Minnesota Historical Society

Transcription

1 Buzz Ryan John Esse -BR -JE Buzz Ryan Narrator John Esse Interviewer March 23, 1976 Duluth, Minnesota JE: Okay, today is March 23, I m down here in Duluth at the Historical Society of St. Louis County. And I m interviewing the man who has written many articles, who has traveled many, many miles by foot through the woods. A man who has a great respect of his people and has not only in his own area, but throughout the state of Minnesota. And that is Buzz Ryan. And Buzz, the first thing I have to clear up is where did you get the nickname Buzz from? What is really your full, complete Christian name? BR: Well, my name is James, course, James C., they re both initials, J.C. And very few people know me by that name, James. But how I got that name Buzz, of course, I ve been asked hundreds a times on that, but now that s, had since I was a child. I had a brother that was two years older than I was, and course, I was his little brother, and he couldn t say brother, he called me his little buzzer. Because my mother would say, go get Buzzer, what s Buzzer doing, and he would go out with Buzzer, and then it finally developed down to Buzz. And through my school days in Turtle River, there, they Buzz, and for a little while, there when I come over in this country there was, kind a left me for awhile, wouldn t say it come back again. JE: Now, when we get into the early part of your life, you were born in the Bemidji area, is that correct? BR: No, I was born in Wilmar. And my folks at, were people. My dad was, course, was born in Hudson, Wisconsin, my mother was born in Mathwater, Minnesota. But my dad and mother were married out at Hancock, Minnesota, where my dad was a young fellow was working on building elevators for some company and my mother was working in a hotel, and they got acquainted out there, and they were married I think in Hancock, but at that time my mother was working out of Morris. And soon after were married, my dad and mother took the job of looking after one them big gentlemen farms up at the Taliman Farm at Wilmar, right where the state institution is now. And they run that for couple years. My dad was kind of a boss, and they had two, three men working there and my mother would, had a couple hired girls. Used to have those, man and wife running farms. And my dad was getting kind of tired of it, and my mother s brother and her father had gone north up to Bemidji and taken homestead. So, they were talking 1

2 about it before I was born, and right after I was born that fall, my mother had had a crew of thrashers there. And I guess she was quite tired, and she said she was unable to go, we re gonna go up and take a homestead. That s how we come to Bemidji, and that was the end of the railroad. JE: Did they have any idea, from your recollections, from what your mother and father said, did you ever have any idea of that Bemidji territory was like? Did they kind a... BR: No, no, only on what my grandfather would write back. They d taken homestead, and my mother s brother had taken a homestead, and when we come like to Bemidji, we arrived in Bemidji about six o clock at night or five-thirty and then ray dad went out to look over the town, and that was the end of the railroad, and was kind of a wild and wooly town. And that s first time I ever; my dad ever really got acquainted with lumberjacks. JE: What were their first impressions when they came up in that territory? Were they quite amazed? Did they think that this was a farming territory? BR: Well, no, everybody was going north to homestead. Though, they, then a course, next morning they got up and took the stagecoach up to Turtle River. And my grandfather s homestead was right on the Red Lake-Leech Lake Indian Trail. And that was a terrible lot of traffic between Red Lake and Leech Lake, Indian traffic at that time, and going daily right past the house. That was one of the main roads traveled in the country in The railroad comes through last fall and my dad s first work was working cutting down right away for the railroad that winter, and of course, the rails come into Turtle River in the spring, and right following the rails coming in, a town settled right on my grandfather s property, there. And the town of Turtle River had been plotted out on the south arm of Turtle River Lake by the Silver brothers, but the Silver brothers then when they found out that the railroad was going around the north end the lake, they moved up the north end the lake and they established this town and part of it fell on my grandfather s property, part the plotted on my grandfather s property, part was on the forty they had. And a sawmill come in and started to, town started to build up, and by 1903, why the town there was about three, four hundred population. JE: What year did your parents come up? BR: Think it was the fall of JE: And so then you were about... BR: I was just formed then, I was... JE: Just a little... BR: Oh ya, and I was born in JE: Did it ever, looking back, did it ever amaze you of the chances that these young people took 2

3 when your mother and father, with the little young ones an all they packed up and took off? BR: Well of course. A lot of people were doing that at that time, and it was, ya quite a change. But they, it was a pretty hard winter that first winter, I guess. They lived with My grandfather, fortunately had two houses. He built his homestead shanty, and then he built another house. And then that first winter they lived with my grandfather pretty much, and in the spring they moved into his other house. And, matter fact, we lived in that house, we built addition on it. We lived in that house all the time we lived in Turtle River. One that my mother got from grand and my dad never did homestead. JE: Never did. BR: He never took the homestead. Town started then, my dad started up at the sawmill, and he got to be a, he never worked in the mill. He worked around the mill. He started in odd jobs driving horses around the mill and then he got to be a, oh, he shipped lumber, and so he learned to scale lumber, and he got to be kind of a foreman outside, he was given outside foreman and then when they started logging in the winter he got foreman in the woods. And t hat s how he started up in the woods work. And he never did take a homestead. But is only one winter that my mother went to camp. One winter, winter of 1906 and seven. My dad had taken a job with a company and he had a little camp of about fifteen or sixteen men. And we moved out three, four miles out JE: Here we go. It was a... Ya, it was. Ya, it was just, I noticed it had stopped there a little bit. Okay now, you said that your mother and father went out to the camp. Now did your mother cook in that camp or... BR: Ya, we cooked, that one winter, winter of 1906 and seven. My dad took a job in a company, and he had about fourteen, fifteen men. And (unclear) an old homestead, and they had the homestead house, it was what the, lived in that and that s what it was the cook shack in there, and they had the quarters the camp building built for the men. And we was there that winter, that was the only winter my mother ever was in the, worked in the woods. JE: That was always a, that was quite of a small camp. BR: Small camp jobber, ya. This job was at, had some stuff for the company on a contract, and other than that he worked for the company. JE: Now, when you were, when you were born, well, not born in that territory, but you were raised there. Was this the peak of the cutting of the white pine and Norway pine in that Turtle River region? BR: Oh ya. It was, ya. They were just logging that, n Turtle River Lake, there, that was a big, the Burlington Lumber Company owned an awful pile of timber, besides the sawmill that was on the lake, owned by the Kelser Lumber Company and the, or Turtle River Lumber Company. They kind a reorganized, put another name. The Burlington Lumber Company and the J. Neals 3

4 Lumber Company, Greatly and Farley took their big contract with them. They put in ninety million one winter. And that logs would go down the, drove the Turtle River, through Turtle River Lake with the town is right on the shore. And down the Turtle River to Cass Lake to the mills at Cass Lake. And also, down the Mississippi. JE: Now where were those mills located on Cass Lake? BR: Right next to J. Neals when I was there at Cass Lake. There was two mills at Cass Lake. The J. Neals was the big mill there, and then there was other logging went down further, and went down to Minneapolis. Somewhere them logs, the Burlington Lumber Company logs went clear down to Minneapolis and Mississippi, and down the Mississippi. JE: So they sluiced, they would have to sluice then through Big Winnie then wouldn t they? BR: No, they, ya. Went through Big Winnie. JE: Ya. BR: Went through Big Winnie. Yup. JE: Then they come down past White Oak. BR: Ya, they went down, through down... JE: Grand Rapids... BR: Yup. JE: And all the way down. BR: But, see, all those rivers were being driven at that time, but awful lot a logging. Right west a town, now this story that, the hospital ticket, I don t know if you ever read that story or not. But it was This clerk had been into the camps there, wrote a story, about the lumber camps around Bemidji, owned a hospital ticket. Was in the Kelliher Weekly in 1914, I think December 19, issue, I think. And that made that Bemidji area quite well known throughout the United States, because that was the national weekly that Kelliher, there. And they used a lot at those characters around there, around Bemidji, like old Spider, that had Spider Sherman, and Bone Bushes, and one of the foreman s of the Bemidji Lumber Company and, a lot of those older preventions for the, in the stories you know. JE: Uh, huh. BR: But this camp that Bone Bush had was just about a mile and a half west of Turtle River at that time. That was running all; there was camps all over there. 4

5 JE: Now these camps were made out of Norway or white pine. BR: Ya. Ya. Camps all, they re all, practically all the camps up to 1910 were made a logs, it was only after the railroad logging started when transportation got much better when they would haul the lumber into the woods that they started building out lumber camps. JE: That lumber would be brought number four scale... BR: Well, it wasn t so much, you had poor lumber. But it wouldn t be so much that, but they could use it two or three times. Camps would be tore down and the lumber reused, sometimes the lumber used in three, four camps. And it was much, they d lumber that much faster. They were colder; they put in an extra stove. Didn t make much difference, but they, and they were built much faster. JE: How long did you stay in the Bemidji area, yourself? BR: Well, we lived in Turtle River until , we moved up to Northome. In the meantime, you see, my dad, the Turtle River Lumber Company, their sawmill quit about 1909 and they dismantled the mill. And my dad, with A. C. Johnson, and was the superintendent of the company, took over the holdings of that company. And they had a lot a cedar on their land. And they started putting cedar in ties. And my dad was a cedar and tie man, pretty much. And they formed an A. C. Johnson Lumber Company and they had little camps all up and down the M & I. And because my dad s work was further north up along the M & I, we decided to move up to Northome. Because Turtle River was getting pretty well hung down then, wasn t much left, you know. JE: Okay, now for the purpose of the tape here, what do you call the M & I? BR: The M & I? JE: Yes. BR: Minnesota International. That s the railroad from Bemidji to International Falls. JE: Right. Okay. BR: Ya. JE: Now that railroad was by who? BR: Well that Minnesota International, that s part of the M.P. system. In fact, Minnesota International only went to Big Falls. And Big Falls to International Falls, called the Big Fork International. That s what commonly known as the, the whole distance but actually it s from Big Falls up, because the Backus interest owned part of that from there up. And, see that railroad went to Northome in 1900 and went to Blackduck in 1902, and Northome, stayed in Northome 5

6 until Then it went to Big Falls, and they didn t cross the river at Big Fall about Then went on to International Falls. JE: Now, Buzz, was this strictly a logging railroad, or did it become a common carrier? BR: Always, it was a common carrier all the time. JE: All the time, okay. Because it ran, several times we run into where the logging operations of railroads were put in and the common carrier probably be for one mile, if it would be that It would be basically, strictly a logging railroad. And northwestern... BR: It was very few of them like that. Even these railroads around Duluth, like the, what we called Alder Line, and the Gut and Liver line out a Deer River, they were all common carriers. Big part of them, it s just the spurs that weren t. But, like the Duluth Northeastern, that was a common carrier, but then the General Logging Company supplied it with the spurs. The General Logging Company happened to have a spur twice as long as the common carrier. But that was unusual. The Alder Line, and even the Brook Scanlon Line, that was a common carrier. JE: Now who were the big operators you mentioned, Burlington and... BR: Well, the Burlington Lumber Company was a big holder then, and all the Bemidji Lumber Company, Crookston Lumber Company, course, became the big operator. Bemidji, they had the big mills there in Bemidji after about 1907 or eight, I think that they built their mills in there. The Bemidji Lumber Company, then the Crookston Lumber Company come in there. Course, you know, all of the early logging, Crookston started their mills out at Crookston. And there was a lot a that stuff up out a Red Lake, driven down the Thief River and across the prairie. And then a course, you know, there was a Walker and Akeley mills at Akeley. And that area in south, west of Itasca Park, that was all Mickel and Chisolm area in there. Course it s a lot at that area in south of Leech Lake, Northland Pine, that was one a the big logging companies. Then the Pine Tree at Little Falls that was a Weyerhaeuser outfit. Then the big Brainerd Lumber Company there was many, many companies in there. JE: Now Weyerhaeuser was something then like Burlington, In other words they were basically timber holders. BR: No, the Weyerhaeuser wasn t. The Burlington it was, they were mostly timber holders. They never had any mills. They were just mostly timber holders. They, there was many big holders of timber. The Burlington interest owned a lot a timber right in that area around Turtle River Lake and Three Island Lake. Then the Ruggles, the Ruggles had an awful lot of it now way around Three Island Lake country. Ruggles owned the big timber, lumbers around that count ry. JE: Now when these timber operations were going on, did they have company camps, or were most of these logs taken out by jobbers or set up a camp and... 6

7 BR: Well, they had jobbers in camps and logged themself. But all the companies had jobbers. Many jobbers. Jobbers and subjobbers. JE: Now, when you, in 1915 you moved up to Northome. When do you start becoming involved? When do you start leaving home? Did you... BR: Well, when we moved to Northome, actually I graduated from high school or eighth grade in Northome that spring. And then my dad was a head woodsman, head guy for the A. C. Johnson Company. And Allenson Mill there at Northome, right south of Northome, and all the kids around town used to go out and work in that mill, though. And I think 1916 and 17 both, I went out there and worked in the mill in the summer. I was still going to school and high school. But then in 1917 the fall I went to work in the woods with my dad in the camps and clerked, and I one compass, and my dad would give me those and run lines. We run lines, and check peacemakers, and done everything that a kid of, son of a logger would do, you know. JE: By the way, was your dad a big man like you? BR: My dad was taller than I am, but he wasn t quite as heavy. JE: Now in 1917, you re out in the woods with your dad then? BR: Oh, ya. JE: Now, when do you start getting into the forestry part of it? BR: Well, the Forestry Department, during 1917 and 1918 the war come along there and like when the war come along the markets of all timber products was froze up and they were logging heavy. And this company of my dad s was operating quite a few camps. And there was lot money being made in popple logs and they d bought up quite a few homesteads from the settlers. I think we had probably fifteen or twenty quarter sections of timber they owned it, about l918 and they started making lot money on this popple with that inflated price. And 1920 had my own camp. It was camp ten up north of Northome. I was out; built the camp in the spring, and I had charge a that camp all summer. I had not too big a crew, men were hard to get and the wages started going up but we got popple, balsam, and spruce, and maul pine logs. But we had the, in the spring of 1920, we had, oh, fifteen or eighteen million of maul logs. We had to operate the sawmill at Mizpah and one up there in spur at Northome, and one at Grand Falls. Well then the next spring we went into it heavier yet. And by 1921, the market just went to hell. And when the market went to hell, you could see that they out on a limb and they were having financial difficulties and at that time they had some connections with the Cloquet companies is what they had. And my dad decided to come to Cloquet. He had an offer to come to Cloquet and work. And he come to Cloquet, worked and he s worked there, went to work at -- including the crew -- fire claims, big 1918 fire claims. Worked on that that summer. I stayed around Northome that, I think we had some contracts to trade some land with the state. Market was getting tough and everything, everyone was getting out of work. It was long in the 7

8 September I had a chance to come to Cloquet to go to work. And I went to work after the big 1922 fire that went from Cotton and burned all that area in north of White Face. And that s the first job I had and went up there to ask if I could see the timber that remained. And see how many camps. So I went in there and we, within a month they was checking the burnt timbers throughout the camps they had to put in. And then I went from there out and helped put together the map on the Aitken County fire map. But then that winter I had the job of checking logs in all the Weyerhaeuser camps a-ok. I made about seventy camps that winter they had camps all over. JE: Before we go on any further there, I want to back up just a little bit. Why were you logging in the spring, and summer, and fall, on this popple? We think of always, you know, the logging camps opera ting, Buzz, basically beginning in... BR: No, we were sawing this stuff. JE: You were sawing it. BR: We had these sawmills then. JE: Okay. BR: We were sawing up that stuff, in these mills and getting rid of the lumber we had. JE: Now when you went, you came down here to Cloquet, you said you wandered through the territory where the fire had gone through and you set up camps. Is that correct? BR: No. We looked over the burnt timber to see where they hadn t logged that winter to salvage the timber. JE: Okay. BR: We made a quick run through all their big holdings. They had an awful lot of timber, the Weyerhaeuser, mine, the Cloquet Lumber Company, and, The Northern Lumber Company, (unclear) Lumber Company, had lots of timber uncut up in that area, and the fire d ran through that. And we had to make a big run through that to see what was burnt, to see which had to be logged that winter to be salvaged. JE: So in other words, these big pine trees oft times probably were not that badly damaged by the fire, but they had to be taken out. BR: Ya, well they were badly, ya, they weren t, they were a few that were killed, but we had to take, had to be logged that winter to, so the worms wouldn t get them. So we, when they set up, as a result of that, they set up camp 115 and J.C. Campbell s camp, Jim O Neal. There was about four, five contractors went in that block, they had to log that block took about forty million out of there that winter. 8

9 JE: Now J.C. Campbell was quite a well known person. Where was that outfit from? BR: Well, you d have to know him, J.C. Campbell. Old man J.C. Campbell was the superintendent of logging from, for the pine Weyerhaeuser interest from about 1908 until But when you talk about the J.C. Campbell that you are thinking about, you re talking about this J.C. Campbell that s about my age. And he had just started up that winter with Campbell and Shiels. The original Campbell boys, there was Bob, Ross, Harry and Jack. Original ones of old J.C. s. And this one we re talking about is young Jack, J.C. And this was in the winter of And Mort Shiels would ve been one of the walking bosses for the other, his dad was getting old and so young Jack took the contract from his dad with Mort Shiels, and they were putting in this. And that was the real start of the J.C. Campbell Company. It was Campbell and Shiels for about three years and then J.C. Then J.C. bought out Mort Shiels and it become the J.C. Campbell Company. JE: Okay. BR: But that, a lot a people don t go back as far as the original J.C. s. JE: Original J.C., ya. BR: And the original J.C. Campbell was the old, was the one that built the first railroad that cone down from Island Lake in the 98. They don t go back that far as a rule. JE: Island Lake, that s up Northome country. BR: No, this Island Lake up here. JE: Oh, Island Lake here. I m thinking of Pine Island. Excuse me. Now, when you went through this burned over territory, Buzz, what did it really look like? I mean, was it devastated? Were the green, all the green needles gone, or... BR: Well, you know, how to where pine is, the pine crown through there, and you know there was a little story of balsam that was crowned in many places through there and a lot of it was dead. A lot of places it went through slower. But we, they cut everything that was, that the fire mutilated. Course, it just took a few years before we cut all that in there. And three, four years afterwards it had everything along the White Face River there. It was the spring of 1922, we had between the White Face reservoir is now and 62 and 6515 and the White Face (unclear) it was about forty million of logs lying in that river spring. Was that one winter, there was many jobbers, pea bodies in there too. JE: Where does that river flow into? BR: Flows into the St. Louis. 9

10 JE: Into St. Louis. So that would come down... BR: Cloquet. JE: Cloquet area. BR: Ya. And, as I say, after I left that, after we did that we come back and it was about the first year I went to work for, it was a long story there. It s, right at that time Bill Kennedy was put in as vice president of the mine Weyerhaeuser interest and it was a little bit of a change over everything. And one of the reasons that I was given the job of inspecting logs was that there was a big percentage of lumber in their yards that was poor grade lumber. And of course in order to cut the logs proper, to get the proper lumber in your yard you had to cut the logs the proper lengths. And a course you know, white pine was cut sixteen feet as much as possible, and Norway was cut for the stuff. And there was a lot of times in the camp that the camp foreman was careless and they d cut a lot of Norway into sixteen foot, or twelve foot logs and stuff and we had to work out the percentage that was cut in the camps. So we had to check them out pretty heavy. But they had seventy camps, that is their own camps and jobbers that winter, winter of 1922 and 23. That was one of the biggest logging years. JE: 1922 and 23. BR: Ya. The later years. JE: Was that around here? BR: Ya, that s right in north here. And, a course those two other side lines and between there, in the meantime I worked in Pine Island one month. I went up in the spring, that spring, I went up three weeks, went up to Pine Island. The Weyerhaeuser put money into Pine Island you know. We took the timber off a Pine Island and Williams, out at Pine Island. And I went up with their man and looked at the Pine Island. We spend three weeks in there, before Williams went in there with the railroad. And Weyerhaeuser s put their money in there. And I went up with that cruising gang and looked it over. It was four of us went in there. That was just in about April, just about this time a the year in JE: Then you went from there, you worked up in that territory for about three weeks? BR: Ya. Well, I was up there for about three weeks. Then I was back oh, then I come back and then it was another long story there. First, you know the Weyerhaeuser s were sued for several million dollars in the fire claims. And, had charge of the fire claims then. Was given the assignment of looking after some, a lot of their jobbers. And another assignment he had was to set up fire protection organization for some of their operations. Well the Whales Forest Protective Association has been up east of Iron Range tracks, where several companies contributed there on the breaker basis. And, so the Weyerhaeuser s thought that they had to improve their fire protection, so my dad set up a fire protect ion organization for them. And, I 10

11 was put in charge, under my dad, of the, actually the running of the Cloquet Fire Patrol Association. That was headquartered right at the Cloquet Valley Ranger Station. And, that operated from spring of 1923, until JE: Do you know off hand, Buzz, if the law was still on the books that you had to burn your slashings? BR: Oh, yes. JE: So, in other words, there were great possibilities of fire, like the Chisholm fire, and the Virginia fire and the Chisholm fire again and there were all kinds of fires around. Now, when you get into that fire that came through Cloquet area, why did they blame the Weyerhaeuser s? Was that actually blamed on one of their trains that were hauling? BR: Well, that was in 1918 fire. You see when they come sue somebody, they had to sue somebody that had money, and they couldn t sue somebody that didn t have any money. So they was sued, the Weyerhaeuser s were sued. And that fire of the Aitken County that was a result of some slash burnings that had been done by the Pine Tree Lumber Company over around north of McGregor. And, then there was another big suit of, supposed to have started from one at their camp six up here west of Taft. It burnt this area north of Duluth. And that s one their big suits. They had several big suits. And finally they, those things were finally settled. They hooked everything on the government. See the government finally could, the government would operate the railroads and they claimed that there were many, many fires, and a course they all run together. But they finally decided that most of the fires come from the railroads so the government was the one that got hooked on that. Finally, must have cost the Weyerhaeuser s millions of dollars to protect them. And as a result of that, these had more of a, when they improved their fire protection, then not only for the, to stop the fires, but to protect themselves from suits. And that was one of the reasons we set up the Fire Patrol Association. As I say, we had, when we set up the Fire Patrol Association, we had in charge of all the fire protection of all the lumberjacks, in 1923 until JE: So you were actually working for Weyerhaeuser at that time? BR: I was working in a way that is hard to explain the whole thing, because it was a, the money was paid into the state. JE: So then you were a state man? BR: Well, I was a state man and, most at that time, ya. Now, there was a combination of funds there that you couldn t, no use to talk about that on that, because they d never understand it anyhow. But, you had to have your authority from the state, see? JE: Uh, huh. 11

12 BR: In order to have your, but we had up to thirty men working. Wherever they had the locomotive working, wherever there was a crew working, we put men in. We had the authority to, if we thought there was a fire danger, we ordered a foreman, put men on fire patrol. Or we ordered men with railroad motor cars that go and watch the locomotives for sparks and all that stuff. JE: Now did they cut fire trails? BR: no, they didn t cut any fire trails. We just watched where they were operating to see that there were no fires started. And we fought fires when they did start. And a course there was a lot a fires that wasn t started by the operation. Some of them were started by fishermen and everything else. We had a lot of bad fires. We had bad fires in 23; right the spring of 23, we had one fire that burned over a whole five townships. And there were all kinds of fires every year. But, we give it a very close protection between the Whales Forest Protection Association and then there was several more. There was the - Galvin Forest Protective Association started up on the Galvin Line and that was financed by the Backus interest. And there was wherever there was company s operating, they started up these fire protect ion organizations. And besides the fire protection organizations, we also had charge of their slash disposal. And we, in the spring of the year sometimes we had as high as four, five hundred men burning brush. That comes out of our organization. (Unclear) operate a spur, like a spur going into Twin Lakes. Going all the way to Twin Lakes that summer and there d be locomotives pulling out of there with loaded logs. And went in along that spur, burned all the slashing within two, three hundred feet of that railroad in the spring of the year. Had big crews so they get fire protection strip there. They had all kinds of things like that. Well then the, about 1929, the Weyerhaeuser s completed their logging operations in that Cloquet Valley area and they pulled out. And when they pulled out they gave you lump sum to the state again, so that the state would have money to keep somewhere near the protection that the company had been giving the area. And a course, I remained with the state from that time on. JE: Now, Buzz that would be about the same year then that the operations up in Virginia ended also, BR: Ya, they ended in 1929, too. JE: So it was 1929 then, one could say would probably be the end. BR: Ya, that was the end. JE: Of the big operations. BR: Ya, that was the big mill in Cloquet quit in 29 and the Virginia Rainy Lake Mill quit in 29. JE: So that was the end of the big logging operations in the state of Minnesota. 12

13 BR: Ya, that s right. JE: Of what one could call virgin pine. BR: Ya. The big virgin pine stand. Course, see, General Logging Company built that spur from the end of Hornby north clear up to Lake, and they started that logging operation up there. And they logged two years up there. But it wasn t successful. The timber was such poor quality that they quit and in 1940 they pulled that steel up there. JE: About 1904, 1905, 1906, was probably the biggest years for the city of Duluth in as far as... BR: Ya, that s what we figure, ya. JE: Logs coming in. BR: Either one of them years. JE: Now were you involved in any way, basically, down here at all? BR: No, no, I wasn t in Duluth much before , I started coming to Duluth. JE: Now, when you come down the Cloquet River, where did they have their boom? Where did all these big sawmills have their boon? Was there a large area of water there where they could put their boom into? BR: Well, right above the mills at Cloquet. The big Northern Mill, and Johnson Mill was there and the Cloquet Mill were all right along just where Cloquet is now but the booms were up river from there. JE: Now, they sluiced into those booms. BR: Ya, well they had sorting pockets there for sluice stuff that was going down to the Johnson Mill went down that way and stuff going into Northern Mill went that way. JE: So they had quite a bit of pine after Duluth peaked, 1904, 1905, The Cloquet area was still... BR: Oh, ya. JE: Going quite strong, then wasn t it? BR: Oh, yes. When I was in Cloquet in the 23, then the mills were going strong then, they (unclear) up. It was 1927, when the mills started to, they finished this big block up here. That s, excuse me, 27 is when that operation started up in Cook County, they started building that steel up there pulled up there. But they were the big years, they going strong. 13

14 JE: Now, did this, like the city of Duluth, did the Cloquet area Buzz, ship out to a place like Tanawana in New York? BR: Ya, well Tanawana, course, was the big market in New York with a lot of the boats, shipments went off. But, I think, after 1920 I think much of the shipping of lumber out of Cloquet went by rail. Probably to Chicago and that way. JE: Hines operation down there. BR: Ya. Well, it went by rail. I don t think it was much stuff that went down. Way little. See, prior to that, all the stuff went by boats, always took to cone down off the range from Virginia, Tower, Ely, Winton, Skibough (unclear). About all that stuff to come in you know by boat? Most of it. JE: Now, did you see any big rafts of logs? BR: No, I ve, they had a few. Rafts of logs? JE: Uh, huh. BR: Well, never seen many big rafts of logs in Duluth. There s just a few here. But I seen lots of big rafts of logs over in Bemidji. Bemidji Lake was solid every spring. See that, they was solid full of logs every spring from right where Nymore is, right Birch Long Beach Hotel. I ve run clear across the Bemidji Lake on logs from where Paul Bunyan statue is, right across to the mouth of the Mississippi. JE: Is that right. BR: I d run right across there on logs several times. It was always solid logs. All that stuff coming down from Kelliher, and Tenstrike, (unclear), and Blackduck and up there. Was dumped in Bemidji Lake. All them Crookston operations. JE: Now, did you say Kelliher was dumped into Bemidji Lake, too? BR: Oh, sure. Kelliher was one of the seats of the big operations of Crookston. Crookston had many spurs out of Kelliher. They had spurs that went way up over towards Mizpah, all that country in around Crook s spur, and between Northome and Mizpah that was all Crookston stuff. That was our last operation in there. That pine stood some of the latest pine they logged. And they even had dispatches there at Kelliher for their own railroad. JE: Now, let s see, Kelliher and Mizpah are located in the eastern part of Beltrami, aren t they? BR: Well, Mizpah is in Koochiching County. 14

15 JE: Koochiching. BR: And so is Northome. Kelliher is in Beltrami. JE: Ya. There we go. BR: Ya. JE: Nizpah would be in the southwestern part of Koochiching. BR: Ya, well, Northome is right in the corner, you might say. JE: Ya. BR: Runs over there in Bridget (unclear), township there, just west of Northome is the last in the corner of that county. You come down on the M & I Railroad, you see Orth is in, then there s, right there s the corner. Orth is in Itasca County and you go about a mile further you get Haupt is in Beitrami County, and Funkley. They re right three towns right, three miles, just three different counties. JE: Now, when you come into Cloquet, did you ever run into the fellow by the name of BR: O Meara. JE: O Meara. Right. BR: Walter O Meara. Ya, well I know Walter O Meara. But I ll tell you how I know about Walter O Meara You see, Walter O Meara clerked up for Ed Netzer, up at Lake. Now I knew Ed Netzer very well. Ed Netzer was one that run camp 115. He was a walking boss on the river in 1923 and 24. Now, Mrs. Daley, old Jack Daley, Mrs. Daley, Daley was camp foreman for the Cloquet companies. And in later years there they watched Shiels, the headquarters of Shiels, where they totaled out there for many years and they watched that camp they took care of the supplies and stuff. And, well then when we started the Fire Patrol Association, we hired Mr. Daley to work for us in the fire patrol. And Walter had clerk down there, I think about 1915 or 16, maybe 17 for Netzer, we used to talk about him a lot. But we come up to visit Mrs. Daley, cause he knew Mrs. Daley from when he clerked. And Mrs. Daley s brother or son-in-law was Jim McLaughlin, and Walter O Meara were good friends. So, he come up there to visit Mrs. Daley, and that s the time I met Walter O Meara. But I knew his dad. I knew the old man quite well. His old man was a scaler. He was still scaling in the woods that winter. When I was here I met the old man several times. But that was the only time I ever met Walter was when he come up to visit Mrs. Daley that day that he cone up from to visit. He come to visit Jim McLaughlin when, I guess he come with Jim McLaughlin. They come over to visit Mrs. Daley, and a course I was there. That s how I met Walter O Meara. Although, another way I knew him real well is this Ed Keto that he talked about in his last book that he wrote, We Made It Through The Winter. See, Ed Keto was a scaler in the woods and a very good friend of mine. Well, they had a hunting 15

16 camp right near my ranger station for years. In fact, he used to keep his four wheel jeep, well it was a jeep, e used to call it some kind of a homemade tractor it was. Kept that right in my ranger station all the time. He used to go up to Jack with it, and he talked about playing with him. But I know all them guys. JE: So you were down here that time when, well you fellows must be all about the same age, then? BR: Ya, well, Walter O Meara is about eighty years old. He was clerking about 1917, I think. Or maybe 16 because Mrs. Daley always talked about him all the time. Then when he come back to visit her (unclear) very enthused she took me over there and we had homemade pie there and always had, over at (unclear) we talked about. And, but I knew his dad real well. See, I knew all them scalers, they had out about, see I worked that winter that I was inspecting logs, I was on the payroll of old Susan. And Susan was the head scaler. Susan worked for the St. Louis River Mercantile Company. The Mercantile Company scaled all the logs for all these combined interests. See, there was another thing they couldn t understand there would be that all this, the camps were supplied by St. Louis River Mercantile Comp any supplied all the lumber camps. And the St. Louis Mercantile Company scaled all the logs in all the camps, furnished all the scalers. They had out forty, fifty scalers. And there d be a check scaler for every six or seven skidders, they d have a check scaler. That was a big business in those scales. And so I knew all of them. JE: Now, what do you call a check scaler? Checking on the other scalers, huh? BR: Check the other scalers. They d come around about every, oh, every ten days of every other week. And he checked the scale. Generally and they checked two hundred logs two hundred logs. See, all the logs were numbered, and all the skidders had to number all their logs. And then it went in the book, and all the numbers. Put a number on every log they scaled. And the check scaler come along and he d pick out two hundred logs, odd and end numbers -- 10,031, 10, and he scaled that log. And that night he went into the office, he took the scaler and he took the scalers books and see what the scaler had on those logs. And they compared two hundred logs to see how close the scaler was, was about right. It s just like this a check on, see? A lot of these scalers were new, and sometimes they were getting a little bit off... JE: There s a trick to scaling, though, isn t there? You re not always talking about exact round logs, or their curves in these logs, or... BR: Well, they, ya, they had to scale the logs. They, a course, the Weyerhaeuser s scaled every contract you signed. And it said in the contract that you accept the scale the same as the Mercantile Company s. So, you... JE: Must have been a very reputable outfit, then. BR: Well, they bought the Weyerhaeuser s, bought logs for years, you know. 16

17 JE: We re going to begin with Mr. Ryan describing the camp clerk, played a rather important role, usually a younger fellow in a camp. Buzz, you stated that you know some real top notch camp clerks. Could you relate that to us? BR: Ya, a course, you know, in the smaller camps the clerks duties were a little bit different than they were in the big camps. See, in the real big camp, when I say real big camps I mean about two hundred man camps. Generally clerk s job consisted pretty much of staying right in the office. In the smaller camps of fifty, sixty man camps, sometimes they had to go out and do a little woods work, sometimes they d get to ship out timber, and had to check out. (Unclear) to do that and have a few in the camp or station man. Station men, or little stuff like that, little the big camps, (unclear) pretty much a job right in the morning until night. Now, in the winter of 1919 I clerked up camp 10. I got in a funny situation there. We had, we would contractor in to do the hauling the first a the year. And we kept camp, kept the bull cook, and the cook and we fed the men. And we charged the contractor so much for his men s board. I had to keep that all ordered all the supplies and got the mail. I used to go to town every day. We was five and a half miles from town. And we had to keep a (unclear) close to camp. God, we used to go out in the morning about nine o clock and wait till the logging roads, used to slide out four, four horse teams at night on the way to the camp. And we d start then out about five o clock in the morning. About the time we figured they d got to town took about four hours, got to the landing. And we d take the horses out of the barn and every time like, get in there and grab them lines by hand, them horses would run away on me. And they d run miles out of that logging road and if they ever met the loggers, they d run right into them cause they couldn t stop. But it was about four miles they d run out of wind. And then I d get in town, I d pick up mail and do some little extra, somebody wanted you know, something special. And you get back in a couple hours I d be back to camp. But the clerks kept the time, and ordered supplies for the cooks, checked the supplies when they come in to see if you got them, and made out the time and the checks for the men, and then sold the supplies from the wannigan to the men at night, snuff and tobacco, and socks, and whatever they wanted. And he s pretty busy doing that. JE: How big of a supply? Now, they kept the shirts on hand? BR: Well, in some camps they kept shirts and pants. I don t remember back quite a ways. But a lot of the camps they just kept socks and, always have rubbers, footwear. Not so often pants. Sometimes if they wanted to have pants, they d order them. Man would need a pair of pants, they d send down an order, get an order in two three days. But, because they couldn t always keep the sizes, you know, for the men. And, but in some of the camps of a way back, they d had, they kept shirts and underwear, and everything, you know. JE: Getting on the clothing aspect of this here, what kind of pants are you talking? Are you talking about eighteen ounce Malone pants or... BR: Ya, Malone pants, ya. A course, you know, in the really early days they had what they called, over their wool underwear, they had on a polar underwear. Hadn t seen that since about 1910, that went out of the picture. They had an over underwear that went over the underwear and 17

18 under their pants. That used to tie at the around the ankles, had strings on them. And that was mostly worn by teamsters. Teamsters wore that. JE: Well, that came down below the knee? BR: Come right down to the ankles, and it tied around the ankles and it tied around the ankles. Then it was an all wool, like a light wool pants. Today, you know, you got this here padded underwear. But in them days, this was an all wool outer underwear, they called it. This wool would keep your, men who worked in the woods and too warm for them to work with. But the teamsters (unclear) to see more of that outer underwear. JE: Now you re talking... BR: That was generally (unclear) or Malone. (Unclear) was quite popular. And, in them days. JE: Now, did they, did the tote teams haul that snuff in, and basically they, the stuff that was sold in the wannigan, and then that was all tallied up by the clerk, camp clerk and then he sold that out to the men? BR: Ya. Threw it out and put it on the shelf. He always had a tobacco covered with, spearhead and climax, and the horseshoe was probably the main pipe tobaccos they had in camp. And then a course, we always had snuff, and Pearless, and Standard. There d be few smokers, few of them that smoked George Washington or something like that. But then they come in, you know, and you had it on the shelf, there, and they d buy it. And you had day book, always had what they call a day book. Clerk had a day book and they d come in and then wrote it down in the day book. And then after they left (unclear) made their entry into the ledger on each one of their accounts. Each of them had a little bit different system. The Northern Lumber Company had what they called distributional labor sheets, which was a very complicated thing. It went into effect about 19, about the First World War. And that made clerking very complicated. Up till that time, a foreman would come in and it s only men in the camp. Nobody give a damn whether, what the costs were. Costs so much to run the camp. All at once they decided that they wanted to know what part of the camp was coasting them, and what they could do to correct it. So, some of the big companies, especially the Weyerhaeuser s, got out distributional labor, so that when a man come in to the foreman and wanted to know what was charging the railroad, or, the skidding, or the decking or cutting. Was trying to pin the cost down to what phase of the work. JE: Now, you said you knew some pretty top notch camp clerks. BR: Clerks. Oh, ya, well, tell you, the top notched person I knew, Paul Perault, worked for many years for the Backus. And Otto Oddison, he was a crackerjack. They both come over after they left Backus and clerked for the Northern. And, Bobby Grattin, worked for the Cloquet for years. Tommy Lightfoot, Emil Peterson, Louis McDonald I remember some of the top notches. JE: Now when you mentioned Lightfoot, are you talking about an Indian person? 18

19 BR: No, no. He s not one of them. He s an Englishman. JE: He was an Englishman. BR: Ya, hundred percent English. And he had a little cockney talk to him, ya. Little water clerks, they re all had clerks, every year. They had seventy camps and had seventy clerks. But, these fellows clerked every years. Like Bobby Grattin clerked every year for Northern Lumber Company. And Emil Peterson clerked for many years. Scott Erickson, he clerked for many years. In later years he clerked for J.C. Campbell. And the fellows that followed that clerking, Dog Face Johnny McGuire, he clerked many, he still claiming today, he clerked in the Northern Lumber Company camps every year. JE: Who in the world is Dog Face Johnny McGuire? BR: Oh, they all, oh, we used to call him Dog Face Johnny. His real name was Johnny McGuire. We called him Dog Face Johnny. He had all this, he was known as Dog Face Johnny. All these nicknames, I have an example you know, like... JE: Did he look like a dog, or what? BR: Oh, no. But he just, we just called him Dog Face Johnny. JE: So all these nicknames that they happen to pick up. BR: Oh, ya. Like (unclear), and coffee (unclear).but, they were the best, some of the best clerks that I knew. But this Otto Oddison him an account. He clerked for Backus for many years. He was down at Round Lake; he was always at camp 53. And McKee was out there at camp 53 for many years, too. But, when Tom Welsh was working for Backus, was the logging superintendent, when they let him out them fellows had kind of a shake up there and they d come up here and work for the Cloquet. You d find these fellows, you know, fellows that clerked, you didn t know where you got so many old clerks sometimes you go to a camp and you be surprised to find them unbelievably clerking in a camp. Ed Bodie used to for years with the Oliver, in their camps. JE: What was the trick to clerking? Was there a trick to clerking? BR: Well, some of them trick to clerking much. Just have to keep your books up, but get along with the foreman, you know. Foreman kind of, especially when they got this distributional labor. The foreman sometimes resented that because he wanted to know what the clerk was changing the time to. And then sometimes that distributional labor fell on the clerk more than on the foreman. See, the foreman didn t care so much, the old time foreman. And they d go up and, but they, it was mostly keeping the time and having the books up, have the stuff ordered, and have the supplies ordered and checked in, there wasn t a shortage of supplies. But then the cook was, used to turn his orders into the clerk to write up the orders to send in for supplies. 19

20 JE: Was the camp clerk, in any way, Buzz, involved in keeping the records of the scaler? BR: Oh, no. No. Not at all. Nothing to do with that at all. JE: That was strictly a different operation. Okay. Now, you stayed oft times in the same building as the camp foreman, or what was called... BR: Ya, in the office, ya. JE: The camp push. BR: Ya, the ordinary office of these big camps, like the one of the Cloquet camp, camp 115, 118, 127, 119, 120 or (unclear). Those offices would consist of generally a bunks in the office for eight people to sleep. They generally set up two double bunks. See, four men in a double bunk on each side of the building. That s generally what they had in the office. You could sleep, and generally what slept in there would be the clerk, and the foreman, and the scaler, and maybe... JE: Walking boss, perhaps? BR: No, the walking boss, when he come there, he didn t always stay at the camp. And a cruiser or someone running lines in the camp. Or some inspector, like I talked about myself as a logging inspector, or the camp auditor. When auditors come around, audit the clerk too. John Oh, is that right? We had traveling auditors. Now for the Backus outfit they had Gus Broman was the camp auditor for years. Audit the clerks, he come around and audit the clerks for their cash. They took in some cash, you know. Some men would buy a (unclear) of tobacco and pay cash. Wouldn t always charge, you know. And they audited the books, traveling auditors. Johnson was a traveling auditor for the Virginia Rainy Lake for years. JE: Now, what size of a building are we talking about when you talk about that... BR: When you come in through the front door, you know on one side of the front door would be the cage where the clerk was in. You had that caged off, you know. That was always caged off and blocked. Because the clerk didn t allow the foreman and stuff to go in there. The cage was locked so the foreman and scaler and stuff couldn t have access to go in there and take tobacco and He was responsible for that and that was generally locked. JE: What amazes me, in other words what you re saying, Buzz, is that camp clerk really, in a sense, he was completely, totally responsible for what was in that wannigan. BR: The wannigan, ya. He was responsible for the wannigan, ya. JE: And he didn t even, you know, one would think that he had had probably close working relationship with the boss, but yet he wouldn t even allow the boss... 20