Side A: Interview with Herman Larson (age 98 years at the time) by Dennis Signalness and Leroy Hanson circa 1965 - transcribed from tapes

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4 Now: 1,11

Page I See

SIEWAL VY ES? aS

Side A: Interview with Herman Larson (age 98 years at the time) by Dennis Signalness and Leroy Hanson circa 198 -

transcribed from tapes: [DS used below since unable to tell whether DS ortr was asking eee

DS: Can you tell me how the traps were designed?

HL: Well, the traps were brush stuck down in the mud, just as thick as they possibly could, leaning down wind. Then the main trap was .... The fish would follow the stream and get into the main trap. There was a wing on each side.... if there was a channel coming here, there would be a wing on each side leading into the trap. The wings were downstream, so the trap ...when the fish come up the stream, they'd find the wings and go into the trap and they could raise the trap up to get the fish out.

DS: And it was probably made of brush too?

HL: The trap itself was made of sticks .

DS: I mean the part that would raise up?

HL: That was made out of sticks, and it was a little like a basket.

DS: Like a basket, uh huh. And that would probably be right in the center part of the channel, the deepest part...

HL: Yeah, the deepest part of the channel, that's where it would be.

DS: Do you recall traps along the bay? On the different little tributaries to the bay?

HL: Yes, they trapped up North Inlet, they trapped there at Goose Point, the channel that comes out from Goose Point, at Lone Rock, and there were traps at Kentuck Inlet. Las o bE exe

DS: Where was the trap at Kentuck?

HL: Well, it was out pretty well where the old Hardy mine was, you know where the old Hardy mine was?

DS: Yes, just over the ridge from my place .

HL: Out this way. And then up at Cooston, there was a big trap up there. On the inside channel that comes up Coos River. That was a real big trap.

DS: The people that would tend these traps, that built the traps - where would they live?

HL: Man the traps? They were generally camping. They didn't live [there]. They'd come from all over, and camp there during fishing season.

DS: Were there any permanent camps here on the bay or were they constantly moving along?

HL: That's before my time. I don't know anything about that.

DS: Getting off the fishing end of it, do you recall any bull team camps along this upper bay?

HL: Certainly, I worked in them.

Woman's voice: We've got pictures of them.

HL: I used to break oxen for leaders.

DS: Mrs. Morgan showed us a picture the other night of her husband [should be of her father] with his bull team. It is in the new book that Mrs. Mahaffey has just published. Where would those camp sites be?

HL: They were all over. There's camp sites at Glasgow. There's campsites all up Coos River. You mean the bull teams?

DS: Yes

HL: They were all over the country.

DS: Was there one at Glasgow?

HL: Well, certainly. Peter Durgan and Ron Noble had a camp there. They logged up 160 acres there at Glasgow. I worked there. 160 acres for a town site. Durgan and Ron Noble sold logs to ... Simpson. They got 150 dollars an acre for it too. They logged the land off... They got the timber for nothing. They logged that off and dumped the logs off in the gulches and burnt it.... that's before they ever started the town site there.

DS: Do you recall where the logs came into the bay at Glasgow?

HL: They came in just about where the ferry landing was. There was another dump - there used to was - towards Kentuck. They had two dumps there.

DS: Do you know of any Indian campsites along this part of the bay - between here and say the sand hills on the east side of the bay?

HL: The biggest camp site was Old Town

DS: AT Old Town?

HL: Yeah, at the east of the bridge, that goes across the bay. That was the biggest Indian camp there. Then there was camp at the edge of Larson Inlet. And there was a camp at Goose Point.

DS: Is that where Anderson's place is?

HL: Yeah, Goose Point and there was a camp at Glasgow too. There was a camp up where Peterson's ok! place - Hollow Stump,

Herman Larson: and there was a camp at Lone Rock. That's a camp up Coos River, and, of course south of the bay, South Slough they had lots of camps out there.

DS: These camps, would there be many people to a camp, or just be a family maybe?

HL: No, big crowds of people.

DS: Do you know approximately where the campsite would be in the Glasgow area? We ask about this because we've lived around Glasgow and we're kind of familiar.

HL: The camp would be just a little east of the old ferry landing and then there was a camp right just around the point where the highways cross. There was Indians in there. On the right hand side of the highway, right in the cove there.

DS: Do you recall of any old sailing ship wrecks that were on the upper bay here, that were pulled in, or run aground??

HL: Well,. my father came here in '62. He was wrecked on Coos Bay bar. He stayed here about 18 months. He worked for old man Simpson and also he worked up there for push.... at Marshfield. He got a ship and went back to San Francisco and went back to Norway and got married. Around the horn... He stayed in Norway a short time, not very long. He came back to San Francisco... when they came back from San Francisco [Norway], they came over the Isthmus of Panama, and came to San Francisco, and stayed there, oh about a year. My oldest sister was born in San Francisco. He didn't stay there very long, and he came up to Coos Bay. He stopped there at the Golden Eagle Hotel in Empire. He knew those old people had had a hotel there before he went home to Norway. So he stopped there, and he got a job down at south inlet for a fellow by the name of Charlie Brown. He worked there in the camp and did the cooking. They stayed there for almost a year, then they moved up to Larson Inlet. There was an old gentleman there by the name of Charlie Holdrig[?]. He took up a claim up Larson Inlet. He told my father he didn't think he'd prove up on it, so he told my father to take it. Well, my father stayed a very short time. And there's where I was born, right where the bridge crossed, through the Erickson place. He didn't stay there long. When the big fire come, why, that wiped us out. He took us down to the sand dunes. That was in '68 and took the sand ... And then we went back and built another house there at the Erickson place, and stayed there a very short time, and took the place up through there.

DS: That's sure interesting. This fire, did it wipe out any other homesteaders?

HL: Well, nobody much around, only a sawmill, al] they did was trapping and hunting for hide and so forth. No farms, not much of anything. And that fire came down, it was about 12 - 14 miles wide, and 16 - 18 miles long. It came down from Schofield Creek. It came down through, between North Haynes Inlet and Larson Inlet, and she spread out to the coast, and up over as far as Golden x Falls. And stopped there, just at the mouth of Larson Inlet, and on to Kentuck Inlet and over to Coos River.

DS: Now that we're talking about the fire, reminds me of the story that it was that fire that killed the oysters. Did you ever hear that?

HL: Nothin' to it. That's all bunk. That's what an Indian told me.

DS: Well, he ought to know. Well, have you ever heard the story of the Indians burying their canoes or hiding their canoes up by Hauser when they were sent up to the reservation?

HL: Hiding their canoes? I never heard of that. Maybe they did, but I didn't know of it.

DS: We heard that they planned to come back and they wanted to hide canoes so they'd have them when they came back again. They buried them in the sand, but J can't recall where I'd heard it now.

HL: That might be true, I don't know. .. I remember when they came back the second time, and gathered them up. There was quite a few they didn't get [?]...... at the last minute, the first time. The second time when they came back, why I remember that.

DS: In your lifetime, how did the Indian live? Did they have... What kind of protection did they have for a house? They didn't have saw-milled sawn boards did they?

HL: No, they didn't have that. Tulles principally. These tulles, they'd have them together just like mats. That's what they slept on too. You know those - you might call them bull rushes, I don't know.... [other voices ]

DS: They have cattails on the end of them, a round reed. They probably would weave those together with grasses to make a mat?

HL: Yes, they just ...[2] reeds with a cord right through them so they'd be close like that. That's principally what they had for protection.

DS: I know several years ago we the found remains of an Indian home or lodge down on the Sixes River. It was dug down into the sand, probably about 4 feet, and they had up upright planks, not sawn planks, but split planks. We couldn't tell how they got into it, but see the remains of planks about that high sticking up.

HL: I wouldn't know anything about that.

DS: Maybe they used bark or something for the roof.

HL: Perhaps so.

DS: Have you ever seen an Indian burial? Don't I remember something about an Indian burial on that other tape?

DS2: Yeah, on that other tape told about helping bury their Indian woman?

HL: Oh yeah.

DS: I thought that would be interesting to hear that again..

HL: Well, I have to tell ya that anyhow. I had a workshop up on the ranch over the horse stable. There was an old fellow by the name of Lyman. He lived down on the mouth of Larson Slough. He was a little old fellow. One day he came up morning. about 10 or 11 o'clock I think it was. He told me his tootsum had died.

DS: What did he call it?

HL: Tootsum.

DS: Was that her name?

HL: No, that's his wife, died. He asked me to make a mem-a-loose box - a coffin.

DS: Oh, that's pretty interesting.

HL: And so, I had some light lumber there and I started to make it and I made the coffin all right. The next morning, oh it was really something to look on. So I put the coffin in the boat and pulled down to the mouth of the slough, and I carried the coffin up on the hill where the old shack was. He was very , oh, he hardly could do anything at all. So asked him where I should dig the grave. He took me outside about 40 feet from his shack there and he looked east and west and so forth. And he marked out where I should dig the grave. Oh, it was nothing but clay. I brought a shovel with me. So I took it down. I asked him how deep I should dig it. And he ... only hip room here.... Now he was a short man, why it wasn't very deep. So I dug it that deep. Then after I just dug then, I went into the house to put the body into the coffin. So, I put the old body in the coffin and then there was an old squaw there, she kept piling stuff in the coffin, and I couldn't get the lid on, to nail the lid down - she had so much stuff in there.

DS: What was she putting in there Herman?

HL: Oh clothes, and everything you know. So finally, J got by[?] and nailed the lid down and nailed it pat. Then I was stuck. I couldn't carry it, so I went down to the boat and got a rope and I drug the coffin out. That's the end of the story.

DS: Oh for goodness sake.

Woman's voice: How'd you get it in the hole?

DS: How'd you get it lowered down in the hole?

HL: Oh, I just slid it right down. It had boards. Had a board and slid it in the hole and pulled the board.

DS: What kind of a shack did these Indians live in?

HL: Oh, just old boards. That they'd pick up on the beach.

DS: And he lived up on a hill?

HL: Yes, just a house, right on, built on the top of the grade now, that house up there. And then I helped bury another one on the other point, east of there. There's a house over there too. Old Henry Miller helped me bury that one. Did you know Henry Miller?

DS: No, I heard mea Rowe pagaer YK)

HL: He used to own "Phoebe Reher's [?] place”. :

DS: Oh, I've heard the name. Course, he was long before my time. Well, this second burial ground - that would be on the Haynes , over on the north side of Haynes?

HL: No, It'd be east of the one right up Larson Inlet there. There's a house up there too.

DS: Oh, yes. By where Howard Hendrick lives?

DS2: Howard Hendrick lives on the ... first one. The other one is around the corner. I don't know who lives there. Johnson..

DS: How did these old people get out and scrounge enough to eat Herman? Did they live off of clams, do you think?

HL: Well, they was for a while. They could help themselves. They got so bad that they couldn't do anything. My father went to the County Court and told the County about these poor Indians and so he got 5 dollars a month on this side of the bay. He took that to the old country store at North Bend and he told them not to give them nothing but provisions - not no nonsense. So that went along for quite a long time. So that's the only thing... My father ...pigs ..like that got from father.

DS: Well, that was sure nice.

HL: So, they got 5 dollars a month from the County .

DS: Do you recall what kind of canoes or dug-outs they had Herman? Were they out of logs? Or were they

HL: Generally out of red cedar. Most of them were out of red cedar. Some out of white cedar.

DS: Have you ever witnessed a canoe or dug-out being built?

HL: Well, yes. I haven't seen all of it. They would burn a lot of it. They'd burn a lot of it I've seen it after they ‘d fixed it. They'd get this pine tar, pine over in the sand hills. They'd heat that and just rub that pine tar all over the inside and outside just like we'd paint ‘em. It's slow work to dig out a canoe.

DS: I'll bet. Would they have some kind of scrapers or something to help along the progress?

HL: Yes, they did, crude old stuff. No regular scrapers, or anything, crude old stuff. They built several sizes. There were some

Herman Larson: big old canoes they used to use outside too. I've seen a couple of them. They go between Umpqua and Coos Bay.

DS: Really?

HL: Yes. Big canoes. Carry oh maybe 10 or 12 Indian [?].

DS: Boy oh boy.

HL: 12 canoes. They'd be just about that wide. They'd sit right in the bottom. They kept the canoes real dry. They had these mats. And when they'd pull the canoes up, they'd turn them over and cover them with mats so the sun wouldn't... they'd turn the canoes upside down and always,

DS: So they wouldn't check.

HL: Hmmm, and they always took the paddle up to the house or shack.

DS: You mean they didn't trust their neighbors?

HL: I don't know. They always took the paddles up.

DS: I wonder how they got these logs? Did they just pick up drift logs or would they go in the edge of the forest?

HL: I couldn't tell you that. I never seen them cut a tree down.

DS: This has always kind of bothered me.

HL: They must have picked them up on the beach, I don't know.

DS: Later on, after the white man came, I understand they had a stage coach from the Winchester Bay or that area, down to opposite Empire here. Do you know where they landed? From Empire, over on the sand hill side?

HL: Well, first, there was a fellow by the name of Hank Barrett. He was a small man.

DS: Barrett?

HL: ,Hank Barrett. Due east, west of Empire, at that time, there was a big marsh in there. That's where he had his place first. He had his tents in there. He had buildings there - stable and so forth. And the sand just coming and covered up the whole marsh. He got out of there. He went up to Jarvis Landing - started there. He run there quite a while. There was a fellow by the name of Jarvis - Kurt Jarvis bought him out. And he started to run the stage. He ran it for quite a few years., and he was... deputy in something... but he won 15, 000 dollars.

DS: And he got out of the business.

HL: Yeah.

DS: Do you recall if there were any provisions for...

HL: eee over the stage and run it 'til they discontinued it.

DS: Was thére any provisions for the passengers to stay overnight there in case there was a storm, or the tide was wrong, or anything?

HL: No, they used be at Empire in the hotel and they'd take them across in the row boat. But then, after they got to .. after while, they quit Empire and went to Marshfield. The steamboat used to take them down. ....They first didn't have any dock there. The row boat would take them right ashore. But then, a guy in the mill company built a dock there. And the steamboats could land.

DS: In the winter time, that big swale between the sea wall and the timber line would be flooded. Did they have any provisions to across that body of water?

HL: Yes, they had stakes along the - that's to say to signal them where to go and to keep out of the quicksand. It used to be awful crooked, but they had signals there to go by for when it was foggy or something like that. They had stake signals along there.

DS: Do you think of anything Leroy that I haven't...

LH: Herman, about my granddad came in '82. How old were you then? You probably remember when he first came to Haynes Inlet. He bought out from homesteaders didn't he? On Haynes?

HL: He bought out Benson.

LH: Yeah. Was there more than one? Was there someone else besides Benson?

HL: I didn't know.

LH: Oh, must not have been.

HL: Benson was the one that I knew of.

DS: There's one more question - Where did the Coos Bay bar go out? What did it look like?

HL: Practically same as it is now, only it was about 4 and a half miles wide. There was two, there was center ground - an island in between. Sometimes the north channel would be the deepest, and then it would shift to the south. But the south was principally the channel all the time. And the high water mark - the sea used to come in that bar view ... just the same as it does up at the lighthouse now at. high water. Because it had 4 miles and a half to sweep in there. Boy it'd just fly all over.

DS: Do you recall what Charleston was along in the 1800's?

HL: What?

DS: Do you know where Charleston is now?

HL: Charleston?

DS: Was there any type of settlement there?

HL: In Barview, do you mean?

DS: No, across ...

HL: No, that was just the Indians in there.. There was nothing there.

DS: Someone was telling me that there was a Chink, or a Chinaman that had a hotel or something over there, and his name was Charlie. They finally got to calling it Charlie's town of Charleston. Did you ever hear of that.

HL: Never heard of it. They had a life saving station down at the lighthouse. That's the first life saving station. It had one man and a boat. When there was a wreck, they had to come up to Empire and get a volunteer crew...

DS: Whew!

HL: To go down there. I was at the Empire when the Tacoma was wrecked above Gardiner, about 10 miles. I wish I had the book here now. The whole history is in about that wreck in the Geographic.

Woman's voice: The Geographic magazine?

HL: See if you've got them there.

DS: What year would that be?

HL: It was in ...18..

DS: It was wrecked inside the river at Gardiner?

HL: No, it was outside, 10 miles, north.

Woman's voice: That's a big order. Here, look through these. I'll bring you some too.

HL: Oh, not them.

Woman's voice: Not these?

HL: The other books...

DS: He went in on the beach?

HL: Yes, she went in on the beach. The name was Tacoma. She was a new steamer...[?].. She went ashore there. They went to send this life saving station from here, up there. And the captain came up and got a crew. I was too young to go then. They came up to Empire. Had a horse down at the lighthouse. Had to ride up to Charleston, and then cross there in a boat or canoe and walk up there to get a volunteer crew. Well, he got a volunteer crew and he went down there, and they had quite a time launching the boat. And the tug boat from Coos Bay was to take them up to the Tacoma. Well, it was pretty rough weather. The tug boat came outside the bar there, and the skipper of the life bpayeM€ Wouldn't go up. The tug went back in to Coos Bay and the men came back, the volunteer crew.came-baek up. And ef al Rend) was running a cannery up at Gardiner, and he had fisherman there. A fellow by the name ‘Eien ok a fish bdatfrenrtie cannery up there and went out and saved the balance of what was there. The crew. After that-théy built a life saving station at Gardiner....[tape inaudible]...... for a long time.

DS: do you recall an old salt water man around the bay here, and he was quite a shipbuilder too, by the name of ota) Chm pt : yes, I knew him.

DS: Was he from around here do you think?

HL: Yes, he was born there at Pony Slough.

DS: He was born at Pony Slough. And did he build many boats here on the bay? I know of several.

HL: Oh, yes. ...many people. I helped him build one boat. They called it Fish.

DS: They called it Fish? He had a kind of a ship yard down at Empire, didn't he, for a while?

HL: Jt was at Pony Slough. The whole country has changed. There used to be a canner come right around under where the airport is now.... up along that shore. The government had these soldiers dig up the whole slough and changed the whole ...

DS: Well, Pony Slough used to come out down closer to Empire then?

HL: Yes, right over under where the airport is now - the buildings there. I used to raft logs out of there. John Flynn rafted logs there.

DS: In Mr. Peterson's History of Coos and Curry County, he mentions some of the things that the Indians got out of the sand hills for eating and for their household items. He mentions a "hollow-wooded" plant or root. I've asked a number of people what in the world that was and what it could be and I haven't found anybody that could help me on it. Have you ever heard of it?

HL: I don't know. But I know they used to get a lot of roots over there. But I don't know the names of them. They roasted something like - well it looked to me something like a squash. That's to say it ...low roots, and grows in the sand and when roasted, the insides turn yellow. I'll eat it. It taste very good. The long roots dug into the sand.

DS: Herman do you recall how, for ever, the Indians managed to get a big animal like an elk?

HL: Yes, they had pits. They dug big pits and covered the pits in the run way. Very big pits. And they'd have spears in the

Herman Larson: bottom of the pits and they'd cover the top over with brush , you know, and the elk would drop in and onto the spears.

DS: Have you ever heard where there was any pits around this part of the country?

HL: Yes, ...[?] there used to be lots of them over around Larson Inlet. They gradually... a tree had turned up....[?]

DS: And did they use hides for clothing do you think?

HL: Principally furs.

DS: Oh yes. Would they use the elk hides and deer hides for anything?

HL: Moccasins and so forth. Also they used that on the building... they put hides on the outside of this tulles.

DS: That would be a lot of protection, all right.

HL: They had a real opening in the top for the smoke to go out. They'd build a fire right in the center of the tepee.

DS: Were the Indians well built? Were they good physical specimens or were they small, or tall? We don't see many Indians around here anymore.

HL: Some of them were very husky and others not. Father had one Indian working for him for over 5 years. He was a good worker. His name was Silas. ... A man by the name of Captain Ditchner from Port Orford in the early history down there raised him. I don't know anything, < only what they told us. fe ikea be With the whites a whole lot. He worked for my father 5 or 6 years. He was a good Indian, he was a young Indian, he was not ..., I suppose he was 23 or 24 when he worked for my father.

DS: Where did your father get his stock to start this homestead? They must have been few and far between in those days. 7

HL: They was. They were. The place he got them, I think it was Dement. Dement, I think is where he got his first cows. Well, he got 2 cows, That's the first I remember. oe

DS: Did you know the Goulds who settled up on the West Fork?

HL: Oh yes, yes., sure, [ know them. I used to hunt with the old man. ~

DS: Their establishment wasn't necessarily a stock ranch was it? Did they have stock or was it more of a hunting lodge?

HL: Oh yes, they had stock. They made a living out of hunting, hides, and so forth. Dried elk meat. They dried lots of ed meat. They used to go around..[?].. sell e#emeat. iy xf 4 ane cet

DS: Do you know how they did that in a large scale like that? Would they smoke it too, 0 st ied?

HL: They smoked too, just enough to keep the flies away. I've dried lots of it myself. V J 4; j)

HL: I know that there was the Hardy mine - anything about the Hardy mine?

DS: I have all the literature I can get on it because it is right close to my place.

HL: What did you get? .

DS: The fellows name that promoted it and the fact that they put a 2 track hole in the ground there, and I forget how far they went back - about 1500 feet, I think. It tells the conditions of the soil and the coal. It was primarily a stock venture I think, and they lost a lot of money on it. Some people lost a lot of money on it. Another question about that: Have you ever heard about a tunnel going through the point there where Nipper used to live?

HL: Why sure. a

DS: Nipper claimed that there was a tunnel going through the point and he showed me where it went.

HL: That's where the track was - right through the point.

DS: If the tunnel came goes through that point and come out on my property, I would be curious to know where it would come out.

HL: Did you know that they had a gangway out there - about 300 feet, when the tide was out. And there was two ships loaded coal there. In '60.

DS: There's a pile of rock out there, all by itself, out in the mud.

HL: That's the dump from the ballast...

DS: I wondered if that wasn't so.

LH: Where do you suppose that rock came from?

DS: They dumped it the ballast.

LH: No, where did they get it in the first place?

HL: San Francisco, Telegraph Hill.

DS: I'm going to have to go down and get one of those rocks. and look at it - wash it off.

LH: Up on Haynes, my granddad showed where the sailing ships used to dump there rocks from Telegraph Hill. It's a field now. They'd run out of wind and they'd have to start rowing. .

HL: Yeah, I've dumped lots of rock... we used to have pretty good boats. Say, in '77, you could take a big boat, a center board boat and sail from Market Street there right over to Cooston.

DS: Can't do it now, can you? Harry Walker was telling me about sailing across there from his place with a barge load of spuds, right straight across Coos Bay.

HL: The bay has filled up 6 - 7 feet in my time.....mud flats. —woe—

DS: Well, they've done a lot of dredging in there.

HL: You wouldn't know Coos Bay - what a change! Say, I wanted to tell you something, that you don't know and nobody else does. We used to dig those Empire clams there right there where the railroad crosses from North Bend over to sand hills, and down to Jordan's Cove. The water was just as salty as it is out at sea. There was an old wreck, well, it was dismantled. Simpson dismantled it, she was old I guess. He took the rigging off and he took it across towards Glasgow there, to the mouth, just about where I dug the channel for the bay to run.... just south of that. That used to be a great place to go out and catch these big perch. It was kind of a menace to the harbor, so the government took and blew her all to pieces.

DS: Well, what about the other clams? Were there mud clams there when you remember? 4 inch mud clams about that long?

HL: They didn't come here until later years. No, no.

DS: They were planted here weren't they? They were planted from the East Coast?

HL: Qld man Simpson planted them.

DS: The oysters were gone... Do you remember the oysters? Did Simpson [find or plant?] a little oyster?

HL: Well, I tell you, I never knew oysters until I planted them here.

DS: Well, up the Larson Slough, last summer, I dug out of the slough there and I dug up a mass of oyster shells about 2 inches long. And they are laying there on the dike now. Lots of them along there! The shell is shaped like the big oysters they have now, but it's a little shell. They must have been long gone.

HL: Yes, they must have.

DS: My granddad tells about the salmon-coming up past the North Slough entrance there past the sand dunes, when they were so thick, you couldn't hardly put an oar in the water without touching a salmon.

HL: That's true. That's true.

DS: You've probably seen that many times.

HL: Yes., oh, salmon, the gill netters, they'll catch all the way from 75 to 125 to the boat, you know.

DS: How did the Indians catch salmon, besides in their traps?

HL: Well, they'd spear them up in the creeks. They'd catch them in their traps and go up the creeks and spear them.

DS: Over on the bay where the highway goes across now from Glasgow to north, right under the bridge there where Haynes goes under now , well just beyond that a little ways, there is the remnants of a trestle along there, of some sort, small, do you know what that was? It goes about the same direction the highway runs, I believe.

HL: I don’t know. You know, there used to be , Simpson had a hay barn there, to the east of the highway, didn’t you know that?

DS: Which side was that on?

HL: East of the highway.

DS: That’s on the north end point?

HL: Yeah.

DS: Oh, yeah. What I’m talking about was on the other side of the bay, going across towards Hauser. There was a trestle of some kind there, remnant shows now.

LH: Way out there in the middle of the bay - I don’t know what it could be. |

DS: [?]... Something small, a foot walk or something.

HL: Maybe it could ... was there dynamite or what? You know the dynamite the Coos?

DS: Well, it kind of heads in that direction, but, gosh it was clear over on the Haynes side.

HL: On the Haynes side? Oh, there was a fellow by the name of Holland, no Ratchwood [7] tried to build a fish trap there.

DS: Oh, that’s what it is. SSS

HL: He built a fish trap there trying to catch salmon, but it didn’t work.

DS: There’s Indian fish traps sticking up right there too. That’s what it was. What were you saying you volunteered for ?

HL: Well, there was a wreck there, the steam schooner Julia Ray. That was in , some where’s around ‘90. And they come up and got a crew, and I volunteered. I wal Wit a BuncI that went down. Jack Farley, Jack Woods, Jap Loose [?], Stovall, myself, and .Getty. He had a livery stable. He had a wide tired wagon. He drove us down to Tarheel there, we walked from Tarheel over to the South Slough, and crossed south slough and walked from south slough over to the lighthouse. There was no bridge at the lighthouse. There was a trolley. [inaudible] ... So when he launched the boat, and we got into the wreck there at the Coos Bay bar, but we couldn’t do anything, any good. The sea was so bad, we couldn’t get close to it. So, we decided to get back to the station there, and pull the boat out and come it back in. But there was only one man lost. If it were low water, why they could walk ashore. The Julia Ray - she was a brand new steam schooner. Then the Emery was lost about a year or so earlier or later, I forget. And she had a full cargo of merchandise for the Pony Mill Company. Pony Mill just started and built a big building out there where Weyerhaeuser is now. They give a dance there a couple weeks before they received a shipment of goods. Everybody from Eerie-qnll Cone eran to the dance, free dance. They had full cargo of everything. Marshfield had a lot of freight on it -

Herman Larson: everything. That’s where mileage got the name.

DS: Heh, heh

HL: Oh, gee, barrels of whiskey, and beer. Well the store, you know, just opening up the big store, There was everything, everything was lost. My sister lost a piano on it.

LH: That almost ruined them didn’t it? That’d hit the company pretty hard.

HL: Oh, J suppose it was insured....[?]

DS: Do you remember any of the old early day breweries on the bay? I understand there was one in North Bend even.

HL: Yes, Charlie Thoms hi wery in North Bend. And Richard had a brewery in Marshfield. And there was a brewery in Ferndale. “The PT teeny in Coos Bay wasup he Tthmus My father told me that was the first brewery on the bay. ee

DS: Getting back to the Hardy mine, I was just thinking, or wondering where the, or how many people would live or work around a project like that? Was there quite a settlement there? At ig mine.

HL: Hardy mine? Oh, that’s before, I don’t know. There waSn’t very many, but the man who [put?] boat for me - he told me he worked there at that time, and that’s how I know. That was in the sixties.

DS: Were there any buildings around, in your recollection?

HL: Oh, yes there were buildings in there.

DS: Would the buildings be up by the mine or déwn close to the bay?

HL: No, up by the mine, up in the gulch there. Oh, there’s coal all over that country there., but it’s all broke up, you know. It’s no good.

DS: The mouth of the cave or the tunnel is caved in. The roof is caved in so that the there’s about, oh maybe, 3 feet of overburden, over the track. And it’s dammed up the water so that there’s about 3 feet of water in there. A neighbor friend of mine opened it up a bit and let some of the water get to run out, and so there was about 2 or 2 and a half feet of water in there and he put his boots on and walked back in there a ways. But these ties and columns to hold the roof were in pretty bad shape, and he gave it up after a little ways. I think he went back about 200 feet. He said his flashlight wasn’t much light back there, it was so dark.

HL: Well, this Miller told me that they shipped 2 ships out of there, coal out of there, so there must have been pretty deep water at that time.

LH: You had a birthday not long ago, didn’t you Herman? 1

HL: pg here —__ D P €?7 cOcT 2le q'Y 6 pa i

LH: How old were you then? Ti Dig i Yynene HekA xh

HL: 98. — -

DS: That’s wonderful. Congratulations. {[Pause on tape] |

HL: I’ll have to tell you about that. Well, my father had a man working for him up on the ranch. He.. the fellow’s name is Pete, Pete Gunderson, and my father was telling him that there was a lot of copper in that boat. So I guess I was about 10 or 11 years ) old. Pete wanted to go down there and chop out some copper bolts. So I run down with him. I guess I was 10or 11 years old. So he cut out a lot of copper bolts on that wreck there. He took them up to the ranch. I don’t know what he ever did with them. But here, years afterwards, when they started to-dredge that basin down in south slough, a piece camie out in the paper that they found a piece of the wreckage there. So, Gordo ({Ras..2) old me about it. So I said, P’Il go down and see. I think that must be part of the wreckage my father, of the ship my fathercamf€ on to Coos Bay. Sure enough, it was pieces of that wreckage. The copper bolts was in it. Yes. And, there was a fellow by the name of, that wreck was lying there at Barview, during the time my father was back home, and came back to Coos Bay. And it was a fellow by the name of , he told me it was a fellow by the name of Dick Cousens, that burned her up for the copper that was in it\So I know that that was the same piece that they found out under the dredge there.

DS: It’s still there. I’m going to go out some day‘and look at that.

HL: IJ think it’s covered up in mud ain’t it?

DS: I can still see it. Rots ’ .

HL: You can? Is that so? ws,

DS: Yeah, it’s still there.

HL: My father said, it must have followed me up the slough! The copper bolts is about, well I would think about 7/8 or something like that. And she was fastened [?]. She had just brass spikes enough, copper spikes enough to hold a plank on. They were bored through the frame and ceiling, and they were trammeled. And the wedge on each side, the trammels were wedged overtight, and that was the fastening. The spikes was about 7 inches long and about oh, I suppose, about 3/8 inches thick of square spikes.

DS: That'd be something if we could go out and find one of those square spikes wouldn’t it?

LH: Yeah.

HL: Yeah, it’s a shame she died there, she was {inaudible]

DS: Was the water level in the Coos Bay stay about the same when the bar was 4 and a half miles long as it does now, I suppose? |

HL: Yeah, about the same. But the water was so salt, you know, gee whiz.. All kinds of salt fish was in here. |

DS: yeah, I suppose there was a lot of fish we don’t have now.

HL: The water was just as salt and the nets at night, you could see the nets along there and the phosphorus was everywhere. 50 to a | 100 feet. |

DS: I’ve seen that. Why don’t we see it anymore? |

HL: Well, I don’t know.

End of tape.