I don’t remember anyone from the Prospect area who was working in the park service at the time that I was except my father, C.F. Arant. It was temporary work. There were very few people that had permanent jobs. Some of the ranger force were full-time men. One of the temporary rangers that came from the Prospect area was Clarence Gray, and he served as a temporary ranger in the park service at Crater Lake and also in Lava Beds National Monument. I was not real well acquainted with very many of the rangers. One of the fellows that I knew was Bernie Hughes, and I believe that he was a pro football player with either the Detroit Lions or the Chicago Bears. I can’t remember which one of those teams he was with. There was Ferdie Hubbard, and others that come to mind were Bill Montgomery and John Day. John Day’s brother Ben worked there also, but they were from the Medford area.
What were your major projects in 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, and 1932?
The summer of 1928 I was employed building road right on the Rim from where the cafeteria is now down to the lodge. We were grading and making road bed and making a fill at the south entrance of the lodge. We were using four mule teams and Fresno scrapers. For a while, I drove one of those teams of four mules. It was really hard work for a kid.
One of the jobs that I worked on in those early days was the road between the north edge of the lake at about Cleetwood or in that area. It was a just a single-track road out through the Pummy [Pumice] Desert to the North Entrance. My job was helping the powder monkey blow out the stumps where they were taking some of the curves out of the road (1). I would dig the holes down around the stump and load the powder into it. We would get anywhere from five to ten of those stumps all ready to go. Then the powder monkey would run down from one direction and I would go down the other direction and we would set these charges all off. We would count them as we went so that we would know if there were any that hung fire. I don’t think we had any that hung. At least I don’t remember having to go back and dig out any of the charges that didn’t go.
