Transcript of interview with Guy Hamblin by Barry Merrell, February 22, 1975

UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin i An Interview with Guy Hamblin An Oral History Conducted by Barry Merrell Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin iv Abstract On February 22, 1975, Barry Merrell interviewed former railroad worker Guy Hamblin (born 1896 in Clover Valley, Nevada) in his home at 4306 Kay Place, Las Vegas, Nevada about the history of Southern Nevada. Specifically, the two discuss Hamblin moving from different towns in Nevada before settling down in Southern Nevada, viewing the above-ground atomic bomb tests, early Fremont Street, and his work on the railroad. In addition, Hamblin also discusses the demographic and economic changes that he has seen in Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 1 Interviewing Mr. Guy Hamblin, the evening of February 22nd, 1975. 4306 Kay Place, Las Vegas. Hey, were you born here in Southern Nevada? I was born in Lincoln County, that’s north. North part of Vegas County. It’s about 200 miles north of here, is where I was born. What city was that? It was in Ranch Valley—Clover Valley, we called it. Oh. We just had some hay land there. Raising cattle. When did you come to Las Vegas? Well, I moved down here in 1946, but I came here before that several times in school and on business. Did you go to school here, or—? I went to school in Panaca, Nevada. Is that where you graduated? Yes, I went to high school there and then I went to the University of Utah from there. I went to Cedar City for one year. That was before you moved to Las Vegas? What do you do for a living? Well, I’m retired now, but I was on the railroad for forty-one years. I did my (unintelligible) work on the railroad. Specifically the railroad between here and Salt Lake. Oh. I traveled up and down that road in the roller car and on the train, trucks. I did what they call “Water Service Repair Work,” I took care of all the plumbing and all the sanitary work. Mm. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 2 The steam fitting, (unintelligible) on the railroad to take care of the boats and water service, water supply. The locomotive engines? I took care of all the tanks for the locomotive fielder, motor tanks. I worked for about three years as a mechanic and then I took over the gang, and became foreman. And it went to five to sixteen men in the gang, and I distributed (unintelligible) up and down the road wherever I had, you know, trouble working there. And we did all the work order stuff too, installation, heavy stuff, big clients. Oh. Have you lived at this one place for, ever since you moved here? Or have you lived in several different locations? Yes. We moved from Caliente and moved to Boulder City and lived there for nine months, while we built a place here to live. We built a place up the wells, where the water comes from. Over here on West (Unintelligible)? Yes, and I took care of the wells for six years there. I was you know, regulating the water in the city and I built a little house there when I moved from Boulder City. I stayed over there about nine months and then moved over here into a house that I had built at the wells, and I lived there six years. And this place was just being built. This—I worked here, when I moved here, there wasn’t any houses here at all. This was all desert. All desert. And while they were building these houses, we lived at the wells and I had to wait for about three months for this house to be finished before we could move in. Oh. That was in ’53, 1953 we moved here. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 3 This was after you moved to Nevada? Yes, well we, never did leave Nevada, except for when I was working over at (Unintelligible). Did you get married here in Las Vegas? No, I was married in Milford, Utah. Oh. That’s where I happened to be when we got married. (Laughs) I was working at that time. See, we had our, we had our headquarters on boxcars. We fixed them up till they were—boxcars, and the gang (unintelligible) and would ride up and down and all over. Oh that’s very interesting. And I had my (unintelligible) up-state in Milford, and my wife and I decided to get married, and rented a place in Milford. Then we moved to Caliente. Say, you’re a Mormon, aren’t you? Has church always been—church activity quite an important part of your life? Well, yes, except that I didn’t have much opportunity to be active on the railroad, when I was moving up and down all the time. I went to church when I could, but I wasn’t active. Oh, mm-hmm. And before, before 1920’s, see, was only one railroad in 1920. Before that, we were all ranches, had cattle ranches. Where I was born my mother had a leather ranch. (Unintelligible) Beaver Dam right creek. We had cattle there, it was kind of isolated then. And Clover Valley, where I was born, there was a branch of the board, (unintelligible) and that was all the church I had at that time. And of course when I was in high school, I got into the church work a little bit, and (unintelligible) and stuff like that. I want to—it’s what I should’ve done, because I hadn’t been active before that, you know? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 4 Mm-hmm. Oh, can you remember any time when any presidents or real important people come and visited Las Vegas? You mean Las Vegas, or in the state? Yes, well, the state, anywhere that you’ve been. I got a clear with Governor Scrugham, it was 1926 or somewhere. I made a trip with him down on Beaver Dams and three or four other officials that were going down there to look for location for (Unintelligible). Was he a governor of Nevada? Yes, he was governor at the time. Scrugham his name was. Have you been active in politics? No, not much. I’ve been interested in politics all my life, but I never did get into it. I was on the railroad for forty-one years, and that didn’t give me much chance to do anything else. Oh. Which party do you identify with? Oh I was a democrat all my life— Oh. But I’m a republican now. Mm-hmm. My folks were all democrats, so I grew up in democrats. Even Roosevelt brought in and did what he did, and they I changed it over. Oh to the republican? I left the Democratic Party in a third (unintelligible). What kind of things do you do for activities like hobbies—or, do you ride horses? Or—? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 5 Well, of course I was almost born on a horse. I was out on the range, it was the bigger part of my life when I was younger. Mm-hmm. I liked to hunt, I hunted deer all my life, killed lots of deer, I fished whenever I could—since nineteen, oh about 1938, I got interested in fishing down at Mead Lake and then this way, fished a lot down here. Do you still go fishing? I still go if I can, I mean I can’t get away very often now, but I like to fish. Do you ever, done much gambling for recreation here in town? Oh, no gambling— Oh. I don’t believe in gambling. I can’t afford it is one reason— Yes, that’s a good reason. Can’t afford to lose. (Laughs) (Laughs)—Can you remember when they were up here at the atomic test site? When they were exploding the bombs above the ground? Yes. I was chosen by one of the parties that went up to view the whole explosion. We went up on Indian Peak and watched them go off up there, one morning early when they went. It was a, quite a spectacular to see that mushroom cloud come up. It felt like a, like you could almost just see a mushroom in the air, right up in the air. Huge explosion—would cover the whole valley. This is something that not a lot of people see. They gave me, I’ve got it somewhere in my room. They gave me a certificate, “The Bomb Watcher.” UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 6 (Laughs) But I can remember a lot of the bombs, we could see them from where we lived. Down here we could see the clouds come up after they got above the area. It was really big. Yes, they just keep going up, but they didn’t hold their shape like they did down over. But you could see the whole, whole cloud going into—but it wasn’t the same shape as when we were up there, where we could see it from the ground up. It was just the stem and then the whole cloud. (Unintelligible) Big ole’ mushroom. Do you remember much mining going on when you first came here? No, not here in this part of the county in Clark County. I guess it was a little earlier than that, but the mining settled here, of course in Tonopah, and the Potosi Mine. They worked at a little bit after I came down here, but just a few weeks I guess. Oh. I went over there one time, went through the mine, but they weren’t—but they didn’t have much mining going on here since I moved here. Did you know if there are any changes in the businesses and industries coming here? My goodness yes, since I came here. I came down here in 1917, the high school basketball team—they had just brought in the first artesian well, out here in this area. And the streets weren’t paved, there were no one on the streets. The sidewalks—some of them were paved, but just gravel roads all around. And the high school played basketball out on the ground, you know. Just a court right on the ground. Well, they didn’t have any pavement or anything—? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 7 No, they just played on the solid ground, on packed ground. And you got—and we had a dance at night in—it looked like a barn, a big barn, without any windows any it, any glass in it, instead their windows were the shutters (unintelligible). And you could go to the window and see right out, ‘course, there was only one. There weren’t any glass windows—(Laughs)—that’s where we danced. What was Downtown like back then? Oh, it was just small, small businesses established along Fremont that was about Main Street, the side streets didn’t amount to anything really. There were a few people lived along there in shacks. The prostitutes had their street on the lower side of Fremont, and the businesses weren’t any big buildings. Hardly any two-story building, just a little building (unintelligible) that you could go in. Oh, so down in Fremont, they had businesses other than just casinos and things there. Very few (unintelligible) joints, they had two or three—three, four I guess, gambling places. That was in 1917 of course, the main gambling and the big business came here after the dam started construction over there. In 1935 is when the big business moved town. Was there much of a railroad station back then? They had a—at that time, the railroad station was just a frame building, but oh, about fifty, seventy five feet, all the freight and was handled in that building. The ticket office, waiting room. Then they, I remember they had a lunch counter in another building right close to it. If we didn’t eat there, we went down to a hotel. Even then when they started building the dam, everything was sort of building up. Yes, that’s when the big buildings came. And I was (unintelligible)—occasionally I’d come down and come down here from time to go fishing down on the roller cars (unintelligible) and UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 8 come to town. And then let’s see—nineteen, yes, 1938, the flood ran through (Unintelligible) Canyon and washed up lot of the railroad. Where was that at? That was in January, 1938, the got more rain and apparently some snow, that washed through, though it wasn’t near as bad as it did in 1910—I guess you’ve heard about the 1910 flood too, don’t you? No, I haven’t heard that. The—we were living on the Ranch at the time, at 1910—flooded about sixteen miles all the way through (Unintelligible) Canyon. Those six months, getting (unintelligible)—there was a passenger train being held up here for six months. They couldn’t get through on account of the flood, the track washed out. Then in ’38, it almost washed out again, (unintelligible). And I came down over the boat of the motor car and got to—(unintelligible) general manager (unintelligible). I stayed over at the old Overland Hotel here in the Fremont Street. I don’t know things—anything else. ‘Course there’s a lot of storage to the railroad business, but if that’s what you wanted I don’t know. Was there much going out in Henderson, or out in that area back then? Or was that just desert? Oh well that, Henderson was built up, I guess about the time that the dam was in operation, or they were building the dam. I guess Henderson came into being then. But, I don’t believe they even had—they built the railroads, over there on account of the dams, you know, Henderson was back to the railroads (unintelligible). Were you here when the dam went in? Yes, I wasn’t right here, but I was in the county. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 9 Oh. I came down here a few times when they were building the dams, went to work through here and watched them build it and do some of the work. I watched them lower those big batches of cement down onto the dam off the cables. It was quite a site to watch ‘em build that dam and what they were working with, with all the men working all over the place. Did it have quite an impact on everyone? On the Lakefield up? Yes, that was, it was a funny thing too. You could go up from that Vegas Wash right there and there’s the big cliffs were falling in. The water raising up would wash the sand out from under and the whole thing would come down and make a big splash and bang, sounded like a cannon when it hit the water. And up around Overton, and St. Thomas and there, it came right up over there, and of course (unintelligible). Oh they had to move Overton up? Saint Thomas had to move entirely. Oh. And Overton almost. The old blacksmith in St. Thomas wasn’t ‘gonna move, he said the water would never get up to him. And we went out there fishing one time, and stopped down on a high place, and when we got up in the morning, the water was clear around us, it was all around. Well, it was filling up really fast then? Yes, it was covered up about four inches in the night, six inches in the night. And it just got up around us, and everybody had to go through the water to get out. (Laughs)—that’s interesting. This old blacksmith, he stayed in his blacksmith working until the water came into the front door and he left out the back. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 10 He was hanging out till the last— He stayed there till the last second. Well, do you remember when Sahara out here was called San Francisco Street? Yes. That hadn’t been until I was old. Was there much of anything out in that area? Oh, well about a restaurant, and a ranch, but there wasn’t anything, anything at all, or at least of what I can remember back then. But I don’t know just when they changed it from Sahara to San Francisco—or the other way around. ‘Cause anyway, I can remember being called San Francisco Street all the time right up until, I don’t know how long ago, maybe a few years ago. What were some of the first hotels to go in out there? Downtown you mean? No, out on the Strip. Well, the Flamingo, and of course the Desert Inn. And first one was that old Rancho— El Rancho Vegas? El Rancho Vegas. Then there was the Nevada—Nevada Hotel? Do you remember when the El Rancho burned down? Yes. I don’t know what year it was, but I remember. Mm. I remember before it burned down and when it burned down. Then I remember when there weren’t very many businesses out at the Strip at all. There were just—the only (unintelligible) was casinos out there. (Unintelligible) casino. Sage and Sand, and several names like that that I can remember. That was here out of town? And— UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 11 And they wouldn’t clear out of town, I thought they were ‘gonna be clear out there by themselves. And then suddenly they’re surrounded. Back when you were first in Las Vegas—what was it, 1917? Or—? 1917 was the first time I came down here. Well, what were some of the streets Downtown that were kind of the edge of town, ‘cause it outlined the town? I don’t remember if there was any (Laughs). At that time, at Fremont, seemed to be the only place that we went to. There was some roads, that’s what they called them then, just gravel roads that went around different places. And then the road came out here to this well that they had drilled, and—I don’t know. There was other streets probably, like Gas Street and some of those older streets, but I didn’t get out on them till later on. And there weren’t many houses even downtown then. The, well—the people all lived right by both sides of Fremont, down there, probably wasn’t more than a block or two out by Fremont—that was where all the houses were, seems like. There was business houses on both sides of the side streets—they weren’t paved or anything, they just went to houses on their (unintelligible). There was quite a few people right there. They had a high school. Were you here when the railroad first sold the downtown area? No. No, that was in 1904 or five, and I was—I was only about eight or nine years old and I was on a ranch up in Clover at the time. And I rode on the first work train that came down through there—those kids used to bother the train crews so much that they finally put us up on the flat car to get rid of us, and get us out of the way so we didn’t get run over and we’d ride up and down on the flat car, on the rails and stuff. Why, I rode the first train that was over the rails. They just UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 12 laid on the rails! (Laughs)—But I didn’t know anything about it when it came down through here. However, we did hear about it of course when it got through and the train started running through, we knew that the track had been completed. ‘Cause we were living right along the track up there. Well, how about the wells. Were—have they been capped off as long as you can remember? Hmm? The springs out here on Fremont? Oh, those springs, I suppose the springs are still running but they do run, but don’t pull as much water from the underground, but the springs just come up and dried up I think. When I was working there, we used two springs and turned them into (unintelligible). Small bit of water come off it. Oh, so you can still go up there and just see the springs coming out of the ground at that time? Yes, they had a house over on (Unintelligible) Inn, but you could see the water coming, bubbling up, out of the well. Oh. We had the house built over at the (Unintelligible), it had a tight door and screens over all the windows. Was it safe to drink the water? Yes, I’d drink the water—it ran into the city’s water. Oh. Well, did you hear very much about some of the real important people down in the, you know, the gambling establishments that I think, in fact, some number of years ago, UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 13 there were a number of real important people who were running the casinos and that sort of thing? Well, ‘course people like Wilbert Clark and I can probably think of a couple bunch of ‘em but I can’t recall right now their names. I didn’t know them personally, I just heard about them. Old timers. Do you feel that back then there was more of a syndicate in the casinos, or were you aware of anything like that? I don’t know much about that, I didn’t have any occasion to learn much about the gambling situation. Mm-hmm. ‘Cause I was away from here working time and building the railroad. But we came here in ’46, which of course, we moved over here in ’47. But we didn’t have any, all types, or very many people here in town. Just lived out there by the well for water and (unintelligible). I remember Cashman, Jim Cashman. He used to be quite interested in the water situation. Well, do you remember all about how it was when Howard Hughes came to town? Howard Hughes? Yes. Yes I remember when he first come here and started to hear about him in the papers. But I didn’t go in and see him in person, but just that I read in the papers, that he was here, and spending his money. That was all the time he—mostly all was in the Desert Inn Hotel, he had an apartment up in the top there. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 14 But all the papers were full of stuff about him, his dealings around here, I didn’t pay much attention to it. (Laughs) Oh. When you first moved here, well, was there any building here on the west end of town here? Or was it still just really small? Well there wasn’t anything—very little this side of the railroad tracks when we first moved here. There was some few holes never the less. Now on Charleston here, there’s several holes that had big bakeries that their grandma raised hay on there, (unintelligible) of hays out on Charleston. Oh. That’s about the only buildings that was out in this area at all. All this here was just sage brush out here and mesquite brush. It’s really changed, huh? Well do you think the people—that there’s been much of a change of the people since you’ve moved here, the kind of people—? Yes, (unintelligible), there’s few of the old-timers left, but the big majority of the younger people that have grown up here and come in here—different attitude, different characteristics I think from the old-timers did. Of course, old-timers grew up here or they knew the country better, and the younger generation don’t understand all that’s been done around here. They think it was just handed to them on a platter I guess (Laughs). They don’t know what it cost the older generation to build it up. When my family came to stay in Nevada, well there wasn’t anything but rattlesnakes, and jackrabbits from thistles, thorns, rocks, railroads, and nothing. Well, in ’48 is when you moved here? Forty—yes, ’46. ’46, were the people as transient as they are now, you know? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 15 No. There were few transient on the railroad, but most of the people had been pioneers in this country then and then settled down, and tried to settle down here and tried to make a country out of it. Very few transient people then. Some form the northern part of the county and some from maybe over in— (Tape one ends) What do you think the general class, you know, the people who are like, rich or poor, has changed an awful lot? Yes, they got richer. There aren’t poor people it seemed like when I came here. (Laughs)— Everybody working for wages and trying to get a, you know, loan, get a place to live on. Nowadays, they have more money, some of ‘em don’t know what to do with it, seems like. But, ‘course it takes lots more money than it used to. When I first come down here in 1917, you could go down Fremont and get a good meal for thirty-five cents, a good square meal. Your breakfast cost you two (unintelligible), that you had a good big breakfast. But, I don’t think it’s any better now. (Unintelligible) What were the wages like back then? Well, seemed like about two dollars a day was pretty good labor. Oh, okay. Two dollars a day. I went to work on the railroad for fifty-seven cents an hour. First came to work in nineteen twenty something— fifty-seven cents an hour, and it kept going up. Then I got to be a mechanic, I got oh, a real dollar and twenty-nine cents or something like that. And then I got to be foreman, and got a little raise of pay there, but the wages were nothing like they are now. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 16 Hmm. Well is—has Blue Diamond changed much? Or did you know much about the area out there? No, I didn’t except that, when I moved down here, after I moved down here and took over the repair work here in town, I had to occasionally go out there a time or two on account of the water came from there down to (unintelligible) and the railroad owned the water. I had to occasionally go out there, and I did see buildings over there, and tracks, works out there. They had, it didn’t start it, but I came down here in thirty, oh no, forty-six. Was it called Blue Diamond then? Yes I think so. Hmm. Do you remember very much about the Old Ranch? You know, the Mormon Fort? No, I—‘course I remember when the water from the wells ran down through there, the surface water. We didn’t use it all, when the city lines, it would go down through the ranch where they would irrigate it, but I don’t know. I did know some of the Stewarts that lived there, knew them off hand. Didn’t know much about their work or anything. Hmm. Well it was called by several names. Like, the Old Ranch, or the Stewart Ranch; which way did you know it? Well, it seemed like it was called several names all the time. I mean, somebody would call it one thing, and the next guy would call it something else. It didn’t have any definite name for it, just called it Stewart’s, and you could tell that they had several names—Stewart’s Ranch, or Old Ranch, or Vegas Ranch or something like that. It was mostly the ranch there where the water came down, that was mainly the start of the town. It was why people stopped here, because there was water there. That’s where the nucleus of the whole thing started. Do you remember what any of the old buildings looked like? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 17 Definitely the Old Fort, I can remember it, it’s exactly the same as it is now. That stood off kind of alone there, you can see it as you went by it on the trains, and on the track there. Oh, you can see it from the track? Mm-hmm. You got it kind of covered in under the trees and behind that Elks space now I think. Did they remove much of it when they built Cashman Field? I heard they removed part of it. Well there was some other buildings and things around there. But I don’t think they—well of course the Fort itself was quite a big area that they kind of ventured into before. But the, oh, cattle lift, still there, called the Fort. Oh, so it was mostly the ranch that they teared down? Yes, they cleaned away most of that building and everything like that when took over that Cashman Field. So, even though you were acquainted with some of the people there, did you know them as friends, you don’t talk to ‘em, the Stewarts? Yes, well just you know, offhand way. I went there one time for the church and got a (unintelligible) and took some (unintelligible) some kids out hay riding. One of these Stewart boys was there and (unintelligible), and I got acquainted with him, and met him several times after that. And I knew that the old man, some of the old time Stewarts, (unintelligible) but I knew two or three of the old time Stewart men, not the original ones. Mm-hmm. Well, then was it Clark County—was it part of Lincoln or Nye, or—? Yes, well Lincoln County is six—used to be there, up and down—they cut it in two and made Clark County out of the south end. Where was the county seat before? UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 18 (Unintelligible) Is that lot land important before than it is now? That was a big, big money sort of in, great mines and smelters there in town. It’s not now, hardly anything there. Still have the county seat there for Lincoln County. They built a courthouse there and a county seat. ‘Course, all the county business from here had to go clear up there by (Unintelligible) and (Unintelligible) or something. So they finally decided it would be cheaper to cut it in two. How did—? They had quite a few people here. They had a railroad track—? Well of course they had a railroad train. It was built in 1904 or five—they divided the county in 1909. Mm. I guess most of their traffic was on the train before at that time. Before (unintelligible). Do you remember any of the governors or political people in Nevada here that were really popular with the people? I heard that the, Grant Sawyer, governor, he was especially popular. Yes, he’s quite a popular governor. He was very friendly man, he was young I guess. He’s (unintelligible), I don’t remember any person before him. There was an early governor—Governor Nye. He was quite a popular governor I think, I heard about him. When was that? It was one of the early ones, I don’t know if he’s the first one or not. Oh. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 19 Then Governor Scrugham was well about, 1920, twenty-six? Oh I don’t know. He was quite a (unintelligible) he was kind of a rough old guy, not very, what you’d call a gentleman. He was one of the roughest, toughest. Did you say that you met him? Or? Yes, he—we organized a party to go down be with—they were going to build a CCC camp down there. And ‘course, we got a ranch there, with a creek about there, and that was quite interesting, as to what they’d done down there. So I went down with ‘em. And I knew all about the country because I lived there, so I knew that creek and that area, and knew everything about it. And got a lot of information from me about (unintelligible) there. He had quite a lot of (unintelligible). Well, what do you think of Nevada and Las Vegas generally? You’re quite happy with living here, or—? No. I don’t think it’s too good a place for a retired person to live. I have no excuse to be here, except that this is where my home is, I happened to be, I had a loan here. And to move—its not a hometown, I don’t think. First thing when you get to be retirement age, its getting so expensive, you can barely afford to live here, and I don’t know how my—other places, are really so bad. I think it’s very good for most of the people. Businesses here, they seem to like it, and it’s good for them, I guess. But if you—I guess if the person would get out and look around, would find a lot more desirable place to live. Where would you like to live to retire? Oh, I would like to live more in a rural area where it’s more parks and streams, rivers, lakes, away from the hubbub of the town. Mm-hmm. If a little bit younger, I think I would move out and try to get a place somewhere else. UNLV University Libraries Guy Hamblin 20 It’s a little hard now. Yes I know. I’m at an old age where I want to do very much now. Well I think we have everything I need here. Thank you very much for your time. Well I hope I was help, it’s just so mu— While chatting with Mr. Hamblin after this interview, I learned that his grandfather’s brother was Jacob Hamblin, who was a prominent pioneer and explorer in the Southern Utah area. He told me of an incident that happened in the days of the Mormon Fort when there was a group of soldiers that were, that had sailed up the Colorado River when the river was full from the flooding, and they were, they were going to run the Mormons out of the Las Vegas Valley. This was in the days when in the federal government was clashing with the Mormons for various reasons. Jacob Hamblin intercepted them on the river and the southern part of Nevada, and he convinced the soldiers that the Mormons were not up to any trouble, and the soldiers went back where they came from, and they never entered the valley to molest the Mormons. He also told me of a time when, on several occasions, they sent ships, steam ships, up from the Gulf of California up the river, as far as wash-up near Overton. And they’d go up in the time of the year when the river was flooded, so it would be as deep as possible, but on the one part of the river, there’s some rapids and the way they’d get the ships over the rapids, they’d send some cables up ahead. They’d take ‘em up in horses up along the bank, and they’d secure them to the rocks. And then they’d hook ‘e