Oral History Program Clinton Bradshaw Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 06 September 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Clinton Bradshaw Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 06 September 1976 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Bradshaw, Clinton, an oral history by Kay Fackrell, 06 September 1976, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Clinton Bradshaw. The interview was conducted on September 6, 1976, by Kay Fackrell, in Lyman, Wyoming. Bradshaw talks about his life and experiences in Southwestern Wyoming. KF: I'm Kay Fackrell. I'm conducting an interview of Mr. Clinton Bradshaw. We're in his home in Lyman, Wyoming. We're going to talk a little bit about life in Southwestern Wyoming; specifically the Lyman area. Mr. Bradshaw, where were you born? CB: I was born down in Minersville, Utah, down in Beaver County. KF: About when? CB: In the year 1895, December the 5th. KF: What did your parents do? How did they make their living? CB: My father, when we lived in Minersville, was a miner. He worked in the quartz mine down there. Then we moved. He came up there and bought the place what’s known as the Wilson Snodgrass place, west of Lyman. The place now has been made into a housing project adjoining the town; we lived there for a good many years. I don't exactly know how many but the place has changed hands several times. And I owned the place for quite a little while myself. KF: This was, you told me before, in 1903 when your family came up to Lyman? CB: That's right, when we moved to Wyoming. KF: Clinton, do you know how he heard about this property? 1 CB: Well, he notably had quite a family started. We had three boys and one girl. And he wanted to get into a country a new country, where there was room for expansion and his family would have a chance to grow up on a ranch. That was what he had in mind. So he came up here and he bought this place from Wilson Snodgrass, as I mentioned, and then he came back up there and we got everything lined up and hauled everything down to Milford, Utah; put it on the train and hauled it up to Carter on the railroad. We got into Carter on November the 3rd, 1903 and some of our folks were already here. Mother's folks, the Blackners and the Rollins had moved in here a few years before that. Some of them met us at Carter and helped us transport our stuff over there and we stayed overnight with them down under the hill down there. Then we came up to the ranch the next day. There used to be a road up across the fields and onto the bench here. We moved up there and father was a contractor or a carpenter by trade. He built a lot of homes. He built us a home up there on the ranch. There was an old home there when we moved there but he built another home soon after we, as soon as we got around to it. KF: All this help you got, they were the neighbors, the people already living here then? CB: Yes. The people who gave us the help were mothers folks that moved in here before we came here. That is the Blackners and the Rollins. KF: Did you start right out in what, cattle ranching or sheep ranching? CB: Well, we didn't have much in the line of cattle for a year or so. We had just a cow and a horse or two that father worked out and developed the ranch. You know there's only part of it that developed and we raised grain and hay and stuff like that for several 2 years. Then we got a few cattle, few dairy cows. Mostly dairy cows. We milked a few cows there, Oh, ten or fifteen cows. There wasn't much market for it. We made our own butter and cheese and all that stuff, you know. KF: What market there was, was it local market? CB: Just local. Mother would make the butter if she had a mold and make it into town, take it to the store and sell it. Trade it for groceries and one thing or another. KF: Well let's say you needed something for your place. Well if you were farming and you needed supply and equipment or something like this, how would you go about getting that kind of equipment here? CB: Well, we had part of our own equipment when we shipped in here. Like plows and harrows and stuff like that to work with. But there wasn't much in the line of a place to buy anything here unless you went to Evanston. We had to go to Evanston to buy most of our stuff for a few years. We used to take the team and drive to Evanston and back. Quite regular. KF: How long of a trip was that? CB: About 40 mile each way. KF: And with a team of horses that probably took quite a while? CB: It took one day over and one day back. KF: Were there friendly people enough around there to stay with or did you have to stay at a hotel? 3 CB: Well, there was a place there. Kind of a livery barn, that they had placed there, and they served meals and stuff. KF: This is about what everybody in Bridger Valley had to do then? CB: Well, they did at that time, yes, because there was no place else to go. That was the closest place to go, unless you wanted to go get on the train and go somewhere. KF: I suppose most far shipping was done by the train that arrived at Carter then? CB: Yes. KF: What was your mail like? CB: The mail come into Carter, then they hauled it over here. That is after a few years. They used to go to Bridger and get the mail for a long time also. The mail would all come into Fort 3ridger, then they would go down there and bring it up here. Finally we got a post office here and they changed the mail. When it come into Carter they got a man to haul it from Carter over here. Then they finally consolidated the mail route a little bit and picked up the Lyman mail and the MT. View mail and Bridger mail and took it all, delivered it all the way around. KF: Clinton, in 1903 when you got here you were what, about 13 years old? CB: I was 8 years old. KF: Eight years old! And probably getting close to school age? CB: Well, we started to school right after we got here. KF: What was the Lyman School like at that time? 4 CB: It was right in the middle of the town of Lyman; right where the school probably is now. Just a one room building. MCB: With a curtain down through the center. KF: Split rooms that way, huh? CB: Well, that is the way they divided the classes. KF: And how many grades did they have? CB: They had four grades to start with. They finally increased and added two more rooms on and went on up to the tenth grade. And then they had to run school buses. School buses, I say, was a team of wagons and for quite a while though before that happened the district was in with Mr. View at that time. They had about ten, I think, or twelve buildings around over the Valley. There were one or two on the lower bench, and one up here on the bench, and one down where the Cy Eardley place was, and one up at Urie. There was one down towards the river down here. They finally, before they started this school, made the enlargement on this school, they finally consolidated, done away with all these small schools and brought everybody in. That's when they got these small, well I say team and wagons, with about, oh I guess eight or ten of them, seven or eight or something like that, that they would bring the children into school. They'd stay all day and take them home at night. KF: And so at this time now in Lyman we have a small school and then we have a post office that came in. And because of the Valley here, I'm sure there was a church? 5 CB: Yes, we had a church. The first church was built down where the old light plant used to be. Down in that area there. This town wasn't Lyman at that time. It was Owen. There was another Owen in the state of Wyoming, so they changed it from Owen and named it Lyman. And it's been Lyman ever since. KF: You mentioned going to Evanston for your goods. Were there any kind of stores out in the Valley at this time? CB: Well, there was one store down here after a little while. It wasn't much to start with, but Johnny Gail had a store down here where the old Merc is now. He handled our dry goods, most everything that the ordinary family would need in the line of eats and clothing. And he operated that store for quite a few years. He finally sold it out to a man. I think it was McQueen, if I remember right. And he operated it awhile. Then it changed hands quite a few different times. MCB: Here is a picture of the old store. My dad and Willy Guild. That was Johnny Guild's brother. KF: Around the pop belly stove. CB: Well that was the only heat we had, was the coal and wood stoves you know. KF: Yeah, I was going to talk about that. The winters around here are pretty severe and you mentioned that a lot of travel was done with a team and horses. I suppose you didn't go too far in the winter time? CB: Well, we didn't. Once in a while we would. My father had a sister that lived up here at Roberts's about 10, 12 mile. We used to heat rocks and put in the bottom of the wagon 6 and lay blankets in there and go up and visit them in the winter time once in a while. That's the way most of the people would do. When they would go to Carter and it was right cold, they'd put some big rocks in the stove, in the bottom of the stove and heat them. Maybe all night, so they could wrap them up and take them in the sleigh to keep their feet and stuff from freezing. KF: Clinton, as you grew up in this valley, and you got off on your own, could you talk a little bit about that. When did you get married, and when did you start off? CB: Well, my wife lived here in town for quite a long time. Then they moved into Utah for a while to Wellsville. Then after they came back, why I started to date her and we finally decided to get married and the folks took us over to Carter and we went from Carter down to Ogden, then from there to Logan and was married in the Logan Temple, That night we went back to Ogden and stayed in Ogden and the next day we caught the train back to Carter and the folks came over and picked us up at Carter again. KF: Can't waste too much time on a honeymoon then can you? CB: There was no place to go then. Only home. KF: That was quite a trip up to Logan from here wasn't it? CB: Yes it was, it was. But that was the way we operated then. Didn't have much money to operate on, so you had to do it the quick way and the cheap way. KF: What year was this, Clinton? CB: In 1915. March the 24th, 1915, was when we were married. 7 KF: You know, I hear right around that era, the next era we'll talk about and that's the World War I period in this area of Wyoming. I know there were a lot of Uinta County veterans. How did the war affect your life Clinton? World War I? CB: Well, World War I, I didn't happen to have to go. I was already scheduled to go when armistice was signed. A lot of the fellows who lived here did go. Frank Cushwin, Lynn Rollins and a lot of them. They did go to the service, but if it had lasted another week or two, I would have been gone too. KF: How did that affect the people that stayed home? I know that in World War II you know, there was a lot of propaganda about the Victory gardens and things like this. Was there much of that in World War I? CB: Well, there was some going on around here, but of course the people in a farming community, they always raised their own gardens, you know, anyway and so it wouldn't make too much difference to them because we always raised a good garden, raised all our own vegetables, small fruits and stuff like that. We made all our own pickles, made our own butter, we made our own cheese. We had everything we pretty near needed and we raised a big bin full of wheat every year. KF: And so shipping really didn't affect you? CB: It didn't affect us but very little. KF: Clinton, as we go on here, now from the war they have a period they call the "roaring twenties" and the question I want to ask here is, were there continuously a lot of people moving into this area and because this was kind of a prosperous period in the United 8 States, were there more people coming from Utah to this area all the time to make their living? CB: Well, you know at that time there wasn't much around a city for people to make a living at. They had to get out where they could make their own living and raise most of the stuff they needed to support their own selves, you know. And that's one reason a lot of people moved out of Utah out into this area here. KF: I never thought about it that way. CB: That's the reason they moved out, because most of them had families and came out here to a desert, you might say, and had to go to the timbers to cut logs and build homes. KF: How much homesteading was there actually in this area? CB: There was a lot of homesteading going on at that time that is all the Blackners and Rollins and dozens of families come in and homesteaded. I can't remember all of them. Unless I had a little more time. KF: That means this area did attract people. They could make their living here and have quite a nice living, I guess? CB: Well, you know, even though in Utah, they didn't have much money to operate on. They was used to coming out and digging their living out of the soil, you might say, and picking up a few dollars here and a few dollars there. They finally built a flour mill up there at Milburn. They used to take the flour down to Echo, the wheat down to Echo and have it ground. But after that while back, the Davidson's, Henry Davidson and his father 9 built a flour mill up there at Milburn. We used to take our wheat up there and have it ground and bring the flour back. We'd take enough wheat to make a year’s supply of flour and bring it back so we would have plenty of flour to eat. KF: Basically, your whole life then you have been involved in agriculture. In basically farming? CB: Well, yes for quite a long time. I lived on the ranch till I got married, then we moved into town and I started to work for Joe Slade, He had an implement house started down here by that time and I worked down there for him for about 30 years. I would set up machinery and take it out and deliver it and sell it and service it. Course when he first started, he had the automobile business for a long time too. In 1927 or 29, somewhere along there. When the first automobiles came out, he had the old Chevrolet automobile first. Then he sold some Buicks along with it and then he finally got the Ford agency. The old Model T Ford. KF: He had them all mixed together? CB: Well, after he got the Ford he gave up the other agencies. KF: He pretty well had a market on the machinery then. On farm implement and automobiles? CB: Yes he did. For a good many years. Yes, he had about the only one around the whole Valley. KF: Was he a pretty fair man? 10 CB: Yes, Mr. Slade made a lot of friends and a lot of money. To start with, but it finally dwindled away and I don't know just how it got away, but he is still operating down here in the same business. Still operating. KF: Well that shows a little bit about the times. If a man had a monopoly on agriculture industry here today, I suppose they would really swamp people with cost of it? CB: Well they would, but everybody wanted to get into something that would make a little money, you know. And he had wagons and buggies and harnesses and everything like that to sell too you know. I remember when, just before I started to work for him, I bought a buggy and a set of harnesses off of him, and I had a team so we had a team and horses. Then we bought a ranch down on the lower bench, father bought it and my brother and I took it over and started running that and we lived down there for quite a few years till part of our family was born. They call it the old Rosewell ranch and belonged to a man by the name of Hollingshead. He homesteaded it and the folks bought it off of him and I think he died right after that. We lived down there for, I don't know how long, 4 or 5 years I guess, something like that. KF: This buying and selling of places, what was it like to buy a piece of land in those days? What was the cost? CB: Well, land at that time was very cheap. I think we bought that 160 acres for about 3,000 dollars, something like that. There was a little log house, well kind of a two roomed log house on it. And we remodeled it and we still lived in it when we lived down there, my brother and I both. But to support a ranch I had to get out and work. I sheared sheep 11 and along with the work I was doing for other people. Come home and do the work on the ranch the best we could. KF: Was this quite a common practice with people? CB: Well, people had to get out and do something besides ranch because they couldn't raise enough; they could raise a lot of stuff but there wasn't much market for it. And the price was so cheap that they couldn't get enough out of it to support themselves and their families. So somebody had to work on the outside to make a little bit. As we sheared sheep, you know, we used to get 6 and 7 cents to shear a sheep. It took a long time to make very much money. KF: Logging seems to be a pretty good industry around here. I know up in the hills. Did you ever get involved in that? In logging. Were there very many ranchers involved in that? CB: I worked up in the mountains several years. I worked up there in the sawmill for Bob Forman for, I guess, two winters. The folks went up there and he had a contract for standard timber to put out 300,000 feet of lumber. And father and I and Uncle Jim and Bob Forman was up there and we logged all winter long and when we got ready to come out of the timber that winter we just couldn't hardly get out. The snow was up to the quarter tugs on horses. And it took us two days to get home after we got the logs on the skidway, you know, ready for next spring. KF: You just spent the whole winter right up in the mountains then? CB: Yes, two or three months. Went up there in November and stayed till February. Oh we came home now and then, you know. 12 KF: Well, how did the depression affect this area? CB: Well, like it did everywhere else. We got a drought along with the depression. And I had bought another ranch down here below Petersons. We called it the Royce place. We was trying to make a living on that and we had a twenty or thirty head of cows there. We ran out of feed and hay was $50.00 a ton and you had to go to Carter and get it. And it was nothing but half foxtail when we got it. Couldn't get enough out of the cows in the spring to pay the feed bill. So we did have to sell the cows and start all over doing something else. KF: And there wasn't any market for cattle then, huh? CB: Well, the market was so bad that you couldn't. I had paid forty or fifty dollars a head for them when we got them, wintered them and sold them for thirty dollars a head. It was pretty rough going for quite a long time around here. KF: Without the drought, would the depression been near as hard, do you think? CB: Oh no, it wouldn't have been. We had to spend money we didn't have to get feed in here for what livestock we had. Of course we wasn't along, there was everybody the same way. KF: But there again the community was so self-substantial with their own agriculture industry that the stalemate of the industry, because of the depression, really didn't affect people. 13 CB: That's right. There was no occasion for anybody to quit and go, because it was all over, you know. They just had to stay and tuff it out. The next year same back we raised a good crop and kind of redeemed ourselves a little bit. KF: Were there a lot of city people running from the cities coming to this area during the depression? CB: Not so many at that time. Very few moved out here then. There was nothing for them to move to. KF: The next era in life, I guess, would be World War II. Did that have much of an effect on this area? I know it took a lot of the men that served? CB: Well, I don't think it hurt the community too much because most of the people who had to go were young men, you know, and it left most of the older people home to look after the ranching and farming and stuff like that. KF: Something comes to my mind when you mentioned the young people, the young men going into the service, and that's that this is a pretty IDS community. During all these times, was it pretty common practice for the sons to go on missions? CB: Well, yes. There was more or less of them went on missions. During the depression they, only a certain percentage of them were allowed to go. They wouldn't let them go on missions because they needed them in the service, you know. KF: Well Clinton, when did you get out of - well I don't suppose you’re really truly out - I know what you do now. I know you have a large family. Have your sons kind of taken over your ranching and farming? 14 CB: Well they did. After I went up on the ranch, why I bought my father’s ranch up here west of town. And we lived up there and then the boys got married and went on their own, you know. They didn't like it too much on the ranch after they got married, you know. And my youngest son, he lived in Salt Lake at that time, and he wanted to come back on the ranch, so I turned the ranch over to him and he kept it for about four years and he says 'I can't make enough money doing this' so he sold it out to Platts up here and he moved back to Salt Lake. KF: All this time, Clinton, makes me think this is a pretty good big game hunting area. What was the sportsman type era of hunting like around here? Was it even called hunting, or was it called going and getting some food? CB: Well it was mostly go getting some food. There was no law against what you could get and what you couldn't get. There was lots of sage chickens around here and lots of ducks and lot of deer and antelope, one thing or another. You could just go get what you wanted. Most people got just what they needed too. They didn't kill them just for sport, you know. Course I used to go hunting sage chicken, but never did go hunt anything else. I never. I was working for someone else most of the time. KF: Was there a lot of tourism coming out this way? CB: Not at that time, no. There was no highways in here and no way for them. I helped build the first highway in here. KF: Oh, when was that? 15 CB: I don't remember when it was, but they built it from here down to Blacksfork where they put the monument down there and went from there around the other way and towards Granger. I helped build that road all the way around there. Old Dave Carter and I went out there and worked for weeks at a time. And it gave us a little income from the county. The county was paying for it, you know. And the better the roads got, the more people there was that came in. KF: What affect did the, you know the railroad had kind of a decline in there, you know, I guess it was probably after the roads were built. Did that, when the railroads started to decline and Carter kind of folded, did that affect Lyman quite a bit or was this too much later on? CB: Well, it, they still had to ship their stuff into Carter and haul it over here. Like machinery and automobiles and all of that stuff and the feed that they had to ship in. They had to do all of that through Carter. They hauled the wool to Carter and shipped it out. That was the way it was operated for a good many years. Well it still is, was till the last three or four years. Now those big trucks come in and take the wool and weigh it and away it goes. I know I helped weigh out and Mr. Slade bought lots and lots of wool and lots of lambs. I helped load lots of wool. KF: This was, is, a pretty staunch sheep herding community now, sheep raising community. Was it then? CB: Well, there are sheep men and cattle men, you know, in the early days. They didn't get along at all. The deadline was "You had better stay on your side of the line" if you wanted to keep out of trouble. As time went on, why, they got to where they could live 16 together. I know several people that got killed over sheep men getting onto cattlemen range, one thing or another. KF: That's very interesting. Being around livestock a little bit, that's pretty tough to keep them on the right side of the line. They're hard to train. CB: That's right too. And that's the way it had to be. But finally the cattlemen started to buy a few sheep, then that took the pressure off. KF: How about the Basque sheep herders. Were they pretty predominate around then? Or did the people herd their own sheep? CB: Well, those that were in the sheep business big, had to hire help. Most of them had pretty good herds that were out here on the range, you know, because that was all they done for a living. We just raised sheep, I remember one winter here, in 1938, I believe it was, when all the sheep herds got snowed in. And they couldn't bale hay and get it out to them fast enough. They'd have to take a load of hay out and divide it between two or three herds of sheep. We'd have to shut up the store and go and bale hay and haul it out to them. KF: You know, you mentioned there were a couple of deaths in the early uprising between the, of course that's a famous one I suppose, the sheepherder and the cattle ranchers. How did these come about? People just get aggravated? CB: Well, you know, when you get into an argument a lot of times people get killed. When there's no occasion for it. There was just arguments between cattlemen and sheep men that brought these things on. 17 KF: What were the water rights like for these people? CB: Well, they built a canal from up, that brought water down into the Valley here. Of course that was partly built and some water on these ranches when we came here. They called it the Bigelow Canal. And they kept on enlarging it and more water was moved up on. Those that came in first, water was moved up in 1890 or 1900, 1901 most of it. KF: Was this quite a cause for some of these feuds? CB: Well, what do you mean? KF: Well, is this why, did the water have something to do with why they, cattlemen and the sheep men, didn't get along? CB: No, I don't think so. KF: Just crossing the line then? CB: Just the country was divided off where the cattlemen kept their cattle in one place and the sheep on another place. In another area. That's the reason there was trouble. When the sheep would wander over to cattle area and sometimes cattle back into sheep area. KF: I know you mentioned earlier that you started out farming out here and knowing the country a little bit, that must have been pretty tough in a rocky area around here to try to plow out some farm land? CB: Well, this bench had some gravel in it, but really it wasn't really too bad to work. There was some rock in it all right but then nothing but what you could raise a good crop. There are sections around here. They're not raising as good of hay east of where you great-grandfather used to live. There was a lot of rock on that Joe Eyre place over 18 there. And there's still a lot of rock there. You can see it all over there. They had big piles of rock, big as this house pretty near. But now they've got it into grass hay and you don't see so many. Don't give them many problems. But this particular bench right up here where the town is and along through here wasn't near so bad. KF: Clinton, what was the medical service like out here? I know raising a family, you had to be having children and there had to be a few broken arms and broken legs thrown in there. How did you got about? CB: Well, there were no doctors here for a good many years. But there were midwives to take care of the children coming into the world. If you had a broken arm or anything you just had to go to where there was a doctor. MCB: Doctor Rollins used to live in Fort Bridger. CB: I set quite a few bones myself. KF: Oh, have you? Kind of a horse doctor, huh? CB: Well, I was and her brother used to bring the babies, once in a while when we couldn't get anybody else. But they used to come to me quite a lot, with children or some broken arms, collar bones and things like that, you know. KF: They just had to grit their teeth while you went to work on them then? CB: That's right. I'd just give them first aid then they'd have to go somewhere else and make sure they was all right. I didn't want to take the responsibility of fixing somebody's kid up and leave them with a crooked arm or something. 19 KF: This brings to mind; you mentioned the deaths during the sheepherder and cattle feuds. What was the law enforcement around here like? CB: Well, there wasn't very much law enforcement close by. They had a sheriff in Evanston. That was the closest place. And it was years before we got any deputes out this way. By that time any big trouble was settled. KF: People just took care of their own trouble then? CB: Yeah, they took care of most of their own trouble. There used to be, people used to get into a lot of trouble over stealing water from one another. And I tell ya, that was a case where I don't know that anybody ever got shot. I know some got shot, but I don't think any of them was ever killed over water deals. KF: Catch a little rock salt in the hind end once in a while? MCB: It was one of those sheep men, you know, down here in this red building that still stands there, when my dad worked there, it was out in the grainery, they had this man, I think he was a cattleman, got shot by a shipman. And he laid here till they took him away. Down in this red grainery down here. KF: That must have been kind of interesting there. I know today, Lyman has most of its own police force and everything, and we still have trouble. But that must have been something then? CB: Well, you know you can learn to put up with a lot of things, if you have to. And to get a sheriff out here, there were no telephones service; you had to go to Carter or to 20 somewhere or another or to Evanston to find a sheriff. So you could pretty near die before you could get a sheriff or anybody out here to help you out. KF: And he handled all of Uinta County then? CB: Yeah. He handled the whole county for years. KF: I see. Well Clinton, let's take a break for a while here OK? CB: O.K. 21