All in All–A Great Trip
Thanks to Jerry, Steve, and Oscar for scouting out and organizing the 2009 field trip to the Great Basin. And thanks to everyone who participated!
Paul Felt captured the trip in immortal verse:
They asked me to sub in for Bench
Which certainly wasn’t a cinch.
The verse is deplorable,
The rhymes all are horrible,
But it will have to do in a pinch.
George Ivory talked about sheep
Which most of us just count to sleep.
The big bags of wool
Were stuffed until full,
But there was nary a sign of Bo Peep.
At Topaz the wind blew the dust.
Face masks were almost a must.
The history was ad,
Living conditions were bad.
The whole thing was simply unjust.
In Delta we saw a dance hall
Which included a glittering ball.
It brought back a time
When Cokes were a dime,
Before kids all hung out at the mall.
The next morning we went up the hill
To the small copper town of McGill.
Despite memories from Jerry
We just couldn’t tarry,
For we had many miles to kill.
In Eureka they mined lots of lead.
The Opera House went to their head.
With the county’s huge surplus
They rebuilt it without fuss
While we are all taxed til we’re dead.
From Elko we went on to Wells
I fear it’s a road stop to hells
For it contains Donnas;
We’ve been warned by our mommas:
Don’t buy whatever she sells.
Here is the Enola Gay hangar
Where originated a very big banger.
From here came the blast
That separates present from past.
Let’s hope there are no more in anger.
This trip was filled with camraderie,
Although it presents a dichotomy–
To Ely and Elko
A traipsing we did go–
My wife thinks I need a lobotomy!
At the center we all got to hail
The work on the California trail.
Their pathway was long
As they all labored on
In pursuit of their own holy grail.
Great story on Paul Felt
Read about Paul’s complicated mediation between the Crandall Canyon mine owners and the victims’ families.
We’re proud to know you, Paul.
Carl Woolsey in hospital
From Steve Gallenson:
Dr. Woolsey had open heart surgery last week. He will be in the hospital for rehabilitation for the next 3 weeks. Carl is on the 5th floor in South 09 . I was told he is doing quite well. Please see if you can find the time give him a visit.
Field trip itinerary!
To White Pine, Elko and Eureka Nevada Counties
June 5, 6 and 7
Friday, June 5th
Depart Masonic Lodge Parking lot at 6 a.m. on chartered bus.
Our first stop will be in Eureka, Utah (Juab County). Coffee, Orange Juice and milk will be served here along with donuts and rolls. A short talk of mining then and now. Then a drive thru Mammoth to the site of neat ruin, an old baseball diamond.
Next will be sheep shearing pens and Jericho. A talk by Old-Sheep-Shearer George Ivory on the process of sheep shearing – be glad you don’t.
On to Delta and the Great Basin Museum. (a small bookstore is also in the museum.) Barbara Jones-Brown will talk about the Japanese Interment Camp near Delta. Lunch will be in a park in Delta After lunch we will visit the site of the Topaz Interment Camp.
From Topaz we join U.S. Highway 50. According to Life Magazine from the 1950s, this is the Loneliest Highway in America. It could be that, for we have more than a hundred miles to the next stop – Ely, Nevada. We will not be going to Great Basin National Park or the Lehman Caves. Plan calls for us to arrive in Ely between 3 & 4 p.m. First stop will be a railroad museum in Ely. We have rooms (most double occupancy) reserved in the Nevada Hotel. It is an old hotel, but has its charm and character. A banquet dinner is being planned in Ely with a speaker from Nevada. We had planned a side trip to the open copper mines at Ruth, but there is no consistency on the overlooks being open and the roads are dirt and dusty.
Saturday, June 6th
This is a long day with a great deal of traveling. There is no continental breakfast at the hotel. Getting up early is a must and having breakfast in the hotel. The bus will depart from the front of the hotel by 7:30 a.m.
A detour to McGill (12 miles northeast) will be made at my insistence. McGill was my second hometown. It was a company town (Kenecott Copper) I will thrill you all with stories of McGill. You will visit a bar (The McGill Club) for a little WWII nostalgia. You will visit the Swimming hole that was the center of my early life. It will be a trip down memory lane for me as we drive thru town. Then it is back to Ely and a 72-mile drive to Eurkea, Nevada. Here we will have lunch, provided by a local establishment. We had one of their sandwiches on the scouting trip and quickly ordered them for Utah Westerners. The box lunch will include a 6’-inch sandwich (beef, ham or turkey), homemade macaroni salad, chips and a cupcake. Lunch will be in a park (covered tables and restrooms, behind the opera house.)
The Eureka museum will be out first stop after lunch. The center of our attention, however, will be the Eureka Opera House. However, there is a problem. Some updating to the building is planned for the first week of June. I certainly hope we will miss it. The opera house is now owned and operated by Eureka County. Walter Cuschine, manager, said it is use for meetings, receptions, dinner and conventions more that 200 days a year. The county has spent several million dollars to make the place useful and attractive. According to a Google site, Eureka County’s estimated 2007 population was 1,559
Once we leave Eureka, it is north on Nevada Highway 278 (it is paved) to Carlin and I-80. It is an 88-mile trip. We will cross the Pony Express Trail and have a talk by Pat Hearty. It is desert but I found it quite beautiful. We crossed the Humboldt River and it was quite full,
David Jamiel, Elko BLM office, will meet us the California Interpretive Center west of Elko. It is not open yet and probably won’t be for another year due to funding woes. But David will give us a tour and tell us what the plans are for the center.
Then it is off to Elko and the Stockmen’s Hotel. We have rooms reserved there. Again, most are double occupancy. It you are interested in a single room, advance notice must be given to Steve Gallenson. There will be an additional charge.
No dinner gathering is planned for Elko. There are several Basque restaurants and we can make reservations for those who are interested.
Sunday, June 7th
The rush sort of ends. There is a restaurant in the hotel. Of course, for those Westerners so inclined, a number of ways to lose or even win at gambling available in both of our overnight stops.
Across, the large parking lot from the Stockman’s is the Pioneer Hotel. This is headquarters (actually a gift shop and tiny museum) for the Western Folklife Center. They normally close at 5 p.m. but we might be able to keep it open for an extra hour.
Sunday morning, again breakfast is on you, but the time element is a little more liberal – it will be announced later. We will tour the Northeast Nevada Museum around 11 a.m. (firm time later).
Now, I am sure, everyone will be asking, when do we get to Salt Lake? It is 231 miles to SLC. We will be making a drive-thru of Wells. Quake damage is still visible, I am sure with destruction and rebuilding (unlikely) in the future. Lunch will again be box lunch at a park in Elko. Arrival time in SLC should be late afternoon.
Questions! Call me 801-557-4476 or email at jhd@sisna.com
Jerry Dunton
Part-Time Trail Boss
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Get to know our new members
We have had four new members join us in 2009 so far. (Welcome!) We’ll look forward to getting to know them better. They are:
KENNETH L. CANNON II
Education: B.A. in history, (BYU) 1979. M.A. American history (BYU) 1982, JD (BYU) 1982. Profession: Attorney
Areas of Historical Interest: 19th Century Mormon, 19th Century Western American, late 19th Century American political, social, economic history, early modern European.
VAL JOHN HALFORD
Education: MCP Georgia Institute of Technology 1989. Profession: Urban Planner
Area of Historical Interest: Mormon Battalion, Utah War, Civil War.
FRED E. WOODS
Education: PhD in Middle East studies, (UofU) Profession: BYU Professor
Area of Historical Interest: 19th Century Mormon history as well as emigration history of all peoples to the West.
Utah Westerners 
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