Oral History Program Lynn Mac Wade Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lynn Mac Wade Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 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 Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ 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: Wade, Lynn Mac, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Lynn Mac Wade. Mr. Wade talks mainly about bootlegging during Prohibition and activities on 25th Street. He says little about the Depression except naming some prices and talking about hobos who rode the railroads looking for work. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Mac, what do you remember about the Depression years? MW: Well, I remember the whole thing because I was right in the middle of it. I was going to school, and then I went on a mission, and when I came back, everything – well, they were selling eggs for 10 cents a dozen, butter for 15 cents a pound, hay for $5 a ton, and if you were lucky, you could get $1 a day for pitching hay or working on a farm. We sold our alfalfa seed for six cents a pound, so I remember quite a bit. MT: When did you become sheriff of Weber County? MW: I didn’t become sheriff until 1946. MT: Who would have been sheriff then? MW: The man who was sheriff then is dead now. MT: Although you weren’t sheriff at the time, I’m sure that you had some knowledge concerning the law enforcement problems of that time, is that correct? MW: Well, I lived right beside two of the prominent bootleggers in the country, and the place that I now own, out here where I live – I bought the place in 1932, and at that time there was a 500-gallon still that had never been used that was under the old house, and the barn was honeycombed. I don’t know how many barrels there were left here. Nick Brown and Frank Beck and some of the Greeks that I don’t know their names had several different stills here on this property. The reason 2 that they did, was there was lots of brush and lots of water. And one of the reasons they got caught was that they got a bunch of hogs to eat the mash after the alcohol had been extracted from it, and the hogs led the prohibition agent right to the still out in the brush, so that was one way they got caught. They had a hay rack in the sections out there by an old coop, and underneath the coop they had a place where they could store about 5,000 gallons of whiskey. And this sectioned hay rack was on the ground, an old one that you’d never notice. They had the peelings, and they had to keep it at a certain temperature, and they had to have it ... running down through some rock work. I don’t know how long it took them to dig it, but it took me about three weeks to fill it in. They were very good miners because that whole country was – the entire thing was timbered up just like a mine and covered over like that. They had dairy cattle, and they’d feed the dairy cattle and that when they had the still out in the brush, out in the open. By in the open, I mean they went out just west of here and dug a hole, and covered it over, and the only visible thing was just one little pipe, and they had weeds around that. Of course that was the vent that would let the fumes and that out. And they kept cattle there all the time so that people wouldn’t hunt or go through there, and the hunters wouldn’t be so apt to find it. MT: What’s your opinion of the Depression years? Would they stimulate that type of activity and the 25th Street activity? MW: No, I’ll tell you what – naturally Depression, but Prohibition is what stimulated bootleggers. Naturally but success and what you might call prosperity, which we had prior to that time, is what stimulated 25th Street. I remember when we’d go in 3 a place down on 25th Street there, and especially right there on Kiesel Avenue, and they had sandwiches and potato chips, and potato salads, and stuffed eggs, and you’d go in and buy a couple of glasses of beer, and you could have all you wanted to eat. But that was very well run, and you didn’t see a bunch of drunks hanging around that. In fact during Prohibition days, where these people were bootlegging, you didn’t see people hanging around. The drunk had to get away from where they were bootlegging, doing business. MT: What’s your evaluation of Prohibition and crime and so forth, as compared to the basis on which we operate now? MW: Well, Prohibition was something that was almost impossible to enforce. First of all, there was so much money involved in the whiskey runners up in Chicago. Chicago being what it was there on the Great Lakes, they could run it in by boat, by truck, by train, from everywhere. Around here in Ogden, there was a lot of whiskey being sold that was made up around Hans Fork, and in Kemmerer, Wyoming. And there are some places out on North Washington Boulevard, which are a result of bootlegging. I came back from my mission in 1931, and when I went over everyone was working. You couldn’t believe it. And when I came back, you couldn’t believe it. MT: Do you have a recollection of what agencies were responsible for distributing food and clothing and so on? Were they federal, state, city, local, or what? MW: I think that the [LDS] Church did more of that than anybody. And the Salvation Army. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the Salvation Army, there are lots of people that just couldn’t have made it. And then likely, the Church came a lot to their rescue. 4 Then they came up with the PWA, the Public Works Administration, and they gave us three days a week, and they were improving the road. That is when the road was started up over the North Ogden Canyon. Of course there was a lot of abuse in that, but by the same token, it was a necessary evil because people had to eat. But by and large, the church was the main contributor of goods, that is, to the needy. They expected you to earn it, and it was a good living. But there were thousands of men traveling on the railroad, hobo-ing, even people with educational degrees at that time. I know several people from right here in my hometown who went to California and Oregon. In fact, my brother Rudd, who was a very prominent athlete – he got on a freight with some friends, and they went up through Oregon and Idaho and around just to find work in the summer. But the railroads allowed the hobo to ride then as a hobo. Now there was a hobo at that time who never did work; he’d just travel and live off the land. He bummed where he could, but he wasn’t a [worker] unless he had to be. MT: I haven’t been able to locate anyone who was in an elected position in this county during those years. Do you know of anyone who would fit in that category? MW: There isn’t anybody around. Lawrence Malan would have been one of the first. But I just can’t think of anybody now who is still alive. MT: Could I have your permission to use this information? MW: You bet, you use it anyway you want.