Q.. The Mill Pond Creek

Part III. January 26, 1991 Interview

Q. The Mill Pond Creek

Bob Zybach: We've just come up and out of Sheppard's, and we're moving towards the Coote's and Cornutt Mill to the north of us on Tampico Road.

Neil Vanderburg: I'm going to make a correction. Cornutt had dropped out of the Coote's/Cornutt deal when he built this mill.

Bob Zybach: So this was strictly Coote's mill?

Neil Vanderburg: This was strictly Coote' s mill. But he did move the steam engine and a lot of the stuff from the Cornutt mill.

Neil Vanderburg: When Bill Coote built this mill up here above Sheppard's, the road didn't go through from Berry Creek, however, he did live at Berry Creek, so he built a road from Sheppard's house, or from where the road ended at Sheppards. Came right up to the top of the hill, and then he took off at an angle and went back probably close to a . oh, between a quarter and half a mile to his mill site. Then they put this road

Neil Vanderburg: through, and then right where we're sitting there's a little rise in the road, and about in there was where he went right straight back in to his mill. So he didn't have to maintain as much tram road, is what we called it. It was a plank road, was what he was going in on, and actually when he built the road straight in, I think that he gravelled that. Right here at the top of the hill

Bob Zybach: You're talking about the top to the south of us?

Neil Vanderburg: To the south of us, yeah, right above Sheppard's place, they hauled the slab wood out of Bill Coote's mill and stacked it right there, and at one time there was probably 200 cords of slab wood stacked right there at the brink of the hill there.

Bob Zybach: So that was real visible as you were driving up the road.

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. Of course this road wasn't here.

Bob Zybach: Okay, and when you said his road angled off, you mean to the west of this road here?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, his road took off. And it was a fairly straight road. It went back a little ways and then made a curve and there was a small creek that came down there, that he ran his mill pond with, and I don't know how that came through here anymore. I can't recall where that creek crossed over or how it got down into Soap Creek. It must have ended up in Soap Creek. And I don't know whether we'll find that creek any more or not because I'm finding that a lot of this area doesn't have as much moisture in it as it used to when I was a kid. There was a lot of these small tributaries that just all I find is a ditch there anymore.

Bob Zybach: We're about halfway between Sheppard's and the top of the rise here towards Smith Peak. Can you describe, from where we're sitting now, to the west of us, about where Coote's tram road went through?

Neil Vanderburg: I would say from here it probably wasn't more than oh, maybe 200, 250 feet from this road, but of course this road wasn't here, so it's kind of hard to get your bearings.

Bob Zybach: If we go up to this next road here on the left, and walk in, can we maybe find the old track?

Neil Vanderburg: That's where I would guess it is.

Bob Zybach: Okay, why don't we do that then.

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're just past. . we've got a puddle of water on our right, flowing to the east

Bob Zybach: toward Smith Peak, and a little ditch on our left. On school property.

Neil Vanderburg: I would say that that is probably where the little creek came through that Bill Coote made his mill pond on. And maybe an easier way to find the old mill Site would just be to try and follow that ditch up to there, or we can go on up here and hit that.

Bob Zybach: Where did the plank road cross this creek here?

Neil Vanderburg: I didn't think it did. I think this creek is going to veer off to the north, and his mill was on the west side of the creek.

Bob Zybach: Feel like taking a short hike here?

Neil Vanderburg: Sure!

Bob Zybach: *** Did this creek have a name here?

Neil Vanderburg: I sure wouldn't know it if it did. But it does have running water here, it is in January, like Bob said, but it's about the size of the creek that I'm talking about. And also we've had freezing weather for quite a while so it wouldn't be flowing as hard as it might have been when it was raining hard. I think most of what we've got running here is probably coming out of the ground. Probably out of the trees. I'll have to come back here in the summertime and see if it's running.

Bob Zybach: Did it run all through the summer before?

Neil Vanderburg: As far as I know.

Bob Zybach: Did you call it any name like Coote's Creek, or Steele Creek?

Neil Vanderburg: No.

Neil Vanderburg: We're standing on a road here, it's not quite where I pictured the old Coote's mill on, but I did say just a few minutes ago that I thought that Bill Coote had graveled the road, the second road he built in, and we're standing on a gravel road just within 500 feet of where I thought the road was. And I am quite sure that this is probably the old road that went up to Bill Coote' s last mill. The one that John Weinert ultimately took over because Bill Coote had gotten so far in debt to him because when he first got this mill built, he'd hardly got into production and it burned up.

Bob Zybach: The one up here?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: It burned up?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, it burned up. And so Bill Coote didn't have enough money to pay his employees, so John Weinert owned a grocery store in Airlie, and he made arrangements with John Weinert to furnish food for his employees until he could get back up and running again. And so that was what was done, and then just about the time Bill Coote got running again, maybe a year or so, well then John Weinert felt that Bill Coote was not the manager to ever pay him back apparently, so he foreclosed on him and then John Weinert ran the mill until pretty close to when the government took this over for Camp Adair.

Bob Zybach: Was that Weinert' s first mill?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah, Weinert was just. . . he owned a grocery store, service station, post office and anything else you wanted in Airlie.

Bob Zybach: Was that the same Weinert that owned W.O.W. [Weinert, Oudeuiru & WienertJ in Eddyville?

Neil Vanderburg: I don't know for sure. I know that his son is down there now. His son, I think they call Jack Weinert.

Bob Zybach: Was he the one that owned Yaquina Head?

Neil Vanderburg: I don't know what he owned after he left here. But I know they did move down into the coastal area someplace.

Bob Zybach: The Weinert that had the store in Airlie, do you know where that family came from? Was that their first business in this area?

Neil Vanderburg: I have no idea. He had two daughters and his son Jack.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember what year it was that they took this mill over then?

Neil Vanderburg: Oh, it would have been probably about 1939.

Bob Zybach: How many years did they run it? Up until Adair?

Neil Vanderburg: Up until '41 when Adair took it over. '42, whatever it was.

Bob Zybach: Now, before we go any further here, we've got a bunch of windfall in front of us. Can you remember what this road looked like back in 1939 and 1940?

Neil Vanderburg: Well, I thought it was quite a straight road, and we're standing here looking at a fairly straight road. Of course, at the time that they were running the mill here, they had cut all the trees down around here, so we were . . . I mean, it looks different now.

Bob Zybach: Now, on the aerial photos from 1937 they show this being logged off. But they show a lot of standing.