G. Soap Creek Bridge

Bob Zybach: Can you remember any names of wildflowers on here?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yes, spring beauties and ladyslippers. And there was another kind, just some, we just called them something and I don't remember now what, we didn't know the name. And of course the dogwoods. Which we picked every Easter usually.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so when you had your Easter celebrations up here on Coffin Butte?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Well, we wouldn't really have the celebration here. We'd have the dinner and stuff and everything at home there, and then us kids would go up on the Butte. And pick some flowers and things.

Bob Zybach: So the dogwoods you kind of associated with Easter?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Did you give any kind of religious sign jficance to the dogwoods?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No, no. It's just that it was about that time they were in bloom. Some years they were further along than others, because Easter varies, but it was just about that time.

Bob Zybach: One more question on Writsmans Hill there. Between that and the larger hill in the background, there's kind of a long bench. Do you remember any trails up there?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No, I don't.

Bob Zybach: Remember any stories about Indians having anything to do with up there?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No. We used to go up there and cut our christmas tree up there a lot of different times.

Bob Zybach: On Writsmans Hill.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was it younger trees?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yeah, younger trees.

G. Soap Creek Bridge

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Well, this was farmed for a ways down there, and then down toward that end and up that side was pretty marshy.

Bob Zybach: Whose marsh was that?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Wiles, Clarence Wiles.

Bob Zybach: Did they have a name for it?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No.

Bob Zybach: No slough, or marsh, or anything.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No, no name for it. That I know of anyway. Yeah, now there used to be a pit right in this area where the neighbors up in here used to take rock out.

Bob Zybach: So this pit on. . . lets see, we're on the west end of Coffin Butte. This would be Wiles would use.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: The Ed Wiles end of the Butte, yeah. Ed Wiles would use it and the Stambaughs and the Mackeys and different ones around here would use it. I think they were just, I don't think they had to pay anything for the rock they got out.

Bob Zybach: Now this in here, did they have hairy vetch growing up through this area?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Bob Zybach: So the whole basin out through here.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yeah. You could see it from here, even as far as Portland you'd see hairy vetch. And we used to have a, right at the base of the Butte here on around here, sort of used to have our summer trail through here where we'd drive when it wasn't too wet, we'd drive up here to the Stambaughs.

Bob Zybach: So there's an old road in through here?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yeah, just a farmer trail through the Wiles place.

Bob Zybach: Okay, now we're approaching the bridge here to Soap Creek?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: This is Soap Creek. The Army engineers put this bridge in. The original bridge was further down.

Bob Zybach: Okay, how far down was it.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Oh, I'll show you pretty quick. See this was all, in here was just like this. Trees and brushes through here.

Bob Zybach: Now lets see, we're at the intersection of, well it says Rifle Range, and Wiles Road. Was that called Wiles Road back in those days?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yes, well I'm pretty sure it was called Wiles Road back in those days. Now that road was in, ever since I can remember, that was the boundary between Stambaugh and Wiles. This was all Stambaugh over here. And of course this was all trees and brush in here. And this is the original bridge area here.

Bob Zybach: So we're turning due east and we're crossing Soap Creek again?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: No, we're turning more north, northeast a little bit.

Bob Zybach: And now there's.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: And now, let's see, yeah we would come right through this area in here. This has been built up a little bit in here. We would come through this area and open the gate here and then we could go to the Mackeys or Stambaughs here.

Bob Zybach: So f you went to the Stambaughs you had to cross a bridge right about in this area.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Yeah, but if we went to the Mackeys we didn't have to cross. Yeah, I'd say it was within 100 feet or so of where it is now.

Bob Zybach: Would you say it was upstream or downstream?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: I think it went more straight across to a bend, straight across, and then bent again. No, I believe that's about the original road up in there.

Bob Zybach: Where the road is now?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Where it is now, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Oh, okay, and this went out to the Mackeys.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: To the Mackeys, yeah.

Bob Zybach: How long had they lived here?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: I don't. . . lets see, 19. . , oh, '20-'24 in that area.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall who they bought from?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Wiles. Ed Wiles.

Bob Zybach: And then the properly on the other side of theirs, was that Wiles, or did that go out to Carters?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Other side of the road you mean?

Bob Zybach: No, on the other side of Mackeys.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Oh, Ed Wiles went down there about another mile, to the boundary, to that road that goes east and west.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: I was trying to figure out where. . . the brush has grown up so much in here. I think the bridge might have been this way a little bit. Then we kind of went across like that and then swung back a little bit.

Bob Zybach: So we're looking at this brown house here between the two Soap Creek bridges that we just crossed. And you think the bridge might have been back of that maybe somewhere?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: Well, I would say somewhere between the end of the house and the end of the bridge,