DYER: …on the flume, earlier you
mentioned what it was like out on the tractor during a storm when a portion of
the flume had…
CASTLE: Well, you see, they used to
work two shifts on the breaks—night and
day. You see, we had a line there—a car line—going to…well it really went
up to Strawberry, but then they cut it off at Sandbar, so we’d hook up the
transformer and we’d have lights to work at night. Well, this one night,
it was snowing so bad and the mountain kept running on us that we thought
we’d get out of there because there were rock and everything was rolling
down, you know? And we had about twenty-five men there working there and so Jerry Avaleno was a foreman and he said, “well, let’s
get out of there. Let’s go home.”
DYER: because that’s the only way
that you and get out, is by using…
CASTLE: …by using the tractor and going
down. So we went down about two-miles…it was mile—I think it was a
mile—just about a mile below that another rock had gone down, rolled off the
mountain, and wiped four boxes out. Well, it was snowing so bad he under the
tractor to haul us back and there saw, let’s see…there was eight on this side,
and eight on the other side, Peslo was in the
tractor—oh, around twenty men.
DYER: twenty men?
CASTLE: about twenty men.
DYER: And did you say it washed it?
CASTLE: and just the rail
flipped up.
The rails stayed there.
DYER: they rails for the tractor
stayed there and the boxes were…
CASTLE: …were gone!
DYER: …were gone.
CASTLE: So, he couldn’t stop.
Then it was snowing so bad you know. We couldn’t stop it, so we ran right out
on that (____).
DYER: did he see the break?
CASTLE: He saw it, but too late.
DYER: How would you stop a car like
that?
CASTLE: You don’t. You don’t
DYER: Because of…
CASTLE: It slide right along…
DYER: …in the snow.
CASTLE: In the snow you don’t stop
it. He jumped. He jumped off and went down in the brush, so the
rest of us, we didn’t know what happened for a minute. We didn’t know
until w hit the bottom, you know? See, (___) was
tipped about maybe a forty-five degree angle.
DYER: But the tractor didn’t go off?
CASTLE: It didn’t go off; it sated
there. So, all of us guys that were riding in the back on those boards—on these
two dollies with a platform built on them—why, all the ones that were on the
lower side—on the river side—we all scooted right off just like we were grease.
DYER: Just nothing to hold you on.
CASTLE: the ones on the upper side at
this part of their leg held them on.
DYER: They were facing up the hill…
Castel:
…up hill
DYER: …and were able to use their
lower legs to hold them up.
CASTLE: …to hold them up. See,
so…
DYER: Must have been a scared crew
there.
CASTLE: so, of course, we had, let’s
see. I had on a tin suit.
DYER: A tin suit?
CASTLE: yeah.
DYER: What’s a tin suit?
Castel:
Well, that’s the water repellent clothes—we had pants and a coat. And
then underneath that I had on a jacket and then this cozy
underwear. So pretty soon I woke up down there, of course not the (___)
body; I had fallen about twenty-five feet. Boom! I fell on my back, so I
woke up pretty soon and I looked up…couldn’t figure what happened, you know,
for a moment. And all of this lumber and all of this old debris from the
flume was laying around. And it was sticking up, spikes sticking up.
DYER: Oh, my.
Castel:
So, finally I came too. And I’d hollar for my partner Mitch.
“Mitch, he, Mitch, where are you?” So, pretty soon he woke up. He was
down in the brush with a broken nose. But the other fellow, some of them
were oh, 150-200 feet down the hill. And we couldn’t find them. So
only one thing I could think of—my shoulder was hurting and I said when Mitch
finally came up and I says “what happened?” And he says, “I don’t know,
where’s Joe?” He says, “I don’t know.” So finally we got a few of them
together—we got about five of them. About five of us. So, I thought well,
there’s only one thing I can do. So I ‘d had a little experience by that
time on the electric end of it, you know? So I went over and I had my
pliers with me and I cut the telephone line on the bad side—I cut the telephone
line that was all tangled up so I cut it. And I walk up to where we were
working—about a mile and I got the portable telephone. We had a portable telephone at that time. So I
packed that down and wrapped it around on the hill, and I come down on where
the line was good and I hooked it on there and I called up the powerhouse and
told them what happened and Mr. Bedwood was—I called him and told him, “we had
a big accident up here, “and I said, “I don’t know how many men it killed or
anything else.” And I said, “All I can count is five of us—five of us are
here.”
DYER: and there were close to twenty…
CASTLE: And there were close to twenty
men on there. So he told me later, after that he says, “you almost made
me have a heart attack.” I says, “what was I going to do? I
couldn’t get Conrad—tried Conrad, he was (__) back in
the power house in Bedwood. So, in about, oh, I don’t know, three
or four hours we got some help up there. By that time it was about four
o’clock in the morning, I guess, or five—somewhere around there. So then we
started looking. Now we got the Flume crew—the day crew—out. So
they started looking for a fellow by the name of White and, I don’t know, three
or four more down there. But none of them got killed. They got busted up,
but they weren’t too badly… turn that thing off, I’ll tell you a funny story.
DYER: Well, we’re back on tape
again. Were a lot of men safe because there was snow around or a brush
that cushioned the fall?
CASTLE: No. You see, on the left
hand side, where this happened, there was a long slick rock.
DYER: That would e uphill.
CASTLE: No, it was downhill.
DYER: Downhill.
Castel:
there was along slick rock and some of them evidentially had over on that slick
rock further down the mountain.
DYER: But no serious injuries?
CASTLE: No, they’d been messed up
pretty good. One guy had both legs broke and another guy… I don’t know
what happened to Chris. I think he just got a broken arm out of the whole
deal. And, of course, I hurt my shoulder, but it didn’t bother me too
much. Mitch, my partner, he had a broken nose. And I don’t know, Joe Ravalino—he was the boss, the foreman—but he jumped
off the side and I think in later years that’s what (____).
DYER: Was he hurt then?
CASTLE: Well, he didn’t seem to
be. During all that year we had all the floods and everything—all the
water and we often couldn’t get across the…you know they didn’t have a…you know
on this side of (___) that little concrete
building they have now?
DYER: As you go across on the
Parrot’s Ferry road.
CASTLE: Yeah. Well there was no (____). You had to go through the creek. And the
doctor couldn’t get across the creek, so they walked way down to where there
was a bridge…oh, Eltonhams had a bridge down there were they used to go across
and they had to go out from Stanislaus to go out and get him and bring him in. (____) for a little bit. So, they made me go out
to (___)—go home for a couple of days, but I was
alright. I was going to tell you, when I left all these clothes on, it ripped
every button off. My shirt, my tin clothes, my…
DYER: You hit pretty hard then.
Castel:
I hit pretty hard, yeah. I never…
DYER: (______) too?
CASTLE: At twelve o’clock, about
midnight.
DYER: It must have made it a little
more scary for people—dropping off in the dark.
CASTLE: yeah. We didn’t know what
happened.
DYER: …couldn’t find each other.
CASTLE: No, we couldn’t find where we
were and there was one after him by the name of George. And he was the one (___) if he hadn’t taken over, I don’t know what would
have happened. Because he was flume veteran, you know. He had been around
quite a bit and he’d worked on the flume for years, so he got them all together
and he was going to punch a couple of them on the nose and all that stuff, you
know? So, it was touch-and-go there for quite awhile, until we got them
all. But that wan and the one in the mountain slide—that was the worst
that we had ever had.
DYER: So you won’t forget these.
CASTLE: Oh no, no, no. I won’t
forget that.
DYER: anyone take a photograph of the
one on the (______________)?
CASTLE: Yeah, but I can’t find
it. That’s the one that I have been looking for. You know, with the
tractor sitting on the rails and the two cars behind it with the garbage can
sitting right on (____) fell off, stayed right
on the tractor.
DYER: Well, maybe of you find one
we’ll have to…
CASTLE: Well, I’ll have to look for one
until I find it, because…
DYER: Well, Mr. Castle, why don’t we
change our theme a little bit and why don’t you give us an idea of what it was
like working for PG&E back during the depression period of the 1930s?
Hard times and…
CASTLE: Well, I was lucky I always had
a job. And we always had a pretty good crew, you know? Pretty good… And outside of that it wasn’t too bad, but you know,
in those days jobs were hard to come by. And people stayed. Make their
way—they hung on to their jobs. They didn’t go to the boss and say,
“well, if I don’t look for a bit more, I’m going to quit.”
DYER: they weren’t drifting from job
to job.
CASTLE: no. They were staying
because that’s the time that it was real tough. You know, and as far as
the work was concerned, there was just the same work as always, but…
DYER: did they cut you wages, or…
CASTLE: Oh, no, no, no, no. We
still had our four-and-a-half to five hours a day. Linemen were getting
six dollars for that time. And ground-men were getting five, and the laborers
were getting four—four-and-a-half.
DYER: And that was enough so a person
could make a decent living?
CASTLE: …make a decent living. Of
course, things were cheap. We had canned goods and everything was cheap in
those days. We didn’t have to make a lot to survive, you know what I
mean?
DYER: well, did the company help out
in different ways such as providing room and board for a quarter-a-day.
Did they provide other things like medical wealth?
CASTLE: Oh no, no, no. No, but if
you got hurt on the job, they would cover all that with compensation.
DYER: So it was a good company to
work for?
CASTLE: Oh, really good company. Absolutely.
You couldn’t find a better company to work for in those days, because they
weren’t too hard on you. If you went to work at eight o’clock and you
were supposed to do eight hours of work, you know. And it was up to the
rest of the guys to see that they done it and that was it.
DYER: where did you live then Mr.
Castle?
CASTLE: Right here.
DYER: In this house here near the
courthouse.
CASTLE: Right here. Right
here.
DYER: Let’s see, and its Upper
Sunset…
CASTLE: Upper Sunset Drive. This was
made I 1931 and was here ever since.
DYER: During World War II because of
the shortage of manpower, did you find that it had any effect on construction
crews or working conditions?
CASTLE: no. Some of the boys had to go,
you know. Some of the fellows were in the age group or that had to go
to…but none of them…maybe two-or three months
for them. Just two or three months. But then you could go out…in
those days you could go out and hire a guy. Well, if somebody is going to
leave and you want a job—just take the high school kids. They graduate
from highs school at eighteen—seventeen or eighteen—and they’d come to work,
and they’d work as a ground-man and Brook and I learned to climb. And
then they’d learn to climb and stuff like that and then they’d go along a
premise lineman and pretty soon a lineman.
DYER: You used them before they were
of draft age.
CASTLE: Oh yeah, yeah. And some
of them after they got their ratings had to go. Four or five—a kid
he had working for him (_____) down there, and
he was a lineman and he turned into C-B’s.
Well, if that’s (_____) is better. He had (___) the army. And, yeah, there were dozen’s
like that, you know, where they would just go out and we’d get somebody else
who was just another middle man and that’s all
there was to it, and that’s what you had to do.
DYER: did you have any shortage of
material?
CASTLE: Materials were short, yes. Some
materials were short, but as a general rule, why, we had plenty of material to
do what we had to do.
DYER: Any change in the work that you
were doing then? Were you still working in flume?
CASTLE: no, no. I was working on the
line and retiring.
DYER: …on the line. Huh?
Castel:
Just on the line crews. But if they had a disaster or something, well then we’d
have to go.
DYER: Well, did they still use the
flumes in the forties?
CASTLE: Yeah. Yeah.
DYER: when did they finally go out?
CASTLE: Oh, I think that’s…I’ll have to
find out from (_____) when they head down in the
flume because I have forgotten.
DYER: And when they manned it they burned it or did they…?
CASTLE: They manned
it, that’s forest service. Forest service ruins it when they’re
down in the flume they had to burn it up.
DYER: Oh. I see.
CASTLE: because that was on forest
service property.
DYER: And once it was abandoned,
though it was replaced with…
CASTLE: A tunnel!
DYER: With a tunnel that went
through.
CASTLE: That tunnel had come first, and
then the flume was burned up later.
DYER: now, did you start working the
tunnel during World War II period?
CASTLE: I think it was after that, I’m
not quite sure. I forgot he dates now, but…
DYER: And that was a…
Castel:
that was PG&E.
DYER: …a PG&E project.
CASTLE: …project, yeah. Had all
our own men and made our own flume tunnel crew. And then when the tunnel
was through and the flume was abandoned, then they placed all the flume
personnel on different jobs.
DYER: So they didn’t lose their…
CASTLE: …they didn’t lose their job,
no. Some of them, let’s see…one…two…three…four…five…six formed over here. Some went to Jackson front the flume over
there and some went other places. They placed every man that they had working
for them; they placed them up. They placed every man they had.
DYER: How hard does that tunnel that they put in?
CASTLE: Eight-by-ten.
DYER: So it’s actually just about the
same size as the old…
CASTLE: same size as before.
DYER: Is all of it underground?
CASTLE: …underground…all in solid rock.
DYER: In the same places?
CASTLE: form Sandbar to (Fortville)
DYER: So actually the only change is
that you’ve put another…(____)…
CASTLE: no. None of those,
no.
DYER: Do they ever shut it down and
go in to check it to uh…?
CASTLE: Well, they checked it about
five years ago—four or five years ago—a couple of guys though they were going
to have a party up there so wanted nothing more than to walk through the
tunnel, but one of them almost didn’t make it. Sixteen miles.
DYER: That’s quite a walk. And it’s
all…
CASTLE: …water. Cold water.
DYER: They didn’t stop the flow of
water?
Castel:
Oh yeah. They shut it down.
DYER: but there was still water.
CASTLE: Yeah, they’re going to get
puddles and stuff like that. You know, you can’t get away from that. You
see, they started a tunnel from…they started like at Camp One and they could go
both ways you know—down the mountain. And they put another port and they’d
go down in it. There are ports where you can go in; but they’d have these
big, thick rail road ties, you know, so people can’t go down there and then get
killed.
DYER: It would be quite a hit of water
CASTLE: Oh, yeah. You see, and then I
think there was nineteen…you see, I was gone from…I quit from 1925-1927.
See, I left and when I come back in ’27. And by that time, I think there
was…’27 or ’28 that PG&E took in the Tuolumne Land
and Fire Company and brought them out. And then they serviced Sonora,
Columbia and Jamestown. And I forgot—it was either 1927 or 1928—ight
after I came back. And then after that then things started to happen.
DYER: Changes.
CASTLE: Yeah, big things started to happen
after that. You remember…you know, we only had one lousy little (___), you know. At that time you didn’t have flaw snd
heaters and all that stuff.
DYER: so, the energy crisis that
people talk about today is real?
CASTLE: Yeah, right. It is. No,
it’s most real because I just talked to a guy here two weeks ago from power
control in San Francisco—a friend of mine—well he was born here, and he said
that people don’t know how scary it[s getting down there. Because he says it’s
here; it’s with us.
DYER: Well, it seems like a lot of
the changes must have occurred right after World War II.
CASTLE: They did.
DYER: And since you were actively
involved in the construction side of it, could you relate some of the changes
as you saw them coming in?
CASTLE: yeah…
DYER: Or after the tunnel—that’s
certainly a change in the work that you do.
CASTLE: Yeah, then they started to buy
trucks—line trucks. Then they got new
tools, then they got all kinds of new stuff to work with. And then they
started to beef up their personnel a little bit and then they’re office started
beefing up their personnel.
DYER: More people?
CASTLE: …more people. Estimators
and engineers, and all that stuff.
DYER: So, evidentially it required
highly trained personnel to do some of these
things.
CASTLE: right. Right.
DYER: What were some of the change
sin equipment that they now use?
CASTLE: Well, you take from that
old…like that old picture I showed you from an old white truck with nothing on
it now to a modern big truck with a boom on it where you set all of your…
mostly generally you can set up all of your poles with a truck where we used to
do it by hand with pipe poles with fourteen or fifteen men and now they got
four men on the same truck—on this big new truck. And then they got buckets,
they got a double…they got a twin bucket, where you can go right up in the
wires and do all everything you want. You don’t have to…you don’t even
have to climb the pole any more. And it’s all…all… just like the hole-digger.
We used to dig holes by hand with a bar—an eight foot bar—a spoon and a shovel.
You’d dig a hole. It might take you a few days to
keep digging it, but…and then dynamite. We used to drill it by hand with
a sledgehammer and drill, went through a rock and drove it by hand and now they
have a whole digger that goes up and in fifteen
minutes you got the hole done. They’d got out and give them the job that you’re
going to do next—hand them the work order and he goes out and (___) steak, the surveyors come along and steak it
all. It’s all steaked. All’s he’s got to do is go out and read the steaks
and dig the hole. Two, three days later, the guy from Stockton comes up
with a load of poles and he distributes the poles right there and there you
are.
DYER: Well, you’ve mentioned that
they’ve also used helicopters.
CASTLE: yeah, yeah. They’ve used
helicopters on that land between Spinning Wheel and Nadir.
DYER: now, where’s Spinning Wheel?
CASTLE: that’s above (_____).
DYER: …(______).
CASTLE: you know where (_____) is over
there at Don Hetchy.
DYER: …Don Hetchy
Project.
CASTLE: Well, they set all of those
poles with a helicopter. And from Stanislaus two years ago, they set all
of the poles with a helicopter from Stanislaus Powerhouse to Red Apple-that’s
up on top of the hill. They set out those with a helicopter.
DYER: Would you say it’s become more
automated…?
CASTLE: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And now
you don’t have to patrol land by foot anymore. You don’t have to walk all
those lines anymore to see what’s the matter. You get to helicopter right over (____) and your feet drag from (_____) and get’s in the chopper and comes here and picks him up
and there you go. Can patrol it all by air—every bit of it.
DYER: For an old timer who has seen
these changes, do you look on them with favor…?
CASTLE: Favor, yes. Absolutely. I
don’t regret a thing.
DYER: It makes it a lot easier for
the individual.
CASTLE: Absolutely. I can
remember patrolling line form Goldwin to Jacksonville in the summer time and
you almost die before you get to where the water is. You know what I
mean? And…No, more power to ‘em. I’m tickled to death at these nice
conveniences to work with.
DYER: It take fewer men.
CASTLE: …fewer men.
DYER: And it keeps the cost….down.
CASTLE: you have a high grade of
employees too. You got these guys that are…some of them are specialists
in certain things. And that used to…fellows from Stockton used to come up
here and set meters and all of that stuff and now they do it themselves. They
don’t have to have any of this big (______) like
we used to have. Just like down there at Hetch Hetchy. We used to
go down there and…you even been to Hetch Hetchy? Of course we had the
time we had the big tragedy. You know, they got their pants stuck down in the new powerhouse and thought oh where’s the door? And they were (_____). Pretty soon the big (______) stop popped up on top of the hill—flooded
everything right down with the power house.
DYER: Washed it out, huh?
CASTLE: Washed it out with us too. But
just like down there at (___) when we had the
big flood. We went down there, of course we were working in the water up
to (____). They were putting cables around
the transformers and tied the up to the hill and said “well, there it is, there
you go.” We saved them though.
DYER: …you saved them.
Castel:
Yeah…that’s transformer.
DYER: Well, when did you retire?
CASTLE: 1966.
DYER: …1966. And was the
company good to you?
CASTLE: Yes, they were. They were
really good to me.
DYER: Get your gold watch?
CASTLE: Yes. I got my gold watch.
Yes I got my old watch as a PG&E and all. I look back at my lifetime living and I
think it’s great.
DYER: Well, we do appreciate the
opportunity to capture some of these moments and with your permission to use
this information…
CASTLE: Any time.
DYER: Researchers, college students,
and people in the community. So do we have your permission?
CASTLE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
DYER: We appreciate that.
CASTLE: Absolutely. And if you
want some more you can come back and get that too.
DYER: We might do that too sir.
END OF TAPE
General Information:
Interviewer: Dyer,
Richard
Interviewee: Castle,
Walter
Name of Tape: P.G.& E. in
Tuolumne County (castle_w_2)
When: 8/31/1973
Transcriber: Ariella
(12/8/08)