Manuscript Page 31
We were at this fire for nine days and nights and only succeeded in saving some mining buildings. The fire simply burned everything available to it and then went out. We were glad to get back to our camp on the East Verde River.
Our experimental crew's last job involved finishing the Chamberlain Trail. Our camp was on Haigler Creek and we had managed to get a small caterpillar tractor with a bull dozer attachment. We would drill holes using hammers and tapered steel drills, load the holes with dynamite and blast the "rounds." The bull dozer would then push the loose rocks and dirt over to the low side making a road bed over which trucks could operate. The largest rocks were removed by hand and then the road grader was brought in to finish off the surface. Not a fancy job but one that would serve.
Shortly before Thanksgiving we decided to go hunting for wild turkeys. Frank Pascoe and I hiked down to Ellinwood where there was a cornfield on a ranch. It was a lucky day because the field was full of turkeys. We proceeded to kill three large gobblers and were just starting back to camp when someone came out of the ranch house and came toward us. Frank put the three turkeys on my back and I left in a hurry while Frank went to intercept the man from the ranch house. I had sixty pounds of turkey on my back and I did not want to hang around but I saw Frank holding his gun on the man as I went over the first ridge east of Ellinwood. When Frank finally came into camp he told me that the guy was a game warden and that he was really angry about being restrained at gun point. Of course I knew who the warden was and he would have known me but he had no idea who Frank was. Neither Frank nor I had a license to hunt turkeys.
Frank Pascoe was an ex-rancher who lost his "outfit" when the Great Depression came and he was working as a cooks helper at our camp. His old ranch was the Butcher Hooks in the Superstition Mountains east of Superior.
Many of the men in the camp were ones who had been displaced by the Depression. Denver Tomlinson was an ex-rancher who borrowed money he was unable to repay because the price of cattle was too low. Ersel Anderson was a heavy equipment operator and there was no place for him to work. Earl Stevens and Jim Hansen were miners but the mines were closed so they were just marking time until the general economy improved. The Great Depression left its mark on many of us who lived through it and saw the havoc it wreaked on many common people. We came to believe that a steady job was the most valuable asset that a person could have. We saw hundreds of people who were unable to feed their families, buy decent clothes or find acceptable housing. Medical service was simply not affordable. When Earl Stevens was injured on that road job he was taken to Globe to be checked by a doctor but Earl paid the bill. He was off work two days to see the doctor and then had two days pay deducted from his check. Everyone felt fortunate to have a job so we did not expect any "special" treatment in case of an accident.
When we finished the Chamberlain Trail, Mr. Swift, Supervisor of the Tonto National Forest came up from Phoenix and drove over the trail. We had a short dedication ceremony and then began to
