Oral History Interview with Harold G. Speagle

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed tape interview with Mr. Harold Speagle of Oakland, California. The interview is conducted at the Cumberland Falls State Park by William Berge for the Oral History Commission of Kentucky. The interview was conducted on October 5, 1990 at Three Pm. Mr. Speagle let us start this by you telling me your full name, and telling me the date of your birth, and the year you were born and all that type of stuff.

HAROLD G. SPEAGLE: Ok. My name is Harold G. Speagle, I was born at Verona Kentucky, January 7, 1915.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SPEAGLE: And ah… BERGE: Walton, Verona… SPEAGLE: Yes, Walton is near by. Yes, I played basketball against the Walton team when Frankie Divorsy was the center… 1:00BERGE: Oh, yeah… SPEAGLE: That was a long time ago.

BERGE: He was all American… SPEAGLE: Yes, he did, at the University of Kentucky, yeah.

BERGE: They merged those two schools, didn’t they?

SPEAGLE: Ah, they have done that yes. Verona high school is no longer in existence. The building is still there unoccupied. It is a landmark.

BERGE: What was the date of your birth again?

SPEAGLE: January the seventh, nineteen and fifteen.

BERGE: Nineteen fifteen. What was your father’s name?

SPEAGLE: Amos Henry… BERGE: Amos Henry Speagle.

SPEAGLE: Right.

BERGE: And what was your mother’s name?

SPEAGLE: My mother’s name was Lena Pearle.

BERGE: What was her maiden name?

SPEAGLE: Webster.

BERGE: Where were they from?

SPEAGLE: Ah, generally from Grant County and Belton County Kentucky.

BERGE: Yeah. And Dry Ridge and all that?

SPEAGLE: In those areas yes.

BERGE: (laughs) Ok. Where did you go to school?

SPEAGLE: Gallatin County for the grade school and at Verona for high school and… BERGE: High school. Did you graduate from high school?

SPEAGLE: Yes, I did.

BERGE: What year?

SPEAGLE: 1932.

BERGE: Ok. You were just in time for the unemployment 2:00then weren’t you?

SPEAGLE: Just about.

BERGE: When did you go in the CCC?

SPEAGLE: Ah, October 1933.

BERGE: Ok. What did you do in that year after you got out of high school?

SPEAGLE: After high school I—my grandfather was very ill and I spent several months staying with him, taking care of him in his last days. He died in the middle of October in 1932 then I worked on the farm. My father had died in 1931 and so I had two young brothers and myself and we farmed until… BERGE: Did your grandfather farm or…?

SPEAGLE: Yeah, my father farmed. My father and mother farmed. Following that in the summer of 1933 I got myself a job with a highway construction outfit on the… BERGE: You were lucky, there were not a lot of jobs then.

SPEAGLE: Not a lot of jobs. I was very lucky. It didn’t pay an awful lot but it paid more than I could make on the farm, so I took it and stayed with it from beginning to end. 3:00The superintendent of the project was glad to have me or so he said and he put me on some particular jobs that he said, “I don’t think I could find anyone to do it any better,” and so… BERGE: That’s great. When did the job run out?

SPEAGLE: It ran out in October, early October.

BERGE: The weather I guess.

SPEAGLE: Well, it—the project was completed. The was running from the Gallatin County line through Boone County to Walton.

BERGE: Ok.

SPEAGLE: From Verona to Walton and that was the end of the project so—I could have gone with them down into central Kentucky on a project had I so wished, but with the family I didn’t wish to do that.

BERGE: Why did you go into the CCC? The twenty dollars for your mother, or…?

SPEAGLE: Well, that was it and twenty-five dollars I think it was. And I was looking for the experience I thought I could get from it. Our nearest neighbor had gone to Idaho and back by that time and I talked to him and I was encouraged with it.

BERGE: Oh, so 4:00that was—you heard about it from someone—I was going to ask you… SPEAGLE: From someone else, yes. And so I went and signed up at Warsaw Kentucky and in a short time they called me and I went on down to Fort Knox and then shipped out to Peters Kentucky for Company 599.

BERGE: You went to Cadiz.

SPEAGLE: Cadiz that was the first camp I was in.

BERGE: What did you all do at Cadiz?

SPEAGLE: Soil conservation. And we would go out and work on private property leveling ditches out… BERGE: A lot of erosion?

SPEAGLE: A lot of erosion. And planting locust—black locust trees.

BERGE: Oh, you’re the guy that planted all those trees.

SPEAGLE: A lot of them, yes. We planted thousands of them. We would build little dams. We called them little weirs that would slow the water down and stop the erosion, out of brush. Brush dams.

BERGE: How did they teach you to do that? Did somebody tell you how to do that 5:00 or…?

SPEAGLE: I was apparently more able to catch on to that and how they wanted it done more rapidly than some. I hadn’t been there long in that camp. I think we were the first company in the camp it was a brand new one--the foreman asked me if I would like to be a senior—not a senior there—but an assistant leader. And… BERGE: That was a raise.

SPEAGLE: That was a raise, so I tried that and then on with that—you were allowed one year at that time in the three C’s--so I was discharged and went back home. And that was in… BERGE: Were you just in the three C’s one year?

SPEAGLE: Just one year. That was all they would permit then.

BERGE: Later on… SPEAGLE: Later on they did yes.

BERGE: Tell me this did you spend the whole time at Cadiz?

SPEAGLE: Yes. Except for a little trip up to ( ) Springs, with a bad case of measles for three weeks up there. I gave it to almost the whole camp. (laughter) I contacted 6:00it I believe, at my Grandmother’s funeral. I went back for the funeral and someone there must have had it.

BERGE: Tell me this about Cadiz, when you went there, where was the camp?

SPEAGLE: Just below a cemetery between a narrow gauge railroad and a main highway that ran to Hopkinsville from Cadiz.

BERGE: When you first got there was it just like you were dumped out in the middle of… SPEAGLE: Very much so, this was very barren and nothing but—in that particular area—this was an eroded area too that they built the camp on. It was loose gravel on the surface and you could dig down ten feet and still find gravel and that is all there was around the camp was just gravel and… BERGE: Huh-huh. They just--there was nothing there, no buildings or anything when you went there?

SPEAGLE: No there were. The buildings were all in place complete.

BERGE: Oh, they were? So 7:00the camp wasn’t a brand new camp then?

SPEAGEL: Yes, it was a brand new camp. It had not been occupied; it had just been built.

BERGE: You know some places they actually built their own camp.

SPEAGLE: Yes. I know that. Later on I got into that. (laughter) BERGE: You were lucky when you got there.

SPEAGLE: Yeah. We were lucky it was the middle of the night—it was about midnight when we got there.

BERGE: And you spent the whole year at Cadiz?

SPEAGLE: Yes. Yes.

BERGE: And then went back home.

SPEAGLE: Went back home.

BERGE: For how long?

SPEAGLE: Ah, 1934 until till 1936, July 6, 1936.

BERGE: And then what did you do?

SPEAGLE: Ah, went back into the CCC.

BERGE: Ok. So you signed back up then?

SPEAGLE: Yeah, I signed back up and I went to Carrolton Kentucky.

BERGE: You must have really like it to have gone back.

SPEAGLE: I did. I did like it.

BERGE: What did you like about it?

SPEAGLE: Well, I enjoyed the whole thing. The comradery with the different people. We were raised out in the country of course, and didn’t see many; but this was fun to talk with people and get acquainted and kind of browse around a little bit and, I just enjoyed it.

BERGE: What did—when you first went off to Cadiz, 8:00ah, were you nervous about it?

SPEAGLE: No, I wasn’t nervous. I can’t say I was nervous.

BERGE: Did you a lot of—did you meet people that you kept in contact with the rest of your life?

SPEAGLE: Well, I met people that I kept in contact with a long time. The people at Cadiz would invite me out a lot—to their homes at Thanksgiving--and we weren’t there for the second Christmas, we were discharged then. But at different times we would go out on Sunday, they would invite me out and I would go out and spend the weekend. But those people are dead now. Long gone.

BERGE: But you liked it out there?

SPEAGLE: I did. Yes, they were nice people. It was a friendly town.

BERGE: Did you get country ham out there?

SPEAGLE: Great country ham. You bet. Famous for their country ham.

BERGE: Tell 9:00me this now, when you were out there, what did they do at the camp for recreation?

SPEAGLE: We had baseball we had, of course, ping pong and a pool table, that was about it there. And of course, we could go swimming on the little river… BERGE: Did you play baseball?

SPEAGLE: No, I didn’t play baseball, I wasn’t a baseball player.

BERGE: They had a team?

SPEAGLE: They had a team, yes,. And they would play different camps around. Benton and… BERGE: Did you ever hear of anybody boxing?

SPEAGLE: Ah, no I don’t recall any boxer there. We had a leader in camp, that had been a prize fighter. He had the cauliflower ears and everything that went with it. But no boxing, not supervised boxing.

BERGE: What did you think of the food?

SPEAGLE: The food was good. It was simple fare, but it was plentiful and it was good food. I did not have any 10:00problem with the food.

BERGE: Huh-huh. I guess it was a really big help for your mom though, to get that money. Especially with the younger… SPEAGLE: Yes, Yes, my father was dead, and with the younger children it was very essential.

BERGE: What did you tell me you did between then and thirty-six?

SPEAGLE: Back on the farm.

BERGE: Ok. With your mother and brothers and stuff.

SPEAGLE: Yes. Yes.

BERGE: Ah, and then you went back in thirty-six, you went to Carrollton?

SPEAGLE: Carrolton, Butler State Park.

BERGE: And that is what you all were doing was building the park?

SPEAGLE: Building the park buildings, the trails, the pavilion, developing playground the parking lot. You also have a lake there, Butler Lake, which was stocked with trout and we kept that thing clean… BERGE: What kind of work do you think was more meaningful? The kind of work you did in Carrolton or the kind of work you did in Butler?

SPEAGLE: I don’t know that I can say that either one was more meaningful than the other. They were both meaningful to me.

BERGE: Then 11:00you didn’t think that there was anything wrong about using public funds working on private land or anything like that?

SPEAGLE: Not at all, no, no, it was perfectly appropriate there and it was needed. And… BERGE: Ok. Ok.

SPEAGLE: They were poor people for the most part and could never have done it by themselves.

BERGE: Do you remember having any trouble with the local boys, or local girls, or anything like that when you were in the CCC?

SPEAGLE: No. No.

BERGE: You got along good with the local people?

SPEAGLE: I personally did and I don’t recall any problems… BERGE: Probably because you were doing so much work around there.

SPEAGLE: That is possible, yes.

BERGE: How long did you stay at Carrollton?

SPEAGLE: I was there from July till—just about a year—and I was transferred here to 1578 at Cumberland Falls.

BERGE: How come you were transferred?

SPEAGLE: They were closing out the camp.

BERGE: At Carrollton.

SPEAGLE: Yeah, at Carrollton. I was there during that winter. 12:00We had a big flood that winter, you remember? The whole town was awash.

BERGE: Did you—did you become a leader at Carrollton too?

SPEAGLE: Not at Carrollton. Later on I was transferred to Cumberland Falls and following that yes.

BERGE: How long did you stay at Cumberland Falls?

SPEAGLE: Just a few months and late fall we were transferred down lock, stock and barrel to Grayville, Illinois.

BERGE: Oh, you were with that bunch at Grayville?

SPEAGLE: Grayville, yeah.

BERGE: Were you up there when they had the riot?

SPEAGLE: Yes, I was there. I was canteen sergeant then following ( ) here at Cumberland Falls, I had been here a couple of months and was in charge of the canteen, a nice ( )… BERGE: What was a canteen sergeant, what did you do?

SPEAGLE: Commissary. We sold candy bars, soft drinks, cigarettes, things that might… BERGE: Did you make pretty good money? I mean for the CCC—I mean was it profitable?

SPEAGLE: Oh, it was profitable yes, and we were able to buy our produce 13:00at… BERGE: What did they do with the funds?

SPEAGLE: It was used for recreation purposes and keeping the pool tables up and repairing… BERGE: Let me ask you here Harold, who did you work for?

SPEAGLE: Lieutenant Caldwell, Thomas E. Caldwell.

BERGE: He was in the Army?

SPEAGLE: He was a Reserve Army Officer I guess.

BERGE: Yeah. I was just wondering.

SPEAGLE: At Grayville we also had a Lieutenant Brief, Lin Brief.

BERGE: He was your boss there?

SPEAGLE: He was really my boss. Thomas Caldwell was in charge of the camp.

BERGE: When you were in Grayville—what do you remember about that riot?

SPEAGLE: Well, I was not involved I… BERGE: You were one of the ones… SPEAGLE: I was not. I can remember some of them making it back to camp without getting locked up. They had a little pokey down there and some of them didn’t… BERGE: How did it happen? What happened? 14:00SPEAGLE: I really don’t know. I heard a story that there was some difficulty between the boys in camp and some of the town toughs. I don’t know if that started it or not. But that was the rumor I had heard.

BERGE: There were jealousies weren’t there of one type and another?

SPEAGLE: (sighs) Oh, yes, yes, you run into that. So the one camp that I don’t remember jealousy was at Cadiz, but there were here… BERGE: Maybe there were fewer people at Cadiz..

SPEAGLE: Possibly.

BERGE: You know more like the ( ) at camp—you know, rural.

SPEAGLE: We had some kids from Louisville, lot of them were from the general area and some of those were not very nice, but… BERGE: They were tough weren’t they?

SPEAGLE: They were tough and as I recall it there was never any trouble with them in town… BERGE: Do you remember any trouble in camp?

SPEAGLE: There were fights occasionally.

BERGE: Often?

SPEAGLE: Nope.

BERGE: Wonder why there was so little? 15:00SPEAGLE: I don’t know. They seemed to be congenial for some—I can recall a couple of brawls at Cadiz. One of them was from the same general area that I was and ( ) had gotten into something. I think there was a name calling and it wound up in fist-a-cuffs and they settled it and that was the end of that… BERGE: Do you think that everybody worked so hard that they… SPEAGLE: Well, they worked hard there is no question about that. Yeah, they worked hard, but generally if they are working hard that was not enough to keep them from brawling if they are so inclined.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember much in the way of, oh, rule breaking or anything like that?

SPEAGLE: There was some. There was some. And sometimes that was tolerated to some extent; and sometimes some foreman would tolerate more of that, and some wouldn’t tolerate it at all.

BERGE: What would they do? 16:00SPEAGLE: They would simply take them into camp and introduce them to the commanding officer of the camp and … BERGE: Would they kick them out?

SPEAGLE: If they don’t work they don’t eat, and if they don’t eat they don’t stay there, off they go. That happened.

BERGE: Did it happen a lot?

SPEAGLE: Frequently.

BERGE: But by and large they were pretty good workers, weren’t they?

SPEAGLE: Most of them, for the most part I would say, ninety-nine per cent of them were but that one per cent was totally useless. They ( ) in the first place.

BERGE: After that riot you were shipped out of Illinois pretty quickly weren’t you?

SPEAGLE: Shortly after that yes. That camp was closed.

BERGE: Do you think it was because of the riot?

SPEAGLE: No, I don’t think so. I think it was just like from here nothing… BERGE: Just got finished working?

SPEAGLE: They had accomplished what they intended here for the camp and off they went to Grayville Illinois and… BERGE: But they were here a long time, 17:00weren’t they?

SPEAGLE: Yes.

BERGE: Something like from thirty-three to… SPEAGLE: Oh, well, I don’t know what—but it was much earlier of course, and I don’t know much about it. I was transferred here of course, in 1936.

BERGE: Yeah. camp was already started when you were here.

SPEAGLE: Oh, yes, and the—a few of us were transferred up from Carrollton here and ( ) pretty full otherwise.

BERGE: Well, when you left Illinois where did you go?

SPEAGLE: ( ).

BERGE: You went with that group out there.

SPEAGLE: Out there 1578.

BERGE: How long did you stay there?

SPEAGLE: Ah, I stayed there until July of 1937. I—the first time—I was top sergeant in the camp and I was told to select a crew to build a new camp in Orrin California.

BERGE: Oh, so you stayed in that one too.

SPEAGLE: Well I stayed in camp until it was closed out, but I went down there—I selected the group that went down there.

BERGE: Yeah. Huh-huh. they went down there and built those irrigation ditches?

SPEAGLE: Well, they built the camp first and later on it was irrigation. Yes.

BERGE: Is that where you were when you got out? 18:00SPEAGLE: I was there at Orrin—I was discharged at Orrin in 1939. They offered me a position as a sub-foreman for the Bureau of Reclamation, so I was discharged at that time and I accepted the job at that CCC camp… BERGE: Oh so you stayed there and worked.

SPEAGLE: Yes, as foreman for the Bureau of Reclamation.

BERGE: How long did you work?

SPEAGLE: Until the camp closed in 1941.

BERGE: Do you mind me asking you how much you made at that job?

SPEAGLE: Forty-five dollars, as a suppliment.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SPEAGLE: Twelve hundred and fifty dollars a month—a year I beg your pardon.

BERGE: Well that was good money.

SPEAGLE: Yeah, a big increase from forty-five a month.

BERGE: A good job, period.

SPEAGLE: Yes, yes, at that time, it wasn’t bad at all. And before they closed the camp, which was 1937—I mean 1941, I was a regular foreman. I was no longer a sub-foreman, 19:00that was sixteen hundred and eighty dollars a month.

BERGE: And then when the camp closed you were out of work.

SPEAGLE: The camp closed—no, the project manager there by the name of Donald Carmody, who was the project manager for the Bureau of Reclamation; took me up to the Shasta Project and introduced me up there. They put me on there then as an inspector.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SPEAGLE: For the Shasta Project, the Shasta Dam.

BERGE: And how long did you work at that?

SPEAGLE: Till may 1942, and I resigned from that and went to the Richmond Shipyards.

BERGE: Richmond California?

SPEAGLE: Richmond, California, yeah.

BERGE: (giggles) Camp Stoner?

SPEAGLE: Ah, no, nearby. Yeah, Camp Stoner was at Pittsburgh, we were at Richmond of course.

BERGE: Not too far away.

SPEAGLE: Not too far away, no. And I worked as a shipwright there on the Liberty Ships.

BERGE: Huh-huh. So you spent the rest of your life in California, then did you?

SPEAGLE: Yes, 20:00I married there BERGE: Huh-huh. Where was your wife from?

SPEAGLE: She was from New Orleans.

BERGE: Oh, from New Orleans. You met her when you were there?

SPEAGLE: Yes. Right there on July the second and the Fourth of July was Sunday and I went to church and I met my wife at the church there. I proposed to her in October and the following April we were married.

BERGE: Well, Blankenship’s wife was from there too.

SPEAGLE: Yes, from the same place, yes, yeah, they knew each other.

BERGE: Did they know each other before?

SPEAGLE: Ah, er, vaguely I think; my wife graduated from high school there and this girl did too and I believe they were in the same class.

BERGE: Oh! That is really amazing isn’t it? And then wind up here.

SPEAGLE: Yes, here we are. Yeah, well the Richmond Yards, yeah, ( ) the CCC. I don’t know how much interested you are… BERGE: Yeah, I like to know about it, and the reason for this is that we are trying to find out just how much carry over there was from the work you did in the CCC and everything. 21:00SPEAGLE: Well, carry over from what I learned in Camp. Now I knew nothing about carpentry until I joined the CCC and I learned carpentry work in the CCC. Come right up here at Cumberland Falls, log cabins just a short distance down here are the same ones or not there are still some cabins there I helped build the cabins.

BERGE: They are the same ones. They are actually thinking about taking them down now.

SPEAGLE: I hope not.

BERGE: No I hope that if they have to take them down they should at least leave some, you know.

SPEAGLE: Yeah. There is an interesting thing about those log cabins. I worked for a foreman here for the Park District by the name of Eastamp, Homer Eastamp, and he liked me and he taught me many things. In fact, when we were ready to close the camp, he knew he was out of a job here too, so he was going to ( ) at Manchester 22:00to build a court house there, public works.

BERGE: Oh, yeah. WPA?

SPEAGLE: WPA. And he wanted to take a fella by the name of Creach, Frank Creach, from here who was a senior leader at Camp and myself there to work on it. But they wouldn’t permit it they had to be from the local district. So I stayed in camp… BERGE: Politics.

SPEAGLE: Politics. Yeah. But I wound up in New Orleans, which was fine.. Everything worked out fine.

BERGE: Well, tell me again about meeting your wife now, how did you meet her?

SPEAGLE: At church, and I was introduced by another CCC boy that knew her. He had been going to church there while the camp was being built. And we went that Sunday morning and I met her there and I guess in a couple of weeks I was breaking bread with the preacher, who was her father.

BERGE: (laughs) Her father was the preacher?

SPEAGLE: Her father was the preacher.

BERGE: (laughs) Well that is interesting. And so how—when did you marry?

SPEAGLE: We married April 28, 1939.

BERGE: So you were married before you went to Richmond actually.

SPEAGLE: Oh, yes, I married before I went to Shasta Camp. 23:00BERGE: Yeah. That is what I mean.

SPEAGLE: Yeah, I was married almost a year and one-half before I went to Shasta Camp.

BERGE: Well, did she go up there with you when you went?

SPEAGLE: Yeah. We were married there—or married in New Orleans and then went up to Shasta Project. Had a little girl by this time. A baby.

BERGE: Oh. ( ) and so then when the war came along you worked in the shipyard.

SPEAGLE: In the shipyard.

BERGE: And how long did you stay there?

SPEAGLE: Till the war was over. And then I stayed on after the war was over and decommissioned a lot of the troop transports that had been built in the same yard that I had—by this time—after the war I was a quarterman.

BERGE: Did you ever see Henry Keiser when you were out there?

SPEAGLE: Yes, oh yes, Henry Keiser, yes, at launchings you would see him, not otherwise, but oh, yes, I was placed in charge on the swing shift of six ship-ways assemblies… BERGE: How, many could you build in a month?

BASS: Seven a day, I can tell you that, 24:00seven Liberty Ships a day. (yelled out from the back of the room) SPEAGLE: Yeah, there was a lot of them going out. We actually built one ship as a publicity type of thing in four days from keel laying to launching.

BERGE: Is that right. Same type of ship?

SPEAGLE: Same type of ship yes. ( ) these were Liberty Ships at this time; but the Liberty Ships before the war was finished… BERGE: You mean from the time you laid the keel to put it in the water—four days?

SPEAGLE: Put it in the water—four days.

BERGE: That is amazing.

SPEAGLE: Yeah, it was and….

BERGE: I’ll bet they couldn’t do that now in three months…(laughter) SPEAGLE: (general laughter from the room) You are probably right yeah. You are probably right. But by the war’s end and the end of the Liberty Ship program we were launching them literally off the shipways in seven days—from keel to launch.

BERGE: And how many the Lord knows.

SPEAGLE: Well, there were twelve shipways.

BERGE: Twelve—yeah.

SPEAGLE: Twelve shipways and every seven days we would slip one down the ramp—down the skids.

BERGE: What did you do after the war? Decommission ships?

SPEAGLE: Decommissioned 25:00them—moth-balled them—took the artillery off that was on there and take a look… BERGE: Well, how long did you stay doing this kind of work?

SPEAGLE; Ah, about six months, or maybe eight months, I don’t recall absolutely how long it was, but it was in that neighborhood. And then I went to work in Henry Keiser’s experimental station in Emeryville, working on some of the models of his cars that he was building. Worked on Keiser’s hydroplanes, the speed boats and from there I went to the Union Hall and worked as a Carpenter. Worked as journeyman carpenter.

BERGE: And all this was due to what you learned in the CCC?

SPEAGLE: Yes, the CCC.

BERGE: Yeah, you’d have been a farmer if it hadn’t been for the CCC probably.

SPEAGLE: That’s possible. 26:00BERGE: Farming ( ) SPEAGLE: That is possible. My brother did, same thing and he is dead now. The same thing my younger brother. But no, I went to work for a short time at carpentering and then I went to work as a plumber for a construction company in ( ) California.

BERGE: Did you spend most of your career there?

SPEAGLE: In the field? Yes. In construction. And following that I got my own contractors license and was a contractor from 1955 up until just this—January this year.

BERGE: What kind of stuff did you build?

SPEAGLE: Oh, first I built homes, architectural design—custom built homes. Large ones in ( ) areas. And I had had enough of that after a bit. The lady of the house was changing everything around, so I had enough of that. 27:00Decided it was easier—then I went to industrial type of work and did a lot of work for Henry Murrell Company, Bob Ostrow and the meat packing plant.

BERGE: Did you do anything like shopping centers and things like that?

SPEAGLE: Oh. Yes. Shopping centers, did that too. Worked on hospitals.

BERGE: Churches?

SPEAGLE: Churches, yes I built several churches.

BERGE: What happened to the company, did you sell it?

SPEAGLE: No, I was the sole owner and my son wasn’t interested in it. I thought he might be and I hung on to it really longer than was necessary and then I closed the doors.

BERGE: Well, for you it was more of a direct line from being in the CCC and what you learned and what you ended up doing, the rest of your life. 28:00I mean you came out of camp and stayed there and took a job… SPEAGLE: It all was related.

BERGE: Well, yeah, that is what I mean the skills and the things that you did and meeting the people and everything. What else did you think was a real big influence from your experience in the CCC?

SPEAGLE: Oh, ( ).

BERGE: Yes, you, what was good about it?

SPEAGLE: Discipline was one thing, being on a farm of course, my father ( ) was a strong disciplinary man and my mother was a disciplinarian too; but still to start something and stick to it.

BERGE: Yeah, I guess it was different being with a lot of people.

SPEAGLE: Yes. I hadn’t been around. We were from an isolated area you know, a kind of backward area to tell you the truth, where I was raised. But oh, it taught me how to take care of myself. 29:00I had to make my own bed for a change, my mother at home did that. (laughter) I learned how to peel potatoes too.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Did a—were you really conscious of the fact when you were in the CCC that you were really doing real important work? Did you think it was important?

SPEAGLE: Yes, yes I always thought it was important; right on down to the very end I thought it was important work. Certainly what we were doing in Cadiz Kentucky, the first camp I was in, was important work. We were saving land that was dehabilitated, it was completely useless before we got there.

BERGE: The same thing in California when you got out there.

SPEAGLE: The same thing. An irrigation district, it was wasteland, it was dry until you cut the ditches through and put the culverts and the water weirs and things it was totally useless BERGE: Of course, you were all aware of how important the park was, I guess. 30:00SPEAGLE: Oh, yes, yes, that was important work too.

BERGE: Well, I sure want to thank you Mr. Speagle for talking with me… SPEAGLE: You are very welcome.

BERGE: It is really an advantage for us to talk with you. Let me ask you one other thing. Did you enjoy coming to these meetings or… SPEAGLE: Yes, this is the second one I have been to; I came last year and… BERGE: It is a long way to come… SPEAGLE: ( ) come to Louisville.

BERGE: Do you go back home and visit when you are here?

SPEAGLE: I go back to my home, yes. Most of… BERGE: Who lives up there now?.

SPEAGLE: My nieces and nephews. My brothers are both dead and I have cousins I visit around… BERGE: Do you miss Kentucky at all? All those years in California?

SPEAGLE: To some extent yes. Not really, I enjoy California, and I loved it out there. There were sights to be seen that I had not seen before and it was different and… BERGE: Do you know how to ride that train between San Francisco and Oakland?

SPEAGLE: Yes. Yes, I do. I know how to ride the Skunk Railroad from Fort Bragg 31:00to Willits too. (laughter) BERGE: ( ) in my life and I remember we had a chance to go to a convention in the San Francisco area and ( ). I was watching that game too, I was watching the World Series when that thing hit last year. (earthquake) That was a scary thing wasn’t it?

SPEAGLE: Yes, it was. It shook our home up.

BERGE: You know they have predicted one for Kentucky for December third.

SPEAGLE: Well I hope you don’t have it.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ).

BERGE: Yeah, but he predicted a big one December third.

SPEAGLE: The New Madrid fault?

BERGE: Yeah, the same guy that predicted the one in California.

SPEAGEL: I went to the library in California when I heard about the New Madrid fault, to become familiar with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and read about that and thought, well this is interesting stuff. So I went to the library and checked out books… BERGE: Down in the Cadiz area you know that was… SPEAGLE: Yeah. So I found was on the New Madrid quake—it created quite a disturbance.

BERGE: You know that bridge at Clays Ferry is built on a fault? 32:00SPEAGLE: Oh, it is?

BERGE: Between here and Northern Kentucky.

SPEAGLE: What does it do—run into Indiana?

BERGE: I don’t know, but it is a fault and that bridge is built right on it.

SPEAGLE: Right on the fault. For your information—actually that was a series of quakes… BERGE: That was how it was created, yeah.

SPEAGLE: Yeah, that was, actually that was a series of quakes from 1811 to 1813… BERGE: You know I lived in Alaska and we had earthquakes all the time. Be sitting in a bar and …(laughs) SPEAGLE: We had some seven or eight after shocks on the one from last October seventeenth too. We felt them, sometimes not too much but your glasses will rattle and you will have another minor quake. But we were in our living room getting ready for the Oakland A’s and Giants World Series and were sitting down and it started shaking 33:00and I told her let’s get out of here. It was two stories where we were and we were sitting right by the fire place and we went around the fire place through the door into a family room that we have, which is one story, and looked out at the patio door, which is a wide one, sixteen feet across—the trees—they were good sized trees, I thought they were going to come out right by the roots, they were shaking so hard.

BERGE: Did it damage the house?

SPEAGLE: Broke a glass, but no structural damage.

BERGE: No foundation damage?

SPEAGLE: No, no foundation damage. We were lucky there. We lived about two and one-half miles from the Freeway that collapsed, that is how close we were to that. But I didn’t go down to see it. I didn’t even want to see it.

BERGE: I saw the pictures, you know, of that.

SPEAGLE: Yes, that is all I wanted to look at. One of my—our best friends that we had over in Oakland lost his daughter in that. She was the last one that they dug out. If she had had five more seconds she would have escaped. 34:00BERGE: Well, I tell you that was a very serious tragedy wasn’t it?

SPEAGLE: Oh, yes, yes, we don’t need too many of those.

BERGE: They got it fixed though quickly didn’t they?

SPEAGLE: They went to work on it and in seven months they had that Freeway down and the streets cleaned up and you ( ) now except at each end of it where the thing is chopped off and they left it. You would never know that it was there. It was built ( ) they just didn’t go down deep enough with the pilings. Then they ( ) the connecting reinforcing columns at the ( ). It was a double decker elevated down below you had one direction and on top the other.

BERGE: Yeah, yeah, I saw those.

SPEAGLE: But they failed to put the steel strips in properly at those connecting points at each level and they broke apart there.

BERGE: Well, I sure want to thank you 35:00for talking with me and I will see you again.

(turns recorder off) Mr. Speagle, I turned this off and then you told me something that I had never heard before and I think that it would be very interesting to hear this.

SPEAGLE: About the… BERGE: About the blacks being in your camp.

SPEAGLE: This was a Cadiz Kentucky and they were sent to the camp early in 1934 and… END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE BERGE: Tell me again you got cut off there. You told me that there were many blacks there and they worked in the kitchen. Were they CCC members?

SPEAGLE: Yes they were CCC members and there were ten or twelve.

BERGE: Where did they sleep?

SPEAGLE: They slept at one end of the barracks… BERGE: In the same barracks.

SPEAGLE: In the same barracks, but there was a barrier between the two barracks without a door, between the two. They would use the back door… BERGE: Did you talk with them?

SPEAGLE: Oh, yes, not too much, but I would talk with them occasionally. They… BERGE: Where 36:00were they from , do you know?

SPEAGLE: I don’t know where they were from. I would guess that they were more than likely from the Louisville area, but I am not one hundred per cent certain of that either. But they… BERGE: You never heard of that did you? (an aside to someone) BASS: They came from Russellville and from that camp, and Hopkinsville and places like that. I remember that now that ( ).

BERGE: ( ) did you happen to come from Mammoth Cave?

BASS: I just came from Mammoth Cave ( ) BERGE: Well somebody, there is a historian where I work and he has been working on something on Mammoth Cave and he wanted me to ask about CCC people from there. Well that is an interesting thing. You never saw any blacks any place else though?

SPEAGLE: Not at any other camp no. That was the only place 37:00and they were used for KP in the kitchen. Another time at the latrines, but they were assigned to the kitchen—1934 (someone out of earshot asked a question) BERGE: That was early too. Ok. I want to thank you again, I am going to turn this off.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE END OF INTERVIEW.