Stage Coaches in the Park

              VOICES FROM THE PAST
STAGE COACHES IN THE PARK
By Ira A. Stanton Howard
May 14, 1968
Tape # 18
Oral Tape by Harold Forbush
Transcribed by Louis Clements November 2002
Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society
INTRODUCTION
The Library of the Upper Snake River Historical Society in the Teton Flood Museum contains over 600 video, cassette, and reel- to- reel tapes. These oral interviews have been gathered to over the past years from individuals throughout the Snake River Valley. I had the opportunity to catalogue this collection over the past couple of years and was amazed at the information containing therein.
I decided that it was unfair to the public to have all of this historical information on a tape and only available to a few who had the time to come to the library and listen to them. The library does provide a service in which copies of the tapes can be made, and during the past few years, many have come in and obtained a copy of a particular tape. The collection has a lot of family stories, some pioneer experiences, a few individual reminiscences of particular parts of history, and some recorded individuals have a personal knowledge of a historical event.
I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a name for this series of stories that would describe the overall text of the message contained herein. Since they are transcribed from the actual voices of those who experienced the history the name, Voices From The Past seemed appropriate. The oral history in this volume of Voices From The Past has been taken from the interviewer with it being recorded on tape. Since Idaho’s history is so young in year, the oral history becomes greater in importance. Eyewitness accounts rank high in reliability of the truth of events, although the reliability suffers as they interviewee ages or the time between the event and the interview grows. As the age of some of the cassette is progressing into the time period of deterioration of tapes, all are currently ( 2002) being copied onto audio discs ( CD’s) for preservation.
I have selected this event as one that occurred in Eastern Idaho which was experienced by the person or persons being interviewed. There was such a vast amount of information available in the library; I had to reserve many of the tapes for inclusion in future volumes. The tapes are being transcribed in order of importance according to my thinking.
Transcribing from a tape to written word is a new experience for me. I have done this on a very small scale before but to attempt to put the contents of a conversation down on a paper requires a great amount of concentration. I have taken the liberty of editing out the many “ a’s” that occur in an interview as well as other conversational comments. Then comes the problem of the book a challenge from the point of view of making a correct transcription and yet an interesting story. I have made a few editorial changes in view of this problem.
I would like thank the many people who have taken the time to arrange for the oral recording of an individuals story. The information obtained in this manner is, in many cases, not available from any other source. One of the pioneers of oral history in Eastern Idaho is Harold Forbush. Despite the handicap of being blind, he travels around the whole Snake River Valley visiting with people and taping their responses. He began his career of taping while living Teton Valley and serving as the prosecuting attorney there. His lifetime interest in history got him started and since then he has been a major contributor to the collection of stories in the library. He continued his oral history recording after moving to Rexburg. After retiring from being Madison Counties’ magistrate, he moved to Idaho Falls for a time and now has returned to Rexburg to continue as occasional taping session. He is to be congratulated for his lifetime commitment to the preservation of Idaho’s history.
There are many others who have done some taping including several Madison High School students. Most of the student tapes are not of the same sound quality as the professional oral history collector, but the stories they have gathered over the years have provided a special look at the Depression, war experiences, farming experience, and many other subjects which can’t be found anywhere else. Many thanks to them.
There are some tapes in which the interviewer did not identify themselves. These unknown records have provided several stories which have helped make up the overall history of the Snake River Valley and I thank them even if I cannot acknowledge them personally.
I hope that as you read the following stories you will be inspired to keep a record of your own either in written or tape form so that your opinion of what has happened in the world or in your life can be preserved. Many think their life has been insignificant and others would not want the years and find each other to have its own contribution to my knowledge of what has happened. Idaho is an exciting place to live and is full of stories which are unique to our area. Share them with others.
Louis J. Clements.
( Through the facilities of the Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society the following taped interview first recorded on reel- to- reel tape is now transferred on to a C- 60 cassette this 28 day of March, 1984.)
HF: Oral history of the Upper Valley featuring the operations of stage coaches through the Yellowstone National Park prior to the advent of motor vehicular travel into the Park. It’s my privilege this afternoon on May 14, 1968, to welcome to my office here at Rexburg Mr. Ira Stanton Howard, who has lived a number of years in this area and who has experienced in his own way much history. History that was the making of this area. So it is with real joy that I welcome him to my office that we might tape this interview this afternoon pertaining in large measure to his experiences in driving a state coach through the Yellowstone National Park and other related material. Per usual, Brother Howard, we shall start by asking you a few questions and with these to help and guide you we, I’m sure, will be able to complete a very entertaining tape and have together a very enjoyable afternoon. Now will you kindly state your full name and where you now live?
IH: I am Ira Stanton Howard. I live at Newdale, I was born the 8th of January, 1891.
HF: Mr. Howard, where were you born?
IHP I was born in Wilford. My father homesteaded just a mile south of St. Anthony no the road that runs from Teton to St. Anthony. It was right on the corner where you turn to go down to the stud mill. That was our homestead.
HF: Would you kindly state your people, your father, mother, and grandparents first came into the area and from whence did they come?
IH: My parents moved from Sanpete County, Utah Mt. Pleasant, in 1888. They traveled in a covered wagon. My grandfather had a quite a large bunch of range horses. He had one horse that was the leader. They always had a bell on this animal so she led the bunch. Wherever they got to Roberts, it used to be the old Market Lake; they had to ford the river. They ferried the wagons across. They led this mare across and the rest were supposed to follow. They got out in the deep water and they couldn’t hear the bell and they all turned around went back. So they had to take the mare back and start over again. That time they took the bell off the mare. They road the barge and shook the bell and the horses followed across the river. They went to Chester. My grandfather homesteaded in Chester. The highway cuts part of it in two. That is where the Chester church house is. He gave the Church the one corner to build a church house on. That was his homestead. My father and my Uncle, Ryle Howard, went to Wilford. They homesteaded down there. They had to go pretty near up to Chester to start a canal to get water down in order to prove up on their land. Them and Birch’s and others, they built quite a canal through there. When they got through, they turned the water in. They water never did reach Wilford. It just seeped away in the gravel. So my father and them decided, he about had it they’d had some hardships there. He sued to tell about going over to the island there on the river and cutting wild hay for his horses. At nights the horses, it seems like this wild hay would send them crazy. In the morning he would get up and the manager all tore out and the managers all tore out and their manes all tangled up and they had put in an awful night. So he traded this place to Billy Moss for a home in Mt Pleasant. So he went back to Mt. Pleasant. I was about two years old when they went back to Mt. Pleasant. After he got back down there, he worked for wages down there. He was working in sawmill. He drove four head of oxen hauling logs form up I the timber down to the sawmill. We used to go up there on weekends, my mother and the rest of us. Father would put us boys on the wagon and we got a chance to ride behind these oxen on the load of logs. They would always walk along beside the oxen to drive them.
HF: Stanton. Let me interrupt you. For my own curiosity and satisfaction, just what do we mean by an oxen? Does it necessarily mean a cow or a bull or is it an animal that has been doctored? Just what do we mean by an oxen?
IH: An oxen is generally a big animal that has been doctored. It is called a steer. They pick out the very choices for these ox teams. In fact, I think a lot of these people around this country have seen the one when we started this wagon train out of St. Anthony. The Beard boys out of Teton Basin came down and they brought their oxen. Course, they always walk and drive these oxen. They don’t have harnesses. They drive them by “ gee” and “ haw.” That is all they know.
HF: Now “ gee” means?
IH: Go to the right. And “ haw” means go to the left. If you want to back you say, “ Gee, back or haw, back.” That’s the way they had to drive an oxen.
HF: Well, then after your father had been there in the lumber business hauling logs for a yeas or two did he decide to come back up her to God’s country?
IH: Yes, that’s all he could think of, was coming back to Idaho. His folks were still here. I remember him buying a beautiful team, a brand new wagon box, harness, bows and cover. We just were all ready to start out. One day, just before we left, some of his friends got him to come down and help them do something. They wanted one of these horses. This team was very well matched only in color. While he was with them, they got him drunk on hard cider. They got him to trade for another gray horse that matched in color but not in everything else like the bay did. Anyway he got a good dog out of the trade. When he came home that night he was running that horse and whipping him over the had with his hat and hollering. He was as happy as could be. He’d had about all the cider that he could handle. So then in a few days we started out for Idaho in the covered wagon. As near as I can remember we must have been five or six weeks on the way. We stopped in Ogden to visit a sister. We stopped on e night at a colored folks place. We had to pay there and we bough hay. They were awful good to us. They fetched us out vegetables. Us boys got to playing around the hay stack. I was small, the smallest one of the bunch. I got behind them and they had a dog. And the dog took after me. I whirled to run and I run into a rake. It was sitting there. I just busted my head. Blood was running all over. Them colored people came out and took me in and they doctored me up. They were wonderful people, I tell you. So that was experience I remembered on the trip. When we got to Hooper, Utah, one of my uncles, he raised peaches and he raised tomatoes. We’d climbed up in the peach trees and each peach. Then we come on to Idaho and we moved to Chester. Father got a place there on his father’s place. We built a house there. He got a job from Charlie Fogg. It was at a big store there in St. Anthony. It was on the side of the river where the starch factory is now. He had a lumber yard there. He had a big sawmill up at Warm River, right where Warm River empties in to the North Fork ( Snake River). There were no bridges on the river to amount to anything those days. They had to ford the river. It was awful hard to bring the logs down with teams. So they built big rafts out of lumber in the river. The first year Danny Hathaway learned the river. From then on he would get someone to help him. Jack Mock worked with him on e summer. In 1901 my brother, he was two years older than me, and father decided he could handle the back end of the raft. I could drive the raft team. I was ten years old and I drove the raft team from Warm River down to Chester where I would have dinner. Then I’d hook up and drive down to where they stopped the rafts. I had to ford the river there west of Chester. That was the big worry of them all. They were worried abut me fording that river cause I was so young. We’d take them rafts out right below the old steel bridge about three miles east of St. Anthony where that dairy farm is. There was a nice place there to just push in there. The water wasn’t running swift at all. Father would just bring them down and tie them up. He would take the oars. They used oars both on the front and the back to push the raft around and keep it straight. Coming down this river, there were a few places they had to hit just right. One was called, “ No sound, little peak.” There was a whole bunch of rocks, some great big ones and some little ones. They had to have that raft lined up just exactly right to go through there without hitting these rocks.
HF: Would you haul as much on that raft s you would on a wagon?
IH: These rafts were around seventy- five to eighty feet long, about sixteen to eighteen feet wife, and abut fifteen feet deep. There would be thousands of feet of lumber on there. You couldn’t begin to haul it with several teams. It was quite a way of moving lumber. They had a crew at Warm River that would build the rafts and we would just take them down and anchor them. There would be another crew who would haul them out and take them into St. Anthony. All I’d do, father and them would help me hook the team up at Warm River and I would come to Chester where my folks were and have dinner. Then I go down and be there when they came in. We’d take the oars apart. They were long oars so they could push the raft around. They’d take the rafts apart and put them on the wagon. Then we’d go back to Chester and stay that night. The next day we’d go right back up again. Sometimes we’d have to wait for a day or two. Another thing that was quite interesting was where they brought the logs out for this sawmill was north of the mill up the North Fork of the Snake. They’d get them logs on wagons and haul them down to the river. We could watch them from mill. They’d unload the logs and they would roll down in to the river. We could watch them from the mill. They’d unload the logs and they would roll down into the river It was about a mile up there. When they’d hit that water they would pretty near splash all the water out of the river. They’d come with such a force down there. Then they had a boom. When they got down there they’d head them over to the saw mill. They just come down that swift water. They had to have a place for them to stop and they had the boom in there. That’s where they ran the logs to.
HF: The logs then were taken out of the river and sawed? Then the sawed material was loaded on the raft. It was launched at the point where Warm River into the Snake. It would float down the Snake River to Chester.
IH: To St. Anthony.
HF: Clear to St. Anthony with the lumber. Then you would disassemble the material, the raft and haul it back up to the starting point.
IH: The oars. The oars were what we had to carry back and forth all the time.
HF: This is very interesting. Was this done by your father for two or three years?
IH: Yes, he started in the first year with Danny Hathaway. Danny had done this before. He was a carpenter. He went on to carpentry work and father hired another man to help him the second year. That was Jack Mock. The third year my brother was old enough to handle it. I’ll have to tell you another experience. There were building a bridge out of Ashton, just building it. He was using a pile driver to drive these big logs down into the river. Then they’d lay stringers from one place to another and build from there. They’d built it as they went across. As they come down one day they had the bridge way out in the river. They could just barely get around it. He told them to leave him room as he was coming down the next day with another raft. They told him they were closing up and he couldn’t come anymore. The next day he come down. They had closed it up alright. All he cold do was just head right into one of those piers and he unloaded right onto the raft and take it down to St. Anthony. Those people were pretty badly put out. When I got down there to where father and them took the raft out, they were waiting. They were going to have us load it right back up and take it right back up there. Father told them that he was working for Mr. Fogg, for them to go see him. He was the man that would be responsible for it. Anyway they left him room and he was able to come back and come through the bridge from then on.
HF: Well now, can you mention that when you were a young man of ten that you actually commenced to work with animals. Apparently you had gotten a lot of experience before then in operating and handling horses and so on. With this in mind, I understand that in 1911 you commenced to operate and drive a state coach for one of the companies taking tourist through Yellowstone Park. Is that correct? And how did you come by that job in 1911?
IH: They sent out word that they needed drivers for that year. They were having quite a run on tourists. They got the railroad in there then. Before that time they hauled the tourist over from Monida. Back a little ways farther, my brother, go a chance to go up in there and drive. But he needed a buggy. The white topped buggy had just come out. Eh told father if he could buy him a buggy he would take a team and drive in the Park to help pay for the buggy. So he took a team. He had to start from Monida. He’d drive from Monida to Henry’s Lake for dinner and then to West Yellowstone. Then they would start from there around the loop.
HF: Now, this Monida you were talking about, it would be on up the highway into Butte. This Highway 15 that is being constructed right now will pretty much across over that area. Wouldn’t it?
IH: It goes within about a hundred yards of Monida. I’ve been through there an Monida just lays off over by the railroad track and this is about a hundred yards off.
HF: So tourists were able in those years to go up this railroad to Butte and stop there at Monida and discharge. And buggies and so forth would carry them on a beeline form there over to West Yellowstone. And this is where your brother first worked?
IH: Yes. Now in 1906 my aunt died in Warm River. They were building the railroad Ashton into West Yellowstone. My aunt was cooking for some of the railroad people there. She died. They sent us word, they didn’t have a telephone. I happened to be a Chester at that time. My father was at Moddy Creek. I’d had my leg broke and wasn’t able to do anything. There was a music teacher that came in there to give music lessons. So I went up there to take music lessons from this teacher. I’d just got there and taken a couple of lessons when my aunt died and they sent us word from Warm River. Two of my uncles got together and said they had to send work to father because they were going to bring the body down the next day. There would be services and then on to Wilford for burial. They couldn’t figure out who was going to get to go down there. So my uncle, Will Macarthur, spoke up and said I have a darn good horse. He’s hardened into it and grain fed. He could really put a fellow down there. So I spoke up and said I could ride him. Course, we didn’t have saddles and I would ride him bare back. They didn’t think I could hardly do it cause my leg was in such a shape. But I was sure I could. They put me on this horse about four o’clock. It was quite a ways from Chester to Teton in those days. You couldn’t go the way the crow flies. Uncle Will told me when he put me on there, “ You can put him through, he can take it.” So I put him through all right. I put him out on the lope. I was kinda scared of dark anyway and I didn’t want to be till after dark getting home. I loped that horse every step of the way from Chester to Teton. After I got out of Teton about three- quarters of a mile this horses legs give way with him and he just sprawled out in the middle of the road and so did I. When I got myself picked up, I got the horse over to the fence and got on him again. And I road on home as I only had a little better than a quarter of a mile to go. But it was getting quite dark then. I told my folks about it, they had to be to Chester the next day at 11: 00 when the train would be down. They put in the biggest part of the night getting ready and we left the next morning good and early in the wagon and drove back up there. That as in 1906. When we got up there the train had backed plum from Warm River down and they had this coffin box on one of the flat cars. We just drove up there and loaded it in the wagon and took it to the church house. We had the services and went on to Wilford that afternoon. She was buried and then we came on home.
HF: That as was a very interesting sidelight, indicating how far in progress the U. P Railroad had gotten by 1906. I suppose by 1911 when you had started and commenced working for the Park, the train was there in West Yellowstone. Now, this being so, going back to the original question, how did you come to work for the Yellowstone National Park or one of the companies there in 1911?
IH: There was a man come into St. Anthony and he was looking for drivers. He advertised around there. Well, I’d had a lot of experience with horses. I’d broke horses the year before on the plow. I decided that after we got our crop in I would go up and see if I could get on. So the freight trains went in on Saturday the first two weeks before the tourists started. I caught the first freight that went in. The next day or two after I got in West Yellowstone I went over the MY camp. That was located over by the Madison River. I went to the superintendent and asked him about a job. So he told me to come back the next day and he could try me out. Next day I went over and they hooked up four white horses on an old carriage. Hey had taken the back seats out an just used it to break their horses in to try them out. So they hooked up since the year before. They lived in the Park all the time. They hadn’t been hooked up since the year before. They lived in the Park all the time. They kept them in a big pasture the year round. When they started out, one of them balked. I couldn’t get him to go. Finally I got the tongue between his legs and pushed him a ways. Then he lit into bucking, kicking, and running. They almost run into the barn before I could get control of him. Down through the valley we went, by the Madison River, and as I was getting ready to go the superintendent jumped in the back. I didn’t know he was there till we got way down the road. He mad sure that every driver knew his stuff before he got very far. So when we got down the river a ways he come in the seat beside me. He wasn’t much for talk but when we got back he had me come in his office to talk to me. We got back to the office and he said that if I could find someplace I could stay and get my eats and a bed that when the tourists came he’d give me a team. But he had all of his old drivers come in and he had no cooks and he was just swamped. So I went over in town. The blacksmith there told me he would give me board and room if I would dig him a well. So I and another partner, we dug a well until the tourists come in. When the tourists come in I made two trips around the Park. It was stormy and cold and it got a slack up there. It looked like I would be laid off for a few days. So I thought I would run down home on the train that was going down every night and back in the morning. When I got to Sugar City my uncle talked me into the notion of buying his share of the livery stable there. So I bought in the livery stable and I didn’t go back that year. The next year we were hauling drummers ( salesman) back and forth. They’d work Sugar City and then we’d take them to St. Anthony or Ashton or Teton Basin. Sometimes to Idaho Falls. On night we took them to Idaho Falls. As we took them down we crossed the South Fork of Snake the high water was on and it was almost to the top of the bridge. As we got o the bridge, it was condemned with signs hanging all over it. This drummer, he wanted to get out, and I wanted to get across the bridge. So I had to hurry and get across to satisfy myself. I took him on to Idaho Falls and I didn’t even stop to noon my horses. I tuned right around and went back. It was so bad; it gave me such a thrill, that nigh between then and the next morning that bridge went out. So I came that near to being on the bridge when she went out. That was in 1912.
HF: That was quite a hair raising experience wasn’t it? Now, it was two or three years after that before you actually went into the Park and did a lot of stage coach work?
IH: Yes. In 1915 they had the biggest run then that they had ever known. They came down and hired a lot of teams. I went in the Park with six head of horses. When we got in there we had to have them all vaccinated for flu. The Vetinary vaccinated all my horses and then that afternoon one of my friends came in put his team the side of mine. He told the Vetinary that he wanted to get his team vaccinated. So the Vetinary went out and vaccinated one of my teams a second time. He thought it belonged to the other fellow. So I was only able to use the four horses for a long while cause the other team, we didn’t dare to start them out, get them warmed up after they had been vaccinated twice.
HF: Now going into this, in what manner would these state coaches be lined up to receive passengers?
IH: Well, every night when we were in camp, we’d go in the office and look on the board. Our names would be on the board showing us what place we were to take off at the next morning. Whatever place we had, well, that was the place we kept all the way through the Park. We’d hook up the next morning and we would be in West Yellowstone a loading up at 8: 00. They could load up about two coaches at a time. While the people were getting in the coaches they would load their suitcases and thing in the trunk. They had a great big trunk in the back and it was covered leader. They would buckle them in there so the dust wouldn’t get in. Whoever we were following, that’s what we do to watch for. We’d follow that man till we made the trip plumb around the loop.
HF: Can you describe one of these coaches, a rather complete description of a coach, which was being used in 1915?
IH: Well, the coaches were come 11 passenger and some 8 passenger. It was 12 with the driver. These coaches you see in the Wild West shoes, they have doors on them. They’re all closed in. But ours didn’t. We had a roof over them so them they couldn’t get wet. We had curtains. If the weather got bad we could throw these curtains down and fasten them and they were closed in . The driver and two other men had to set right up there, no matter if it was raining or what it was. We set up above. The other people were back under shade all the time. Course, as a rule, the fellow who set up by the driver, he was kind of the spokesman for the rest of the company you had with you. When they had any questions asked, why as a rule, they’d send it up to him. He’d ask the driver. The driver would tell him and he would relay it back to them. These coaches were made with leather springs. The springs ran lengthwise. You didn’t have, when you hit a chuck hole it didn’t through you back and forth it just kinds rocked up and down. They were the nicest things to ride. In fact, when they put on this wagon train over to St. Anthony, I went up to West Yellowstone and borrowed one from a woman. She still had it up there. She let us take it and we come down. We put that in the wagon train for two years so the people could see just exactly what kind of a coach they were, that was in the Park. They were quite different from the ones you see in these state hold ups. HF: Now, the one which you operated was drown by your four horses?
IH: Yah, I had my own horses.
HF: About how many coaches would take off in a morning?
IH: As near as I can remember, coaches and surreys, they’d be around 50- 75 of us from one company. There were four companies that operated out of West Yellowstone. But the MY company, that was the Monida, Yellowstone Transportation Company, that’s what we were. The boys that drove for the MY, they had badges on with the MY and a number. That number was our number all the time through the Park. If we done anything out of the road, why they could take our number and trace it right back where we come from. Another thing about the MY, they unloaded their tourist at the hotels. They were the only transportation company that did that. Maybe I could give you an idea about what our driver was each day. Our first day was from West Yellowstone to Madison Junction, which was fourteen miles. We took of from there and started for Old Faithful. We drove six miles from Madison Junction. There was a hotel there where we had noon. It was called the Fountain Hotel. It isn’t there anymore. Then from the Fountain Hotel, in the afternoon, we’d go four miles to Old Faithful. That wasn’t a very heavy drive but it made a quite a drive for the day, twenty- four miles for the day. The next forenoon we’d drive from Old Faithful to the Thumb. That was seventeen miles. In them days we followed streams of water all the time. The road doesn’t go around where it used to. It goes over some of those passes now. But one reason they were dirt roads. They had to have them sprinkled. The sprinkler had to go by ever morning unless it had rained. They had to sprinkle ahead of the coaches. They had a great big tank set to the side of the road every so often. They had a little tram to run from the creek to the road. Theirs is a pump that water up to the tanks. When these fellows would come along with their sprinklers, they’d just drive under there and fill their tank and go on so far and then run around. They had a certain route to go every day. Well, we went to the Thumb then. That was seventeen miles from Old Faithful. From the Thumb to the Lake was twenty- one miles. So that was a thirty- eight drive that day. That was a quite a long drive for the horses with quite a load. Then the next morning we drove to the Canyon. That was only sixteen miles. We laid over that afternoon at the Canyon because there was so much sight seeing at the Canyon. They had sight seeing busses that would take our tours up the Canyon and show them all around. The next morning we would go from Canyon to Norris Geyser Basin. This was eleven miles. There we had another eating place. It’s not there anymore. That was the noon place. From the Norris Geyer Basin sometimes we had to go on to Mammoth. That was twenty- one miles. That was quite a drive. Then the next morning we’d come back to Norris again with those tourists. Then from there on into West Yellowstone. That made an awful drive if you had to drive from Mammoth to West Yellowstone that same day. That gave you thirty- five miles that day and that was awful hard on the horses. They did all that road from West Yellowstone pretty near up to the Madison bridge that year. When we would hit that with our horses, why it was so hard. Our horses on those long drives, why they couldn’t take it. We’d have to drive off into the barrow pits in order to keep from giving our horses right out. A lot of the horses give out right on the road between Norris and West Yellowstone.
HF: Now this would require four days, sometimes even six days, wouldn’t it?
IH: If you went to Mammoth it would be six days. If you just made the round loop it would be four days.
HF: Would you try to keep your horses on a pretty fast walk or a slow jog or how would you gage their regular speed?
IH: Well our schedule was six miles an hour. Outside of the uphill why you were on the trot pretty near every bit of the way. If you walked them uphill you had to make it up somewhere else. Horses can’t walk six miles an hour. So you had to keep them on the tot pretty much of the time.
HF: Now on some of these trips do you recall any events, any exciting moments, when maybe your horses run away or maybe those of some other driver got away from them. Do you recall any experiences?
IH: Yes, I can give you quite an experience about one little team. In fact I followed this team one trip around the Park. This team, they called them the monkey bunch. Their names was Peanuts, Popcorn, Chewing Gum, and Candy. The year before they had scattered a bus all over the country out there. The year before that they ran away with a driver told the tourist not to jump out, to stay in the coach. But one woman went to jump and another grabbed her by the dress and caught her just enough to pull her back. Her back hit into the hub of the back wheel and broke her back. This time when I was following him, we were unloading at West Yellowstone and that was the year that the cars started coming into West Yellowstone. They were going to allow them to go into the Park the next morning for the first time. This team had never seen a care. They’d just been in the park all the time. As they went out I and him unloaded at the depot at the same time. As he pulled out on the street and turned to go back to the camp he met an automobile. This little bunch of brown ponies charged into that bus so quickly that they broke the tongue out of it. The stay chains held them but the bus was going in such a shape that he got scared and jumped out. Then he and I followed them down to the lower end of town. Some other fellows jumped in and went with us. They went down to where the old airport was. The roads forked there. They started on one and then changed their mind to go to the other. When they changed their mind they tipped the coach over into a big pine tree. So that’s where we found them when we got down there. That was quite an experience and exciting. When I got back to the camp, he led them down. The superintendent came walking out there and wanted to know if anyone got hurt. I told him they had raised Ned with the coach. Well, he said, we’ve got plenty of coaches so we won’t worry about that. Just so nobody got hurt.
HF: That was an interesting account. Today as the tourists go through the Park, everyone is feeding bears and the bears stop on the way. Did you get confronted with that problem in 1915? What was the situation like with reference to bears or any bear stories? That would be about fifty years ago.
IH: Well, we’ve never seen very many bears on the road. If we did why sometimes they’d cause runaways cause the horses were not used to them too much, especially the horses we took in there. Of a night, after supper, we’d nearly always go down to the bear dump where a night and sometimes we’d see some great fights. One night was quite amusing. There was an old bear some in with her cubs. They were eating. Pretty quick she could smell or see an old cinnamon bear coming. This was a black bear. The cinnamon bears have it over the black bears. So she made a noise for her cubs to get out of there. One of them took off and went up a tree and the other didn’t. She walked over and just hit that little fellow and knocked him for a roll. He went up the tree, I’ll tell you. Then one night there was a bear that got a can on his foot. It was making a big sore on there so the soldiers told us they were going to go down there and rope this bear and take this can off. So we all went down there. We were going to see the excitement. Gathered around there. When they came, why they kicked us all out. They wouldn’t let us stay down there. When they come, why they kicked us all out. They wouldn’t let us stay down there. They said there might be danger with all of us down there. So they made us go back. And we didn’t get to see it. But the caught the bear and took the can off
HF: Now you mentioned too, that over at the Lake Hotel you stopped and on one occasion you saw this girl feeding bear. Later on something happened to her. Later on something happened to her. Can you recall the facts or interesting details of that episode?
IH: Well, every night after supper there was an old black bear that came in back of the Lake Hotel. She always had cubs. This went on for about two years is the way I understood it. It began before we got there. So of a night, after we’d get supper, we’d go over there and wait for this girl to come out and feed this bear. The old bear would stand up on her hind legs. She had two cubs and they’d go up on a limb just above her. She’d feed the old bear and she stand up there and then she’d hold this plate up to these cubs. It was quite amusing. There was just any amount of us that would gather around there pretty near every night watch that. That night after we had watched her feed the cubs we went down to the lake. There were four of us boys that had been together quite a bit before we left there. We had a quartet going. We went down to the lake and we rented a boat that night. We went out a little ways from the bay. The moon was shining and it was just beautiful on the lake. So we started singing, “ There’s moonlight on the Lake.” These people were pretty near all Southern people. We sang Southern songs to them and they just gathered out there around that lake till it just looked like all the people had come out of the hotel. What couldn’t come out was sitting in the windows with the windows up. There was a hollering and clapping us out all the time. They even went and rented boats and came right out there and surround us with boats. They rented every boat they could get a hold of. They kept us out there until we got so hoarse that we couldn’t take it any longer that night. They kept us together, us four, because they’d allow us to in the hotel and sing. Now the next night we got to canyon Hotel and the agent, when we were unloading, he told us that we had an invitation to come into the hotel that night at a certain time. Of course, the drivers for the MY were dressed so that you could tell an MY driver wherever you would see him. They wore a white linen duster. They wore a light colored hat and the rim was kind of wide, not too wide, but it was lighter than the rest of it. They you wore a badge with the MY on there and number. You had to have that badge out in sight so the people could see who you were working for. The next night we went down to the Canyon Hotel and he gave us an invitation to come in. He said they were having a masquerade that night. We went out and danced with them. We got a lot of privileges when we were a singing that way. We took to it quite well. We even went down to the Wylie Camp. The Wylie camp was pretty near where fishing bridge is now. They had a lot of little cabins down there. Every night they would get out and make us a big fire out in front and circle around in there. Then they’d had a big program. So one night we went down there. We were singing before we got there. When we got there they gave us an invitation to come in and join them. We sang to them. When we got ready to leave they had us sing another song before we left. The Shaun Powell and the Bryant Way, they were different transportation companies. One of them carried their camping outfit with them. They just camped out. That was the kind of outfit there was. The other one, I don’t know where they were. I never did learn where their camps were. They never loaded at the depot. And they never unloaded at the hotel. The tourist never went to the hotel. They always had a place of their own. There was another one out from Cody. Another came in form Mammoth. But the M. Y had the right of way. Oh yes, about the soldiers. The soldiers road horses in them days, They patrolled the roads every morning before we’d be on the road. These soldiers would leave their fort and two would go one way and two the other until the met other soldiers. Then they would wait there until the tourists went by and then they would turn around go back to their own fort.
HF: In other words, the purpose for this was to see that there were no desperadoes or person who might inflict injury or frighten horses or inflict injury on some of the tourists s they came through?
IH: We called them the patrols. They patrolled the roads. Then I never did tell you about the time they had that holdup in the Park. That was quite interesting and exciting. That happened the day before I came along. That was between Madison Junction and the Fountain Hotel. The road doesn’t go now where it did them. It went right up there Fire hole River. And after you crossed the river and got up a little ways it went through quite a lot of big lava rocks. It came to one place where there was quite a little opening there with big rocks all around it. This fellow that come in and held up the coaches, the stages, that day, why he stepped out there and stopped them. He had them all get out and put there money and jewelry or anything valuable out there. Then he got away and they never did find him until just the last few years. It was the first they ever knew who it was. And this man that did that, I knew him very well, when I was a kid. We used to got the coal mines up in Teton Basin. After we went around the point, he had a place there on Milk Creek. Some of the time, when we’d go by there, we’d stop and put our horses in the barn. Once or twice I was in the house when we’d visit with him. So I knew him pretty well. When ever he’d take off and come to town, whey he had four little bay horses, and he’d hook them up on a wagon. He’d cut their tails off and he’d come to town on a big lope. Every horse was a lopper. That was kind of out of the ordinary. We’d never seen anything like that before. That was Mr. Ed. Harrington. HF: The Ed Harrington who was also named Ed Trafton. Of course, we all have heard a lot about him over the years. Now form what you have indicated it appears that you and this quartet became quite famous. Did they have a name for you over there?
IH: Everybody had a name. They gave everybody a nickname no matter who it was. I forget to tell you that man who drove the little Monkey Bunch, one time he went over the Park School Hill. He’d had an accident there. He was telling someone about his accident and he called it the Auger Hill. SO they called him Auger Hill from then on. SO that is the way everybody got heir nickname. I went in there and my hair was red, so they called me Red. After we got to singing and got the quartet, there were three of us boys who had been singing for quite a few years together in Teton. Fogg Graham, Les Niebaur, and then Freddie Brauer, he was from Ashton. He joined us and could sing any part of any song, it didn’t make much difference. So we took pretty well, all right. Then after we got to singing in there they called me Society Red. I don’t remember what they called the other boys but everyone had a name.
HF: That summer’s activity must have been quite a lot of enjoyment. Of course, you had long hours, four day trip. I imagine you were quite exhausted when you got back?
IH: It just seemed like you were with new people all the time and every time you went to a hotel the first thing you done was grab your blankets out of the coach and run and put it on a bed so you would be able to have a bed for that night. They were pretty much always up on the lead and I would run in and put my blankets on a bed. Then there was a fellow from Wilford by the name of Cahoon and he had asthma. He was right on the last end. He always slept with me. He had to set up in bed. So I’d give him blankets and a pillow. We became great, great friends. I thought a lot of him. He died shortly after of this trouble he had.
HF: Well now, who were the tourists that were coming out to the Park in those days? Were they individuals from around the Yellowstone Park or did they come from back East and down South? Just who were they and how did they come to go out there. How was their group made up, how was it composed?
IH: Well, a lot of them come from the South and foreign countries. They’d form a group and they’d all come in a group. Then they’d send word how many. Then they knew how many coaches to have ready for them the next morning. They nearly always had from fifty to seventy- five coaches and surreys out there at the depot every morning of the world. I know one bunch we had there were school moms. They were from the South. Everything was, you all. Where you all going. What you all doing when you get home. And after we got through with them everybody was gone now. All he drivers, they couldn’t talk without those you all’s. Sometimes they would be almost a straight bunch of school teacher. One bunch I took through, it was the next day after his hold up. They were a very well to do bunch with us. They had lots of money. I had a lawyer that sat right beside of me and a doctor. There was a minister and what not back in the back part of it. After we were leaving the Thumb the second day out, the lawyer was quite to the point. He said, you know driver, when we get together, we find out and talk things over. WE find out a lot of these drivers is misrepresenting the Park to us. There telling big lies to us leading us on. But we haven’t found that with you. So far it seems like you’ve been telling the truth. If you keep that up when we get though with this trip we’ll make it up to you. So I guess I kept it up because before I got in to West Yellowstone he handed me envelope with some money in it. When I opened it I had $ 18.50 in it. So that was one of the biggest tips that we got. They really showed their appreciation for a person that had given them the truth and tried to show them the main parts of the Park.
HF: Was this really an exceptional thing of giving you a tip or was it that the amount was exceptionally great?
IH: It was exceptionally great for that amount. We always got tips every time we took a bunch out. I took one bunch out one time and one fellow that set with me, he was quite a, oh I don’t know what you would call him. But everybody was having a big time with him. He was always, the first time I’d get behind, he’d want to take the whip and whip my horses to catch up. If I’d get up close and a little dust would come back, why then he’d jaw because I was too close. He gives me quite a bad time but I didn’t mind that. I didn’t pay much attention to it. But when we got to West Yellowstone and they was a gathering up a tip for me, he only throwed in a dollar. Boy did they tie into him and says after you have all the trouble you have to the driver and he’s been so good to you. Hen you don’t give him any more than that. So he doled up so more. I don’t remember just what. That was about the only fellow that I saw who was really tight and everybody just had sympathy for me because I had to up wit him.
HF: Was this an ordinary thing to arrange for he tourists to stop and do a little fishing there in the Madison or the Firehole River?
IH: No, no we never stopped. We never were allowed to stop. If a driver had to get out and go anywhere he had to unhook ever horse and tie them to a tree. He couldn’t trust them to a tourist at all. He just had to unhook his horses if he left his coach for a minute.
HF: Now as I recall, going through the Park, one would get over to Madison Junction and then head off towards Old Faithful. Before getting to Old Faithful, at the present time when you go though, some of the big attractions would be to stop at the Morning Glory Geyser and some of these mud pots. In those days, in 1915, wouldn’t you do the same thing?
IH: Yes, we’d stop and let the tourists go out. Two or three of them places, now at Norris Geyser Basin.