While I was in the three C’s, I met a girl up there that came in here from California. She was a pretty nice-looking blond, blue-eyed gal, so we finally got married. I went over to Hilt, California for the Fruit Growers and I was in a saw mill there up until ’41. In the spring of ’42, right after the war broke out, I went into the construction business for the government and built army camps, airports, roads and whatever else.
After we went into the three C’s, we wound up in Company 1555 at Annie Springs.
How did they assign you there?
After I had gone down to Medford to sign up, they were using the Jackson County fairgrounds as their headquarters. I don’t know how I got sent to there, but that’s where they sent me.
Your brother was sent there too?
Later. He came in behind me, and I don’t know whether he asked to get up there. I don’t remember that part. But he and a brother of one of the guys that I went in with came to Annie Springs. We had a lot of activity up there, working and doing all kinds of things.
Was that the first time you ever saw Crater Lake?
Yes, that was the first time I’d seen Crater Lake. It was in the early spring, March or April. There was a lot of snow on the ground and we were just starting to build a new camp at Annie Springs when I got there. We had to dig out snow banks to set our tents and get things situated around so we could build a new camp. After we got that built, we started out on cleaning up along the roads, cutting a lot of snags and things that they quit doing later on.
Did you mostly work on the road to the rim, or was it out on Highway 62?
No, we worked on 62 down to the park boundary from the south side. Then, over this way, on 62 down to, I guess we ran clear down to the boundary. They did a lot of bank sloping, cleaning up and burning along the roads, and getting rid of a lot of the old snags and downed timber and all that sort of thing. [We did] cleaning up in general.
Had they just finished rerouting the road, so they had to do a lot of that?
We didn’t get in on any road rerouting because it was all there then (2). Later on, the only part that I know of that they rerouted was that piece there from the top of the rim down into Annie Springs when they cut that new road. But I don’t know when they did that because that wasn’t there when [I was there.] It’s a little different in there now than what it was when we went in there to set up that camp. They moved the gate, the South Gate (3).
We had some forest fires that we worked on when we were there in the camp. We had a little one in the park down somewhere in that country towards Union Peak. I don’t know where that [boundary] line crosses down there, but we were still in the park.
Did you get any kind of orientation when you first got to the camp? Did they introduce what the CCC’s were to a lot of people and talk about who was going to do what?
I don’t remember that part of it. If they did, it didn’t sink in because I don’t remember any of that. They must have had some instructions of some kind, but I don’t recall any. Anyway, one of our jobs was working along the roads, as I think I have already said. We felled some big trees down there. I mean, some big sugar pines. I’ll bet some of those trees much have been 5-6 foot through on the stump. I have some pictures somewhere. But they were great, big snags. They were snags, but they were sugar pines. I’m sure that unless somebody hauled them out of there that the center, the heart of those things, is still laying there. But I am sure they’ve been gone a long time now.
