BINGHAM MEMORIES 1928-1948

EUGENE'S MEMORIES from 1928 to 1948         

Frog Town

I was born in Telegraph but my memories begin in Frog Town.  I was about five years old when we moved.  I do remember Frog Town and life after that.  We lived in company town, in a company house, and required to buy from a company store with high prices and poor quality.  Dad worked seven days a week, ten hours a day.  When he became too sick to do this anymore he was fired.  Then one day a company truck came and loaded up our possessions and simply moved us away. 

PANOS APARTMENT

Remember the song, “I owe my soul to the company store” well that was us.  This was also during the “Great Depression” when everybody was suffering.  Somehow or other we able to live in the Panos Apartments is still unknown and being able to buy food from the Apostle store without a dime to our name.  Hogan Dairy provided us with milk.  Seems like we owed everybody.  It took years to pay back our many bills but we did.

Dad suffered with Silicosis and was fired because of his illness.  Dad was either in the hospital or in bed.  His lungs was coated with silicon dust from the underground mines.  Dad was sick and didn’t do much work for about two years but at times he poured gas for Adderley Nichols Garage just up the street. 

DAD, GENE, LEE Frog town

Mother tried not to charge any more food at the store than she had to, just the staples like flour and things.  With this she made delicious crusty bread and we had bread and milk till it came out of our ears, but we loved it. 

PANOS and TURNER KIDS

There was no money for coal so we gathered wood.  I still remember dragging parts of old buildings, railroad ties, trees off the mountain and other wood to the back yard, putting them on a sawhorse and sawing them up for firewood.  I was six and Lee was four when we were doing this.

When we weren’t working we seemed to be in trouble.   One day Lee and I were playing like we were Indians.  So, we were roasting and eating grasshoppers in the backyard, everything was fine until our fire caught the mountain on fire.  It was lucky for us that it did burn its self and no one was the wiser. 

 We lived in the top apartment the front entrance was a climb up a narrow stairs to the living room.  The back was built against the mountain so our kitchen was a level walk to the mountain.  A trail down the canyon took us to the Yampa Smelter.  I remember its giant smoke stack and all kinds of walls and holes to climb up and around

Lee and I had made lots of friends and learned many more mischievous ways to entertain ourselves.  Back then an inter-tube was made of real rubber made from a rubber tree.  It was red and it stretched and to us was quite valuable to us for making flippers and rubber guns.  The Grove boys loved to shoot at me with their rubber guns so I gave them a merry run.  They had the rubber bands tied in knots and it did hurt.  After the chase I would return and began looking for the bullets they lost and now I had a rubber gun too and the means to make a flipper crutch.

Mormon Church  top

I’m not sure what I was looking for when I began making my rounds and peeking in every church in town.  Then one day I looked through the door of the Mormon Church.  I could see a little old lady watching me so I ran away.   She caught me the next time I came.  She was quite a lady and I liked her so I went with her.  a couple of years later I was baptized here. 

Frog Town had three beautiful canyons, Freeman, Markham and Dry Fork but hardly anyone even knew they were there because they were above and hidden by the B&G Railroad.   All had clear water streams running through a   Pine and Quaken Aspen forest.  But it was a hard climb over a very steep trail to get there.  All except Dry Fork had a pond where the stream ran into the dump. 

our mountain

As a six year old I remember walking a trail that led down Dry Fork about three miles away.  The trail was made by a buried pipe that brought water from a spring in Dry Fork to Frog Town.  Dry Fork was a lovely canyon with nice shady trees and a lot of things to see and do and the water was good.  But we always had a lot of rattlesnakes to contend with. 

On the way home we had a garbage dump to look through.  It seems like we always found something to drag home.  Below the dump was the English Dairy with lots of cows and pigs.  They sold milk and pigs to the miners in Bingham.  It seemed like the pigs ere always feeding on the garbage.

Coming home we had to cross the road to the creek and walk its banks all the way.  We called it a creek but it was really the town’s sewer.  It also was full of copper, arsenic and other metals.  Anyway this was the trail home.  The sand was white and looked clean.  I guess the arsenic and copper in the water bleached the sand a pure white.  It was still a sewer but copper-water made it a place to play.  When we dunked iron nail in the water and in a minute or two and you had a copper nail.

Frog Town  old

Never the less a lot of the toilets were built over the creek.  In the winter Bingham who had a seven mile canyon pushed snow into the sewer to float it away. 

The Turner boys wrote a story about how his father, Lance and George Panos got quite wealthy by diverting the sewer into a garage full of tin cans and selling the copper.  George was the garbage man and saved all the cans.  Max said, while everybody was starving during the “Great Depression” we were buying a fancy car.

The mountain on the other side of the road was easy to get to.  We crossed the road and railroad tracks and up we went.   The mountain was covered with oak brush with all kinds of flowers growing under them.  Mother loved flowers and it made her happy when we brought her some “Pinkies”. 

There were two large rocks to explore.  Under one rock was an entrance to a mine and it was dark and spooky.  I was scared of the cave and I had nightmares of a lion just waiting to eat me.  

Frog Town ith depot and Yampa

I remember the old Ice House across the road, and the tennis courts and the coal yards above.  We didn't have refrigerators in those days.  So trains bought in tons of ice and stored in the ice house to use in the summer months.  The ice was covered with saw dust and it lasted all summer.  There were very few refrigerators back then and the iceman delivered ice to your door.  We got our first refrigerator and it was quite a blessing. 

HOLMS MANOR HOUSE

Mother liked it here and had many friends.  She smiled a lot and visited, and shared coffee, and played cards.  A refrigerator and hot water made life easier.  She loved to talk about her family and Finland and Russia.  She told of this large house her sister and mother lived in.  About the pine covered hills with a windmill on top.  The white Birch trees and lakes everywhere.  And what would happen to her father if he came back to Finland.  The Russians would have him or kill him. 

Well the “Manor House” and everything else is still there.  Three wars later even the Russians are gone. 

Mother always had time for us then.  I can still see her with her cup of coffee and a smile. 

Saint Olaf hated the Finns.  He said they shot arrows all day long at him but at night their “Wizards” would sink his ships.  There was a Finish wizard hiding under every bush.  Well grandpa could predict the future from the shapes the melted solder made when it hit the water.  She believed in magic and I do too.  She had some “Tarot” cards that predicted a death, he died.  It scared her so her she burned them. 

HOLMS FARM in FINLAND

I was too young to realize what mother and dad had to do during these hard times he did find work at the Adderley Nichols Garage pouring gas.  He suffered from bouts of pneumonia, his resistance was low he left home when Lee and I got the chicken pox or measles.  Everything had gone wrong for Dad, no work, no money and now another new baby, Paul. 

We lived just below the depot and we were always there to watch the trains come to town.  They were all “steam engines” back then and they made quite a racket.  They huffed and puffed and whistled.  We always had a nail or something to put on the tracks for them to flatten.  

We were extremely poor but I didn’t know it.  For a few years we did not have the money to buy it.  Someone from Provo would send carp and suckers to the mining camps to feed the poor.  Hunters would bring home jack rabbits.  And I would go looking for them.  They didn’t look very appetizing but we ate anything we found.  The suckers were better than the carp but after mother cooked them they never fishy and she did wonders with the rabbits. 

 With people living so close together there were many diseases when the flu, chicken pox, measles, mumps or any disease came along, a “quarantine sign” was placed on your house and no one was allowed to leave or enter.  I remember Dad coming to the back window to talk to mother.  I don’t know where he lived. 

Freeman Gulch Frog Town

 I can’t remember of having toys to play with here but we played games, mostly with older kids.  My favorite game was Can the Can which was just a poor boys cricket game.  Its funny no one plays it today.  Then there was our rubber guns.  Before World War II tire tubes were made from pure rubber not like the junk today something like our live rubber today.  We would cut the tubes in strips to shoot in our rubber guns.  Knots were tied in them, the bigger the knot and the tighter they were stretched the more they would hurt.  You would just squeeze clothespin and shoot friend or foe.

Buck Rodger was flying to other worlds.  He was on the radio, in the papers and comic books.  If had a nickel I would run to Chris’s Grocery store and buy me a space rocket.  It was a kit to build Buck’s space ship and it had a motor in it. 

Markham

Lee and I had made lots of friends and learned many more mischievous ways to entertain ourselves.  Back then an inter-tube was made of real rubber made from a

Rubber tree.  It was red and it stretched and to us was quite valuable to us for making flippers and rubber guns.  The Grove boys loved to shoot at me with their rubber guns so I gave them a merry run.  They had the rubber bands tied in knots and it did hurt.  They had a never ending supply of bands and never looked for the ones they shot so I would return and began looking for them and now I had bullets for my gun and even made a rock flipper. 

It was New Year’s Day 1936 and we were out of school.  Now we were sledding down an alley near us down into Main Street.  We were told the coast was clear so down Lee and I went and that is all I remember.

Dr. Richards on Galena Days

Days later I woke up in the Bingham Hospital.  I was covered with sandbags so I could not move at all.  There was wires stretching my leg and another pulling me another way.  There I lay for a week or a month, I don’t know.  My leg was broken and dislocated at the hip and my pelvis was damaged.  I was a mess.  Mother refused to let them amputate and I did recover.  Because of nerve damage I had no feeling in the leg.  Four or five months later I began using crutches my right leg dangling uselessly below me.  I tried to use it many times but when I touched it to the floor it felt like I had plugged it into a light socket.  Every day for a whole a year I would try touching the floor with my foot to see if I could do it.  One day the pain went away and now I had to learn how to walk again.  I learned to use two crutches and later one, I could run almost as fast as Lee on one crutch but I did crash and burn.  I would get angry at times and throw the crutch away and then crawl after it.  I later learned to walk again by myself, but it was slow.  I was held back in the first grade and almost again because I didn't go to school much the following year either.  It's hard watching your friends go on without you.  I missed an awfully lot of school, I know I struggled for a few years but in time things got better.

Dr. Richards Party

 My mother thought Dr. Richards was a God.  He was my hero too.  He was famous and he was the best in the country.  Because of the many back injuries he was treating doctors from all over the world came to learn his techniques.   He proved that what was thought were permanent disabling injuries could be cured.  He gained fame for his radium treatment for cancer.  His hospital was the best anywhere.  He was active in the Boy Scouts.  He would bring a truckload of water melons and hamburgers to camp each year to Tracy Wigwam.

TELEGRAPH

highest house in TELEGRAPH

Well, the accident was terrible but it got dad a chance to work again. The father of Fred Hoyne was also the superintendent of the US Mine and he was afraid of a lawsuit over the accident so Dad was given the job of running this huge giant air compressor in Copperfield.  Dad got Wride’s his job and his house.

 The house sat in the intersection of Bear and Galena Gulch.  The very top house in Telegraph and it was built on a small yellow mine dump.  The house was ugly and mostly grey and it needed a paint job badly that it never got.  But it was surrounded by pine trees, a Quaken Aspen or two, oak brush and choke cherry trees.  Beautiful in the summer but we had a lot of snow at 7500 feet elevation.  Sometimes we went out a window when the only door was covered and even part of the roof. 

  Dad was actually too sick to work but he had too.  He had a hard time walking home from work.  It took him a long time and he was completely exhausted when he got home.  This probably what cured Dads Silicosis?  I remember him as being mean and angry to me.  I was also recovering from a broken hip and pelvis and was on crutches.  Lee said I was meaner than the devil too.  Lee had health problems too and I remember he was angry too.  Poor Mother.

OLD TELEGRAPH MINE below our house

It didn’t take long before most of us got to love this little old house in Telegraph.  We had no water in the house.  So, there was no bathroom or kitchen sink.  Two bedrooms, a kitchen and a front room a light with a pull-chain hung from the center of each room, no plug-in outlets.  There was no refrigerator so cold stuff was kept in a mine.  The entrance was door in the kitchen pantry. 

Our house set higher than our water-tank so we had no water in the house.  In the summer it gravity fed water to a shed just below our house.  But in the winter I had to carry it a long way.  Two buckets at a time on a yoke.  The water came from a spring and it was best and coldest water in the whole canyon. 

We had floods that came from snow melt and rains.  They were scary and fascinating.  At times wild animals would come wandering through.  Spring brought the flowers and birds.  Mother always had something for the little redheaded that came birds came to the kitchen window to be fed.  Winter came early with cold and snow.  Lots of snow with no place to throw it.  When the tap in the shed froze I had to carry the water home.  A yoke over my shoulders allowed me to carry two buckets at a time.  Our water came from a spring, to a tank that was piped to a tunnel.  It was so good that people came from miles around, it was famous. 

dad's flower garden in TELEGRAPH

Springtime usually meant floods.   One such flood left mud 4 inches under the window the whole length of the house.   We left it that way and grass eventually grew there.  Mother sat with her hand full of bread waiting for her red-headed birds and maybe a squirrel or chipmunk. 

Back then mother cooked all these wonderful Swedish dinners.  I have tried many times to cook the fish and sweet-soups that she made, but nothing turns out the way it should. 

Codfish came in wooden boxes salted and dried and hard as a rock.  Lutefisk fish had to be soaked in lye water, fresh water, and lye water and back to fresh again, how many times I don’t know.  She cooked the fish many different ways.  She loved to cook wild game and it was good.  I remember watching her cook some cod fish in a frying pan.  I can still see the milk and the fish.  it was my favorite.

 If Lee or I killed a porcupine, rock chuck, squirrel or a bird we would cook it out on the mountain.  Butterfield Canyon creek had fish so we picked up a rocks or a club and ate them with the potato we always carried in our pocket.

GENE    LEE

Mother loved the mountains and in order to keep us from waking up dad when we came home from school we would go for a walk.  So, almost every day we would walk up towards the Queen Mine.  These were the fondest memories of my childhood.  I was truly blessed to have a mother like that.  The walk was steep for about one half mile and then it would level off at an old cement damn used for mining of gold.  The canyon was all a part of Bear Gulch, and it was beautiful.  We would then cross the damn and enter the most beautiful grove of maple trees in the whole world.  The trees were large from an old forest, a little undergrowth maybe but the ground was covered with mostly grass and wild flowers, columbines, pinkies and daisies.  I can still see Mother sitting there, happy and not a care in the world.  It was good to see her that way because she did have a hard life.  I get a tear in my eye even today thinking of her.  She was the sweetest and the most caring mother a person could have. 

Grandma's farm

I wanted to stay and explore this new home but I was sent away to Mapleton to live with grandma on her farm.  I was lonely but it was fun feeding and caring for the animals.  There was all kinds of things to do on a farm and everything was new and fascinating.  Like it or not I healed and grew strong.  Uncle Joe had cut this field of wheat with a hand scythe with cradle, a day's work on the scythe was real hard work.  I could barely lift this huge contraption but I did cut a little.  I then bound and tied the stock with a few strand of wheat, and later stacked grain side up to dry.  These standing stocks would be loaded on a horse drawn wagon and taken to the thrasher.  I could hardly wait for the thrasher and neighbors to come.  The thrasher would soon begin to growl and grown and dust would fly.  In time a large straw stack would form on one side and grains of golden wheat was being loaded in the bed of another wagon to be taken to the granary.  I loved to run my hands through the grain and chew on these grains.  Hay for the cow was planted and cut at least twice while I was there.  I remember the hen and chicks scrambling to get away from the cutter.  After drying it would be raked and loaded on a wagon.  Huge forks would pick it up and carry it into the barn.  

Haying time at Grandmas

I loved to watch Uncle Joe milk.  He was good with a flick of his wrist would give each cat a squirt of milk right in the mouth.  I tried but never hit close to the cat.  I fed the pigs and chickens, turned the crank to separate the cream from the milk, and then make butter out of cream.  Grandma made money selling her butter.  One lady drove all the way from Salt Lake City to buy some.  Oh, how I loved the buttermilk.  We had meat, vegetables and fruit with every meal.  But no one to play with or talk with.

West of the farm was a ravine with a pond and a creek with, ducks, birds and snakes.  We called it the “Hollow”.  I loved it there.

One day we all went for a picnic up Hobble Creek where I met our double cousins.  We had two Halversons that married two Petersons.  I was bored and restless and went off by myself looking in the creek.  She said don’t look at him, catch him.  It was my Aunt Mary Halvorsen Peterson and she showed me how to fish.  I found a pole, she found a hook and string and off we went.  What a wonderful day with a wonderful lady.   

I had no idea why I was sent down to grandmas.  I thought no one loved me.  And where did these babies come from?  First there was Paul, then Vivian. 

They came and brought me home just before school was about to start.  I had missed so much school last year they decided to put in the first grade again.  School was a about a mile down the canyon and the way was steep.

COPPERFIELD

In the old days our town was called Upper Bingham but we called it Copperfield.  It was the only business district above the Mine.  Several stores, saloons, eating places and a school.  I believe the name Copperfield School was named before the town.  The mine in 1939 cut us off from the rest of Bingham.  Each ethnic group or nationality had its own part of town that they lived in.  Copperfield consisted of many little parts.  We had our Jap Camp, Greek Camp, Dinkyville, Upper and Lower Copperfield, Terrace Heights, Telegraph and US (Galena). 

Copperfield

Copperfield School was something else.  You had to learn to fight to survive.  My first day at school I had a fight.  I had many fights at least one a week maybe more, mostly after school but I did get in trouble a few times for fighting during school time. I still remember the scolding I and a few others got one day from “Old man Wooten” when the principal called him up to stop the fighting.  I did try to avoid these fights because I didn't know how. 
 I learned the hard way, school of hard knocks.  I usually fought Max Salazar, he was the one to beat, and he was the leader of the Jap Camp and Copperfield gang.  Later it was Carl Espinoza, he was no problem until to our surprise he was being trained by a professional to be a boxer, I got lumps all over my head the last time we fought, and he was a good one to avoid after that.  Carl was the leader of the Dinkyville Gang.  Marion Carter was the leader of the Terrace Height’s and Dinkyville gang.  Telegraph and Carl’s part of the Dinkyville gang would always join together to fight the Copperfield gang.  Each part of town had its own gang.  We formed gangs for protection but our fights were fair. The boys had to be the same size or there was no fight.  Mostly we just walked around acting tough and if there was a fight it was the leaders who fought.  We didn’t use clubs and guns in those days.  I never had a fight in High School but I did get knocked out in the Library once.  I didn’t know what happened until I woke up.  Someone was always putting a chip on his shoulder and daring someone to knock it off. 

Copperfield to Telegraph

I was always one of the smaller boys in my classes at school and to make matters even worse I had to live with a bad limp because of an injured hip.  I was required to carry all the water and saw all the wood that mother needed for the house.  In time this hard work made me a great deal stronger than anyone in my class.  I had to win my fights by endurance.  They seemed to dance around me and punch me at will.  I took my lumps but eventually they would tire and I would get my turn.  In time I learned to box and even enjoyed it.  I never cried, my mother said, "Don't let them see you cry that's what they want you to do.  Be strong and things will always get better, just wait".  This was Sisu that she taught me in her own way.  I could endure pain, fatigue and go long periods without food or water.  What has to be endured can be endured.

4th JULY Copperfield

Walking from Bingham to Upper Bingham was quite an experience and dangerous.  You were walking through the main part of the mine right next to the trains, trucks, giant shovels.  If you heard a whistle you had to run to a shelter.  They were springing and blasting and rocks were falling everywhere.  Rocks were also falling from the bridges you had to walk under.  A few years later they built a mile and a quarter tunnel to walk through. 

It seems like the new boy in town gets tested.  I had many fights.  It seems like I always had a bloody nose or a lump on my head until I got the hang of it.  I even got to like fighting.  Max was taller and had a longer reach so I learned to take my lumps until I wore him out.  Then I took him down and got even.  Then he would take me home and his mother would feed us.  He was a lifelong friend.  He would go on to be quite famous.

In the fourth grade I got real good in arithmetic and multiplication.  The fifth grade was with Miss Holbrook and school began to be interesting and my report card showed it. 

Beverly Barrett was “Taffy Ann” and I really do not know who or what I was.  I was happily singing away when the teacher said, “Stop” and everyone looked at me, Halverson just move your lips, “do not sing”.  I cannot carry a tune to this day.

Jap Camp  US Mine

Then we did “The Copperfield Wood-Burned Mural” and it was one of the most ambitious projects in all the 350 school-works by Utah school children in the all-Utah school arts exhibit at the Utah Arts Center in the Utah State Arts Center in Salt Lake City.  It is a ten foot by four and a half foot wood-burned mural done as a community project by the children of the fifth grade of Upper Bingham School.  Committees of the fifth grade were chosen to visit various buildings in Upper Bingham, Included in the mural was the First Utah Copper Mine Office behind it was the Mine itself with its levels and operations.  The center piece was the large figure of a miner, the mural accurately shows stores, boarding houses, schools, mine buildings and other familiar scene to Bingham residents.  The children of the Upper Bingham School have developed the mural until it is representative of life of life in this community.  We had a tall Japanese was our main artist.  He was very talented and he drew the center piece, a miner with a pick and a shovel.  Our mural look so real.  Isabell Rose drew and burnt the Copperfield side of the tunnel. Our school was in the lower right-hand corner.  I remember sitting on the floor burning and shading it. 

Foxes switch and copperfield school

The companies divided Copperfield by national and racial housing.  Whites lived on Main Street in brick houses, Mexicans in Dinkeyville, Greek Camp for single men and Jap Camp.  I loved to go with Jackie Myaki to bathe in their large hot tubs.  And before the war they had a school to teach the kids how to draw and write the Japanese language.  This extra help made them very good students in our school.  It was a shame to see them close these schools after the war.  But even before if any child spoke any language other than English they were punished.  The many nationalities, cultures, customs, dances, and food made Bingham what it was.  I loved everything about what we had.  I am afraid it is lost and gone forever. 

Karl John

I could not go to school for a whole year.  So, day after day, summer and winter, here I sat like a bird, with a bird’s eye view from our house sat unable to hardly walk even with crutches.  I began watching Karl John coming and going.  He was doing some strange things.  I could tell he was not fond of being watched even by an eight year old kid.  I told him I knew he was hiding something and now I knew what.  Who knows anything besides you, who have you told, what about your parents?  Then the two of us sat down to talk.  He didn’t tell me how he found this body of ore (silver and lead, whatever) but I believe he went down to bedrock for gold and found it by accident.  He asked me to keep quite or he would be sent away.  So, I promised.    He worked with a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow.  He mixed waste dirt with his ore to fool the US Mine who he was leasing from.  If they even had an idea how rich a claim he had they would have shut him down.  One day he retired and went to Salt Lake to live.

At the bottom of a wash below the apartments was a flat sandy place for games.  Buck Leyba would bring up a bunch of kids from Dinkeyville and we would play either football or baseball depending on what kind of ball we had.  Below this was the cocoa dirt we played in.  The dirt was the remains left from an old stamp mill and concentrator.

One day a dump truck stopped on the road and dumped about seven powder boxes of glass negatives that had been stored in a warehouse somewhere. They would have been worth thousands of dollars today.  I saved about a dozen years until dad put them in the garbage dump along with my collection of carbide lamps and brass candle holders.

Telegraph Kids

We lived in a dangerous world.  There were working mines and abandoned mines right amongst the houses.  Two men went in a tunnel in Dinkeyville and died of poison air.  It was a quick way through the mountain to Yosemite.  I went through it but never with a flashlight.  There were mine shafts, holes where the surface caved into a mine.  I lost a dog and the Ivies lost a horse.  Two boys were found dead in a ventilation shaft. 

Then dynamite and carbide could be found in many tunnels.  I knew a few boys who lost a finger or two playing with dynamite caps.  Primer cord explodes just like the caps.  Bombs were made from carbide.  Some even set off dynamite. 

winter in Telegraph

There wasn’t much for a crippled boy to do and I was bored.  Mother noticed this and gave me a balsa wood airplane kit.  The more I made the better I got.  The first were proper driven, then I went into gliders.  Then in wings.  Now I needed to make a big one.  I soon found myself in a place I should not be and took an armful of ¼” by 1 ½’ by 14 foot fir strips from US Carpenter shop.  It took a while to build and a while before I tried to fly it.    Kids came in from Dinkeyville and Copperfield to watch me fly it.  A half hour later we were up on the Giant Chief Dump and tying a 25 pound bearing cap to the nose.  Everything was perfect, a good rising wind coming up the dump and all I had to do is find the right balance and send it away.  On the third attempt I was lifted off the ground and flying away.  They told me I was still running even when my feet was ten feet off the ground.  I was in trouble and knew it.  If I dropped off now I would be dead, but when I got to the end of the dump I was twenty feet in the air and going faster every second.  Well I dropped off before the hundred foot death drop.  I ended up with all kinds of cuts and bruises and bleeding in many places.  All the time trying to see my giant wing.  I was looking down the canyon when it went straight up higher than the dump and then see-sawed its way down into Marsell Chea’s garage.  The bearing cap busted its way into the top of the garage leaving the poor wing for us to take away.  He never asked anyone about the hole we knocked in his garage or the bearing cap inside so we came out of hiding.  He must have known but took it with a smile.  We never even told mother what we were up too.

Our Mountain

I got a brand new 22 rifle for Christmas, a pocket knife, a potato and a few matches and Tippy a Rat Terrier grandpa gave me.  He was quite a hunter and furnished me with many meals.  I ate squirrels, porcupines and birds with my potato.  A time or two I didn’t even come home at night.  When some mother was looking for a child they’d call and told them if they were with Lee they’d be alright.  These were the best years of my life. 

We even cooked grasshoppers.  If an Indian ate it we could too.  You ever tried stinging nettle?  Boil it a couple of times and it was tasty. 

Snow was melting and the water was running and I was there panning for gold.  I followed Alvin Cole to a flat above my house.  I was not the best but I did find gold. 

High mountain tops

Our house at the head of Bear and Galena Gulch was the starting place for most all trails into the mountains.  From these mountains I could see Salt Lake, Tooele and Lehi.  What a place and time to live. 

The Black Rock Trail

We had the coldest, sweetest water in the water tunnel next to Bodmer’s house?  The Black Rock Trail started right there.  There were “Skinks” there they were half snake and half lizard.  Long and skinny as a pencil.  Dark brown with tan corners and bright blue tail.  These were not the common blue belly lizards. 

From there we walked over the mountain to “Hawk Rock”. In late summer we would find these crazy star shaped “Puff balls” that exploded when you stomped on them, this would send these brownish/purplish powder spores all over your ankles.  They are actually a very poisonous mushroom the 6/8 stars are the hard outer cover of the ball that flattens leaving a tannish ball holding the spores.  I now know them as the Earth Star Puff Ball or the Devil’s snuff Box.

Harvey Halverson,  Marcel Chea

The last stop on this trail was down to “Eagle Rock” sitting above the old Bishop Mine in Yosemite Gulch, we could see Lark and all of Salt Lake Valley from here.  The mine head frame and building were still in use, it pulled cars up from the shaft going deep down in the mountain.  We had a choice of walking back over the mountain or a tunnel Dinkeyville?  The tunnel was about a mile long with shaft that was very dangerous to tip toe past.  It ended near Carter’s old house near an old trail to Telegraph, this used to be the “Old Holden mule railroad”.

Scout Camp in Butterfield

The Bear Gulch/Queen/Butterfield Trail was left just behind my house on the road to Queen at the top of Telegraph, after a steep climb the road levels out where a cement dam was used to save the creek water for “gold mining”.  Every time I panned out a nice piece of gold, Alvin Cole would say, “That’s a good boy, here put it in my bottle”.  Across creek was the most beautiful grove of ancient old Maple trees and the only lawn I ever knew?  It was a camping and picnicking that I used many times.  A half mile latter you past the “Big Tree”.  I remember the spring there before the arsenic got in it?  This was an old Indian Camp where I found many arrowheads and flint knives here.  Can anyone remember Jack Ass Gulch with all the old Quaken Aspen trees, this was the right fork?  The center road went to a couple of mines still being worked, I remember it as Bear Gulch.  By staying on the main road about a mile or two farther took you over the mountain to the town of Queen. I remember when Queen housed at least several families and a boarding house for the single men.  Travelling below the big Queen Mine Dump to the first turn you would leave the road and make short climb to the mines water line that went from Butterfield to Queen.  Then traversed the tops of Butterfield Canyon until we got to the Boy Scout Camp.  I remember the building with its big fireplace where Lee and I spent a snowy night with one blanket.  There were four of us to start with but the others left sometime in the dark.

a Skink at Black Rock

This was a wide area at the junction of three canyons.  Each canyon had a creek and many springs.  It was also the site of an old Indian Camp.  I found quite of an assortment of arrow heads.  When I was young the creek was planted with fish, when we were hungry we would catch them with rocks or clubs and roast them on a stick.  In the spring we would look for Indian Potatoes, a small eatable bulbs.  They were first green plants to show up as the snow melted. 

The Bear Gulch Middle Canyon Trail

Starting at the back of my house in Telegraph you would walk to the Queen Ridge leaving the road for a trail that headed up toward Sun Shine Peak, to the left you could look at Queen far below.  At the right was Doctor Frazier’s ski run and ski jump.  I skied it and remember it well.  Going up put you high above the “Silver Shield Mine and the US Road.  A little higher and above Silver Shield was the stumps trees of an ancient forest called “The Big Grove.  It was clear cut to build the Mormon Tabernacle.  Did anyone besides me ever go over and lay on the huge 5/6 foot diameter stumps.  A half a mile father up the trail leveled off a mile or so above Butterfield, passing through two large groves of Quaking Aspen.  I remember this part of the trail because of the many Horny Toads found there.  You see the Butterfield-Middle Canyon Pass a half mile below where you would go over the pass to another to a spring above the Highland Boy water tunnel and on down to the tunnel.  At times there would be kids my age who had arrived here from Highland Boy.  These were my first friend I knew from Highland Boy.

  

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The US/Galena/Bingham Gulch Road   The first half mile above my house was quite steep until you reached and crossed this huge air pipe 10 inches in diameter, coming from Copperfield to the US Mine.  Did any of you try to slide down it too?  Once was enough for me too. The road was mostly level for the next two miles to the US Town and Mine.  The Utah Copper Dump on the right went straight to the US.  The Silver Shield Mine had a dry-house for their workers too shower but the water was full of arsenic and tasted bitter but it was hot and Lee loved it.  

I remembers when US was full of houses and people, I had many friends there?  Lorraine, Blackie Clinton’s daughter said, “In the winter time when the roads were closed, they went down a mine shaft through a tunnel to the Copperfield school. 

Above the US Mine there was a railroad car that was built to kill the strikers.  It was a self-propelled round metal gun turret with six holes manned by six men.  As it rolled along on this circular railroad it rotated giving each man a shot.  When the people moved away we tore the roof off the town’s water tank and swam in it.  It was so icy cold and deep but it was clean. I remember when our 5th grade class hiked above the US and then over the mountain and looked into Highland Boy.  There we went into a dark old mine until it was too dark to see.  It was spooky enough before we heard the bear.  But it was just our principal growling and playing games with our minds,. 

The “Water Falls Trail Freeman Gulch   As a kid I hiked all over the hills in Bingham.  My buddies at that time included Art Bentley, Teddy Allen and Floyd Timothy.  We had a favorite place we called “waterfalls”; it was a real pretty spot with a nice stream and a pond.  We made rafts and poled around the pond.  The water was so cold we didn’t swim unless we fell off the raft.  The water falls and pond was in Freeman Canyon just over the B&G railroad.

The Markham’s Trail  Markham Gulch was a very long canyon heading straight toward Markham Peak.  It produced a lot of springs that gathered together to make a very large stream even in the late summer.  It was a wonderful canyon.  It was full of Maple trees. Quaken Aspen. Pine trees, Oak and Mahogany trees.  The higher you went the more primitive it became.  This creek here in this canyon was as large as the Butterfield Canyon creek that had fish in it.  It was another clear water pond made by the waste dump damn. 

Copperfield School

Winter Time   We played in the snow did a lot of sledding.  We could ride over a mile or so with no problems.  We were at the end of the road and the cars were mostly parked and snowed in.  But one day I noticed ski tracks and we were too poor to buy me some.  So I went behind a Copperfield store broke up a big barrel and made a pair of skis.  I followed the ski tracks to the top of Bear Gulch and found a much used ski run and jump.  I didn’t have much trouble with the run but I fell down on every jump. 

I was skiing on Doctor Frazer’s run and jump.  He was getting ready to go to the Anarchic with Admiral Byrd.

The snow was melting here and the Lark side of the mountain had lots of snow.  Now I had to get my brother to come with me.  After a short walk over a saddle off we went.  We skied a mile or so almost to the bottom when Lee stopped and kicked off his skis.  Down he went almost out of sight and he couldn’t move.  The snow was too soft and he needed help.  Well I got him out and found a ridge to go home on.  It was cold and Lee was tired and almost frozen.  I was breaking trail and never noticed Lee was no longer there.  He wanted to go to sleep and it was a battle to get him moving.  I got him home but I lost a skiing partner.

Changing Schools   Our principal Mr. Atwood left us to manage a California school.  I still have his post card with a one cent stamp on it.  Mr. Nelson was now our teacher and principal and we did many things.  We had a long “May Day” from school, through Telegraph, on up over the top of US to look over the mountain.  We were well over 10,000 feet and could see both sides of the mountain. 

One field trip we went to the University of Utah to see experiments with electricity, vacuums and other interesting things.  

Upper Copperfield

Another field trip was to the Magna Mills to learn how they made ore in to copper.  Well we did learn a lot but managed to get in trouble.  As we were passing by some machines in the shop there was a box full of silver bars, I asked the man are those silver?  Yep, put a couple in your pocket, and we each took one.  They were too big and shiny to hide and all the men were laughing.  When we went to get on the bus, the teachers spotted us and we had to give them back.  The foreman even laughed at us.  He told us that they were Babbitt bars not silver. 

We got our first radio and at first we would sit down and listen to some funny stories; I Love a Mystery, Tarzan, Fiber Magee and Moly, Kingfish etc.  Then the Second World War began.  War in Europe, war in China and then Finland was fighting Russia.  We still had family in Finland and we were quite concerned.  Now we were tuned into the wars.  China was in a losing war.  Germany had taken most of Europe and was losing in Russia. Finland had stopped Russia at its border.  But it was on the other side of the world. 

The war got closer when Bob Burke was killed when his ship was sunk by a German submarine.

Then in 1941 war came to us and we were angry.  Bingham boys began enlisting, even in my class Max Salazar was 13 when he enlisted, 14 when his ship was sunk and wounded, then he received a presidential citation for rescuing his commanding officer, who was trapped in burning oil.  Honorably discharged at 15, rejoined and was sunk again, lost for weeks on an island, and discharged again. 

Jap Camp

Graduation classes for the next few years several years had very few boys left. 

War took so many men into the service boys and girls were hired. 

I hired out in 1944.  Worked on the track-gang.  At times the gangs were all young boys.  I first worked on Bicycle Gus’s gang.  He was a little old man with short legs.  He peddled down the ties so fast he was hard to keep up with.  He was Greek from the old country and I liked him very much.  He had quite an accent and we all tried to mimic his speech.  We learned how to cut rails with chisel and hammer.  Drill holes in rails.  We were the only gang at the mine who could do this.  I learned a lot from him. 

Then I was a Dump man.  Telling the brakeman where to dump his train.  When this berm when it became long enough it was flattened and the track moved out for another berm.    

Jack Whitely noticed me and I was given a train to work with.  I was now a brake man who hanging on the lead car going to the dump.  I learned all the tricks to keep them running, and putting them back on track.  A couple of friends were killed so I moved on.  I remember some funny times with “Wild Bill” and we were helping him so he could eventually retire.  He was a good man in his day but today he was “blind as a bat”.  Signals were never seen.  The brakeman stopped the train by kicking the tail-hose.  Gordon Hickman was riding the end and signaling like crazy.  He jumped and watched his train run to the end of the track and over the hill.

I tried the Shovel Department for the higher pay and but had my fill of the danger and nasty treatment.  Well the nasty old Runner was killed a year or two later.

Lower Copperfield

I bid on the machine shops to work there.  I helped Lewy Ballamis and it was fun.  He was the only real boilermaker left at the mine and every day was a surprise when one of those old steamers would come in.  More than once we would rake the fire from the boiler and the grate was still red.  We covered the grate and I would cover Lew with wet rags then he would climb in and tighten a stay-bolt or something.  I loved that old man. 

Then in 1948 the US Mine took our house and tore it down.  We moved to West Jordan and my story ends. 

Tomorrow I’ll go the cemetery to bury my old fighting buddy, Juan Vigil.  We started working together as laborers on the track gang and later in the machine shops.  We loved to fight.  As soon as the whistle would blow and work for the day was over we would attack each other like detective Couso and Kato did in the Pink Panther.  We would end up bruised and our clothes torn off our backs.  Many years later he was my helper in the Boiler shop for several years.   We hunted deer together for many years usually the three of us, Juan (Johnny), James Ballamis and myself.  I am going to miss him.

I was asked one day by my Grandson and the story goes on

Telegraph road

"What kind of toys did you have when you were a boy"?  It was the same question that Billy McIvor asked when he came to play with me when I was little.  He said, "What can I play with"?  Other than my airplanes, I had no store-bought toys, if I played trucks it wasn't with a truck it was a block of wood or a can.  I guess I had a good imagination and made many things and was proud of what I had made.  Billy's father was rich and he had room’s full toys, he was also two or three years older than I was.  One day he had his father bring all these toys to my house and gave them to me, they didn't work because Billy couldn't fix anything.  I soon had them all running again.  One was the largest Lionel Trains I had ever seen, with all the automatic switches, dumping stations, tunnels and lots of track, A large erector set and steam driven engine.  They had been abused but in time I had them all working.  Billy said his father had given him new ones.

I was always quite competitive, and loved to test my skill against all comers.  We had special tops in those days that are not sold any more, probably because of safety reasons.  They were wooden tops made of hardwood with a hard metal end to spin on, the spinners had a rounded point and the spikers had sharp points.  A spiker was made to destroy an opponent’s top, each person would take his turn until some ones top was broken.  A string was wrapped around the top from the bottom up, the other end was held in your hand, the top was thrown with force to it spin faster. 

Halverson house Telegraph

Marbles was played with the winner taking the opponents marble.  Some kids could shoot a marble so hard they could break the marbles. 

We played a game called "Can the Can", a game copied from "Cricket".  It was a four man ball-game, two against two, a tennis ball and a two bats.  Two men were up to bat at a time, other two tried to strike them out.   The plate was a hole in the ground with two condensed milk cans back and straddling the, hole the holes were about 60 feet apart, a run was counted if the batters hit the ball and was able trade places or if the ball got away from the pitchers.  The batters were up until the pitchers knocked three cans over. 

Our skis were barrel stays with straps nailed to the sides.  We were always on them but one day I got the bright idea of skiing down to the Horse-Shoe Bend near Lark to hunt cotton-tail rabbits on the barrel staves.  Why we did this on such a cold winter day I’ll never know.  Skiing seven miles was fine but the walk back home up over the high mountain was to much for Lee.  Our pants had long ago frozen in to something like a stove-pipes, Lee was cold and tired and wanted to lay down and sleep, I knew he would have died if he did so I pushed and pulled him all the way home.  We still laugh about all the dumb things we did back then. 

We had “Coca Dirt” in Telegraph and everybody came to play in it.  We would make roads and tunnels in it.  We would also grab a handful like you would make a snowball and throw it at each other.  We looked like someone had dumped a can of coca on your head.   What it was, was the tailings from an old mill and it was full of arsenic, lead, iron and sulfur.  The lower part of our football field was mostly coca dirt and the upper part gravel.  Buck (Nelson) Leyba would gather all the gangs together for our football and baseball games.  The field was level but it was sure dirty.  We had great times but I swear that we all left some blood and guts there. 

Queen is gone

The “Big Tree” was just above Telegraph and everybody who ever lived in the Copperfield area, remembers it.  It was on the way to the Queen Mine.  It was the most magnificent old cottonwood tree you would ever want to see.  It must have been hundreds of years old, and three or four feet in diameter.  It was the only cottonwood tree in the canyon.  I have just found a picture of it, Isabel Rose Scroggan gave I to me.  It was near a spring with cool clear water but mining activity eventually polluted it.  It was on an old Indian trail from the Salt Lake valley over the Oquirrh Mountains to the Tooele valley.  The tree was the site of their summer home, burial grounds and a hunting area.  I was able to find a large collection of arrowheads, spearheads and knives.  I found other arrowheads here near the tree and all over the mountain.  Some at the old Scout Camp in Butterfield but mostly at the Big Tree was they must have been their burial grounds as well as being on the trail to the desert .

At the head of a canyon above the Silver Shield Mine there were giant stumps of an ancient old forest of giant trees that had been clear cut back in pioneer days.  The stumps were all about four to six feet in diameter.  No one would believe me when I told them how big they were.  Only a few of us during my lifetime had ever seen them.  I was grown up and moved away before I found out who had cut them.  In a geology book I found out that they called my trees the "Big Grove".  Brigham Young had sent his people to build a saw mill and cut these trees.  The tabernacle and most all the valleys buildings were built from these trees.  The trouble was the clear cutting caused this particular species of Red Pine to become extinct.  Mining and logging has now destroyed this mountain.  It was a beautiful mountain and it is hard access to what is left of it.  The Indians called it Oquirrh Mountain, meaning the Shining Mountain.  I didn’t realize the many of the trails that I walked on were logging roads not ore haulage roads.  Every canyon had a spring for drinking if you knew where to look.  Mining eventually destroyed the aquifer which caused the many springs and creeks to dry up.  The water now drains from the mouths of the many mines but it is polluted with arsenic and other metals. 

US Town, Galena & Jordan Mines

There was still a war going on.  I had a 22 rifle with no ammunition and there was no way to find bullets for it.  So I put out the word that I would pay an outrageous amount for a box.  Billy Nevers came up with a box and I paid him.  They were so old most of them would not fire.  Then I would turn them and shoot them again.

My dog was dead and my gun wouldn’t shoot so I began setting snares.  There were rabbits everywhere.  With so many tracks and trails I thought it would be easy.  Three mornings in a row I got a rabbit but all I found was fur and blood.  So that ended my snaring adventure.  These were all cottontail rabbits.  We had the big Snowshoe rabbits too.  I got one when I had bullets and Tippy caught one.  He drug it home from the top of the mountain and the rabbit was as big as the dog.  

We had a few bats flying around at night in the summer but it was winter now and here was stupid bat hanging upside down under a pine tree.  They live in mine tunnels and are supposed to hibernate.  Something disturbed it and here it was freezing to death.  So I took it home.  After it warmed up it flew away. 

US Town

I bought some pigeons from Keith Cowdel and I built this big coup for them to come back to.  They were Tumbler pigeons white and pretty.  I loved to watch them tumble almost to the ground.  One night a Bobcat came and took them all away.

From the time we moved back to Telegraph, my Mothers Swedish-Finn friends started visiting us, they all spoke Swedish and they were fun.  They came when Dad was working, two or three at a time, friends she worked with when she too worked in the boarding houses.  I now believe many of these girls were actually relatives.  Mother always made lasting friends.  In time I began to understand what was said, sometimes Mother would send me outside when my ears got too big.  When the boarding houses closed the girls left. 

Salt Lake City Weekly's Bingham story

I remember when spring came and the snow began to melt and the streams began to run. This was the time to pan gold.  Miners like Alvin Cole would come past our house on their way up to the gold beds between our house and the Big Tree.  I would follow them with my gold pan.  The gold we found showed signs of denting or flattening and was always dark in color.  When I asked Alvin if this was gold he would say "Yes" and put it in his bottle.  They taught me many things about ore and some of them took me into the mines.  They showed me how to tell if a mine was safe and how to take care of myself.  I was fascinated with their stories and their experiences in the mines in earlier days.  I had a collection of brass candle holders, the ones the miners used before carbide lamps.  I also had a collection of carbide lamps that were used before flash lights.  I had many other tools that were collectibles.

Brakeman signaling to Hoger

There was an old man who lived in one of the original old Telegraph mine buildings his name was Karl John, we never did know his last name.  He was German who immigrated here after World War I, he had boxes and boxes of money in his house.  He would give us handfuls of it when we got courage enough to just ask for it.  The only problem was that it was old German marks and was worthless.   With a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow he dug a long trench on the surface between our house and the old Telegraph Mine.  He was secretly following a vein of ore that only he and I knew about.  He was upset and made me promise not to tell anyone because if the company knew what he was doing he couldn’t mine there anymore.  He always kept the ore covered or hidden and shipped just old plain dirt mixed with the good stuff so that the U.S. Mine would never suspect how rich the claim was.  He had a poor-man’s blacksmith shop, bellows, anvil, etc., where I would watch him heat his worn-out picks and tools to an almost white hot color and hammer them sharp and temper them again.  One day he retired and left he said he had enough money to last him till he died, this was before Social Security.  A couple of years later the Hieneki brothers while bulldozing a road accidentally uncovered  Carl’s vein of lead, silver and gold.  After just one shipment to the smelter the U.S. Mine came to see what was there and shut them down. The US Mine followed this vein and called this new mine the Mayberry they made many millions of dollars.  This new mining activity was to close to our house so they forced us to move from our little house in the trees. 

celebrating the placing of the Bingham High Schools monument

There were dangers of all kinds, the mountains were full of abandoned mine shafts and tunnels that were caving in leaving holes that were several hundreds of feet deep.  We knew what to look for and how to stay out of danger.  I lost two dogs in them and the Ivies lost a horse. 

Dynamite, caps and carbide was laying everywhere, we all knew how to use dynamite, insert the caps and how to tell the difference between primer cord and the regular timed cord, we played with the cord a lot, and each had its own danger.  The carbide mixed with water made acetylene gas which was very explosive, it was supposed to be used in our carbide lamps but that's not the only way we used it.  Lots of kids and adults lost fingers and thumbs, especially with the caps. 

I learned to ski early by watching Doctor Frazier, (the Town Doctor and Antarctica Explorer), here I learned that there was more to getting on a pair of skis and crashing at the bottom of the hill.  He must have been preparing for Antarctica when he built a ski-jump up towards Queen about a mile or so above our old house.  I saw his ski-tracks in the snow but couldn't figure out the round holes in the snow, made by the ski-poles, I had never seen ski-poles before.  I tried his ski-jump but very seldom ever made it and I never learned to turn either, if I did it was because I was in his tracks.

Times were hard while dad was still paying Chris Apostle and Hogan Dairy, I never had any money, until I got a paper route, the Tribune.  Lee helped me and I gave him a share of the money.  He was always helping and doing things with me.  He was always a good brother.  We were able to buy things that we were never able to have.  A lot of my money went into model airplanes.  They were made of balsa wood, covered with paper and had a elastic to power the propeller.  They were scale models of the real thing, I learned what kinds to buy.  It was the ones with the two wings flew best.  In time I learned how to make all of them to fly better.  Eventually they would all crash and burn, most likely the bodies would go first, then I would build gliders from the wings and they would fly better than the plane.  I found that I could build a better plane or glider than I could buy.  I built them bigger and bigger and they flew well.  In a couple of years they grew from 18 inches to fourteen feet.  No more glue and balsa wood they were now made of wood- strips and cloth.  I made a few secret visits to the U.S. Mine’s carpenter shop.  Where I would gather all the long thin strips of fir I could carry and then sneak past the watchmen and the bosses before I was caught.  The frame of the fourteen footer was finally built and then I had to go talk some of the mothers out of their petticoats to cover it.  

4th of July Copperfield

When the big day finally came to fly it.  Kids from all over came to see it.  We carried it to the top of the highest and largest mine dump in Telegraph.  It was the head of the canyon and had good up-drafts of wind.  I had to balance all my gliders with a weight just in front of the wing.  I knew by feel how much weight was needed.  This one took about 15 pounds of steel that we took from an old air compressor.  I had made several attempts to launch it but either the wind or the balance of the weight didn't feel right.  As I tried to perfect the glider the wind took over and I was yanked off the ground and up in the air.  Down the dump I went afraid to let go.  I flew for about 100 yards before I could let go.  I had to wait until I reached the bottom of the dump where I could fall into some large maple trees.  It wasn't an easy landing, I was scratched and my clothes were torn.  What was worse I never even got to see it but everyone said it sailed high in the air and down the canyon, it was beautiful.  It swooped and soared like a big bird right into Marsell Chea's garage.  The weight made a big hole right through the top.  We were lucky he and his car was gone.  We gathered up the glider and laid low for a few days, I don't think he ever figured out what happened to his garage. I was in the fifth grade at the time.

Adella in Copperfield

I always believed that I would have been a good Indian.  They were my heroes.  I had been collecting arrow heads from all over the mountains and had read a lot of books, I wanted to be an Indian, live off the land.  I gave up on BB guns, they never seemed to kill much.  I always carried a flipper crutch in my back pocket and was quite good with it.  I also had a sling-shot like David in the Bible had, but it wasn't as accurate or as fast, it did hit hard though.  When I was 12 on Christmas I was given a single shot twenty-two, what a wonderful day that was.  It's a wonder I never caught the bubonic plague or something as bad.  For years I had been eating all kinds of animals and birds, chickadees, Jays, squirrels, porcupines and rock chucks.  I always carried matches, I wonder why I never carried salt.  I never carried food, water or bedding.  At times it was too far to return the same day.   I had a Rat Terrier named Tippy who was a better hunter and killed more animals than I did.  He sounded like a bear when he went down a hole.  In time out he would come dragging a squirrel or rock chuck.  Some of the animals were larger than he was.  We ate what he killed too.   

Lee still tells the story of one Spring day when five of us went to Butterfield Canyon and decided to spend the night there with only one blanket to sleep under, it snowed four inches and got real cold, one by one the other three left for home, Lee and I were alone come morning.  This is when we asked some old mining friends of mine for food.  They lived in the mountains alone working an old mine claim.  Their house had a dirt floor with a rabbit hole in most every corner, we watched the rabbits as they came and went.  They feed us strawberry jam and homemade bread.  Our trail to Butterfield followed an old water line to Queen where they were.  I can remember when Queen was quite a large community. 

Copperfield Kids

 As this pipe passed through Telegraph it traveled up at a 45 degree grade for a half mile before leveling out.  What a wild slippery slide it made.  Some called the town, Jordan, others called it Galena but we called it the US.  It was the site of the first Silver and lead mine in Utah.  A surface vein of lead and silver found and developed by the US Army and some Mormons against the wishes of Brigham Young.   I was told that when the Army massacred the 350 Indians at Bear River they were shot with silver/lead bullets from the Jordan Mine. 

US/Galena   There a large circular tank on wheels, that rode on a circular track.  As it was hand pumped the tank would slowly spin as it rolled around the track.  It would move quite fast if you pumped real hard.  In the old days it was used by the companies’ gunmen to shoot at the strikers from the safety of the tank.  In an all-out war one day 5 or 6 scabs (strike-breakers) were killed here by the strikers.  Company gunmen were also shooting at anyone and anything up on the mountain and the strikers were shooting back from the hills.  Nothing was despised or hated worse than a "Scab".  We had no use for a person who would steal another man’s job during hard times.  There were many different nationalities in Bingham.  They were brought in, in many cases by the companies to replace those who went out on strike for better pay and working conditions.  The only people who would honor a strike and not get fired was the Japanese, They were the powder monkey's, they were called this because they would hang from a rope all day long barring rocks down that might damage the steam shovels many were killed doing this.  No one else would do this type of work and the company knew it.  Farmers it seems came up from the valleys during the winter time to be scabs, earning a bad reputation for themselves. 

Copperfield

 

I was 11years old in 1939 when Russia declared war on Finland with thousands of tanks, planes and guns, Russia was supposed to be Americas ally because they were fighting Germany but they were never an ally of mine.  Mother and I cheered for Finland all the way.  Russia for all her size and might couldn't seem to conquer Finland but sadly in the end they did prevail. 

Two years later on 7 December 1941 an announcement came on the radio that said we were at War.  The Japs had caught our fleet anchored and defenseless in Pearl Harbor.  All of our ships were sinking and burning, they were bombing at will any installation on the Island.  Hawaii was bombed and strafed mercilessly all day long, losses in lives, ships and aircraft were beyond belief.  In a little while we heard the declaration of war by our president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, World War II had begun.  We had declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.  Russia was now supposed to be our ally now that we were in it but I never trusted or liked them, still don't like or trust any European country. 

Copperfield Grade School

War wasn't new to us it was all around us but it was a sobering thought, In a few years I could be going to the war, for three years now Germany had been marching her armies throughout Europe and controlled everything.  We had been supplying England and the rest of Europe from the armies of Germany and Italy.  Many of our ships had been sunk by the German U-boats.  My cousin Virginia lost her husband, Bob Burke at sea.   

I remember my Mother during these years would volunteer to serve on various Civil Defense committees where she learned first aid and what to do if we were bombed, I remember the pump tank she kept in the house to put out phosphorescent bombs.  Food, tires, gas and many other items were rationed, you could only buy these item if you had a ration book with the right colored stamp in it. 

me walking to back door

Within days some of my Japanese friends and their families began to disappear.  They were called enemy aliens, so they were systematically rounded up and put in concentration camps out in our Western Desert.  I knew some of these families quite well and knew they were all right but government official’s feared sabotage and business people coveted their property and possessions.  I was ashamed but when the government waved the flag, it was unpatriotic to say otherwise.  I have watched many groups of people have had their constitutional rights taken away from them by some flag waving congressman or some right-wing Republican group.  We have more than our share of them in Utah.  As a child I remember following Jacky Myaki and Max Salizar into their public houses and sitting in the hot tubs.  More than we jumped out and ran with our clothes in our hands as the ladies came in.  The Myia’s owned the camp were good people. 

Eventually we moved away from our little house in the trees.  We then lived top row of one of the apartments, Neall’s old house.  The house was larger and it was modern but I still liked the old house.  In the old house we were isolated and now we around other people began to play with other kids and families that lived there.  When apartments were full, 17 or 18 families were there, at sundown there would be a baseball game, men, women and children would come out, some played, others watched.  All seemed to enjoy the night and each other’s company.  Wintertime there was sleigh riding and bob-sleighing. 

I’ll always cherish my memories of the mountains and especially the people of Bingham.  We were all poor and didn’t know it.  We never locked our doors at night and always felt safe.

Mrs. Bodmer lived below us

 

Bingham at one time was one of the largest cities in Utah.  In my time they had about 15,000 living here.  There was every kind of stores, many saloons, theaters, even houses of ill repute.  Then in 1948 the expanding mining operations finally forced everyone to leave Bingham altogether and move to West Jordan.  Bingham is now a ghost town and if you could see my many different homes they would be either setting out in the sky or buried under rock and dirt.  My neighbors and friends are scattered like chaff in the wind. 

In the old days when Utah Copper owned the mine the mine kind of grew around us and we could roam any place we wanted.

Now the whole mountain is owned by a bunch foreigners that buried the whole town and posted a thousand “No Trespassing Signs” to keep us out.  Well, I don’t like them either.