Oral history interview with Briant Stringham by Mike Brown [2] [Transcript]

Oral history interview by Mike Brown with Briant Stringham. Topics inlcude: The Echo Park Dam controversy; Water rights; Moab, Utah; Working with the assistant to the Interior Secretary; USe of a stenoype in the courthouse; Dinosaur National Monument expansion; Traveling back and forth to Washinton, D.C. to get support for Echo Park Dam; Echo Park Dam proposal passing in the Senate but not passing in the House of Representatives; Going up against big money and environmentalists; Eventual approval for Flaming Gorge Dam and the celebrations that followed in Vernal; Serving on boards and acting as chairman for multiple organizations; Fundraising efforts; Hiring lobbyists; Many local people paying for their own travel expenses; Receiving donations; Hiring the best advertising agency; Other benefits that the Flaming Gorge project provided Vernal such as Steinaker Dam, Red Fleet Reservoir, a valley-wide water system and drainage for soggey land; Ernest Untermann speaking at committee meetings; Bry's cousin, Clare Westover being the first white baby born in Vernal area; Death of an aunt in childbirth and Bry's parents traveling from Antelope Island to Vernal and adopting the infant; Bry's mother nursing the new baby and her own child; Bry's father's decision to claim a homestead near Ashley creek and building a house of bricks that he made himself; What Bry was doing at the end of World War I and World War II; Being to skinny to pass the physical exam to enter the military; and not being affceted by the 1918-1919 Influenza epidemic.

Tape #19 Briant Stringham on Echo Park Dam This is an interview with Mr. Bry Stringham at the house of the Stringham residence, 209 East 100 North, Vernal, Utah, on this 22nd day of November, 1978. My name is Mike Brown of the Golden Age Center, Vernal, Utah. The subject of this interview is the Echo Park Dam. Brown: Tell me, Bry, what was your involvement with Echo Park? Bry: Well, my first involvement with Echo Park was back in the early '30s when we were having difficulty with Moab. They wanted to build a Dewey Dam instead of the Echo Park Dam. This was preliminary to anything else we had in mind as to division of water or what we'd do with the water. But anyhow, the two communities were in a battle. We wanted Echo Park Dam, they wanted Dewey Dam. We fought back and forth for several years, and finally they decided, “Well, if we build Dewey Dam,” these people down in Moab decided this, “then we've got to move the railroad out of the canyon.” That ended the controversy there. So that left us free for Echo Park Dam. After that came along in 1936, came the Interior Department headed by David Madsen, who was then a Utah man and he was assistant to the Interior Secretary. They held a meeting here in Vernal, June 1 1, 1936; he did, not they, the Secretary of the Interior, rather. It was quite a big meeting in a courthouse here with reference to the Echo Park Dam area. The Interior Department wanted to expand that from eighty acres to 12,000 acres. So, we were quite concerned, especially stockmen and so on, that it would take away some grazing area. Brown: Was this “Expand the Monument’? Bry: Yeah, from eighty acres to 12,000. Well, we met here in the courthouse as I told you, and a beautiful girl took down the stenotype—first time I ever saw a stenotype. You know, she just sat there and the men were all bugs about her and she was quite a popular girl, a girl from Washington, D.C. I'll tell you later what happened to that. Well, we went from here to Craig, Colorado, the next day. Now on June 13, 1936, we held a similar meeting in Craig, Colorado, because they were concerned, too. See, that's quite close to them. Well, I want to keep this in sequence if I can. We were quite happy about that because they promised us in both meetings, this David Madsen who was a Utah man, “If you'll let us enlarge this from eighty acres to 12,000, we'll guarantee you one thing: you can build your Echo Park Dam.” He was emphatic about that. Here sit this girl, this stenotype, taking it all down so we would have it documented. Time went on, and we decided we'd better get after Echo Park Dam. The first Secretary of the Interior that we met with, a great big fellow. Cheney and I and Hugh Colton drove from here to Glenwood Springs in a snowstorm—a bad snowstorm, it snowed on us all the way, to meet the crew. We had quite a time getting Ott into it. He was so busy and short of time, so finally we got to him. We said, “We've come to talk to you about Echo Park Dam, building Echo Park Dam.” He said, “You can't build Echo Park Dam in Dinosaur National Monument. You can't build UINTAH COUNTY LIPRARY REGIONAL HISTORY ROOM 155 EAST MAIN . VERNAL, UTAH 84078 Page 1 of 15 anything in monuments.” I said, “Well, you promised us we could if we’d vote for the enlargement of the monument.” “Makes no difference. Different time, different people, so you just as well not even try.” Well, that made us feel pretty badly. We came back home and went to work on it anyway. Now, we’ll jump from there when we went into Washington, D.C., to try to put it over. Well, we worked on the Senate, now we’re clear back to 1955. We worked on the Senate and we got it passed in the Senate in 1955. When we got to the House, after fighting the environmentalists, and we had ‘em then just as well as now, but not as numerous, we were defeated. That makes a long story short. We were defeated. We, at one time, took seventy people from Utah all in a group. Most of ‘em paid their own way in and we went to every house in Congress. Now what I’m trying to say, we went to every office of the House members. We divided up, when we were in Washington, D.C., in pairs. Two. I remember Hugh Colton and I took California, we were assigned to California, we had thirty-two different representatives to see. There’s more now, of course. We went in with our material, we met with the congressman himself or his executive secretary and said, “We're here. We’re here and come a long ways and we’ve been promised all this and we want Echo Park Dam.” Well, as a result, we lost. We couldn’t put it through the House with Echo Park Dam in. So, we came back home rather disappointed, but decided we'd try again some other way. So we went back in 1956 and that’s when we took as an alternate, Flaming Gorge. They seemed to be favorable if we could get outside of the Monument. We spent months and months in there lobbying to get the thing all ready for the voting. Well, Gov. Clyde was our leader then. He was head of the Utah Water and Power Board, at that time we called it the Utah Water and Power Board, it’s now called the Resource Board. After many, many months, and a lot of us spent months back there, Siddoway, Hugh Colton, finally the time came for the vote in April of '56. I can't tell you the exact date now, it was about the 11th or 12th. As the vote went along, we called the vote, called the vote, you could feel the swell toward our side and finally it passed by quite a majority for Flaming Gorge Dam. We came home gleefully and we were met here at the airport, Sid and I and Hugh, and there was a great parade down Main Street and flying overhead and it was quite a celebration. Brown: Were there several trips back to Washington for like the sub-committee hearings, you know? I’ve been doing some reading lately, like I read a little bit of your testimony before the House or the Senate sub-committees. Bry: Yeah, Senate, the House. We met with both of them, but usually the House. Brown: Was there more than one trip back there? Bry: More than one trip? I should say there was! In the two years, ‘55 and ‘56, we made many trips back. Brown: Was there much activity before then, like around ‘50 or ‘51 with the Echo Park Dam? Page 2 of 15 Bry: Yes, it was talked, up particularly in the Utah, starting way back, ahead of that. But no definite trips back there to get Congress to go until we got into ‘55, then we were all set and ready to go. Now, in this Colorado River Storage Project, we would shift from that to Flaming Gorge. We were talking about the Colorado River Storage Project, then we had Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. We all went in together. We all went in for Echo Park Dam together, too, and not very strong. But when we got to this other one, when we saw we had a real problem, we had an organization that included the four states outside the Approbation Commission. The Approbation Commission, now you understand, represented all four states. And we organized what we called a grassroots committee. That was the public’s committee. We were very proud of the committee, too, because we represented the people down at the grassroots. We met quite often, and we met in the Spokane, Washington. That's our first meeting. That first meeting, Sid and I went up to that meeting. The Approbation Commission met there. Brown: Was that Ralph Siddoway? Bry: No, Lawrence Siddoway. Simmered along and we hadn’t done anything as a group of states and so Sid and I talked it over. We said, “All the states are represented here now with their commissions and their assistants.” And we said, “Now, why don’t we see if we can’t get them together.” This delayed people some. So we called a meeting and I hope you won't record this. This is the way it happened: we went to the meeting. He and I were enthused about it, so we sat down and said, “Now, we’ve got to have a chairman. I move that I be chairman, all in favor say ‘aye,’ opposed ‘no.’ I’m your chairman, now let's go ahead.” Brown: (Laugh) Well, sometimes you have to. Bry: Sometimes you have to do that. Anyhow, we talked the matter over some time and finally Bud, of Wyoming, one of the representatives of the commission said, ““Wyoming’s gonna pledge $10,000 to start this thing off.” Every other state there said, “We'll pledge $10,000 as a group.” Meaning we'd all work for it. We came back down, Sid and I, from Spokane and met with Gov. Lee and told him what we’d done and we said we needed $10,000, what do you think about it? And he said, “Well.” He’s quite a conservative governor, you know, as far as finance goes, and he said, “Well, we’ll have to dig it up someway.” Then we said, “Now we’ve got to have a director, we’ve got a leader here.” And he said, “Who would you recommend?” We said, “We’ve already got one spoken for and that’s Gov. Clyde, he was at the convention.” He then represented the seventeen western states and we had talked to him and he had told us, “Now I’ll go for $12,000 a year.” We told Brack Lee that, and he said, “Heavens, I only get $6000, but,” he said, “I’1l consider that.” And he finally consented to hiring him at double his wages. Lee did. Well, I left out one item that I should have told you about. Why we had so much difficulty with Echo Park Dam was this: this pretty girl that I was telling you about that took all of this down, when she got back to Washington, D.C. she couldn’t read any of it. So the only documentations we had was the Tribune and the Vernal Express and so on, when this promise was made if you let us enlarge that we'll let you have Echo Park Dam. Page 3 of 15 Brown: So did that kind of leave you guys without a leg to stand on? Bry: How do you mean? Brown: I mean, you weren't able to produce the sufficient documentation. Bry: That handicapped us to beat the band. If we’d had that record, see, it’d been much easier to have done. We had to go way back and dig up the newspapers and get what little we could. Brown: What was the Colorado River Development Association? Bry: Colorado River Development Association? Brown: Were you chairman of that? Bry: I was for a short time, but I wasn’t the main chairman. The main chairman was a young fellow that was millionaire out of Arizona. Brown: What did this organization do? Bry: We canvassed first our own states. We met in Salt Lake City. The Chamber of Commerce from Denver led us at the meeting in Salt Lake City. There, we decided to put on what we called the Aqualantee Drive. Each state was to go out with a badge that we manufactured, sell these badges at a dollar each, $100 for a gold badge and for a blue badge $1. That raised around $90,000 and that was all spent in one blow almost. That's the, what did you say it was? Brown: The Colorado River Development Association. Bry: That was the grass roots organization. Brown: Oh, was that the same organization you were talking about earlier? Bry: Then we had the Twenty-one Counties Committee. Did you ever run into that? Brown: Just vaguely. I’ve seen it in some of the reports. Were you involved with that? Bry: Yes, I was chairman and Sid was secretary of that, including the twenty-one counties that was directly concerned with the Upper Colorado River Project and this Central Utah Project, twelve counties included in that. Brown: Did that cross over into Routt and Moffat county in Colorado? Bry: This was just a Utah organization. The other one you spoke of took in Colorado. But that was organized in Salt Lake City, that Twenty-one Counties Committee, in about ‘52, and we met Page 4 of 15 regulariy. Every month, those twenty-one counties would come. I was chairman and Sid was | secretary. [hat lasted until the year before last. The two of us still held that position, and we still had money in the bank. We still used it protectively. Let me tell you how effective that was. When we come back in ‘55 from Washington, D.C., everybody was the blues. Governor Clyde came through Indianapolis and I came the regular route and we met in the station in Salt Lake City on the way back, happened to meet there, and he said, “Now, what are we going to do? We’ve spent all our money for this grass roots organization. What are we going to do now?” And I said (I’m bragging about myself, I hope it don’t sound that way but it is), I said, “I know what we're going to do. We’ve got the Twenty-one Counties Committee. We’ve gathered up the money right here in Utah.” : So in about, along in August, when we came, it was about time for the county commissions to meet to set the levy. So we said, “That’s awfully close, what in the world do you do?” He said, “T've got to have a rest, I want to rest for a week or so.” I said, “You go rest and we'll get the money someplace.” We formed a committee of four different forums, formed a committee. went four different directions in the state where the commissions were meeting and we visited all twelve counties. We told ‘em what our problem was and we wanted ‘em to put on a tenth of a mil. Every county did but Carbon. We had a good fund. All we used was a twentieth of a mil. Had plenty of money to put the thing over. Evans Advertising, too, we had them go with us. We hired them. One time we wrote them a check for $90,000 in Washington, D.C., and nearly got in trouble with the government for lobbying. Brown: Did most of these funds, did that go to send people to Washington to support lobbying? Bry: Yes. To hire lobbyists. To pay our expenses sometimes going back and forth. A lot of people paid their own. Brown: It seems like taking a large group, what did you say seventy or eighty people, seems like that would be quite costly. Bry: Well, it wasn't too costly because most of 'em paid their own way. Oh, there was quite a group here that went out of Vernal. Paid their own way. Francis, Doc Seager, you’ve heard of him. He couldn’t go, so he said, here’s $200 to pay the expense of other people that could go. Brown: If the dam had gone through, what would it have done for our area? Bry: What would it have done for this area? It would have been right next door to us, in the first place. It would’ve been a much more scenic dam than we have. You have two rivers there, and you'd have that Yampa River Canyon, an attraction which is a wonderful place. It was all planned, that was all planned, set up by the engineers. The road would have cost $1,000,000 from here to the dam. A wide freeway really, it was all set up, that’s how much more it would have meant to us here, from a tourist standpoint. From a water standpoint, no, it would have meant nothing for here, but much more water could have been stored, much more power produced, because it would have been a larger dam. Page 5 of 15 Brown: I was under the impression, somehow, that there would have been Irrigation water. Bry: In Echo Park Dam? Oh, yes, but not for the valley here, you’re talking about locally. Brown: Well, I’m thinking Uintah County. Would there have been water, say, to irrigate other arid areas in our county? Bry: No, there wouldn't be. No way to get it there. There’d have been much more water to distribute downstream to take care of our share. You could have stored much more water there. Brown: Would the dam have affected the stockmen any? Bry: You mean Echo Park Dam? Very little. Very little. Some, but very little. Brown: How would it? I’m just trying to imagine what kind of impact it would have had. Bry: It would have covered up some range, some little ranges, especially up Yampa, you get way up. No, it wouldn’t affect the stockmen but very little. Brown: It wouldn’t have irrigated other land that could have been used for grazing? So it wouldn’t have had any benefit there at all? Bry: No. See, it’s in a deep box canyon, both rivers, both Yampa and Green. Now, up Flaming Gorge, Flaming Gorge did cover quite a bit of area, grazing area, flat, and it was much more desirable than the other. Let me tell you the story about how we happened to engage David W. Evans Advertising. To start with, after we lost the first round, we held a meeting in Salt Lake, a group of us, and we decided we better get somebody to help us. So we went to the radio station, KSL radio station, and said, “How are you going to handle this?” I've forgotten the man’s name that managed it, and he said, “Let me tell you something, don't you try to do it yourself. You hire the best advertising agency there is in the country. You go hire them regardless of cost. Get the best one, you’ve got a big job and you’ ve lost one round. Get a good advertising agency.” So we went to David W. Evans. He then was upstairs, I’ve forgotten what building, had three little rooms upstairs and three men. We talked to them for quite some time and he finally said, ‘“‘No, I don’t think I want to fool with it. So the next morning I got a phone call from him and he said, “Come back, I want to talk to you about it.” So, we went back and he said, “If I can get a certain man from the Vernal Express.” I'm forgetting names again. So he did get this man. Brown: It wasn't one of the Wallises? Bry: No, no. It was a man from Salt Lake, Deseret News. Brown: Oh, someone on the Deseret News. Page 6 of 15 Bry: Yeah, one of the head men on the Deseret News. He owned ... Brown: One of the Smarts? Bry: No. Well, name some of them. Brown: Well, Smart is the only one I know. Bry: He got him. So away we go with David W. Evans, and we paid him good money and a lot of it. That’s what we used these tenth of a mil for. All the other states got the benefit of it. They didn’t punch like we did, you know? Nothing like we did. The other states, although they came along with their share, but Utah was the fighter. Vernal was the fighter. You know how we got Steinaker Draw #1? Number 1 on the Colorado River Storage Project, the first dam built because the Bureau said, “You fought so hard for that in Vernal, we’re going to give you the first one.” Now, this is off of the subject, but it’s something you should know and we all should remember it. Vernal, now, has everything it ever dreamed it ever would have out of this project. It’s got Steinaker and it’s got Red Fleet. It’s got three things we never dreamed we'd get. First, a valley-wide water system. Uncle Sam put up $400,000 for that, you know. It didn’t do it all, but that’s a big item to start. And he also did another thing we didn't dream he’d do. They drained all our dogey lands. If a farmer had dogey land in an area, he’d get that free of charge, that drainage. That’s unusual. Now the third thing is, the stockmen and the farmer gets a valley-wide stock- watering system where all they have to do is turn a tap in the winter. We shut ‘em off in the summertime, of course, instead of letting it waste through those canals and freeze at night. So we've got everything we ever hoped for, plus. Brown: In terms of water. Bry: As soon as we get Red Fleet. But that doesn’t stop us from helping the other people. We'll fight just as hard for the rest of the county and Duchesne County. We've got quite a lot to do yet in the Basin. Brown: You know, I was under the impression that part of the original plans for that project over at the Monument was to have several dams. Was there going to be one at Split Mountain, one at Brown’s Park? Bry: One at Split Mountain. Brown: Can you tell me about those plans or how they happened to be changed? Bry: One of the reasons is Split Mountain is in Dinosaur. That’s one reason that wasn’t built. You know of one in Brown’s Park? Brown: The impression I had was that the project, originally they wanted three dams built, three separate dams. The one at Split Mountain, the one at Echo Park, [the one in Brown’s Park]. Page 7 of 15 SIDE 2 Brown: At the time, I think it was argued that there was no good alternate dam site besides Echo Park. Bry: Well, there was no dam site as good as that. It was number one because it was. Have you ever been there and looked down in there? See just narrow canyon and just sew in a plug and you've got two big bodies of water. Does that answer your question? That’s why they’re so desirable, and so much more valuable from the standpoint of evaporation that’s down in a canyon, water’s already got a, Flaming Gorge, you know, is spread out. Brown: Do you think that with Flaming Gorge Dam that Uintah County has still had the economic impact that we would have had from Echo Park as far as tourism and things like that go? Bry: Echo Park Dam would have been much greater in my judging. Had much more boating, much more scenic areas that you could have gone to because of the two rivers. Brown: What was the river runners’ involvement with the whole affair? Bry: What was it? Well, the river runners weren’t too enthusiastic about because it does interfere with their runs some. They have no more of this high water, white wave... Brown: Oh, rapids? Bry: Yeah, white waters. They don’t have so much of that now as when they let the whole stream through, you see. But they didn’t fight us at all. Brown: They weren’t opposed to it? Bry: No, they didn’t, they had no affect of stopping anything. They’re good sports now, the best kind. I’ve thought of that man’s name that headed the four approbations states grassroots committee we called it. It was Tom Bullock. He was from Arizona. He was a millionaire, a young chap, just a millionaire, happened to hit it in the oil and he paid a lot of bills out of his own pocket. Later was Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico. Well, that’s quite a story, a long story, started back in the 30s and went to ‘55 before we got anything. Brown: Were the Utah Representatives able to give you much help at the time? Bry: Very much so. They fought hard. Any time we needed them for anything we wanted. Brown: There’s something I guess I don’t understand. How come it would go through the Senate first? You said that the bill went to the Senate sub-committee first and they approved it? Page 8 of 15 Bry: Yes. Brown: Was that much of a struggle? Bry: Went past the Senate. Not bad, though, that wasn’t bad. But when we got to the House we ran into these environmentalists that just fought the stuffin’ out of us. Really powerful. Mostly women’s organizations, you know, rich widows. They were tough to handle. Brown: Do you think that they were the sole cause of the defeat? Were there any other groups in the country that were opposed besides just the Sierra Club? Bry: No, I’d say no. I don’t know of any other organized groups except those Cloud Unlimited and the Sierra Club and the women’s clubs. There were several women’s clubs that were after us all the time after the Congress me, and they had the votes. The congressmen all knew that. They had ten votes to our one. We’re out in the country. So, you’re not going to get it through at all. Brown: You mean even the Flaming Gorge? Bry: Yes. Brown: Was there opposition to the Flaming Gorge location? Bry: Oh yeah, lots of opposition. Brown: You know those environmentalists, they fight anything. And they were strong men. Not as strong as | said before, but they were difficult to handle. Brown: Were they just better organized, do you think? Bry: Better organized and had plenty of money and nothing to do. Brown: They had more money than your organization, the ones you were involved with? Bry: By far, and then whole groups, retired people, particularly ladies, and they were effective, those ladies, you know. Brown: What was Untermann’s role? Bry: Untermann’s role was the fact that he was so effective before committees. He was a linguist of the top grade. Did you know him? Brown: the man. I’ve met him one time, when I first moved here, before he died. So I really don’t know Page 9 of 15 Bry: Well-educated, skillful talker, very effective before committees. He and Governor Clyde were tops. You put him before any committee, and we met before lots of committees. The one that Aspeno headed was an effective one. And he went back several times. Brown: Who was Aspeno? Bry: Aspeno was a representative of Colorado, head of the Interior Committee. Aspeno was head of the Interior Committee at that time. Brown: Did he give you a lot of support? Bry: Yes, he supported us one hundred percent. Even so, we couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t make it to Echo Park Dam, we couldn’t do it even with his support and his committee’s support. And that is, this Madsen, David Madsen, who I told you was a Utah man, he was alive at the time we were fighting this. He lived over in Orem. We went to him several times, but he wasn't well and he couldn’t go in to testify when we had this up. But he went through here as a representative of the Department of the Interior and promised both the good people in Vernal and Craig, Colorado, “You may build Echo Park Dam if you will allow us to enlarge this.” And he put out a statement to that effect, but he couldn’t go back himself, because he wasn’t well, and appear before, so they ignored it. Brown: Do you think it would have made a difference? Bry: No. I don’t think it would have made a big difference. We just didn’t have the push [of] these other opposition. It’ll show you that Uncle Sam will turn tail on you. Brown: Did you meet many of the environmentalists at the time? Did many of them come here to town? Bry: I'd say no. Brown: Was Brauer the only one you met, David Brauer? Bry: He’s the only one I met, yeah, that went through here. Brown: Did you talk to him for a very long time? Bry: Yeah, I talked to him. He stayed here overnight, you know. Brown: At your house? Bry: No, I mean in town. But as he came back, he didn’t keep his word with me. I wanted to see if I couldn’t talk him out of it. Page 10 of 15 Brown: He was going to stop and visit and he didn’t, huh? Bry: He agreed to. Brown: Did you ever meet Wallace Stegner? Bry: No. Who’s he? Brown: He wrote that book on Echo Park country, This is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country. Bry: I never read it. The first white child born, do you know that story? I’m talking now about these little Stories you want. I can’t write stories now, I can relate them. I can tell you one. I can't make it short enough on a page. Brown: If you tell me, I’1l write it. Bry: You might have to write it in two parts. The story I wanted to tell you, it’s rather personal. The Stringhams come into it. My father was one of the first that came in, the first pioneers. How they happened to come here, the Stringhams, to Ashley Valley is, Snyders, who lived to Snyderville, and the town’s named after the Snyder that came here, he had a wife and a child. My mother's sister was the maid for the child in Snyderville. They decided to come into Ashley Valley. He was a cow-man and he brought the first cattle into Ashley Valley, he and his wife, the babe, and this aunt of mine, a young girl, eighteen years old. They came into the valley and established themselves. This aunt of mine, in due time, a year or so, met Clare Westover, a young fellow who was here. They got married and she had a baby boy named Clare Westover, claimed to be the first white boy born. There’s three of them that vie for that position. Incidentally, may I stop, you don’t need to put this in, Ashley Bartlett is the one. Ashley Bartlett was, Clare Westover is the one I’m going to tell you about, child born by my aunt. Brown: Well, Bartlett wasn’t born until ‘80. Bry: Wasn’t he? Brown: No. I mean this Westover, I know, was born before Bartlett was. Ashley was a product of the Hard Winter because he was born in the spring of 1880. Bry: Well, I thought he claimed to be one of the three boys that was born. Brown: He was probably among the first, but he’s not number one, I know that. Bry: Well anyhow, the mother died in childbirth and left this little boy. The father and mother got to hear about it through the grapevine some way. Took weeks and weeks then, to get the news Page 11 of 15 back to Salt Lake. Father then was working on Antelope Island. His father had charge of the church stock. Father, as a young lad, worked on the island with the church stock. So he rounded up four wild horses, when he heard about this boy being born and his wife’s sister out here died, and he hooked them up partly broke and started out with his wife and two children, two girls, one was Don B. Colton’s wife. Have you heard of Don B. Colton? Brown: I sure have. Bry: She lived with Don B. Colton’s wife, one of the girls, Grace, and it took them a couple of weeks, a little over two weeks, to get here. Here sit this mother with these two little girls coming out to get the boy. They came out here, and while they were coming, an Indian nursed this Clare Westover while they were coming. When they got here, they only stayed a short time and went back, and my mother, then, was nursing Grace, Don B. Colton’s wife, and she nursed both of those babes to where they could eat food. She nursed them both. And that’s the story of my father first coming to Ashley Valley. Later on he liked it so well he came back and homesteaded up in the upper end of the valley. Brown: Can you tell me something about the brick? Bry: I can tell you all about the brick. The brick were made for several houses up in there from Father’s farm. Brown: How did they make them? Bry: They just knew how to mix the mortar. Those bricks are still standing. This house that Father built of ours in 1896 is a very big, substantial house, now, and the bricks are just as good as when they were put in. Brown: Now, I think I’ve been in that house, but it’s got siding up now, doesn’t it? Bry: No. Brown: Is that the house Lawrence Adams lives in? Bry: Yeah, there” no siding on that. I mean the outside. I was there the other day and took a picture of it. Brown: Well, I don’t know what I’m thinking of then. Tell me, did your dad, did he build his own kiln? They fired that brick didn’t they? Bry: That’s right, they fired it. Several of them threw in together and they all built a house, there was four or five of them around there built a house. Some of them are gone and some of them [are] still standing. Page 12 of 15 Brown: The thing I’m curious of, you know, I’ m under the impression that you have to fire the brick in a kiln. Where did they get the first bunch of bricks to build the kiln with? It’s like the chicken and the egg. You have to have the egg before you can have the chicken. Bry: They used, the kiln brick were adobes. You can make adobes without burning them. Now wait a minute, let me see. Well, they built the kiln mostly out of adobes, the outside I remember, the outside of the kiln was adobes, just dirt. You know what adobe is, don’t you? Brown: Is that dirt mixed with... Bry: Yeah, it’s mortar all mixed up and then they put them down in large lots and let them dry hard. They have to form them when they’re wet in a form. Then they dig them out and dump them on a yard and let them dry hard. Then they put them in to fire them. Brown: Did they use a special kind of wood for fuel? Does one type of wood burn hotter than another type of wood? Bry: Cedar wood would be the hottest, we had plenty of cedar wood. I don’t recall how they did that. I was just a kid. I can’t recall what kind of wood they used. Brown: Did your dad sell the brick? Or was that kind of a cooperative effort? Bry: Cooperative, no sale. Each one took their lot and worked it up themselves. No hired help. Brown: How many brick could they fire at once? Bry: [ think they only had one kiln. I can’t answer that. Brown: That would be a time-consuming process, I bet, to make thousands of bricks. Bry: Oh, my heavens, yes. It would have been years and years. Brown: Bry, did you ever attend any of the war bond rallies at the tabernacle during World War I? I read in the paper that you flunked the physical. Bry: Yeah, I did. You read that in the paper? What paper? Brown: The Vernal Express. It had all the names of the people that flunked, and your name was among them. Bry: Well, I flunked because I didn’t weigh enough. I was really skinny and I had two or three babies. Brown: That’s something I’ve done a lot of research on, World War I. They had a whole bunch Page 13 of 15 of these bond rallies, the Liberty Loan and the Victory Bonds. Did you attend any of those | rallies? Because they had a bunch of them at the tabernacle where they’d jam 1800 people in there. Bry: I lived way up in the upper end of the valley, then, and traveled by buggy. I think I didn't. But I was chairman of the Second World War, the bond drive, all through the war most of the time, but not the first. Brown: Did you get into town much during World War I? Bry: Very little. It was a long ways with a buggy. Five miles out there. Brown: If remember from that interview over there, you had just started the sheep business, too. Bry: That’s right. Brown: Where were you on Armistice Day? Bry: I was up on the mountain fishing up Carter Creek. As I came down, I had an old radio, my brother-in-law and I, and they were celebrating in Vernal. Booming and shouting. Brown: Now is this World War I? Bry: Two. Brown: How about World War I? Armistice Day World War I? That would be Nov. 11, 1918. Bry: I was right here shooting up. I remember my friend up here, Allen, going uptown to the shot gun. Brown: Did you shoot the dummy of the Kaiser? Bry: No, I don't remember that. I was coming off of the mountain. Am I mixed up? The Armistice was signed what year? Brown: Nov. 11, 1918. Bry: 1918. Brown: Did you have a bout with the flu? You remember the flu epidemic? Bry: No, I never did have it, only light, in 1918, I had it just light. That was the second round, you know. The second round of the flu was 1918 or '19 which was it? ‘19, spring of ‘19. Page 14 of 15 Brown: Did you lose any of your herders? Bry: No. No, I had two, had three working for me then. End Page 15 of 15