B.. Lewisburg Saddle

Charlie Olson: you know, real tight. And I was squatted down. I had my elbow against my body here and had a really tight grip on the trigger grip and a real tight one on the forearm. But I had bought a box of new ammunition -- that hollow point. And the hollow point was the same size way down deep in there, not just a little cavity And I hadn't shot one of them before. So when I pulled the trigger, that thing came back and the scope caught me right here and

Bob Zybach: Right between the eyes.

Charlie Olson: It tore my nose loose from my forehead.

Bob Zybach: This was just six or eight months ago?

Charlie Olson: About six months ago.

Bob Zybach: That wasn't during the season.

Charlie Olson: No, I don't think so. I don't remember, it was pretty close to the season, but. . . I started to bleed enough so that I didn't look what happened to the deer. And I just waited a while until it kind of quit bleeding and then I went over to see what happened to him. He'd gone about as far as from here to that white peg right there.

Bob Zybach: About twenty feet.

Charlie Olson: Yeah. And it [the bullet] had entered right where I had figured just back of the shoulder and then it had blew up. That cavity is big enough that when it hits something it would create pressure as it comes back until there is enough air pressure in there that it'll create an explosion and not just a little cavity that will expand and make a bigger hole from there on. Anyway, my wife started to try to make something out of it, and this explosion when it occurred it ruptured the midriff between the chest cavity and the paunch and it ruptured the paunch. And it seemed like it did the same thing with all the rib cage. So the whole rib cage was blood shot.

Bob Zybach: It sounds like you should have been using your .32-. 20.

B. Lewisburg Saddle

Bob Zybach: Okay, we call this the Lewisburg Saddle now, did you call it anything before?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: You called it the Lewisburg Saddle?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: The pass?

Charlie Olson: No. I never heard a name for this until the forestry people came through here, you know, and they probably named it.

Bob Zybach: So this was called no name, the road, would you call it the road?

Charlie Olson: Well, that . . . sure it was a road.

Bob Zybach: Just no name to it.

Charlie Olson: No name.

Bob Zybach: So if you said you were going to Corvallis, was this the only route through here?

Charlie Olson: This was the only route except if we went down through the. . . well, we came out through Ed Blake's.

Bob Zybach: That's down at the other end of the valley?

Charlie Olson: Yeah. We could go down that way, but we couldn't. . . at that time the road didn't go where it is now. The road went out at Ed Blake's.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we'll go down at that end and then you can show us. Can you remember how it caine up through here, like we can see kind of an old grade down there to our left, is that maybe the way it came up?

Charlie Olson: I don't know just exactly where it went down from here but it went farther to the right here than where it comes up now.

Bob Zybach: Okay, so that would be to the west.

Charlie Olson: To our right now, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Okay. I'm tiying to get things into this [tape recorder] so we can figure it out later.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So that would be towards the ocean or to the west. And it went down to where we were at the bottom of the hill. It came up through Totens; past Sol Kings, through Totens and Vineyard's and then angled back this way, or maybe back over in that way [west] further, can you recall?

Charlie Olson: We didn't go back that way [west] very far.

Bob Zybach: Okay.

Charlie Olson: We went down here pretty directly down to between . . . a fellow by the name of Toten, and Vineyard was a little farther to the left. .

Bob Zybach: To the east?

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Towards Corvallis.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So you went passed Vineyards.

Charlie Olson: No, we passed Vineyards after we came down to Totens.

Bob Zybach: Okay. I was thinking of coming up the way we just came but if you're going out you would have gone down to Totens, and then cut past Vineyards and gone out toward the walnuts. And then up here where did the road go toward Soap Creek?

Charlie Olson: A little farther to the left [west] of where it is now.

Bob Zybach: Maybe fifty feet or maybe...

Charlie Olson: Oh, it zig zagged.

Bob Zybach: Okay, but it was off to the left here.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: And that was right around the turn of the centuly?

Charlie Olson: It continued that way until they built this here. I don't know when they built this.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall anybody saying when they built this road here, the old road?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: Was it called a road or a trail?

Charlie Olson: You mean this forestry . . . [indicates Patterson Road to the west].

Bob Zybach: No. Not the forestry one, the one back when you were a kid. Do you recall when they put that in?

Charlie Olson: I wasn't old enough to know when they put that in, because it was there when I got big enough to know that it was there.

Bob Zybach: Was this the main route to Corvallis?

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Would people come in by this way to go to Sulphur Springs?

Charlie Olson: Absolutely, there was no other way.

Bob Zybach: Could people take bicycles over it?

Charlie Olson: Yeah. They could.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember anybody bicycling over this pass here?

Charlie Olson: I didn't know anybody that had a bicycle in those days.

Bob Zybach: I see. It was possible but they didn't do it.

Charlie Olson: There was a family that came out . . . they walked from Corvallis and you will have [reference to] him. You've gotten him already on this book. You haven't got him, but you've got his offspring. Moore.

Bob Zybach: Oh, the Moores.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: They used to live out here didn't they?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: They would just walk out from.

Charlie Olson: In the early days, they did live out on Soap Creek. Sam Moore's father lived down there and Sam Moore was probably born there, but his daughters started to come up over here and when they got here they camped right here on top.

Bob Zybach: Oh, so this was a camping area here?

Charlie Olson: No, not normally, but they camped here and they wrote a big sign and tagged it up there. "Snailgate Camping Ground." But of course that was torn down pretty soon. But they camped here and then they went down to Sulphur Springs and camped down there. They came up and visited with us while they was camped there at Sulphur Springs. And we were haying at the time and my father always would read quite a little while after dinner and so we went out and was fooling around outdoors and Iva Moore, Myra was the older one, then there was Iva, and then there was Neva. Neva was the youngest one. But she [Iva] got to talking about . . . oh, they got to talking about getting married and I was just a kid, but I could realize at the time that I was making a safe wager and she wagered with me that she was never going to get married. And it was twenty-five dollars. And I bet that she would get married. She bet that she wouldn't. Now when would she be able to collect?

Bob Zybach: It was pretty safe bet.

Charlie Olson: Yeah. She never could collect it.

Bob Zybach: Did she ever get married?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: But did she remind you about the bet, would she talk about it?

Charlie Olson: When could she remind me?

Bob Zybach: Did she remember betting you?

Charlie Olson: Well, we didn't discuss it in later years, no.

Bob Zybach: Can you remember anything else about this area?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: So can you remember what the vegetation is like right here, was this an open pass?

Charlie Olson: Just like it is now.

Bob Zybach: Just like it is now.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So young fir, scattered oak.

Charlie Olson: There wasn't as many of those smaller firs as there is now, but other than the maple, the other brush would be the same as it is now only that the smaller trees that are here now wasn't here then.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Were there any old growth trees up here?

Charlie Olson: Yeah, there were quite a few of them. And there were quite a few others here.

Bob Zybach: To the east?

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: So that would be from this area to the east, but now just behind us. . . to the south.

Charlie Olson: There was old growth on the north and it was coming over onto the south side some but there wasn't much on the south side.

Bob Zybach: Okay, could the bastard fir that was coming up on the south side be from the old growth.

Charlie Olson: No, it could not have been from the old growth.

Bob Zybach: Why not?

Charlie Olson: Well, that's a thing I would like to have somebody tell me, what was it and where did they come from.

Bob Zybach: Why couldn't it have come from the old growth [seed] blowing over on the wind or something?

Charlie Olson: It wasn't the same thing.

Bob Zybach: Oh, it's a djfferent kind of tree?

Charlie Olson: This bastard fir and the old growth was entirely a different type of tree.

Bob Zybach: What was different?

Charlie Olson: The bark was different, the needles were different, the wood was different. The wood on this bastard fir won't burn unless it's dry. That old growth -- we'll give it

Charlie Olson: it's right name -- "yellow fir".

Bob Zybach: Yellow fir, okay.

Charlie Olson: It would burn when it was green. Right at the foot of this hill was one that people had run into in some way with a wagon and they had made a scar and that created a lot of pitch. And they set it afire. And that burned into it a little ways and then went out. Probably somebody else had come along and there was pitch and they'd set it afire. And then it went out. And then I came along afoot. I was about ten years old at the time and I had been to town. I had some teeth filled and I walked and on my way home, I set that thing afire, warmed my fingers a little bit and went on. And my father, I think, went to town the next day. It pert near had to been, he drove in and of course that tree was burned and when he started to come home it was night. He'd always go to the library and read. And he had a horse, just a single horse, and that horse would take him home no matter how dark it was in a buggy. And when he came to that tree, it was down and across the road. He couldn't see.

Bob Zybach: So the fire you'd set had toppled the tree?

Charlie Olson: It had burned just enough so it was down at the time. But he just turned the horse loose, he got in the buggy and turned the horse loose and the horse took him into the brush and went on around and come out on the road down below. About two or three days later, that whole tree had burned up.

Bob Zybach: Completely?

Charlie Olson: Completely! Completely, and there is a whole lot more back of that that people have never explained. There wasn't enough there but what a fellow could scoop it up and put it in a dust pan and then in a bucket.

Bob Zybach: You think the fires that used to burn through, when they hit that yellow fir could they have burned those trees completely up.

Charlie Olson: Sure.

Bob Zybach: Do you think that may have happened?

Charlie Olson: It did happen.

Bob Zybach: So when they had afire through here, there wasn't a bunch of snags, it was clean?

Charlie Olson: Oh, well, if a fire could run through without setting them afire because they'd have to develop some pitch in a hole and go in until the fire would be inside of the tree

Charlie Olson: before that tree would start to burn up.

Bob Zybach: I see.

Charlie Olson: But you could burn around that tree with some grass and it wouldn't set it afire. The bark is . . . that's another thing, the bark would be that thick.

Bob Zybach: About 3 inches?

Charlie Olson: Yeah. And it would have big clumps on it. You could pert near climb the tree just by getting a hold of some of those clumps. That will never happen to this bastard fir. It's a different species and where did it come from? But, I contend that when you burn wood it blows into where it came from, it doesn't create smog. If you burn something that you have mined out of the earth, it will create smog because it's it wasn't produced from the air. These trees and every other tree . . . every thing that it has gotten . . . has gotten from the air.

Bob Zybach: Are these trees here, do you think they are descended from those yellow fir?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: You think these are bastard fir all through here now?

Charlie Olson: Of course they are.

Bob Zybach: So what happened to the last of the yellow fir?

Charlie Olson: They were sold, they were fell and made . . . most of it rail road ties and sold to SP [Southern Pacific] railroad.

Bob Zybach: fJamesJ Hanish called the older trees the "grandfather trees" and the younger trees the "kids", wouldn't those kids be the descendent of the older trees.

Charlie Olson: Never.

Bob Zybach: Why not? Where did the younger trees come from?

Charlie Olson: That's what I want to know.

Bob Zybach: Why didn't the older trees seed in the area?

Charlie Olson: I never saw but one place where those yellow fir had a small tree. And that's another question. On the ridge between Wren and the ridge that divided Soap Creek and Kings Valley from there and over towards Wren on the left hand side of that ridge that runs cross ways with these other ridges that run the other direction.

Bob Zybach: There's a cross ways ridge between Wren and Kings Valley and there's another ridge that runs across to the general line of ridges.

Charlie Olson: Between Soap Creek and Kings Valley there is a ridge [Kings Valley Ridge] that runs cross ways and if you were to get on to that ridge and then take off towards Wren on the left, there was some of those yellow fir and there were some small ones, but the small ones were just as tall as the others. There were only probably a foot through but they were just as tall as the others. And I didn't . . . I'd never seen a small one from a seed.

Bob Zybach: Do you think those trees are still there now?

Charlie Olson: Oh, no.

Bob Zybach: They're gone.

Charlie Olson: Oh, God no, that was . . . I was probably twelve years old when I saw that.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall ever seeing any Sugar Pine in this area?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: Any Ponderosa or other pine. . . natural pine?

Charlie Olson: No.

Bob Zybach: Just the yellow fir and then the Doug-fir that's in here now that was called bastard fir and then Doug-fir.

Charlie Olson: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: That's about all that I can think offrom this area. Why don't you finish the stoiy on the bench legs? You'd shot it in the heavy fog and that's the last we got recorded on that.

Charlie Olson: Well, he was afraid because it was a spike. But it was so old that some of the teeth were gone. It was a gummer but it was fat, I don't know why. I don't think it would rut, it was right after rutting season, or during rutting season but it hadn't rut. And it was awfully fat, it probably weighed 220 pounds.

Bob Zybach: What was the game warden's name in that area. . . at Alsea?

Charlie Olson: Clint Haren.

Bob Zybach: And this man you were with, what was his name?

Charlie Olson: Charlie Rauls.

Bob Zybach: And so Charlie Rauls was afraid that Clint Haren would find it and he would get a fine or a ticket.

Charlie Olson: Yes.

Bob Zybach: an you describe how you got the deer out of there?