interview with james c. weeks

8/2/2019 Interview with James C. Weeks

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I n t e r v i e w w i t hJAMES

An Oral History conducted and edited byRobert D. McCracken

Nye County Town History ProjectNye County, \eadaTonopah987


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: 9 9 0Nye County Town History ProjectNye County CommissionersTonopah, Nevada89049


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PrefaceAcknowledgmentsvi iIntroductionixCHAPTER ONE1H o m e r W e e k s a n d t h e S e n a t o r S t e w a r t M i n e ; w o r k i n g m i l l t a i l i n g s ;the John Delfs Scholarship.CHAPTER TWO11The Lisle hardware store; the fire department then and now; theBeatty economy.CHAPTER THREE21Ethnic groups in Beatty; tourism; a trip up the road.CHAPTER FOUR28The Spicer inquest; on up the road.Index35

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PREFACE

The Nye County Town History Project (NCTHP) engages in interviewingpeople who can provide firsthand descriptions of the individuals, events,and places that give history its s ubstance. The product s of this researchare the tapes of the interviews and their transcriptions.

In themselves, oral history interviews are not history. However,they often contain valuable primary source material, as useful in theprocess of historiography as the written sources to which historians havecustomarily turned. Verifying th e accuracy of all of the statements madein the course of an interview would require more time and money than theNCTHP's oper ating budget permits. The program can vouch that thestatements were made, but it cannot attest that they are free of error.Accordingly, oral histories should be read with the same prudence that thereader exercises when consulting government records, newspaper accounts,diaries, and other sources of historical information.

It is the policy of the NCTHP to produce transcripts that are asclose to verbatim as possible, but some alteration of the text isgenerally both unavoidable and desirable. When human speech is capturedin print the result can be a morass of tangled syntax, false starts, andincomplete sentences, sometimes verging on inchoerency. The type fontcontains no symbols for the physical gestures and the diverse vocalmodulations that are integral parts of communication through speech.Experience shows that totally verbatim transcripts are often largelyunreadable and therefore a waste of the resources expended in theirproduction. While keeping alterations to a minimum the NCTHP will,


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in preparing a text:a. generally delete false starts, redundancies and the uhs, ahs andother noises with which speech is often sprinkled;b. occasionally compress language that would be confusing to thereader in unaltered form;c. rarely shift a portion of a transcript to place it in its propercontext;d. enclose in [brackets] explanatory information or words that werenot uttered but have been added to render the text intelligible;ande. make every effort to correctly spell the names of all individualsand places, recognizing that an occasional word may be misspelledbecause no authoritative source on its correct spelling was found.

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As project director, I would like to express my deep appreciation tothose who participated in the Nye County Town History Project (NCTHP). Itwas an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to obtain oralhistories from so many wonderful individuals. I was welcomed into manyhomes--in many cases as a stranger--and was allowed to share in therecollection of local history. In a numb er of cases I had the opportunityto interview Nye County residents wham I have known and admired since Iwas a teenager; these experiences were especially gratifying. I thank theresidents throughout Nye County and southern Nevada--too numerous tomention by name--who provided assistance, information, and photographs.They helped make the successful completion of this project possible.

Appreciation goes to Chairman Joe S. Garcia, Jr., Robert N. "Bobby"Revert, and Patricia S. Mankins, the Nye County commissioners whoinitiated this project. M r. Garcia and Mr. Revert, in particular, showeddeep interest and unyielding support for the project from its inception.Thanks also go to current commissioners Richard L. Carver and Barbara J.Raper, who have since joined Mr. Revert on the board and who havecontinued the project with enthusiastic support. Stephen T. Bradhurst,Jr., planning consultant for Nye County, gave unwavering support andadvocacy of the project within Nye County and before the State of NevadaNuclear Waste Project Office and the United States Department of Energy;both entities provided funds for this proj ect. Thanks are also extendedto Mr. Bradhurst for his advice and input regarding the conduct of theresearch and for constantly serving as a sounding board whenmethodological problems were worked out. This project wo uld never have

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became a reality without the enthusiastic support of the Nye Countycommissioners and Mr. Bradhurst.

Jean Charney served as administrative assistant, editor, indexer,and typist throughout the project; her services have been indispensable.Louise Terrell provided considerable assistance in transcribing many ofthe oral histories; Barbara Douglass also transcribed a number ofinterviews. Transcribing, typing, editing, and indexing were provided atvarious times by Alice Levine, Jodie Hanson, Mike G reen, and CynthiaTremblay. Jared Charney contributed essential word processing skills.Maire Hayes, Michelle Starika, Anita Coryell, Michelle Welsh, LindsaySchumacher, and Jodie Hanson shouldered the herculean task of proofreadingthe oral histories. Gre tchen Loeffler and Bambi McCracken assisted innumerous secr etarial and clerical duties. Phillip Earl of the NevadaHistorical Society contributed valuable support and criticism throughoutthe project, and Tam King at the Oral History Program of the University ofNevada at Reno served as a consulting oral historian. Much deservedthanks are extended to all these persons.

All material for the NCTHP was prepared with the support of the U.S.Department of Energy, G rant NO. DE-FG08-89NV10820. However, any opinions,findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those ofthe author and do not necessarily reflect the views of DOE.

--Robert D. McCrackenJune 1990

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INTRODUCTION

Historians generally consider the year 1890 as the end of theAmerican frontier. By then, most of the western Unite d States had beensettled, ranches and fauns developed, communities established, and roadsand railroads constructed. The minin g boomtowns, based on the lure ofovernight riches from newly developed lodes, were but a memory.

Although Ne vada was granted st atehood in 1864, examination of any mapof the state from the late 1800s shows that while much of the state wasmapped and its geographical features named, a vast region--stretching fromBelmont south to the Las Vegas meadows, comprising most of Nye County--remained largely unsettled and unmapped. In 1890 most of southcen tralNevada remained very much a frontier, and it continued to be for at leastanother twenty years.

The great mining booms at Tonopah (1900), Goldfield (1902), andRhyolite (1904) represent the last major flowering of what might be calledthe Old West in the United States. Consequently, southcentral Nevada,notably Nye County, remains close to the American frontier; closer,perhaps, than any other region of the American West. In a real sense, asignificant part of the frontier can still be found in southcentralNevada. It exists in the attitudes, values, lifestyles, and memories ofarea residents. The frontier- like character of the area also is visiblein the relatively undisturbed quality of the natural environment, most ofit essentially untouched by human hands.

A survey of written sources on southcentral Nevada's history revealssome material from th e boomtow n period from 1900 to about 1915, but verylittle on the area after around 1920. The volume of available sources

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varies from town to to wn: A fair amount of literature, for instance, canbe found covering Tonopah's first two decades of existence, and the townhas had a newspaper continuously since its first ye ar. In contrast,relatively little is known about the early days of Gabbs, Round Mountain,Manhattan, Beatty, Amargosa Valley, and Pahrump. Gabbs' s only newspaperwas published intermitten tly between 1974 and 1976. Round Mountain' s onlynewspaper, the Round Mountain Nugget, was published between 1906 and 1910.Manhattan had newspaper coverage for most of the years between 1906 and1922. Amargosa Valley has never had a newspaper; Beatty' s indepen dentpaper folded in 1912. Pahrump's first newspaper did not appear until1971. All six communities received only spotty coverage in the newspapersof other communities after their own papers folded, although Beatty wasserved by the Beatty Bulletin, which was published as a supplement to theGoldfield News betwee n 1947 and 1956. Conseque ntly, most information onthe history of southcentral Nevada after 1920 is stored in the memories ofindividuals who are still living.

Aware of Nye County's close ties to our nation's frontier past, andrecognizing that few written sources on local history are available,especially after about 1920, the Nye County Commissioners initiated theNye County Town History Project (NCTHP). The NCTHP represents an effortto systematically collect and preserve information on the history of NyeCounty. The cente rpiece of the NCTHP is a large set of interviewsconducted with individuals who had knowledge of local his tory. Eachinterview was recorded, transcribed, and then edited lightly to preservethe language and speech patterns of tho se interviewed. All oral historyinterviews have been printed on acid-free paper and bound and archived inNye County libraries, Special Collections in the James R. Dickinson


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Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and at other archivals i t e s l o c a t e d t h r o u g h o u t N e v a d a . T h e i n t e r v i e w s v a r y i nlen gth an d detail, but tog ether they form a never-before-availablec o m p o s i t e p i c t u r e o f e a c h c o m m u n i t y ' s l i f e a n d d e v e l o p m e n t . T h ecollection of interviews for each com m u n ity can be c om pared to a bouquet:Each flo wer in the bouquet is u n iquesome are large, others are s mall--y e t e a c h a d d s t o t h e t o t a l i m a g e . I n s u m , t h e i n t e r v i e w s p r o v i d e acom p os ite view of c om m u n ity an d c ou nty history, revealin g the flaw of li fean d events for a part of Nevada that has heretofore been largely neglectedb y h i s t o r i a n s.

Collection of the oral histories has been ac c om pan ied by theas sem blin g of a set of photographs dep ictin g each com m u n ity's history.These p ictures have been obtained from partic ipants in the oral historyinterviews an d other present an d past Nye County res idents . In all, m orethan 700 photos have been c ollected an d carefu lly identified . Comp letes e t s o f t h e p h o t o g r a p h s h a v e b e e n a r c h i v e d a l o n g w i t h t h e o r a l h i s t o r i e s .

On the bas is of the oral interviews as well as existin g writtens ources , histories have been prepared for the major com m u n ities in NyeC o u n t y . T h e s e h i s t o r i e s a l s o h a v e b e e n a r c h i v e d .

The town history project is one c om p onent of a Nye County program todeterm ine the soc ioec on om ic im pacts of a federal prop osal to bu ild an doperate a n u c lear waste repos itory in s outhcentral Nye County. Ther e p o s i t o r y , w h i c h w o u l d b e l o c a t e d i n s i d e m o u n t a i n (Yu c c a Mo u n t a i n ) ,w o u l d b e t h e n a t i o n ' s f i r s t , a n d p o s s i b l y o n l y , p e r m a n e n t d i s p o s a l s i t efor high-level rad ioactive waste. The Nye County Board of CountyCommissioners initiated the NCTHP in 1987 in order to collect informationon the origin , history, trad ition s , an d quality of life of Nye County

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communities that may be impacted by a repository. If the repository isconstructed, it will remain a source of interest for hundreds, possiblythousands, of years to came, and future generations will likely want toknow more about the people wh o once resided near the site. In the eventthat government policy changes and a high-level nuclear waste repositoryis not constructed in Nye County, material compiled by the NCTHP willremain for the use and enjoyment of all.

--R.D.M.

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Robert McCracken interviewing Jim Weeks at his home is Beatty, NevadaApril 20 and May 2, 1987CHAPTER ONE

RM: OK Jim, if you could just te ll me when and where you were born?JW: I was born June 29, 1942, Clark County hospital, Las V egas, Nevada.RM: Who were your parents?JW: Norma and Hoer Weeks.RM: And what was your mother 's maiden name?JW: Thompson.RM: Where were your folks from?JW: They were from Revenna, Ohio.RM: How did they happen to come out here?JW: My dad ran a chain of candy stores back there and he got the miningbug and sold out and too k a hike.RM: With your mother?JW: Yes.RM: This w ould have been in the late 30s?JW: Well, let's see, this was before I was born; I can't remember thedate. They moved into L.A. with my grandmother, and then my mom and dadcame up here.RM: What brought them to Beatty?JW: The Senator Stewart Mine. I can't remeMber just what his involvementwas, but basically he ran it. Whether he owned it or leased it orwhatever, I don't remember.RM: Could you tell me little b it about the Senator Stewart?JW: I don't know that much about it , other than the fact it was a goldmine and it produced; at least it supported us and a few other people.

The mine is up on side of the mountain, around the corne r. You know,

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if you go up into Rhyolite the jail is sitting out in the flats?RM: As you go into Rhyolite it's on the right?JW: Yes. You go up to the depot, then you turn the corner going outtoward Beatty again on the dirt road . .R M : Y es.JW: OK, around that corner up on the side of the mountain is the SenatorStewart.RM: Are there pr etty extensive workings there?JW: Well, it's changed so much. I guess it was a pretty good mine - Idon't know all that much about it - but since then - this Kelly M ines

thing?RM: I'm not familiar with that.JW: OK, that's north of town here and there's that mill over there to theside. That became Stewart Kelly and they were going to mine that and haveit milled there, but it never got off the ground. And now, things havechanged so much.RM: Is the mine still in operation?JW: No, it died. It's never been really in operation, I don't think,since my dad was there. But he ope ned it up and got it going and had acouple of dump trucks and so forth and he was hauling ore back and forth tovarious places. And then they built that mill after I was born. I've gota newspaper that has a front page picture when they opened it, but I don'tknow where it is. It was The Beatty Bulletin and the front has a half-pagepicture of that thing when they opened it.RM: That [The Beatty Bulletin] was a supplement they had in [The GoldfieldNews from 1947 to 1956] . . . what year that would h ave been?JW: It would have been early '49, I think. I'm sure it was before the

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50s. And there's a p icture of my dad , my m om , Clyde Barcu s an d his w ife,and Bud Quinn all standing out in front.RM: W h o i s Bar c u s?3 W: I d o n 't r e a l l y k n o w w h o h e w a s . I t h i n k h e w a s s o m e b o d y w h o w a s i n t oi t f i n a n c i a l l y .1(: Did he live here in town or was he just an in ves tor?JW: I'm n o t s u r e . I w a s t o o y o u n g a t t h e t i m e t o r e a l l y k n o w . Bu t Q u i n nI did know, to a degree. He was another person who w as a finan c ial ba ckeri n t h e t h i n g . H e g a v e m e m y f i r s t t r a i n . I k n e w h i m . . . a n d I w a s a l lof 6 years old - 6 or 7. I was n't into it. I know where he lived an d Iknow where we lived at the time. It was right d ow n at the end of F irstStreet - F irst and Montgomery.RM: I s t h e h o u s e s t i l l t h e r e?JW: Yes. And Bud Quin n lived acros s the street an d my s ister Carol had aB u i c k. I' l l n e v e r f o r g e t t h a t - s h e h a d a b i g r e d B u i c k c o n v e r t i b l e . S h edrove it right up in the dri veway and left it out of gea r and it ran rightt h r o u g h B u d Q u i n n ' s h o u s e . [ l a u g h s ]RM: Is your s ister older than you?J W : Y e s .RK: So your folks had been married a lon g ti me before they came here?J W : O h , y e s .RM: Ye s . H o w d i d y o u r d a d g e t i n v o l v e d w i t h t h e S e n a t o r S t e w a r t ?

I really d on't know. I cou ld fin d that out for you , but I'd have toask my man.RM: D o e s s h e l i v e h e r e i n t o w n ?J . . : No, she is in Californ i a. She just had that operation where they takeyour voice box out, an d you have to talk with a machine. I just talked to

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her the other day, and it was the first time she ever tried to talk overthe phone.RM: Is she doing pretty well?JW: Well, her spirits seem to be up and everything. Still, I smoke, so Ican't get around her or do anything. She's going through radiation rightnow and it will be another 6 weeks before I can go down and see her.RM: Do you th ink it would be possible for you to find that newspaper?JW: I've got a lot of this stuff that Carol has; yes. I didn' t know ifyou wanted just that or . . .RM: Well, when we do the history of the area we'd like to illustrate itwith a lot of pictures, so any pictures out of the old family albums andthat kind of thing . . .JW: I've got a bunch of those.:tape is turned off for a while]RM: How was your dad involved with the Senator Stewart?JW: Well, he ran it until he was physically unable to do so. And thenhe lived in a trailer house out behind our house - I'll never forget thatRM: Because of his silicosis?JW: Yes; it was tuberculosis and silicosis together. I couldn't see himbecause he was contagious. We had a hundred-foot lot. He'd be out at theback of the lot and I'd be coming out the back of the house and they'd haveSugar Ray Robinson on the radio on the fights. And he' d always give meSugar Ray - I'd always want to bet with him. I'd say, "Do I get Sugar Ray,

He'd say, "Yeah, you get Sugar Ray." I'd always win. [laughs]Mat's one of the main things that I remember about him.

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RM: So, you were a relativel y you n g kid when he pas se d away?J W: Oh , y e s . I w a s p r o b a b l y 9 y e a r s o l d b y t h e t i m e h e f i n a l l y d i e d , b u tb y that time, he'd been in the Tonopah hospital for 2, 3 years.RM: Is th a t r i g h t?JW: Yes. When this stuff was goi n g on I was 6, 7 years old or somethin g.But I still c ou ld n't go out an d see him . I cou ld yell at him , talk at him ,b ut Mom would tell me, "Now, don't you go on out there," because she d i d n'tw a n t m e t o c a t c h s o m e t h i n g .

I have some pictures somewhere of a ball mill that sat there along theback of house that he hauled from the min e, and I was on top of the housetaking pictures of the first b urros coming in from the b urro races.RM: When he pas sed away - was that when you l eft town?JW: No, we lived here for 2 or 3 years after that. Then my motherremarried and we went to Yerington - in 1956, I think.RM: Was your stepfather a m iner, too?J W : Y e s .RM: W a s h e a l o c a l m i n e r?

No. He was all arou n d the state most of his life. But he got acontract to ma nage the Buckskin Mine in Yerington, so we went up there a ndstayed a year an d then we w ent to Elko. Then we went to Jarbrid ge fromElko and m illed tailin gs . Boy, if that w as n't somethin g . . . I'll tellyou what, you've never done anything until you mill those damn tailings.You could go out there w ith a light at night, in thi s tailings pond, andyou could see this thing - it just looked like a gem field - with yo urb a c k l i g h t s . I t w a s t u n g s t e n . T h i s w a s b e f o r e K o r e a . A n d s o t h e n e x t

- day, boy, here I am with a n u m ber two shovel fi llin g u p the p i ckup . We'dhaul it 8 miles dow n to these tab les that they had and we'd put them on


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t h o s e s h a ke r t a b l e s a n d . . . m a n , e v e r y d a y . . . o h , b a y . .RM: It w a s t o u g h w o r k?J W: W e l l , n u m b e r t w o s h o v e l , r i g h t ? [ l a u g h s ] Nu m b e r t w o i s a r e g u l a rs h o v e l . T h e n y o u u s e a n u m b e r f i v e s c o o p . B o y , I' l l t e l l y o u , y o uc ou ld n't lift tham with a n u m be r five s c oop , they're too heavy. Back andforth, back and forth, back and forth all s u m mer lon g. That was the yearbefore my freshman year, between the ei ghth an d n inth grade. And then Ilearned how to set muck stick.RM: Yes, that's hard work.J W: Bo y , I' l l t e l l y o u . S o w e d i d t h a t t h e r e t h a t y e a r a n d t h e n wew e n tin to Elko durin g the wi nter an d I worked as a hoistman . I don't know ifyou're fam iliar with tu n g sten . What you'd have to d o - this was on theother side of the valley, b ut, you'd hoist it up, dump the b ucket, and sendit back down . You had a blacklight over the top of the thin g to s ort thehigh grade an d d u m p the rest. About the time you got d one with s ortin g youwere ready for another bu c ket. And I did that for a year.RM: And you're still just a kid, righ t?JW: Well, my freshman year was the on ly yea r that I spent in Elko, an dthen we came ba ck here and my stepfather w ent to work at the Test Site.RM: That mu st have been about the same tim e my dad an d I started there -i n ' 5 8 . I'l l b e t m y d a d k n e w h i m .JW: I'l l b e t . C har l i e H am m o ck w a s h i s n a m e . H e w a s n't m y d a d , h e w a s m ys t e p f a t h e r . H e w as a shifter out there in the tunnels.RM: That's where we worked.J W : I'l l b e t y o u . . .RM: My dad stayed th ere for 15 years .J W: Ch a r l i e n e v e r d i d a n y t h i n g f o r a n y l e n g t h o f t i m e . H e q u i t b e c a u s e h e

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g o t m a d a t t h e m a n d a l l t h i s a n d t h e n t h e y w e r e g o i n g t o m o v e a g a i n - i twas a mes s . We en ded u p stayin g here u ntil I grad uated from high s choo l in1960. And then I went t o [lau ghs ] UNLV in 1961. I was on t he basketb allteam, if you can believe that, b ut it wasn't zip then. I hate to even saya n y t h i n g a b o u t t h a t . [ l a u g h s]RM: Did you p lay basketball here in town?J W: Ye s , I w a s t h e c a p t a i n o f t h e t e a m f o r 2 y e a r s . B u t t h a t w a ssomething that wasn't all that b ig.RM: W e r e t h e y o u t o n t h e c a m p u s b y t h e n ? A t U M WJW: Y es . T her e w a s a b u i l d i n g w i t h a c a u s e w a y - between it an d an otherb u i l d i n g , a n d t h a t w a s t h e s t a r t a n d e n d .RM: W h o d i d y o u p l a y i n b a s k e t b a l l?JW: I d i d n't e n d u p p l a y i n g a n y b o d y . I d i d n't l a s t t h a t l o n g . I n e v e rgot on the floor. I ended u p in a car ac c ident an d killed my s cholarshipand ended up paying an insurance adjustor for two years because I didn'thave any in s uran ce . I just d id n't have any money.RM: But you had a s chol arship t o UNLV?JW: Yes, I had the John Delfs s cholarshi p , which ori ginates here. JohnDelfs left all his money for a $2,000 scholarship to the valedictorianevery year from Beatty u ntil the money ran out. It finally d id ru n out,but it lasted a lon g time. Mr. Beko adm in istered the whole thin g.RM: W h o w a s De l f s? W a s h e f r o m Beat t y?JW: Yes. I don't like to say anythin g becau se I'm not s ure I'm correct. . . I can't remember, b ut he ended up w i th a b unch of money an d he leftit all to Beatty.RM: So you won the s chol arship from the town an d we nt to UNLV but you werein an ac c ident?

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JW: Yes. It was a hummer. Goi ng around a corner and this g uy takes offwith this b rand new Ford, and me with no insurance. I'm driving a 1950Chevrolet with no brakes - you had to pump them - remember?RM: Yes, I've been through that. [laughs]JW: And this guy pulls out from a parking lot, right in the middle of theblock. It was where the Nevada State Bank was, and he pulled out right infront of this guy with a '59 Ford. Well, the '59 Ford was new - this wasin '60 - and man, he just locked it up. I was still pumping when I . .[laughs] Remember those little side view mirrors that they put on thefront fenders?RM : Yes .JW: He had one on each side. I knocked them both out. I almost startedto grin . . . then I looked at him and his head hit the windshield and hehad a big red spot right here. I said, "Oh, no."RM: You weren't hurt?JW: Nobody was really hurt but I crunched his Ford. You couldn't believewhat that '50 Chevy did to that '59 Ford. [laughs]RM: [laughs]JW: So he called the cops and everything and I had to go to court, and Ididn't have any insurance, and nothing else, and my stepfather had left mynether and she didn't have any money, she was just scraping by up there.They fined me $15 court cost and restitution for his car, so I had to gothrough an insurance adjustor and it took me almost two years to pay himoff. Plus it took every damn thing I had, because I had to give them themoney that I had up front. That was the end of that. No more college andno more . . . [laughs]RM: What did you do then?


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JW: First thing I did was go get a job immediately. I went down andstarted hitting the street, looking for a job, and it didn't take any timeat all and I had a job. I went to work for Solan Dobbs at a Signal stationacross from Chrysler. Th at was '61, because 1961 Chryslers were coming outwith stick shifts, which was unheard of for Chrysler. I went to work forhim and that was back when they had all the trouble with th e gas wars. Gaswas selling for nothing. Signal was giving him a 2-cent rebate on his costso he could compete, and he just wasn't making it. So we got the CentralNevada phone contract. We got their contract for rebuilding engines.And so we started rebuilding engines, and most of my time was spentsteam-cleaning engines and stuff. He was trying to put things t ogetherbut it wasn't working. He was a hell of a nice guy, b est guy I workedfor in my life, he was really a neat person. But finally he said, "Jim,you're making more money than I am. I can't afford this."

So I said, "OK." So I took off and came back up here. I thought,"Well, I'll see what's going on up here."

I got as far Lathrop Wells and I ran into Bobb y Shearer, w ho is deadnow, too. His brother still lives here. He was working for a guy namedGillespie, who had a ranch out there, and he said, "Hey, man, we needsomebody else to buck bales out there."

"Buck bales?"He said, "Yes."I said, "Well . . . "

RM: Where was the ranch?JW: Out of Amargosa Valley.RM: Oh, out of the Amargosa.JW: Well, Lathrop Wells is called Amargosa Valley now. And I went out and

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at 3:00 in the morning he gets up and says, "Come on, we got to go out,"and so we go out and start mowing and baling and the bales that broke, youthrew on the back of a wagon, and you had to buck it in with a pitchfork.So then we had to buck th e bales. By that time, it's p robable 11:00,12:00, and man, it is hot. You start itching like hell. Then we wentback, and slept in a hot trailer had with no air conditioning.[tape is turned off for a while]RM: We were talking about the . .JW: Oh, yes; that lasted one day. I said, "Man, that's enough of thatstuff." So I came back here and went to wor k for Ralph Lisle - that was in

'61 - and I worked for him until March of this year in his hardware store.RM: OK, let's talk about same of the changes that you've seen in town.What was school like when you went here?JW: OK, when I was first going to school here . . . Have you been up thereand seen it?RM : Yes .JW: The building with the belltower was grades one through four on oneside and then four or five through eight on the ot her side. Then theybuilt that cement building which is on the side of the hill and that turnedinto a high school. That was after I left for Yerington.

Oh, I'll give you something of interest to most people . . .totally left-handed. Remember during those ti mes how they'd always try tomake you right-handed? Well, Erma Cunningham was my teacher and she tried

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CHAPTER TWOJW: C u n n i n g h a m . S he w a s o l d s c h o o l p e o p l e a n d s h e w a s a h o n e y . Bu t s h ewas a tou ghie. As I was telling you, I couldn't handle this right-handedstuff. Now, her method was to w hack you on the back of the han d with aru ler. Well, she finally gave me the left han d , but she refu sed to have mewrite like this [left han d held above the lin e]. And to this day I stillwrite like a regu lar person .RM: B u t y o u w a n t e d t o w r a p a r o u n d ?J W: Ri g h t , l ik e e v e r y b o d y e l s e d o e s . B u t e v e r y t i m e I d i d i t , i t w a s b i gt i m e s U . S .A .: B OOM, s h e ' d h i t y o u w i t h t h a t r u l e r . B u t I s a w h e r l a s tyear, I think, and she came in and saw me and gave me a b ig hug andeverythin g d o wn at the hard w are store. I was in the - what, sec on d gradethen? That wou ld have been about 1950, so you can imag ine how old she was .Sw e e t g o o d o l d g i r l , t h o u g h .RM: Are there any other thin gs about the com m u n i ty, when you were a l ittlekid, that stan d out in your m in d? Build in g s , for in stan ce . . .J W: No t m u c h i n t h e w a y o f b u i l d i n g s . T h e r e w a s n ' t m u c h c h a n g e o t h e r t h a nt h e f a c t t h a t t h e y w i p e d o u t a l l t h e t r e e s w h e n t h e y p u t i n t h e f o u r- l a n ehighway. The trees , an d all of the saloon s an d everythin g.RM: W ha t y e a r w a s t h a t?JW: I think it was 1955.RM: And there were a lot of pretty trees lin in g the street?JW: I don't know if I'd call them really pretty trees; they were mostl yc otton wood s . I remem ber when I was a kid we u sed to s neak downtown , infront of the St. Peter's Bar, whi ch is Bobby's Pot Shop , n ow. There u sedto be a pole u p there, an d there was a big c ott on wood . So at n ight, ab unch of us kids would run up that pole and sit in that cottonw ood tree andwatch all the m ilitary person nel that came from Desert Rock. They had s ome

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kind of a m ilitary base out there. These guys wou ld c ome in there an d g ettotally bl itzed . So we'd go s it u p there an d watch everybody fool arou n d .I can remem ber 3 or 4 times when they wou ld have knock-down drag-outs . Ande v e r y b o d y c a r r i e d s i l v e r d o l l a r s t h e n , s o y o u ' d s l i d e d o w n t h e p o l e a n dp ick up the s ilver dol lars they lost. [lau ghs] And jump back up an d waitfor the next one. Of course, it d id n't hap pen that often , but it was kindo f n e a t .

You know about the o ther hotel b ur ning, I'm sure?RM: Ye s . T h e o n e t h a t w a s l o c a t e d a c r o s s t h e s t r e e t f r o m . . .J W: Pl u m t h e t w o - s t o r y o n e . D i d y o u h e a r t h e s t o r y o n h o w t h a t t o o kp l a c e ?RM: I d o n't t h i nk s o .J W: At t h e t i m e , t h e f i r e d e p a r t m e n t w a s r e a l l y s m a l l . W e h a d o n e a i rpack (a self-contained breathin g ap paratu s) in the whole department. Itwas a Scott. We have a ton of them n ow, but then there was on ly one on thew h o l e t r u c k . A n d w e . . . i t w a s m y f i r s t f i r e . E v e r b e e n o n a f i r e ?RM: NO.

JW: I'd just joined the department shortly be fore an d it was m y first bigtime, real. I jumped off of that tru ck - man , that baby was c ooking - andBrian Thayer was ahead of me on the nozzle. You always have a back-up manon the nozzle. Well, thank God it was Brian Thayer becau se he weig hs about260 pounds and the guy in the bottom floor had a b unch of ammunition inthere, and that amm unition w as going off ever ywhere - BANG, BOOM, CRASH.Yo u o u g h t t o h a v e s e e n m e l a y u p a g a i n s t o l d B r i a n . [ l a u g h s ] I t w o u l dh a v e g o t h i m f i r s t . [ l a u g h t e r ] An y w a y , i t w a s r e a l l y f u n n y . I w a s s c a r e dto death. But, you know, whateve r . . . I don't know what time it was , butit had to be 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning before we were done and The started

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About 8:00 or 9:00 at night. Well, everybody was doing stuff as soon asthey got there. The th ing I ended up doing - there were thre e of us onthis old inch-and-a-half line - you'd run up the stairs and go in and hitthat upper story. One guy'd go in, turn the fog on, and give it the oldswirl trick. And you couldn't breathe. So you' d come out, the next guywould go on, and by th e time he got in it was back up again. And it was anendless thing.RM: By turning on the fog in the swirl, you mean you would turn on thespray on the hose?JW: Yes, they're fog nozzles. And the object is to permeate the wholearea with fog. If you could see what we've got now, it's just unreal. Butat that time they were 80-pound fog, and [whistles] they really didn't domuch. You'd go in there and hit that and it'd knock the fire down andyou'd come running out because you couldn't breathe, so by the time [thenext guy] got back in there it was going again. Oh, it was awful. And youjust kept doing it, and kept rotating in threes all night long until youcould finally get something knocked down. Now you could walk in there and[whistles] anything on that fire department truck would knock that babydown.RM: So you could prob ably save that building now?JW: [whistles] That building would never even have got to the upperstories if we'd had what we have now. I don't know if you've been up tothe fire department, but they have some stuff up there that's outstandingfor the area. Did you ever hear what some people have said about it?RM: No.JW: A deputy or something from the State Fire Marshall's office came downhere checking fire chiefs, and we knocked down that thing up there on Main

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Street across from the post office. He said, " If my house was on fire, I'drather have you respond to it than the Reno fire department."RM: That's a real compliment.JW: Well, we kept all the stuff so they could . . . They just determinedwhere it was, it was arson, and so forth.RM: Did they ever catch him?JW: Yes.RM: Who was it?JW: I don't know who it was.RM: What was his motive?JW: I don't remember now. It was somebody after somebody else for doingsomething and it didn't really have a lot to do with anything that was . .There were 2 guys after this other guy, and they tried to burn him up. Theyburned the place down but he woke up and got the hell out. Then they foundhim out in the desert and beat the Jesus out of him.RM: You mean, the two guys who tried to fry him?JW: Yes. They almost killed him, I guess.RM: What was that building called?JW: It had a lot of names. Red Williams was the last person to put abusiness in there. It was a swap shop or something the last time.Originally, I think it was a b lacksmith shop or somet hing for Fred Davies.But the last perso n to have anything going in ther e was Red WilliamsRM: You just had a big fire here in town with the Exchange, didn't you?JW: Yes.RM: You were able to save that one, weren't you?JW: Basically, yes.RM: If it had bee n the old days, wou ld that have gone down?

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J W: Bi g t i m e s . I f i t h a d b e e n t h e o l d d a y s , t h a t w o u l d h a v e b e e n t h e e n do f t h a t . P er i o d . T hat w a s f u l l y i n v o l v e d i n t h e t o p f l o o r . W e h i t t h i so n e d o w n h e r e , t h e o n e w e w e r e t a l k i n g a b o u t , a n d i f w e' d h a d t h e s t u f fwe've got now , we'd have bee n home in 45 minutes.RM: Is t h a t r i g h t?JW: Yes . [ c h u ck l e s] I c a n't r e m e m b e r w h a t t i m e w e s t a r t e d , b u t i t w a sb etween 8:00 and 10:00, and I know i t was after 2:00 before I left the re.So that's 4 or 5 hours . And we'd have knocked that baby d own in 30m i n u t e s .RM: H o w a b o u t t h e E x c h a n g e ? H a w l o n g d i d i t t a k e y o u t o g e t t h a t o n e ?J W: I w a s n ' t o n t h a t o n e . B i l l s a i d t h a t t h e y h a n d l e d i t r e a l w e l l , a n d Idon't think it took than over 12 or 15 minutes to re ally knock it dow n.RM: W h a t a r e s o m e o f y o u r i m p r e s s i o n s o f t h e p e o p l e i n t o w n ? S a y , u pu n t i l t h e t i m e y o u g r a d u a t e d f r o m h i g h s c h o o l ?JW: W h a t ki n d o f p e o p l e?RM: Pe o p l e t h a t h i s t o r y s h o u l d t a k e n o t e o f . I n t e r e s t i n g p e o p l e , o rc h a r a c t e r s , o r c o m m u n i t y l e a d e r s . . .JW: I know one character that I don't know if anybody has told you abou t.She was a good old gal, but man , sh e was a wild hair. Her name wasMadeline Pagett. She was my next-door neig hbor on First an d Montgomery.She had the thickest collie you ever saw in your life - white collie calledS i r T h o m a s . A n d I g r e w u p r i g h t n e x t t o h e r . A n d m a n , s h e w a s a r o o t i n 'tootin' go gettin' mother bear. She used to go d owntown to the townsquare, jump u p on that bar an d start dan c in g an d rais in g hell. She was ag o - g e t t e r , b o y . S h e ' d g e t a s n o o t f u l l o f t h a t h o o s g o w a n d g o f o r i t . B u tshe was a really neat person to me an d my s isters . She lived next d oor tou s (they tore down the hou se). We'd go over there an d , "Madd ie, can we see

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Sir Thomas?"And, "Come on in , kids ." The p lace looked like a . . . you had to

t u n n e l y o u r w a y i n t o i t a l m o s t . T h i s w a s t h e w a y s h e l i v e d . I g u e s s e v e r ytime she got her check she went on a toot b ig times, U.S.A. [laughs]RM: What s u p p orted the econ omy of th e town in those days?J W: W e l l , i t w a s b a s i c a l l y m i n i n g b e f o r e t h e T e s t S i t e w e n t i n . Y o u h a v ey o u r b a s i c s e r v i c e s t a t i o n t y p e s t u f f a n d r e t a i l t r a d e b u t t h e b a c k b o ne o fi t w a s p r o b a b l y m i n i n g , a t t h a t t i m e .RM: W h a t w e r e s o m e o f t h e m i n e s t h a t w e r e o p e r a t i n g? S a y , t h r o u g h y o u rhigh s chool years .JW: Crowells', which w as a flu ors par m ine, an d the Senator Stewart, b ackw hen I was young. I don't remember if the Shoshone - Montgomery was doinganythin g then , or not. As I say, I was you n g en ou gh at that ti me . .RM: What kind of an ef fect d id th e Test Site have?J W: Bi g t i m e s , t h e n . I t p r o b a b l y d o u b l e d t h e e c o n o m y ' s i n p u t .RM: Was it main ly peo p le here gettin g jobs at the Test Site, or peop lefrom the Test Site moving in?J W: It w a s a c o m b i n a t i o n . S o m e p e o p l e h e r e g o t a j o b a t t h e T e s t S i t e ,o t h e r p e o p l e c a m e i n w i t h c o m p a n i e s a n d t h e n t h e r e w e r e p e o p l e t h a t j u s th e a r d a b o u t i t a n d s h o w e d u p . M y next-door neighb or at the time - his dadheard about it in Oklahoma and came out here . As a m a t t e r o f f a c t , h i sw i f e s t i l l l i v e s h e r e . T h a t ' s Je w e l l B r o w n . H e r h u s b a n d w a s o n e o f t h ef i r s t p e o p l e t o w o rk t h e r e .RM: That would be in '51 or so?JW: Yes . A n d s h e r a i s e d t h r e e b o y s a n d o n e g i r l h e r e . T hi s w a s as t e a d y-t y p e g u y a n d h e w a s p r o b a b l y o n e o f t h e r e a l p i o n e e r s o f t h a tw h o l e m e s s o u t t h e r e , u p u n t i l t h e t i m e h e r e t i r e d .

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RM: Do you think that more peop le from Beatty u sed to w ork at the TestSite than d o n ow?J W: I d o n 't k n o w . I t s e e m e d l ik e m o r e t h e n b u t t h e r e w e r e n ' t a s m a n ypeop le, s o I don't really know.RM: Some peop le c laim that th ere aren't that many peop le her e working atthe Test Site now - maybe half a dozen or so .JW: O h, n o , i t's m o r e t h a n t h a t . It's p r o b a b l y n o t w h a t i t w a s t h e nbecau se at the ti me the Test Site was big ti mes U.S.A. But there are morethan half a dozen . The on ly thin g is , I've kind of lost c ontact withpeop le. It's grown to the point where you reall y d on't know who's workingthere an d who's not. Bobby Nichols w orked out there for many years an d hec a n p r o b a b l y t e l l y o u m o s t o f t h e p e o p l e w h o a r e w o rk i n g t h e r e .RM: W h a t a b o u t t h e l o w - l e v e l w a s t e d u m p ? H o w h a s t h a t a f f e c t e d t h e t o w n ?JW: Oh, [ c h u ck l e s] d e f i n i t e l y p o s i t i v e . T hey d o n't e m p l o y a l o t o fpeop le, but they em p loy enou g h to make a d ifferen ce. I'm totally p os itiveo n t h e m . T h e y ' r e j u s t s u p e r - d u p e r . T h e y 'v e m a d e a l o t o f c o n t r i b u t i o n san d everythin g. That whole thin g has just been the greatest thin g t hat everh a p p e n e d . I w i s h w e h a d 17 o f t h e m . T h e y h a v e m a d e n u m e r o u s d o n a t i o n s t ot h e f i r e d e p a r t m e n t , t h e y p a y g o o d w a g e s , t h e y a l l o w t h e e c o n o m y t o g r o w .If anything happens , any kind of a major catastrophe , they've got 20-footbooms and crane s and . . . just ask them; they're right there.RM: Do you think it's better than the Test Site its elf?JW: Oh, defin itely (they do m ore prop ortionally for the tow n of Beatty).RM: Does it have more im pact than the Test Site?J W: Oh , w e l l , f i n a n c i a l l y . . . B u t a s f a r a s c o m m m i t y o r g a n iz a t i o n t y p estuff they do 20 times m ore. There is n't anythin g that y ou can't ask thatcompany that they won't do if they are ab le to.

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RM: Howl did you se e the impact of Jackass Flats on the town?[tape is turned off for a while]JW: It helped. There were quite a few people who had to leave after theyshut down. Matter of fact, my first wife worked for Aerojet General Shewas head secretary at E.T.S., at N.R.D.S. One. [That is,] Engine TestStand One. And there were some people who were laid off. It wasn't whatyou'd call really major, but it did affect the town economy.RM: How about Tolicha Peak?JW: That has had a real impact on the town to a degree, but it's adifferent type of people. You used to get people like the people fromJackass Flats or Mercury. They settle down, they build hores. Thesepeople figure they're going to be transients and they stay transients.They don't buy things, they don't . . . The impact on the community itselfis much less than it would be for the same peop le in a different situation.And I feel that maybe it's because the con tractor or whoever is running theshow tells them, "Hey, you're going to move out, maybe in two years." Ithink that the difference is that they don't know that they are going behere for any length of time so consequently th ey don't invest in the area.I was in a position for some perio d of time to gauge that kind of thing, bythe business I was in. I'd see who comes in and buys new lawn mowers, whobuys lawn lighting, wh o is putting a shed on the building or whatever. Andyou don't see it wi th these people from Tolicha as much as with the peoplefrom the Test Site, or U.S. Ecology, for instance. U.S. Ecology people arealmost all people who have bought here in town. Almost everyone has boughtproperty here, plans to stay here, and is a solid citiz en. Whereas thepeople out at T olicha Peak - most all of them live in apartments andthey're just a lot different.

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RM: What about retired people?JW: The number of retired people is growing in proportion with the growthof the economy, but I don't think it's what you'd consider the oncomingthing in retirement.RM: And what about all the trailers you see around the area?JW: Well, it used to be that you bought a house. Now you can get into atrailer so much cheaper that people buy trailers. And that's start and endof that, as far as I know.RM: What do you belie ve is making the economy grow?JW: Everything, with the exception of some of the things that you' vementioned, is a magnification of time. The apartments up here were builtspecifically for that outfit [Ford]. The Lori Motel takes care of all themilitary. The rest of it is, for instance, Ford people who don't live inFord apartments and military people who don't always stay at the Lori, andso on. And there's quite a b it of mining going on now that wasn't going onthen.RM: What are some of the mines that are operating right no w?JW: The Crowell fluorspar mine and the Saga, which are the only solidproducers. [Columbus M ines, a division of Angst Corporation, is doingextensive development in the area.]RM: Saga's over in the Bare Mountain Range too, right?JW: Yes.RM: Is it an open pit?JW: No, some of it's underground. It's all leaching. And there are a lotof people mining but they' re core drilling and testing and so forth. It'sjust exploration. They really haven't said, "OK, here we go." The onlyother one that's really committed, and this is strictly an opinion, i s

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Angst Corporation. They're operating as a subsidiary of Columbus Mines.RM: Where's their operation?JW: It's b asically the old Gold Bar property b etween Highway 95, say 12miles out north, and the Grapevines.RM: Is there any action over at Pioneer?JW: Well, Spicer had that but I think it's pretty well died unless there'ssomething going on I don't know about.RM: Yes. Haw about Rhyolite?JW: Bobby Garcia's got something out there, and St. Joe American's gotsomething going, and there are probably more I'm not thinking of.RM: Are these min ing activities or exploration?JW: Probably both ; mainly exploration, I think. Somme of these people areplaying around with processing. If somebody could get something downs thatreally worked, they really wculd go for it.RM: How about over toward the Funerals?JW: Nothing that I know of.RM: How about the Vanderbilt mines?JW: Oh; I forgot about them. They're a large corporation. That's anoperating situation. They've been doing this for years. It's bentoniteand it's basically a controlled situation. If they need X amount ofbentonite they jus t get what they need and so on. Now, that's an opinion,of course, but it seems that it's not something like you're going to runinto a deposit and wahoo, you're going crazy.RM: It's just a steady thing.JW: It's something that's going to employ 2 or 3 people out here and go onforever.RM: How many people work down at the bentonite mine here?

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J W : Tw o o r t h r e e . M y n e x t - d o o r n e i g h b o r w o r k s t h e r e .RM: A n d t h e n t h e y a ls o h a v e t h a t o n e o v e r in t h e A m a r go s a , o n t h e f o o t o ft h e Fu n e r a ls .J W: Sa m e s it u a t io n ; t h e y ju s t go f r o m p la c e t o p la c e .RM: Oh, these 2 or 3 g uys just g o from one pl ac e to the oth er. S o i t' sn o t a big e m p lo y e r .JW: No, i t used to b e a l ot b i g g er.RM: Is i t true they use b entoni te f or face pow der 7JW: Face pow der, dri l l i ng mud; you name i t, i t' s g ot a mi l l i on uses. S amet h in g, t o t h e be s t o f m y kn o wle d ge , a s In d u s t ria l Min e r a l Ve n t u r e s is .

CHAPTER THREE

RM: Bea t t y u s e d t o h a v e a n In d ia n c o m m u n it y a c r o s s t h e t r a cks , wh e n t h er a ilr o a d wa s r u n n in g. Ha v e t h e r e e v e r be e n a n y o t h e r m in o r it ie s in t o wn?JW: No, i t' s b een b asi cal l y w hi te. As a m a t t e r o f f a c t , i t's a lm o s t a llwh it e n o w, y o u kn o w - if y o u we r e t a lkin g p e r c e n t a ge s . Th e In d ia nc o m m u n it y u s e d t o be m u c h la r g e r t h a n it is n o w. Th e Bla ck c o m m u n it y h a sp r o ba bly ga in e d s o m e wh a t , bu t n o t t o a p o in t w h e r e it's r e a lly n o t ic e a ble .RM: A re t h e Bla cks f r o m go v e r n m e n t p r o je c t s like To lic h a Pe ak?JW: Yes, ex cl usi vel y. And al most everythi ng el se, too, w i th the ex cepti onof employment by Janda Ribbons of same Hispanics .RM: A re t h e y Be a t t y r e s id e n t s , o r d o t h e y t e n d t o c o m e f r o m A m a r go s a?JW: Almost al l of them are fr om Amarg osa. One thi n g I w oul d l ike to say -a n d I wa n t it t o be p u t in p r in t , if it's a p p r o p r ia t e . I h a v e d o n ebu s in e s s wit h a l o t o f His p a n ic s . A n d y o u kn o w wh a t y o u r p e r c e n t a ge s inbu s in e s s a r e f o r ga in s a n d lo s s e s - t h e f t s , a n d s o f o r t h . Ma n , I'd giv e

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them all the cred i t that they ever had a chan ce to ask. I've never beenb e a t - n o t o n c e i n a l l t h e y e a r s t h e r e . I t i m p r e s s e d m e t o t a l l y . TO b e g i nwith, I more or les s ex ten ded cred it on my own (usually I check with myem p loyer). And every time, I got some of the best ac c ou nts I ever had inm y l i f e . I w a s t o t a l l y i m p r e s s e d w i t h h a w t h e s e p e o p l e h a n d l e t h e i ro b l i g a t i o n s . I d o n ' t h a v e a l o t o f e x p e r i e n c e w i t h B l a c k s , b u t I h a v enever lost a nickel w ith all the Hispanics.RM: T h a t 's q u i t e a c o m p l i m e n t . H o w d o y o u s e e t o u r i s m i n t h e e c o n o m y , a n dh a w h a s i t c h a n g e d o v e r t h e y e a r s?J W: It ' s c h a n g e d a l o t . T h e r e a r e m o r e p e o p l e o n t h e r o a d , b u t a l l t h ecars u se les s ga s . So you're not gettin g a $10 or $20 fillu p al l the time- you're getting a $2 or $3 fillup, eve n though the p rice of gas is t w icea s h i g h . A n d e v e r y b o d y i s t r y i n g t o h a n d l e a l l t h e i r own maintenan ce, s oyou lose that. I can remem ber back when I first we nt to work for Ralph[Lisle], and it was just: "Fran'll be in on Saturday, an d s omeone w ill bein on Thursday," and you d id all their maintenan ce. Peop le aren't doin gt h a t n o w . E v e n t h e l o c a l p e o p l e . O h , t h e r e a r e a f e w , b u t i t ' s n o t l ik eit u sed to be. And you can't really c ou nt m u ch on maintenan ce anym o re.Now, I think if someone really tried to b uild a clientele you w ouldprobably ge t more than they're gettin g right n ow. But I see peop le whoc ome into the store. I see who's buyin g their ow n filters , w ho's doin gthis , who's doin g that.RM: And you say the tourists are doin g that, too .

W e l l , y e s . T h e y ' r e d o i n g t h a t b e f o r e t h e y e v e n l e a v e h o m e . A n dthey're on the road an d they're boogeyin g. You're goin g to get them - bigtime - because if something falls apart, hang on.RM: It seem s there have been a n u m ber of RV parks establis hed in Beatty in

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the hill - there was a p l ace there that I think Fred Davies owned , an dt h e r e ' s a s p r i n g t h e r e . A n d n e x t i s F r a n ' s . I t u s e d t o b e l o n g t o D i c kSteel an d a man named Terrell, I believ e. They had a little ran ch outthere. It was p urchased from than by Lee Carter, who started the brothel.RM: When did Fran take it over?J W: W e l l , l e t ' s s e e . F r a n g o t i t f r a n V i c k y , w h o g o t i t f r o m L e e C a r t e rsome years later.RM: Did they take it over when they mo ved the brothel s out of town?J W: No ; i t w a s n ' t s i m u l t a n e o u s . T h e N o t S p r i n g s , a s I r e c a l l , w a s ab rothel at the time that they closed the Red Rooster and the Willow Tree.I believe that was the first out-of-town brothel. This one came u p later.Lee Carter started it an d then it was Vicky's Star Ranch. She calledh e r s e l f V i c k y T a y l o r , b u t h e r c h e c k s a l w a y s s a i d Ma r y B u r n s . [ l a u g h s ] Fo rwhatever that cou nts for.

Next is Manley's garage. Manley con vert ed the old Kelly Mine's m illto a garage. Then right whe re you take the c urve cam in g into town abovethe brothel you make a 90-degree turn coming in?RM: Yes.

J W: OK, Ma r v i n W a lk e r h a s t h a t p l a c e n o w . W h e n I w a s a k i d t h a t w a sC a r p e n t e r 's . A n d t h e r e ' s q u i t e a C a r p e n t e r c l a n . T h e r e w e r e s o m e Ma n l e y swho lived out there after the Carpenters , i f I remem ber c orrectly. Therew a s C a r l a a n d S a n d r a a n d P a t s y a n d a b u n c h o f t h e s e M a n l e y g i r l s w h o w e n tto s chool here. I think they lived out there, too, a t one time.RM: Is that's Manley's place?J W: N o , i t ' s a c r o s s t h e s t r e e t f r o m i t . T h e Ma n l e y s , a n d C a r p e n t e r s ,an d all those peop le are related . Pat Manley cou ld probably give yous ome in s ight on that. Oh, gosh, there were some other fam ilies . .

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Ishmaels . .RM: Is hm a e l l i v e d t h e r e?J W: W e l l , h e d i d n ' t l i v e t h e r e , b u t t h e y w e r e a l l p a r t o f t h a t c l a n . A n dthe Bells . The Bells , the Ishmaels , the Manleys an d the Carpenters wereall interrelated . The Carpenters were the peop le that lived there when Iwas a kid, as I recall.

Acros s from Manley's garage is the new RV park. That's a newin stallation . Bill Wahlen bu ilt it within the last year or so an d he ru n si t . H e r a n a t a x i c a b s e r v i c e i n T o n o p a h . A n d t h e n w h e n t h e b o t t o m f e l lo u t o f A n a c o n d a , h e s o l d o u t a n d g o t o u t o f t h e r e .RM: Now, des cribe what's there now s o that I'm c lear on what we're talkin ga b o u t .J W: OK . Ma r v i n h a s h i s h o m e t h e r e a n d t h e r e ' s a y a r d i n f r o n t , a n d t h e no f f t o o n e s i d e i s a q u o n s e t b u t t h a t h e uses for a shop .RM: Just for the record , de s cribe wha t else is there.J W: No t m u c h o f a n y t h i n g . F u l l e r L o o n e y u s e d t o l i v e a b o v e i t b e f o r e h eg o t s i c k a n d l e f t a n d w e n t t o T e x a s . A n d t h e n h e d i e d . T h e r e w e r e a b u n c hof Looneys around - I don't know if I mentioned tha t to you last tim e.RM: No.

JW: Well, there were all kinds of Looneys here - about 5 or 6 fam ilies .One kid who was a Looney by marriage took state championship in b oxing atR en o . H i s n a m e w a s C ar l .RM: W h a t y e a r w o u l d t h a t h a v e b e e n ?J W: P r o b a b l y i n t h e ' 5 0s . I' m s u r e h e w a s s t a t e c h a m p i o n . I r e m e m b e rseein g his name in th e news paper but I was just a kid then , too . AndFuller - who lived out there up from Carpenters - was related to him.RM: I understan d that Bill Sullivan is the Justice of the Peace an d Fire

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Chief. Where does he live?JW: Bill Sullivan lives at the end of Montgomery. If you keep going outMontgomery Street, which is the street that intersects down here on thecorner, one b lock up from the intersection. And that place used to belongto Tan Welch. Bill doesn't actually live there now; his son does. AndBill brought in a triple-wide just down from there.RM: What's the next place going north after Manley?JW: The next place on the left is Charlie Williams. He had that place foryears and years.RM: None of those places are real ranches, are they? They're just smallacreages.JW: Yes, they're not producing ranches. Most are probably 2-1/2 acretracts. But there are some that could get up to a section or a quartersection or something.RM: The ones we've talked about so far are small acreages, aren't they?JW: As far as I know they are. Now, Fran owns quite a bit of property.She may have 160 acr es.RM: Oh, OK. It goes up the river, or does it go b ack into the hills, orboth?JW: Both.RM: What's the ne xt place then?JW: The place that Ronnie Oden has now. It's right next to where Manley'splace is, across from Marvin Wahlen's. I think that's the on e that CharlieWilliams had. I can't remember who had the Manleys' .RM: But Ronnie Oden has it now? What's the next one you hit after his?JW: The next one is the place that Wes and Elaine Parker own. It's on theleft. And the people who owne d that back in the '50s had a daughter named

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Kitty. I can't remem ber her last name, but they w ere doin g s ome wor k outa t C a r r a r a a s w e l l . B u t t h e y o w n e d t h a t r a n c h a t t h e s a m e t i m e . H e w a sher stepfather.RM: Is it a real ran ch or i s it just an acreag e?J W: Ba s i c a l l y a n a c r e a g e . T h e n e x t t h i n g w o u l d b e . . . w e l l , B u d H a wk i n shas bou ght s ome property u p abov e Wes an d Elaine just recently. It's offthe highway about the same d istan ce; you can hard ly see it. It's rightback up in the hill there. And they've moved the dou ble-wide u p there.And then across from that would be the Hot Springs.RM: Can you give me any histor y on the Hot Sprin gs?J W: Th e f i r s t t h i n g I r e m e m b e r i s a n o w n e r . I t h i n k t h e y c a l l e d h i m P o pGray. I'm not sure of the Pop, b ut his last na me was Gray.RM: W a s i t o l d J u d g e Gray?J W: I d o n ' t kn o w .JW: But he ran it for a while, an d then it w ent throu gh a n u m ber ofp e o p l e's h a n d s , i n c l u d i n g t h e b r o t h e l s t a g e , w h i c h w a s a f t e r t h e y g o t t h e mout of town in the 50s.RM: W h a t d i d t h e y c a l l t h e b r o t h e l?J W: I t h i n k i t ' s a l w a y s b e e n t h e H o t S p r i n g s . T h e b r o t h e l h a d g o n e o u t o fbu s ines s before the fl ood . There u sed to be 3 or 4 or 5 little cabi n s backthere, and I think that's where the h ookers did their thing - I don't know.That was before my time. The brothel stage on ly lasted a year or two .

T h e n I kn o w a f e l l o w n a m e d G e o r g e h a d i t . T h e n C a l J o n e s h a d i t . T h ebig bu il d in g was totall y washed out by that big flood i n '68. There was a12-f o o t d i t c h i n f r o n t o f t h a t p l a c e . I t j u s t w i p e d i t o u t . S o t h e y t o r et h e w h o l e t h i n g d o w n a n d b u i l t a n e w b u i l d i n g t h e r e . T h e b a t h s w e r e a l lr e b u i l t t o o . E v e r y t h i n g w a s r e b u i l t . T h e y j u s t s t a r t e d f r o m g r o u n d z e r o .

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RM: Did the owner w ho had it before the flood do that?JW: The Elmer Bailey family were the ones who built the building in front.I know he did a lot of work on the buildings in back, and they just muckedout the the little cabins and got rid of the m. Elmer had a real nicedinner house there for some time. But he's getting up there where hedoesn't want to fool with it. He's got his daughters in on it but theydon't want to come out from California and do it, so they try and lease it.The last person who had it open was Tom Short's son.RM: They also have RV parking there, don't th ey?JW: Yes. Elmer Bailey's family put in the RVs; they were the ones whoreally put it back together again, and built the building as it is now, andthe whole thing. But Elmer is in his 70s and he doesn' t want to fool withit.

C H A P T E R F O U R

RM: What's the next place after the Hot Springs?JW: There are 2. The one on the right would be the old Greenwall place,as I remember. I think it was Greenwall, then Turner, then someb ody elseowned it. It ended, ultimately, as Jim Spicer's place.RM: Now, is that actually a ranch, or is it again just an acreage?JW: It's not a producing ranch. When Spicer had it he was just using itfor a base station for mining ope rations and stuff.RM: Does t he Spicer place have quite a few acres?JW: Quite a few.RM: Now, who owned it in your earliest recollection?JW: I think it was some people by the name of Greenwall. And then when I

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w a s g r o w i n g u p , a n d y o u w e n t o u t s w i m m i n g a t t h e p o n d , y o u a l w a y s w e n t o u tt o T u r n e r s ' . T h e r e 's a p r e t t y g o o d - s iz e d p o n d a b o v e t h e r a n c h . I t w a sjust a regu lar pon d . We always u sed to go u p to Turners' pon d s wim m in g.After Turner, it belon ged to a cou p le of other pe op le. And the last ofthem was Spicer.RM: Di d h e h a v e i t v e r y l o n g?JW: Oh, p r o b a b l y 5 ye a r s o r s o .RM: And then he was killed , was n't he?JW: Yes . I w a s o n t h a t i nq u e s t . T hey c a l l e d i n 3 p e o p l e a n d I w a s o n e o ft h e m . I h a d t o g o u p t h e r e a n d s e e i t . A n d t h e y s t i l l h a d t h e b o d ys i t t i n g t h e r e . H e w a s s h o t . T hey'v e g o t t o l e a v e i t . S o t o g i v e y o u a ni d e a o f w h a t h a p p e n e d : T h e p l a c e w a s b u i l t a l o n g t h e s e l i n e s . [ W e e k sd r a w s a d i a g r a m o f t h e S p i c e r h o m e o n a p i e c e o f p a p e r . ]

What happened was, Jim Spicer was driving around the yard w ith hisc a r . H e k i c k e d i n a s i d e d o o r t o t h e h o u s e . S p i c e r w a s n ' t s u p p o s e d t o b et h e r e , t h e r e w a s a c o u r t o r d e r f o r h i m t o s t a y o u t , a s I r e m e m b e r .

His step s on Dave was in the hou se. And Spicer came in the s ide d oor;he kicked it open . There was a door to Spicer's right goin g into ab e d r o o m . S p i c e r h a d a s a w e d - o f f 12-g a u g e s h o t g u n . H e t u r n e d a n d s h o t as ide wall of the bedroom fu l l of holes . There were pellet marks all over.

W e l l , D a v i d h a d a . 38 . An d h e k n e w S p i c e r w a s c o m i n g . S o , n a t u r a l l yw hen someb ody takes a shot at you w ith a 12-gauge you only get one chance.So Dave shot Spicer three times . Spicer stu m bl ed a con s iderable d istan cea n d f e l l d e a d i n t h e k i t ch e n a r e a .

When the inquest was formed we had to dec id e: did David have reasonto shoot him? Well, any time you p u ll a 12-gau ge on me, baby, you've got ar e a s o n . S o i t w a s f o u n d t o b e s e l f - d e f e n se .

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RM: Are the Spicers still there?JW: David's still there. He runs a lot of equipment and does a lot ofwork around town. He has D-8 Cat and other equipment. His mam still liveshere. Her name's Effie. And his dad - his real dad - is still in Beatty.You see, there w ere 2 sons and a daughter. And David was the only one thatelected to become a Spicer; the rest of them remained Siedentopfs.

When they had the autopsy, they told us on the inquest that the guywouldn't have lived probably [whistles] 6- 8 weeks. His heart was allplugged up, e verything was messed up, and he was totally hyper. He was ina lawsuit with the Stagecoach. He was just that type of person.RM: So he was having a lot of conflict all the way around.JW: I think the guy went nuts. He was living with some other gal. Thatwas why Effie and he split the sheets. And he had her out there. I don' tknow what happened to her. She took a hike - went someplace. And so hejust went nuts.RM: Had he been here a long time?JW: Not really. In the area . . . Now, Sandy Spicer is his brother. Helives in Goldfield and he was real bitter about this whole thing. He wasat the inquest. As far as T could figure, Jim just went nuts. I never hadany personal problems with Jim at all. He was a good customer at thestore, when he was working down there, everything was fine and we didbusiness and everything, but I think he just [whistles] took a dive - wentoff the deep end. T know that he was in this other litigation, and allthis other stuff; maybe it was just too much pressure.RM: Well, now, going on out th e road, it's the old Spicer place on theright . . .JW: OK, directly across from that on the left is the place that Shirley

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Harlan and Elizabeth Keel have now. They call it Cold Comfort Farm. Itused to belong to Bill Lotti. As far as I can remember back, that's theplace he had.RM: And is that a ranch or is it, again, an acreage?JW: It's just out there. It's basically a ranch. Before you get to theHarlan and Keel place, you turn off toward Pioneer and Mayflower. Thenext one on Highway 95 is Oleo Road.RM: OK, Oleo is right north of Spicer's place. What's up Oleo Road?JW: There's a ranch up there. Again, it's an acreage. They've got areservoir up there, and a pretty good-siz ed field and 2 or 3 houses.RM: Who lives there?JW: Rita Mullins. She works at the Beatty Club. It's a neat place. It' stotally surrounded with mountains in a little pocket there. You don't evennotice it from the highway.RM: How far off the highway is it?JW: A few miles at the most. Then you hit Tlene Torrance's place. Andthat place used to belong to Slim Riggs.RM: Now, is it right on the highway?JW: Tt's on the right going north; it would be the one up from Oleo Roadbefore you get to the Fleur-de-Lis. And it's sitting down off the highway.I don't know if Slim Riggs built it. And they've owned it for quite a fewyears, but Slim Riggs owned it b efore that. I guess you know he owned thatplace out on the Sarcobatus.RM: Yes; they call it Slim Riggs out on Sarcobatus, don't they?JW: Yes; Sarcobatus Flats. About a mile and up, at Scotty's Junction.RM: And then that burned, didn't it?JW: Years ago. Of course, he was dead by the time it burned.RM: He was an old-timer here, wasn't he?

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JW: Oh, y e s . H e w a s f r o m a r o u n d h e r e f o r a l o n g , l o n g t i m e .RM: Y es , I re m e m b e r h i m . A n d h e w a s i n T he Beat t y Bu l l e t i n . H e'smentioned from time to time.JW: Yes . H e a n d V e l m a a n d . . . h e h a d a b u n c h o f d a u g h t e r s . T hey g r e wu p with my older s is ter, as a matter of fact. Loquita, I think, grew u pwith my older s ister. Loquita wou ld have to be in her 50s, which wou ldmake him in his 80s if he were ali ve.

He g a v e m e m y f i r s t c a r . A n d I c o u l d n 't m a k e i t r u n . I t w a s o n e o fthose old Buick straight-8s - a '46. And he gave me the c rankshaft an dp oured rod bearin gs . And you had to shim them , an d all that kind of stuff?So I put them up like I thought they should be, and put it all together and. . . Ma n , t h a t t h i n g w o u l d n ' t e v e n t u r n o v e r . [ l a u g h t e r ] I f i x e d i t u pg o o d . [ l a u g h t e r] Y es , i t w a s q u i t e a d e a l . T hi s w a s a 2 - d o o r , b u t i t w a sa lon g old baby. And T thou ght I was goin g to make big times out of that,b u t [ c h u c k l e s ] i t t o o k a h ik e w h e n T p u t i t t o g e t h e r a n d i t w o u l d n ' t r u n .[ l au g h t e r]

Anyhow , from there w e have the F leur-de-Lis.RM: N o w , w h e r e d o e s t h a t g o?J W: W e l l , t h e r e a r e 2 r a n c h e s t h e r e . O n e u s e d t o b e l o n g t o R u s s L o n g , w h os old to Bud Hawkins , who s old it to George Youn ghan s . Then u p above thati s G . L . C o f f e r ' s . H e 's o w n e d t h a t f o r q u i t e a f e w y e a r s . C o f f e r s h a s h a dit for a lon g time. Now, it's probabl y the c losest thin g you c ou ld call tod oin g anythin g c om merc ially - he does sell cattle. It's not what you calla real big operation .RM: H o w f a r o f f t h e h i g h w a y i s i t ?

Two or three m iles . There's the lo wer ran ch an d then they have anu p per ran ch. They do have cattle there an d s o forth, an d other than that,

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I don't know.RM: What's the next place you hit after Fleur-de-Lis'JW: Springdale. It was quite a little place. The highway used to goright through it and there was a cafe and saloon. We used to go through it

every time we went to see my dad in the hospitalRM: What kept it going?JW: Tourists busine ss. The highway went right through the middle of it.RM: It wasn't an old ghost town from the early days, was it?JW: No, it was something that somebody put together; I don't know who. Ithad been a railroad stop. There was a gas station there, and a saloon, acafe, and etc. The gas station was on th e left going north, and the saloonand cafe and stuff were on the right. And there we re a couple of littlehouses, and I think they had some cabins back there, motel-type stuff.RM: Have they moved the highway?JW: They moved it to the left. Tf you go out there and you drop down thatlittle bank, the old highway's s till sitting there. You can still see it,except he's got a ton of junk sitting on it. [laughs] You're not going todrive out on it. Tt used to be a spot - well, if you remember back inthose days, man, it was ho t. My mom and and my sister and I used to go upto see my dad. He had tuberculosis - he was in Tonopah Hospital - that wasin the '50s. And it was hot. So we'd stop at Goldfield and stop atSpringdale, [laughs] and get a Coke or something. And so it was a place Istopped at a lot when I was young.RM: Who owned it then?JW: I'm not sure. Peacocks have owned it for the longest time that I canremember, and T think they owned it then. Because I can remember - theyhad peacocks; they still do. I remembe r that Ed Peacock's mom had it at

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the time, as near as I can recall. I used to go out in the yard and watchthose peacocks. I was 8 or 9 years old, and those t hings would fan out,and you'd get a big charge out of them. [ chuckles] I'm sure she owned itat the time. We'd go fooling around out in the yard while we had a Coke or

something.RM: When did they close down the bar?JW: When the new highway went through in ' 55 or '56. Then it just died,because people wouldn't drive off the highway for it. They just kept onboogeying. So they just s hut everything down there. That old pump outthere - you ou ght to take a look at that. It's one of those old glass gaspumps - the kind where you'd crank gas in the top, and then it went down.I think it's still there. You'd crank 5 gallons up, and then drain 5gallons out, and . .RM: Then th ere's a place on the left, the next place.JW: OK, that's the Windmill Ranch. Renee Gibson has owned that as long asI can remember. I think probably her husband b uilt that place. I reallydon't know that, but T remember they used to have a swimming pool outthere. And it was a real swimming pool - had cement and stuff in it. Andwe used to ride out there on bicycles to go swimming.RM: That was a long ride.


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Aerojet Gene ral, 18Amargosa Valley, NV, 9, 21Anaconda, 25Angst Corp., 19-20arson, 14Bailey, Elmer family, 28Barcus, Mr. & Mrs. Clyde, 3Bare Mountain, 19Beatty Fire Department , 12-15Beatty school, 10Beatty stone cabin, 23Beko, Bill, 7Bell family, 25bentonite, 20-21Black community, 21boxing, 4boxing championship,state, 25Brown, Jewell, 16Buckskin Mine, 5Burns, Mary, 24Carpenter family, 24-25Carter, Lee, 24cattle, 32Coffer, G. L., 32Columbus M ines, 19-20cottonwood trees, 11credit customers, 22Crowells fluorspar mine, 16,19Cunningham, Erma, 10-11Davies, Fred, 14, 24Delfs, John Scholarship, 7Desert Rock, 11Dobbs, Solan, 9Elko, NV, 5-6fire , 12-15, 31flood, 27-28Franc's Star Ranch (brothel), 23-24Funeral Mountains, 20-21Garcia, Bobby, 20Gibson, Renee, 34Grapevine Mountains, 20Greenwall family, 28Hammock, Charlie, 6hardware business, 18Harlan, Shirley, 30Hawkins, Bud, 27, 32hay baling, 9, 10Hispanics, 21-22Hot Springs, 24, 27

Indian cammunity, 21inquest, 29-30Ishmael family, 24-25Jackass Flats, 18Janda Ribbons, 21Jarbridge, NV, 5-6Jones, Cal, 27Keel, Elizabeth, 31Kelly Mines, 2, 24Las Vegas, NV, 1, 8-9Lisle, Ralph, 10, 22Lisle h ardware stor e, 10, 11, 18,22, 30Long, Russ, 32Looney, Fuller, 25Lori Motel, 19Lotti, Bill, 31Manley family, 24-26Mercury, NV, 18milling tailings, 5-6Mullins, Rita, 31NRDS # 1, 18Nevada State Fire Marshall'sOffice, 13Nevada Test Site, 6 , 16, 17Nichols, Bobby, 17Oden, Ronnie, 26Pagett, Madeline, 15Parker, Wes and Elaine, 26Peacock family, 32-33Pot Shop, Bobby's, 11Quinn, Bud, 3RV parks, 22-23, 28Revenna, O H , 1Revert ranch, 23Rhyolite, NV, 20Riggs, Loquita, 32Riggs, Slim, 31-32Riggs, Velma, 32Saga Corp , 19St. Joe American, 20St. Pe ter's Bar, 11-12Sarcobatus Flat, 31Senator Stewart Mine, 1, 4, 16Shearer, Bobby, 9Short, Tom, 28Siedentopf family, 30silicosis, 4silver dollars, 12Spicer , Dave, 29-30Spicer, Effie, 30

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Spicer, Jim, 20, 28-31Spicer, Sandy, 30Springdale, NV, 33Steel, Dick, 24Stewart Kelly Mine, 2Sullivan, Bi ll, 25-26swimming, 29, 34Taylor, Vicki, 24Thayer, Brian, 12Tolicha P eak, 18, 21Tonopah Hospital, 5, 33Torrance, Ilene, 31tourism, 22-23trailers (mobile homes), 19transients, 18tuberculosis, 4tungsten, 5-6Turner, Mr., 28, 29U.S. Ecology, 18University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 7Vanderbilt mine, 20Wahlen, Bill, 25-26Walker, Marvin, 24-25waste, low-level dump, 17Weeks, Carol, 3, 32Weeks, Homer, 1, 4-5Weeks, Norma Thompson, 1, 3Welch, Tam, 26Williams, Charlie, 26Williams, Red, 14Windmill Ranch, 34Yerington, NV, 5Younghans, George, 32

interview with james c. weeks

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