11. The Powder House

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: What other activities besides faculty meetings and the visits offoreign dignitaries occurred in the cabin?

William A. Davies: That's about all I know. I think Peavy had meetings out there after he left the school, retired, and I think he still had meetings out there of, maybe, some of his committees or something when he was mayor, because he loved that cabin. You know, the alums had built it for him, and he was proud of that cabin and he used it quite a bit.

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: How did students and faculty members get out to the forest? Did they have vans like they do now?

William A. Davies: Well, the school had transportation in their old beat up trucks and stuff to go out there. I remember, before I came here, they were always talking about Six Bits. They had an old, real old truck. It was one of these steering wheels, straight-up-and-down deals (motion).

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: I've seen pictures.

William A. Davies: The reason they called that Six Bits is they used to take a trip somewhere once a year, a forestry trip, and each of the students had to pay seventy-five cents for that trip. So they called that truck the old Six Bits. (chuckle)

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Then later they had one called Two Bits, didn't they?

William A. Davies: Yes, I think; Two Bits, yes. It's for shorter runs, I guess. (chuckle)

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: What kind of truck was old Six Bits?

William A. Davies: Gee, I don't know, I've seen pictures of it only. There's a lot of old pictures around here; you've probably got some of them if you're interested. I think - was it Tony Van Vliet, the one that was interested in the old pictures. He kept them for a while, I guess.

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Whatever happened to Sx Bits?

William A. Davies: I don't know, I suppose it was junked. It wasn't here when I came here, I know.

11. THE POWDER HOUSE

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: I wanted to ask you about Powder House Saddle. Where did that name come from?

William A. Davies: We had two powder houses there. Aren't they still there? Maybe one of them is, I guess. The one off to the west was a larger one with big, thick doors and special locks where you need two keys, all that sort of thing, and nobody ever got into it until that era of the fifties when the vandals decided they could get into anything. And they did. They got in, and we had powder in there. That worried us so we took the powder out. Then we used the little powder house for quite a few years, up until I retired, I guess. We're still storing powder in there.

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Powder for what?

William A. Davies: Dynamite; blow stumps, build roads; got to get stumps out of the way.

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: For how many years did that Powder House operation go on? When did they first start storing powder there, do you know?

William A. Davies: I don't know, long before I came here. When they first started building roads, I guess.

Royal G. Jackson / Jennifer Lee: And they quit some time in the fifties when the vandalism got too bad?

William A. Davies: No, no, they quit the one powder house, the big one. But as far as I know, that other powder house is still there, still being used for powder. Of course, I haven't seen it for five years.