Oral History Program Eldred N. Peterson Interviewed by Don Lasater 24 February 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Eldred N. Peterson Interviewed by Don Lasater 24 February 1971 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: Peterson, Eldred, an oral history by Don Lasater, 24 February 1971, 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 Eldred N. Peterson. The interview was conducted on February 24, 1971, by Don Lasater. Peterson discusses his history and talks about working on the telegraph and telephone system in Utah. Introduction: This interview is with Eldred N. Peterson, age 66, retired telephone employee, who started in 1928 and retired in 1967. He retired from the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company and helped put up a lot of lines throughout Utah in the early 1920's. DL: Mr. Peterson how did the telephone and telegraph system effect Utah? EP: It made it possible for the people to have better toll service and local service and made it possible for more people to have private lines. DL: Could you tell us some of the places where you worked and the placed you put up lines and the difficulties you encountered. EP: I started in Ogden, Utah and worked in Ogden about four months, then went to Provo and worked in Provo about six months, then to Marysville and built a toll line from Richfield to Panquitch, Utah. In those days the work was done mostly by hand, hard work, we lifted the poles by hand, and we usually had horses to help string the wire and drag the poles up on the line before we set them, but the work was hard work. We were working down through the Marysville Canyon when the song Big Rock Candy Mountain came out at that time, the Big Rock Candy Mountain didn't have a name, it’s called the Big Rock Candy Mountain at this time, but one of the linemen thought this mountain 1 looked like the song and he made a sign and put it on a board and nailed it up to a tree and that is how the mountain got its name. DL: How about the working conditions and the places you slept and how long were you away from home and things like that? EP: The working conditions were a little rough. We had a camp in Marysville Canyon and slept in tents, we had a cook and a tent where he did the cooking, we had good food but it wasn't like being home. My wife lived in Provo so we'd usually get home about every two or three weeks. We didn't have too many cars at that time. We worked on through to Panquitch and finished the toll line, then went up to Vernal. The Telephone Company had purchased the Vernal Telephone Company, it was a private company at that time and so we tore down all the old lines in Vernal and built new ones, put in our own system and worked there through 1929. Then we came back into Salt Lake. That was the time the Depression started, first part of 1930 several of us got laid off, me included, I was laid off until, off and on until 1933 when I went back out as a long lines patrolman for the telephone company. I went back out to Uinta Basin and worked around Vernal and down through Jensen, that's about 12 miles farther on east of Vernal, We were working out there at the time they were digging for dinosaurs. We lived in the same hotel as this Doctor who was excavating and he'd come in with samples of bones. One time he came in with about a bushel of rocks about as big as your fist and they looked as if they'd been polished. He said they belonged to a dinosaur, it was the gizzard. We worked over around Roosevelt, Fort Duchesne, built a line down to Ouray, an Indian Reservation, Port Duchesne was also an Indian Reservation and we repaired lines out to Tridell and all the little towns around Roosevelt. Then we went up towards Mt. 2 Emmons, Bluebell, Mt. Home and over into Rock Creek and up as far as Hanna, Repaired all the lines up through that territory and down around Tabiona. At the time we were living at Mt. Home, they were building the Moon Lake Reservoir. DL: Mr. Peterson did you have anything interesting happen to you while you were living at Mt. Home? EP: When we were living at Mt. Home, a Fourth of July Celebration came up and myself and a fellow who was working with me decided to build a hotdog stand. The Indians out in that territory had never eaten hotdogs and so we got a hot plate and made a stand out of pole poles, put a cover over it, got some ice cream, candy and hotdogs. Then we didn't have a place to put the stand because the fellow that owned the store out there owned all the property and he didn't like us putting up any stands running competition to him. So we didn't know where we were going to put up our stand. We were talking to the Postmaster and he told us to pull our stand over onto the Post Office property, so we did and we sold a lot of hotdogs to the Indians and were doing real good until a wind storm came up. They had a lot of sandstorms out there, you could see them rolling in. This storm came up and we tried to cover our hotdogs and food but the sand got through anyway and the hotdogs when you ate them were pretty grainy with sand but the Indians still liked them and kept buying until the wind got so bad it blew our tent or our stand down so we had to take off, but we sold a lot of hotdogs and they really had a great time eating them. There was something else that happened out there at that time that was quite interesting. President Roosevelt ordered a lot of cattle killed and the wheat burned. They set up a place where they canned the meat. They'd kill the cows and they'd give the people the meat if they'd bottle it. But there was a fanner out there 3 had ten, twelve head of cattle, the government would give him $3.50 a head if he'd bring their ears in to prove he'd killed the cattle. This farmer wanted to give me his cattle rather than kill them. They were Jersey cows and I didn't have anywhere to keep them so I didn't take them but at that time you could have got quite a herd of cattle if you'd wanted, real cheap. DL: Mr. Peterson what was the reason for canning the cattle and burning the wheat? EP: The country had a surplus of meat and flour and in order to hold the price up, they did away with a lot of cattle and also burned the wheat. DL: What did they do with all this canned meat and wheat and at what time was this? EP: This was in 1932 and 1933, during the depression, and a lot of the meat the farmers just took the cattle out and shot them, and then they'd cut the ears off and take them into the Government house in Duchesne and they'd pay them $3.50 a head for the cows for getting rid of them. The meat was canned too, the people in the towns where they were killing the cattle would bottle this meat, and they could have all they wanted. DL: Mr. Peterson what were your wages during this period? EP: I received $100.00 a month plus $5.00 a week for board and lodging. DL: What did you do after you came back from that territory? EP: After I finished out in Uinta Basin, we came into Salt Lake. The line patrolman in Salt Lake had died and they gave me his job. I had a few real good experiences around Salt Lake. One night about 11:00 the line went out. They had radio then but they didn't have television, anything like that and we had a blizzard out at Saltair, out by KSL Broadcasting House and the wires had stuck together about as big around as your arm with frost and snow, the wind was blowing and they'd swing together and stick and short 4 out the line. We had a stretch of line through the swamp out north of Magna about 14 span and we went out to see what the trouble was. The lines were stuck together but we didn't have any hip boots or anything, but we started out through this swamp in water up to our waists and as we'd come to each pole we'd have to climb each pole and take a hammer and beat the wires, beat the frost and snow off. While we were up there our pants would freeze stiff, and we'd have to come down the pole stiff legged because we couldn't bend our knees and that's pretty hard to climb a pole that way. We had 14 span of wire through there and each pole we had to climb when we came through and we went clear through a section of line and walked back to the road, through the swamp and went into the Salt Lake Airport to call in to see if the lines were clear, they said they weren't that they still had one case of trouble out there, so we went back out and walked back through it again before we found this last case of trouble. They had the lines working by 7:00 in the morning, that's when they'd start broadcasting. DL: Mr. Peterson was the Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Mormon owned, operated, or controlled or who did own this? EP: No, the Mormons had nothing to do with the telephone company. It was owned by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. DL: Did you have any more interesting experiences as a patrolman around Salt Lake City? EP: Had one, one time up Parley's Canyon. They called me about 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon and said the line was out so I started up the canyon and they said it was about ten miles up the canyon. They could measure it pretty close usually, so I went ten miles up the canyon and gave a test and they said it was ten miles farther and I went ten miles more and gave them another test and went ten miles farther and ten miles 5 farther and pretty quick I was up a Coalville. This was on the Denver-Salt Lake toll line and when I got to Coalville and gave a test at Coalville. About this time it started to get dark and it didn't test so they said travel farther, go over to Echo Junction and test. So I went over to Echo Junction and they said I'd passed the trouble. They said it was between where I'd made the last test and Coalville. It was about five miles up over the top of this mountain, quite a way off the road and in real rugged country, so they told me to start walking. I had a lantern operated with batteries called a Daddy's Lantern, used a large dry cell battery. So I started walking over this mountain, it was dark and pretty quick my light burned out, batteries burned out in it, so I walked across this mountain and I could see the sky up above and I could see the line and I walked along the line to try to see the trouble but after I walked across this mountain I still hadn't found anything. I called them on the other side and they said to turn around and walk back and we'll get the manager from Park City to come over and help you. So I started back over the mountain and I still couldn't see it. I walked completely over the top and on the other side and there I met the manager from Park City. That was about 3:00 in the morning, so we decided to take slack blocks, that's blocks that are used to cut the wires and hold the wires while we cut them and made tests. We decided to cut the line in every span or every ten spans until we isolated the trouble in every ten span area. We worked until daylight, but we still hadn't found it but we got it in a ten span area. What had happened when we did find it was all the local lines below this toll line a bird or something had carried a string in and it had wrapped around the two wires and it kept tightening up until it had pulled the two wires together and you couldn't see across because looking down 6 the lines, the line looked clear. I spend all night out there trying to find that one case of trouble. DL: Did you ever work around Park City and what were the conditions like? EP: I remember one case of trouble we had up at Park City. They had a snow slide between Park City and Brighton. We had a weather station at Brighton and they had to keep the line open to get the weather data. We had to carry wire from Park City up over the mountain, this was in winter. We'd parked our truck up at Silver King Mine there at Park City and then had to walk over the top of the mountain, the snow was so deep you could walk right over the top of the lines, in fact the wires were out of the snow only about six Inches, so we had to use snowshoes. We left early in the mountains about 5:00, carried all this wire on our backs, it was covered wire we took up there. Where the snowslide had gone through, it tore all the poles out for about seven spans, so we carried this covered wire on our back and had about six men, we had hired 4 men there in Park City to help us and we walked over to where the snowslide was, those big heavy cones hanging on the edge of the mountain, no danger where the slide had gone through, but on both sides why it was already to have another one, it looked like. We cut the wires on each end and dead ended them and slung this twisted wire between where it was broken on each end and got one line working so they could use it into Brighton and then we started home. We got home that night about 11:00. It was quite a long day. DL: What's been some of the major changes in the working conditions, the equipment that has changed since 1930 to 1965? EP: As far as working conditions, there have been a lot of changes. They have pole hold diggers and they don't do much digging by hand any more. They have derricks on their 7 trucks and wenches, it’s a good deal easier than what it used to be. As far as service, there's a lot of change in the service. They don't have as many toll lines as they used to have. They use this Microwave system and this has done away with a lot of our toll lines. A lot of them have been abandoned and taken out. The Microwave System takes a good deal more of the conversations and telegraph messages than the wires ever could handle. Most of our local service too is in cables rather than open wire, we have very little open wire now in the cities, mostly underground cable. DL: Mr. Peterson can you tell us if Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph is just deal with Utah or do they deal with all the states in the mountain area? EP: I've worked in only one state other than Utah. In 1931 they sent us to Jackson, Wyoming, to build a line from Moran to Dubois, Wyoming. Over the top of the Tobukee Pass and at that time President Hoover was coming up there on his vacation. There wasn't any toll service to the park, so we went up there. They had gangs from Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming up there to build a toll line about 70 miles long. We started the first part of May and worked until the middle of July. When we first went up the snow was deep, about up to your waist and the working conditions were pretty rough. We got the line built and he was supposed to come up the last of July or first part of August on his vacation, but for some reason he never showed up after we'd built the line. They had lines, forest service lines up to the park but didn't have an outlet, it only went as far as Jackson, Wyoming and that was the end of their lines, they didn't have toll service and that's the reason we went up and built this line. DL: At this time I'd like to thank Mr. Peterson for his time and comments and efforts for sharing his experiences with us tonight. 8