Oral History Program William Price Interviewed by Mary Werner 19 July 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah William Price Interviewed by Mary Werner 19 July 1973 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: Price, William, an oral history by Mary Werner, 19 July 1973, 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 William Price. The interview was conducted on July 19, 1973, by Mary Werner, in Price’s home in Ogden, Utah. Price discusses his experiences on the railroad and also discusses a bit of the sports history of Ogden. MW: Can you start this interview by telling me a little about your early life, Mr. Price? WP: I was born in Ogden on May 6, 1906, on West 17th Street. I attended my early schooling at what is now the school of Mount Fort. It's on 12th and Washington Boulevard. After graduating from that school, I entered Weber Normal College. It was then a church school that was operated by the L.D.S. Church. It is now Weber State College. During my early life, I participated in quite a lot of athletic adventures. I have received three letters at Weber Normal College for football, basketball, baseball, and track. In the early 20's I had the privilege of belonging to a mother club of baseball that was the Oakland Acorns that are now the Acorns of Oakland. I was a catcher. I had the privilege of catching in that league that was called the Utah State league. I was sent back to Ogden, I caught with another catcher by the name of Ernie Lombardi. He was a great with the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Giants. I had the privilege of being a roommate of a left handed pitcher by the name of Larry French, who was a great with the Chicago Cubs. I also had the privilege of being a very close friend and caught on an all-star team with the great Lefty Gomes, of the New York Yankees. At his last appearance in the World Series, he stopped off in Ogden and there I had the privilege of introducing him to my two older boys and to my wife. During my early time in the 1920's, I went to work for the Southern Pacific Railroad on West 22nd Street. It was jointly taking care of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific locomotives in the good old steam engine days. I went back to work after the 1922 strike on May 13, 1923. I worked at the Southern Pacific Railroad as an apprentice learning the machinist's trade. The machinist was a peculiar sort of occupation. We had to be creative. We would make parts by drawing blue-prints and taking them to the blacksmith 1 shop. The blacksmith would then hammer these parts out by heating iron with a big steel hammer. Then we would have to take them into our machine shop and through hot rubbing of all kinds of machinery, planers, milling machines, tool lathes, arid things like that we had to make some of our own tools. We made parts that fit in these locomotives. It was a very important assignment. I had a very good privilege of having very good instructors which benefitted me later in my life. In 1927, the Union Pacific Railroad came to Ogden and built its shop down on West 29th Street. In the transfer of these locomotives, that we were maintaining jointly many went over to the new U.P. shop. This new shop took a lot of employment away from our shop. Being one of the younger machinists and employed as a mechanic, I transferred over to the Union Pacific Railroad in 1927. At that time, it was operating an athletic program and I had the privilege to make their football and baseball team that year. In December, when I had completed my employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad, I transferred over to the Union Pacific Railroad. I worked for the Union Pacific Railroad, mostly in Ogden. In 1940, I was transferred to Green River Wyoming as a district foreman during World War II. Shortly after that I was transferred back to Ogden as district foreman and roundhouse foreman at the plant in Ogden. I had the privilege of supervising some 1800 men and it was a great experience. I then retired on May 19, 1970, and the last three years have been very important to me. I've enjoyed them very much. That is a resume of my employment, but I would like to say one more thing. No honor to me, but it is something that very few people could ever say. Starting the railroad in 1923, in the early part of May, I believe the 13th, and then retiring on May 19, 1970. I was never laid off a day, I never had to go look for a job. The only time I wasn't on the payroll for a day’s wages was when I had my own individual sickness or things like that. I think in a time of 50 years in occupational jobs anyone that could say that they had stayed on the same job and the same employment for that long without being laid off, didn't have to wonder where they were going to get another job. I was very fortunate and blessed by the Great Maker. Now, if I can answer any questions that you would like. That's my resume. I should have mentioned that in 1930 after coming back from playing 2 baseball with the Ogden Gunners, I met a lovely lady by the name of Elsie Margaret Parker, who later became my wife. She and I were married in the L.D.S. Temple on October 22, 1930. She gave to me three lovely sons. We had a very fine life for a little more than 40 years. Through an accident that she had, she had a difficult time from July 29, 1970 to November 17, 1970. After four major operations, she passed away after the last one. That is my life up till now. Just lately on June 30, 1973, in my home, here, I was married to May Gibson Elwell, who is now Mrs. William Price. She is a very lovely acquaintance of both my wife and I of a long time. She lost her husband six weeks before I lost my wife in 1970. If there are any questions you might like to ask I would be happy to answer them. MW: Why did you even start your employment on the railroad? WP: Well, my father was a railroad employee. He came from Ireland when he was nine years old, and established a home later in his life where I was born into a family as the third oldest child of six boys and two girls. In those days employment wasn't like it is today, where everything is inflated, but it still was a great wage. Of course, occupations were free then. After completing my high school in 1923, I went to the Southern Pacific Railroad to help my parents a little bit and to help put through school four of my brothers, who have obtained a high degree of education, and two of my sisters. That is the reason I didn't complete my education in baseball. I had a chance to play ball with the Detroit Tigers, but I gave that up to stay home and help put my brothers and sisters through school. MW: You said you were head of the athletic department of the railroad. What exactly was that? Did it include just men from the railroad? WP: We had quite a program on the Union Pacific. They had a great band, and they toured all over. With this band they had a fairly good basketball team, and a fairly good football team. We participated in competition from Ogden east to Omaha. We had a league of all Union Pacific shops. We were fortunate enough to bring to Ogden the championships of quite a few of these sports. I had the privilege of being one of the 3 managers. I was the running fullback on the football team, and I was a center on the basketball team. But, my greatness wasn't great, because my team was the people who brought the honors to Ogden. I won't elaborate on myself because if I was such a great ball player I would have made it known, I'm an unknown character. MW: You said you began your employment in Ogden? WP: Yes, ma'am MW: Could you tell me what has changed down there from when you started working? WP: Yes, it is quite a bit different. Down on 29th Street we had a big roundhouse that housed 24 stalls and a big turntable that was the biggest built on any railroad. It turned the great steam locomotives #4000 that were 150 feet long. That now has all been torn down with the invention of the diesel. The exchange of diesel has been something in our occupation that has changed. Instead of being creators, we have to learn the same things as an automobile mechanic. An automobile mechanic has a small local engine that has six to twelve cylinders that are three inches in diameter. A diesel locomotive could have twelve cylinders that would be twelve to sixteen inches in diameter depending on the make. However, sometimes we wonder why inventions come along. But it doesn't seem right that everything should stand still. If we were to go back to 1923, in 1948, when most of our diesels were in power and the steam engine was almost a forgotten thing, it wouldn't be right. It would be like our household conditions or our educational functions. An example, when I was in high school the people that are going to junior high school now are getting the same education I got in high school. Everything has advanced in such a way that it wouldn't be right to go back. I look at it and it seems funny to see all of our buildings being torn down, and all of our plants been moved either to North Platt, Nebraska, or Salt Lake City, Utah, or Portland, Oregon, where there are the major shops now. Instead of having shops all along the line, they have one every 50-100 miles. 4 Diesels, like our automobiles today, the only time they need anything is when you have to fill them with gas or have a flat tire. We call a flat tire on our diesel locomotives a breakdown. If something goes wrong we go out and repair it and it goes on. Whereas, a steam locomotive needed repairs more often because of the friction of steel against steel, brass against brass, and things like that, that were man-made rather than being made by a machine, like the locomotives are today. That is the difference between today and when I learned the trade as a mechanic. It was different because instead of creating them, we would later go to a parts place and get a new part and exchange it. There are more exchanges now than, I would say with the creative days on the railroad. MW: Have you noticed any difference in the depot now and when you worked there? WP: Yes, it's funny to go down to the depot now because you could always find the depot 2/3 full of people and the hurry and scurry of taxi-cabs in front and people transferring from one place to another. At one time we had eleven passenger trains every day coming into Ogden from the East going south: Los Angles, the North-Seattle, and the Southwest-San Francisco. Ogden is much different now than what it used to be too. Ogden was once advertised as the hub of a wheel as far as the railroad was concerned. Today it is only a spoke. It's just someplace they go through. The S.P.R.R. in Ogden has changed just like the U.P.R.R. has. They have moved so many of their people to the Northwest coast—San Francisco and Rosedale, and they space their shops like on the U.P. The depot is just something I never saw locked and there was always the hurry and scurry of people in it up until the last ten years. It has dwindled down like that each year and now they close the doors and lock everything up and open only so many man hours a day when the Amtrak train comes through. It's different. I don't know whether it will change later on or not. We will probably have more of a schedule that we can go anywhere on the railroad like we use to. Now, if I wanted to go to Seattle, I would have to take a bus to Pocatello, and then I could catch a train from there to Seattle. There they have the Amtrak, but it only runs three days a 5 week, where we use to have seven trains a day going to the Northwest. It would turn across to Granger, just outside of Greenriver, Wyoming, and go up through the mountains that way and go up to Pocatello. It would also come down Weber Canyon through Ogden and be branched off going to San Francisco and Los Angles. That's why we would have from ten-eleven passenger trains daily along with all of the freight trains too. Today, there's so much difference. It's faster on the railroad today, because they have modernized the railroad cars to roller-bearings rather than brass and oil packed bearings. Where the 50 miles an hour train would run, they now run $0 miles an hour. So it's faster, it's more convenient for manufacturing people, but as far as passenger service goes, it's almost closed. MW: I noticed you used the expression that Ogden is just a spoke now instead of a hub. What exactly do you attribute this loss of prestige to? WP: The hub was the center of everything that moved on a railroad. Ogden was a central transporting place. We have what is called in the yards the Ogden Union Railroad and Depot Company, or the O.U.R. and D. That is where they interchange and did the switching and transfer of anything from the West Coast coming from Los Angles, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, British Columbia, or it might go through to Chicago or Denver into Saint Louis, and into the deep South. Ogden was the place where the change was created, and would send them in different directions. Now in Pocatello, North Piatt, and Los Angeles, they are in the process of building an automatic switching device that will switch productive box cars that are designed to go one direction, and they will pass through Ogden without this interchange. That's what happened to our employment in Ogden today. That's why all these people have been transferred to the head points where they are now working. Ogden is no longer a hub, because there is no longer an interchange, Ogden is just now one of the routes that take the trains through. My expression of Ogden just becoming a spoke is just symbolizing its role in traffic. They have even transferred the engine men who use to interchange here. They interchange now at Salt Lake City. The engineer and fireman, the brakeman and conductors use to get on 6 the train in Ogden and go west out of here. Now, they get on a train at Greenriver and the train goes right through Ogden with no depot to stop at, and with no reason because it’s only freight. They go right straight into Salt Lake City} and the people commute back to Ogden, where they live by automobile until it’s their next turn to be called out again. That's why my remarks instead of a hub of progress as far as railroading is concerned, Ogden is just a straight through spoke. MW: You mentioned something about the Ogden Gunners. What were they? WP: Instead of the Dodgers here, we had the Ogden Gunners, It was the baseball team that represented this area of Utah and Idaho and Montana. That was where our league was our parent club was. Our parent club was then the Oakland Acorns, that was in the Pacific Coast League. The same town that now has the Oakland Athletics in the majors. They were the parent club that sponsored Ogden. The Ogden ball club is now sponsored by the Los Angeles Dodgers. MW: Whatever happened to the Ogden Gunners? WP: During the Depression they took away some of the Glass Triple A Leagues. They discontinued them and never started them over again. The Oakland ball club sponsored a team to Fresno in California rather than coming again to Ogden. After 1929, we didn't have an organized baseball club in Ogden, Salt Lake City didn't have one for some five or six years either. Then when they came back they went into the Pacific Coast League. They were two years in the league that is now called the Utah-Idaho League. But they have dropped Montana. They use to also reach into Montana and have some clubs. But in that year and half that I had the privilege of playing a little professional baseball, there was Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan, Brigham City, Twin-Falls, Boise, Idaho Falls, Billings, and Burly. That's why they called it the Utah-Idaho League. In Ogden there was just the Ogden Gunners like they are called the Ogden Dodgers now. MW: Is there any particular reason as to why the Ogden club was named the Ogden Gunners? 7 WP: Years ago, in the Old Union Association, when I was just a small boy I remember I use to go up and watch them play where the rodeo is now. They later built the John Affleck Park to have the baseball games in. They were called then the Ogden Gunners. I think they just adopted that because the business people who helped sponsor the ball club that Oakland didn't supply the rest of the money. These mother clubs sponsor so much of the money and the business people in the area where the ball clubs are, sponsor the rest of it for the players expenses. That's the reason that they kept the name the Ogden Gunners, other than that I couldn't answer. MW: When you worked in Ogden did you just work in the yards or did you ever go out on the road perhaps on a derailment? WP: I had an assignment of being with the derrick every time it went, because I was called the Machinist Federal Inspector. As a machinist I use to look locomotives over and make reports for the mechanics to come along and fix. With that assignment, I went out with the derrick and took people with me. We would have to put the locomotive parts together to bring in or help it so it could bring itself in. Lots of times we had some good experiences and some bad ones. I was eleven days at Wuta, the border line between Utah and Wyoming up in the canyon. A streamliner in a real bad snowstorm, in the early part of December, I forget the year, but it developed trouble and a second streamliner coming around a curve and over a hill in a snowstorm went right through three cars and derailed both trains. We were there some eleven days getting the railroad back in shape for running again. I spent a lot of time away from home. I sometimes would have to cover as far north as Pocatello, as far south as Salt Lake City, and as far east, with the Greenriver crew, as Laramie. Mostly I stopped at Greenriver, Pocatello and Salt Lake City. In that area I traveled with the derrick every time it left until I resigned from that assignment because I didn't care to be out there. Always an accident happens in bad weather or at night. Of course, I missed enough night’s sleep and worked in enough bad weather that I didn't care to in the last years of my life. Seven years before I retired I resigned from that job. 8 MW: That railroad wreck that you talked about at Wuta, was that the one with the doctor passengers? WP: That's the one. We had quite an experience on that one. They were looking for the doctor that had gone on the San Francisco. When an accident happens, it's like everything else, you have to identify people by the things that are left. They couldn't find anything that would identify this young man that was lecturing on cancer. He was the chief doctor of cancer, as I recall. He was teaching in some big Eastern hospital, and he had gone to San Francisco to the big doctor's convention, and he had been one of the instructors and lecturers there. Coming back he was riding on the City of San Francisco #102, the train that developed the trouble. One Hundred and Four, the train from Los Angles was the one that went through it. He was in one of the rear observation cars behind the diner. The crash impact just split them wide open. We had something like 150 Indian section people there combing, trying to find things. WP: We had parts of faces and things like that. One time we turned up a car and the head and part of the face belonged to a lady that they hadn't found. As I was walking by one of the Indian fellows said to me, "Hey, boss" They called me one of the bosses, but I wasn't, but I was just a Federal inspector but I guess I was a boss as far as they were concerned. He said, "Look here I found a hand." So I went and got the other officials on the railroad, and these people uncovered the rest. This man was sitting in the seat, just like he was sitting talking to somebody. From his waist up he was intact, but from his waist down he had been mangled quite badly. Of course, he was dead. This part of him was intact, but that's how we found him on the eleventh day. There were some other experiences on there that aren't good to talk about. There was part of a man that had from his hip down to his ankle, as the two cars came together, had a piece of glass right straight through just above his knee. That identified the rest of him. Others were identified by dentures and things like that. Not too many of them were hurt too badly, I'm glad you brought up this doctor, but I was there when it happened. 9 MW: We only have a few minutes of tape left, so could you give me your ideas of what the future of the railroad will be? WP: Well, I could win a lot of money if I could make an accurate prediction. But as far as I see it, I don't think the railroad is going to change in our lives very much more than what it is. As I look back in my life, there has been too many inventions that have happened and I don't know what any more will be. We're worrying about moons and planets and not so much about our occupational things we have here. Railroading now, has advanced to a fact that I don't know now what possibly more they could do except put them in airplanes. As I understand, our railroad has made application to try to transfer our mail in their own airmail system or planes, and have schools of pilots, where they have their own employees. That could happen tomorrow or in the next four or five years, but they have been turned down by the Interstate Commerce Commission once. The other plane companies have outvoted them someway. I don't look for any big change in railroading, because railroading has already gone through a very big change from steam locomotives to now diesel and we have here the most modern diesel locomotives that have been made. Education will give us more engineers, manufacturing engineers, and if they can sell some of these big industrial people some idea, we might find something new in railroading, I don't look to see a big change in 30 or 40 years, because I think diesels are here to live their lives out. They are very economical and efficient both to producers and the railroad companies. To throw them away, I don't look forward to them doing that. Course I don't know, because I'm just a little part of railroading. MW: I’m glad to get your part of railroading today, Mr. Price, and I appreciate you talking to me. WP: Well, if it did you any good I'm glad for two reasons. I'm glad I met one of my neighbors, and if I have been any help to you in giving you what you were after, I'm glad I had the privilege. 10