Dyer: Uh, Frank why don’t we talk a little bit about the roads in the valley as you remember them very well. The old Tioga Pass road now…was that about where the new road is?
Coleman: No…well it’s kind of parallel with it. The old Tioga Road used to take off at Carlen and went out up through Aspen Valley and in to Harden Lake…White Wolf…then it crossed at White Wolf, went down into Yosemite and went on down to the creek. That’s the creek that runs the Yosemite Falls you know; and then they climbed that auto-steep grade to get out of there and then they’d come across it up there at Porcupine Flat and then they crossed it and went up the Mirror Lake.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Like close to Mirror Lake. They didn’t go right into Mirror Lake just a quarter a mile or so from it. The Curry got a resort there, see, long weekends we’d burrow or whatever they called it (___) (___) (___). And then they got back into Tenaya.
Dyer: At lake?
Coleman: Lake Tenaya…right to the lake.
Dyer: That’s…
Coleman: (___) of shores.
Dyer: That’s quite a grade isn’t it?
Coleman: Yeah and you went right along the water edge.
Dyer: That’s…
Coleman: Sometimes the water gets so high, you couldn’t…you couldn’t cross through there. Almost swim the horse at times and the waves would drop down and maybe wait a couple hours and you’d go on by and as you’d gone on that way, you went right out up with the drinking fountain is. It was out at Tenaya and then you took down and you went down that way and then you go around the lower end, then you went through the lower end of the meadows staying to the right like they do now and you crossed over there…there’s a bridge there. You crossed over towards these Soda Springs and you wouldn’t start your bridge down there about…oh it’s a good…a good, long quarter of a mile from where the gas station is at Tuolumne Meadows.
Dyer: Oh.
Coleman: Downstream down the river.
Dyer: I know the place now.
Coleman: Yeah you can go across there and then it whirled up around and it come in pretty close, but I don’t think they cut it when they made the road over up to the summit and it runs kind of parallel there.
Dyer: Then it must’ve been pretty steep then going east from Tuolumne Meadow…
Coleman: Yep.
Dyer: …down into the valley floor there.
Coleman: Well…
Dyer: Does that switch back down the mountain there?
Coleman: Yep the one coming out of Yosemite Creek was worse. (___) (___) (___) that hill. Elevation 200 (___) you know made a lot of difference.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Yeah we were working up there wasn’t that miles working up there driving too had two horses and they had a metal piece that drove on the ground to haul rock over on the road, you know, people were sending blasting (___) shovel and all you dig (___) (___) (___) these boulders on these…these things they called a stone bolt. You would hook onto either end turn your team around and hook on these things and go (___) (___) (___) rise up at both ends like a sled, you know, like a sled running if you slide them along then you (___) off over the bank and roll (___) that road off and go around and pitch a rock in front and you got to tilt it and it’d slide right off and you’d keep another one going take them over the big hill. And the fort ball used to run it and it would automatically unload you know. And I was there one time and there was a guy there and the fellas was on their last legs, you know, 60-65 years old working there for the young (___) and they would stay up there and take pieces of flower sites they got a white (___) and a white sack of something and they’d patch his shirt a big patch on the back and patch their wall like the hippies do today you know.
Dyer: Yeah that’s very modern I was thinking.
Coleman: We were…they were doing that for, you know, to save money. You’d go up there two pair of overalls and worked four or five months, you know, (___) handling that (___) rock and brushing stuff there. You’d just got about the mileage out of them and we were there on the hill and there was one of them ladies come along looking through that glass and she was giving her husband heck. She said, “Don’t drive in the car so much. These convicts will help us up the hill.” Well they went ahead and they never got any help. Those convicts wouldn’t give her a hand.
Dyer: You mean the…
Coleman: …working…
Dyer: They called you convicts, huh? Well they used to have these road gangs.
Coleman: Yeah, yeah, yeah they worked at Connery.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Worked on the rice rear road to Connerick.
Dyer: Well did they…
Coleman: You wouldn’t let a convict drive a truck or run the shovel, (___) to run shovels for them and they stop like (___) they never used any tractors on the all winter highway up there going up there to Merced River.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: And I drove a truck there. One of the old number one world war trucks that they put out on the jobs, you know, state jobs. I used to drive truck in that. I’d haul dynamite down what they call “Brassford” at a magazine up the hill and they stored his dynamite up there and they wouldn’t pack a box. They refute to buy him boxes, wooden boxes, and they’d just all line up the hill and they’d throwed it one under there and the same way loading when we had to haul up the (___) said over charged they’d work maybe a week and then they’d say, oh, charge up that river to get (___) and rocks and the shovel that would work, you know. And down there they would have you back the truck around, back it in the bank, but the load was (___) and the boss of the convicts, he’d tell you to take a walk down the road and he’d load the truck and they’d get up there and they’d be coming to the high steep hill and they’d be throwing boxes on one another (___) (___) steel body truck.
Dyer: (___)…seems a bit dangerous, fool hearted.
Coleman: They didn’t care.
Dyer: Were there any…*Coleman interrupts* (7:12)
Coleman: (___) they wouldn’t blow you up and they didn’t care whether they got blown up or not.
Dyer: Were there many accidents up there?
Coleman: No, no there was a runaway once in a while, but there aren’t any accidents that I know of. *unintelligible* (7:25-7:27).
Dyer: But when you were working on roads in the high country, did they just make a base camp and you’d work from that camp?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: So you’d spend maybe…*Coleman interrupts* (7:36)
Coleman: (___) a section of the road two or three miles each way about four miles they traveled to the base camp and then you’d move camp. So you stayed at Yosemite Camp and you’d work both ways there.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Then you’d move over to Tenaya and you could work both ways there.
Dyer: Several crews were out…
Coleman: Yeah and then you’d move up to the Soda Springs and you’d work back to Tenaya towards Tenaya and to the top of the mountain there. When you got to the park laying them on top there where (___) (___) the seasons over for you down hill you go.
Dyer: Now some of the new Tioga Pass Road, then, takes the route of the old road that others…*Coleman interrupts* (8:21).
Coleman: …Some place up (___) but (___) gonna travel it as far.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Not over a quarter mile from almost anywhere.
Dyer: Is that…*Coleman interrupts* (8:31)
Coleman: It’s just crossing and the it crosses it again.
Dyer: (___).
Coleman: Right there at Porcupine and…and chip on the left. It’s just a short stretch of the old road and you can see parks out where they straightened the curve that way.
Dyer: Course with the equipment they have today, it’s a lot easier…
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: …to go through mountains than to go around them.
Coleman: Yeah…then around them. Yeah they go picking shovels (___) at the contour of the mountains, see (___) (___).
Dyer: How long would it take for the person to go from, oh say, Big Oak Flat Road on the old Tioga Road and back down into the valley on the other side if they were doing it by automobile? Would they do it in one day?
Coleman: Oh yeah they do it in one day with going down the old Oak Flat Road (___) (___) (___). I think he went down on the evening hour and up on the (___) and he had to wait.
Dyer: It was one way.
Coleman: One way.
Dyer: Huh. Big Oak Flat Road, then, would take you up to the old Tioga Pass Road?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: But you had to…
Coleman: You had to go down there and control (___) (___) (___).
Dyer: Oh…because it’s one way.
Coleman: One way. Right up at the west end of El Capitan they had a check station there and then up on just about where the end of the tunnel is, the big tunnel going in, Cascade (___) right up at Cascade they had another check station.
Dyer: And you had to stop and wait there?
Coleman: Stop and wait. If they had any trouble, they had to stop and wait ‘til they got up there. (___) (___) (___) (___) you had to wait ‘til you got up there. They was coming up and they had trouble on the wheel and couldn’t come up there. You had to wait til that last one got up.
Dyer: Well would they telegraph…
Coleman: No…
Dyer: …to the next station or…
Coleman: They had a winding telephone.
Dyer: Oh an old, crank telephone.
Coleman: (___) (___). Yeah they cranked them up (___) (___) another one coming.
Dyer: Well that’s a pretty good system.
Coleman: Oh yeah.
Dyer: People weren’t in a hurry.
Coleman: Got washed out in the ’50 flood, you know, and the government never repaired it. I fought them and fought them and the president said, “Oh we can’t repair it.” And I said, “Why can’t you?” Chinese built it with baskets and a pick and shovel, you had to be able to build it with the grout guns you got today and that cement and the cement fillers bouldered in on that hill so they won’t slide down on you; put enough cement in them. That’d be a fine, seed road if they do it just one ways.
Dyer: So the highway now, Highway 120, really doesn’t follow the old Big Oak Flat Road then?
Coleman: No, no, no the only place it follows is the distance (___). It’s follows it from Cliff House up in a few spots. You can see the old grade above you and below you in places. It cuts into and then it goes down into Arden Flat and then up that out pulls of that (___) (___) called it. In about half a mile or so before you…into the park line it crosses into (___) (___) there.
Dyer: What about the Merced route along the river. Was that as good a route to take as the Big Oak Flat route?
Coleman: Well that wasn’t even used in those days.
Dyer: Then the first one then was Big Oak Flat?
Coleman: Big Oak Flat in Coulterville.
Dyer: Now when you drove freight…*Coleman interrupts* (12:28)
Coleman: Both of them are on the same side the hill, see. Big Oak Flat was up here and Coulterville was down here, see, but they both come in the same direction.
Dyer: And you usually drove the Coulterville road though?
Coleman: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer: While freighting in the…
Coleman: Yeah, yeah. It was very new freighting on the Oak Flat Road because that too many switchbacks.
Dyer: Well they had more stages on the…
Coleman: Oh yeah more stages the Oak Flat.
Dyer: …Flat yeah.
Coleman: Because they come out on a regular run and went in on a regular run kind of a control end, see. ‘Course you’d need a wonder going in (___) and all that and the side, you know, be straight off up there on the…over the Tioga and he’d wonder it down the hill and you had a little trouble passing but no freight teams ever went down the hill switch. Straight (___) there were four up freight teams and there was four horses and wagons. But on the other Coulterville there was a long line teams going down there.
Dyer: The other route in, the south end, of the park now that crossed the Chowchilla Mountains, didn’t it?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: That must’ve been a pretty rough route going across…
Coleman: It wasn’t.
Dyer: …the mountains. Was that one of the early routes?
Coleman: Yeah that was an early route.
Dyer: That’d go…*Coleman interrupts* (13:57)
Coleman: …That go about the same time as Coulterville and Big Oak Flat Road rebuilt.
Dyer: You ever drive over that route?
Coleman: Oh yeah. Yeah and then we’d have a regular run on but I drove over, you know, extra freight team. I used to drive a (___) I had the concession and I’d run a (___) city at the foot of the short trail there; where the old commissioner used to live (___) Park. Sal’s was his name. He was from Ahwahnee. They had a tent city there and then over by the government center was the horses. (___) had a tent city over there you know. Just a seasonal little outfit (___) certain mules. Accommodation for tourists. Yeah I used to drive extra for them.
Dyer: Was that a one day run then from…
Coleman: Well it was a light outfit like they had this for, yeah, it was a one day run.
Dyer: Did you…
Coleman: A long day, but it was a one day run.
Dyer: Were you involved in working on the Wawona tunnel they put in there during the early 30s?
Coleman: Oh yeah I worked up there for about 30 days. I worked for a guy named Harris. He had the contract of building (___). He went broke. They broke him there in that tunnel.
Dyer: That must’ve been…*Coleman interrupts* (15:36)
Coleman: (___) (___).
Dyer: …expensive proposition.
Coleman: Yeah Ray Harris and the…he went down and he mined here at the head of Moccasin Creek. He was always (___) they had no money and he used his credit there and he got…didn’t…some people credited and in debt there that he went to the castle (___) (___) in Merced and he got a bank (___) out there and he was so badly in debt that he couldn’t get any fuel to operate his equipment so he…he went out of business there. And he begged me for ten days take over just take his debt over and take the equipment and if I ever made enough to put him under (___) horse, (___) horse, maybe food or (___) he said I owned it all and I was out and there was a guy who from Los Angeles took it and then some of the cats said (__) (___) (___) (___) keeps them repaired and still got them there.
Dyer: Well that would make them 40 years old almost…Coleman interrupts* (16:44).
Coleman: Yes some of them old eights there (___) and almost (___) eighths. There’s a lot of car trucks with no windshield on them just sit out there in front…
Dyer: Yeah.
Coleman: …sewing machine type you (chck, chck, chck) down load and you. They had a lot of them down there. They use them in the base.
Dyer: They must’ve done the job.
Coleman: Yeah they were easy to turn around there and turn them right here.
Dyer: That was the problem in building the tunnel. Was it just the…there was an expensive proposition.
Coleman: It was an expensive proposition and the park was too particular. It’d blast a lot and (___) of the tunnel and go down the mountain and you’d have to send the labor down there with a five-gallon bucket to pick up the newly blasted rocks. Oh then that blast broke a lot of people.
Dyer: And yet you can sense? You can see some of the area was blasted and some of the rock has been your inspiration (___) (___)…*Coleman interrupts* (17:49)
Coleman: (___) (___) that road into Glacier Point. I went up there and worked there just two weeks on the last end of *unintelligible* (17:58-18:00) last couple of weeks there. They want a guy out there. It (___) things out not including two weeks out there and I got any hotter food. And all I’d done was take the sheets of roofing like this here, tar gated roofing, and add a big, long ladder and an old warn out pickup and I’d go ahead of the guys on there were shooting and lap all those big trees (___) (___) (___) and my job tying them on their wire last.
Dyer: Well I guess…*Coleman interrupts* (18:43)
Coleman: Or more labors big enough blast the rocks and buckets and (___) (___) (___) oh they were a terrible (___).
Dyer: Well I can see the importance of preserving some of the trees there…*Coleman interrupts* (18:56).
Coleman: (___) (___) (___)…
Dyer: …and wildlife.
Coleman: …I had a good man too (___) they chase you down here. Tom Connelly…T.H. Connelly.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: He broke in there. Soon I found…he was an up and up man one time. They couldn’t have trapped him. They built that road and (___) hauled (___) (___). I build these last roads and…
Dyer: The government is pretty particular about things. I guess it’s difficult enough to work any kind of a big contract; especially the government.
Coleman: Yep.
Dyer: What about some of the roads down in the valley? Now as a boy, they must’ve been just trails that developed into roads in the valley? Did the Indians first have some trails down in the valley?
Coleman: Oh yeah they had miles of trails in the valley floor. There was only one road in the valley when I was a kid, you know, you just come up there by Tass Gauge in the winter right up under El Capitan right under and you got on up into the military posts and cross there and run on over and then you took a little jog on over to the old village and then up to Camp Curry and then back down the same road that was all the roads there was. That and you go up to Coffin and Kenny’s way went up to the meadow. Delivered hay and grain up there. That’s about all they delivered in there and they had grain and groceries and bring groceries in; no cans stuff, bring it all…all sacks stuff you know.
Dyer: Yeah. Was it…*Coleman interrupts* (20:50)
Coleman: (___) come inside sugar. Eleven-hundred pounds side flour, 1100 pound sacks; everything was 100 pounds.
Dyer: That’s about as much as a man could handle.
Coleman: Yeah. Flour never come with a sack; it come with a barrel you know.
Dyer: Well it must’ve been pretty dusty there in the summertime with these roads that were not paved…
Coleman: Oh yeah with the…the government themselves and the stage (___) used to have (___) wagon scrape a lot of road just covered wet all the time.
Dyer: When did they start oiling the road?
Coleman: Right after 1915.
Dyer: Just before the…*Coleman interrupts* (21:37)
Coleman: (___) (___) oiling when I was just a kid. They started oiling and penetrating and pretty soon they started (___) (___) concrete. On the roads in Yosemite that (___) is concrete, solid cement from the park Lanyon.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: Out in the railroad station that’s about three miles out of there on the El Capitan railroad station. It’s paved. Traces concreting with that thick and you got reinforced the ceiling.
Dyer: Eight to ten inches of concrete, huh?
Coleman: Yeah eight to ten inches.
Dyer: Well maybe…*Coleman interrupts* (22:17)
Coleman: Get through that.
Dyer: Maybe they planned to send something big through there sometime.
Coleman: Maybe. Yeah that’s when they started digging. Well that and *unintelligible* (22:25-22:28). And that arch rock when you go through that (___) (___) (___) there’s only one way to that you know. El Portal you know, we put those big, wide loads of hay on there and you can just…if you didn’t grab it right, you didn’t make it.
Dyer: You didn’t make it? What was it like backing up a team on something like that? Does it…
Coleman: You couldn’t back them up. You couldn’t get around in back of it to pull you back either. There was no way around. Either on side and big bulk or something.
Dyer: So you’re saying you better get through the first time, huh.
Coleman: You better make it through the first time. Yeah you just squeeze through. And then some guy come in there and a fellow named O’Brian had that job; K.H. O’Brian a Merced guy. He had a section of that road being built when they build it. That was built somewhere around 1907 and eight and he put his name up on the old major going down with that log (___) (___) shout out. That kind of helped it a little.
Dyer: Well people…*Coleman interrupts* (23:40)
Coleman: (___) shot the hell out of it.
Dyer: Yeah.
Coleman: And made a good roadway and everything he’d ever done.
Dyer: People use spray paint now.
Coleman: Yeah by the end of this year was cut right into the granite like you do a tombstone. It’s cut right in there.
Dyer: Well I’ll be darned.
Coleman: I guess he had some good stone mason that he’s putting (___), putting his name on. He wouldn’t go for it.
Dyer: People do funny things.
Coleman: Yeah they wouldn’t go for it, see. Now you’d take a big load of hay and you could just barely squeeze through it; you had it just right. And then you’d tear the big old spaces and a lot of hay on the side.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: You got through on the other side, you had to park out there and come back and pick up that straw and dump it over in the river so the rivers would wash it on down, so Old Major couldn’t come down there and check you. He knew everybody.
Dyer: Well it must’ve been difficult for him too because I’m sure he was receiving…*Coleman interrupts* (24:42).
Coleman: Well a lot of that stuff he took on his own hands, you know, trying to keep it clean.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: We…we never done it on purpose you know.
Dyer: Right.
Coleman: Meant a lot of work for us. We pulled the road loose. Hell of a lot of work.
Dyer: Old hay would was away with the first winter’s storm anyway.
Coleman: Yeah pulverize up, traffic on it.
Dyer: About the winter there, though, talking about winter storms. The valley must’ve been quite different during the winter season than the summer season, and you’ve spent several winters there.
Coleman: Yeah, yeah. If ice laid there some time, you couldn’t get in or out.
Dyer: Did that present any real problems for people who lived there?
Coleman: Well some. The people who think of living there and they put their grocery supply and they didn’t have much of (___) and maybe beans and biscuits and some salt pork but you lived on it. You didn’t starve. Twenty barrels of salt pork and couple barrels of flour and 20 pounds of beans, and use them beans up pretty good, you know. Make it last way opened up.
Dyer: Well did most people do very much during the winter.
Coleman: Oh they putted around. (___) (___) where they could.
Dyer: Wouldn’t be too many tourists there?
Coleman: Oh no, no tourists.
Dyer: No road work or…
Coleman: No, no the valley wasn’t any road work in the middle. Little (___) and gutter work, you know. They had no…no steel (___) or anything like they have now a gallon of nice cupboards they were all rock-made. Then they had to keep them open in the spring, winter run-off. Had (___) you know and they’d get plugged up. Those old streams run plenty of water and (___) there you know; plenty.
Dyer: Well didn’t the valley flood regularly?
Coleman: Oh yeah, yeah.
Dyer: Did that run any people out or…
Coleman: Oh no they always stuck it out.
Dyer: What about the stock? Did they keep any horses around there?
Coleman: Oh yeah they kept horses there.
Dyer: In the wintertime?
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: They have to keep them inside?
Coleman: Cage the horses and yeah…
Dyer: In barns?
Coleman: Plenty horses, yeah. Well after…after they…in the middle of November, you couldn’t graze nothing there…
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: …just a solid chunk of ice and you get men there in teams, two-horse teams to haul their ice in the ice houses and they used to sell their ice in the river then and block it out and put in the ice houses.
Dyer: Where was the ice house?
Coleman: Everywhere.
Dyer: Oh they had several of them?
Coleman: Yeah had one in (___) (___) the government had a big one, Curry’s had a very large one.
Dyer: Now how would they store that then? Would that be in straw?
Coleman: (___) (___) sawdust.
Dyer: Sawdust.
Coleman: Yeah.
Dyer: Would it last all summer.
Coleman: They…it was a wooden structure and the size was about three foot and that was solid sawdust in there; insulated sawdust roof and all and the ground is even insulated in sawdust. In that blanket…insulation in the door…see the doors was made on a slant and you just jab them in there. Sometimes you have to take a bar and open in the springs would just swell, see, but it was air tight.
Dyer: Uh-huh.
Coleman: They had the block size in there; 100 pound blocks, (___) pound blocks.
Dyer: Would they last…
Coleman: Oh yeah…
Dyer: Were people *simultaneous talking* (28:40)…all summer long they’d have ice there?
Coleman: There was ice left over.
Dyer: So the tourist could have their cold drinks?
Coleman: Uh-huh.
Dyer: What would a boy do during the wintertime there? Boys can’t stay indoors all the time and read books.
Coleman: Get out and trouse around and get tough.
(29:00-end tape is blank)