i Oral History Program Rick Lovell Interviewed by Deanna Lougy 24 March 2015 ii Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Rick Lovell Interviewed by Deanna Lougy 24 March 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Ogden Union Stockyard was a key fixture in the largest livestock market west of Denver during its heyday from 1916 to 1971. The activities at the yard brought Ogden national attention as a livestock center; the rise of the livestock shows, auctions, etc. at the site spurred the local and regional livestock industry, physically shaping the development of the agricultural landscape both near and far. This project documents some of the stories of the stockyard workers and visitors. ____________________________________ 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 This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lovell, Rick, an oral history by Deanna Lougy, 24 March 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Kelli & Rick Lovell March 24, 2015 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Rick Lovell, conducted by Deanna Lougy on March 24, 2015. Lovell discusses his knowledge and experiences with the historic Ogden Union Stockyards. Also present is Cheryl Keflen, the videographer. DL: What school did you attend when you were growing up? RL: Ogden City Schools: Polk School, Mount Ogden Jr. High, and Ogden High School. Then Utah State University, and two quarters at Weber State. DL: Do you have any siblings? RL: I have one sister, Lynda. DL: What did your father do for a living? RL: He owned and operated a commission firm, where feeders, farmers, and ranchers would bring in their livestock and consign them to one of the commission firms. My father was Walter J. Lovell, and my grandfather was Walter H. Lovell. They had a firm, a commission firm at the Ogden Stockyards. Walter H. Lovell & Son, and the “Son” was my dad. That was through the fifties, early sixties. When my grandfather had passed, my dad was approached by Producers Livestock Marketing Association, which was a large commission firm, to be the general manager. It’s a farmer-owned cooperative. He took over as the Ogden Branch manager. I actually worked for Producers Livestock Loan Company, which was a sister company to Producers Livestock Marketing, and then I went into banking. I worked for several different banks. I financed sheep and cattle operations in the western 2 United States. Then fifteen years ago, in the year 2000, I left banking because I was offered the position of President and General Manager of Producers Livestock Marketing Association. The same company my father worked for. So I ran that company until my retirement in October 2013. I grew up at the stockyards following my dad around from the time I could remember, maybe six or seven years old. That would have been sixty years ago. DL: What was that like at the stock yards growing up? RL: It was great fun, actually! It was a very busy center of commerce in Ogden. (I didn’t know as a child) but you had the Union Pacific Railroad, you had Weber College, Hill Field, and the Ogden Stockyards. In those days, all farmers and ranchers would bring their livestock to the stockyards. It could have been horses, hogs, cattle, or sheep. My dad handled principally sheep at the stockyards. Farmers and ranchers would ship their livestock in. I remember it because they didn’t have auction rings at the time. They would bring them in and put them in pens. There were separate divisions. There was a horse barn, a cattle division, a hog division, and a sheep division. That’s where the animals were sorted. I worked in the sheep division. Sometimes I would go help in the cattle or hog barns. The sales were private treaty, which means they would have buyers consign them to Walter H. Lovell & Son or another commission firm. My dad would represent those animals. He would take buyers to a pen and they would bid on the livestock and the highest bidder won. 3 Those animals would then go on to feedlot, or they would be slaughtered. The rancher received the check through that commission firm. Back in those days the commission firm got basically twenty-five cents per hundred pounds. So if there was a hundred pound lamb, my dad received twenty-five cents as the commission agent. Probably fifty or fifty-five years ago, they put in the auction rings. Then they would herd those animals into the ring and the growers, the buyers, and everybody would sit around in the bleachers. They had a live auction. The demise of the Union Stockyards Nationwide was when the larger lots of livestock stopped coming in on trains. The trucking industry started transporting livestock; it was so much easier to just go directly to the ranch, farm, feeder or slaughterhouse, thus bypassing the central stockyards. Commission men still exist even today. But the smaller lots, and mixed lots, of different kinds of weights and breeds still come into the auction barns. The Producers Livestock Marketing Association that I ran has five different auction barns in five different states. We operate in about nine or ten different states, and have about three hundred employees today. The stockyard was a very busy place. A lot of fun for a kid. Ogden was a central market, Salt Lake was not. There was a stockyard in Salt Lake, but it was not a central market. Omaha, Nebraska was a central market, and Chicago was a central market. So there were several central markets around the United States. Ogden was one of those central markets. As a central market, it brought a lot of activity and business to Ogden. 4 The Exchange Building offices were full of commission firms. There was a barber shop on the main floor. When you walked into the main floor of the lobby, there was a big chalkboard on the west wall. It was quartered off and said Omaha, Sioux City, lambs, cattle, etc. All different categories, weights, kinds of livestock were painted on this board, and there was a guy standing up there. He’d climb up on a ladder, stand there, and they would hand him the ticker tape from which he entered the most current market prices. That’s how everything was recorded. So everybody was always walking by the board to see what the market was in the various cities. That was fun! It was a really old-time deal. DL: So you would walk into the lobby to see the board and see which column had changed? RL: Yes. As it changed, he would go up and erase it and put up the latest information. The rest of the building was offices, barbershop, run by Al Farber (the barber), and Cross Western Wear. Ken and Bev Cross ran it. Then downstairs in the basement was a restaurant. It was run by a man named Paul McGoveren. He was a big heavy set guy. The restaurant was a greasy-spoon sort of a place, but the food was good and it was very busy. As I recall there were no tables, there was a big giant u-shaped counter. You would sit at the counter. He’d have a waitress or two. You could see him back there in the background cooking. I would get up at 4:00AM in the morning and go sort lambs and get them ready for the auction. We’d go in and eat breakfast and they would sell lambs all day long at the auction. Then we would get a break, and go get a sandwich. Anyway he 5 was open for breakfast and lunch basically, and at about dinnertime he closed up. Down the hall from the restaurant in the basement, I know there were at least two and or more dark, smoke filled rooms. I used to go look when I was a kid, but I did not dare go in unless nobody was there. There were eight-sided poker tables. Some high-powered poker games went on in the basement of the Exchange Building. In fact, some of the farmers and ranchers would come in, sell some livestock, go to the bank and get some money, and come back to gamble. DL: Wow! RL: There were just regulars like maybe Lou Grant and a few others. They played what was called Stockyards Gin. DL: Did you ever do anything in the Coliseum? RL: Oh yeah. I used to wander over there all the time, and the National Western Livestock show would come once a year. You know, we’d go over there for that and spend time and look at the animals that the kids brought in from the 4-H and the FFA. People brought in animals and would auction them off after they judged them. The proceeds from the sales were most often used as college tuition for the kids. I was never a judge in Ogden. I’ve judged several other places. We used to spend quite a bit of time there. There was an ice rink where you could go ice skating. Eventually they had rodeo arena indoors, and they had rodeos inside the Golden Spike building. 6 Then right next to it, across the river was Swift and Company. That was an abattoir or a packer. It was a three species plant. They killed hogs, lambs, and cattle. The building is still there, you can still see it. DL: So that’s where they took all the animals and slaughtered them? RL: Not all, but some. I think that what was also interesting to me was that it was a central market. There are laws and rules on how long you can leave an animal on a truck or a train car. Ogden was a big stopover place for animals going east to west or west to east. Either direction, where they would have to unload them, rest them, water and feed them. I can remember every pen in the stockyards being full of animals. Trains full of livestock waiting to unload. Stockyard employees constantly loading and unloading livestock bound for Omaha, or Chicago, or wherever they were going. Besides all of the commission business that went on, it was a central point for resting and feeding animals. DL: So what was one of your greatest memories you would like to tell? RL: Probably a few I don’t want to tell! I enjoyed being a kid and running around up on the catwalks and looking around. In the sheep division they had 2 x 12s you could get up on and stand on top of the pens and walk. Running up and down those things back in those days was great fun. I think, but I don’t know if all the fences and posts gone now, but my initials were carved everywhere. DL: Wow! RL: I had a horse that I kept there, and I would ride that horse. One day he threw me off on my head; that was kind of it for the horse and for me. Sometimes you 7 would have to go there at night and look at some livestock that came in or something. I remember my dad would tell me to go make sure the water was on. You would have to walk through the horse barn to get to the sheep division. The sheep division was closer to the river on the north end. I can remember it was always very dark. There were only a few lights. But there were a lot of sounds, a lot of noise, and a lot of activity. You know, it was down where all the hobos were. They made hobo camps down there by the river. I can remember when I was 10, 11, or 12 along in there. Having to go check and make sure the lambs had water at 9 or 10 o’clock at night; that was kind of a scary deal! I had a good time there. In fact I had a choice to play summer baseball or work for my dad for $5 a day. You know, I chose the stockyards. I really like the animals. I never got away from them, did it all my life! DL: So when it closed and you left there, what kind of impact did it have on your life? RL: I had already moved on. I was a sheep buyer for Gold Ring Pack in Los Angeles. Then I worked for the National Farmer’s Organization. It was a very slow demise, because the country business took off as the Stockyards waned. It wasn’t like they all of a sudden shut it off, and it was over. It happened over time. It was years before it finally got where there was nothing there. Keith Anderson and Dick Widdison kept the sale barn for the cattle, and some of the pens in the cattle division open for quite a few years. It never really totally shut down until about 8 or 10 years ago. DL: Thank you for these stories.