i Oral History Program Kim Patterson Interviewed by Cheryl Catlin 24 March 2015 ii Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Kim Patterson Interviewed by Cheryl Catlin 24 March 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Ogden Union Stockyard was a key fixture in the largest livestock market west of Denver during its heyday from 1916 to 1971. The activities at the yard brought Ogden national attention as a livestock center; the rise of the livestock shows, auctions, etc. at the site spurred the local and regional livestock industry, physically shaping the development of the agricultural landscape both near and far. This project documents some of the stories of the stockyard workers and visitors. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Patterson, Kim, an oral history by Cheryl Catlin, 24 March 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Kim & Sandra Patterson March 24, 2015 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Kim Patterson, conducted on March 24, 2015 in his home in Ogden across the street from the Stockyards, by Cheryl Catlin. Patterson discusses his knowledge and experiences with the historic Ogden Union Stockyards. Also present is Sandra Patterson, and Deanna Lougy, the videographer. CC: When and where you were born? KP: 1951 in Ogden, Utah. The older Dee Hospital on 24th and Harrison. CC: Your parents were? Can you tell us their names? KP: Jen and Doris. CC: Your mom’s maiden name was? KP: Lowder. CC: Where did you grow up? What was your address? KP: 619 28th Street. CC: Did you have any siblings? KP: Three brothers and one sister. CC: What did your father do for a living? KP: He was a real estate broker, and county commissioner, and a state legislator. He owned and ran Patterson Real Estate from his home. CC: And what schools did you attend while you were growing up? What was your elementary school? KP: I started out in the old Weber College on 26th Street because Lewis had burned down a couple of years prior and they hadn’t rebuilt it yet. I went there 2 kindergarten and first grade. Then they finished Lewis School and I went there until sixth grade. Dad was Weber County Commissioner and he thought he needed a better house, so we moved up on Lake and Polk for a couple of years and I finished up at Polk Elementary. Then I started junior high at Mount Ogden and we moved back to 28th Street. CC: To the same house? KP: To the same house because that’s where my dad’s real estate office was. I finished out Junior High at Washington Junior High. Then I got all three years in at Ogden High. Graduated in 1969. CC: And did you go to college at all? KP: No. CC: So tell me about your childhood here. Tell me how you liked it. You made a comment yesterday to me that the fifties and sixties growing up in Ogden were great. KP: They were fantastic. People were great. Shops were great. You could walk anywhere in town and not worry about anything. You were little kids, and if you got lost all you had to do was go up to any grown up and they would make sure you got home. I mean it was nice. CC: That’s awesome. KP: Yeah, small town U.S.A. is what Ogden used to be. It’s not that way no more. CC: No, it’s not. What was your first job? KP: Ogden Poultry. CC: For how much an hour? Do you remember? 3 KP: I think it was 35 cents. And we had to work to get that 35 cents. It wasn’t just standing around and waiting for it. CC: How old were you when you started and how long did you work there? KP: I think I was sixteen and I only worked there one season, one fall season, what they called killing season. CC: Where did you go from there? What was your next job? KP: I worked for Mountain Oil at 26th and Adams at the gas station. I think I was making a whole 50 cents an hour. CC: You were president of the Northern Utah Prospector’s Association three times. When did you start doing that? KP: About fifteen years ago. We started a club. CC: Well let’s continue and talk about the stockyards now, and your life around here. What are your ties to the stockyards? What about your grandfather? KP: Well what my dad told me about him, that he ran an exchange over there, but he died before I was even born, so history that I’ll never know, but would like to know. CC: Can you tell us his name? KP: Alex Patterson. CC: And do you know what year he was born and what year he died? Anything about him? KP: Not without going and looking at the genealogy. CC: Where did he live? Did he live right in this area? 4 KP: The way that I understand they were out in Clinton. And I don’t know if Grandpa moved up on 28th Street in the ten hundred block, or if after he died just Grandma moved up there. My family just wasn’t real talkative about Grandma and Grandpa Patterson. CC: Some families aren’t. Then you said that you had an uncle that worked there as well? KP: Yeah, Uncle Fred. And I think I met him once in my life, but I’m not positive. CC: As a young kid before you were married and moved here, how often did you go to the stockyards? KP: Oh we came down and went ice skating at the Coliseum a few times. I’m not a good ice skater so it wasn’t a bunch, and we just looked at the place when we came down. I didn’t really have any involvement with it then. CC: No playing over there or anything at that point? KP: It was a scary place. You didn’t want to play over there. CC: When did you and your wife get married? KP: 1971. CC: Then you bought a home here right across the street from the stockyards. KP: Not for a few years. CC: When did you come to the stockyards? KP: Probably 1984. CC: And you raised your kids in this home? KP: Yes. 5 CC: And we have an email from your daughter, Nikki, that talks about life with the stockyards. KP: [Reading Nikki’s email] “I’m not sure the stockyards themselves had anything to do with me wanting to become a vet. Honestly, for me, it was kind of like a petting zoo. I loved seeing the animals but by then I was already interested in the animals. You guys letting me raise so many things which wouldn’t have happened without the stockyards really did influence me, though. The ewe that was too bad for anybody to buy and was just turned loose then had twins, Ragmuffin and Moff. The chickens and turkeys, the cow, the horses, the goat that you bought from the stockyards to be able to milk to be able to feed the lambs. So in a roundabout way the stockyards did play a big role, but honestly I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a vet. All the times and even now I’d like to have a five hundred head of heifers out on the range. That was probably from the western books I used to read and the fact that I always wanted to do what girls weren’t supposed to do.” CC: Then you had some comments from your sons about growing up here. KP: I did. The oldest boy, he’s just two years younger than the daughter. She’s forty, he’s thirty-eight this year, soon, next week. This is the oldest boy. [Reading his oldest boy’s email] “I learned more about animals than I would have anywhere else. It was always fun to go check out the old buildings.” That is his only comment about growing up out here. Then the youngest one, he was actually born out here. I think he’s twenty-eight this year. [Reading his youngest boy’s email] “I would say, yes, and in a 6 positive way because it showed me from such a young age the importance of livestock trained and individual businesses in the overall scheme of things for society.” CC: That’s awesome. What was the question, exactly, that you asked them? KP: If living across the street from the stockyards had any influence on their life. CC: That’s awesome. So, you did maintenance work over there? KP: I did. When stuff broke that they couldn’t fix, I’d go over and fix it. Or if their trucks broke, I’d fix them, or trailers broke, I’d fix them. I even hauled cattle and sheep for them at times. It was just like one big family out here. CC: So the people became close to each other? KP: I think so. I mean, we were friends as well as acquaintances. The owners and I were friends. CC: So can you tell us who specifically? KP: Keith Anderson was one of the owners and Dick Widdison was the other owner. Great guy. Keith was a little iffy but Dick was a great guy. CC: Can you tell us some of your memories about the stockyards and this area, right here especially? Just tell us anything that comes to mind that you think would be interesting historically? KP: I was called at ten o’clock at night and asked to go over and line up some corrals for a load coming in because the weather was too bad for Dick to come in. I’d do it for him. I would go over there and line up some corrals for him and line up the alleys so they could just run the cattle into them. Or running over and moving all the livestock to the west side when the Coliseum burnt down to keep them away 7 from the smoke, the fire and all of the commotion, so they weren’t quite as upset. Watching the sales on Tuesdays was kind of neat by itself, seeing the prices of the cows and the sheep. [They were] all good people over there, a lot of the old farmers and ranchers around. CC: It was a lot of the same people coming in probably? KP: Yeah. CC: So you knew a lot of them? KP: All by sight, a few of them by name. Pretty much the regulars, and some of the old guys came; they never bought anything they just came to do something because that’s what they [had] done all their lives so they just kept doing it. Then the two oldest kids, the girl and the boy, they both worked over there as cleaners. They’d clean up the sales barn every week, or they used to run the cows and sheep in, and pigs and goats. CC: How many hours did they do that every week do you think? KP: Oh two or three, four hours a week they’d be over there playing. Sometimes they played more than what they cleaned. You know kids. CC: Any idea what they were paid back then? KP: It was like eight or ten dollars for the pair a week. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get them to do it. CC: Make it worth it for them. KP: Give them a little bit of work ethic and if they didn’t do a good job, they were told about it and they went back over and they finished it. CC: Any other memories you want to tell us about? 8 KP: Oh the horses would get out on their own, and the cows would get out on their own. We tried to keep them from getting run over until we could get them herded back in there. And sometimes it was midnight or later. CC: So your life was pretty busy, kind of keeping track of things a little bit. KP: It was an easy busy, though. I mean, like I told you before was that this was the forgotten place; nobody knew it was down here. Nobody wanted to know it was down here, and the only time we ever had any traffic on the road was Tuesdays because that was sales day. And other than that it was just kind of the country life out here. CC: Well you were telling me that the reason that you and your wife bought this home originally had to do with where it was located. Can you talk to us about that for a minute? KP: Because we would rather listen to cows and sheep and pigs squealing than listen to these stupid stereos and people yelling at each other. CC: So you really liked it down here? KP: We liked it. It was quiet and it was nice. Sometimes it was stinky if the wind was just right, but it’s okay. It’s just farm smell. It was nice. It was really nice down here. CC: What did you find most interesting about the stockyards? KP: I was trying to dig out the history of my granddad and talk to different old farmers and ranchers, and if they knew him and actually if anybody liked him. CC: What did you find out about that? Did you find out much? 9 KP: Not really. There were a few who knew who he was but they didn’t deal with him. He was more big sales, you know, a whole train car full of cattle. I think back then if I remember the stories right the commissions over at the exchange building were basically the commercial guys and not the local guys. I mean the guys that worked there were local but they were buying and selling for big companies back east or out on the west coast and they were talking thousands of dollars of cows and sheep, not just one or two. CC: Right, so his position was really a big position? KP: As far as I can figure out that’s what it was. CC: Did you ever know which office was his over there? I mean we have the number but did you ever go in it? KP: I saw which office was his. Just an office, it’s nothing special. CC: Well he was there though. Who else do you remember besides Dick Widdison and Keith Anderson from the stockyards? Do you remember anybody else that you can tell us about? You mentioned, yesterday, Jerry Anderson. KP: Jerry Anderson, he was Keith’s son and he actually is still running a livestock business up in Perry. They moved from here and it is going good. The last time I drove by up there he was doing really well. CC: Did you ever eat in the restaurant over there? KP: Not at the Exchange building, it was closed by the time we moved out here. The Stockmen’s Café was across the street from the Coliseum and it was just kind of a couple railroad cars pushed together. We ate up there several times. It was good food. 10 CC: Was it fun then to go up there? KP: Oh yeah, we could walk up there and get a hamburger. We didn’t have to drive anywhere. I think they did breakfast and maybe hamburgers and French fries. In fact, I’m pretty sure they did breakfast because we walked up there for breakfast a couple of times. Weber County opened up the Exchange building after we moved out here and 4-H was over there. The Weber Human Services was over there also. CC: You told me another interesting story about this house and the café. Do you want to tell us about that? KP: Well, I don’t know if it was called the “Stockmen’s Café”, but it just seemed to be all stockmen out here; it was the original café before they built the Exchange building. CC: How did you figure that out? KP: When we tore up the carpet and the floor and started looking, we could see where all the stools had been in front of the bar. The tables had been in front of the windows, and the wall had been taken out and replaced. There was about a twelve-inch exhaust pipe up in the attic that they had put up there. On the front window you could see where it used to say, “Welcome Stockshow visitors.” Out the back door when we had to dig out here to put a new foundation in we dug up tons of hambones, pork chop bones, steak bones and chicken bones. So all I can think of is that they stood at the back door and said, “Here kitty, kitty.” CC: That’s a neat story. So what kinds of activities do you remember attending over there at the stockyards? 11 KP: About the only activity they had was selling cows and sheep. The auctions, that’s what that whole place evolved around. CC: Did you go over to the auctions? KP: Oh yeah. We sometimes even bought things once in a while. Most of it was given to us in day old calves or crippled sheep because nobody else wanted them. CC: So how many animals do you suppose you ended up with that were crippled or unwanted from there? KP: That’s hard to say. We’ve had so many critters here. We’ve had horses, steers, cows, calves, sheep, turkeys and chickens (both layers and meat chickens). We’ve even raised several families of ducks that weren’t ours. They’re God’s ducks; they just come up out of the canal. They feed at the chicken or bird feeder and then they go back into the canal. We’ve had that happen every spring for the last ten to twelve years now. When we had the horses, my wife, daughter, and I would go riding. We had the whole area over there to ride on with permission from everybody. We could go in the Coliseum and ride in there. We rode all the way down along the river, through the field, through the stockyards and up on the other hill on the west side. It was just a good time out there. CC: It sounds like a nice life. KP: Kids were safe, you never worried about them. Like I said, we never started locking our door here until about ten years ago. CC: Can you tell us about the trains that used to bring the livestock in? KP: That was way before my time. The railroad used to have their spurs coming in, and from listening to my dad there were whole train cars full with nothing but 12 sheep or pigs and depending on which one it was, they pulled up to that loading dock. They unloaded them and then they’d run them through the sales or through the commission in the exchange building. A lot of them just got put right back on the car trains and shipped to whoever bought them and a lot of them were just taken across the river to the slaughterhouse. CC: Yeah, so it was already closed when you moved in here? KP: As far as the actual stockyards in its heyday, it was over. Like I said, Dick and Keith bought it and they started it back up. I think Dick used to work for the actual exchange or the stockyards. The Ogden Livestock, I think he actually worked there as a young man, but we’re not going to find out now. CC: You talked about your thoughts about the stockyards closing and why it may have closed. Do you want to comment on that? KP: It’s all about greed, nothing but greed. People want more money and more money until people say, “That’s enough.” If it wasn’t for greed I think the stockyards would still be going today. CC: Really? KP: I really do. To look at Jerry’s business now up in Perry, I think this would’ve still been going if the property owner hadn’t been so greedy and wanted more rent. CC: So the fact that there’s nothing going on over there, do you think it had a personal impact on you and your family when the whole thing ended? KP: Oh yeah. CC: How so? 13 KP: Ever since that everything’s been downhill. The only thing I can say about Ogden City is they really know how to screw up an area. CC: So the businesses and everything around here has changed? KP: Oh yeah. CC: In what way? KP: Well, when the county decided to put the dumps a block and a half west of us and turned our little tiny country road into a major freeway for garbage trucks. Of course the beer company up here on the hill, they sell more beer every day, so they work later every night and we have to sit here and listen to them. Dice Chemical was just a little place on the other side of the river up the road and after the Coliseum burnt down they expanded to the west side of the river, so now they have two places up there and they run their trucks up and down here. The drivers there are pretty decent though. Then Bert Smith’s got his warehouse up there on the other side of the river and his trucks and his garbage that goes up in there and comes back out. Then Durbano’s is over in the railroad yard. CC: I don’t know that name. KP: They deal with railroad scrap pretty much. When the state closed off their access to the south, with the 31st street, they’ve had to run everything in and out on Exchange Road which increases the traffic more. Then the city blessed us with Bloom’s Salvage Yard just a block to the west which increased the traffic on foot, car and truck dramatically. Now our little tiny road is kind of like a major freeway all day long. Not to mention everybody that thinks it’s a shortcut from somewhere 14 to someplace. I don’t know where they’re going or where they’re coming from, but they seem to use our road. CC: It’s a lovely little area too. KP: It used to be. CC: So is there anything else that you’d like to tell us about that maybe we haven’t covered? KP: You got any comments dear? CC: Sandra, do you want to come in and talk to us? SP: Just say that when it was going big. The exchange building that was originally over there in the thirties was the largest exchange livestock sales west of the Mississippi. So it was big, it was nationwide. I truly think that if it hadn’t been there Ogden City wouldn’t be as big as it is. CC: Awesome, thank you for that Sandra. KP: I think that the stockyards played a big role in Ogden and 25th Street and the railroad, because if it wasn’t for the livestock there wouldn’t have been nearly as much traffic that came in. CC: Kind of put it on the map. KP: I believe it did, but until it’s gone nobody is interested. Like now, it’s going away and now people get interested. CC: You want to just hold up those books that you’ve got so the camera can take a look at them and then also that paper that has your grandpa’s name and office number? 15 SP: Make sure to get the date. It’s on the inside. Just open the front page and it’s on the inside. KP: These were a present to me from Dick Widdison. January 5, 1932. SP: This one’s got to be 1934, because they’re advertising a show. CC: Right, 1934, thank you this is awesome. KP: I think we still have another one lying around somewhere, but we wouldn’t know where. CC: Well this has been really interesting. We really appreciate you letting us come into your home and taking your time. SP: Another person you might want to talk to is Doctor Chad Widdison. He’s a veterinarian that did a lot of work over there in the fifties and sixties. KP: He is still alive. CC: I’ll write that down. This has been awesome, thank you.