Oral History Interview with Arnold Prewitt

WILIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. Arnold Prewitt of Williamsburg, Kentucky. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission in the Cumberland Falls State Park, ah, at Cumberland Falls State Park on September 29, 2000, at approximately 2:00 PM. Now, Mr. Prewitt, tell me what your full name is, and where you were born.

ARNOLD PREWITT: Ok. My full name is Arnold Prewitt, no middle initial.

BERGE: Ok. Where were you born?

PREWITT: In Whitley County, out of Williamsburg, oh, four or five miles, south 1:00on Clear Fork River.

BERGE: What year—what date were you born?

PREWITT: June 5, 1916 BERGE: 1916. That was a few years ago.

PREWITT: Eighty-four, plus a little bit.

BERGE: Yeah. (laughs) What was your dad’s name?

PREWITT: Elijah Prewitt.

BERGE: Elijah Prewitt. Where was he born, do you know?

PREWITT: He was born in ( ) Creek area of Williamsburg. Just out of Williamsburg a little ways.

BERGE: What was your mother’s maiden name?

PREWITT: Esther Hamp—ah, ah no, Esther Sumner.

BERGE: Sumner.

PREWITT: She’s got a sister married a Hamner.

BERGE: S-U-M-N-E-R?

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok. Tell me this, when you were a boy, where did you go to school?

PREWITT: I went to Cane Creek rural school out of Williamsburg.

BERGE: Was it a one room school?

PREWITT: A one room school.

BERGE: How long did you go there?

PREWITT: Eighth grade.

BERGE: You finished all eight grades there? 2:00Did you ever go to another school?

PREWITT: No.

BERGE: Ok. Now when you finished eighth grade, that was probably about 1930, is that right?

PREWITT: Well, ah, no.

BERGE: About then, that would have been about right. Maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine. What did you do when you finished school?

PREWITT: Well, ah shortly I went in the CCC’s, not too long after that, and well, it was quite a little ways, this was … BERGE: When you were a boy, what kind of work did you do around before you went in the CC’s?

PREWITT: Oh, we had a little farm out there.

BERGE: Ok. You worked at home then.

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: You remember the date when you went in the three C’s?

PREWITT: Yeah. October 4, 1934.

BERGE: You were one of the first of that year to go in. There weren’t too many ahead of you, you know. 3:00PREWITT: Ah … BERGE: About a year.

PREWITT: About five people went in with me, I don’t know what their dates are, but some of them are still in this—in—Johnny Roberts for instance was a friend of mine. I see him occasionally.

BERGE: Yeah. When you went in, where did you sign up? Do you remember?

PREWITT: Well, they actually signed us up in Pineville. Somebody took us in a car to Pineville, and then from Pineville they sent us to Fort Knox, and sent us where they wanted us to go. I went to Upland, California … BERGE: Upland.

PREWITT: There was five us—five people with me from that area.

BERGE: How long were you at Fort Knox before they sent you there, do you remember?

PREWITT: Oh, probably a week or two. I don’t remember that I am sorry.

BERGE: When 4:00you went to Upland and you went with four or five other people that you knew pretty well … PREWITT: Yeah. I, I—in the process of going in.

BERGE: Yeah. Did you go by train?

PREWITT: Went by train. Pullman. We slept on the … BERGE: You went like big shots, huh?

PREWITT: Oh, went big time. (laughter) BERGE: Did you have a good time on the trip?

PREWITT: We had a pretty good time I would say. They even stopped along on the desert and let us get out and walk for exercise.

BERGE: Huh.

PREWITT: Yeah, well, how about that.

BERGE: I’ll bet you were surprised to see that desert, weren’t you?

PREWITT: Well, I—it was the first time I had ever seen it.

BERGE: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you went to Upland … PREWITT: Upland, California.

BERGE: Was the camp already there when you got there?

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: It had been going on for a while.

PREWITT: Yeah. It was—it was considered a summer camp, ah, ah, not a summer camp, a winter camp. 5:00We stayed approximately six months there and they sent us to Idaho.

BERGE: Where abouts in Idaho?

PREWITT: Coeur d’Alene was the address. Coeur d’Alene Idaho.

BERGE: That’s pretty there.

PREWITT: We had a post office at Eddyville and that was a saw mill town. That was where the railroad ended; but Coeur d’Alene was the place where we went for recreation.

BERGE: Coeur d’Alene is pretty, it’s on the river and it is a pretty place.

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: When you were in Upland, what kind of work did you do the six months you were there?

PREWIT: We made the so-called fire breaks on those ridges, there wasn’t much big timbers, it was all scrubby. We cut out roads up these ridges so they could control the fires.

BERGE: How wide were those roads? Do you remember? 6:00PREWITT: Oh, they must have been, forty-five, thirty feet wide.

BERGE: Yeah, big enough to—big enough to stop a fire.

PREWITT: Most of the time yes.

BERGE: And that is all you did there? Was work in the woods?

PREWITT: That’s what we did there for that. And we did different work at Idaho; I’ll tell you about that if you want to know.

BERGE: Yeah. When you were sent to Idaho, do you remember how you traveled? Did you go by train again?

PREWITT: We went by train to our destination , then they hauled us by truck back in the woods fifty-four miles.

BERGE: From Coeur d’Alene?

PREWITT: From—well that was from Eddyville—I don’t know, I don’t remember the distance from Coeur d’Alene.

BERGE: All right, what did you do there? What camp was that?

PREWITT: Well, a temp camp. A temp camp, and there was a ranger station pretty close by, and they had some horses I remember, in a big 7:00meadow field there, and the snow hadn’t left off the side of the road between our crane and that temp camp. It wasn’t all over that but … BERGE: Big piles of it … PREWITT: Yeah. And these horses ranged out in this field, and we got out there and played with them sometimes, they were very gentle and--but they had a insect that was killing a lot of the white pines … BERGE: The Gypsy Moth?

PREWITT: Ah—ah … BERGE: Was that the name of it?

PREWITT: I might think of it directly, but I can’t right now. But, anyway, these insects lived on the ( ) wild gooseberries was one of them. Called one “livester”, and one “licustra” and one 8:00some kind of “biscus,” but we learned what these were.

BERGE: So you killed the stuff they ate?

PREWITT: We pulled these out by the roots. And the way we did that, they had big balls of twine--I’ve seen it in stores back when I was a youngster what they called it--but someone would hold this and tie it, and lead the way, and we would stretch it up the ridge about twenty, twenty-five feet wide between the strings. Then two boys would get in this ( ) where all these plants I’m telling you about, wild gooseberries, they didn’t call it that, it was one of those names I told you. But that was to control that insect.

BERGE: Yeah. that was eating that—killing the white pine.

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: Yeah, I was born in north-eastern Pennsylvania, and we had 9:00an infestation in the woods that they were calling Gypsy Moths, and the CC’s controlled that. The way they did that, it seems to me they had scrips of burlap, and they dipped them in something like creosote, and they wrapped it around the trunk of the trees; and that saved them, I don’t remember how it was, but it was a good job well done, wasn’t it?

PREWITT: Yeah.

BERGE: How long were you up there around Coeur d’Alene?

PREWITT: During the summer because it wouldn’t have been … BERGE: It wouldn’t have been in the winter time.

PREWITT: Not in tents.

BERGE: No.

PREWITT: So we went back to California … BERGE: Back to Upland?

PREWITT: No. No, no. They ( ) there. It was northern California, pretty close to the Oregon state border.

BERGE: Where was that?

PREWITT: Ah, Klamath Falls, was the closest thing. The address was Merle Oregon.

BERGE: Ok.

PREWITT: But that was just a small—just a postal … BERGE: Hum-hum.

PREWITT: And we 10:00worked on the irrigation ditches there; improved them and cleaned them up and so on. Ah, so that was the main work there. Now another time we moved to another California camp.

BERGE: Where was that?

PREWITT: The redwood area, I wish I had my notes, I have it written down … BERGE: That was something to see wasn’t it? Those redwoods?

PREWITT: It was something to see. There was a tree in that area, they had a sign by it, thirty-two feet in diameter.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh, dear. Thirty-two feet in diameter. Thirty-two feet, that is bigger than this room.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Bet you couldn’t believe it when you saw those trees, 11:00could you?

PREWITT: We fought some fire there. I remember, this was along the Pacific coastline … BERGE: Yeah. Huh-huh.

PREWITT: One time we was out fighting fire, a truckload of us, about twenty maybe, and there was a ranger with us and he wanted to—he wanted us to hold--we were on a little narrow road, one lane, I guess one car could pass one, but it wasn’t a big road—and he went out from us and climbed a tree, he went pretty high up that tree, and he climbed down in a hurry, “let’s go.” The fire had broke over somewhere down there and was … BERGE: Coming right at you.

PREWITT: And the crown part they called it—what was in the top of the timber so we got in that truck and took off from that particular … BERGE: Yeah, you were lucky that he saw that.

PREWITT: Yeah, he was experienced in that. 12:00BERGE: Yeah. How long did you stay in California?

PREWITT: About three years.

BERGE: And then you came back.

PREWITT: Yeah. I wanted to tell you about Yellowstone Park.

BERGE: Oh, sure.

PREWITT: We spent a summer in Yellowstone Park. And in that particular camp they put me in charge of the fire suppression crew, number one fireman crew.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

PREWITT: And they gave us a truck and you know that includes whatever equipment they had, which wasn’t much; some back pumps and rakes and tools you know.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

PREWITT: And they had—we didn’t have any other assignment but to wait for these fires, 13:00but when that happened it was two or three o’clock in the night or whatever time it was, we hit that fire. We went to a hunters lodge just out of the park ( ) and it didn’t have much of a bed either, and we went up there, and he was a giant of a man, he must have been six feet and a half or something, a big man, and he let us ( ) ( ). We thought we was in pretty good shape, but we got that fire headed off and controlled it. That’s one, and we had two or three other small fires. But I was in charge of the fire crew, I was a leader you know.

BERGE: Yeah. Did you like that kind of work? The fire fighting?

PREWITT: Well, I didn’t mind it. The, ah, they taught us how to treat a fire; 14:00for instance if there were a log of a stump or something, it was not blazing, but if there was smoke coming out of it we placed a man with that, until it was out, because that starts another fire. A lot of these places where the man climbed a tree and looked, you see that far from these big pines, you know all kinds of evergreen got little firs on top … BERGE: And they pop … PREWITT: Sometimes they would bow out in the ocean and when they hit that water you would see smoke come from it.

BERGE: Steam, yeah.

PREWITT: That’s what carries these fires on, so that was an experience there.

BERGE: Yeah, darn right. Yeah, yeah. You learned a lot about it didn’t you?

PREWITT: Well, I learned something about it.

BERGE: Yeah. Did—how long—what did you do after you left California?

PREWITT: Well, we came 15:00to Leslie County Kentucky. That’s, you go – BERGE: Did they transfer the whole bunch of you back to Leslie County?

PREWITT: No, no. No. There was—wasn’t anybody out at my camp ( ). They sent—what happened, they told us we was going home—we came to Fort Knox and while we were there, they give us a chance to reenlist for six more months if we wanted to, it was optional. So I decided to do that. And they sent us to Harlan County, we got off the train in Harlan, the truck met us there, and took us to a local camp just out of Harlan, Putney, they called it. And we stayed all night and then the next day, a truck came from Bledsoe, that’s where I finally wound up, … BERGE: In Estill County.

PREWITT: In Leslie County, and we went over there and—and they put me working 16:00in a maintenance garage, and I worked there for a while. Then they placed me with an experienced bull dozer operator, I was a helper, and he taught to operate that … BERGE: Dozer?

PREWITT: He liked to read, and I got a lot of experience, with him sitting over at the side and reading, and I’d run the bull dozer. So when I … BERGE: Well, you probably liked that too, didn’t you?

PREWITT: Yeah, I liked that. It suited me. I got so I could run the bull dozer according to the recommendation I got at home now, I was an expert bull dozer operator. They gave me—when I left there in case I wanted to follow that as a … BERGE: Career?

PREWITT: Yeah. And it was 17:00a good recommendation—I’ve got it at home.

BERGE: How long did you stay there?

PREWITT: Ah, about—I was altogether about a year and one-half, because I was three years in the west, and a year and one-half here in there. So that was—that was what I did toward the last was operate the bull dozer.

BERGE: When did you finally leave the three C’s?

PREWITT: Well, it was in the—I guess the spring of thirty-nine, because it was four and one-half years; from October 4, 1934, let’s see thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven … BERGE: Yeah, nine.

PREWITT: Ok. So I came out and you want to know what I … BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: All right. I ran into one of those first fellows that went to California.

BERGE: Oh. (laughs) PREWITT: He was living in Williamsburg, 18:00and he said, “what are you going to do?” “Well,” I said “well, I got to hunt a job somewhere.” I had a brother that was a coal miner at ( ) Kentucky. So, ah that spring though he said, “why don’t’ you go with me this summer and we will go follow the harvest. Whatever they were harvesting.” And it was early in the spring, so we bought a car between us for nine dollars, … BERGE: What kind of car was it?

PREWITT: It was a 1929 Chevrolet, it didn’t have a top on it. It was stripped down just like a little truck. All it had was two seats, and like little seats, and like a little truck bed. So we--it wouldn’t run so we got them to tow it over to his house, and I told you I’d had a little experience … BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: And he had--had 19:00a little, we fixed on it and put brakes on it—it didn’t have any brakes on it—and we started out, went to Humbolt, Tennessee, and strawberries, of all things. And we picked strawberries for a month or so. He had been the year before on that same, so he knew these people and we went to Michigan, strawberries was just coming in up there, and we followed the harvest in Michigan, and Indiana until the fall of the year came. We even picked some—shoveled some corn from a corn picker, you know what I … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

PREWITT: A mechanical picker would convey that corn over to a wagon, we’d take that wagon to the crib, and just—these big scoops--and that was the last thing that … BERGE: Did you do pretty good on that? 20:00PREWITT: We done pretty good. We didn’t—‘course back then a dollar was a dollar.

BERGE: You betcha.

PREWITT: And we did pretty good. And at the end of the year, we had already decided that when we got through with that summer we would have a give or take price for our car.

BERGE: Get in a different line of work the next year, huh?

PREWITT: Yeah. So, so he—we met up with two men—one of them was called Shorty, he’d been a military cook, and the other fella was older, and Tommy, my buddy, decided he would go to Florida for the winter harvest. Well, that was all the harvesting I wanted to do, I wanted to go to the coal mine.

BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: So I went to Denham, where my brother worked, and they wasn’t hiring anybody, and I went up to Lynch, just a—well—a bit of a … BERGE: Yeah, I know I’ve been there. 21:00PREWITT: All right. And I saw up there—I--where I had went to this Cane Creek School is. Steely Rutherford, and he asked me what I was doing and I said, “I would like to have a job.” He said, “well, here you have to have--you have to go with an experienced man.” I had never been in the … BERGE: In the mine.

PREWITT: In the mine. And he said, “if you want to do it I’ll sign up to take care of you.” So we talked to the superintendent and he told us, “ok.” So they signed me up and the day I got signed up for health and all that stuff, he had violated a section rule and they laid him off for two days.

BERGE: Ah-oh.

PREWITT: So when I went to work that day on the second shift, I found that out. Well you can’t go in without the … BERGE: So what did you do? 22:00PREWITT: And he worked for a fella by the name of Dick Winstead, a foreman; and Dick knew my brother, who worked at Denham, and another fella was standing there hearing all this stuff you know, named Charlie Brown. Charlie said, “Dick, if you let that boy go in with me I’ll take care of him.” And Dick said, “well, I know Bill and he is a good worker and ok, if you’ll take care of him.” So I … BERGE: Was Bill your brother?

PREWITT: Bill was my brother. And we went—I went in there, and I worked with him, I never did work with that fellow that signed up for me, but very little, because Brown wanted me to work with him.

BERGE: You worked with Brown most of the time.

PREWITT: Then I got experience there to be on my own, and Brown got transferred. He wanted an outside job, he went out there and moved timbers and … BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: Stuff. And they let me on my own. And we had started 23:00… BERGE: Did US Steel own the mine?

PREWITT: US Steel, yeah. We got to—forgot what I was trying to say—anyway they put me to working at the belt head where the coal run out into the cars—a boom man.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

PREWITT: They put me there, and I did that for some pretty good while, then here come World War II and I’d got my … BERGE: Were you married then?

PREWITT: Yeah, I’d got married in December after I—I’d been up there a good little bit.

BERGE: Did your wife come to Lynch to live?

PREWITT: Yeah, finally, 24:00but they—they sent me a notice that I had been reclassified to One-A. So—and I, if I didn’t have a reason to be called up to contact them. Well, I didn’t have any more reason than anybody else did.

BERGE: No. No.

PREWITT: So I never did call. But I never was called, and when that war broke out, they started taking precautions to prevent sabotage, and they put me in charge of explosives for a portion of that mine. I would sell these men their explosives for the day, and go into their place and detonate their shots, keep record of all the explosives used, and at the end of their shift they turned their explosives … BERGE: What they didn’t use back to you.

PREWITT: … back to me, and of course, they would get it the next morning. I did that for a pretty long while 25:00and then I—I told you I never was called—I never did know why I wasn’t called. But after the war was over … BERGE: Because of that job?

PREWITT: Pardon?

BERGE: Was it because of your job?

PREWITT: It was—that was why this friend told me, he said, “you know why you were never called to—to military action?” “No,” I said, “I wasn’t called.” He said, “it was because of you having that responsibility of those explosives, he said, “the company superintendent asked a deferment from me, because I was on those explosives.” I guess anybody could have done that.

BERGE: Well, you were the one doing it.

PREWITT: I was the on they had on it that’s why they didn’t … BERGE: So how long did you stay down there?

PREWITT: Ah, at Lynch? Just thirty years.

BERGE: Just thirty years is all.

PREWITT: I got into the mine rescue 26:00study—ah, safety in mine rescue. Then I got—I had been a leader in the CCC’s, and that kind of … BERGE: Yeah, it fit right in, didn’t it?

PREWITT: Yeah. So I went to the State and—after a long time on that; and that mine rescue training though got me prepared to take the state examination. They have a state—ah--mine inspectors operate this examination. And I went and I passed that. I got my Certificate and I got my grades, I got pretty good grades. About a hundred per cent. And 27:00when I came back I still hadn’t worked up there five years, you cannot be in the—you cannot be a mine foreman until you have five years experience in and around the mines. So when—I got—I went and passed and got my Certificate, before I had five years. And when the five years was up, we had a mine superintendent for Number Thirty-One mine named Sam Crosky, I think he was a big Russian, and he sent word over there he said, “have you got a fella over there named Prewitt?” Well, somebody knew what he was talking about you know, they told me they wanted me to become a foreman of a section of a mine—I had the Certificate—Certification.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

PREWITT: So I started there and I did—I was foreman of direct working 28:00force for, ah, I don’t know exactly—anyway the last twenty-five years, while I was working there I was a foreman. Eleven of those years I was Assistant General Foreman. So that is the way I … BERGE: So that was really your life was in the mines.

PREWITT: I worked as a—US Steel had a—oh, two or three different retirement plans. Age plus your … BERGE: Service.

PREWITT: Service was one. But this one I retired on was thirty years, at my own option. When I came up to—ah, I told the superintendent 29:00that I would like to retire at the end of the year, he said, “just hold that notice up until the first of the year.” At the first of the year come in and put in your request, and you want a thirty day vacation which I would have … BERGE: Logged, if you hadn’t.

PREWITT: Yes, that’s fine ( ) told me that. So that’s what I did, and I retired on thirty years, unbroken service.

BERGE: Yeah, that’s great. And that was in 1980?

PREWITT: No, nineteen and—nineteen and … BERGE: Seventy?

PREWITT: Seventy.

BERGE: Yeah, and seventy. Did you do anything after that?

PREWITT: Well, yeah, I had a feller build me a house in Williamsburg. And we moved in that house in April in 1970; see, 30:00and that summer sometime he came over there and said, “don’t you think you’ve worked around enough?” I said, “what are you talking about, I work every day.” BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: Gardening and … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

PREWITT: I had about an acre of ground there, I had to ( ). He said, “why don’t you come over to my”—he had a—used to be an old store building in Williamsburg, that was his headquarters and he had ( ).

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE PREWITT SIDE TWO TAPE ONE PREWITT BERGE: Mr. Prewitt, you were telling me about this man getting you to leave your retirement and get back to work. What did he have you do now?

PREWITT: Ah, where I left off?

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

PREWITT: He wanted me to come over there and work part time. Keep his books and sell 31:00( ), if anybody wanted to buy it, in other words keep the record and things. ‘Course then the records, if he started a new house everything was charged to that house, that’s the way things go. So I did that for him as long as I—I finally decided—I told him, I said, “Lynn I quit a good job and made a lot more money and …” BERGE: Sure. Sure.

PREWITT: But I’m going to retire.

BERGE: How long did you work for him?

PREWITT: Ah, well I don’t know, three or four years. And so that was the end of the line for me.

BERGE: Looking back on it, do you think that going in the three C’s was a good experience for you?

PREWITT: I think it was the base of the whole thing—if I had—see I told you I was raised on a little farm and 32:00no direct responsibility. I never had been put out to—the experience I had in the CC’s was the basis of me becoming a miner.

BERGE: Yeah, and it helped you—first of all it helped you be a worker, plus it helped you being responsible too, didn’t it?

PREWITT: And you learn how to treat people, they were strong on that—boss wasn’t one to go kicking somebody around. Human relations was a big part of it.

BERGE: Yeah, and you learned how to treat people, by having—because of the way people treated you.

PREWITT: Yeah. Yeah.

BERGE: Or you wanted to be treated by them.

PREWITT: Yeah. Yeah.

BERGE: Well I sure want to thank you for coming in … PREWITT: Then I took a Dale Carnegie course—that 33:00was at least at that time, it helped me.

BERGE: Yeah, I sure want to thank you for coming in and giving us this interview, it really helps us. When you were at ( ) did you know ( ) Adams?

PREWITT: Who? Ed Adams?

BERGE: Yeah.

PREWITT: Well, sure, I was a good friend of his. Yeah. Where’s he now?

BERGE: He’s up in London, not doing too well. He’s in a nursing home up there.

PREWITT: He was a good man on ( ).

BERGE: His brother—younger brother—is the one that talked me into moving down and buying land down in Laurel County. When I retired.

PREWITT: Now I didn’t know him.

BERGE: His name is Jack. He is a lot younger than Ed.

PREWITT: Yeah. He was a good company man. He could—he got so he could trail those fellows stealing copper wire and stuff.

BERGE: Yeah. He was good at that wasn’t he?

PREWITT: Ah, your not taking this now.

BERGE: Yeah. I’ll turn it off. I wouldn’t want to get anybodies 34:00name in it.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE END OF INTERVIEW.