OCR Text |
Show 179 "the Copper" (Utah Copper then) were treated at an emergency station run by Dr. Frazier, later of Antarctic fame (he accompanied Admiral Byrd). There were two other nurses for the day shift of twelve hours. I was to be the night nurse, also a twelve-hour duty job. The hospital was on three floors, the doctor's office on the first floor, the hospital on the other two. As common with other Bingham Canyon edifices, it was on the steep side of a hill, so that all floors were "ground" floors, that is when you stepped out any rear door you were on the ground. Houses perched all the way up the hills, the Utah Copper was a hill with twelve or fifteen levels then, not a pit in the ground as it is now, a large mound between forks (Carr Fork) in the road about half a block above the hospital. Trains rumbled across the canyon on trestles, the machine shop clanged overhead, and three times a day the whole mountain shook under the impact of blasting. A cable car transported people up the side of the mountain to and from work, and a thick pall of smoke hung over the town. Below the fork in the road the town bordered on both sides one long, narrow street which curved back and forth like a snake's back, and followed the copper-colored stream down the canyon. The Bingham Merc sat across Carr Fork, and to it men assigned their checks, drew against them ahead of time, so that few men ever saw the cash for which they had worked. I soon learned that we had a Red Light District up past Carr Fork, and when I protested, Dr. Richards said: "If we didn't have, you wouldn't |