C.. Coote's Mill

Bob Zybach: Through the whole country, or just up here on the hill?

James Hanish: Just generally.

Bob Zybach: Would you call them civet cats or skunks?

James Hanish: They're regular . . . I would call just plain skunks.

Bob Zybach: Yellow jackets, wasps, and skunks through the whole area?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

C. Coote's Mill

James Hanish: Right at the base of the hill.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're down at the base of a hill looking at the Coote's sawmill site, we'll be going to the right here. Where did the Polks live from here?

James Hanish: They lived back, the house was back there about a mile and half at the base of the hill.

Bob Zybach: That's the old Greenberiy Smith homestead, did anybody call that anything by the donation land claims at that time?

James Hanish: No, that was just always a farm, it was always here.

Bob Zybach: And so it was the Polks?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Would they have anything to do with the. . no, Polk County was named after.

James Hanish: No.

Bob Zybach: From the Polks to this road here, were there any other families living along this hill?

James Hanish: I don't think so, as far as I can remember there were no families on this side at all. Except down maybe by the Berry Creek Bridge there was a family but their land didn't extend this far.

Bob Zybach: So was this Polk's land all the way up to here?

James Hanish: Well, I really couldn't tell you that much, but I know that the Polks lived over there and we . . . I know there used to be cattle grazing out here and I thought it maybe belonged to the Polks family.

Bob Zybach: So there's cattle grazing out through here, what's this landscape look like compared to then, have you noticed any general changes?

James Hanish: No, not a change.

Bob Zybach: It's all pretty similar?

James Hanish: Yes, to me it looks alike, but every time I come out here gradually, I haven't seen any changes at all. Except that there's a little more scrub growth coming out into the fields than there was.

Bob Zybach: Now these apple trees down off on the right here, was that part of an orchard that was existing at that time?

James Hanish: Yes, because all through this country there's.. . . you'll find even up in the wilderness area you'll find apple, small apple orchards, they were planted by the pioneers and then they had a homestead and then they left and the orchard bloomed and the deer ate the fruit and the seeds dropped through out the forest and young trees would start.

Bob Zybach: You think the wildings were moved by deer more than say birds or something?

James Hanish: Well, maybe either one but I would think. . . both bird and deer would have something to say about it.

Bob Zybach: This little orchard in here, do you think this was planted or do you think it was a wild orchard?

James Hanish: I wouldn't think it would be planted because why would they plant so far from the house, because the house like you say was way over there. I think they're seeds that blown, just like the old Johnny Appleseed theory.

Bob Zybach: Where was the school that was in this area here, was it pretty close to us?

James Hanish: Yes, pretty close, right down almost in this flat. Now we see there's some little colored stuff over there, the school was right there and it was . . . I believe they used to use it . . . the district used it for a church on Sunday, too. There's also a church in Airlie but the school was right down in here.

Bob Zybach: About where those beehives are?

James Hanish: Yes. I don't know if there's any remnants of the school or not, but that's just the area it was in.

Bob Zybach: Did it have a name?

James Hanish: Berry Creek School House.

Bob Zybach: So this was called the Berry Creek School House here, about where the bee hives are?

James Hanish: Yes, this is the Berry Creek District from the base of this hill all encompassing this

James Hanish: creek.

Bob Zybach: And it was used as church, what denomination?

James Hanish: Oh, any denomination.

Bob Zybach: So kind of all people just gathered here.

James Hanish: Yeah, they had it . . . like any service, you didn't have Catholic or anything, you just had a chaplain and that was it.

Bob Zybach: So did you ever go to this church?

James Hanish: Never did.

Bob Zybach: Do you know any of the families that did?

James Hanish: Well, the Cootes went, he was the owner of the sawmill, and I don't think Burkes went, and Dodgson, they used to go to Airlie, they had a Baptist Church of some kind of a church in Airlie, they went to that one. And I don't think Gardners, Gardners might have sent their kids to Sunday School here but. . . we didn't call it church out here, we belonged to churches back east, I was born and raised in Chicago. But we didn't go to church out here, worked all week in the woods and the Sunday I'd go fishing or go out with boys and have some beer. That was it.

Bob Zybach: It was more Jim to go out and have a beer than go listen to a sermon?

James Hanish: Yes. Now we belong to the Presbyterian Church in Corvallis, we go to that.

Bob Zybach: On the left we're looking at the road as it comes in now and we're looking at some plastic covering on hay, can you tell me about where the Coote's sawmill was in relation to what we're seeing to the west here.

James Hanish: If we could

Bob Zybach: We can drive down this road, would that be better?

James Hanish: Yes, if we can get there then I can . . . we can find possibly, there must be something left of the mill road and creek.

Bob Zybach: So if we take this road out here can we follow it out pretty far with out getting disoriented or should we come back to this later?

James Hanish: I don't think you'll. . . it's only . . . you can get up there a ways, I think you were here once before and there was a fence there.

Bob Zybach: That was the next road down. . . no, we. . . we did come in here, but now we've got a key [to the fence today so we're not stopped. Should we. . . do you want to head off in this

Bob Zybach: direction now?

James Hanish: Yes, let's go up in here and see if we can find the sawmill, that's where it would be up in there.

Bob Zybach: Now we're looking at the cows, could you comment on what the cattle were like as you recall?

James Hanish: Well, when I lived here there were mostly dairy cattle and I thought one time that I would maybe start raising some beef but I could not buy a Hereford calf in this [Willamette] valley. You could airy but I wanted young herefords to start to the herd, so when I went down to Southern California working and after about five or six years I came back and the valley was full of herefords.

Bob Zybach: So when you. . . . about '33 or '34, before you left, there weren't any herefords that you could locate?

James Hanish: No, I couldn't find a hereford calf at all.

Bob Zybach: So when you came back, say, right before World War II, then the whole. . . everybody had changed over to herefords?

James Hanish: Yes, a lot of people changed over to herefords.

Bob Zybach: And that's what we're looking at here now?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So this is a type of domestic animal that came in during the 1930's during the Depression?

James Hanish: Evidently in here because, see at one time people wouldn't even bother raising a calf, it cost too much so they would kill, and that's one reason there was a scarcity of calves.

Bob Zybach: And probably an abundance of veal?

James Hanish: That's what caused the scarcity of veal too.

Bob Zybach: And so this is all dairy farms where people had cows?

James Hanish: Yeah. . . . no, this wasn't all dairy but they had a mixed breed, the people that had cows they didn't have any big herds in here at all. People that lived over there had maybe two or three cows for milking. We had a cow, when we lived up there. Dickeys had a couple cows, maybe three or four. Everybody had a cow that lived here, but their cows were either Jerseys, they were the best milk givers, or Hoisteins. There wasn't what they call the regular beef blood in here.

Bob Zybach: What did people use for beef, just old dairy cows, worn out?

James Hanish: No they'd take a calf regardless of it's breed and have it castrated and kill it later on for beef.

Bob Zybach: I see, so they'd raise beef but it wouldn't. . . mostly the off-shoot of the dairy herds?

James Hanish: Yes. And then for other meat they raised hogs, there was a lot of sheep in here at one time.

Bob Zybach: Was the sheep raised for meat or wool?

James Hanish: Oh, they raised them in shares. We raised some sheep, we raised about thirty sheep on shares with a landowner. We'd take care of the sheep and when he'd go to sell them, we'd get half of the price of wool brought in or meat weight in the lambs.

Bob Zybach: So it was actually a dual crop, both sheared and meat?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: This area that we're in right here, this was the mill site though?

James Hanish: There's a mill site and I believe it was up further.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we'll just drive up there then.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're about where the sawmill site was.

James Hanish: Yeah, it was about right up in here.

Bob Zybach: About right at this second gate here, or was it maybe a little bit further along?

James Hanish: Well there was a creek. . . where in the hell that there creek was . . . it wouldn't have been in this district, it would have been up further but it was on the creek that come out between the hills.

Bob Zybach: So the mill was right along the creek edge here?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Were there any other buildings?

James Hanish: Well, there was houses that the sawmill families lived in, there were right over in that district there on that flat.

Bob Zybach: Over on that flat to our east from this road, maybe where that little strip of. . . looks like oak and fir.

James Hanish: And some were over there and some were along the creek.

Bob Zybach: Some houses along the creek here?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Can you draw that on . . . my page here so I can keep it? [Map in Research Forests file]

James Hanish: Let's see now,

Bob Zybach: Do you want me to leave you alone there to draw for awhile, or do you want me to.

James Hanish: Okay, now there's the peak and that country there . . . approaches it where

Bob Zybach: Now, you call that Forest Peak right up in there?

James Hanish: No, it's further up.

Bob Zybach: Okay, it's the next one over to the west.

James Hanish: When we come around that hump that's where we come around, all that country over there. It's a hill.

Bob Zybach: Okay and that hill is definitely Polk Hill?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

James Hanish: All right, now the creek runs up into here

Bob Zybach: We'll be driving up there in a little bit here.

James Hanish: And this here is a fairly easy slope, but you get up here and it's a deep canyon. You don't want that. But on this side about in here was our hundred and sixty acres.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

James Hanish: That's where our timber was.

Bob Zybach: And we should be driving through that pretty quick.

James Hanish: Now, let's see, now the road came down . . . the hill was about like that and and this creek comes down and they built a bridge like this.

Bob Zybach: We'll want to try and locate the bridge when we get up there.

James Hanish: And this road, the creek was on the right hand side by the road going up.

Bob Zybach: What did you call that creek at that time?

James Hanish: Well, we called it that time, the south fork of Berry Creek.

Bob Zybach: South Fork.

James Hanish: Like I said at that time everything was kind of nicknamed, there was no accuracy to it. We called it the south fork of Berry Creek.

Bob Zybach: Now you said something before about the left hand and the right hand Berry Creek or. .

James Hanish: Well, down below . .

Bob Zybach: Okay, we'll. .

James Hanish: Where we lived, there was a creek come through there and that was the main Berry Creek and there's one that came out of here from nowhere was very small, we called that another branch of the dam creek. But this creek down here. . . the bridge down here where the Coote's house is.

Bob Zybach: One was the left hand and one was the right hand?

James Hanish: Yeah. Keep going up that way there's one to the left and this went up and disappeared in the hills.

Bob Zybach: I see. So at this point here at the Coote's sawmill, what kind of timber did they cut?

James Hanish: They cut red fir, if they could find the largest trees, they handled some old growth and he had what they call a gyppo sawmill, very small and had a threshing machine engine to run it for steam for everything and it usually broke down once and a while. And they need . . couple of trucks, three or four men in the mill and two or three fallers and buckers and that was it.

Bob Zybach: How did they get the logs to the mill?

James Hanish: They . . . what they called skidded them down with horses.

Bob Zybach: So this is all horse logging?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Did they float any down the creek?

James Hanish: No. They couldn't, the creek wasn't that deep.

Bob Zybach: No splash dams?

James Hanish: No splash dams.

Bob Zybach: Was there any oxen or.

James Hanish: No, regular horses. Draft horses we'd used for the logging.

Bob Zybach: And they brought them right to the mill?

James Hanish: Right, they'd skid them to the mill, yeah. Or some of them they would what they called made a plank road up into the road and then the trucker would go up there and then they would have a loading platform. The horses would skid them down and they roll them out on the truck.

Bob Zybach: Would that be true for this mill here that they had plank roads going from this hill?

James Hanish: Yeah, they had plank roads, in fact, I remember during the Depression, the men used to put in the plank road, they wanted to keep working because they had to reach more

James Hanish: timber and they could get the trucks up to it.

Bob Zybach: What kind of trucks did they use?

James Hanish: Regular logging trucks like we have today.

Bob Zybach: Like today?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Rubber tire?

James Hanish: Tires, yes.

Bob Zybach: Did they have any tram roads through this area?

James Hanish: They were up in the woods.

Bob Zybach: The tram roads?

James Hanish: What we call the plank roads.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

James Hanish: They're made out of plank.

Bob Zybach: Okay and they were rubber tired vehicles driving over the plank roads?

James Hanish: Oh, yes.

Bob Zybach: Now the horses would then skid down to the trucks, the loading platform?

James Hanish: Yes, like here's a bank.

Bob Zybach: Would they build that bank or the loading platform, would that be constructed or would they take a natural bank?

James Hanish: They would. . . sometimes they would take and gouge it away and make the bank.

Bob Zybach: How would they gouge it away? Did they have any cats or anything?

James Hanish: They'd bring a Fresno up.

Bob Zybach: What's a Fresno?

James Hanish: I got you! [Laughs]

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

James Hanish: Fresno are shaped like this, out of steel, and it has a long handle with a rope on it and it's kind of like a wheel or a skid and you . . . of course your horse. . . your harness and everything is at your horses ear and you just hold back on that and then you push forward to get the dirt and then when you want to dump you just push it forward and pull it back it just dumps it.

Bob Zybach: So these loading platforms were built by horse labor using a tool called a Fresno.

James Hanish: Fresno or whatever, sometimes they . . . men would have to get in and use a pick and shovel too.

Bob Zybach: And hand constructed.

James Hanish: Hand constructed.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the breed of draft horse they use, Belgians or Clydesdales or.

James Hanish: No they were just far as I can remember just a general sturdy farm horse that would be used for plowing. Take it this way, one man . . . well like Gardner, he would use his horse to plow his land, his team and then he would come down and work and he'd skid logs for the mill. Like Mr. Tandy lived down there by Berry Creek. He /worked here too. And he had his team, they were big, heavy horses, but they were of the Clydesdale breed or no.

Bob Zybach: Just run of the mill work horses?

James Hanish: Yeah. And in them days they used horses completely for plowing, well, not completely, but they had to be a good strong animal.

Bob Zybach: Now this area up here that we're looking at, was there any kind of crop or anything, or was this just a log yard?

James Hanish: No, some of maybe the people that lived around here might have little truck gardens, like lettuce and tomatoes and upgrade their food.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall the names of any of the families that lived in through here?

James Hanish: Only one, that was the Buttecaufs, but I don't know what ever happened to them.

Bob Zybach: Buttecaufs?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Did they have any children?

James Hanish: Yeah, they had a couple girls. Like I said, there were four or five families that lived in here and they worked here and in them days everybody was friendly to an extent but it was always somebody that wasn't too friendly with. There was always something had a squabble over something. So you didn't have a fight with them just kind of purposely avoid them. That's the way it was.

Bob Zybach: So this was kind of like a little community that kind of stuck to itself?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Did these people live here a long time or did they kind of move in and out with the mill flow?

James Hanish: They moved in and out.

Bob Zybach: I see, so kind of a transitory work force?

James Hanish: Yes. Because . . . like lots of times in the winter you . . . he couldn't operate all year round. He couldn't get the logs in the snow, at one time there was three feet of snow in this country, you couldn't do anything.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall what year there was three feet of snow?

James Hanish: My folks know, I was in California at the time. And they wrote and told me they couldn't. . . in fact the ranchers had to go out and chop down fir trees for the sheep to eat the needles, there was no feed. It was just covered.

Bob Zybach: How did they feed the cows, just hay that they had put up?

James Hanish: They lost a lot of cows.

Bob Zybach: A bad winter?

James Hanish: Yeah. They'd have to take the hay out of the barn and scatter it out somewhere, a lot of the sheep were lost because they got buried. It showed how quickly how much it snowed. My mother said my father shoveled a path out to the barn, our barn was about hundred and fifty feet away from the house, by the time he got there, there was three inches of snow in that path. So he had to practically work all night to keep the roof from caving in.

Bob Zybach: You moved here about 1930?

James Hanish: Somewhere in there, but it's very vague.

Bob Zybach: And then you were down in California maybe in the mid-30's?

James Hanish: Yeah, I went down and went to work.

Bob Zybach: And how long did your folks live here then?

James Hanish: Oh, they must. . . we must have with our timber holdings and everything, we must have lived out here, I came back to help them, I would say at least ten or twelve years or more.

Bob Zybach: Until Camp Adair came in, did they live here until Camp Adair was formed?

James Hanish: We moved out before Camp Adair came in.

Bob Zybach: So it was sometime, the bad snow was sometime in the mid-30's maybe?

James Hanish: Yeah, because we left when Hitler started to move into provinces of. .

Bob Zybach: Of where?

James Hanish: Hitler took over Czechoslovakia.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

James Hanish: I know I came back and I helped my folks get some pulp wood down out of the hills and then there was a headline that Hitler had taken over Czechoslovakia. And I worked here for awhile and then we disposed of the property and moved in to Corvallis.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever work for Coote?

James Hanish: I don't know, yeah. I wanted some lumber, we'd work and take it out in lumber instead of pay. Like if we needed some two by fours or something, we'd work it out, my dad and I worked it out.

Bob Zybach: I see, so it was mostly barter.

James Hanish: Barter work, yeah.

Bob Zybach: What kind of work would you do in the mill, yourself?

James Hanish: Oh, we straightened out stuff on the, pulling green chain, straighten out the boards as they come out with a chain, maybe they'd fly all over the place and take a pick and drag them around.

Bob Zybach: Would he be the main employer in this area then?

James Hanish: In this area, and that type of work, yes.

Bob Zybach: So he was kind. . . some economic stability here during the depression?

James Hanish: Yes, well, we were employers, we had . .

Bob Zybach: Let's see we're talking about.

James Hanish: We were talking about employers. Well, we

Bob Zybach: Hundred and sixty acres.

James Hanish: We employed people, we had a contract for the pulp and paper mill in Salem, Oregon. I don't know how many thousand feet of bulk paper, we had to cut for them. But there's a flat up there on the. . . we'd employ on an average thirty to forty people to cut and peel and stack wood for us.

Bob Zybach: Thirty or forty people?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Where would they come from?

James Hanish: They'd come from everywhere, they were some of them school teachers, they were

James Hanish: out of work during the depression. We had a little camp up there made for them and then they would go up there and work and get grocery money and a little cash.

Bob Zybach: So when we get up there maybe you can show me that camp site?

James Hanish: That's gone. It's completely, you wouldn't recognize it, it's just like this now.

Bob Zybach: But could you find the area, the camping area, I mean the site or location?

James Hanish: I don't think we're going to get up there.

Bob Zybach: Okay. When we get close to it, let's talk about that some more.

James Hanish: It might not, some of this stuff you might have to scratch out but we may not have thirty or forty people but I would say we had at least fifteen or twenty because we had to get that wood out. When you take out a contract we have a deadline and like fir, the bark don't slip until around early spring. It tightens up and you can't ship it because they won't accept it with the bark on.

Bob Zybach: Okay, what was the product they were making out of the white fir?

James Hanish: Paper, paper products.

Bob Zybach: You had to be able to peel those logs and so these people were mostly peeling rather than logging?

James Hanish: Yeah, we'd . . . we had . . . we contracted with a man to go up there with what they call a drag saw and he cut and the peelers would follow him and peel and split and pile. And see white fir was a such a heavy percent of water that lots of times that you would have to put four more inches of white fir split wood on top of a cord so the mill would get their full measure, because it shrinks. And then we had some logs, of course now, the logs had to wait, they couldn't be shipped down the river until they dried because they'd go right to the bottom.

Bob Zybach: What do you mean by logs, red fir?

James Hanish: White fir logs.

Bob Zybach: Oh, the white fir logs. And when you say red fir, what does that mean?

James Hanish: Well, that was mostly fire wood, we cut up old growth for fire wood and made shakes out of it.

Bob Zybach: Out of the old growth?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And that was the red fir?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was there much old growth in this area?

James Hanish: Yes, we had some nice old growth.

Bob Zybach: Were they in solid stands?

James Hanish: Scattered.

Bob Zybach: Scattered.

James Hanish: Scattered stands. Well, in them days we worked by hand and it would take us two and a half hours to fall a tree.

Bob Zybach: A single tree?

James Hanish: A single tree.

Bob Zybach: Now were they in. . . how big were the stands, how many trees would be in a stand?

James Hanish: Well there wouldn't be . . . they would be isolated. One here, and maybe one over there about eighty to hundred feet.

Bob Zybach: So maybe three or four trees per acre?

James Hanish: No, nothing like. . . about like that, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Just three or four old growth per acre?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now were there any old oak scattered in among the old fir?

James Hanish: Yeah, the oaks were there first and they'd died off because the firs grew up and shut off the sun. You had to be very careful in working in there because you'd go up to a tree that looked like a small oak tree and you could tell it was dead because the bark would be off of it and you could push it right over, because the firs, they reach for the sun right away and the oaks lost out.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever count the rings on any of those old fir, any idea how old they were?

James Hanish: Yeah, we did one time, we found one that I would say was around two hundred.

Bob Zybach: About two hundred?

James Hanish: Yeah, the stumps after the tree was fallen, the stumps would measure maybe thirty-six inches across.

Bob Zybach: So what you called old growth were about three foot, maybe /wo hundred years old.

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And was that. .

James Hanish: And the bark was thick, it was about that thick.

Bob Zybach: And the bark was about four inches. . . three inches.

James Hanish: Four inches thick.

Bob Zybach: Were the trees real limby, like growing so wide apart?

James Hanish: No, there wasn't any limbs, in fact if they were limbs down low we wouldn't cut them because you couldn't get nothing out of them. They'd be all knots. We had to have at least oh, say, sixty or eighty feet or more of clear lumber before we'd fall those trees.

Bob Zybach: What would make that lumber clear, just growing up through the oak, would that.

James Hanish: I really don't know.

Bob Zybach: But they'd be about sixty or eighty foot clear and then they'd get limby?

James Hanish: Yeah, they'd get limby.

Bob Zybach: Even though they were growing far apart?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was there second growth in among the old growth?

James Hanish: Yeah, there was second growth among the old growths.

Bob Zybach: And those would maybe seeded then from the older trees?

James Hanish: Yes, because we used to call the older trees, the grandfather trees.

Bob Zybach: Those would be the grandfathers?

James Hanish: Yeah, the grandfathers.

Bob Zybach: And then the younger trees, what would you call them?

James Hanish: Oh, just the kids.

Bob Zybach: The kids. And then the kids would go to the mill?

James Hanish: Yeah, the kids would go to the mill.

Bob Zybach: And the old growth would be the shingles and fire wood?

James Hanish: Yes, unless maybe. . . some of these small . . . what they called gyppo outfits they would handle an old growth log. And at that time we tried to sell our good lumber logs in Corvallis but they didn't want to stump it . . . they didn't want to pay any stumpage.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember the prices?

James Hanish: I don't know but it was fairly low. We got $4 a cord for firewood delivered to

James Hanish: Salem. That had to be cut, split, . . . I mean cut, sawed, peeled, split and piled and hauled to Salem, four dollars a cord.

Bob Zybach: And you had to transport it too?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Was the white fir. . . did that grow separate from the Doug fir?

James Hanish: Oh, yes. That was separate.

Bob Zybach: What kind of areas did these trees grow in, what kind of. . . were they north facing slopes or was it everywhere through here?

James Hanish: What ever, just everywhere.

Bob Zybach: This was solid fir stand up through this country?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: How about these hills looking at what they call Smith Peak now and this slope here were those pretty much covered with second growth the way they are now?

James Hanish: No, they were just about. . . yeah, they called it second growth and like I say, some of the areas the trees advanced. There used to be more clearing than what there is. But the forest, they gradually seed and taken it over.

Bob Zybach: How about yew wood or other trees, were there.

James Hanish: Yeah, we had some yew wood on our place, in fact, one year there was a man that come from Pomona, California, he bought some bow stays made out of yew wood. So we took him up to the place to the hundred and sixty acres and showed him and that's a waste of a tree. You just cut . . . you have to clear say six or eight feet of trunk and the rest is limbs. You cut the tree down and then the top you can't use. But he bought, oh, I would say about fifty dollars worth of bow stay material, it makes beautiful bow stays for archery.

Bob Zybach: I see.

James Hanish: But it's got to be perfect, it can't have a lot pin knots in it, because that would make it weak.

Bob Zybach: Did you have any oak for firewood or chittum for bark or anything like that?

James Hanish: Oh, there used to be people come up, we never bothered the chittum, but there was some people come up and peel chitum. They'd take it and after if dried someplace, get some money for it. Oak, we didn't have any oak, well, we had oak on the forty

James Hanish: and we'd cut that and use it for our fire wood.

Bob Zybach: Now this road here that came into the mill, did it go . . . extend further back into the logging road system, is that kind of how it went?

James Hanish: Yeah, the road that went into the mill like I say . . . mill to here, it went back up into here.

Bob Zybach: So your hundred and sixty acres just started back here a short ways?

James Hanish: Oh, I would say it was a mile or so.

Bob Zybach: Back here.

James Hanish: Up that creek. And on this slope, that's the slope we had to get up there. In fact the truck had a hell of a time getting up there. Right in here [referring to map] is where I found that spearhead.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so we're going to be heading back into the. . . so from this mill that's right here going back towards your hundred and sixty acres, there are no more buildings back up in here?

James Hanish: No.

Bob Zybach: Now did this road follow along the base of the hill?

James Hanish: That we would have to find out.

Bob Zybach: You can't recall?

James Hanish: I don't know if it's still there or not.

Bob Zybach: Well, I mean, did it go along the base of this hill?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: On this side of the creek?

James Hanish: No, the creek. . . going up take the road to go up towards this hundred and sixty, the creek was on the right hand side.

Bob Zybach: This creek here?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So the creek would be on the right hand side when we're heading up and then would the bridge cross the creek?

James Hanish: There was . . . we had a bridge across the creek up at the base of the hill. Then the creek went to the left and the bridge was built was like this and the creek went like that. And this is a canyon.

Bob Zybach: We're going to try to get around. . . back around there on the road here pretty quick. On this road over here on the main, what they call the Tampico Road now, was that the same alignment at that time as it is now, did that. . . ?

James Hanish: That road where Gardners lived and everything?

Bob Zybach: Yes.

James Hanish: Yes. Hasn't changed a bit.

Bob Zybach: How about. . . see how that bank is filled in and all that fill is through there.

James Hanish: Well, that was changed, that is a change, yes. That used to be a very steep and hard thing to get up, but they did fix that.

Bob Zybach: So the old road

James Hanish: That's the old site though, that's where the road was.

Bob Zybach: They built it pretty much. . . they just put the fill in there?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you know when they did that, maybe?

James Hanish: I really couldn't tell you.

Bob Zybach: But the alignment's still the same, they just improved it.

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: To reduce the slope.

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: From here the school house would be over in front of us towards the east out through there.

James Hanish: Yeah. To the left.

Bob Zybach: Is that the school you went to?

James Hanish: No, I didn't go to that school. I was out of school when we came out here.

Bob Zybach: Okay. And then the creek going down through there, that vegetation, does that look just about the same as it used to be?

James Hanish: This creek here runs all the way down through and it crossed that road that we come in that time.

Bob Zybach: Okay. We'll be going that way this time just kind of intersecting. Before we leave this area is there . . . we've mentioned the mill, the houses, the families that moved in and out, and is the reason you remember that one family's name because of the daughters?

James Hanish: Buttecaufs.

Bob Zybach: Was there a particular reason you remember them?

James Hanish: Well, it probably was the name.

Bob Zybach: Did they live here more than the other families maybe?

James Hanish: I would say they lived here as long as the other families.

Bob Zybach: Okay this would be the Coote's mill site. The mill was probably here. And these hills had about the same kind of vegetation and everything is pretty similar except for the lack of buildings now?

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Kevin you mentioned the fill.

Kevin Sherer: [KEVIN] Up at the base of the hill underneath what looks like an apple tree, there's a mound of fill dirt, but I was noticing out here to the west, my question would be do you recall any impact that the soldiers had when Adair was in here in terms of maybe fox holes and maneuvers in this particular area?

James Hanish: No, I think that main part took out in there [toward Joe Smith's], because it hasn't been after the war and everything went back to normal and people started moving in here, I used to hear of. . . cases where shells were found. They had an artillery they had a rifle range and every kind of a range you could think of down further in the valley, but I don't know what they did up in here, because the buildings are gone, our house was bigger . . . not even a rusty nail left of it, I don't know what they did with it. Probably went over it with tanks and then burned it.

Bob Zybach: Over here on the right again, where Kevin first was looking, there's a. . . it looks like a loading ramp, now that's a side of the Savage Cabin site, right behind you here, due south. Can you see back over in here, you might want to look over this way. See there's a couple dead top trees in there and there's kind of a fence up in there. That looks like they might have loaded logs right in through there.

James Hanish: They might have, yes.

Bob Zybach: Do you think that might be an old logging ramp?

James Hanish: That could be part of it.

Bob Zybach: But you can't recall anything particular in that area?

James Hanish: No.

Bob Zybach: So the mill, what they were making here is dimension lumber out of second growth fir?

James Hanish: Yes.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember anything about Coote? Maybe we can ask that more when we get towards the house there?

James Hanish: What house?

Bob Zybach: The Coote's house.

James Hanish: Oh, I don't know much about him. They were. . .they minded their business and everything. They were nice people. In fact, they were. . . I would say under religious diet. But they never bothered anybody and he had financial troubles like any other body did at that time.

Bob Zybach: The Depression?

James Hanish: Depression, yes. Sometimes the brokers would change their mind and not. . . see they sold in them days their lumber to brokers. And took the brokers price and then he'd sell it. But they were all right. None of our here in this country here, the way people weren't as closely knitted. If you started pulling crooked deals and things you wouldn't last very long, they'd get you out.

Bob Zybach: One thing to be broke, but another thing to be crooked.

James Hanish: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Most of the transportation and markets on the Soap Creek side went into Corvallis, but on this side here where . . . you say your markets were over more towards Salem.

James Hanish: That's because Corvallis had no use for pulp wood and that's what we sold. And we sold some . . . we had some contractors would come out and pick up a load of red fir fire wood and take it into town and sell it.

Bob Zybach: Into Corvallis?

James Hanish: Into Corvallis, they didn't haul fire wood as far as Salem, it was too far. We never dealt anything with Monmouth or Independence at all.

Bob Zybach: What was the reason?

James Hanish: It was just too far to haul it.

Bob Zybach: How about Airlie, was there anything in Airlie, any market?

James Hanish: No, no market in Airlie at all.

Bob Zybach: When you went to the store where would you go?

James Hanish: We'd go into Corvallis. If we were going to Salem . . . see, we lived out here, we