coop packed with parts. Model T‘s were the new craze in southern California
and people were flocking to Nevada looking for parts, especially body metal that was almost
non-existent in California, a result of the damp climate that rusted it away. Not only were we
selling parts, we began building up cars and selling them. It was a great way to pick up
spending money.
In 1957 I turned 16 and got my driver‘s license, a story in itself. I figured out I couldn‘t see
well enough to pass the test so I memorized the eye chart. When test day came, I passed, and
when Dad asked how it went, I told him what I had to do. He marched me off to the ―Eye
Doctor‖ and I have been wearing glasses since.
I could finally drive legally, but in order to drive the T‘s on the streets they had to be
licensed. Luckily it wasn‘t a problem getting a title for a reconstructed vehicle at the time.
All you needed were a couple of bills-of-sale or letters stating the parts were given to you,
which we never had a problem coming up with, and a few bucks to pay for the title and you
were ready to go. Insurance was something else, but we got around it by stating the cars
were for parade use. We were never questioned and the only wreck we ever had was actually
after a parade. I ran into the side of Nadia Murphy‘s new Dodge station wagon and caved in
the door. It didn‘t hurt the T and we paid for the damage out of pocket so no one was the
wiser. It was actually her fault, but we didn‘t argue. It would have cost a lot more to buy the
insurance and pay a fine for driving without it.
The T‘s were our first cars and we drove them all over central Nevada. We didn‘t think
anything of heading out to Goldfield, Manhattan or Silver Peak. They were fun and we were
regularly called on to transport ―dignitaries‖ (usually politicians) in parades and at other
events. I still have a 1916 roadster I built up that runs great and is as much fun to drive now
as it ever was.
Phil and I would ride to school in the coupe almost every day, but getting it started in the
winter was a chore. It didn‘t have a starter so it had to be cranked by hand and I had to jack
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up one of the rear wheels when I cranked it. When it started we would fill the radiator with
water, knock it off the jack and take off. When we got to school, I would drain it again so it
wouldn‘t freeze up. After school I packed out a bucket of water from a sink in the janitor‘s
closet and refilled the radiator. I couldn‘t use anti-freeze, there were too many leaks. At
least I didn‘t have to crank it to get home. We would coast down Bryan Avenue and when
we picked up enough speed, I would drop it in gear and away we went.
The T‘s were great in the summer but were small as far as cars went and would only seat
two comfortably, not that we didn‘t squeeze in a few more from time to time. One of our
favorite tricks was to ―smoke up the street.‖ The only floorboards we installed were the
lower ones and the exhaust pipes were exposed where they ran from the engines under the
bodies. We drilled small holes in the pipes and with the spark retarded to get them red hot,
the passenger would squirt oil in the hole with a squirt can. The result was a smoke screen
out the exhaust pipe. More than once the Fire Department was called when someone saw a
car on fire. By the time they responded we were long gone.
By 1958 I inherited the family‘s 1941 Buick so I didn‘t drive my T as much. The Buick
was dependable and I drove it for over a year. It was a straight eight (in line eight cylinder
engine) and very heavy. Great for racing at top end speeds, but lousy off the line. I
eventually burned a rod out on a trip to Bishop. Philip, Allen, Keith Scott and I were making
the journey via Westgard Pass out of Fish Lake Valley and planned on stopping at Deep
Springs, California to see if the Jones‘ still lived there. We were drinking, got stuck and over
revving the engine to free the car was more than the rod could take.
Around this time I bought a Willys station wagon with a burned up engine. I wanted
something more suitable for the back roads than the Buick. I installed a rebuilt engine but
eventually overheated it and cracked an exhaust valve seat. I put in another engine and the
same thing happened so I sold the wagon to Philip, who installed a V-8 Ford engine we
pulled out of a 1936 Ford sedan at Cactus Springs. The engine eventually wound up in Phil‘s
1941 Ford coupe.
Cactus Springs was on the Tonopah Bombing & Gunnery Range where aircraft from the
Tonopah Army Air Field practiced training maneuvers and bombing missions during World
War II. The Tonopah range was destined to become part of the Nellis Air Force Base
bombing range and Nevada Test Site but at the time was in a state of limbo. Although it was
still a restricted area, we explored the northwestern end quite thoroughly. There were a
number of ―ghost‖ mining camps created within the boundaries when the range was set up in
1941. All dated back to the Tonopah-Goldfield mining boom of the early 1900‘s. The
property owners were told the range would be decommissioned after the war and they could
return, but it didn‘t happen (so much for the government‘s word). There were some great
places to explore in addition to the Cactus district. Among them were the Quartz Mountain,
Kawich and Gold Crater mining districts. All had camps and mines, many with equipment
left behind by the owners who had hoped to return.
My next car was a ‘55 Buick I purchased in 1959 while I was working at the Mizpah
Garage. It was a nice car, but had a built-in defect. If you had the transmission in low and
shifted to drive while you were moving more than a few miles per hour, it would ruin the
transmission. The car was ―hot‖ (fast) and when I was drinking, I tended to race, taking off
in low and shifting to drive when I reached about fifty miles per hour and as a result, I went
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through a number of transmissions before I learned my lesson. I finally tore the car up during
my college years, again, a result of drinking.
With cars came a major pastime enjoyed by local teenagers, cruising. The normal route
was ―cruising Main‖ which entailed driving up and down the street most of the night. The
trips took us as far as the Lambertucci brother‘s farm a mile below town on US 6-95 or to a
―turn around‖ at the Department of Motor Vehicles office near the lower edge of town. We
would head up Main to the summit on the Goldfield highway (US 95) where we would turn
around and repeat the process, many times stopping to talk to others doing the same thing.
For a change of pace we would take Florence Avenue (US 6) and turn around in the parking
lot of the Buckeye Bar about a mile east of town. Fridays and Saturdays were the big cruise
nights, but any time was fine if you didn‘t have something else to do and had a few bucks for
gas. Once in a while we would get pulled over by the cops who would check to see if we
were drinking. If we were, they would make us dump the booze and send us home with the
warning they didn‘t want to see us on the street again that night.
Cruising was the time to show off our cars and if you had one you thought was fast, it
afforded an opportunity to drag race. There were quite a few hot cars in town and yours had
to be pretty good to keep up. My Buick was good enough to hold its own, but there were a
lot that were better. Ernie Longden always seemed to have one of the best. He was a great
mechanic who knew how to drive and could get the most out of a car. We all did our own
work on our vehicles, couldn‘t afford not to. Bob Bottom had a Dodge Pioneer that would
really move and Lamont Jensen always drove something that would burn rubber. Philip had
a great little ‘41 Ford coupe with a Studebaker V8 engine he built up that would get up and
go. It was the days of pin striping, car club plaques, chrome wheels, lake pipes, tuck and roll
upholstery and naming your car. One name that stands out was Longden‘s ‘56 Chevrolet,
Miss Carriage. It raised the hackles of some of the older people in town, but Longden was a
rebel and brushed off the criticism. Then again, a lot of us were rebels and did our best to
antagonize anyone we could. My extent of customizing the Buick was adding lake pipes I
―dummied‖ on and Oldsmobile ―spinner‖ hubcaps.
Cruising went hand in hand with drinking and another pastime of us townies, bugging the
Scopies from the Air Base. From time to time this would lead to a fight and when someone
accepted a challenge, it was ―meet at the gravel pit‖ below Lambertuccis. The news would
spread like wildfire and within minutes, everyone cruising the street was headed down to the
pit. Most of the time it would be either John Maslach, Joe Davis or Robert Limon who
would represent us and I never saw them lose a fight.
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Top: July 1957. Our first Model T Ford, a 1916 roadster, on the right
with Philip standing beside it and Allen in the driver‟s seat and
Lamont Jensen standing beside his Model T (left) with his brother
Raymond behind the wheel. Spot is lying in the foreground
and the waste dump of the California-Tonopah mine is in the background.
Bottom: August 1957. Our Model T near the blacksmith shop with
the remains of another we hauled home for spare parts in the foreground.
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Upper photos: Left: September 1957. Our first two Model T‟s, the 1916 roadster
(left) and 1923 coupe (right) parked near the blacksmith shop with the rock outcrop
where we built our forts when we were younger behind them. In the distance the
edge of Green Mountain can be seen on the right and Butler Mountain is on the left.
Right: The two T‟s looking east across Central Street with my 1941 Buick in the
background.
Lower photos: A portion of our “Model T parts department” c1962. Left: Looking
southeast with Jensen‟s house is in the background. Right: Looking northeast. The
Little Cabin (1) is in the center with the storage shed for small Ford parts on the right
(2) and John Anderson‟s house (3) on the left. Philip appears in both shots.
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My 1955 Buick.
The ‟46 Ford pickup with the canvas top taken in
Goldfield, c1947. Phil is on the spare tire and I am
sitting on the fender.
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GIRLS
When I was about thirteen my hormones were starting to activate, and by sixteen they had
kicked in big time and girls became an important part of my life. I had a number of
girlfriends, but only a couple I was serious about. The first time I ever really made out with a
girl was with my neighbor, Susanne Buckhouse. We were at a party at Detta Wolfe‘s house,
playing 45‘s (records) and dancing when one thing led to another and we spent the evening
embracing and kissing. Wolfe‘s was a few blocks down Central Street from our house and
Detta would have the parties about once a month. I think I was about fourteen at the time.
There were other encounters along this line but my first real girlfriend was Betty
Symmonds. She was an old family friend and we grew up together running around
Goldfield when our parents visited, but it wasn‘t until her family moved to Carlin, Nevada
that we got serious. I think it was a case of ―absence makes the heart grow fonder.‖ If they
had never moved we probably would have been just close friends. Who knows? Anyway,
when we were able to get together on their visits to Tonopah and Goldfield we became very
close (the making out and cuddling stage) but distance took its toll and our relationship never
went any further. By then I had my ‘41 Buick so dating was easy.
My next steady girlfriend was Gloria Lape. I don‘t recall how we met, but we spent a lot
of time together. Unfortunately she was a temporary resident. Her mother had moved the
family to town from New York to get a divorce and had to satisfy Nevada‘s residency
requirement. They stayed a few months then moved back to New York. Again, we wrote
letters and exchanged photos, but distance nipped the relationship in the bud.
Next came Gloria Bertolino. I went ―steady‖ with her for about a year. I liked her but our
romance reached a stage where it seemed to flatten out, probably because I didn‘t see her
most weekends and during the summer. Her family owned the ―upper ranch‖ at Peavine
Creek and she spent most of the time there. When she was in town she stayed with her
grandmother in a house the family owned on Booker Street behind the school. I really liked
her grandmother. I was very at ease around her. I lost contact with Gloria after I graduated
and left Tonopah to attend the University of Nevada in Reno.
There were a few other girls I had crushes on. One was Suzie Bogdon. I began to notice
her in sixth grade, and in high school, when I wanted to ask her for a date, I always chickened
out. I figured she would probably turn me down. We did have one small fling when we were
seniors but by then it was too late for any kind of serious relationship.
Another was Beverly Bordoli, a cute redhead. We went out a couple of times, but she was
going with Keith Scott and when they finally broke up and I had a chance to get closer to her,
the family was in the process of moving to Carson City. Her parents had a ranch near Twin
Springs east of Tonopah. Her brother Butch was one of the children who developed
leukemia from the above ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site and passed away at age
seven, the primary reason her parents sold their ranch and moved.
I had my first sexual experience with a neighbor girl when I was sixteen. She was nineteen
at the time. It was the summer of 1957 and she was babysitting her brother. They would
walk around the neighborhood and she would stop and talk when I was outside working on
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my cars. It was one of those things we both knew was going to happen, just one of those
feelings you get. Anyway, one day she came by, and according to a plan Phil and I had
devised, he would watch her brother and she and I would run up to Jensen‘s barn where we
could make out in peace. It worked, but it cost Philip his pocketknife to keep her brother
occupied. I was supposed to do the same for him later, but it didn‘t pan out.
After that the only ―real‖ sex I had was brothel oriented. I was ―entertained‖ by the girls at
the Buckeye a couple of times during high school but didn‘t really care for the place. We
were under twenty-one so we couldn‘t sit at the bar and drink, although the girls did sit
around the parlor and socialize with to us. And it was usually fairly busy. A lot of the Air
Force boys from the radar base were in and out and on top of that, we were afraid one of the
locals who came in would talk too much and it would get back to Mom and Dad. But we did
like the ―house‖ in Mina. The Lucky Strike, owned and operated by Belle Norheim, was
more relaxed. It was never busy and the same two girls were usually working. It was a long
drive, but worth it. Prices were the same as Tonopah, $5.00 for a ―Straight Lay-No Play‖
(referring to plain sex) plus a tip if you could spare it. Sessions were timed with an egg
timer, but it didn‘t mean much when business was slow. And of course, there was the old
request: ―Got four-bits for the Juke Box honey?‖ that seemed to be standard in all the joints.
BOOZE
Drinking was commonplace among the kids my age. People blamed it on ―nothing else to
do‖ and numerous other things, but I think it was just our rebellious nature. I started drinking
when I was thirteen or fourteen. Dad always had a gallon of wine in the house and he and
Mom would have a few glasses with dinner on Friday and Saturday evenings. He kept it
behind the bedroom door and Philip and I found we could sneak a few drinks then add a little
water and no one was the wiser.
And, around this time we figured out the lock on the Lions Club‘s back door into the bar
could be picked with a hacksaw blade. Local service organizations used the building for
gatherings but the bar was separate from the main hall and only open during Lions Club or
20-30 Club meetings or on special occasions. When we got into the bar we had access to the
refrigerator that was usually full of beer and the back bar with plenty of bottles of hard liquor.
We would grab six or eight beers (A-1 was our usual choice) and, once in a while, a bottle of
booze. It was a great source until another group of kids got the same idea, but they weren‘t
crafty enough to pick the lock, they pried the door open and cleaned the place out. The Lions
repaired the door using the old lock so we could still get in, but they made a change, there
was no more hard liquor and they put a chain around the refrigerator with a lock on it. It only
took a minute to figure out all a person had to do was lift the chain over the top of the
refrigerator, then lower it again after removing whatever you wanted, but I guess they
eventually got tired of missing beer and quit stocking it. I figure they thought someone in the
club was getting into the booze because they never added a dead bolt or installed a new lock
on the back door.
There was never a problem buying liquor, you could always find someone who would pick
it up. When I worked at the Mizpah Garage, one of the guys I worked with, John Strong,
would buy for me and there was always an old derelict around who would pick it up for a
couple of dollars. If nothing else, we could always depend on John Rucker or someone else
from the junkyard, but they wanted a share, so they were a last resort. It was the same with
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the other kids. I would say at least eighty percent of the boys drank on a regular basis, along
with ten percent of the girls.
Then there was always Goldfield. Every few weeks we would drive over and pick up a
case of beer at the Santa Fe Saloon. Fred Breamer never asked for ID. His beer ran around
$5.50 a case for Lucky Lager and we would usually have at least half of it consumed by the
time we got back to Tonopah. We could also buy at Kirby‘s Silver Dollar Bar, but used it as
a last resort. It was more ―uptown,‖ if anything in Goldfield could be uptown, and there was
always the chance one of the local deputies would be driving around the area. Fred‘s was
―off the beaten path‖ so we didn‘t worry about it as much.
It seemed everyone had a favorite ―drinking spot‖ where they would park, talk, and listen to
the radio. These doubled as make out spots if you wanted to park with your girlfriend. Ours
was at the old mining camp of Divide. In the summer we would sit with the car doors open
listening to the radio and solve the world‘s problems. Radio reception was poor at best and
the old tube type units sucked up the juice. Our drinking spot was on a hill, so we could push
the car to get it started if need be. Of course this only worked if the car had a standard
transmission. Over the years the site was littered with beer cans but one wouldn‘t know it
today. This was before aluminum cans and our empties have long since rusted away. There
were no pop tops and getting into the cans required openers, or, as we referred to them,
―church keys‖ Everyone had at least three or four of them in the glove compartment, ashtray
or scattered around under the seats of their cars. The breweries gave them away by the
millions as advertisement.
In addition to beer we drank whiskey, vodka, wine or whatever else happened to be
available. We picked our mix up from the soft drink machines at the service stations.
Delaware Punch was my favorite. When we needed ice, we had tickets we could use at the
Mizpah Hotel where there was an ice machine, one of the few in town. I got my tickets at the
Mizpah Garage where we handed them out to tourists. All the service stations distributed
them. The hotel figured if they could get people in for free ice, they might eat and gamble a
little. I guess it worked. We handed out a lot of them.
It was the same with smoking although the percentages probably weren‘t as high. I started
smoking when I was about fifteen and smoked until I got married. At first I thought it was
―cool‖ but eventually it became a habit. Fortunately, I didn‘t have a problem quitting.
JOBS
During the summers of 1955 and 1956 I worked for the Nevada State Highway
Department counting cars. Every spring the department would hire half a dozen kids to
record traffic on the three highways entering town. The job lasted four days and there were a
couple of shifts. All it amounted to was sitting at a predetermined location a few miles out of
town with a clipboard and sheet of paper listing different types of vehicles and filling in the
corresponding columns as they passed. The first year I was stationed on US 95 south of town
near the turnoff to the Divide mining district. The second time I was sent to the intersection
of 8-A (now Nevada 360) and US 6 east of town near the old air base. Both times I drew
afternoon/evening shifts. The job didn‘t require a driver‘s license, but you had to get to your
assigned location. Dad and Mom would drive two cars out and leave one for me to sit in
until quitting time, then return and pick me up.
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This brought in a few dollars, but when I started working on cars I realized I needed a
steady job. Gathering scrap metal and bottles wouldn‘t fill the bill any more.
My first ―steady‖ job was working at the RO Ranch in Smoky Valley during the haying
season when the alfalfa and wild grass was cut and baled. I was fifteen and hunting for work
when the foreman from the ranch happened to stop at the Union 76 gas station looking for
help. Keith Scott was working there and knew I was trying to find something so he called to
see if I wanted to go out. I jumped at the chance and gave the rancher directions to the house.
He told me to pack my bedroll and clothes and he would pick me up in an hour. I called
Mom, Dad was out of town with the county road crew, and told her what I was doing. She
was hesitant, but after some quick talking on my part, agreed to let me go. In the meantime
the rancher hired two other guys who were hitchhiking through town. They were a couple of
years my senior and were working their way to California.
I packed what I thought I would need and we headed out. I was a little light for ―bucking
bales‖ and wound up driving a tractor hauling them to the stacking sites, where, with the help
of a couple of the old Indians and the son of the foreman, they were unloaded. The first
weekend, Mom and Dad drove out with some extra clothes and a few things they thought I
might need. The Pine Tree Lumber Company from Escondido, California was running the
ranch at the time. I think they were in the process of buying it. The job lasted about four
weeks and I really enjoyed it. We slept in a bunkhouse and the food was outstanding. I spent
the evenings running around the area with the foreman‘s son, who was a couple of years
younger than me. We had an old ranch truck to drive, even though I didn‘t have a license
yet. We scouted old junk piles looking for model T parts we would gather and stash in the
desert near the ranch. Dad drove Phil and me out later to pick them up. I don‘t remember
what I was paid but it was a daily rate. When the job was over, they gave us our checks,
hauled us to town, and dropped us off.
My next job was pumping gas at the Y Service Station at $1.00 an hour. I started a couple
of months after I turned sixteen. My shift was evenings from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays
and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Those were the days of ―full service‖ and I checked every
customer‘s oil and washed their windshield regardless of how much they spent. I would also
check the air in the tires if they requested it. I repaired flat tires and serviced cars that
included changing the engine oil and filter, greasing the chassis, and checking the
transmission and rear end fluid levels. At 10:00 p.m. I would close up, clean the rest rooms
and lube rack floor and check out the cash register, the hardest part of the job. It seemed I
would come up short once or twice a week no matter how careful I was. I had a suspicion
that since the day crew always checked the register out around 4:00 they didn‘t care how I
came out. It was strange because I seldom came out ―over.‖ I worked about a year before I
got fired.
By then Philip was working there too and we were both laid off at the same time. One of
the things leading up to this was our Model T‘s. Until we were able to purchase a couple of
complete sets of new tires and tubes, we were using any old thing we could find and it
seemed like we got a flat every time we drove. Since we were working at a gas station with
tire patching equipment, we took the flats to work and when nothing else was doing, patched
tires. This didn‘t sit too well with Harold and Glen Jeffery who ran the station for
Cavanaugh Brothers. On top of that, when it snowed that winter people would pull into the
station to have their tire chains installed. Whenever I installed a pair, I kept the $2.00 unless
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it was a charge. It was a miserable job and I figured I earned it. Of course, Harold Jeffery
wondered why the till didn‘t reflect the usual amount in the receipts for installing chains.
Although they didn‘t say it, I think this, coupled with using company time to patch tires and
the shortages at checkout time, led to our layoffs.
Actually, it was a lucky break. About this time Hal Palenski had purchased the Mizpah
Garage, the local Chevron gas station and Buick-GMC agency, from Lee Henderson‘s
family. He also took over the Standard Oil distributorship. When I heard he was looking for
help I got hold of him right away and was hired on the spot. Hal was new in town and this
worked in my favor. Usually, if someone got laid off from one gas station it was hell getting
on anyplace else. There was an informal ―black list‖ in place among the owners and Hal
wasn‘t ―in‖ with them. I learned my lesson and did a good job for Palenski. I worked for
him after school and summers through 1958 and 1959 and during the summers of 1960,
1961, and 1962 when I was attending the University of Nevada in Reno. It wasn‘t long
before Hal hired Phil too.
The Mizpah had an auto repair shop in combination with the service station. Les Harper
was the mechanic and had a reputation as one of the best in the area. He took Phil and me
under his wing when he realized we had some mechanical ability. He began letting us do
minor jobs, trusting us with more complicated repairs as time went on and I learned a lot
from him.
Two fellow employees, Scott ―Scotty‖ Mullins and John Bradford, were real characters.
They were unique individuals I enjoyed working with and they made things interesting at the
garage. Both had worked there for many years and would not speak to one another. It all
began when John wooed Scotty‘s ―housekeeper,‖ a Shoshone Indian lady, away. Scotty
never forgave him.
Scotty worked day shift and was in charge of the crew, although it didn‘t mean much after
you were there for a while. Everyone did their jobs and humored him along. He was short,
always had a pipe in his mouth, and wore a beat up fedora. He was an old timer who loved to
talk and his memories of the early days in the area were fabulous. Apparently he was quite a
rounder and never left a stone unturned in his early years. He was the outfit‘s bookkeeper
and a whiz with numbers, although this had caused him a bit of a problem when he worked at
the local bank during the 1920‘s resulting in a stretch in the state pen. It didn‘t hurt his
reputation. Everyone knew and liked him and he would bend over backwards to help anyone
in trouble. He still had his dapper way with the women and there were a few that came in
that were ―his customers.‖ It didn‘t take me long to learn that when they pulled up, he waited
on them.
John, a relative newcomer, was from Missouri and was a great example of the old saying
―As stubborn as a Missouri mule.‖ He was a large, husky man who always wore bib overalls.
He showed up in Tonopah during the ‗30s and worked the sixteen-hour night shift. For years
his only days off were Christmas and Thanksgiving. When Hal took over he rearranged
John‘s shift giving him a couple of days a week off and a week‘s vacation every year. John
wasn‘t happy at first, he liked things the way they were, but it didn‘t take him long to get
used to it. For years the Mizpah and Shell were the only service stations open 24 hours and
on his shift John carried two pistols in his bib overalls. I recall one occasion when a guy
going through attempted to hold him up. It was early in the morning and apparently he
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thought John would be a pushover. When it was over the guy had a car full of bullet holes
and did a stretch in the hospital before he was moved to the crowbar hotel. When John took
his vacation or was off on weekends, Philip, myself, or John Strong would work his shift. It
was a tough shift for us ―lightweights‖ and earned the name ―shit shift‖ to anyone who drew
it.
John was Ernie Longden‘s ―grandpa,‖ although I don‘t believe they were related. The story
I am familiar with was that Ernie‘s dad was stationed at the Tonopah Army Air Field during
World War II when Ernie was a baby. For some reason his father and mother had to leave
town, probably due to his father‘s transfer, and Ernie was left with John and his housekeeper
for what was supposed to be a short time. They never came back and John raised him.
Both John and Scotty were ―old school‖ when it came to the treatment of women. They
were always polite and tipped their hats when one came in. Neither used foul language
around the opposite sex and if someone did in their presence they would hear about it. When
a funeral procession passed the garage, Scotty would shut all the doors and business came to
a standstill until it went by regardless of whether or not you were waiting on a customer.
Both were very different in some ways but very much the same in others and deserve to be
remembered.
Another guy I worked with at the garage was John Strong who became a good friend.
John handled the Standard Oil distributorship for Hal. They knew each other before Hal
bought the business and he showed up shortly after Hal took over. He was about ten years
my senior. He and his wife, Mary, lived in the Belvada Apartments in the old Bank Building.
John had one fault, he drank a little too much. (I did my share of partying with him.) He had
a ‗49 Oldsmobile sedan he would let me borrow whenever I needed it. This was before I had
saved enough to buy my ‗55 Buick and needed something more dependable than the ‘41
Buick. He drove the Standard Oil tank truck delivering gas and diesel to outlying
communities. If he happened to be making a delivery on one of my days off and I was
around, I would ride with him. One of my favorite trips was to Slim‘s Place at Scotty‘s
Junction between Goldfield and Beatty.
After I had been working for Hal about a year, he let me drive a tanker between the bulk
plant and the service station whenever John was gone and the tanks got low. And, I drove
the garage‘s tow truck picking up wrecks or rescuing motorists who had broken down. This
was before the days of Commercial Drivers Licenses.
Hal and his wife Fran drank quite a bit and around 1966 he wound up losing the business.
It was too bad, he was good to Phil and me and a great guy when he was sober.
The garage itself was unique. The building, a large stone structure, dated to around 1906
and supposedly housed a bar and dance hall in the early days. This may have been true, the
original red light district was located behind it on Corona Avenue. It accommodated the
repair shop, overnight auto storage, small office, restrooms and the counter and cash register
for the filling station. The lube and wash racks, business offices and showroom for the Buick
agency on the corner of Corona Avenue and Main Street abutted the building on the east.
The main building was heated by two large potbellied stoves and we had to keep the one
―up front‖ burning when we were on shift during the winter. Fuel was coal we retrieved by a
five-gallon bucket from a pile near the back door. To help it along we would add the used
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crankcase oil from the lube rack. When it was really cold, the stove would be red-hot and
still wouldn‘t heat the area. If you stood up to it your front would roast while your back
froze. The scariest part of the building was the basement where new tires were stored. It
smelled so strong from gasoline from the leaking service station tanks I was afraid it might
blow up when I hit the light switch and if you stayed below for more than a few minutes, you
became faint. It was a good idea to have someone wait at the top of the stairs when you went
down to get a tire.
The Mizpah Garage crew gathered around the potbelly stove c1940s.
From left: Lee Henderson (owner), Albert Hooper, unknown,
Scott Mullins holding dog, unknown, John Bradford.
Behind the garage was the area of town we knew as Wino Section. It encompassed three
or four blocks bordered by North Main Street, Corona Avenue and Water Street. Northeast
of Water Street was Midway Gulch.
Wino Section was a conglomeration of one and two room miners‘ cabins, sheds, outhouses,
the Red Plume mine waste dump, the old Tonopah Bottling Works and cribs dating back to
the early days when it was the town‘s original red light district with a few nicer houses
thrown in. The bulk of the inhabitants weren‘t really winos, just burned out miners and other
old guys living on small pensions or poor folks just getting by. It picked up its designation
from the piles of old wine bottles that had accumulated over the years. It seemed every old
outhouse hole or cellar where a house had been torn down was full of them. The majority of
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labels I recall were cheap red wines -- muscatel, port, maybe a sherry here or there. Wines I
think served as a supplemental food source more than anything else.
Midway Gulch was an extension of Corona Avenue and derived its name from the Midway
Mine. It was in close proximity to the district‘s first mines and where most of the town‘s
pioneer residents set up housekeeping. In addition to cabins there were dugouts, small
adobes, tin can houses (houses constructed of five gallon gasoline cans filled with dirt) and
even a few bottle houses (bottles laid in adobe). The district was behind the Fabbi family‘s
Progress Bakery and near Tonopah‘s original jail.
Wino Section and The Gulch had their share of characters: Haywire Kelly, Gladys the
Squaw, George the Wino, Clem Hertel, Back Street Alice, Dirty Shirt George, Homer
―Pinkey‖ McKinley, John Bradford and the Myers brothers, Phil and Lou, are a few who
come to mind. Others were families in our social class including the Sorensens, Skanovskys,
Maslachs and Fabbis. The Campbell and Kelly Foundry is near the northern edge of the area.
The Mizpah Garage where I pumped gas and made minor mechanical
repairs while in high school and during summers while attending
University of Nevada, Reno
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OTHER LOCAL CHARACTERS
As is the case with most small towns, Tonopah and Goldfield had their share of characters.
I have already introduced you to a number of them, and here are a few of the others I was
associated with in one way or another:
There was Buzz Buzzard, one of the old guys who lived at the County Poggy. He was a
miner who had slipped into dementia and began digging for gold beside the hospital. I guess
Doc Joy figured it was a way to keep him occupied so he furnished him with a pick, shovel,
wheelbarrow and a few other tools. His ―mine‖ was near the trail we took to school so we
would stop and visit with him. He worked for months digging around a rock outcrop and
drilling holes for his ―powder.‖ When we would quiz him he would tell us the ore was just
out of sight and it was only a matter of time before he opened up the lode, then he and Lottie
would be rich. I never learned his name or figured out who Lottie was, but like many of old
timers we knew as young boys, one day he was gone. I figure he is probably ―up there‖
someplace still trying to make that illusive ―strike.‖
William Pate lived in a cabin on Florence Avenue near the east edge of town. He was a bit
eccentric but Dad knew him quite well and visited him a on a regular basis. One day Dad
mentioned they had ―railroaded‖ him into the ―nut house‖ in Sparks, probably another victim
of Alzheimers or dementia.
Roger Nicely was a local mining promoter. I don‘t think he did a real day‘s work in his life
but he always had money and knew where someone ―could make a fortune‖ in a mining
proposition. And, he had no shortage of women, mostly gals from the ―line‖ he would hook
up with until they tired of the relationship.
―Idaho‖ Martin had one arm and a glass eye. The glass eye was what made him popular
with us kids. He would remove it and show it to us when asked, then wipe it off on the
sleeve of his shirt and put it back in its socket, something that we found amazing!
Mrs. Sails lived in a small house on Everett Avenue south of Coleman‘s grocery. Dad did
odd jobs for her from time to time and she was always relating how balls of lightning came
down the chimney of the house and out from under the stove lids.
Mr. and Mrs. Masters lived on California Avenue a couple of blocks from our house. We
kept our distance after Grandma told us how Mrs. Masters answered questions with her Ouija
board and made the kitchen table rise from the floor.
―Pee Wee‖ Acre was a small man who had a portable shoeshine stand he would set up on
the sidewalk in front of the Tonopah Club. He was also a jockey who trained horses and rode
for Bob Williams. When we were with Ralph Dahlquist and ran into him on the street, Ralph
would yell, ―Pee Wee peed an acre!‖ which always got a rise out of him, usually in the form
of foul language. Pee Wee died in a fire in his cabin in Wino Section around 1954.
Pete Peterson was the curator of the local ―museum,‖ a collection of artifacts a few locals
put together in the old Antler‘s Bar in the Elks Hall. Phil and I loved to stop by and look at
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the displays and listen to his stories. He had a mine in Stone Cabin Valley east of Tonopah
and in his youth had ridden in Wild West shows.
―Bimbo‖ lived at the garbage dumps. He had a house fabricated from cardboard and other
castoffs and had accumulated a mountain of ―good stuff‖ around his shack. He was an
interesting fellow to visit, but we usually kept our distance in the summer. The flies and
smell at his place were unbearable.
Nellie Benning lived on Central Street near Wolfe‘s and was strange enough when you
consider she kept her husband‘s wood grave marker in her shed, but she didn‘t hold a candle
to her daughter Josie who had earned the nickname ―Crazy Josie.‖ Phil and I got on Josie‘s
bad side when we were young boys and teased Nellie on a couple of occasions. The
ramifications followed us for years.
John Greene was one of the old timers who lived in the ―Gulch‖ and would stop at the
Mizpah Garage and sit by the potbelly stove, summer or winter, on his way home from town
every day. He never said much and Scotty told Phil and me to be careful what we talked to
him about. He had a reputation of having killed more than one man in his day and was a very
private person who didn‘t like to answer questions.
Russell ―Doc Joy‖ practiced out of the county hospital near our house, thus he became our
family doctor by default. He was one of three or four doctors in town. He always had a cigar
in his mouth and liked to gamble. If he wasn‘t at the hospital, he could usually be found at
one of the casinos or at Wardle‘s drug store playing the dollar slots. Austin Wardle used to
joke that Joy kept him in business. But he always had his black bag with him. There were
two hospitals in town at the time, the County Hospital and the Miner‘s Hospital. As the town
went ―downhill‖ Doctor Joy eventually wound up as the only doctor in the area. He knew his
business and had a loyal following. I was ―fortunate‖ enough to have him sew me up one
time, but I sure didn‘t like the looks of the ash hanging on the end of the cigar while he was
working on me.
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ODDS AND ENDS
Odds and Ends -- some of the strange things I remember that just didn‘t fit in anywhere else
and probably don‘t mean much to anyone else anyway.
Highway Sticks
―Highway Sticks‖ were what we called the road markers the Highway Department installed
along the highways. They were 2‖ x 6‖ redwood posts painted white with a black top and
with a glass reflector embedded in each side of the black portion. They were the forerunners
of the plastic markers used along the highways today. We picked the term highway sticks
from Dad and I still use it to refer to the plastic markers. When we were young he told us a
little man lived in each one and turned the light on when a car was approaching. Like the
Wigaboos in Goldfield, we believed him for a while. Phil and I were fascinated by the
reflectors and tried to pry them out of the posts when we had the chance but were never
successful. As time went on, we got hold of old metal signs that used the reflectors and
disassembled them. I liked the red ones from the stop signs best, but they were hard to find.
The green ones in the turn signal arms from early trucks (manually operated from inside
before today‘s electric signals came along) were also rare. We eventually wound up with a
couple of coffee cans full of the clear ones. We drilled holes in the clothesline poles and
fence posts around the house and stuck them in to reflect when people drove by. And, we cut
some of the first ones we came across apart to see how they were made. The lens was
rounded on the front and we figured they would be like marbles, but to our dismay they had
flat backs.
Stubs
―Stubs‖ -- one of the things only I would recall. Before the telephone and electric power
poles were creosoted they tended to rot off at ground level and stubs were used to give the
poles new life. They were sections of pole, probably around eight feet long, buried about
four feet into the ground beside the pole that was beginning to rot. They were then attached
to the original pole with a couple of long bolts or loops of wire and many poles had more
than one. The ground between Alkali and Silver Peak was particularly hard on the poles and
the Nevada California Power Company came up with the idea of using concrete stubs. There
are still places along the old line‘s route where pieces of the stubs are sticking out of the
ground. They were similar to the concrete fence posts used at Scotty‘s Castle in Death
Valley. The Castle‘s posts have two circles on them, one with an ―S‖ and one with a ―J‖
which symbolized Scotty and Johnson. Johnson financed the construction of the castle.
Aerial Poles
―Aerials,‖ as we called them, were a common appendage of many houses in town. There
were always two, one in front of the house and one in back. They were about 20 feet tall and
usually constructed of 2‖ pipe. They were leftovers from the 1910‘s thru 1930‘s when an
antenna of some sort was necessary to receive radio transmissions. The two pipes had a wire
strung between them with lead into the house that was connected to the radio. They became
obsolete after World War II with the advent of radios with built-in radio antennas and
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stronger transmitters at the radio stations. It was a challenge to see who could ―shinny‖ to
the top of the ones that we had access to.
Siphoning Gas
Before we had steady jobs, driving was expensive and in order to supplement what money
we had one of our sources of gasoline were the tanks of other vehicles. It wasn‘t long before
we became proficient with our siphon hoses or ―Oklahoma credit cards‖ as we called them.
Our primary targets were trucks with large tanks that were easy to get the hose into. One of
the first times I recall using a siphon hose was when Bud Saunders needed fuel so we could
ride around in an old Ford sedan he had brought in from Silver Peak. We ―borrowed‖ five
gallons from one of Robert Campbell‘s trucks. When I was learning how the process worked
I probably ―drank‖ more than five gallons before I figured out how to get the hose running
without getting it in my mouth.
Racial Prejudice
As far as I was aware, there wasn‘t any outright prejudice. Most of the population was
―white‖ and had evolved from different European nationalities that settled the area during the
turn-of-the-century mining booms. The biggest ―white‖ minority were Serbians, or
―Bohunks.‖ There were the Banovichs, Bekos, Maslachs, Barsantis, and Boscovichs to name
a few. There were also a large number of folks of Scandinavian decent. Next were the
Mexicans followed by the American Indians, blacks, and Orientals.
We called the Serbian kids we associated with Bohunks without thinking about it and they
accepted it as their heritage. One of our best friends, Joe Maslach, was a Bohunk. Mexican
kids our age were Dennis Florez and Lupe Gonzalez, who were in my class, and Junior
Herrera and Robert Limon who were in Philip‘s grade. Junior picked up the nickname
Beannie somewhere along the line that I imagine would be considered racial today. We
would call Robert Mexican from time to time, but it didn‘t seem to bother him. If it would
have, he would have punched you out, he didn‘t take crap from anyone. Robert and Lupe are
friends I still run into from time to time, although I don‘t know what became of Dennis or
Junior.
There were a number of Blacks. There was Charlie Stewart who had the cigar store; Robert
and Essie May Campbell and John Rucker at the junkyard; Mrs. Porter, the musician and
piano teacher along with a couple of others. Some folks referred to Bob Campbell as Nigger
Bob and the junkyard Nigger Bob‘s Place but I doubt anyone called him that to his face. I
never heard Charlie Stewart, Essie Mae, or Mrs. Porter referred to as being black; I guess
because they had been in town for so many years no one paid any attention.
There were quite a few American Indian families. Most were Western Shoshone and a few
of our best friends were Indian.
The Chinese ran the local Chinese restaurant and Glen Jones, the local Jeweler was Jewish.
And that‘s the way I saw it.
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POSTSCRIPT
After reading this one might get the idea my life was one adventure after another. This was
true in some respects, but it had its drawbacks as well. One was my shyness that kept me
from becoming as socially involved as a lot of the kids my age. It left me on the fringe when
it came to organizations and gatherings, but then again, a lot of the things that were going on
just didn‘t interest me. And, in some respects, I grew up in an environment that exposed me
to more of the ―adult‖ facets of life than I should have been exposed to, but all in all, there is
no doubt the good outweighed the bad. It was a simpler time when we made most of our fun
and learned lessons from the experiences that would follow us through life. Mom and Dad
had their struggles but I truly believe Phil, Allen and I had the best parents three
rambunctious boys could ask for.
As my wife Judy once said, ―You were lucky, the town was your playground.‖ How true!
And I have to add the desert and mountains.
Oh, one more thing. I did the sketches scattered through the narrative in the late 1950‘s and
early 1960‘s. Looks like I finally found a good use for a few of them.
Special thanks to my wife Judy for putting up with me through this whole thing and my
brother Philip for his help. And, if it wasn‘t for the Lifescapes classes at OLLI
and Margo Daniels‘ editorial assistance, I probably never would
have gotten it done – thank you OLLI and thank you Margo!
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