Levi Blunk & Houston W. Fuller & Harold Okey & Jack Hardin & Steve Kickert

WILLIAM H. BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. Leroy Blunk, of Louisville, Kentucky, and Mr. Houston Fuller, of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Mr. Herald Okey, of Louisville, Kentucky, and Mr. Jack Hardin of Louisville, Kentucky, and Mr. Steve Kickert of Somerset, Kentucky. The interview is conducted at Cumberland Falls State Park, on February 16, 1990, at two-fifteen PM. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission. I sure want to thank all you people for taking the time today, and other times when I have seen you. Giving us all this information that you have, it is really a big help for us. We thought we would do something different today. Something that I have never done before 1:00and I really think that it will work because you men have been very cooperative and you seem to have good memories of this thing that happened here, about sixty years ago at least. (laughs) You know that is amazing when you think about it to have somebody—four people that were around someplace, almost sixty years ago—having them at the site of the place telling some of the stories. I think what we are going to do today to begin with, and later on we will do something at the very end I want to do something else, but to begin with Mr. Kickert is going to show us some pictures, which are—I think all of them have something to do with the Park here and you can comment on them some of what you remember—how they—how you react to them.

STEVE KICKERT: Now some may be—there may be some in here that—facilities and things that took place—that were built after you were here.

BERGE: Do you need for me to turn this light off?

KICKERT: Yeah, I can turn it off down here.

BERGE: Would you want to put that back further so it will be bigger?

KICKERT: Yeah, if we can find a—I don’t have another 2:00plug in back this way. Get the lights. (background mumbling while they move their camera around) BERGE: Ready the first picture we are looking at here is a—is it an amphitheatre?

KICKERT: It was a boxing ring.

OKEY: Boxing ring I told you… BERGE: Yeah I know. Where was it?

BLUNK: Right out here.

OKEY: It wasn’t up at our camp, although we did have a place set up that you could have put it there. And if it was put there, it was put there after I was gone.

BERGE: Now, Jack do you remember that boxing ring looking like that one or do you think that was the one you were talking about right here?

HARDIN: Similar to that.

BERGE: Do you remember that Gabe. 3:00That is not where you did your boxing?

HARDIN: No. (laughter and general comments) BERGE: Do you remember that?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE No, I don’t remember… BERGE: Jack I guess you would be the one most interested in that anyway.

HARDIN: Yeah, I was in that ring a few times.

BERGE: About how many times did they have boxing ( )?

HARDIN: Every Friday night, wasn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE About every Friday night yeah.

KICKERT: Did you have to box? In some CCC camps they made them box.

HARDIN: Oh, no. No, no, no. See when this camp down here opened—and I believe they had that—I believe that was here—see when we had ours… BERGE: What was the name of this—what was the number of this camp?

HARDIN: I don’t remember. I knew it, but I don’t remember what number it was.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Ahhh.

BERGE: When did they open this camp?

HARDIN: See when they opened and they set that up we would come down and box theirs and they would come up and box ( ). Our ring could have been set up like that later. But it wasn’t at the time I was here.

BERGE: Now was this camp up here set up before yours was?

HARDIN: No, no, no. No, 4:00ours was first.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The first one in this area.

HARDIN: Yeah.

BERGE: When did they set this one up?

HARDIN: Oh, I would say maybe four or five months later.

BERGE: But that first year, though.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah. Yeah. Hum-hum.

KICKERT: Did people come from other towns? Or did people come in from town to see the boxing?

HARDIN: No.

BERGE: Now, I talked to some people last week from Georgia and this fellow said that he could remember people coming over from Georgia Military Academy, which is a high school. Wally ( ) was the coach and ( ) you know, but he brought his team over there and played baseball against the CCC. 5:00FULLER: Where was that thing located, down in the camp area?

BERGE: He thinks it was located right up here with this other camp.

KICKERT: It was, I think where you come in that front drive, as you are going up the front drive and you hit ninety,(route) on the left hand side on that ravine there. Is what I’ve been told.

BERGE: Sort of where the offices are?

KICKERT: Ah, just this side of ( ) where the offices is; that little ravine between here and the cabins.

BERGE: Yeah. Ok.

KICKERT: Right at the end. Highway ninety would have been at the top of the hill ( ).

BERGE: Ok. Can we go to the next picture?

KICKERT: Now these—some of these may be in backwards too.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s in right.

BERGE: Now this a picture of the 509 camp here. 6:00Some of us know—in fact all of us may know the answer to this, but this is information of other people. Now this building that is off to the right of the camp in the picture.

UNIDENTIFED VOICE(S): ( ) BERGE: No, way off the picture, I mean off the… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s the farmhouse. That’s old man Harb’s place.

BERGE: Ok. What are the ( ) buildings that are around that farmhouse?

HARDIN: Ah, he just had like a little shed like—remember he had that little old shed? And then he had a open, not well, but spring, yeah, it was open.

OKEY: It didn’t have a cover on it.

FULLER: That right at the corner that ( ) is that the access road?

BERGE: Ok.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Which one?

FULLER: It goes up here. Up there.

BERGE: Upper right.

SEVERAL VOICES: ( ) That’s a foot path.

OKEY: No, that ain’t no… FULLER: Access road come down through that gap, a little bit farther to the left I think.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Access 7:00road to the camp?

FULLER: Huh? Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No, the access road is off the picture to the left.

OKEY: It is way over to the left.

FULLER: Now you have another ( ) straight down here and ( ).

FEMALE VOICE: It’s a footpath.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE(S): … footpath to the lake, I mean to the ( ). Go down to the… OKEY: Yeah, he’s lookin’ at a ditch.

KICKERT: We were talking about this in the car… OKEY: Yeah.

KICKERT: The first people that came into the park, their description of coming into the park talked about coming by a gentleman’s farm house and then going on up out of there up the road and then on down to the main road to the falls.

HARDIN: That could a been.

VOICES: THEN HARDIN: ( ) That could have been the path of the road you are talking about… 8:00BERGE: What are they doing? (there is some background pounding) UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ) BERGE: Probably be just a half hour or so… KICKERT: I’ll give you all the next picture if you want.

BERGE: Ok. Give us the next picture. Tell me about what this picture is.

FULLER: That’s where we are digging the parking lot. (laughs) UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Getting ready to move it out. Move it on out. You better believe it. It was pure rock.

BERGE: When was this done?

BLUNK: Oh, me.

FULLER: I imagine quite a while.

BLUNK: I think about three or four months after we got here we stared on it didn’t we?

FULLER: Yeah.

BLUNK: At least four months, I would say.

BERGE: Was this finished before you left Gabe?

BLUNK: Oh, yeah.

BERGE: Was it finished before you left?

HARDIN: It was covered with gravel and that was… UNIDENTIFED VOICES: …sure…it was paved … no, they didn’t know what asphalt was did they?

FULLER: Then after that lot had been paved, it looks like it. Now after that lot had been paved it looks like—now they were stripping that bank up there, of loose ( ) or something… UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: It was not paved… 9:00BERGE: These pictures were taken in thirty-three.

HARDIN: Could that slide be in backwards?

BERGE: I think it is. I think it probably is.

HARDIN: It seems to me that, that cliff is on the wrong side of the road.

OKEY: No.

HARDIN: And that coming back… FULLER: The river bank is here.

OKEY: Oh, the river side is over here.

HARDIN: I don’t think it is even the parking lot. I think it is the road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: ( ) the parking lot. The river is over… OKEY: Oh, it is the parking lot.

HARDIN: Parking lot is ( ).

OKEY: I see a road that cut could be down that way.

FULLER: It wasn’t paved ( ) as I think it is.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It has to be the parking lot.

BERGE: Steve.

KICKERT: Yeah.

BERGE: Turn the picture around a minute and let us look at it.

HARDIN: Now, that looks to me like… FULLER: That looks more like it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Yeah.

HARDIN: That is the road coming down to the falls… FULLER: That’s down in the falls area.

BERGE: Yeah, that is a bend down in there isn’t it? It doesn’t look level enough for the parking lot..

HARDIN: No, it isn’t. 10:00OKEY: Where the road comes down that is where we started that corner and worked our way down .

HARDIN: Yeah.

BERGE: How did they move the big part of the, of the dirt and everything?

HARDIN: By hand.

BERGE: Everything by hand?

HARDIN: Yeah. Bust it up with sledge hammers and… BERGE: Ok. I mean that is all rock they are moving there, isn’t it?

BLUNK: Yeah.

KICKERT: Do they blast it first or… BLUNK: Some of it was blasted.

OKEY: Mostly done by hand.

BLUNK: Mostly what you see there, they are preparing to build a ditch—a drainage—build some sort of a wall at the edge of the road. They are not—they are really not cutting from the face of that cliff. That was already done when the road was cut through. But they are starting to build a drainage ditch that carries the water down across the parking lot.

BERGE: All they are doing ( ) without leaving the comfort of your camp ( ).

UNIDENTIFED VOICE: Nope. We ( ) (laughter) 11:00BERGE: By the way Gabe , I think remembers the name of that Captain.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh, who ( )?

BLUNK: Bucher.

UNIDENTIFED VOICE: That’s him.

BERGE: Yeah. Ok.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: He was a good old boy.

BERGE: And those are CCC camp trucks. Those are Federal trucks, is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah. Government trucks.

BERGE: That is what I mean. They were yours, they weren’t state trucks.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: That’s right.

BERGE: Even though you were working on the state park. Ok. (click) What are we looking at here?

KICKERT: It’s the cable… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Cable—the cable that went across the middle ( ) a box up there you set down in.

BERGE: That was that thing I was asking you about, and you didn’t remember.

BLUNK: I remember vaguely… BERGE: Yeah. He rode in it he said. 12:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah.…You should remember that.

BERGE: You don’t remember that Gabe?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: No I didn’t…the box sticking on the… BERGE: Did you ever do it?

FULLER: Nope.

BERGE: Mr. Fuller, did they have that when you came?

BERGE: No sir. You don’t remember. I asked him and he doesn’t remember.

KICKERT: Did you actually—did you grab—someone told me that the—maybe it is the piece of wood on top. So a piece of wood with a nail in it, that you would reach out and grab it with that and then pull.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You could. But you could sit there like this and pull yourself across.

BERGE: With the cable.

FULLER: If I am any judge of the picture that is the upstream end of the parking lot.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s right. That’s where it was, up through the rock work on the entrance.

BERGE: Yup.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You can see where somebody has done like pillars or something down there.

BERGE: That would be the entrance to the parking lot.

FULLER: Now somewhere up there you run two streams of water… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ).

BERGE: Ok. Ok.

FULLER: This water here in this ditch where I am… BERGE: Ok. I see what you are talking about now.

FULLER: …towards the road back here; 13:00there is a culvert put in there. Somewhere in there. And when I left there, there wasn’t a culvert across the place.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well that is a better looking picture than the one I remember. (laughter) BERGE: Where did you get the picture Steve?

KICKERT: Let me see if I’ve got a note on it. A lot of these there is no notation on it at all.

BERGE: Ok. Let’s go on to the next one.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: There you go.

BERGE: Would you recognize where that is, anybody?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Down to the falls. Down near the falls. See them little logs that makes the floor?

BERGE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; We hewed them off by hand.

BERGE: Did you use a foot adz?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; Yeah FULLER: Are you sure you guys didn’t dream this 14:00chain saw. (laughter) KICKERT: Now is this walkway that went underneath the falls?

UNIDENTIFED VOICES: Yeah. But down to it. One led to the stream On down to it.

KICKERT: But this is the part that actually went under the falls.

BERGE: Well, it is the same walkway isn’t it?

HARDIN: When you say under the falls, not under the water but under the rock… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Under the cliff—rock way—yeah—in other words—going back ( ) to go under the falls.

BERGE: Now this—these little rocks that I see under the corner? Were they mortared?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: No—We didn’t have any mortar—We didn’t mortar anything.

KICKERT: No mortar.

BERGE: When were these built?

BLUNK: Thirty-three, thirty-four.

BERGE: The first two years in there.

KICKERT: I noticed something on that picture that I never noticed…( ) UNIDENTFIED VOICE: See we put down bridges—it was awful hard—it was awful hard to get underneath the falls… KICKERT: There is graffiti on that rock isn’t there?

BERGE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: But you could get underneath the falls without the bridge. But it wasn’t very easy and especially 15:00women, you know couldn’t, you know, walk back under there very easy, cause they had to do a little rock climbing you know.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Hold that picture—Yeah, it wasn’t too easy—Do you remember—No it isn’t.

BERGE: You guys, we have some pictures over there ( ) from the oral history of the county that the women were standing on top of the falls when the river was really dry—on the rocks? With long dresses on with buckles.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: And engineers ( ) tell us what to do wrong. (laugher) Boy, it was a job hewing them things out. (I think most of the people in the room are looking at some pictures, other than the slides. There is general conversation and much merriment) Probably some of Gabe’s engineering.

BERGE: Doesn’t that look like Evelyn 16:00to you?

FEMALE VOICES: ( ) BERGE: Well it looks like a V between those two Es, I know that is not a very good distinction, but—that’s interesting.

FEMALE VOICE; I think the last two figures are thirty-four.

BERGE: I think the bottom row is a last name. I think it is Shelton. I think it says Evelyn Shelton. That is very nice work. How long did it take then 17:00to build that bridge?

OKEY: It took us about a week or something like that It didn’t take long.

BERGE: From beginning to beginning.

OKEY: It didn’t take long.

KICKERT: How many would be working on say a project like that.

OKEY: Oh, I’d say one subsection wasn’t it?

BLUNK: Yeah, twenty-five.

BERGE: Can you talk about getting the timbers, getting those rocks in the river or whatever?

FULLER: No, all that footwork in there was hand power and it takes time for that. You got to cross that ( ).

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) BERGE: Well I have a man today, actually this week, doing twenty-one poplar logs for me—I am building a kitchen on a little cabin I have, and he is—I am going to have him peeling logs and he is doing it with an adz. 18:00That’s hard—that is slow work—he is good at it. He is an old timer that does it and, boy those adz are really sharp. Were there ever any accidents with that kind of equipment with adz and axes?

HARDIN: You mean a foot adz? Well some of the boys had never used a foot adz. In order to estimate when it comes down to cuts like that. All right sometimes they let it go too much and it would skip and cut their shoes. I don’t think that like ( ) and Gabe did, I don’t remember anybody ever really getting cut with it. I don’t. But I did see a few of the boys get their shoe cut. You know, we had brogan shoes and I don’t think you could cut through them (laughs). But them foot adz’s are exceptionally sharp.

BERGE: Oh, yeah they are amazing. Let me ask you all a question, I asked Gabe this today and he answered so I don’t want to ask him. Do you remember about doctors?

BLUNK: I done told you.

BERGE: Oh, you are the one I talked to?

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: Do you remember how often—did he live here or did he come in here?

BLUNK: He stayed with us.

BERGE: That is not the way you—Gabe remembers it.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Army Captain 19:00and Green, Doc Green we called him; but he was a aide, remember? And he was from Ashland and he married a girl down here.

BLUNK: Are you talking about the Army … UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No not the Army Officer, no but he lived down here.

BERGE: Are you talking about ( ) from the CCC who actually helped the doctor, something like that? An aide.

BLUNK: Yeah, we had that, but what I had reference to is the—was an officer who was a military doctor … UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s right.

BLUNK: And he had a round. He made the 509 camp and he made several other camps. And he came in, probably once a week, maybe more often. Probably more often if he had some 20:00serious case.

BERGE: You remember this Hal? Anything about a doctor?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) BERGE: do you remember anything about a doctor? Ok. That’s a good reason to have more than one person.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah I remember—Yeah, yeah, huh-huh— BERGE: Let’s go on to the next picture Steve. Now this picture is taken in 1938.

KICKERT: That looks like a larger parking lot than what we were—than what you were describing to me down there. It looks longer.

FULLER: That looks like—that picture looks like it was made up the river.

BERGE: It almost looks like the present day parking lot ( ). Doesn’t it to you?

KICKERT: Really it does.

BERGE: Particularly with that island in the middle.

FULLER: Yes, that’s… BERGE: It looks very much like it doesn’t it?

FULLER: Yeah.

KICKERT: Now is that the way it looked when you all got done?

BLUNK: No. We did not—we did not have an island in the middle. 21:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: No—no—no.

FULLER: That was five years after the first bunch was down here.

BERGE: When did the last CCCs leave here? Thirty-eight or thirty-nine?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: I want to say—forty-two— BERGE: Down here?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Forty-two.

BERGE: How do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That is what I have read and what I have been told too.

BERGE: That was the end—I wonder when there last ones were here, that’s what I… KICKERT: Well the library was completed in… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It says right here, 1942, I’ll let you read it. You remember?

BERGE: Well, yeah, but you know, one thing I’ve learned from teaching history is not believe everything you read.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It folds in forty-two.

BLUNK: Well that’s the CCC, but not necessarily the… BERGE: Yeah, that’s the—I do know 22:00that the… OKEY: I don’t know ( ) about the Corps of Engineers I wasn’t talking about that talking about the CCC.

BERGE: No, the CCC tour, yeah, yeah you’re right; but I was wondering like at Cumberland Falls.

BLUNK: … the last company down here… BERGE: I think it was thirty-eight or thirty-nine.

KICKERT: I think it was thirty-seven or thirty—somewhere between thirty-seven or thirty-nine. I think you will find.

Several Clicks.

BERGE: That is backwards I know. (laughs) Hey, you read that for us. You worked in a newspaper office. (giggles again) Now that is early isn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: That is early. (other yeses of general agreement) BERGE: Now can you all look at that and tell me—did you remember which tent you lived in?

(Laughter) BLUNK: Second one from the end.

BERGE: Which end?

BLUNK: Left end.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; On the other side.

BLUNK: No, on this side.

BERGE: That big one? 23:00FULLER: I was thinkin’ that it was one of the… BERGE: That big, big tent Gabe?

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok.

KICKERT: The second long one or the… BLUNK: The second long one.

OKEY: I was in one of those first ones, I know. On this… BERGE: Huh-huh. Those little ones?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ).

BERGE: Now where would the officer’s tent have been?

OKEY: On the far side, first tent. Not this side over here, but the far side first tent. ‘Cause I was bugler I know. That Captain he would be the first one out.

BERGE: When this is a tent city like this, where did you all eat?

HARDIN: Well, see that little tent on this side? The first one on this side.

BERGE: On the left there?

HARDIN: That is where we washed the mess kits and the tent right next to it was the mess tent.

BERGE: And that second one was where Gabe said he lived. You lived right next to the mess tent Gabe?

BLUNK: No, no he’s talking about the next side… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No I said I lived… BLUNK: I lived on the near side.

BERGE: Oh, Ok. I understand.

KICKERT: Where was this in relationship to where the permanent barracks were?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Right where—Same place.

KICKERT: What sort of perspective—I’m trying to think what angle 24:00this picture would have been taken from.

BERGE: Could you go up there and point, Gabe and tell us where like—you know we know where the mess hall is and the two barracks, like the one where you lived.

BLUNK: The four barracks—the main barracks were right about where these two tents are.

BERGE: In the same direction as those tents?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: That’s right—In the same direction.

BLUNK: Over here there was a big long building—one barracks here and then there is another long building—the administration building—then on the other side of that is the mess hall.

KICKERT: Where would dry land bridge have been from here?

BLUNK: Um, approximately up this way.

KICKERT: And where was the road coming in to the camp?

BERGE: Is that it? 25:00BLUNK: Well, uh… BERGE: What is that line you see where you… BLUNK: It would be in this area. This picture was taken along the road probably, uh, a quarter of a mile towards ( ) from where the road that goes down to the camp. And the farmer’s house is over the ridge.

KICKERT: On the far side of the… BLUNK: Yeah, on the far side of these tents. Way over down there.

BERGE: Well, what is that? Clothes hanging on the lines out there in the foreground?

BLUNK: Yeah. Hum-hum. I don’t know who they are. (general laughter) KICKERT: How long were you all in the tents before you got into permanent barracks?

BLUNK: End of the summer.

BERGE: Did you ever live in a barracks Jack?

HARDIN: Yeah.

BERGE: So got, right before your six months is up they had barracks.

HARDIN: Right.

BERGE: Well that gives you a good time frame.

HARDIN: Harold (Okey), said he didn’t.

OKEY: I didn’t. I was over in Williamsburg.

BERGE: See Jack, stayed in six months and he lived in barracks before he left. 26:00So that gives you—us—a pretty good time frame on that.

KICKERT: What season of the year did you all arrive. Did you come in… ALL VOICES: May. May. May. May.

BLUNK: I think it was May third.

BERGE: How often after the first month, if you came in May, would you get new recruits? Like would they come in periodically, or just now and then, or, do you remember.

BLUNK: I would have no idea.

HARDIN: Well, we got new recruits, because we had to take them out to fight a fire.

BERGE: Huh-hum.

HARDIN: And there wasn’t no fire.

BERGE: So you were there six months, you were there six months and you know that there were recruits… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Oh yeah—Yeah—Yeah.

OKEY: See after we was in tents we got local talent . People from Williamsburg and this area, 27:00like I told you before we had some local talent come in. The Snowdens, and you know, Dewey and Vergil. Dewey drove a truck and Vergil and Dick Booker and Jim Easton and Garrick Swain, I don’t know how many… BERGE: Did these people go on the payroll, just like you were?

OKEY: Yeah They were… BERGE: They were a dollar-a-day people just you guys. That’s good. (click) Now isn’t this the picture we just looked at?

BLUNK: That’s the permanent… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: That’s the—barracks—barracks—afterwards—that’s the same one we had… BERGE: That you showed us earlier, yeah. (click) Now that’s the parking lot. Do you all remember it looking like that?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah—Hum-hum—That’s more like it.

BERGE: Did you build these things around the trees or did they come later.

UNDENTIFIED VOICES: No—No—They were later—They were later—We didn’t do none of that fancy stuff.

BERGE: That was still gravel wasn’t it?

HARDIN: Remember Tuttle, Bill Tuttle?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yeah.

HARDIN: Do you remember when Dick Booker got ( )?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No, 28:00I don’t.

BERGE: What was that about?

HARDIN: Well, Dick was holding Dewey Snowden’s arms like this and ( ) Bigger was hitting him in the face and Virgil Snowden told him, “Dick, turn him loose,” if you don’t you’ll be sorry. Virgil had a habit, he was a mountaineer boy, and he could reach in his pocket and pull out a knife and it was open. It wasn’t no switch blade. He would open it with them fingers. Remember, did you see him do that? Dick didn’t turn his brother loose and he hit him right here with the knife. Of course, he dropped Dewey then, so Virgil run. Ok. He took off up through the woods and Frank Doderage and I was going to Williamsburg and it was dusk. Well they had done taken Dick Booker to Corbin, 29:00and that was his home then—to the hospital. Well, when we got up on the road and oh, I’d say fifty yards from the—our road—towards Williamsburg, Dewey heard the sound of our car, so he come out and flagged us down—I mean Virgil did. Well we drove him on over to his house, in Williamsburg. a week and a half or so later Dewey comes to me and said, “guess where Virgil is?”, I said, “I have no idea.” He said, “he’s in Canada.” (laughter) It scared him so bad, you know and he was a mountaineer boy. He cut Dick Booker, but he didn’t hurt him bad. So he went to Canada and I never heard no more from him. (laughter) BERGE: I’ve never heard that story before.

KICKERT: No, that’s a new one. That’s a new one.

HARDIN: Well, Dick Booker was all right He come back after taps and… BERGE: Let 30:00me ask you something while we are off the subject. Did any of you ever hear the name Edward Tilna? Or Calima A L I M A? Ever hear of that person, Edward Calima?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; I don’t think so.

KICKERT: I don’t think he came till thirty-eight.

BERGE: I am almost convinced he is a ( ) person, or from the Department of the Interior, one or the other.

KICKERT: Department of the Interior. He worked for the Park Service, I think.

BERGE: Ok. Well, we can find out. Ok. (click) Now describe to me what I am looking at here.

BLUNK: Cumberland Falls Hotel.

FULLER: ( ) on the hotel isn’t it?

BLUNK: No, that’s Cumberland Falls.

HARDIN: That’s Cumberland Falls, yeah, hotel.

BLUNK: You are looking across the rapids.

BERGE: How far is this from the bridge that goes across now—that you drive across?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: About a hundred yards.

BLUNK: Well, you know where you ford this river?

BERGE: Huh-huh.

BLUNK: Well, it is right there.

BERGE: Now, 31:00what is this building right in the middle there, the white building?

BLUNK: That’s the hotel, that is what I am talking about.

BERGE: What’s this we see over at the left of it?

BLUNK: That’s it.

KICKERT: Well, it looks like there is two separate buildings there. There is a large white block-like building and there is… BERGE: And then looks like a two-story place with a veranda unless—or was that just a ( ). What are we looking at there? Can you tell me? Let me show you what I am talking about. (I think he gets up and goes to the slide screen) The only way for people who have never ( )… FULLER: ( ).

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: What’s this?

BLUNK: That’s the hotel.

BERGE: What’s this?

BLUNK: That oughta be the hotel.

BERGE: Would that be like part of the same complex or ( ) a dining room or… KICKERT: Did they have a dining room separate from the… BLUNK: I don’t know a thing about that.

BERGE: ( ) know about dining rooms…(general mumbling in the background) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: A tree isn’t it? Between the two… BERGE: Well that is what I think it—maybe there is a walkway there, but I really think it is two distinct buildings, don’t you?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have heard that the building 32:00is to the—I have a photograph of the ruins of the lodge—of the main hotel—and there is another hot—another building standing there.

BERGE: Yeah, still standing there when the building to the left is gone. But we don’t exactly know what the building on the right is.

KICKERT: No. I have been told that it is a dining room.

BERGE: That’s what I think it is.

KICKERT: It may or may not have been separated by a breeze-way.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Don’t you remember—I remember the hotel but I don’t—Yeah, there was, he is right—Yeah. There was a dining room but it was a separate building—( ) from the main hotel building—goes down the other way—I never got that close to the hotel to—You didn’t—(female laughter) KICKERT: Were there a lot of people vacationing while you were working there and how difficult was it to be out there loading rocks when everybody else was sitting out there swimming in the river.

OKEY: That didn’t bother us. No. See the hotel was open all the time and we worked—we went on with our job and the people 33:00visiting, they just walked around like they ordinarily would.

BERGE: And those bathing suits were so big you didn’t even look at the women who were in them.

OKEY: We didn’t pay any attention.

BERGE: (laughing) They were an honest ( ) of boys weren’t they?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Nobody stopped to gawk or—(female voices in the background) (laughter) BLUNK: You ask if the CCC were disturbed by the visitors, I often wonder how much the visitors were disturbed by the CCC. Started installing that septic tank right in the ell of the Moonbow Inn and they were using dynamite to blast that rock out of there.

HARDIN: You better believe it, I helped to… BLUNK: Yeah.

HARDIN: We cut a big heavy dynamite mess—took 34:00all of it--took that thing off ( ) BERGE: I’m going to turn this over..

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE: BLUNK_OKEY_FULLER_HARDIN_KICKERT BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE: BLUNK-OKEY-FULLER HARDIN KICKERT.

KICKERT: Anything else you remember about the hotel? That is something that we just don’t know very much about.

BERGE: You know the interesting thing to me the other day I… HARDIN: Well, Mark Hardin run it, he was the proprietor, or whatever you want to call him. He done a good job I guess.

BERGE: Did you go over and talk to him much?

HARDIN: Well, I’m a Hardin.

BERGE: I mean you did talk to the man.

HARDIN: Well I talked to him and his wife a whole lot.

KICKERT: He ran the Cumberland Falls Hotel or the… BERGE: This one.

HARDIN: His name was out front, Mark Hardin, I don’t know… BERGE: Proprietor or manager or what?

HARDIN: Whatever.

KICKERT: Now did he later become—have something to do with the park?

HARDIN: I don’t know. I know—all I know is he operated the hotel and the museum. See 35:00they had a museum and I believe that is what that building is.

BERGE: That might be it.

HARDIN: It cost you something to get in there. But they would buy snakes from you… KICKERT: Another picture?

BERGE: Sure, sure.

HARDIN: Yeah, he would buy snakes—that’s it! Right there. That’s it!

KICKERT: What is it and where was it?

HARDIN: That’s where that ninety pound cat fish from your… BERGE: That’s an aquarium.

HARDIN: We caught down there. We helped that old… BERGE: And that is the same building we just looked at? Across the ( ) and everything.

HARDIN: Yeah that’s it. That’s the aquarium, I was… KICKERT: …( ) was telling me where—what was… BERGE: That may be the building right next to the hotel there. Now did a road come down by the hotel?

HARDIN: It went right by the aquarium there, to the hotel. And he’s buy snakes, you know to put in the aquarium, and everything. When we found this coral snake we 36:00( ).

BERGE: I think when the rest of you fellas were working and don’t remember this, Jack was around looking at all of this. (lots of general laughter).

OKEY: I wonder now, if he worked, really.

BLUNK: Well you know that the road… HARDIN: Well, we had a lot of time off. I think that three fifteen was when we come in. Because I used to blow recall you know and I think that it was three fifteen, or something like that, when we quit, wasn’t it?

BERGE: Jack probably left a eleven (o’clock) to blow recall at three fifteen.

OKEY: Well you had a lot of time to do anything you wanted to do. You had to make roll call the next morning, that’s all.

BERGE: Did any of you ever fish here in the river?

HARDIN: Oh, a lot of them did.

BERGE: Did you all? You did one time you told me.

FULLER: Yeah, I didn’t do no good, but… BLUNK: You were asking where this hotel was positioned in respect to the bridge.

BERGE: Yeah.

BLUNK: You know the road that comes from Parker’s Lake to the falls?

BERGE; Hum-hum.

BLUNK: Well the old road went right passed that hotel right into the river.

BERGE: Yeah, where that 37:00piece of road sort of trails into the river now.

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok. I know—that is where I thought it was.

KICKERT: Is there a parking lot over on the other side of the river?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Up—down—where the hotel was, yeah. They had a parking lot.

BERGE: And that hotel was literally where the road is now wasn’t it? You know right above where that road is now. If that is where you get into those palisades.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah.—Ok. (several clicks) BERGE: What’s that?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: I don’t know—(laugh)—That’s the fire tower out at Dry Land Ridge.

BERGE: Is that the one you are trying to get?

KICKERT: No. That’s the one… BERGE: You are talking about the new one.

KICKERT: Yeah, the new one.

BERGE: But is that the same place?

BLUNK: You recognize that ( ), fire tower.

KICKERT: You don’t recognize that?

FULLER: No. Never saw it.

KICKERT: That’s not the one that you all had worked on? The tower that you had worked on?

FULLER: I never worked on it.

BERGE: Who all worked on—whoever worked on the fire tower?

KICKERT: Worked on building one?

BLUNK_OKEY_FULLER: We didn’t. We didn’t. We didn’t.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I didn’t, I’ll put it that way.

BERGE: It was somebody else, then; we will find out. 38:00That’s the fire tower UNIDENTIFED VOICE: … The Dry Land Bridge, yeah.

OKEY: That’ not our tower. We done better work than that. (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yea, there—That’s the survey crew—Well that’s Wentworth in the middle there.

BERGE: That almost looks like Blunk over here on the lower right, isn’t it?

BLUNK: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: …on his left, this side, that’s you.

BLUNK: Yeah. On the right.

FEMALE VOICE: On the left.

BERGE: Is that you with the pants legs rolled up?

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE VOICE: He had hair then.

BERGE: Is that you with the pant legs rolled up?

BLUNK: Yeah that’s him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: I love—to the right of Mr. Wentworth, I mean to the left, that’s… BERGE: God, you haven’t changed a lick. You haven’t changed at all. (laughter) Isn’t that amazing, 39:00and Gabe is that you on the lower right? Do you remember the other two?

KICKERT: This maybe yours… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; No it is not mine cause I never seen it before.

BERGE: You’d like to have a copy of that, I guess, wouldn’t you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: I’d like to have a copy of that.

KICKERT: I have to mark that … VOICES ALL TALKING AT ONCE ( ) BERGE: Him—yeah that’s him… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That’s ( ) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: That’s you right there in the back.

FULLER: No, that’s me that’s the ( ) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: I’m not talking about the ( ). That’s you I want to… BERGE: Who are those two boys in the back of you, do you remember?

FULLER: I don’t remember.

KICKERT: Are those the two boys that you talked about? You said that there were two boys that were always… FULLER: I think—I had two or three.

BERGE: Are those the ones that worked with you, do you think? Well that is a really good picture. Is that in the parking lot?

BLUNK: Yeah. That is in the parking lot and you can see the stone wall that was cut down. 40:00The stone we cut into.

BERGE: Boy Houston had really nice legs. That’s the reason that he…(laughter) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: … see the white is that a railing on the road?

FULLER: No, that’s rock.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE VOICE: Right at the top—but see straight.

BERGE: It continues over here almost on the same level (he apparently has walked over to the slide projector).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: It looks like a road there.

BERGE: I think she’s talking about this.

BLUNK: There was no road there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Was no road there?

BLUNK: No.

BERGE: Must be just reflection off the rock.

KICKERT: Well did the road then just come down from the top, and come right into the parking lot?

BLUNK: Right. Huh-huh. The one that forks off and goes to the cemetery, didn’t exist.

FULLER: Then you ford the river… BLUNK: Yeah. Hum-hum.

FULLER: …right there see.

BERGE: That is a super picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Yeah. I’ve never seen that one before.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yeah—That goes down—I could fix any—That was when I was young and foolish.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE; Yeah. But that, I want a copy of that if I can get it.

BERGE: You know, if you 41:00could set up a whole ( ) for them to look at this evening when you are gone, we could pick more people.

KICKERT: Yeah. Sure. Oh yeah, we can do that.

BERGE: Ok. (slide change) UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: (giggles) Boy that’s the whole primrose path—I like… BERGE: Boy, those are great beds.

HARDIN: Ahh! I don’t remember having a stove that big. (laughter) BERGE: That was later.

KICKERT: …just remember getting that warm… OKEY: Old seven ( ) BERGE: That was later wasn’t it?

UNIDENTIFED VOICES: Now this was the—You are embarrassed—I am not—I am not sure which barracks this came out of.

BERGE: I 42:00think that was the kind of barracks you had, wasn’t it?

BLUNK: Yeah. Hum-hum.

BERGE: Where—was that your clothes hung up over the beds like?

FULLER: Well, we made foot lockers.

BERGE: Didn’t you show me a foot locker?

HARDIN: I sure did.

OKEY: Yeah we made foot lockers: BERGE: You remember making one?

BLUNK Someone made it for me—got lost in the flood.

BERGE: He still has his.

KICKERT: I may have—I have a better picture than that. Now this is… UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Back in there.

BERGE: This is on top of the hill isn’t it?

KICKERT: Yeah, this is the one up here.

BERGE: This is the one up here too.

BLUNK: Yeah, there is your number 563.

FULLER: Yeah 563, Company, CCC.

BLUNK: Hum-hum.

BERGE: They really had nice trees around those places and everything, didn’t they?

OKEY: Well they built it in a—in a— 43:00BERGE: Where was it that we are here?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ).

OKEY: Well they built it in a… BLUNK: SP two or seven?

BERGE: SP seven.

BLUNK: Well that’s not Cumberland Falls then.

FULLER: No. That’s 563 Company.

BERGE: Oh, that’s down—that’s down at Williamsburg.

BLUNK: Yeah, that’s Williamsburg, that’s not here.

KICKERT: That’s not taken here?

BLUNK_BERGE_FULLER: No.

HARDIN: That’s Williamsburg.

BERGE: That’s 563. What was the other number? The one that was up here?

KICKERT: There were three up here, though. 563 was up here.

HARDIN: Was it?

KICKERT: Yeah.

FULLER: Well, I see 563 Company CCC; Camp SP 7; ( ) Kentucky.

KICKERT: SP. SP is State Park.

BLUNK: Yeah, but what was seven?

KICKERT: I don’t know.

BLUNK: The one we always used was one, SP 1.

BERGE: Well, there is no State Park at Williamsburg, so I guess they meant this one.

Go on and see what we…(slide change) KICKERT: Oh, my this is a better picture. 44:00BLUNK: There you are. Boy that… BERGE: Where’s that?

BLUNK: That is the Dry Ridge Bridge.

BERGE: ( ) BLUNK: Huh?

BERGE: They got three there and it was a… BLUNK: Yeah. No. It was when we came and more than that.

FULLER: I can’t even see it.

BERGE: It is hard to see, I’ll tell you.

KICKERT: And generally they used most of those trees for that… BERGE: What were the pillars made of? What were the pillars made of?

BLUNK: Concrete. (slide change) BERGE: You got some good pictures. (laughter) HARDIN: What have we here.

FULLER: Some kind of house.

KICKERT: It says Howard’s Supper Club on the slide. Wherever Howard’s supper Club was. 45:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: I don’t know—We didn’t have no supper club—(laughter)—We had our own social—There we are—( ) BERGE: That’s backwards. Sayer’s Beer. Somebody from Louisville brought that.

BLUNK: The fella in the middle is the Company Clerk… BERGE: His picture is in that big picture you had here.

BLUNK: Yeah. You know that fellow Jack?

HARDIN: ( ). Oh. Yeah.

BLUNK: This is when prohibition came in.

HARDIN: Can’t think of the name.

BERGE: Lord, knows what that box is worth now.

HARDIN: Yeah.

BERGE: Look at the RC Cola—doesn’t it say RC on that? Maybe not.

KICKERT: It does, doesn’t it?

BERGE: Yep.

KICKERT: RC.

BERGE: Now that is in the barracks, 46:00I guess, isn’t it?

BLUNK: No, it is in the camp.

BERGE: Oh. Ok. Yeah, cause that was in thirty-three. During prohibition.

BLUNK: Yeah. (slide change) BERGE: Now that is the picture that Gabe—that is one of Gabe’s pictures.

KICKERT: Now where was this taken at?

BLUNK: Going on the way down to the falls.

BERGE: Would that be the same bridge that we looked at earlier?

BLUNK: Could be.

BERGE: Was that type of bridge wasn’t it?

FULLER: That is the same bridge we looked at a while ago.

BERGE: You think so?

BLUNK: Yeah.

FULLER: Huh?

BLUNK: Yeah.

FULLER: ( ).

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Back up the trail, ain’t it?—Is that in right? That might be in backwards.

BERGE: No that is in right.

BLUNK: I think it is right.

BERGE: That is the same way that picture is printed.

BLUNK: You that could be part of the bridge coming down from the 47:00hotel and you go off the left and circle back. Cause I think they build steps down where they are working right now.

BERGE: Underneath?

BLUNK: Yeah underneath it. You didn’t cross underneath the bridge you came down off and circle round to the left.

BERGE: Oh, I see.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Are you in that picture?

BLUNK: No.

BERGE: Did you take it, do you think?

BLUNK: Yeah. I took it.

BERGE Do you remember who was in it?

BLUNK: The fella standing with his back against the right hand side is Bill Oakes.

BERGE: Leaning against the… BLUNK: Yeah. (laughs) FULLER: No wonder we could never find you. You was always out, you couldn’t get anywhere… BERGE: You were taking pictures and Jack was going over to the hotel. (slide change) OKEY: I worked for Blunk a whole lot.

BLUNK: That is in backwards, Steve. That is the completed Mess Hall 48:00and now they are leveling ground for the barracks.

BERGE: What’s this little shed on the right?

BLUNK: Tool shed.

BERGE: There’s the water tower.

FULLER: ( ) back there, you people?

BLUNK: Yeah, I did.

OKEY: ( ) the water tower.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: ( ) was it your design?

BLUNK: That’s the one I did. Design and built.

BERGE: Where did you get the stays? Did you buy the tub or… BLUNK: They brought the… BERGE: They brought it, you didn’t have to make it.

FULLER: You see what you got me, I left all that good work? (laughter) BERGE: Is that an electric pole there?

BLUNK: Where?

BERGE: That pole in the middle.

BLUNK: Yeah, we had electricity… BERGE; When did you get the electricity, do you remember?

BLUNK: When they moved in the portable generating system.

FULLER: Where was that generator?

BLUNK: Where was it?

FULLER: Yeah.

BLUNK: Not too far from the end of the Mess Hall. To the left end.

BERGE: Was it, like on a truck?

BLUNK: Yeah, but it didn’t 49:00always run.

KICKERT: It must have been incredibly hot down there in the summer.

HARDIN: It wasn’t bad.

OKEY: No.

BLUNK: I didn’t think so.

BERGE: Did you get pretty good breezes down through that notch and stuff like that?

BLUNK: I guess so.

BERGE: Course you had air conditioning once they got that…(laughter) HARDIN: He was air conditioned. He run around with his shirt off all the time.

FULLER: I tell you what there was of plenty; wood ticks and he ought to remember those.

BERGE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Wood ticks?

FULLER: Wood ticks. (laughs) HARDIN: Snakes.

FULLER: How long ( )?

KICKERT: Do you remember did the CCC rent this land from the fellow that owned it or did he just donate it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: (All talking at once) We don’t—We—We imagine because it was Harp’s I do know that.

BERGE: Well, they didn’t buy it.

HARDIN: I know if they paid him, no I don’t know about that part of it. That was the business end and they weren’t going to let us tend to business with them. 50:00OKEY: No. (slide change) BLUNK: That’s the ( ) falls under construction.

BERGE: Now, Gabe what kind of trees would those be?

BLUNK: Pine.

BERGE: Pine.

KICKERT: Did you cut them there and… BLUNK: Yeah.

HARDIN: Yeah. Drug ‘em up there by hand.

BERGE: Cut the bark off?

BLUNK: No. Let the beetles eat it off.

HARDIN: (Laughs) Come on.

BERGE: True isn’t it?

BLUNK: Pretty much.

FULLER: I want to tell you … BERGE: Where did you get your lumber.

FULLER: After they was skinned… BLUNK: Somewhere out in the woods.

BERGE: Did they—where did they mill it? Did you mill it was it brought in here milled?

BLUNK: When you say milled do you….

BERGE: When you got boards where were they made?

BLUNK: They were roughed off somewhere else.

BERGE: Ok. Ok. But probably locally wouldn’t you say?

BLUNK: Yeah.

HARDIN: They hauled them in by truck. 51:00KICKERT: There was a mill off of Jellico Creek I don’t know how…(slide change) BLUNK: Now that is interesting.

FULLER (Laughs) OKEY: Seem like ( ) BERGE: Does that look like it?

BLUNK: That looks more like it.

FULLER: That looks more like noon-time lunch.

HARDIN: I don’t see any foot lockers though.

FULLER: ( ) BERGE: Well those are wooden folding cots; are those the kind you slept on? Or did you sleep on metal, iron… HARDIN: We slept on them first.

BERGE: These first?

HARDIN: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok. (slide change) That other one was metal.

KICKERT: A picture from a Frank Sabata?

BLUNK: That doesn’t look like ours.

KICKERT: Doesn’t ring a bell? (slide change) BERGE: That’s coming up the hill, isn’t it?

BLUNK: That looks backwards.

FULLER: I don’t know where that is.

BLUNK: I don’t know.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ) FULLER: Looks 52:00like it. (slide change) HARDIN: That’s the main road.

BERGE: Going down the hill, huh.

BLUNK: Going down the ( ), yeah.

BERGE: And then we are right up over here now, is that right?

BLUNK: Yeah.

KICKERT: And back this way I think the Superintendent’s house would have set on the right there.

BERGE: Yeah. Uh-huh.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) cabin on the left there.

BERGE: Would you walk back from work, or ride back in a truck down there?

FULLER: ( ) earth work ( ) contractor.

BLUNK: Oh, we rode back in the truck—walk down to the falls and walk back.

OKEY: Walk down to the falls and walk back.

BERGE: But if you were working down there you rode back?

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok. (slide change) That’s that one on top of the hill again.

BLUNK: Oh, they’re fancy. (general laughter) BERGE: That is probably considerably later too. 53:00HARDIN: That’s a nice camp there.

BERGE: Big camp. (slide change) BLUNK: Don’t know BERGE: That’s backwards.

BLUNK: Yeah, you ( ) left-handed. (laughter) BERGE: Course these could have been considerably later or in… BLUNK: That’s not in our company because we never had hats like that.

KICKERT: How many sets of clothes did you all be issued?

OKEY: We had summer and winter uniforms.

FULLER: ( ) BERGE: It might have been an army officer?

HARDIN: I don’t know. He don’t look like one.

OKEY: Well, we had fatigues, we had khakis and we had winter… BERGE: Like olive drabs or gold ( ), woolen olive drabs… OKEY: ( ) (trying to complete above sentence, but Berge talks over him).

HARDIN: All GI issue. 54:00And GI… BLUNK: There was a lot of non Khaki clothing issued too. Every color you can think of. Or, every dark color you could think of. I had blue jeans and black shirts, wooly shirts.

FULLER: I didn’t think you ever wore a shirt. (laughter) BLUNK: That got cold. (slide change) KICKERT: That may be in backwards.

BERGE: I think it is.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That is down close to the falls.

BERGE: That is the entrance right there, isn’t it?

KICKERT: That is the entrance to the lodge.

BERGE: Right there where you drove in the other day?

KICKERT: Now you see the camp.

BERGE: Look at that lumber sitting there? That road you see there to the right is the road right into the lodge. 55:00(slide change). Did you look… HARDIN: There we are working; see us laying down there? (laughter).

OKEY: That’s me. (laughter) BERGE: Cold weather. That’s cold weather. Now where are we? What is that little building?

KICKERT: Is that working on the parking lot?

BLUNK: That’s what it looks like.

HARDIN: The river is on the right there.

FULLER: That’s the parking lot.

BLUNK: Looks something like it.

BERGE: I bet it is.

BLUNK: Could be.

HARDIN: Looks like the river back there.

BLUNK: What do you think it is Houston?

FULLER: I don’t know, what is that building over there on the right? It’s not the parking lot.

BERGE: A little shed or something.

FULLER: ‘Cause the ground is full of rocks and ( )… UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: ( )?

FULLER: Up there on the left.

HARDIN: I don’t remember a building being down there. ( ).

BERGE: Could that be a pond somewhere? 56:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Looks like a ( )—planks—planks—does what?

KICKERT: Says Frank Sabata, 1930.

BERGE: 1931?

KICKERT: Says 1930.

BERGE: That could have been later.

KICKERT: He was CCC and a couple of these have been here.

BERGE: These uniforms look like they are more—well looks like they are more uniform too.

HARDIN: Looks like prisoners to me.

BERGE: You know, let me just tell you something, when I was a kid, when I was a kid in forty-two, we had, or forty-three, we had German and Italian prisoners in our home town cutting ice. They were dressed like that and they were caught in that African campaign and brought over here. They looked like those guys, the caps and everything. (slide change) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: It could be.

KICKERT: About five more.

BERGE: There is the hotel across the river.

BLUNK: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Hum-hum.

BERGE: These guys are up high are they on a trail? They are more level… KICKERT: Looks like they are working on a wall.

BERGE: Yeah, about the height of that… BLUNK: This is the retaining wall 57:00that was put on the river side of the parking lot and they are digging—laying—the stone in the wall and they are just digging the earth out of the way. The parking lot… BERGE: Is up this way from there.

BLUNK: Yeah. and this void here was filled with the debris that was carved out of the hill.

BERGE: That is what they filled the hole with BLUNK: Yeah. That is what these fellas are working, that was the dump site… BERGE: And the hotel was right across from there.

BLUNK: Yeah.

BERGE: And see, on the right of the hotel, there was a space between there and that next building.

BLUNK: Yeah. Hum-hum.

FULLER: I see a set of barricades or ( ) up way high up on that bank.

KICKERT: Let me turn this around, just for a second.

BERGE: I think that’s the right direction, but… KICKERT: I think that’s right because there is a road on the right hand side there and the road by the lodge is down from the… BERGE: Yeah, you’re right. I don’t see that other building though. 58:00UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: It could be right behind the… BERGE: Yeah, right behind… UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: (all talking at once) BERGE: I think that is the back of the building.

BLUNK: You use a what?

FULLER: I think it is a grade… BERGE: I think you’re right. The more I look at it, it looks like a wall of a building.

BLUNK: Where is the river though?

BERGE: It’s on over the hill, I mean, in the gully between you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Behind the stone wall.

BERGE: It is right down over the hill there.

FULLER: ( ).

BLUNK: It’s the ( ) though.

KICKERT: Yeah, it gives you a weird perspective… BERGE: Yeah, but I think that that is what we are looking at though.

FULLER: That’s ( ) back ( ) up there.

BERGE: Where you talking about?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Way up—See there—( ).

FULLER: Look right up the picture you see it looks like a ( ) up there and a barricade.

BERGE: You know what he is talking about Harold?

OKEY: I think he is talking about the hotel up there.

BERGE: Yeah I think….

BLUNK: It could be on the film.

HARDIN: It could be anything.

BERGE: I think it is the hotel.

HARDIN: I don’t think it is.

BERGE: You don’t think that’s the hotel?

HARDIN: It had a porch that went all the way around. 59:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Hotel—Come look at—Way it is setting—Looks like rock—I don’t know.

BERGE: Well, it looks like the hotel to me and looks like the road coming down there.

OKEY: ( ) see the people setting on the porch. (laughter) (slide change) BERGE: (laughs) That’s the building.

OKEY: ( ) what it is I don’t know.

KICKERT: (lots of clicks) Just a minute here. ( ) this wall right here is the wall of that aquarium building, you know that was right next… OKEY: That’s what it looks like to me.

BERGE: ( ). (he seems to be off away from the mike.) OKEY: The aquarium building—you’re right.

BERGE: Huh?

OKEY: That 60:00looks more like the aquarium building than the hotel, I can tell you that.

KICKERT: This is the hotel?

OKEY: That is not the hotel.

BERGE: That’s what it looked like—everybody told me it was the hotel… OKEY: …the aquarium building.

KICKERT: I think you’ve got the hotel there and you’ve got the road running right in front of it.

BERGE: Yeah, I think so.

KICKERT: You can see this is the road down to the… BERGE: Every picture I have seen of that hotel had ( )… KICKERT: You got the road coming in that came down in front of the hotel… B ERGE: Yeah.

KICKERT: And came down from the ( ).

FULLER: That could be a road, I didn’t pay any attention to that. That is something about it.

BLUNK: Better turn the…I don’t know.

BERGE: And the reason it looks from that perspective is the other pictures we’ve seen of it have been—of the river more and we saw it on—here we are seeing it at a funny angle, I think.

BLUNK: I’m trying to get the river between that wall and the hotel and I can’t … HARDIN: It ain’t wide enough.

BERGE: How close to the river to that hotel?

BLUNK: Pretty close. Not more that the width 61:00of the road that is there now.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

KICKERT: I saw the hotel. We took a good look at that we can ( ) the hotel.

BLUNK: The other thing that is not right about it, if that’s the aquarium and that is the road coming down into the river; the wall’s in the wrong place.

BERGE: That’s right. Too high isn’t it?

BLUNK: It is too far down the river.

BERGE: Could this be a wall up higher?

BLUNK: No.

BERGE: Maybe we are looking at it backwards. Yeah, that guy—everybody’s left-handed in that picture. (slide change) Everybody’s in that picture left-handed and you would be more apt to find right-handed people. Turn it around. See now they are right handed. That is the picture right there. That’s the picture. Both those men—well here is a guy left-handed over here. (laughs) OKEY: We had both.

BERGE: Yeah, but there is two right-handed 62:00people and one left hand. Now, doesn’t that look more like it now?

BLUNK: Yeah, but that has got to be the hotel and not the aquarium.

BERGE: Yeah. That is what I think. I thought the aquarium was over here to the right, somewhere in that dark part. And that may be just a little path going up there on that end of the hotel, huh? That thing you were thinking was a road?

OKEY: Could be.

KICKERT: Well just let me ( ) back to the ( ) of the hotel.

BLUNK: ( ) it’s on the ( ).

BERGE: It’s way back in the front.

KICKERT: I just click them all back.

HARDIN: That’s not the hotel.

OKEY: Yeah, it is.

BERGE: Yeah, that’s it and that is quite a ways above the river now when you see from down in here. That would have been just about right from that parking lot.

KICKERT: That would make that backwards though because if you look at the, look at the base of the hotel on the left hand side you’ve got that large area below the floor of the—level of the first floor.

BLUNK: Yeah.

KICKERT: Where it has been built up. and you don’t have it on the right hand side where the… BERGE: Yeah, but…turn this one around. 63:00We already said this is right but just turn this around a minute.

BLUNK: That is backwards.

BERGE: Yeah, that’s backwards. (slide change) KICKERT: See how you’ve got that gap below the ground and the first level of the floor?

BERGE: This looks like the most accurate. Not necessarily, now this one—yeah—turn it around—that is the way it would be—that is the way it would be.

KICKERT: And that aquarium would be way off to the right… BERGE: Because we might be down on that far end of that parking lot and the parking lot would run that way from it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: See the fellow looking at that—he’s ( ) on the wall with a pencil in his hand?

BERGE: Huh-huh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: He is right handed.

BERGE: Huh-huh. I think this is the way the picture belongs. From the road 64:00and everything else, I think the parking lot runs up this way more, so that is probably the right perspective.

KICKERT: Change it?

BERGE: Yeah.

KICKERT: New one?

BERGE: Yeah. (slide change) BLUNK: There’s Wentworth.

FULLER: Oh-oh.

BERGE: Boy that guy’s got a tan on the left, doesn’t he?

BLUNK: Yeah, I think that is Brinkie Newman.

FULLER: Yeah, that is Brinkie Newman.

BERGE: Now is that… BLUNK: That is Wentworth’s car.

BERGE: Is that Mr. Wentworth’s car?

BLUNK: Humm.

FULLER: ( ) head peeking around the far side.

BERGE: Who’s the fellow on the right? That you?

FULLER: No, I don’t think so.

BERGE: Looks like you on the far side on the ( ) though, Mr. Fuller. It looks like the guy that didn’t have any leg.

BLUNK: Sure look like Frankie Newman on that… BERGE: Looks like that fellow ( )… HARDIN: …Frank Newman… BLUNK: That’s Frank.

FULLER: That right there I don’t know.

BERGE: No, it looks like you.

FULLER Well, could be.

BLUNK: What about the one—what about the other one on the other side of the car. 65:00No, on the back side of the car.

FULLER: ( ).

BERGE: Looks like… UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Sure doesn’t look like Frank.

BERGE: Doesn’t he look—yeah, but he could be—that does look like the same picture.

KICKERT: …Mr. Wentworth… BLUNK: Yeah, but… UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Well, I don’t know—he was a—how old was Wentworth?

BLUNK: Oh, he was in his fifties.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: I was going to say middle-aged. A real old guy. (laughter) BERGE: He was just a kid, wasn’t he? (laughs) BLUNK: But the fella, that you are pointing out on the other side of the car by the windshield parts his hair different than the one in the other view we saw.

BERGE: Ok.

BLUNK: Unless that picture is in backwards.

BERGE: No. that’s the right way. (slide change) BLUNK: There you are.

FULLER: Oh, oh. The ferry. (laughter) KICKERT: The ferry 66:00was operating when you all got there?

BLUNK: Sure.

BERGE: They had a ferry later than that. Had a ferry lot later than that.

KICKERT: But it went in, in the thirties, I think.

BERGE: That is probably about the mid-thirties—wasn’t it? What year is that car? thirty-five or thirty-six?

BLUNK: I don’t know.

HARDIN: I always thought they just forded the river down there, I didn’t… BLUNK: I don’t remember a ferry.

BERGE: Well, I can remember a ferry went out, when they built the bridge. And I have pictures of a more modern, you know, the ferry had a more modern—but that is bound to be the late thirties.

FULLER: We didn’t have a ferry.

KICKERT: I think the ferry went in like in thirty-four.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: I would say, I don’t—It wasn’t there when I was there.

BERGE: No, but it was there in thirty-six, I do know that. At least in thirty-six there was a ferry there. (slide 67:00change) That’s it. That’s the way it was. I know that is the way it was because I have seen pictures from that angle from the new ferry. See there is a car on the road that is up there.

KICKERT: Yeah, coming down and getting ready to come across.

BERGE: Yeah, yeah, see there is a passenger over here. That is a Plymouth isn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Looks like it—Looks like it—Thirty-six… BERGE: About a thirty-six Plymouth wasn’t it? I can’t read it—some kind of company—size… KICKERT: I have ( ) CCC ( ).

BERGE: Yeah. CCC Company 509, is it? Is it 503?

BLUNK: That is 563.

KICKERT: That was… BERGE: Up here. ( ) the rock was laid ( ).

KICKERT: Without any mortar.

BERGE: Yeah, that is incredible. 68:00END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE: BLUNK_FULLER_OKEY_HARDIN.

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE: BLUNK_FULLER_OKEY_HARDIN.

BERGE: This is a continuation of the interview with the four members of the CCC Camp on February 16, 1990.

BERGE: You know what is interesting today, to me, to sit here and look at these pictures and listen to you men talk about all this; and I want to ask you again a question that I have asked most of you, I can’t remember if I asked you all, but, let’s start over here with Harold. Harold what is you recollection, or what is your estimation of the importance of having been a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 69:00I don’t mean any real profound thing, but do you consider it to have been a positive influence in your life and how?

OKEY: Well, I will consider it to be a positive influence in my life, but I do think it helped me out. It taught me a lot of stuff. I mean, I learned a lot of things and I think that it would be for my benefit, I mean, I was without a job and nowhere to go so it was a big help.

BERGE: Yeah, in addition ( ), the money and the time, it was something you needed at the time. Do you think it was of any value to you as a--as I say a young man from Louisville to come to this kind of an environment?

OKEY: Yes, I do. As I said a while ago you learned patience and how to conduct yourself. I mean 70:00you were under military rule, more or less, and you went by those rules and, I think it was ( ).

BERGE: Mr. Fuller, you had a different experience in the sense that you were a few years older than Harold was when you came here. Harold was a little bit younger than you were. And you were not a person from, say a city like Louisville, but you were somebody who, where you were from wasn’t as rural as this, but you were more acquainted with this kind of environment. In what respect, what do you think, experiences of having been in the CCC has meant for you? What value has it been for you?

FULLER: Personal experiences? Well, first it taught me how to get along with working people. 71:00People that used their fingers and their hands and their eyes and their brains, to ( ). That is one of the first things.

BERGE: And, of course, you told me that you tend to be more of a loner than most people. It really was a different experience for you to be with a lot of different people from different… FULLER: Well, I had to learn to mix.

BERGE: And that is something you don’t think about. That is something I never thought of before, as having been an important aspect of the CCC. How about you Mr. Blunk? You were different from these other men, because you had just come out of college and yet here you are, you come down here and how important was this for you as an experience?

BLUNK: Well, yes, it was a positive, yes. I think the biggest thing I got out of it was getting acquainted with the region. I had always heard about this part of Kentucky, knew very little about it 72:00and got to know a few of the fellows that actually came from this part. And associated with other fellows in the group and working as a team, I think that was the biggest aspect, I can say.

BERGE: One of the things that impressed me about it, since I have been interviewing people like you, is that there was very little direction and discipline pressed upon them from above so much. That they really learned how to work things out—I mean they literally built these things almost without instruction. And it seems to me that probably as young men, they really learned to cooperate with each other much better than they might have if they had gone somewhere, and working in a situation where there was a boss coming in telling you how to do stuff.

BLUNK: I think that is true.

BERGE: Yeah, that is a different… 73:00FULLER: May I say one word? Didn’t it teach these people discipline? To discipline themselves to various sorts of individuals. To supervision that they were going to have in life?

BERGE: Yeah, I think Jack told me this, the first time I talked with him, he said—he told it that way. I really—how about you Jack, what would you add to this?

HARDIN: Well, I come in sort of like Gabe, I was working. I didn’t have to look for anything. But, like I said, I got a lot of experience and learned to get along with people better. And as I said, everybody done their job which to me is what you should do. In other words, we didn’t have anyone laying down and for character, 74:00it builds a lot of good character in any human.

BERGE: Well, when you ask people questions you are not supposed to ask questions which are leading, you know you are supposed to let people tell their own story; and I don’t know how to ask this without it being a leading question. But, surely, it must be some feeling of accomplishment to be in a place like this almost sixty years later and still see people walking on paths that you made.

HARDIN: It was! We saved one town from getting burnt up and we put out a lot of fires, saved a lot of timber, which to me is very valuable. And like I said we built a nice parking lot for Cumberland Falls and we built bridges down there that people could go underneath the falls; course they are not there now, but they were there.

BERGE: But the same paths are there, aren’t they Steve? 75:00KICKERT: Hum-hum.

BLUNK: Yes, the same paths are there.

HARDIN: As I said, I learned how to build a bridge, I learned an awful lot. Of course, Blunk taught me. (laughter) BLUNK: I think one of the assets I got from it was seeing how different leaders worked with their men and see how they accomplished their ends. There was no authority exercised as a real rigid system, but rather the fellas worked as a group and they all pitched in and did their job. If a fella didn’t know how to do it, he was given some credit for having some knowledge, some sense and brought into the picture and 76:00made part of the team.

BERGE: It occurs to me as I listen to you, that it really wasn’t like being in the work force, where some supervisor said you do this, and you do this, this way; I mean they gave you the tools and said get out there and make a parking lot, literally, didn’t they—I mean… BLUNK: Basically, yeah.

BERGE: That’s very interesting.

FULLER: Again, let me say one word. Back in my day and time, when you work you ( ). Some of that has changed, maybe it was organized labor, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know. Cause it is a little bit different, you can see it, in supervision of the work hands.

BERGE: I think the first time I talked with Mr. Blunk, he seemed to indicate that if he remembered it, he didn’t remember people shirking their jobs. He just remembered most everybody doing their job. He didn’t remember it as a place—except for Jack—you know across the river talking to those people all the time—but he…(laughter) FULLER: Looking for the aquarium.

BERGE: Yeah, the aquarium. But he 77:00didn’t remember anybody dropping around to ( ) because everybody did their work. He said everybody did their job.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Yes—Yes—Yes.

BERGE: Do you remember it that way?

HARDIN: Like I told you before, they didn’t have any shirkers. Nobody laid down on the job. They enjoyed doing their work, and they done their work.

BERGE: Yeah. Did you ever—did any of you ever try to talk anybody else into joining?

HARDIN: Well we didn’t have a chance.

BERGE: No, I mean after you left? Did you ever meet anybody that you told them that it was an experience that you might have enjoyed?

HARDIN: No, I didn’t, no.

BERGE: Did you ever remember doing that?

BLUNK: Never talked to anybody—I’m sure that several fellas that I know that joined up because of the interest that they had in what was happening.

BERGE: Did you have people talk to you about it when you were in it?

BLUNK: No.

BERGE: Huh-Huh. That’s interesting. That is really interesting. You know my experiences in the military when I went in, was guys would go in and they would come back and tell us lies about how good it was and we would join up. 78:00(laughter) I joined on Monday morning and ( ) all weekend. I guess people were more honest then. (laughter) Were there any other comments that any of you would like to make about this?

OKEY: No, it was nice getting together and seeing these pictures and… BERGE: In fact, as I sit here right now, I can see we made a serious mistake. We should have brought somebody in and have made a video tape of today. This last hour.

HARDIN: Well the experience we got from it you couldn’t buy. In other words, he—we knew what he wanted done, he told us. If I grabbed a ( ) it was a sign I was going to use that. If he grabbed a rake it was a sign he was going to use a rake and that’s the way it was. He didn’t say you do this, you do that, he wasn’t no boss. If you wanted a boss you had to go find one 79:00because we didn’t have any. (laughter) Like I said the guys just worked it out perfect among themselves and you had to see it to believe it.

BERGE: Now we have something else in—we have done something else in this case that you are not supposed to do, we have these men spouses are here with us today; and one of the reason that I though it would be pretty good was, I wanted to ask them one question before we quit. I am not going to identify them or any thing but, before this weekend, in other words in the past, have you ever heard your husband talk about his experiences in the CCC Camp?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Yes.

BERGE: So in other words it was important enough for him to talk about it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: We ( ).

BERGE: Yeah, but some people have been places and not talked about it with anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE; We came back to see this ( ). I remarked as we went down to see that bridge, it meant a whole lot to me, 80:00because he told me about it.

BERGE: Oh yeah, that is a pretty thing too, the first time I came in here and saw that bridge I remember it. (Berge is talking over the woman and I can’t hear her.) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: …if he had something to do with it.

BERGE: Ms. Hardin, you are going to start—did Jack ever talk about the CCC?

MRS. HARDIN: Oh, yes, he talked about it.

HARDIN: A lot. (laughter) BERGE: Obviously it was important to him or he wouldn’t have—how about you? Did he tell you that he never did work that he was down here with that ( ), that is the first you heard about that. (laughter and general background conversation) I was just kidding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE; I got letters from all the side camps.

BERGE: I had never hear of this side camp stuff before.

KICKERT: I hadn’t either I never heard of them. What was a side camp?

BERGE: These were 509 Side Camps? Let me get that straightened out and we’ll go back to this. Has Gabe ever talked about this to you?

MRS. BLUNK: Yes. All our lives. All our married lives.

BERGE; And the children know about it and everything. I think it is important to these 81:00men. Tell me this, tell me this now. Steve is really interested in this side camp, he never heard of a side camp before. Tell him what a side camp is Harold.

OKEY: Well a side camp is where you went out of your main camp, 509 over here, and went back up the creek and set your tents up back there, and you made side trails. Well, practically the same thing we did down here, only we didn’t do—build—you know all these cooking places, you know, barbeques and places and stuff like that. We were more or less, I’d say to watch out for the fires and stuff like that.

KICKERT: How far away were these side camps from the main camp?

OKEY: Well, one was at Williamsburg.

HARDIN: No, no, it was right outside of Williamsburg. Mountain Ash and I don’t know… OKEY: The other one was a Pineville. 82:00HARDIN: No OKEY: Well, where was that at?

HARDIN: Outside of Barbourville. Silers.

OKEY: Yeah, Silers BERGE: Yeah, you told me that this morning. You told me Barbourville this morning and then he told me Siler. Now you had never heard that, you don’t remember that term side camp, did you?

BLUNK: I remember the term side camp, but we were sent to Stearns where they were going to establish a camp for the CCC, or a company that was to come in. And we stayed there only so long as to protect the property and watch the construction and somebody was ready to—from the new company to come in.

KICKERT: Was it right at Stearns?

BLUNK: South of Stearns.

BERGE: Yeah, I will tell you where it is. If you go to Stearns now and you go down past the Outdoor Venture? Soon as you go past Outdoor Venture and go up ( ) it is right there over the hill to the right.

BLUNK: It is in that field where that dead hog was buried. (laughter) BERGE: But that was a term I had never heard before, side camp. 83:00KICKERT: No I had never… BERGE: And I get it that it is sort of a—it is just an auxiliary camp for people from this camp they are going to go there and do a relatively small job. You said it would be just a week or two didn’t you?

OKEY: Yeah. It would depend on what was going on, I mean… BERGE: How many would be in one of those camps?

OKEY: Forty.

HARDIN: Well, I was going to say around thirty, but it was forty I guess.

OKEY: They called us the Forty Thieves (laughter) HARDIN: You had those tents, but how many to a tent?

OKEY: Ah, six. In a tent now I’ve forgotten, we had a big ( ) tent….

HARDIN: Well anyhow, I can remember… OKEY: There was supposed to have been forty of us though. We was there to fight fires and to build fire trails, and we did. We worked Pine Mountain and Little Round Mountain, Big Round Mountain and I don’t know what else. (laughs) But that was our main purpose, 84:00though. We wasn’t supposed to build anything.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No we didn’t do no roads or anything like that, we just cut fire wood.

BERGE: Let me ask you something else. This couple days you have been here talking to these other people, have you—did the others remind you of things you had forgotten about?

ALL VOICES: O, yes—Hell, yes—like a—(laughter) BERGE: Yeah, it is interesting how people remember things differently. One person will remember very vividly…..

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well Gabe was our… BLUNK: I didn’t take that… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: …he was a good boy he didn’t leave camp.

BLUNK: Oh, yeah, I didn’t take time to go to the aquarium. (laughter) HARDIN: He don’t know a thing about it. (laughter) … street or any other thing.

BERGE: You don’t know what that memory looked like over there do you Gabe? A really interesting experience though wasn’t it? Coming down here? What did you think was the most beautiful thing in nature that you saw that you had never seen before 85:00when you came down here?

OKEY: You mean the first time? All these hills and hollers? (laughter) HARDIN: When we came down in the Spring, when everything was just budding out, you know coming out….

BERGE: I’m not going to ask Jim, right now. How about you, what was your first recollection of it, that you thought was beautiful. What did you think was pretty?

HARDIN: Everything. I never been to the mountains, I had never seen any and especially climb one. If you hadn’t seen one you couldn’t climb it, so to me it was the most beautiful sight you could look at.

BERGE: Now Gabe had something specific that he thought was pretty down here.

BLUNK: The mountain Laurel and the Rhododendron, oh, I tell you.

BERGE: Well, Rhododendron is something people don’t see until they come to the mountains.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Coming in the springtime—( ).

KICKERT: You were glad to be in this kind of s setting?

BLUNK: Yeah. sure. 86:00BERGE: Would you have been happier to go to Wyoming, or California or somewhere?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: No—No way—Almost did get to California, but I am glad I didn’t now--Cause my buddy he went to California.—How come he went to California—I stayed here I don’t know—we both signed up the same day.

BERGE: I get the feeling from talking to you people that the first group that came here the very first day they were all from Louisville, the Louisville area. Later on when the people came in they came in from other places, although there were a couple people said from Ashland and a few others, but most of them were from the Louisville area.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yeah they shipped us down from Fort Knox.

HARDIN: Wonder where Virginia come from? His home was Virginia I don’t know how he got mixed up.

BLUNK: I think he was in Louisville at the time.

HARDIN: Was he? I don’t know.

BERGE: Yeah, that happens, a lot of that. People bumming around… HARDIN: Looking for jobs and stuff 87:00and just joined the CCC BERGE: Well, that is interesting. I have really enjoyed it. I think it has been a really good experience for me and I’m please to have met you all.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: We have enjoyed it as much as you have—yeah, I have enjoyed it, bringing back old times.

BERGE: Some of you might enjoy going to that actual meeting in Knoxville, this summer.

BLUNK: I guess one of the things that we haven’t said, was the Falls was the center piece of the whole operation. (agreement from other voices) BERGE: And you know the tragedy of the falls right now is that you can’t really see it for the garbage.

KICKERT: The garbage.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: He called us this morning, boy it is terrible down there isn’t it? (other voices all talking at once) Well people have been… BERGE: You know the reason it wasn’t so bad then when these boys were here, the stuff that is there is not there—wasn’t in existence—this plastic 88:00 stuff.

UNDENTIFIED VOICES: People didn’t do it then, did they? No they didn’t—But that would not keep people from dropping stuff over the… BERGE: Well there is stuff sitting down here, that falls into the river… VOICES: (All talking at once) BERGE: A milk bottle was in the river in Harlan and ends up down here. Kentuckians.

HARDIN: It sure wasn’t here when we were.

KICKERT: I don’t even enjoy going down there… BERGE: And trying to explain to people… KICKERT: I don’t even like being there. I cannot appreciate the falls, I feel like I’m a standing in a garbage dump.

BERGE: It is a tragedy 89:00isn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: Get a citizens group—I think yeah— KICKERT: But the problem is ( ) for you. We are getting ready, for the third time to hire a crew that goes down—you can’t pick it up—two years ago for instance we have a clean up day every year—last Saturday—first Saturday before Memorial Day. I think we had one hundred and twenty-five people. We picked up six tons of garbage and we didn’t touch it. We didn’t make a dent. The only way we can get rid of it is by sending a crew down there and burning. And I don’t know if you noticed today but there aren’t nearly as many trees along the river bank as when you were here. We have lost probably twenty-five per cent to thirty per cent of our trees in the last five or ten years. And we go to the effort to try to get rid of the garbage—they burn those piles of wood with the garbage in it that comes up against the trees and we are losing 90:00the trees, so it is a no win situation.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Steve and I were talking down at the falls this morning and there should be some kind of legislation to get rid of these cartons and bottles and the plastic stuff, because that doesn’t burn. You throw it in the rivers and it washed up down there you can see it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: We are burying ourselves in plastic.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: In plastic. It is terrible. They are starting a program now in Louisville where you separate your garbage. You are going to have tin cans here and paper here and it won’t be not trouble to drop your paper in this box, and your cans in this box.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: ( ) in the seventies was a tremendous amount of detergent in the water, so when it came up against the rocks it foamed ( ).

KICKERT: That 91:00is probably better now.

HARDIN: I tell you another thing, with all this stuff coming out of the factory into Cumberland Lake down here, that salt that they are putting in there. They gave them permission to put that in there.

BERGE: Yeah, of course, that doesn’t come up in here, but..

HARDIN: No, but I mean..

OKEY: They have to have that otherwise they would ( ) that plank down (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: All talking at once.

BERGE: Actually it is because of the real estate developers over there. (laughter) Lets hear this, he is going to tell us a story.

FULLER: I am the only—well except two—are the only ones that saw the falls dammed off in the water 92:00and cleaned up down below. That—part of that town that sits on caverns—they had some underground utilities that began to crack and they wanted to check on it. And the only way they could get into it was dam the water up and go in the cracks down below and find out. They didn’t really get down to it. Where were we? (this last to his wife) FEMALE VOICE: You were there I wasn’t. (I think this was Mrs. Fuller) FULLER: I thought you were there.

FEMALE VOICE: No I wasn’t there it was after ( ) FULLER: ( ) were in California they ( ) I had handled their ( ). Called me one day and said, “want to get you up here right quick, get on the train and come”, says, “we are going to dam up the falls.” BERGE: How long did they hold the water back?

FULLER: I think it was about ten days.

BERGE: Boy that was a lot of water wasn’t it.

MRS. FULLER: We got pictures of it dry.

BERGE: You mean they didn’t—there was a whole week and one-half where they didn’t make shredded wheat? Remember 93:00how that was always on the picture of the shredded wheat box? Niagara Falls?

MRS FULLER: But I think what they need to do ( ). I never saw the bridge up there anywhere in the ( ) like it was down here.

BERGE: The reason for that is there were no Scotch-Irish up there. Throwing those plastic bottles in there. (laughs) That was a joke. I’m not going to get any Scotch-Irish ( ).

FULLER: That was a most unusual sight, no water over the falls, made you think. It was just as dry as it could be.

BERGE: I’m just going to turn this off now.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE.

END OF INTERVIEW.