I believe that about the time that I was working on the road on the Rim my father was working on the trail that they built from the water’s edge up to the top of Wizard Island (2). In those days, the trail down to the water took off at about the lodge, maybe between the Sinnott Memorial and the lodge proper. That trail was a mile long and those fellows walked down to the water, rode a launch over to the island, and worked on the trail until about 4 o’clock. Then they would come back down, get on the launch, come back, and walk up that mile back to the lodge. So they were really putting in a good day’s work, too. As I’m trying to recount the happenings and events that took place during my employment there, it dawns on me that was 60 years ago. Only the highlights of the things that we did stick out in my mind.
Which CCC camps did you work in at the park? What jobs were you assigned to during this time?
The only one of the superintendents that I can really remember was El Solinsky. He was a very well-thought-of man. All of us really liked El. At a later date, when he got in trouble, we didn’t think it was all his fault. He [Solinsky] was instrumental in directing some of the work with the CCC camps. When I showed up there in the camp, El was lining out who was to do what. When he saw me, he immediately tabbed me for the driver on the supply truck that hauled the supplies from Medford to Wineglass camp at Lost Creek, and the Headquarters Camp (3). So there was a lot of work that the CCC fellows did that I wasn’t involved in.
The only thing that really comes to mind was the bug [insect control] work. We were doing a lot of the eradication of the pine beetle in the lodge pole pines. I remember particularly one of the fellows from Illinois. A tree that they were falling had a leaner in it and he ran the wrong way when the tree started to fall. This leaning tree fell on him and broke his pelvis. So we carried him out of the woods to my truck, put him on the truck bed, took him back down to the camp, and put a folding army cot up on the truck bed. We phoned to Medford for an ambulance to come and get him. I brought him down [to] the East Entrance and across the cutoff road by Wood River up to the Fort Klamath road (4). I met the ambulance at about where Cold Springs camp is (5). We transferred him to the ambulance and then we went on back to camp.
