Oral History Program Albert, Lupe, David, and Ray Mora Interviewed by Michael Mitchell and Kathryn Burnside 13 March 2002 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Albert, Lupe, David and Ray Mora Interviewed by Michael Mitchell and Kathryn Burnside 13 March 2002 Copyright © 2014 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: Mora, Albert, Lupe, David and Ray, an oral history by Michael Mitchell and Kathryn Burnside, 13 March 2002, 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 Albert, Lupe, David, and Ray Mora. The interview was conducted on March 13, 2002, by Michael Mitchell and Kathryn Burnside in the home of Albert Mora at 326 Perry Street in Ogden, Utah. The interviewees discuss their experiences and recollections of 25th Street in Ogden, Utah. MM: My name is Michael Mitchell. I'm a history student from Weber State University and we're interviewing Albert, Lupe, David, and Ray Mora for the 25th Street Oral History Project. Today's date is March 13, 2003. We are conducting this interview at Albert Mora's home, 326 Perry Street in Ogden. Also present in this room is Kathryn Burnside. Thank you for letting us talk with you about your recollections of 25th Street. We'd like to begin by asking some basic biographical information about you. Can you tell us your full name, when and where you were born and tell us about your parents? KB: Albert, if you would start. AM: Okay - when it comes to where we're from, you're going to have to ask my brother David, because he knows a lot of that information. KB: Okay, tell us your full name and when you were born. AM: My name is Albert - I don't have a middle name or initial. I was born in Ogden in 1948. I've lived in Ogden all my life - I lived in California for ten years and went into the service for two years; other than that, I've stayed in Ogden. KB: Okay. Lupe? 1 LM: Lupe Mora, Jr. I was born in Ogden, second hundred block of 26th Street. I attended school here and I got as far as my senior year at Weber State College, but that was 1520 years ago and I never did finish school. KB: When were you born? AM: March 12, 1936. KB: Great. David? DM: My name is David Mora, born May 10, 1941. I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and at the time I was born, we lived in Clearfield, right? But raised in Ogden. KB: Ray? RM: My name is Ray Mora, I was born in Ogden. I was born in 1927. I've been here ever since. KB: Okay, can you tell us about your parents, where they came from? DM: They come from old Mexico - they were here in 1926. KB: Do you know what area they came from? Did they come from Chihuahua? DM: No, from Jalisco. KB: And what brought them up here? DM: In them days they was bringin’ people over to work, and they'd bring the whole family. They all come on my mother's side, and they worked for the railroad, for the SP Railroad, and they used to live in a railroad car, the whole family. When they got old enough, they'd have to go to school - they'd get on the train in the morning and they'd 2 take them to - where did they where'd they say – Lucern, and then in the evenings, they'd bring them back. KB: What kind of work were they doing, do you know? DM: On the railroad, there was my grandpa and my dad at the time and Lucille. They got to know each other when working there, that's where they met, and in time they got married in the train station on 25th Street. KB: Tell us your early memories in this area when you were a kid. What do you remember about 25th Street as a kid? Did you work there? DM: Not on 25th Street, no. There are some funny stories that happened there, but one thing that caught me was when I was in the Army and I was stationed at Denver, Colorado. This old-time soldier - he was called "Pops," been in the military a hundred years, only one stripe - he was telling me about 25th Street and he was telling me he was stationed up here at the Defense Deport of Ogden (DDO) and at the naval station out here, they had the Navy and the Marines there. KB: Right. DM: Then they had Hill Field, the Air Force – well, back then, the Army Air Corps. He was tellin' the story one time that he was drinking on 25th Street in one of the taverns there there was him and some navy guy and a couple of marines. They were drinkin’ in the bar, and he said this one Air Force Sergeant come up to him, I mean come up to that booth, and he told this one guy - I can't remember which one - the Navy or the Marines. This Army Air Corps guy come up "Hey, I remember you, don't go away, I'll come back." 3 And this old-timer pops told me this; he said he went back to the barracks, got him a pistol, and came back to 25th Street and boom! Shot him. KB: Wow. DM: I can still remember when I was a little kid, the military patrolled 25th Street. KB: Is this during World War Two? DM: Yeah, and then a little after, must have been during the Korean War also. KB: I believe the military had a ban or at least they were watching the soldiers coming in off the train. DM: Yes, and the military police would watch 25th Street. As a kid, I used to go across the viaduct and right there at the train tracks down there - the railroad was busy, and I used go across the viaduct and watch the hell. I was a little kid at the time; I don't know if they were Army, Marines, Navy or what have you all I knew is a whole bunch of soldiers. They'd get off at 22nd, get off the train heading for 25th Street, and then hours later they'd go back and catch that train. I'd sit there and watch them. KB: Can you tell us what you remember about the train station? Could you describe it a little? LM: What I remember about the train station was the trains. They were transporting equipment and I remember one very clearly... tanks. They had guards on these tanks, and I remember this one individual because even when I was small I liked weapons; I ended up being a weapons specialist. This individual was guarding tanks with a Thompson machine gun. The railroad station had an underground tunnel, and that's how you got to your particular tracks. It was cemented in, and there was a lot of people, 4 it was really busy, but the majority of people in the train station were military and of course they had armed guards in the military. I don't know whether they were afraid of being terrorized there or just watching over the military troops. But that was one busy station, I still remember at one time. I know DDO was called the Hub Utah, but that railroad station was one of the main keys in the United States transporting to and from the West Coast and into Washington State. That station was a very busy station, and from there when the trains used to lay over for the troops the individuals, even the civilians, would go down towards 25th Street; and of course 25th Street has really changed. The best of my recollection was they even had fruit stands at the stores - fruit stands at the railroad station. They had the liquor store, and I think that was the way they planned it, right there on the corner right across the street from the railroad station. They had a Chinese restaurant on the left side as you go up 25th Street, across the street from Porters and Waiters. It was Chinese, and I remember going after I went out 25th Street I went in to eat and at that time they didn't allow blacks to go in there. They could go in there and order, but they couldn't eat it there. They had ‘em leave there. Even down 25th Street, they used to call it Skid Row, there was a lot of places that they didn't allow blacks. There were several clubs, and I guess that's how they made their money. 25th Street was a notorious place throughout the United States and a lot of people, like my brother said before, would talk about that street and most of the military people. As you went up 25th Street there was hotels, there was more bars, a lot of eateries - from Mexican eateries, Chinese eateries and of course Anglo eateries - and as I'm going up 25th Street going east toward Monroe Avenue, there was even a gas station there on the corner. That's been gone for a long time, I still remember it. That 5 was Sinclair that was on 25th and Lincoln on the southwest corner. Across the street from that was they had a prostitute hotel which was called Rosie's and this lady called Rosie owned it. One of the ways, just like you see in the old Westerns, these girls would advertise by sitting on the windowsill, ‘cause this was a second story building. Across the street from that going north was a place called Poncho's Café - it was wonderful. As you go up the street there was a barbershop and on the right hand side there used to be the 7-Up Company. The 7-Up Company, when we were kids, we found it was so, so amazing - we'd watch the bottles being processed and then they would put them in a wooden crate. Across the street from there on the north side was the KoKoMo (that KoKoMo had been there for a long time). As you go up the street there was what they called the Labor Temple, which was a club, and of course certain people could go in there and certain people couldn't. In those days, if you had the money, it didn't make any difference how old you were, you could get into clubs and there was no problem there. KB: Even if you were a young kid? LM: Yeah you could - the mother, the father would take the kids in there and buy ‘em drinks and the kid of course they would socialize and the parents would socialize with the kids in the background but it wasn't against the law for them to walk into a bar like that. All the way up to the bus station, another busy area. I don't even know if the Greyhound Bus Station is in operation now, but that bus station was very busy too. They always had the police there, ‘cause there was always trouble there at the bus station. The derelicts would hang out there and ‘cause problems. The bus station was, of course, because of the railroad and the transport of the troops and civilian personnel. As you go 6 up 25th Street from Grant it starts getting a little more peaceful. There was hotels there, the park; there was never anything built on where the area that the park is at now. They changed the park so completely, but the majority of 25th Street was usually bars. I actually didn't see it, but as I turned around I saw the individual run, I saw an individual get shot with a .22 on 25th Street and then they turned around, the individual ran. This happened on the corner of Lincoln, right there by the Sinclair Station which would again be the northwest corner of 25th Street. As he ran down, you could see the police cars in their old Fords chasing him down towards Union Station and they caught him there, but the individual, if I still recall correctly, he shot nine rounds from the .22 revolver, which they showed later and I think he shot him about four times and then failed. You could bet your bottom dollar that every time you went down - we used to go down 25th sometimes, that's how we used to get our kicks. When we were a lot smaller, our folks would take us down there in our station wagon, and we would see the people walk by and a fight every time. Every time you turned around, there was a fight. You could bet your bottom dollar there was a fight there every at least every hour and some of them were real, real bad. There were police there, but there weren't that many police. A lot of times the police were scared to go down 25th Street. If there wasn't any more than six plus policemen with the MP's, like my brother said, they would not go down there. If there was a call, the police wouldn't go down there unless there was a shooting; then they'd go down there. It seemed like they shrugged off the one group. I would go down 25th Street when I was real young. What I did was sell papers, and we'd go to Standard Examiner and that's where they had the elevator on Keisel Avenue and 24th Street. The elevator would go down as they unloaded the reams of paper so they could make the 7 Standard Examiner, and the elevator would go back up when they delivered the Standard and they had trucks that delivered, and we used to buy newspapers from the Standard Examiner for three cents and sell them for a nickel. Any time we sold them to a military person they'd give us a dime, and that was a lot in those days. MM: Do you remember what year that was? LM: We could go to the movies on a dime - if that was forty years ago, it had to be '43 or '45. I would buy those newspapers for three cents and sell them for a nickel. The GI's, the military personnel, would give us maybe ten cents, like I said; that was a lot of money. If we did not sell our papers, we could return them back to the Standard Examiner; they'd give us the three cents that we'd pay for them. I was thinking of shining shoes ‘cause the military people, you know, had to have their shoes shined and in those days you used to shine your shoes. People hear about shining shoes today and people think that's crazy - "What are you talking about?" I could get an old rag, but I couldn't afford to buy the wax and the other items I needed to make my little shoe box, besides I couldn't find a box that would accommodate all my shoeshine stuff. Other than that, as far as working there, I worked other places, but it wasn't 25th Street. MM: How old were you? LM: I had to be anywhere from ten to thirteen years old - a lot of the times my dad would take us down and we'd do agriculture work, picking and everything, on the farms. I remember on 25th Street too, the big thing - dad was a western person - my mother and my dad would take us to the 24th of July Parades and to the rodeos. And now, I've never been to a rodeo or parade in so many years. But there on 25th Street, I saw the Cisco Kid, Duncan Renaldo and his horse – God, you know, look, I've got chills - I saw Tex 8 Ritter over at the Paramount Theatre, which was just off 25th Street, and Tex Ritter, they had him go to the park and show the kids his horse - his horse was a white stallion. And the kids today, they don't know what you're talking about, but I still have feelings about Tex Ritter. KB: Yeah. LM: That male roommate in Three's A Crowd - what's the name of that TV show? That's his son, his son is also an actor, in Eight Reasons You Shouldn't Date My Daughter. That’s his son, Tex Ritter’s son. MM: John Ritter? LM: John Ritter, yeah, that's Tex Ritter's son. We used to work, like I said, with my dad on the farm, and we'd end up with a quarter a week. On a dime we could get into the movies and watch those individuals we've just said. The Orpheum Theater, which was a higher class, or maybe the Anglo's theater, would cost fifteen cents and we couldn't go there ‘cause we'd want to go to the show Sunday too, but we'd save it and go to the movie. I saw a couple of people, I can't remember who they were, there on the Paramount Theatres stage. But to me it was exciting, and sometimes I couldn't wait to go down to 25th Street just to see watch the people walk around and of course Washington and 25th Street were the same way, but to me there are so many things that stand out in my mind about 25th Street. I'll remember it till the end. It was one interesting and one infamous street throughout the United States. KB: Can I ask where you sold your papers? Were there certain places that you could and certain places that you couldn't? 9 LM: Somebody mentioned earlier about the boundaries – yeah, if an individual was on the corner it was good business not to sell papers on that same corner. You would walk up and down the streets if the corners were full. The corners were the entire intersection of 25th and Washington and as you go west down 25th Street there was a lot of young men selling newspapers on the corner but like I said if you couldn't sell them for one reason or another on the corner, you'd walk up and down the street and you'd sell the paper. If you even walked home with a $1.75 - this is the truth - if you walked home with $1.75, you had a lot of money. Of course you couldn't make that much selling lemonade like a lot of kids used to in those days and that's the way it was. A lot of money, $1.75. KB: Albert, did you say you that sold papers too? AM: Yes, I did sell newspapers. I guess my dad wanted to teach all of us how to be responsible and earn money, and he had a little fishing box where we would save our money, with a little tiny lock on it; you know, with a little tiny key. I remember you had to be a certain age to sell newspapers KB: Did you? AM: Yes, you had to be ten years or older, ‘cause I remember my older brothers were selling newspapers and I couldn't go because I wasn't old enough. I remember right there between 25th and 26th and Grant by the park I took my birth certificate and I showed them, hey I'm ten years old, you know. At that time the price had changed. We bought them for a nickel and sold them for a dime. My dad lent me a quarter to start, so I took my quarter down there and I bought five newspapers. I turned around and sold them for ten cents each and bam - I'd got fifty cents, you know, so I'd doubled my profits. So after getting past the birth certificate stage, my older brothers Richard and Eddy, they'd 10 already been there, so they were showing me the rounds. Washington Boulevard was off limits because the older kids, the bigger kids who had been selling for a long time, that was their territory, so we weren't allowed to go on that but we were allowed to go on 25th Street. But like Lew was saying, we couldn’t stay at the corner, we had to keep walking. So I started out walking down 25th Street, and Eddie told me, now remember, you gotta yell loud, okay - let them hear you - let them know you're there. So I'd yell “Standard!”, and I was kind of scared when I first got down there, ‘cause there were a lot of rowdy people, so I think for the first couple of hours I'd walk up and down and didn't say anything, you know, I just kind of checked everything out. I had my newspapers, and I got a little more comfortable, so I started yelling out “Standard!” Eddy told me that you could go into the bars, but you could only open the doors and yell Standard - he said you can't go inside unless you had a sell. I said, okay, so I started at a couple of the bars - you know, I'd open the door, I'd look in there and everything was all dark and you could see the smoke and everything - "Standard!" - the bartender was the first one to check you out. He's looking, you know, and I didn't hear anything - so I go to the next bar - but I noticed that most of the people on 25th Street at that time, there was a lot of transients, and there were a lot of people who would get up out of the bars and I never really seen any drunk people. I don't remember seeing any stumbling or anything, you know - I remember a lot of people fighting, though. KB: You were ten? So this would be about 1958. You remember a lot of people fighting? AM: Yeah, it ranged from blacks to whites to men to women. I remember from Lincoln down to Wall was the black area. They had the bars, you know; Willie Moore had his barbershop there, and that was an experience because Willie had a couple of Mexican 11 bartenders - he didn't have any white bartenders; he had two black ones, but his place seemed to be pretty full, you know, and it was a lot of colorful characters in there - Willie Moore himself was quite a character. KB: Tell us about him - what did you know about him? AM: Well, he was a tall man; he loved to play golf. I think he was one of the first blacks to play golf in Ogden. He had the gift of gab - he could talk. I just saw a movie that they called The Barber Shop, and it was pretty much just what it was like. People would go in there; half the people who went in didn't get a haircut, they just went in there to see what was going on and keep up to date; they knew just about everything in that barber shop about 25th Street. MM: Where was this at? AM: It was in between Lincoln and Wall on the North side right down from the Toone Hotel. I remember his barber shop had a big picture window in the front, and his floor was painted black and white, little tiles. He had about four chairs, and it was pretty neat down there. We'd go down there to get a haircut - can't remember what a haircut cost, $1.25 or something. My dad gave us a haircut for the first nine years of our lives and then we could afford to go get one. It was the standard flattop or crewcut - everybody had the same type of haircut at that time. I remember one particular bar, I can't remember the name of it, I don't even know if it's still there - I opened the door, it was really dark - "Standard!" - then I could hear a really big voice way in the back say, “I'll take one.” I walked in and the bartender says, “Make it quick.” I ran - he was the only guy in the bar, and he was down at the end - I ran over there and I go, “Standard?” He just looked at me like, what are you doing in here, kid? He says “Yeah, I'll take one.” It 12 was my first sale of the day, and he gave me a dollar, and I said "Oh, I'm sorry sir, I don't have any change." He said, “Keep the change” – boy, I was out of that bar, running up and down the street looking for my brothers, ‘cause I was through for the day. I ran the other papers that I had to the back of 25th Street - that alley that runs down through there, it was quite notorious. You knew your way around through there you could go in between the buildings, come through the alley, and come out the other side the building where you see the back of the buildings. That was where you'd see a lot of action. You could see all the people that lived there on 25th Street; they come up from both hotels and they'd use those back entrance and exits out there. Quite a bit going on down through there. I remember seeing naked women running out through there. There were a lot of drunks that passed out underneath the steps and stuff. A lot of wheelin’ and dealin’ going on through the back. Somebody who'd had a bad night, they beat his ass and they threw him in the back, and he'd still be there. I remember right there by the Burracho on 25th and Grant, I was standing in the doorway and I guess there used to be a house upstairs from the Burracho, prostitutes used to live up there. Well, I was standing in that doorway and some black lady came out, and some other black lady come down the street, and they met each other right there at the doorway and the next thing I knew, there was name calling and "You're blacker than I am", "Your ass is bigger than mine" and they started to fight and those doorways were about - I don't know - about two feet apart, the one that went into the bar and then the one that went upstairs. Boy, they started to go at it like wildcats. The next thing I knew you could see clothes and everything. People driving down Lincoln didn't stop - they'd 13 look, but nobody did anything about it. A couple of guys come running out of the bar cheering them on, but nobody stopped it. DM: I collect old postcards and books, and I found this 1939-1940 telephone directory of Ogden. KB: Yes. DM: There's a lot of 'em in here but it gives the names of all the hotels and addresses and phone numbers of 25th Street. KB: This book that he's just handed us has seen some age, hasn't it. Did it belong to your parents? DM: No, I can't remember where I got that. I get a lot from garage sales. KB: This is an old telephone book that has some great information. Can I ask what you guys would do as kids for fun? LM: West Ogden, where we were raised, I remember one of the things – of course, we couldn't afford to do anything. I'd have to say we'd play kick the can and hockey using sticks and branches and empty cans. One of the big things I remember, I almost drowned swimming down the Weber River. Of course, we used to have our own fun we used to go to the movies see a Tarzan movie with Johnny Weismueller, nobody ever heard of that guy, and go back and simulate being Tarzan with our little shorts, and that's how we'd swim the river. We'd throw a log in there and play like that was an alligator. Swimming in the river, playing hockey on the streets; there were a lot of small bodies of water in the Ogden area and one of the things in West Ogden, there was a little swamp there at Ventura Park, right there where the baseball carts are. Yeah there 14 used to be a swamp and we'd go fishing for crawdads. One day down at the Ogden River, what we used to call Horseshoe Bend in West Ogden, some people were running up the street saying "Someone drowned down there." We all ran to the river. When we ran to the river, some people were there, but nobody was in the water. They kept pointing at the where the individual drowned and I happened to jump in there. I couldn't swim very well but I still wanted to go down. It so happened that I was on my tiptoes and I did feel him, and my whole body just turned cold. So I got out of there and just then the Chief of Police from Ogden City pulled up in his car. That was Roy Jacobsen and I cannot remember even close to the year. Matter of fact, he was our neighbor, he lived in West Ogden there. He took most of his clothes off, jumped into the river, and took the little body out of the river. It was just little - the individual had to be about five years old or thereabout. He finally found him, but that was one of our recreational areas which we didn't go back to for several months because of what had happened. My mother and dad knew his parents. It was a tragedy, it was bad. Other than that, to the movies if we could afford it. Popcorn used to cost a nickel - ten cents, and a nickel for the popcorn. Other than that I guess there wasn't all that much recreation for the older brothers but for the younger brothers things started opening up and they went in their different directions and did other things. KB: So you were living in West Ogden? How long would it take you - did you walk to 25th Street to sell your papers? LM: Oh, absolutely. Me and my buddies would hitchhike but it was against the law. Sometimes the police would come by and they would stop and tell us to get off the street or do you want to go to jail. Sometimes we'd hitch or sometimes we would walk all 15 the way across the viaduct. It was no big thing because we were used to walking a lot, and it wasn't that big a deal to walk above the railroad. That's when we saw all the soldiers and all of those pieces of equipment coming through going south and going north towards the different ports, and you'd just sit there and watch them. I still remember I didn't know how big the world was, I guess - I used to see the news on TV and there was fighting and bombs and noises and I thought maybe the world only ended over those mountains - sure is odd, I can't hear the bullets and I can't hear the bombs. I was scared. When you don't understand something, then you're really scared of it. MM: Did you ever ask your parents about what was going on? LM: I do not recall asking them, but then we got involved because my brothers starting getting older enough to go into the service and of course we were a little older and we started understanding more. My folks weren't that educated, and a lot of their time was spent working. My mother at home and my dad had two jobs, it was tight. He worked at night and worked during the day. We didn't get involved in too many things because of my parents working to support a big family. MM: Where did you go to school at? LM: Okay, up on the hill at F Avenue there was Hopkins and most of us went there for grade school and I’ve still got pictures - they'd combine classes for taking pictures of us, and I've got those at home too, but I didn't bring them with us. There was like 25-30 students in both classes. We went to Central Junior High School, which is still there, and at that time the city or the district or whatever it was used to bus us from West Ogden to school and back. Then for high school we went to Ben Lomond. I didn't participate in sports 16 because I was so small. I was one of the smallest guys there. I joined the football team at Central, and they treated me like a step-child. Every time I turned around one of those big guys - they were big compared to me - they were really mean, every time I'd turn around they'd hit me. This is what I'd expected. Then I remember at Ben Lomond I said, well, I can get into something as an individual. I got on the wrestling team and I remember a few times I walked all the way from Ben Lomond to West Ogden. I didn't have the money to take the bus and I didn't want to hitchhike; I didn't want the police to get me. But I liked wrestling. I stayed there until we finished up. Then after I went into the service I was out of high school for thirteen years - eventually with the GI Bill I got back into school, but I never did finish. MM: What was your major? AM: Sociology and police science, and a BA in Spanish. I loved history, that was one of my best subjects in school. So I got my GI Bill out and they'd tell you to take so many classes of this and this - not me I took them all in history. That wasn't even my major, but I loved history. But that's what it was – sociology, police science, Spanish. But most of my classes were in history. RM: There used to be a...I can't even remember the name of the place - a hotel on 25th Street. Anyway, you walked by the door; you didn't have to open it, you'd just wave your hand and the door would open automatically. As little kids, we used to go down 25th Street, just have some fun with the drunks, go down there and open the door - just once, and the manager – “That's enough, boys.” Then we'd go back down there again, and walk by the hotel again, and swing our hand or our leg to open the door - there would come the manager out the door chasing us. There was some funny things that 17 happened on 25th Street -I don't know if you want to hear about them or not. Now, we were little kids, remember that. KB: Now tell us about how old. RM: I'm taking a guess - nine or ten maybe. One time, it was on 25th Street, we were riding our bikes -I was pumping somebody, I don't remember who. There were three or four of us on the bike, eight of us altogether. We came by this one drunk and he was - back then, 25th Street was cold, I mean bars and a bunch of people and there was this one drunk leaning up against the wall. We stopped and looked at him and one of our friends asked him, "Hey mister, you alright?" The drunk looked at the kid and said, "Hey kids, is my thing out?" Now, remember, we were little kids. We went, “No, why?” and he said, “Well, it should be, ‘cause I'm taking a pee.” We looked at him, and we just cracked up. One of my friends crashed into a white oak, ‘cause we were all laughing so hard. You know a lot of stuff happened besides shootings and fights. In fact, I got into a couple of fights on 25th Street. KB: Did you? Why? RM: I don't blame nobody but myself, because that’s just the way it was. In fact one time, and this is a fact, I saw Gene Fullmer's brother down there, Don Fullmer. You know Gene Fullmer, he was a boxer from Utah. Ex-Heavy Weight Champion. KB: Wow. RM: Yeah - and his brother was down there. There was a liquor store right there by the bus station, and then there was a liquor store there pretty close to the train station but across the street, and there's an Indian Curio Shop - I think that's still there. There were 18 a lot of things that were going on 25th Street. I guess you guys have heard of the tunnel that goes under 25th Street. KB: Have you? RM: It goes from the Hotel Ben Lomond all the way to the train station. KB: Really? RM: Benny, my oldest brother here, can tell you more about that than I can. AM: I don't know if I've heard of the tunnel, I've never been down there. Like you said, on the sidewalk where the elevators used to open up down through there - they were all up and down the street so that they could get their merchandise inside, ‘cause the cellars were down through the basement. They'd bring in whatever merchandise, and the elevator, when they're done, they close the door, which was steel, and you could walk over it. RM: There was a bar down there; you guys called it the hole. DM: Yeah, I forgot the name of it, we'd just call it the hole and go down stairs down there. They say the reason that they made that tunnel there for the men so that they could go to the Rose Rooms or the Hotel Wyoming or what have you and just go down from this bar and go downstairs and then travel the tunnel and come up across the street and go into one of the other bars or what have you. I bought some post cards of 25th Street. I was going to bring them and I can't find them; I’ve got a lot of postcards of Utah, but real old ones...these go back to '45 and '47. AM: The thing I remember about 25th Street was selling papers. There's a couple of things that stand out in my mind, a couple of buildings. There was the building on 25th and Wall 19 Avenue, a hotel with the rotating doors. Every time I walked in there it felt like I was in the movies. It was a beautiful hotel. I remember the floor and the countertop was made out of marble, and they had this huge chandelier up there. Boy, that thing was pretty and they had a staircase that went up to the side, and I always thought that thing was beautiful, that building there. KB: Do you remember the name of the hotel? MM: Was it the Healy? AM: Yes. It was right on the corner. It was a beauty and I'd get money there sometimes, from people coming in and out, you know. I used to love the train station. When I walked into the station for the first time, it was huge - it kind of echoed because it was so big. I remember seeing all the benches in there and the floor had some purty designs on them -I can't remember they were, but it was purty – busy, like Ray says. AM: There were always people out on the street, coming and going to another building. We were never able to afford to go out to eat. Sometimes I'd go into that - what was the name of that Chinese restaurant? China Temple on 25th - used to love to go in there and smell that Chinese food, but I never could afford to buy any - but I'd find customers in there too, you know. Another building that really stuck to my mind was the bus station, ‘cause they had a little restaurant on the west side of it and if you'd go into the men's bathroom, that's where they'd shine the shoes. This guy had this whole - he had about three or four chairs, and they'd all have that little foot imprint where you could put your foot - he was an old black man, and he'd get up there and he'd shine them shoes. I can't remember how much he made, but I remember going in there and he'd take care of the whole bathroom. Customers would come in - I guess he had steady customers 20 and I was really surprised, ‘cause I'd see guys coming in suits to get their shoes shined. I thought, wow, they must be rich to have their shoes shined down town. And then the restaurant next to the bus station was always full and I always wanted one of them hamburgers, you know, and when I got older my sister did work at Poncho's Café. I was telling all my friends at school, I was still in grade school -they shifted us from West Ogden to Mountain View over there, and so I said, yeah, I've got a sister who works for a restaurant. My friends said "Oh yeah, will she feed us for free?" I said, "Yeah, I'm sure she will,” not even knowing if she could. We went to 25th Street and we went into Poncho's and when my sister seen me, boy, her eyes about bugged out of her head. She said, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I told my friends you'd give us a free hamburger.” She said, “You get a hamburger and you get out of here right away.” So we sat down to eat our hamburger - that my first time I ever ate out. KB: On your sister. AM: Yeah, uh huh. KB: Great. Poncho’s served hamburgers too? AM: Yeah, they did. Well, one half was the restaurant, and the back half was the bar, so people and kids you know, people who'd go into the front. It hasn't changed at all in all those years, I mean the structure itself didn't change. I remember specifically the bathroom in Poncho's was probably one of the nastiest bathrooms I've ever seen. It was all red, you know, and it had the concrete floor, and it had the old urinals - the old toilet, it looks like it was hammered, had never been cleaned. Looks like when we were growing up in West Ogden. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, they didn't have nothing over us. We had the hobo jungles on one side and on the other side we had the stock yards, 21 and in between that we had the railroad. Then we had the sandpit over by the Mill. There was nothing but adventure. There was two king hobos that we knew of, and they both owned a cabin in the jungle. There was Shorty O'Dell and Sundance had their own cabin. When the hobos would get off the railroad they'd head straight for the jungle. These two king hobos I mean KING HOBOS - that was their law, their jungles, their territory. These guys would come and work for them. They could stay there at their cabin or whatever; he'd send some of them out to the dump over there, he'd send some of them to 25th Street, he'd send some of them out in the neighborhood. They'd go out and pick fruit off people's trees and stuff; go down and panhandle on 25th Street. The others would go to the dump and scavenge everything they could. Everything was back to the camp and they'd divvy it all up, you know. Some of them made some money. I remember there used to be like a drinking pot - when we were little kids we used to like to go down there. We knew a lot of them by their first name, and they knew us, we were regulars - we had a Tarzan swing down there. Like Lew said, the swamp was there. It would freeze over in the wintertime and we'd go skating - we didn't have any skates, but we'd go out there sliding around and in the summertime we had, oh, I don't know, up to half a dozen swimmin’ holes up through there, and these guys knew us by name. Sometimes we seen them on 25th, you know. We'd go down and we'd deal for bike parts. We'd take whatever we had...potatoes, bread, whatever change we had. We'd go "wheelin’ and dealin’" with the hobos and I remember one time they asked us to stay and they had like a hobo stew right there and we sat down to eat - we'd get bike parts, we'd get rims for our bikes, you know. We'd take off down to the river and go swimming. They had a wild apple tree and we'd go down there - watercress there, animals galore – 22 squirrels, thousands of 'em. In the water they had trouts this big. We used to dive in the river. The bottom of the river was covered with clay, like a yellow clay; we'd go down there and dig for the clay, bring that clay up. There were owls, deer, turkeys - yeah the turkey flat, and beavers. They had beaver dams all down through there - pheasants galore, weasels. During the summer when we were out of school, we'd go down there all day long. After that little boy drowned that Lew was talking about, our parents would keep an eye on us. No more going down to the jungle. They would test us to see if we'd been in the river. They would scratch our arm, and if it left a white trail, it meant you were in the river getting wet. We'd all go skinny dipping there - we changed swimming holes every day. But the hobos themselves, when they started to drink, they'd kick us out of the jungle. They'd tell us to leave because they'd get pretty violent - there were a lot of hobos who lost their lives down there. I remember Injun Joe come up the hill to Richardson's Market, he was carryin’ another hobo - can't remember his name - but they laid him down right there in front of Richardson's Market. They asked Mr. Richardson to call the police and I looked down and I seen that they'd stabbed him with a pocketknife (I think it was 47 times). He was askin’ Injun Joe, “Why didn't you help me?” Injun Joe said, "I did, but they kept knocking me down." They were both pretty beaten up. So after the hobos started drinking they had the sense to kick us out, ‘cause they didn't want to be responsible, ‘cause we were just kids and they liked us. On the other side the stock yards - holy moley - that was a whole different world over there. Cattlemen would come from all over, sold the cows down there at the Golden Spike. We used to join the auctions... we all get up in there and everyone would scatter through the bleachers, you know. The guy would start the bidding and we'd sneak our hands up as 23 the auctioning went on Sometimes we'd buy a cow. SOLD!! He'd holler, you know, then they would chase us out of there. We'd go down and ride the horses and the cows and everything. Then we had the railroad - we were told not to go down there. I guess my brother Ray, when he worked for the sandman - we were told not to go down there, that it was too dangerous. Mrs. Harwood lost her arm. She got run over by a train and lost her arm. Her son was a good friend of mine; they lived right there in West Ogden and his mom had to have her arm cut off. We'd hook trains until we got caught...we'd get down here at Wilson Lane, and he'd have to slow down getting around that turn, so that's where we'd hop on. We'd hop on and we'd ride it all the way down to 30th and he'd have to slow down to get into the yard, so we'd jump off right there. We run off on top of it, it was a real blast - if it was going this way we'd run the opposite direction - give you a rush, you know. It was as if you weren't moving, but you were, you know. But the stockyards had a lot and when they would have an auction down there, we'd see people from all over the states comin’, putting up their prize bull or whatever they had. They used to have that coliseum down there - they used to hold professional wrestling. I met Woody Strohl he turned out to be an actor and we knew a lot of the midget's names, and lady wrestlers too. There were a lot of them at the time. My mom used to love the wrestling. She would pack us a lunch and we'd all go down there. See, my dad worked nights, so he wasn't able to go down, so my mom - oh she'd love those things - we'd go down there and she'd have just enough money to get us in. After awhile we learned how to sneak in. We had that time pretty well pegged out. Our mother wouldn't go for the sneak though. MM: Was there any place that you weren't allowed to go to? 24 LM: On 25th Street they had signs - "No Niggers, No Mexicans and No Dogs." KB: I was going to ask you to tell us about ethnic groups down there and what you experienced. Did they have signs? LM: Oh yeah, right on the front of the beer joints. The blacks had from Wall to Lincoln on the south side of 25th Street, and that was their territory. I mean, that was as far as they could go. They couldn't go above that or across the street and before the War, the Second World War, some had those signs on the front of their places - "No Niggers, No Mexicans, No Dogs” - but when the war broke out and all these guys getting off of that train - that was the only place they'd go, is straight up 25th Street. They'd come up to them signs; everybody was in the service goin’ overseas, and they'd stop here and do whatever. They'd come up through there and see them signs, they'd walk in there and they'd tear that place apart. Them signs soon came down after that. Everybody was welcomed, and after that, as soon as the war started, the Defense Depot of Ogden opened up, Hill Field opened up, and the Navy Base opened up, and everybody started coming in from different places in the country to work. Building homes for them and that - this was a growing concern. They was jumpin’ that railroad, that was the main deal. I mean, there were no planes, really buses and trains. That railroad station was busy day in and day out. With the railroad, everything was big - it's nothing now really. But like Lew said, they had a tunnel underneath and then there was Track 1, Track 2, and down the line - if you had # 1 then you just walked out of the station and got onto the train, but if not then you had to go down the tunnel and they had stairways go up to Track 2, Track 3, Track 4, down on the line. That train was always going day and night; I mean, they were busy. After that there were beer joints opening up everywhere, up and down 25 the streets. Every little nook and corner had a beer joint - you had beer joints like you couldn't believe. Everywhere was a beer joint. DM: There was a store down there right next to Poncho's, an oriental store and Orientals owned the store right across the street, also Tate's. Well, they killed the owner. It was across the street, right there just about across from where the KoKoMo is now. It was Kay's Market; I went to school with the girl at Central High School and some guy went in there and he beat up the man and he killed the wife - it was Kay's Market, they called it; but it was owned by Orientals. They were really nice people, you know. After that they just closed up and moved out - they said during WWII, they said that they had Italian POWs here. AM: Well, I remember in 1958 - I was in the service - but my sister Olga worked on 25th Street. She worked at Porters and Waiters - the owner, her name was AnnaBelle and she was a nice gal, a really nice black lady. She worked there in 1958. Anyhow, that's when the Gonzales’ worked for AnnaBelle. Yeah, AnnaBelle, she had the best combination food - it was black and Mexican together. She had a combination plate that was to die for - she'd have a great big piece of chicken, she'd have beans, salad, and an enchilada, and I think a taco. AnnaBelle hired the Gonzales’ that lived in West Ogden too. They were immigrants from Mexico, and they were in the food business. They started to cook for AnnaBelle and wow, that place took off. I remember that I went there one time - that was the only time that I got close to the tunnels, downstairs in Porters and Waiters. That's where they did all the gambling and stuff. I went down there once, and I remember asking someone about the tunnels and they said, that door right there, but I never went through it. I forgot to ask Olga about that to see if she 26 remembers the tunnels, ‘cause from what I heard, the tunnel went from Porters and Waiters up to the China Temple across the street. Well, these guys was telling me - or I can't remember if you guys were tellin’ me, or one of my sisters was tellin’ me - that during the Depression my mom made an overcoat for my dad, and she sewed some extra pockets inside the lining. He was bootlegging at the time down on 25th Street; he sold little pints, and he'd go down 25th Street and sell those, and at the time he was selling marijuana. Marijuana was sold in the little match box, and they cost five dollars apiece. My dad had a regular customer, and his name was El Aplano - he was one of the drunks on 25th Street, one of the regulars. I saw him in court one time; the Judge said, “El Aplano, you've been here for being drunk so many times that I give you twenty days.” He hollers back to him, “Hey, I do that standing on my head.” DM: Tell them what it means in English. AM: Oh, El Aplano means “airplane”. He used to walk downtown pretending he was an airplane. DM: He was so high. Maybe it would be interesting to mention the businesses that were in Ogden. That would be the 7-UP building that we said was on 25th Street; the factories they had beef factories, they had tomato processing factories, they had the Del Monte factory in West Ogden. They would hire people to work the three shifts while the produce, the fruits were being processed there, and that gave people a lot of jobs, mostly Mexicans and Texas-Mexicans, came into Utah to work in the factories. They had places for them to stay, unlike the farmers, who had little shacks for the people, and that brought in a lot of business. Then the beet factories. You know, they had a beet factory every time you turned around, ‘cause they used to grow beets here so plentiful. 27 But there was so many things plentiful here and now there's nothing. Back to West Ogden, my dad used to work for what they called the Utah By-Products - it's a dead useless animal that they used to process and they'd make chicken feed or dog food out of it. My brother worked there - a lot of times, the little rascal, he would get us part-time jobs shoveling the coal - from railroad cars - by hand, and I mean by hand. It would take us a week, maybe two weeks - we'd end up with six or seven dollars. The Utah ByProducts was such a smelly place because of the way they processed these animals. It reached the entire city on a hot summer day; you could smell it maybe into Idaho, and I betcha that’s why they got rid of it. Just next door, just south of the Utah By-Products was the Weber River. There was Swifts Factory, where they processed animals; sheep, pigs, beef, by the head, by the tons. One of the oddest things I saw was they had a goat - they used to call him Billy - the sheep used to follow him everywhere he went. He used to intermingle in the sheep corrals for a while, and when he walked off, the sheep used to follow him. That's how they used to get them into the slaughter plant. They would make a circle and Billy used to come back and process the sheep. Right there at the coliseum where we mentioned the auction, that's where they had those prisoners – there were Italian prisoners at the stockyards. They were the nicest people. When my dad retired from the Utah By-Products, we used to go from West Ogden B Avenue down the road and take his lunch to him. Sometimes my mother didn't have the makings for a lunch that night, so we'd round some up for the day and the prisoners were there, and there was a little candy store, Walkers - they had a fountain, you know whenever you'd go to eat or have fun at the fountain like Fonzie's. We'd buy candy at Walkers and we'd give it to the prisoners. The prisoners wanted us to buy them cigarettes, and we 28 couldn't buy cigarettes. The funny thing about buying cigarettes, like the Richardson Market - if we had a letter from mom or a sister saying please sell Al or whoever a packet of cigarettes, signed his mom, they used to sell him cigarettes. They were the nicest people. ‘Course we couldn't understand them ‘cause they were speakin’ their own language. The trucking business was big too, I remember, I still have pictures of the old trucks. I'm into the classic vehicles, and God, those trucks to me today were beautiful, they were big, they were cumbersome and rough and they would haul a lot of stuff back and forth. We've mentioned just about everything - I'm so thankful to see then and see now, and you know what, I don't care about what they say about the old days I used to like them a lot more. AM: You know that goat that he was talking about? One time me and my brothers were taking the sheep herd up to Swift’s, and we heard this guy saying, “Come on, let's go, Judas” - he was talking to the goat, and that goat just took them right up there (to Swifts). Just like my brother said, that goat would come right back and lead more back up there. It was a Judas goat; we asked the guy, “Why do you call him Judas?” The guy said, “Because he's taking them for their last walk.” We didn't understand what he meant. DM: To my knowledge, there were a lot of jobs. You know, just about anything you wanted; ‘course, the competition was not like now. If you had a high school diploma, man, you were there, and there was a lot of different jobs. People could choose left and right - the factories, the police department, etc. Oh, while I remember, when I was going through my transcripts for my class and I interviewed Dad, I noticed that my dad had written that he did not recall anybody discriminating against him because of what he was. Maybe 29 Albert mentioned that we were one of the first families from Mexico. My folks were from Mexico, as I said before, and he didn't recall anybody picking on him because of his nationality. My dad probably could never notice that - my dad maybe doesn't know to this day, but before we moved from Clearfield to West Ogden, this individual - Mr. Carter - he tried to buy that house before my dad, because it would be the first Mexican family- owned house in West Valley. He wasn't successful - my dad, he probably never knew it, but that's what happened. The Paramount Theatre that was mentioned, the blacks used to have to sit in the balcony - everybody else went downstairs. I don't remember the signs after the war, but I remember them before the war. I remember when I left Utah to join the military, and I was stationed in the South, it was nice here compared to the South. That was something else. A person with a weak stomach would throw up at some of the things that would go on. It was here, and sometimes to this day it's here, but not like it used to be. You say, “It's getting better.” You can't say that until it's all gone. We'll never see it, we'll be long gone before it's gone. But there was discrimination. In Texas a few years ago you saw the same thing - Mexicans and dogs were the thing. I didn't really see it or feel it until I hit the South. I come back from the military, and I went to join the police department. I went in there and they had it advertised, but they did have a height limit. The lady said, “Here's an application for the Street Department.” I said “No, I want to be a cop - I'll be a good cop.” The secretary said, “You know, you don't fit the criteria for a cop.” To me, that's what discrimination is, ‘cause you know, they said they wanted 5'9" guys. I didn't know them personally at that time, but I saw them a lot shorter than that. They couldn't get nobody, so they was takin’ everybody. They didn't even want no women in there. The women, now they're 30 lieutenants and chiefs of police in different parts of the country, and some of them guys couldn't even last out the Academy. But they kept them anyway, ‘cause they didn't have nobody else and like he said, them cops dressed in uniform, they would go down 25th Street, and detectives in plain clothes and they walked down there during the war. Everybody knew them and knew they were getting paid off. All them cops would be getting paid off. I had my ride-along with the police department; that was years and years after, but freebies, and people go in - the donuts shops - they got a reputation, the donuts shops, ‘cause they give it to the police for free, and for meals we used to go in there. The Chief let me ride with the SWAT team ‘cause the majority at that time when I started going to school, all my buddies from school were on the police department, and I got to ride with the SWAT team and God, we'd walk into a restaurant and these guys would bring them free food. It's common sense for the owner to do that, because it brings those guys in, and you know there isn't going to be any trouble in that establishment, with five or six cops guarding it. That's good politics, I guess, but the way these guys expected it to be free or half-price - I don't know - some people think it's not right and some people say yes, it’s good for business. LM: They did have their restrictions. I mean, the blacks and the Mexicans. Up and down Wall was where they could have their homes. Up above Wall, there were very few. Up above Washington there was nothing but whites; you could go shopping up on Washington, but the only thing there was JC Penny's at the time, so you know, there wasn't too many places that you could go shopping other than that. KB: David has a picture on his tee shirt, showing the family with the caption "La Familia Mora." This must be your parents - and how many children…thirteen? 31 AM: And there's one more after that. See, that is the original picture. That picture was taken I look at myself there and I'm probably, what, three years old? So that would be 1951. DM: In this picture I'm sitting at the end, right there. KB: Okay. DM: Right there...if you look at the pants, I don't know if I'm wearing his or his with the combat boots. Look at the shoes, look at Lupe's socks, he's got two different kinds. But you know what, us Mora’s, we were a happy family. My mom used to cook - our friends, white guys, blacks, some Orientals and other Hispanics, they used to come to our house. Oh, Mrs. Mora is cooking, or Mr. Mora is cooking or what have you, and they'd over there and they'd see my mom making tortillas. I remember his buddy Blaine - my dad or my mom was making tortillas or homemade bread, I can't remember what it was - back then we had a wood or coal stove and Blain went and told my mom, "That looks good, Mrs. Mora, but I don't want one.” She said, “Come on, please have one.” “Oh, okay, I'll have one.” I remember the hobos used to come when my mom was cooking; they knew one hobo came and my mother, it didn't make any difference what she had, if she had to open up a can of string beans or something, she'd give him something, thank you very much. Two days later another one would come - they would take up the whole West Ogden neighborhood, to see what they could get. They were never turned down. Friends used to go over there, let's go eat, let's go eat and then keeps ‘em runnin’; help mom our mom keeping the tortillas warm on the old stove for everyone. I remember my old school buddy Ry would come. Every time we used to go to his house and we were going to go eat he'd say, "Ronnie, come in, you gotta eat and I would sit there - his dad and mom would say, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to go home, we're gonna eat now." I 32 swear it wasn't like that, "Well if you're gonna stay, come on in.” And whatever we had, sometimes they liked it and sometimes they didn't. But there were two different streets. KB: And part of your culture is to invite people to eat with you. DM: Oh yeah, in fact, back in the old days if you wouldn't eat everything whether you liked it or not it was an insult. “Come on and eat. You want some more, you want some more?” “Oh no, I've had enough.” You know, everything keeps coming back - some are so funny, some are not funny, and it was beautiful. AM: We had a neighbor next door, the Richardson’s, they were black. I can remember Mr. Richardson coming, knocking at the door. He said, “Hey son, is your dad home?” I was a little kid, so I went and got him. Dad went and answered the door, and I was listening to them talk, and this Mr. Richardson had a petition. I can still remember when he first moved into that neighborhood - you know, he was the first black - and he asked my dad if he would sign this petition so he could move in next door. My dad looked at him and told him, no, I won't sign it. I looked up at my dad and I thought, “Mom and Dad didn't bring us up like this.” Dad invited Mr. Richardson in and then Dad says, “I'll tell you why I won't sign it. You see, I was born in Mexico, Mexico is my country, but I live here. You was born here. This is your country. You should have the right to live anywhere you want.” Then it hit me what my dad was talking about. My dad wasn't highly educated, but he was a smart man, my dad was. He spoke broken English, and my mom and dad’s grandparents - they were all born in Mexico and all of us boys and girls we were born here. Him (gesturing to Ray) being oldest and him (gesturing to Albert) being the baby. 33 KB: Did you translate for them? Or did they understand enough by the time they worked here? DM: Yeah, yeah, they said they did too. Because they bought several houses; my understanding was that if you're not a legal citizen you can't own property, you didn't have to pay taxes. My dad did all that. You know, a lot of times you could talk my dad and mom into anything. You want to buy this? We've got nothin’ to buy it."Buy this too, it's gonna help you, you got a big family.” Okay, and they'd buy whatever it was. They were so easy going; I think they understood the majority of the stuff, but I think for people who liked buying homes they got along pretty good. AM: To get back to 25th Street, though, there was one thing that I remembered that struck me as odd. There was a different type of discrimination on 25th Street, too, between the drinkers and the non-drinkers. I remember when I got into junior high school, and I told the kids from this area you know, I went down to 25th Street and I did this and I did that. Their eyes about fell out of their head. They'd say "You went down to 25th Street?” I'd say, yeah, sure. They'd never heard of that. To them, they were not allowed on 25th Street. And as I got older I found out which ones would go and which ones wouldn't go on 25th Street. A lot of people, I was surprised, were afraid of 25th Street. Then I remember going on across 25th Street and crossing the 24th Street viaduct and there were three stairs that went down into the railroad. There was a cut off on that 24th Street that used to go down to Wilson Lane by the stock yards, and that played a big part in our childhood too. We were up and down them stairs all the time. We'd catch pigeons from underneath there - climb up underneath that viaduct, catch these pigeons, and bring them home and they'd roost there. These pigeons were beautiful. They were 34 White King Tumblers, huge white pigeons like this. They get up so far in the air, and just like someone shot them out of a cannon, they'd just tumble; but before they hit the ground, they'd just take off. DM: That bridge was made of wood, and we'd tear the planks out - that's how you got the pigeons. AM: But on the roof, listening, those pigeons cooed, you know, and that was the most comfortable, relaxing noise. You know, those pigeons were beautiful. Looking back, Boyd Loftus, the kid who jumped off the Barracho for a quarter? You never paid him. KB: He actually jumped? DM: It was Ho Chi Min on his bicycle; and he stole that bicycle. AM: There used to be a man in West Ogden, he lived on A Avenue; his name was Ray, I can't remember his last name. He had these huge Clydesdale horses, and he had a buckboard made out of wood, and it looked like one of those old wagons. He would haul sand from West Ogden down to the stockyards, and he'd fill up the cattle cars and the sheep cars with sand. He had these horses - all he had to do was put ‘em in the harnesses and cluck, and they'd take off. He wouldn't have to touch the reins; he'd go “whoa,” and they'd stop. They made the same routine day after day, and early in the morning we hear him, getting ready for school, we'd hear them horses on the sidewalk. You could look, and he'd leave a little trail of sand come through the buckboard. We'd get over there and we'd be catching a bus, and we'd jump on the back of his buckboard, you know, and catch a ride to the bus stop. He used to have one of these little whips that he could flick a fly off of the horse from twenty feet. He'd get back there, and right 35 on top of the head - get over there, boy. West Ogden at that time was so peaceful; everybody got along well with each other. You didn't hear of violence, you didn't hear about theft, you didn't hear hardly anything; I mean, it was so comfortable. DM: You could leave your doors unlocked, your windows down in your house and car. The kids would sleep out on the front lawn with no fence, and you'd better not do that today. AM: It was beautiful. MM: Is there anything that you would do to 25th Street to make more people go to it? DM: I'm glad that they're doing what they're doing to 25th Street, but I think all the history that you're getting here is a good idea to let the people know how this street was. I think they need more pictures to show the street. I think they ought to go through there; you know, I think that maybe if your family comes from out of state or something - go through 25th Street and explain certain things to them that you know of or that you've heard of. Sometimes it was a historical street, and sometimes it was something else, but there's a lot of history there, a lot of history. People, I think, only learn if you take them down there. It's just too bad these buildings didn't have pictures hanging up, and it's too bad that they tore down what they did, but that’s progress, or money, and it goes on and on. AM: Now, this part of when we was growin’ up. KB: This is Lucern Bridge, is that right? DM: I worked there. AM: That's Lagoon. KB: How was it working for the railroad, Ray? 36 RM: It was hard. I worked from Salina to Middle Lake on that crossway there, and then after that, I used to work on extra gangs. KB: That was tough work, raising and putting rocks underneath and stuff. RM: Right, that was hard, that was tough work - they had extra gangs for putting in ties, puttin’ in steel all by hand. DM: I've got two years of that in myself, but you lived box cars. RM: Yeah. DM: They hired cooks and one box car would be the kitchen RM: Yeah, they called the guys gandydancers, and outfit cars. They had bunks in them and you'd sleep there and have a shower for you and then they'd have a kitchen where you'd go eat and that, and they'd make your lunch or take your lunch out to ya, and that’s out in the middle of the desert; cold in the wintertime and hot in the summer time. That's where mom and dad were married, you've seen that. KB: Is this St. Joes? DM: Yes. MM: Is that where you went to church as well? DM: No, there was a little mission on west 21st Street – Guadalupe. AM: They call it The Little Mission. DM: The Little Mission. I mean a mission like you'd see in Texas, like you'd see in an old Western. AM: It was an old barracks. 37 KB: Is that right? AM: When war was over and they shipped them prisoners back, they was selling the barracks where they used to stay. A lot of people bought the barracks and made warehouses out of them and different things and that little church was one of them – a mess hall or somethin’, you know, and they set it out there and they made a church. DM: Somebody told me it was already gone. KB: Thank you for allowing us to come and talk to you today. 38