Oral History Interview with Leroy Brown

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed, taped interview with two men, Mr. Leroy Brown, from (??) Rock, Kentucky, and Mr. Robert Kellen from Sturgis, Kentucky. The interview is conducted at Cumberland Falls State Park, on October 7, 1990, at about 9:15, AM. The interview is conducted by Mr. William Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission. Let’s start off with you Mr. Brown, do two things, tell me your name, your full name, and when you were born, and where you were born.

LEROY BROWN: Leroy Brown, I was born in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, the rural area, December 5, 1915.

BERGE: 1915. What was your father’s name?

BROWN: John Brown.

BERGE: And your mother?

BROWN: Edna Brown. 1:00Her last name was Edna Robards, it was spelled R o b a r d s. Some of them pronounce it Robards, but they call them selves Roberds {phonetic}.

BERGE: Ok, and that was her maiden name.

BROWN: That was her maiden name.

BERGE: Well, was she from that general area?

BROWN: She was from down in, yeah, the Dalton area. ( ) a rural area all farm area. Heading towards the twin lake area.

BERGE: Where did you go to school?

BROWN: Well, I went part from the Grand Rivers, and I also went to Charleston rural school, and went to Dalton Independent High School.

BERGE: Ok.

BROWN: Played football for them for four years.

BERGE: When—what year did you graduate from high school?

BROWN: Thirty-two, I believe. Yeah, thirty-two—thirty—it may have been thirty-two because that Independent don’t graduate like—they 2:00don’t actually stop in May or June. It is a little different because, when they get their money kicked in from the coal companies, and I would say I got out in thirty-three or thirty-two.

BERGE: When did you go in the three C’s?

BROWN: I went in about thirty-four.

BERGE: Huh-huh. What did you do from the time you left school and went in the three C’s?

BROWN: Well, I worked in a theatre, ran a picture show all the time I was going to high school. And I kind of helped them out it, was kind of one of them deals, I guess you would say kind of scholastically ( ). And that is the way I got to go to school, and I stayed on and worked with them. In the meantime, I also moonlighted, and worked in the—for a contractor who had a contract with Dawson Springs coal tipple, for water and coal shoots they called it, Mr. Hunter. And his son was a 3:00( ) American, and I was Captain of the team, so we were good friends. I moonlighted with him and I worked—they call them car knockers. Where we took the ( ) out of the engines and bedded them down, when they haul coal out of them mines ( ) and stuff like that.

BERGER: Hum-hum BROWN: So the depression got so bad that, you know, they was feeding us on garden stuff and he was just a contractor. And it got so they couldn’t have picture shows because Tom Mix and Bugg Jones, and ( ), and William ( ), and the Barrymores, and they didn’t make enough money at ten cents a show; so they finally cut it down to week ends. That was how bad it got in the thirty-three. My mother worked at the Veterans Hospital at Dawson Springs, they had a TB Hospital.

BERGE: In Dawson Springs? 4:00BROWN: She was a registered nurse, out there in the Civil Service.

BERGE: How did you come to go in the CC’s and when?

BROWN: I just—it got—there was no money—nobody had a job—everybody was out and she was making thirty-eight dollars a month.

BERGE: Hum-hum. How did you hear about it?

BROWN: Well, just one thing I was going in, what you call Citizens Military Training, in summer time in July. So I went up there in June, they said there would be no money for the CMTC; so I was kind of a Regimental Clerk, I played in the band too, and they said, “you can go right over there and get a dollar a day.” I said, “are you kidding me?” So they said, “Yeah, go over there.” So I walked over there, the old Hot Tom, the First Sergeant, of that whole company out there, said, “Oh, come over here. Here kid, you’re a typist, sit down and start typing type these names out.” And then they was bringing 5:00in a troop train, you know the ( ), the Department of Labor, and bring them in; so I sat there and punched out cards. And then the CO, was Captain ( ), he was a Captain then, in the army you was somebody, and he come up and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “kid what company are you in?” I said, “I ain’t in nuthin’ right now, I’m just helping Hot Tom.” He said, “put your name on that thing, that is a dollar a day.” So I joined the three C’s.

BERGE: And that is how you got in.

BROWN: I went in the Cadre, a nice over-head, long-standing Cadre, and we went to J 13. That was the area—out in a big corn field.

BERGE: Where was that?

BROWN: Fort Knox. That was where they sent me. That was our unit. And they kept us all CC’s fourteen days, because they didn’t have doctors in the field; and you had to get your three shots. And then we typed up rosters, and sent them out troop trains, and loaded them up. And we would get—we worked around the clock 6:00making up rosters, they had one of them big tents. Then the rumor got out that they sent them out west or they sent them out ( ); and they would load that bunch up, and get them over there, and instead of two hundred they would have one hundred and twenty-five. They would pull that bunch out, and they would go get that next company, and here we would have to get those records all straightened out. So that was a rat race.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: And we worked—I worked almost less than six months … BERGE: Up there at Fort Knox?

BROWN: At Fort Knox. And they started a hiring civilians to do our work and then they told us to catch the first company out. And I looked on the roster, and said 508 Benton Kentucky, 509 Corbin Kentucky and I am from the area, the Benton area, and I don’t want to go home. So I said, “where is Corbin?” Everybody said, “I don’t know.” I got to have this town, it said railroad 7:00town, I said, “Oh , just like Paducah.” (laughter) I’ll ( ), we found the Corbin outfit they had about two hundred … BERGE: That was in the Fall?

BROWN: It was in about May or June … BERGE AND BROWN: …of thirty-four.

BROWN: And they had ( ) the camp out here, and we were not a replacement. They were bringing almost a whole company in , we had a hundred and ninety-four. You could bring two hundred, and I had my stripes on. I had three stripes, and I was the only one that looked like a zebra, and this Reserve Officer said, “son what are you?” I said, “I am supposed to be a leader.” He said, “how did you get them so quick?” I said, “I come out of the Cadre at Fort Knox.” And he was an Air Force Reserve Officer named George North, we nicknamed him “Taganorth”. 8:00So they put me in 509; 563 was the Ohio group and they were stationed up here.

BERGE: And you were down here.

BROWN: We were in 509, and that was private property down there. They were trying to sell it to the state. It didn’t ever take and it went back to ( ). So 509 struggled and we helped them build everything. We built the parking lot, and the trails, and all this and helped them build the lodge. They said we didn’t do it, but we got it up to where it didn’t have any windows except a long, long time and it was built, about where the parking lot is. What they also ( ) over there was a tool shed, and this was everything. So we built 509 on a rock ledge down there. And they chiseled the bathrooms or the toilets out of the rock, ( ) both areas ( ). And they come in around Christmas time—I think the record shows twelfth and fifteenth, 9:00of 1933 ( ).

BERGE: Hum-hum. Hum-hum.

BROWN: And they give it first SP 3, through a mix-up, and then they changed it to an SP 7, and 509 took SP1, the first park. Dupont had given this property to the State of Kentucky, and they had a hunting lodge down here called Moonbow Inn, and that was the last thing that they turned over. That was one of our projects, was to put—there was that little tile you know, that you put around the ( ). They didn’t have shower baths, at the time, they had outdoor toilets, so we fixed that up for them. I think it burned down.

BERGE: Let me go ahead here. How long did you stay here?

BROWN: I stayed here until they busted up 509. I think it was about thirty-five when they busted it up. 10:00BERGE: Where did you go then?

BROWN: Ah, well, we sent ( ) to Bell Farm, Goose rock, Manchester, no, it was called Goose Rock but it is in Manchester area … BERGE: Yeah.

BROWN: Ok. So I went out—I had gone through all the ranks, you know, bottom up.

BERGE: Yeah.

BEOWN: I had been an LEM, I had been a PA, a Project Assistant, so I went out—Captain North had thirty more days and that was the Cadre we took to Goose Rock. The day we got there at Garrard it rained, and we had to wait about a half an hour or two hours at a saw mill to get across the creek, so we could go on up there to Goose Rock. And that day Will Rogers fell, got killed, and so the first morning report we called it Will 11:00Rogers, Camp Will Rogers. While we was there they said--you know I had already passed the Civil Service test--and they was taking the bars off the officers because a lot of camps were trying to drill these boys. And the congress was trying to say cut it out. ‘Cause their momma’s were writing in and giving them the ( ). They made a–they turned around and said, “take the bars off of them and give them pips.” They give them pips for the commanders, two pips and they called them a sub-altern.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: Not a Second Lieutenant, and you addressed them as Mister. You didn’t call him Captain, they got the ranks and everything, but they addressed you as a civilian and you addressed them as a civilian. So when I got out there, I had already passed the Civil Service test, and they was talking about ( ) and all, ah, would you like to try for the sub-altern. 12:00Well, when we got up there, they said, “you got a letter, a registered letter, addressed to Manchester, go to Manchester.” So I went over there to the Post Master and my appointment to National Park Service was in there.

BERGE: Oh.

BROWN: So they brought me back, and they sent me to Richmond with four men. So I ended up working for the National Park Service for the park.

BERGE: Where did you go?

BROWN: I come back to Kentucky. Course I think ( ) had something to do with it. And they was wanting—they couldn’t find—they couldn’t find the superintendent with the tractors pool truck, because they were here today and gone tomorrow, political appointment. And they wanted somebody that had like, you know, a Civil Service employee. So first I signed for all these … BERGE: Where 13:00were you working? Where were you?

BROWN: I went to Fort Knox, back from here then, and a fella by the name of Walter B. Ringle, National Park Inspector, who I worked under, and then we—all the paper work all the projects, even the political appointments, and what-not, were pipe-lined through me. I was the only Federal employee that they had.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: So I signed for all the ( ) … BERGE: Did you travel around?

BROWN: Yes, once a month I went around all the twelve camps.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

BROWN: Anderson, Cumberland, Belmont, up in Carrolton, up in Pineville, and up through here this lower ( ) here.

BERGE: When you all left here, you went over to Goose Rock. What was the condition of the park here then? What had been done and what hadn’t been done?

BROWN: The parking lot had been blowed out, that kind of went off down to the river, we flattened it out and it blew. 14:00We had some Muhlenberg boys in here from the coal country—and they knew all about ( ), and they had never used dynamite, they had used powder. Well, you know, we was dumb enough we didn’t know you was supposed to have a chalk form in here anytime you did this in the State of Kentucky, so we let them blow a few rocks out. Well, they got to loading it up, and there was a place on the other side of the river a private place with a long porch on it.

BERGE: Yeah, I have seen pictures of that.

BROWN: Ok. They blew a thing as big as a barrel over the top of that thing. They had put so much dynamite in there it blew that rock over right down through that thing. That was when they read the riot act to us—you will blow no more with the dynamite. So they sent a man from Frankfort down, and he showed us how to do this, and he had to have a license, the guy over you. So we stopped the dynamite shooting and started to shooting black powder. Them boys could do pop shots 15:00and so forth.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

BROWN: So they finally got them trails started, and ( ), and the last trail that we done was over the falls and was going to Rattlesnake Bluff. Well, I understand that later on they changed that. They had some wild dogs running around through the country, and they shot them dogs and they called it dog slaughter. But the people didn’t want to go where rattlesnakes was, because they ( ), and ( ) later on in the thing the Department of Interior and Park Service specially named that trail, CCC trail. And I think they gave us the paper, big thing, and I think we left it with Jeannie. I guess Steve has it in his office, but that is an official document. And this number six down here, we want it to be number one but 16:00they didn’t give ( ). When they blew the whistle for chow, they didn’t want you to come up that hill, because the water would wash stuff down So those boys, they made you go back, and go round and those old gravel roads; by the time you got up here all the baloney was gone. So they said let us build it, we will do it on the week-end. So that is about the sixth trail was done. So we … BERGE: To get to the dining room?

BROWN: Well, get here faster. So it said something about Goose Rock, well, … BERGE: What did you go over there to do? What did they do over there?

BROWN: Well, we went over there as a ( ) project going to do timber count. And the boys we took was ( ) boys, and when they found out they was going to be on the Forest Service, they wanted to come back with us. And Captain North said, “well, we’ll take you back to London.” BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: Well, we went between two buildings, and down through some road 17:00over there, a long way down there, to Manchester. So they brought me back, and the Captain come back with us. He let a few of the boys come back, cause they wanted to go to the picture show. I think they stayed over the hill, they didn’t go back. The best I remember.

BERGE: That is because of the rough place?

BROWN: Well, no, they just didn’t want to switch from a park town to a forest camp.

BERGE: Why not?

BROWN: They just didn’t want to. They didn’t like that kind of work. Well, one thing we fed good here. The park camps always fed good. And we had better fire equipment. We had better back-hoes, better pumps, and everything and they were you know, every time we would go on a fire, they would be sure you hang on to your stuff. Don’t come back without the equipment.

BERGE: Yeah, bring back what you went with.

BROWN: That was key thing. So then I ended up, like I say, kind of an administrator, and we had twelve state parks in Kentucky. We 18:00had four camps at Mammoth Cave, and we had ENT, National Park Fund, and we put two colored camps, in Mammoth Cave. And meantime the army was trying to put five in each one of our camps. And some of them nigger boys stayed, and made good cooks, and good so forth, they did well. I think the group that come here never got off the truck—they run them over the hill.

BERGE: Oh.

BROWN: But this is, some camps did … BERGE: You know some of that—somebody was telling me that they were stationed in ( ), and there were so many blacks there.

BROWN: They put five in every one of the camps as an experiment, if they could get them in there. That’s the way … BERGE: And generally speaking there wasn’t a lot of problems was there?

BROWN: Well, yeah. ‘Cause they wasn’t integrated. Some rebelled and run them off.

BERGE: Some places they lived 19:00in the same barracks and put a partition in.

BROWN: Well, not so much as that, but they turned out to be good cooks, mess sergeants, and some of them turned out to be first aid, some of them barracks leaders. Some of them was pretty good, and some of them was … BERGE: Just like everybody else, huh.

BROWN: Well, this is the way it was. But we had one camp, ( ) camp, we sent to Otters Creek, that was a little … BERGE: Now there was a black camp down at Russellville, too, wasn’t there?

BROWN: Yeah, but that was soil conservation. See.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: And all together we had twelve state parks, I’m just … BERGE: You are talking about the parks now?

BROWN: Yeah, park camps, that were part of the interior, see.

BERGE: So you—this is something else again—in the twelve park camps, could you tell me, what was the major kind of work was done by the CCC in the parks?

BROWN: Well, we built mostly caretakers home, we built parking lots, we built trails. You more or less 20:00didn’t build the parks at all, and a lot of it is still there, still being used. Now I am sure since then, I know the state of Kentucky has improved on them, and redone some of them; but the old backbone of the thing is actually done by the CCC hand labor.

BERGE: In other words, you are convinced that—you know—that the basis of the Kentucky Park System, was really CCC?

BROWN: While we were in, now I understand that we only got credit for building six of them. I think the State of Kentucky argues that, that is all we finished. But, like, ( ) and the Bird Sanctuary at Henderson, and Pineville and Mt. Laurel, and they went on, I wrote them down. And I said about Dawson Springs, well, they gave that to the University of Kentucky, they get credit for that. How about Wickliffe? Oh, no, no. How about Pennyrile? Oh no, no, that 21:00would be WPA. They used our equipment, they used our trucks, our boys dug the drag lines, here’s the picture, oh, you’re not supposed to have them.

BERGE: Do you—so what were the parks? Was the project at Slade by the CCC?

BROWN: The what?

BERGE: The one at Slade, was that done by the CCC?

BROWN: No. Uh-huh. You are talking about Natural Bridge?

BERGE: Yeah.

BROWN: Oh, yeah, that was.

BERGE: Can you remember the ones you did?

BROWN: I had it wrote down in my book, but I didn’t bring it along. Six of them they actually gave us credit for.

BERGE: Well, you know what I was thinking? Maybe it would pay me to sometime--how long would it take me to come down to your house, in Louisville?

BROWN: Well, you will never catch me there, because I am retired, and I fish, and I am gone … BERGE: You’re not there?

BROWN: No. No. You don’t want me to stay home after I retired would you?

BERGE: Well, I’m retired and I … BROWN: But I can mail you the—and Frankfort has it. They have got it on their record 22:00down there and they can tell you what we actually got credit for. And those others they don’t—like Otter Creek … BERGE: They don’t count that.

BROWN: No, it was a park for Louisville, the City of Louisville. And when they bought that property—when the Department took over, you know, for the Government, they cut that park out and gave it to Louisville. I’m sure you know. And even the army wanted it, but they wouldn’t let them have it they gave it to Louisville.

BERGE: You worked on that park too?

BROWN: We built the Sky High camp. We built the camp there, that was the last camp we moved in there. Like I say, the State of Kentucky has eighty-three camps. We went through the entire thing, and they moved around, and you can count up eighty-three. But you go back and cross off like Dawson Springs, and Otter Creek, and camp 23:00so and so; can cross them off, and cross them off you end up with about forty-four.

BERGE: Yeah. But those forty-four camps were in eighty-three different places.

BROWN: Eighty-three different places. And we got a record of them. We finally ( ) them up and this is the way they come out. And they had Forest Service, Wooton, and so forth and Sterns, they’d have five something, and they’d have fifteen something, this camp … BERGE: What did they do over at Wooton?

BROWN: Ah, they were Forest Service.

BERGE: Ok.

BROWN: I don’t know just what ( ), but, they were Forest Service so we played ball with them, and ( ) and we did the same thing with Pineville and Slade. Now Natural Bridge, we worked at Natural Bridge. We had a camp over there and had one at Buckhorn, had a camp, but it wasn’t a park camp.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: And then after the whole thing was set up, why they just give us credit 24:00for about six. They said you know … BERGE: How long did you stay with that job?

BROWN: I stayed with it till it closed out June, 30, l942, was the last day. And then after the army moved the people out, I was part of the Interior and I stayed on up till about November. I was a “Dear John”, and ended up at Camp Breckenridge.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

BROWN: At Morrisville Kentucky.

BERGE: What did you do after World War II, what did you do?

BROWN: I went back to Fort Knox and I was still—they was going back to the Interior. And think about lighthouse keeping, you know, on some big ( ), my big dream then was, what were we going to do for retirement, you know at the end of it.

BERGE: Yeah.

BROWN: And they had already rumored that they were fixing to civilianize retirement out of the military, all of the Defense was going to be civilianized. 25:00So Fort Knox said, “if you will transfer over we will send you to the War College at Fort Lee.” So I already transferred over, and went to Fort Lee and I ended up as Civilian Contracting Officer. And I first was going to White Sand New Mexico, but the class one installation , Fort Knox, had asked for it, for their civilianizing. So on graduation day, they called me in there and said, “ well, we saw your face drop when we said you were going to White Sand in New Mexico, and since you are on the top ten of our class,” they said, “we want you to go to Fort Knox.” And of course, I kind of swallowed, and said, “man that is a monster down there I won’t know if”—(laughter)—they said, “somebody is going to be a civilian officer so you just go on down there.” So we took over from the military and 26:00I stayed—altogether I had forty-five years and six days of Federal service.

BERGE: They didn’t count the CC’s?

BROWN: No, they didn’t count the CC’s. They would not count anything in the enlisted ranks, they called that emergency conservation work.

BERGE: Ok.

BROWN: Now, there was a Landpact Act came out, Senator Landpact out of New York. And they put a bill through, that, if you had made one hundred dollars, and it was in a supervisory status, then your time could count. Well, I was getting a hundred five dollars, so they counted the supervisory time. But when you was an EM, a LEM, or a PA, or a local employee, you was getting those low salaries. Now, when I was PA I think I got seventy, then I got ninety, but I had to make a hundred, but they didn’t give me that.

BERGE: That was the cut off.

BROWN: No, it had to be a hundred bucks. So that Landpact gave you that right.

BERGE: What—if I—if somebody were to ask you what—how important you thought 27:00your experience in the CCC was, what would you say?

BROWN: Well, I would say … BERGE: To you.

BROWN: I would say, it paved my way for a good job with the Government, and like I say, I have always have worked with the Government. I have never held a job outside, and I am retired from them. Retired from Fort Knox. And I live right there at Fort Knox. And I would say it changed my life all the way around. Actually I was going into botany, and farming, my dream was to be a County Agent or to be somebody--political in the county, or something like this. But after they got me in there I just—they changed me around.

BERGE: How valuable do you think it was for the country?

BROWN: I would say that—not only did it help the families, you know like my family got twenty-five dollars; and 28:00it helped my family over the hump. It kept them solvent, and my mother married three times after my father died. And there were three families involved, and they only had all kinds of brats, and of course, they was on starvation. I say it lifted us up, it gave me a chance to grow up. I might have been making moonshine whiskey, or something; if I couldn’t have made it with something else. But this is what you have to do, I worked in the coal mines, and so it gave me a chance to break away, and establish myself and finish up my school. So I went to Western, it took me seven years to get my thing. But anyhow, a lot of times when I was in Otter Creek we went up on Saturday—see the show was on Saturday, we would stay all day on Saturday and that is the way I finished up my school.

BERGE: Well, Mr. Brown, 29:00I sure want to thank you, what I think I will do is put another tape in and you sit here while I talk to Mr. Kellen.

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE BROWN END OF INTERVIEW.