6.. Peeling Poles and Horse Logging

Bob Zybach: Now, the Modrells you mentioned. . . Are they one of the families that's up by the mill there?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] No, they... Where did they live, Chuck?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I'm not sure.

Bob Zybach: Because that name's wasn't ringing any bells to me.

Charles Hindes: I think the Modrells lived in this house that we converted into a school house and I'm not sure that they didn't move out of the community so we could utilize this as a school house.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] They went to school with us possibly at Tampico.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Did they?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yep.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] They lived in the Tillamook area so Norman sees them.

Bob Zybach: So, the Modrells are still around.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] They're still living. Yes. They're older thanI am. They must be up damn near in their 80's.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I don't remember. I was thinking that Larry was more nearly my age but I wouldn't argue the point because I haven't seen him for years.

Bob Zybach: Have you ever talked... Do they have many memories of Soap Creek at that time or. . .

Charles Hindes: I've never talked to them about it.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] I never have talked to them about it at all.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] It was a funny thing, as we moved to Tillamook at our second job location which my father had, working for a man by the name of McClanahan clearing land for which he received a house and $30 dollars a month on that job. That was a real promotion. The Modrells lived just slightly up the creek from us, there so it was almost a happenstance of getting together with them again after leaving Soap Creek.

Bob Zybach: So Larry Modrell was one of the kids, and he became a business agent for A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Charles Hindes: Yeah. For Oregon and Washington sawmills.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So that's a new name and some of these others that we're going to be looking at...

Charles Hindes: I can't remember where the Modrells lived.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I can't either, but they probably lived near by. If, in fact they had occupied this building that we later used for a school, they could've gone to some other nearby residence.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] They wasn't living up at the upper mill was they?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Could've been. I just have no recollection. I don't even recall anybody that I knew living at the upper mill site.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Well, their dad worked someplace around there.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Could very well have been.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] And I just wouldn't be a bit surprised. . .

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] That's something you would have to ask them.

6. Peeling Poles and Horse Logging

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Now, you remember they had that peeling pile or telephone light poles across here. We got a job peeling them.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] I've got a scar on my knee to show for it yet today. Half a cent a foot when the bark was slipping good and as much as 2 1/2 cents a foot when the bark got tight.

Bob Zybach: Peeling poles?

Charles Hindes: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Was that in the Soap Creek area or the Tillamook area?

Charles Hindes: No, it was in the Soap Creek area.

Bob Zybach: So, that's a new crop. . .

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] They had two rollways there. They had a lower rollway and a upper rollway and they'd roll them logs on the trucks, with peavies .. .

Bob Zybach: How long would a pole be?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Hundred and twenties. There was some good piling up there.

Bob Zybach: And you got that right off the Soap Creek area?

Charles Hindes: This was across the Soap Creek to the west.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Up in the headwaters up through there beyond Sulphur Springs?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Back up by the ranch there wasn't it, Vandersanten?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Right near the upper barn. You know, according to the diagram that we had here someplace, the Vandersanten house was down at the bottom of the tram road.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Here's the Vandersanten's on your map. Now, there. .. Across the creek and that's the place I was calling the Moore place.

Charles Hindes: Right. That's the same place and there was an old stock barn up there and just to the south of that and up along this hillside where we were taking off the piling.

Bob Zybach: Okay. So you were taking. . . It'd be on the map. . . Let's see.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Harvey and Bobby Wallace and them took a contract to cut and deliver the piling.

Bob Zybach: It would be northwest of the school then because the school would be. .. This would be kind of like north.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Uh, yes. Well, actually almost due west of the school. Where the school is currently. Almost due west.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. So it would be west in back of the Vandersanten's place.

Charles Hindes: Right.

Bob Zybach: And there was pilings in there. Those pictures we were looking at of the animals*. That's probably the same area you were logging back through there.

Charles Hindes: I wouldn't be a bit surprised. But it was smaller timbers. Smaller in diameter but much greater in length than most of the timber we had been working in and hauling down to the sawmill.

Bob Zybach: And so that was separated just for poles.

Charles Hindes: Yes. It was a different operation entirely.

Bob Zybach: Was it a different owner to that operation?

Charles Hindes: Yes.

Bob Zybach: So, was Burtrom McCoy still the owner of Valley Mills at that point

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Oh yeah, they had the mill going.

Sondenaa, Angela C. The Wild Mammals of McDonald and Paul M. Dunn Forests, OSU Research Forests and College of Forestry, Oregon State University, 1991. p:3.