We did some work at the park, government headquarter, on what I guess is the Administration Building. At that time, it was just going up and they had a lot of rock work that was done there around the base. They had the framework, the rafters, up. We came in and helped with the sheeting and the shakes on the roof. We shaked those roofs. They were really steep, to me. I had never worked on anything that steep.
Where did the shakes come from?
I don’t know whether they split their own shakes there or whether they were hauled in there. I didn’t cut any. I don’t remember splitting any. I think they were hauled in because I think they were bundled, as near as I remember. They were bundled shakes, and I don’t know whether they were split or sawed. I have an idea they were probably sawed shakes. They split those things and then they saw them. One side is sawed and the other is still in the rough.
They stained them later?
Yes. They were all stained afterwards. Everything was stained. The rest of the building, which I think had siding on it, but it seemed like it was a shiplap siding, drop siding. Anyway, we helped complete that roof and cleaned up around there. Then we hauled a lot of sod from down at the creek towards Annie Springs (4). We hauled sod and stuff for landscaping around the headquarters. We hauled a lot of stuff out of those bogs for that.
Did you just do the landscaping around the Administration Building or the Ranger Dorm, too?
I don’t remember because I was down on the pit loading trucks, and they’d just haul it up there and dump it off. They had another crew that was doing the landscaping. I don’t even, right now, remember who that was. I know we shoveled a lot sod out of that place down there. I suppose you probably wouldn’t see it now, because it has probably grown up again so much.
We had a fire or two that we got on. There were some big fires out of the park. We went over the Klamath Falls and had some pretty good-sized fires there. Later on, they had a big fire at Prospect, right around the area where Mill Creek Falls is, on the south side of where the water goes down the tubes for the powerhouse. It was quite a lot of area in there. That was a real hot summer, and that summer we had a big fire out at Jacksonville that burned up a lot of country.
They pulled us out of the main camp then and sent us out on spike camps building these log cabins that they called snowshoe [patrol] cabins. We spent the biggest part of our summer out on those. Some of them we built from the ground up and completed them. Some we completed that were partly built. I don’t remember now how many there were. It must have been about four—one at National Creek, one at Bybee Creek, Red Blanket, and one at Maklak Springs. I don’t remember how big those cabins were. They must have been about 16 by 20. They were pretty good-sized little cabins. They were all built out of logs, chinked, and shake-roofed. Everything it takes to make a good, sturdy cabin.
You’d do all the work there on building the cabins? Nothing was hauled in?
I think they hauled the shakes in and whatever lumber went into the cabin. The sides, all the logs in the sides, and the ends, and it seemed to me the roof were hauled in. Were the rafters out of poles or were they sawed 2 by 6’s?
