Did you stay in contact with Sparrow after he resigned from the Park Service and moved here to Jacksonville?
No.
He told me about going out to see his horses at the fair. (Dorland Offenbacher)
His cows. I told him [Steve Mark] about that. Sparrow was in town and said he was going to go out and see our stock. No, I’ve got to go back to camp. He said, “By God, if you don’t go out to see them stock, I’m going to fire you.” So I took him at his word and I stayed over a day and went out to the fair. (AH)
Did either one of you know any of the other Superintendents? I know a couple of them retired around this area, but did you run into any of the other ones?
I don’t know what ever happened to Thomson. I guess he went back east. (OH)
He went to Yosemite and died of a heart attach in ’37. Solinsky followed him.
Sparrow was there on the ranch or something. I couldn’t tell you for sure just what happened to them. (OH)
Did either one of you do any trail work while you were there?
I know Sparrow had a couple of trails built when he was superintendent.
Well, about all we ever did was clean them off, what trails were there, like down at the water and up Garfield Peak. I think I worked up there one day. Most of what you did was throw loose rock off, you know, so people wouldn’t trip. That’s about all we’d get on the trails. And that’s after snow. Of course, on Garfield, that was about the longest trail up there that I remember. (AH)
You never went out to Union Peak?
No, no, mostly it was all just clearing up trees that had fallen over in the road in the wintertime and stuff like that. Getting the rock out of the road, cleaning the road surfaces off, banks would crumble down from the heavy snow and stuff. We’d have to clean the shoulders off and stuff like that. That was mostly all hand work in those days. They don’t do that any more. They got machinery for everything now. (AH)
