6. Overpass Photograph

4. Coffin Butte Blast Photograph

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And that's when they first started taking rock out of Coffin Butte, and they was blowing the rocks to loosen them up. I just happened to get a cloud going up.

Bob Zybach: So that's a shot of some of that powder going up?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, powder going up.

Bob Zybach: And they're just opening up Coffin Butte as a rock quarry.

5. Coffin Butte Panorama

Bob Zybach: Okay, here's the two [photos] you want made into a panorama.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Oh, yeah. I don't know what to say about that. It's just a picture of Coffin Butte, when they started.

Bob Zybach: Do you know about how long they'd been working on it at that time?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Really not very long. That went so fast. They had hundreds and hundreds of dynamite boxes up there, and we used to go get them, wood boxes. Really nice boxes, and we'd go get them and pull all the nails out and we used those boxes to move with. In fact, there's still two or three around here, ain't there?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah. There were several contractors, it wasn't just one contractor hauling rock. And they each had their own powderhouse.

Bob Zybach: Were these local contractors? Did this help local business to put in Camp Adair?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Some of them probably was, but a lot of them was from way out of state.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Some of them was from way out. It was such a large project.

6. Overpass Photograph

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] See Gene Freeman, remember they used to come up to our place and buy eggs and milk. And I got a picture of him working on this road where you seen that crane, or that backhoe. And he's underneath the cat, with his legs sticking out, but I couldn't find it. I got it at home. And they was from way back somewhere east. And he was working for one of them contractors from back there, that was building that road. Yep, that's the overpass. I don't really know . . . lake, you probably know when that was done, cause you worked on it.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, it was done before.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] It was done before we left.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Before we moved over here. And we moved over here in June, wasn't it?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Got over here, it was probably started but we got over here just in time for Bud to go to school in September.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] That late? Oh, I think we bought the place in June and gradually moved over I think in September. Because the renter, that's right, there was a renter on the property and he had to harvest his crops.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I know we moved over here and got over here in time for Bud to go to school.

Bob Zybach: Did you get hired on to do vely many jobs around Camp Adair there, or was that about.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Just that.

Pause in Recording

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA]. . . in the road, and they all piled in. Whether you had a pickup or car, they didn't ask or nothing. They all piled in and rode to Corvallis with us. I mean, they were all nice guys, really.

Bob Zybach: i'm kind of curious about this. Would the black soldiers come into Corvallis at that time?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Oh yeah, they went. Right along with the whites.

Bob Zybach: Did they have any trouble with any of the people who were local here or anything?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I don't really think so. I don't think a bit of trouble. Cause they was soldiers doing their duty and everybody was happy to see somebody in the service. I was, I mean I figured they was doing good. But there was a lot of them blacks, an awful lot of blacks at first. Later on there wasn't so many, but the first group that come there was an awful lot of blacks.

Bob Zybach: But the community, there wasn't problems with the people here local?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Not that I know of there. Everybody just accepted them. In fact they gave Bud money when they found that out. . . that was in August, Bud's birthday was August 6, so we were still out there in on August 6, I know we was. But we was talldng when they come to the barn that night. And said it was Bud's birthday. He must have been about 12th birthday or something. And they said good soldiers always give 'em something, and they all give Bud a bunch of money. God, he had a