Paul Sogan interview, May 16, 1995: transcript

An Oral History Interview with Paul Sagan 1995 Photographs following page 1. Retreat formation at the Boulder City Twin CCC Camps, ca. 1936 ...................... 6 2. Boulder City Twin CCC Camps buildings, 1936 ...................................................... 6 3. News article describing construction of the National Park Service boat pilot's house at Lake Mead, 1941 ..................................................................... 11 4. National Park Service tourist checking station on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam., 1938 ...................................................................................................... 16 5. National Park Service boat pilot's house at Lake Mead, 1946 .............................. 16 6. Arizona spillway in operation at Hoover Dam, August 1941 .............................. 22 7. Boxing ring at the Boulder City Twin CCC Camps, 1939 ..................................... 27 8. Joanne and Paul Sogan at Hoover Dam, 1992 ....................................................... .35 **** ii Acknowledgments I'd like to thank Paul Sogan for generously spending part of his Las Vegas vacation with me so that I could conduct this oral history interview with him. With his help, our knowledge of the Civilian Conservation Corps and its work in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area is greatly enriched. The staffs of the Boulder City Library, the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas library, and the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society at Lorenzi Park in Las Vegas were helpful in compiling the annotations. I would particularly like to thank Leslie Peterson of the National Park Service in Boulder City for use of her transcribing equipment and for access to the Service's library and archives. The excellent photo reproductions were made by Ihla Crowley at Desert Data in Boulder City, Nevada. **** iii Boulder City Library Oral History Project Interview with Paul Sagan conducted by Dennis McBride May 16, 1995 [This interview happened through an unusual coincidence. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Sogan were having breakfast on Sunday morning, May 14, 1995, getting ready to fly to Las Vegas for vacation later that afternoon. Mrs. Sogan gave her husband the May 1995 issue of the NACCCA (National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni) Journal in which I had placed an ad asking that enrollees of Boulder City CCC Companies 573 and 2536 contact me. Mr. Sogan, who was an enrollee of Company 2536, called me immediately and we arranged for an interview in room 1219 of the Maxim Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Tuesday, May 16.] First, I wa.nt to know a little bit about your background: where you born, and when, brothers and sisters, and what your dad was doing for a living, how you were getting by just before you went into the CCCs. OK. Well, it was a family of four brothers.l We're from Mingo Junction, Ohio. My dad was a steel worker. Now, at the time ... personally, I didn't go to the CCCs because of money. We had a money problem, we were in the same position as anyone else. But my dad still worked at least two days a week in the mill. In Mingo Junction, the mill never ceased operation during the Depression. The mill in Mingo Junction was basically put there by Andrew Carnegie.2 He himself had designed this particular mill. It was, at the time, the only place in the United States where five railroads could meet. And the idea was that they could bring in material and take out goods out of the steel mill. So that's where the term Mingo Junction came from? Well, nobody really knows. There was a lot of things that happened there at Mingo Junction before. Actually, it started out with the Mingo Bottoms. When I say Mingo Bottoms, this is where the Mingo Indians,3 a tribe of Indians, used to do their hunting and everything, right there. And there were some battles, and things of that sort that were quite important in the history of Mingo. But my idea of going to the CCC camps really was as a junior in high school. I left. The principal allowed us to leave early, with the idea that we would be back before the first football game to play. Kind of silly, but that was true. And I got back on a Thursday, played football on a Friday. Along with a guy named Frank Kernick. Frank Kernick was an all-state football player from Powhatan Point [Ohio], Powhatan High School. He and I came back [from the CCCs]. He played in Powhatan Friday night, and I played in Mingo High School, in Mingo Junction, on a Friday night. So, really, that was our idea of going to the CCC camps. When we left Steubenville, Ohio, there were fellows from Mingo Junction, Steubenville, Yorkville, Ohio, Tiltonsville, Powhatan, Ohio, the entire eastern district. But when we left, a lot of us were separated, a lot of fellows from Mingo and Steubenville-some went up to the CCCs in Charleston Mountains,4 and some went to Mesa, Arizona. So we were separated here in [Steubenville]. We all came to Las Vegas, then a lot of us took different directions. Did you go through Fort Knox? No. We were examined in Steubenville, Ohio at the War Memorial Building, then we took a train to Yellow Springs, Ohio. I think it was on the campus of Antioch College. Don't know if you've heard of Antioch College. Yes, I have. 2 It's noted for two different things, though. 1 knmv it for its liberal arts program. Well, it's very liberal. It is a liberal arts college. And, of course, some of the kids, during the 60s, they had a lot of different ideas there. [From] Yellow Springs, after we received our inoculations and whatever they had to do there, physicals again, we boarded a train. I was one of the lucky ones. There was one sleeper car on the train, and the rest of them were all 1917 World War I troop cars. What it was was a boxcar with bunks. That's what [most of the boys] rode in. We were lucky because I myself and two other boys from Mingo, Mush Ralston and Curtie Merriman-you had two in the bottom [berth] and one in the upper, so we were quite lucky. Did tlzetJ have a mess car? They had a mess car, and that was interesting on that trip, too. We had a boy-and I still see him everyday, and he still remarks about this-he was a mess cook. They would come through the train with huge, 20-gallon containers. And in those containers, they 'd either have hot dogs, or potatoes, whatever. And it was so funny, because everytime he come through, he stuttered. And he still stutters today. And he would start stuttering and ask the question if-if they'd u-used a roll oft-toilet paper on the trip, because all the kids got constipated [and] in those days nothing to cure us with. Now, he ended up in Charleston Mountains. And another boy that was with us I see everyday, he ended up in Mesa, Arizona, in the Three Cs. And the three of us from my home town of Mingo went to Boulder City. And we were in [Co.] 2536. Hmv long did it take the train from Yellow Springs to I.as Vegas? That trip was like three nights, four days and three nights. At that time that was a pretty good haul. Did you stop along the way? 3 Not really· The only stop that we made that was fascinating to me, was that we stopped in Ogden, Utah. My parents had not known yet where I was or why I'd gone. They didn't knaw? o! Wlzy didn't you tell them? Well, the year before I had crossed the country hitchhiking by myself which, in those days, was something that probably very few people [had done]. There was no automobiles. I rode freight for awhile. I hitchhiked rides for awhile. But I went from Mingo Junction to Oregon and back, so that was quite a hassle. My parents really hadn't known too much what I'd done. But in Ogden, Utah, only one person on the entire hill had a telephone, and he was a railroader. At that time railroaders had to have telephones. And even today. Railroaders, if you're familiar .... And you should be because in Boulder City there was a railroad outlet in those days. A depot.5 Depot, right. That was how we got from Boulder City-used to ride the freight, to get to Las Vegas. But anyhow, I stopped in Ogden and I called our neighbor, a Mrs. Porter, and told her to tell my mother the circumstances, the things I'm gonna do. She was very upset, because evidently they were already discussing my being gone. So I told her that I was going into the Civilian Conservation Corps. And I would be home when school starts. Wlwt year was it that you joined? '41. 1941. And how old were you? 4 ~ell, I was only 16. You were supposed to be 17, but I wasn't gonna turn 17 until July. So I lied about my age when I left. What month did you join? We left the first of May. The principal allowed us to leave. You intended just staying for the summer. That was my intentions. We'd made arrangements. I guess it was illegal, what we were doing, in their [ CCC] terms, but we'd made arrangements with our football coach that he would go through the process, and he was glad to do it, that he would get us out. You ·were supposed to be in for six months. Si months. We were in May, June, July, August, and a part of September. Did you come to Las Vegas first on the train? We got off in Las Vegas at the train station and got on trucks. Were you separated at that point? You said some went to Charleston, some went to Mesa. We knew that we were going to Boulder City. They'd already informed us, so we got off the train, all the fellows that were going to Boulder City [and] got on these trucks here. Wha.t kind of trucks were they? The only difference here was they were trucks ... had benches in it, see how they are here? Those were actually benches where we used to go to work. Like if they were taking a crew out to work, this is what you sat on going, and this is what we came [in] from Las Vegas to Boulder City. 5 What time of day did you arrive? One o'clock in the aftern. oon. We about d.1 e d . Whe n we got to Boulder Ci.t y at the camp, we mustered, nght there out in the middle of barracks. And there's no trees, nothing . . othing. We mustered out here in front of this barracks because I stayed in this barracks upstairs. And we couldn't handle it. What kind of clothes did you have? Uniforms, or did you just have your civvies? I really don't remember, but I think they had issued some clothes to us. But we could have been in civvies. I wondered if you 1-oere out mustering in wool uniforms. Well, no. One thing about our corps here in Boulder City, we were clothed very well. We had good shoes, what we called loggers. Loggers? Loggers. They were shoes, the way they always explained to us, they were like halfway between a high boot and a high-cut shoe. They were like about eight or ten inches [high]. And supposedly, everyone thought, the reason they gave 'em to you was because when you were out in the field, out in the desert, [there were] a lot of rattlesnakes, so you had a little protection there from 'em. Back to wizen you first arrived. Did they even let you get settled in your rooms before tlzei; mustered you? o, no. We mustered right out in the open, and it was tough. And, in fact, that particular day, a lot of 'em said it was close to a hundred [degrees]. Even if it was ninety-something, you drove in that heat all the way from Las Vegas. They said it was 27 miles. I still remember someone saying it was 27 miles from the train station to our camp. 6 .:r. •:. ' . . . ' . .. . :, ' ' , , -:~ --:-:··/-.~.~'(:" i' ·;:, '.•' - .. --,-- -- ..,.. ---=.::..--::!!!I'~~~~ •.· .. !'•:·. '·: ::::.'.-:'}t} ;'· . '/:,;:; ;J:..\ :•~<' ... •. ~·. . "' ·, .. - ..., C Top Photograph Retreat formation at the Boulder City Twin CCC Camps, ca. 1936 [photo courtesy of Carl Stitak; negative in the possession of Dennis McBride] Bottom Photograph View from the south of the Boulder City Twin CCC Camp buildings, 1936 · [photo courtesy of Charles Maak; negative in the possession of Dennis McBride] They didn't want to see any of us out without a shirt on because of the intense heat, and getting burned. And a lot of fellows did get burned that didn't listen. What kind of arrangements did they make as soon as you arrived? You got mustered, and you ·were through mustering- then what? They assigned us to bunks. Like I said, I was assigned to the upstairs here. Relatively nice. I kept my barracks bag. It was a blue bag that you had all of your clothes and whatever in. And they also issued us a footlocker that you put your clothes and everything in right in front of your bunk. Did thetJ issue you tlzat in Steubenville? o. To my memory, that was an issue that belonged to the camp. At Boulder City? At Boulder City. And was the bag also issued at Boulder? Right. I still have my bag. Because w h en I went h ome , when I left in September, all of my belongings were in that duffel bag. Was it a canvas bag? Canvas. Cotton. But over the years-you have to remember now, since '41, my mother used that, and my wife used it, but it's still not bad! . 7 Does it have your company number on it. othing. After you mustere d an d were gi·v e n your bunk' were you allowed to settle in for awhile or did you have to go right to work? 7 Well, that was in the afternoon, and from there we went to dinner. And fellas were having a tough time even crossing over from the barracks [to] the mess hall. There was another building here, the mess hall and the recreation hall I [where] we used to shoot a lot of snooker and pool. Were the officers in that building, too? The officers were in that building where the mess hall was. The officers' quarters were upstairs. The mess hall was on one end, if I remember right, and then they had that huge rec hall where we'd go down in the evening if you didn't go into Boulder City. If you weren't working, you were free to go, leave camp every evening. Describe your first dinner there-what the mess hall looked like, and what you hai to eat. I don't remember the meal that we had, but I always said that I don't ever remember getting a bad meal at camp. Our meals were excellent. And I'm not a finicky eater, I can eat just about anything, but I enjoy food. even today. And I'm quite a chef or a cook. We ate well. Of course, when you went out on a job someplace, you ate out of mess kit. A metal mess kit, like an army mess kit? Right. Everybody had their own mess kits. So you could imagine, when you opened that up and started to eat, everything was mixed up. If you had beets, then everything was red. But it all depended what type of a job you were on. What did the mess hall look like? It was a huge room, just like an army mess hall, the same identical thing. They had the big tables where there could possibly be twelve or more to sit at a table. Then they had the mess cooks that took care of each table. If you were on mess duty, then you took care of [tables]. Like a waiter? 8 Yeah, he'd be what we called the mess cook. A mess cook worked in the kitchen or he could work out in the hall . So he wouI d t a k e care o f eac h room. Possibly fill up the containers of milk, fill up the containers of water, pitchers. Was it like a buffet, where you went to get your own, or did they bring it out to you? If I remember right, you went through a line, and you could go back as many times as you wanted with the idea that you ate everything you'd taken. Tell me about your room. The room, that was one huge opening, you know. Your bunks would be about a yard apart, and the entire length would be bunks on this side and bunks on the other side. Thei; weren't separate rooms? o, no, no.6 It was a barracks-type, army-type thing. Well, it was the army, really. The CCC camp was, basically, run by the army. Our captain, we called him a captain, he was a regular army individual? Everything was basically_army. I think it was five or five-thirty in the morning, we had reveille everyday. We raised a flag everyday. And then you had to muster everyday. And from there, if you were in that type of a job, then you went on to your job. As Jar as furnishing goes in your room, you had your bunk-were they single or double bunks? Single bunks. What else? Well, you had your [foot]locker up front with your belongings in it. And your blankets, and that was it. It wasn't anything elaborate. Let's ta.lk about the work programs, then. When were you assigned first to a work program, and what was it they assigned you to do? 9 If I remember right-I keep saying that, but it's true-the first assignment I had ... · When you come in new-and I think every new enrollee that came in- [you] were assigned like to a road gang. Wlzat do you mean by road gang? Well, the first day they mustered, took roll, then we climbed aboard these trucks and went out and worked on the road. Now, we worked on .... Again, they didn't know about it when I went to [Hoover] Dam a couple of years ago. As you were riding down to the dam, there was a spot there that you could stop and overlook the dam. That was put together by the Three Cs. A lot of fellows that were with us refused to go out toward the edge. Wizen you say worked on, what did you do? We put up guard rails and things of that sort. Now, the first week or two that I spent with this road crew, we worked on guard rails throughout the [area]. As I remember, the first time we stopped for lunch, we went to a huge [ clearing] in the desert, but it had a lot of boulders around. And got out, and a lot of the guys got upset, and I was one of 'em, because quite a few lizards were around. Those green [lizards]. We'd never encountered those things before. Guys were jumpin' up and dumping their trays! We were aware of snakes, but we weren't aware of these things. And right in this ar~a where we were eating a bunch of these wild donkeys come in there. We was havin' an awful time. We'd never seen a donkey before, we'd never seen these lizards before, and we're trying to eat lunch out of a mess kit! And it was hot, too. Oh,hot! We worked primarily on the roads. That was the first job that I had, and I was on that for several weeks. Were these wooden guard rails, or were they metal guard rails? 10 I thought that they were met 1 d . . a guar rails. As I understood it, that was part of a national park. Is that right? Yeah. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the whole [area]. What did they call it before? They called it Boulder Dam Recreation Area. Right! I remember. Tlieifve changed the name.8 We actually worked on the roads in that entire area. So by that time, '41, they had had most of the roads done. That's the reason, I think, we were working on the guard rails. The roads were there. We never did work on any roads that I can remember. You 're right. We strictly worked on guard rails and maintenance. Who supervised your work when you went out? We had what they called the foreman. To my knowledge, we had a couple of Indians that were foremen. I don't know whether that would be strange or not. Our company built the first pilot house on Lake Mead. Supposedly, if I remember right, it was the first building that was built on Lake Mead. There was nothing there throughout the entire area. But they built what they called the pilot house. 9 What's a pilot house? 11 ni fuc hom;e-appro~cd · $5,985,- 1ng- · to Guy n. Edwards, super- to ht>· c~rr1ed c · 000 - hr.ouffh--,--\,ri!:70r--=of the nationat-~- , s- ·. · --~1~nnw .r-Tw.o-a t teri,pts-to-w-rit~-i~~ .--·-W h:-n-comp l-c<tcrct;-----th-;:!---rcs 1 - · · 1 _ _ __i,r rt--:=o.-c== lh~ measure a pi:_c!_hibltlQD_ den~~ _}1-,.'Jlt __ b~~ !)t~unlttC.by- m·c~r-=:Mcmocrs ~-6 ' . iJa\Mt"~ Wa'ni: ·nny of t~. moncy'· pork -'>~rvier~ boat pilot, who wilttrr:~s-~ntcd·-· nn : _ . id=-~a-wc:-rc• · ovorwhe)rfl';"~lit-=al:H~- fi, ·-,.,--;iTrfrlnr--=l,t):ir~1fot'k:st Fr icl,ly lit M .;.._-~· i~ly:'"{fef eatro -:..i11 'the--huu'i,;e. . · · ! at1d- vcssC'ls::--:atnnchnr~.- from-:-:~rfr:;h,tho<>rm-; · rolH/ .. . . a_ddffiort to~_ the _ lt,-gi~-.l:t0v~ '"~~?-nt living _room .::;,m1d _Jx-dro:)m \Iyih~_-_::ari,cl _ U<" cJueftarns, Harry .. ·I;. · Hupk111s, wmdcnvs. · { mime skit anc/1 1 lend-lease 8Upcrvii:;or, · and Ed- Acros,; the livin1.: room ara ;;ix i cl.iss, r<'ading, · .. w:.rd T. Stcltiniw;, Jr., h•nd-l(•a,-;e wid.~ window.s. In the , bedroom I . . . , administrator. took ?art in ·the · is a l'<:'<'l','isl'd nlac<' for n dn.•s3- J A comhmC'fl · _ con l'rt.:n<:<.', _ wa:> .. reported th.it- in~---t...Jbl~ --ithov~- whkh i~ a ~twl om~~--party ,~ - --11 uss ia :~~ lKhL~ih">_:_di.5. CUSB.C!Lr:X:=··O t .~D~ ~~-i.!l j~~-:-: ·:r~•~-0' tilft~M:i,..,ic1 li~ \ ~, n~Ul4i~.!,;c . t.eMtvcly. . : li'vm~ roum, d111m~~- r<>Ol'\ _}5,_1tch- 1 . Congre~s;ot181- ,<;bttn:t•s suhsl'•- <~11. ~,:- tvice rc,om. , b~ttn, il'ncT g,i- ! M 1s:; i\farga qucntly _.r~portcd that Roo::;cvelt is l'UJ.!t• arc• includeri in th:• · unit, : hostC'ss . to ti nvinccd' h·at' the .Rut.;:-;ial'} army · Th~ bui1di.D_g is of ,:•~m.~t'tLf?~'o::k..! r~~1b. ~ 1th_ ___M 1 ·n --contuil(e o·r~=acrman ·-··'•a'na ......... . . . .. ... ,. • ' ; . I The~ Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal October 14, 1941 6:2 Well ' if I remembe. r, the re were b oats that went on up the Colorado River. Whether they were sight-seeing toun·st b oat s, or w h atever. That was Grand Canyon-Boulder Dam Tours, operated tours down at the dam. It was a comnzercial outfit. l 0 Would that go back that far? O/z, yeah. Well, we built this pilot house. My understanding was that the fellow that was going to live in there was the fellow that sort of controlled the water of the lake , that is, as far as the boats and that that were going to be on the lake. He was a government employee, not for the tour agency. He miglzt be a Park Service employee. As far as his job goes, it was to ... Direct. The reason the word pilot always came back to me was [my] being a navy guy. After I left the CCC camps, got out of high school, then I was drafted into the navy. What they called a pilot in the navy-and I think that's what this fellow would have done-like, our aircraft carrier would come into, say, San Diego Harbor, or 'Frisco Harbor, Hawaii, wherever, the captain and the ship's navigator could only go to a certain point. When they got to ,that point, there would be a pilot that would come aboard your ship. He was in complete control of your ship until it docked. So my idea was that when they said it was a pilot house [at Lake Mead], he was the man that was going to be in charge of any movement on the lake, as far as ships or boats were concerned. Would you remember what part of the lake that was at? The only thing that I can remember is when we would go there, we would leave our camp, and it seemed we would double back, came down to the lake and turned left and went to the far end of the lake. The big thing that always sets in my mind, three things, when we built this place. [It was] my first knowledge of seeing cement colored. In this building, like in your homes, you'd put a blue 12 rug, a green rug, and a red rug. Well, in this [pilot house] they built the floors red concrete, blue concrete, and such. If it's still there, I don't know. They put me on a construction crew and we were going to help lay this cement this particular day• As we come in and we picked up all of our tools and we were going to take them into the rooms, well, I got into this back bedroom and started back, a rattlesnake had crawled into the main room by the door there. And like a young kid, I panicked. I jumped over him! The Indian foreman happened to be standing there, and he picked up a two-by-four and went in there with that two-by-four and caught that snake's head up against a wall and [makes a twisting motion] snipped it off with this two-by-four. What was the building built from? Was it a frame building or a block building? It probably was block. All concrete. It probably must have been a residential home for somebody, because I keep thinking that I went back to the two back bedrooms. It may have been that what I called the pilot house may have been the home for the person that was going to be in charge of that particular area. The other incident out there· that was always fascinating, too, was that this boy, who we called Mush Ralston-to this day I can't remember his first name. He was a little guy, very small, short. But little guys sometimes are cocky. We were digging a hole for a telephone pole. And you can picture in you~ mind in a desert, with that sand, you don't just go out and dig a hole like this [measures the circumference of a telephone pole]. We dug a hole as big as this room to put that [pole] down. But anyhow, he kept horsing around and throwing sand on guys with his shovel, and everything, so finally, somebody shoved him down in the hole. And he panicked down in there, because everybody left, sort of playing games on him. A snake or something come along, he's a duster down in there! So he really panicked. So we went over and handed him a shovel and pulled him out, you know. Who was supervising your construction crew, and what were you building? You mentioned the pilot house. Well, I stayed with this crew a couple of weeks. We didn't complete that house. There was no electricity down there or anything, and that's the reason I mentioned to you, that this was the first electricity they'd drawn down to the 13 ar~a. They set up the telephone poles to bring in the electric, phone lines, into this house or whatever it was gonna be. In the meantime, I bid on another job. Bid? Well, in the office they would put up jobs. Just like even today in your steel mills and that. If there was a vacancy here, then you could bid on it. Then they didn't necessarily assign you, but they had a job list? Right. They assigned us to start with, but from then on you could be a plumber's helper, you could be a plumber, you could be a carpenter, carpenter's helper. A number of jobs that you turn to. So the next job that I had was a checker down at the darn, a car checker. At the dam? At the darn. ot at the darn. On the Arizona side of the dam there's an observation place. We had a small building there.11 And our ca~p would have a person in there that would check all the cars corning through from, I think, Kingman, Arizona. We checked the cars coming this way, coming from Arizona. You had a form that you would ask 'em different questions: how many they are, who they are, where they're goin'. Nobody questioned it. Whether today you can do that or not, I don't know. So when they got [to the dam], they had to stop? Had to stop. What I bid on was the twelve o'clock midnight till six o'clock in the morning shift, which was horrible. I stayed on that job for a week or two. That was a lonely job, not a very good move on my part. Right across from you, every night, the coyotes would come out and howl at you over there. You'd imagine there was rattlesnakes surrounding you. But you're there all night by yourself. That was a lonely job. How would you handle when a car came by? What would you do? 14 Walk out and stop it. This was sort of lit up there. People were very nice. And remember, you'd only run maybe three cars a night, maybe none. More likely, none. There was a questionnaire you'd go over and fill out. Some of it was interesting. On the nights when you didn't ha.ve any cars, wha.t did you do? Just sit there. It was lonely. If you. worked all night, then you ha.d to go back to camp and sleep in the day? Right. How'd you. manage that? It wasn't hard. It was strange. People wouldn't be in. Everybody was out of the barracks on jobs. The only time that they would come into the barracks was, I think, a half hour before lunch. Now, these were the people that were working in the area. Most people involved here were out of the area, so actually, you'd be in there by yourself sleeping. Back up just a little bit. When you said you went to bid [for a job], who did you ask or tell that you wanted this particular job? I told you about this other boy from Mingo [ Curtie Merriman], now, he was the clerk, and the clerk posted these jobs. Once that job was posted, then you went into his office and you told him that you wanted to put a bid in for that particular job. Then on a certain day you'd go see the list and you'd have the job. On there would tell you when you were going to start, what to do. About eleven o'clock [p. m., for the checker job], you would leave the camp on a truck, and they would drive you all the way out to the dam. That was a pretty good trip. Did they have a similar little house and checker on the Nevada side? No. I can't remember anyone ever bidding on a job that was over there. 15 After you stayed on that job for a week or two, then what? I bid a worse job! Night watchman of the camp. By being night watchman, you had total access to the kitchen! You had the keys to everything in camp, plus you were allowed to do in the kitchen what you wanted to do. But that was a tough job, too. There were buildings out here, buildings over here, buildings here, and what you had to do was, every hour you had to make a round. You had a punch clock. And they could tell. I took the clock I had, went it to a place, and had to click it. Went out to this building, entirely around. Were these other buildings camp buildings, or were there just those three [two barracks and the mess hall]? These were equipment buildings, garages, whatever. But they were out in the desert. You had to cross the wide-open spaces, the desert, and in the night time you couldn't see too much, so it was always kind of hazardous as to what you were walking on or walking through. Did you ever run across a snake? No. You know, we had a lot of guys from Kentucky, also, in our camp. These guys, every Sunday, would go snake-hunting. Well, in Kentucky, they were mountaineers, mountain boys. They'd take off up in the mountains. We were all friends, and they'd jokingly say, "Well, come on, you're goin' with us." Not on your life! Some of 'em, what they told us, they would go up and go into abandoned silver mines. Could that be true? There were mines, yeah. Not silver, necessarily. There were gold mines, and other mines. Up around Railroad Pass.12 Supposedly they could walk from camp up to these places. Easily. 16 Top Photograph Tourist checking station on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam manned by a CCC enrollee, 1938 [photo courtesy of the National Park Service] Bottom Photograph The National Park Service pilot house at Lake Mead, here shown ca. 1946 [photo courtesy of the National Park Service] So all th~se guys from Kentucky supposedly did this on weekends when they were off, mstead of goin' into town. Most of us'd come into Boulder City, or Las Vegas. One other thing that I did quite a bit. Ed [Dulovic] and I used to do this. On the road from Boulder City to Las Vegas, somewhere along the line, there was a place there they used to have bowling, duck pins. Mace's Circle Bar. 13 As you' re coming into Las Vegas out of R.ailroad Pass, it's just on tile tap of the hill to the left. Is it still there? 0. This was there when we were there. The [ owner] gave us a job of setting up duck pins. Do you know what duck pins are? [don't. Bowling pins are about that tall [gestures about 14 inches]. Duck pins are about this tall [gestures about 7 inches] and you bowl with a ball about that round [gestures about four inches]. And we would, after a guy bowled, we'd set them pins up. Do you remember if this place was a bar as well? ot really. This Ed and I used to go up there on weekends, and [ the owner would] pay us like a nickel. 'Course, in those days, if we left with half a dollar, that was a pretty good night's work. Then you were allowed to do work of your own on your days off to earn money if you wished? Some of us even at times went into [Las Vegas] to some of the casinos, like you could be clean-up boy or something like that. To pick up a few extra bucks. In 17 194l, really, downtown Las Vegas was just a cross roads. Prostitutes over here,14 and the gambling places over here.15 Tell tne ome more about these Kentucky boys that'd go up into the hills. What were they going up there looking for? Primarily, my idea was snakes, to take the rattlers off the snakes. They were fellas who, l