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Collection: Videos > Oral Histories
Video: Jack Clark Interview Part 2 (February 14, 2005) (35 minutes)
This video tape (part 2 only) was provided by Phil Carville of the South Yuba Club. He managed the Loma Rica Ranch from 2002 to 2008 and interviewed Jack Clark about the history of the ranch. The video is an interview with Jack Clark, a former employee of the Idaho Maryland Mine. He discusses the working conditions in the mine, including the temperature, humidity, and airflow. He explains how the mine was ventilated using a combination of natural airflow and fans. He also describes the buddy system used to ensure the safety of the miners, and the role of shift bosses in overseeing the work. He recounts a personal experience of fear while mapping a stope alone in the mine. The interview touches on the impact of World War II on the mine's workforce, with many men opting for better-paying jobs in defense plants or logging. The interviewee shares his impression of Errol McBoyle, a well-respected manager of the mine. The conversation then turns to the history of Lake Olympia, a popular recreational area that was eventually closed due to pollution. Finally, he discusses the closure of the Idaho Maryland Mine in the 1950s and the challenges posed by the rising cost of gold mining.
Published: February 14, 2005
Original Held At:
Original Held At:
Full Transcript of the Video:
around 64-65 degrees, and the relative humidity would be 80-85%, so it would be quite more humid down there than it would be up in Alex. Some areas of the mine would real dry, like in the Idaho, Maryland. It was quite dry, as a burst of the Brunswick, it was not wet. You could walk all day and not get any water dripping on you at all, but we were required by state law to have 900 cubic feet per minute of airflow in all the main passages, and in the stoves where the men worked, it would have to be at least 300 cubic feet a minute. We exceeded that for most of the way. How did they get the airflow to go through? We had a natural airflow. The Brunswick Mine and the Idaho, Maryland Mine were connected underground, and the air would go down the Brunswick Shaft and go all through the mine, and then it would go up the Idaho, Maryland Shaft, so it was a natural airflow. A lot of the cross-cuts, not like the cross-cut that would run up under the course barring over here, that was around 1,800 feet long, and we would have fans set up with tubing or metal to bring the air from one fan to another, depending on how much it, how many feet it was, but we always would have good airflow to the mine. In the Brunswick Mine, we had a large 20,000 CFM fan on the 1,600 foot level of the Brunswick, and we'd take air out of the shaft with that fan, and it would go in to 1,600 level and go up raises all the way to 9,580, and it would exhaust through the old Brunswick Shaft, so we maintained a good supply of air throughout the mine. How many men would be underground at one time? About, oh, maybe 400. We had two shifts work, and one started at 7 in the morning and worked until 3. 30, and then we had a shift that would come on at 3 and work until 11. 30 or 12, whatever time that shift ended. So we, well women have 400, we'd have probably maybe 250 or something like that on a shift, and they worked throughout different areas of the mine. We always had two men working together, kind of a buddy system, you might say. So one got hurt and he could get help to help the person. Shift bosses, we had shift bosses for various sections of the mine, they just had maybe the upper levels down so far, and then we'd have another section for another shift boss. We had four or five shift bosses all the time. And they made two rounds of shift to check on the men, and then they wouldn't have partners with them, of course they would be, because they were walking along all the time. Like myself, I'd go wherever I wanted at any time. I tried to go through all the mine each week, all the sections of it. Then we had engineers that did a lot of work on the ground. Did you have any interesting experiences while you had that job? I didn't have any fears or anything in going up and down raises. I would go up and down the raise without any problem, because you couldn't see, you could only see as far as your light had shined, and as long as you didn't see around you, I guess you felt secure. But there was one time that I actually did have some fear. I did a lot of, along with the safety work, I did a lot of engineering work. I went up in the stope to map the stope, and the company had it, and they were going to turn it over to the leasers. The company pulled all of the rock out of the stope. I went up a raise, and there was a flat area of stringers in the foot wall. Of course you could see down, it was pretty steep, about this wide. You could see as far as your light had shined, but you couldn't see any farther. I walked over, this rock slanted a little bit, and I walked over without any problem of falling or anything. I did the mapping that I was supposed to do, and I went to go back over that raise, and for the life of me, I just could not do it. I had the fear of slipping and falling, and so I sat, and I sat, and I get up, and I think, well, I can do it. I just did not have the nerve to do it. Then finally it dawned on me, there was another raise just shortly, and so I went over and went down to hit a raise, but I could not cross that. That was the only time that I had any fear of underground, and being alone, of course, you know, I guess that entered into it, too. Was it normal for men to go to war as you did and come back and continue to work at the Idaho Maryland? Yes, there was a lot of the men who did come back and go to work, but during the war, the men made better wages working on the defense plants and things like this, and a lot of them got work, rather than go back underground, they got work on the surface that paid better wages than they did, and so it was harder to get good men after the war, and then another factor that entered into it, the logging industry, became a lot more prevalent up in this area here, so a lot of miners would fall trees in the summertime, and when winter had come, then they'd go back and work in the mine, and that made it hard for the mine to do that, because they would rather have the good miners, you know, but that was another factor. Would you say there was a culture that differentiated the people that worked underground from the people that worked on the surface? Did the miners stick close together, or did you experience anything like that? Well, the miners were quite friendly with one another, but I don't think that would be, I think they would once they left the mine, I think they'd just be like anyone else going to a different job, you know. Did you ever have the opportunity to meet Errol McFly personally? Well, when I went to work, it was in 1941, and I would see him, not daily or anything, I'd see him quite often, but I can honestly say that I could have spoke to him at times, but to have an acquaintance with him, I never did, and I'm sorry that it didn't happen. I really would have liked to have known the man more. What was your impression of him? Do you imagine he seems to be pretty modest? He was, he had an Auburn automobile that I would just love to have today. It was a nice car. He wore, I guess they call them patees with the boots up to here, and dressed real good, kind of a tan color, as I remember, a very stately looking person, common. He was in and out of the office a lot. I worked on the surface quite a bit. The first day of the room was just a stone's throat of where he'd parked. But I don't know, he was, he well liked everybody, all the miners and all that you liked him. His wife had real red hair, not real red, it was kind of a reddish color. Very stately looking lady, dressed real well. I later on, after his illness, and she was on the board of directors, and at that time, when I was a safety engineer, I had an office right inside the door going in and out of the building, and I'd see her periodically when she would be up. But I would have liked to have known Harold Wall better. Did they have any children? No, no children. Well, is there anything else that's important about the property that you'd like to let us know, or any other interesting stories that you've heard over the years, or you were a part of it? No, not really. One thing, in the 1950s, I don't know exactly, in early 1950s, I got permission from Malcolm Hamill to come up and fish in the pond here, the reservoir here, and some nice big German brown trout, some of them bigger, and you could see them there in the water. And I guess I came up four or five times, I couldn't get to one of those fish, I was loving their money. They weren't interested in anything I put in that water. They just weren't. It would have been nice had the World War II not come along, and Harold McBoyle complete his work that he would like to have done in the reservoir area here, and also, well, all of the areas that he was involved in, because he, I don't know, Harold McBoyle is buried over in the cemetery off of Bennett Street, the one up there. And the far one, I can't think of a name, but anyway, he and his wife are buried side by side, and there's a tree growing right over their graves. What were his plans for the reservoir and the rest of the property? I know he planned to put some tennis courts in. He was, when he went to college or university, he was one of the tennis champions there. He did a lot of tennis in his earlier days. I don't know what all he was going to do up here. Where this building is here, I believe, is where he was going to build his home. He was going to overlooking the ranch down there. Of course, you can't, looking out the window, you can't see it now. But I'm sure that those trees wouldn't be there if he lived here. But, and then I understand this, what's this built by, what's his name? Gilmore, and so. I'm not sure. I don't know. But I know he was going to build the home here. This was way after his time that this structure was built. I can't think of anything. The Earl McMoyle. After the building was stopped on the hill, the hospital building, he, of course, like I say, he was an invalid. He had transferred the 500,000 shares of stock to the association. Then, the three men that were on the association with he and Dr. Jones, they voted against him. They used the stock, the 500,000 shares of stock, to vote him out of his position on the board of directors. He was a manager, he was a director, but the manager of the Piedahomaerum Lines, which then he didn't have enough of his other stock to maintain his seat on the board. So, there was enough stock in his wife's name, then she was voted on to the board. These men that voted against him, were men that he made million years out of over the years. So, it was a sad story. Now, then, there was 375,000 shares of the stock that weren't paid for because the hospital didn't go forward. So, the association had never paid him for that amount of stock. So, he was able to get a new board, a new board of directors for the association appointed. He was able then later on to retain the proxies on the unpaid stock that got him back on to the board of directors of the mine. It was quite a thing, really. How much gold do you think was taken out of the mine when he was in charge of it? Around $30 million, I think, is the figure that was given for the amount of gold that was taken out during that period of time. $30 million? $30 million. And besides his charity with the hospital, did he do any other philanthropic stuff with his money? I've never been able to find out how much or what amount, but I don't remember the year that the present Catholic Church building in Grass Valley was built, but it was somewhere in the late 30s, early 40s, and I'm quite sure that he probably was a big donor to the building of that building. He was Catholic. When he, at his funeral, the bishop from Sacramento came up and did part of the service. The local priest at the time was involved. There were five priests there at that funeral that participated. So a man has to be pretty well-liked to have that type of service. The two mines closed down during the funeral service, and some of the businesses in Grass Valley did also not all of them I understand. The five or six pallbearers were men from the heads of the various departments in the mine, the middle superintendent and the surface superintendent. So what happened to all the men when the mines shut down? They went into their work mostly. And how many were left at that point working for the mines? Just before it closed. Well, we were down to probably 40 men, something like that. After the war, we got up to around 440 men at tops, and then it fluctuated down toward the end. We quit mining gold in December of 1955, and the last 10 or 12 months we mined shillite or tungsten, and we're just able to. But the price of gold was $35 an ounce after the war, and the prices continued upward where you weren't even making profit at all. You're going in the whole week, so that was basically how that worked. Can I ask a sort of unrelated question? I'm just curious because you grew up in Grass Valley. I keep hearing about Brunswick Lake and how much fun it was, and then it was like dances on or near the lake. What was the whole Brunswick Center like before? That was Lake Olympia. Lake Olympia was located kind of behind that area where the PG&E has a substation out there on Sutton Way. It cost me that cinema back in that area there. During, well, gosh, when I was a kid, I was out there an awful lot. They had a fair-sized lake about three acres, something like that. And in the center of it, there was an island with a dance hall there. And then there was a walkway, a wooden walkway about six feet wide that went out to the. . . It was a floor that had some springs under it. It was a nice floor, hardwood floor, of course. And a bandstand on one side. We had bands that would come up from Sacramento, from Harman, from Mariusville, some of the local bands. And during the summer of Wednesday and Saturday nights, they did. And they would dance until midnight. And then close to where the walkway started, there was a restaurant type of there. And they'd have meals, light meals. And there was an intermission at one o'clock, I mean, at 12 o'clock. People go out and eat, and then come back and dance until 2 o'clock. In the morning? In the morning. And at 2 o'clock in the morning, there would be a lot of people still there. And they danced, Waltz's, Foxtrot's, and that's sort of like they did in those days. And then they had a bar, a separate building for a bar. And then they had to change houses for the female and male separately, of course. And people would go and change and get in their bathing suits. And they had three, oh, I'd say they're probably ten by ten, maybe twelve by twelve. Well, I guess we call them toadstools, but they're kind of built up above the water with a little ladder. Probably above the water, maybe two and a half, three feet. And you could swim out to those, to one, and then you could swim to the other. They had boating. There was canoes and rowboats also that you could rent. There were two bits an hour, something like that. They had a high dive, probably thirty feet at least, above the water. There was a springboard close to the water. There was a small pond, not a pond, in his regular concrete swimming pool for the kids, for the young kids. And then upon the hill they had to place for overnight camping for people. And it was nice. Now the Glenbrook Basin at that time had very, very few buildings out there at all. Not too many, just a few. How would the size of the Olympiad compare to the size of the reservoir up here? Oh, I'd say at least twice the size of this, at least. The water drained two ways. It came down to the basin there. It's all under, you can't see it hardly anymore. It's still there, but it's underneath the parking areas and the pipe. It still drains. So it was a natural lake, but now it just drains off? It just drains through. I don't remember, it was probably in the early 50s, late 40s, somewhere back in there. They had to breach the dam and let the water just flow. Because there was a lot of houses, the older houses up in the hill behind B&C and then kind of in the hill. They had septic tanks and of course a lot of the effluent from that whole area was coming down and the coliform count in the lake was just too high to have people swim anymore. So that's when they closed it. They did have some roller skating in the hall after the dancing had ceased. The reason the dancing ceased is because after the war people got away from dancing and then television came along and other things and the attendance just dropped. Sounds like it was a very fun time while it was existing. Yeah, those were good days. As kids we never had a want to have anything to do. It was always something to do. They were days that were hard on the people, but in other areas of the country. In 1941, for instance, when I went to work at the Idaho Maryland, they had at least 300 men every Monday, Wednesday and Fridays lined up. The hiring hall was where the road to Rooter is there on Idaho Maryland. That was in mine building and where they did the hiring. There would be a line clear back to where you turn in since Teniel crossed the bridge there, at least 200-300 men. There was no work and the lines were hiring, so that made a big difference in the area here. I know there was miners underground working that were in the dust bowl in Oklahoma when they had problems there and people from a lot of different states came. Can I ask another question? Sure. Do you know how Idaho Maryland got named? No, I don't really know how the name Idaho came about. Now, I understand the Maryland name comes from a part of the family. I think the name of the family, anyway, they had settled in that area and the Maryland got its name from that. I'm not positive of that. Idaho Maryland, I can tell you that the Idaho mine was the original mine and the Maryland mine was a small mine that had property adjacent to the end line of the Idaho. In 1893, the Maryland mine bought the Idaho mine and that's when it became Idaho Maryland.
around 64-65 degrees, and the relative humidity would be 80-85%, so it would be quite more humid down there than it would be up in Alex. Some areas of the mine would real dry, like in the Idaho, Maryland. It was quite dry, as a burst of the Brunswick, it was not wet. You could walk all day and not get any water dripping on you at all, but we were required by state law to have 900 cubic feet per minute of airflow in all the main passages, and in the stoves where the men worked, it would have to be at least 300 cubic feet a minute. We exceeded that for most of the way. How did they get the airflow to go through? We had a natural airflow. The Brunswick Mine and the Idaho, Maryland Mine were connected underground, and the air would go down the Brunswick Shaft and go all through the mine, and then it would go up the Idaho, Maryland Shaft, so it was a natural airflow. A lot of the cross-cuts, not like the cross-cut that would run up under the course barring over here, that was around 1,800 feet long, and we would have fans set up with tubing or metal to bring the air from one fan to another, depending on how much it, how many feet it was, but we always would have good airflow to the mine. In the Brunswick Mine, we had a large 20,000 CFM fan on the 1,600 foot level of the Brunswick, and we'd take air out of the shaft with that fan, and it would go in to 1,600 level and go up raises all the way to 9,580, and it would exhaust through the old Brunswick Shaft, so we maintained a good supply of air throughout the mine. How many men would be underground at one time? About, oh, maybe 400. We had two shifts work, and one started at 7 in the morning and worked until 3. 30, and then we had a shift that would come on at 3 and work until 11. 30 or 12, whatever time that shift ended. So we, well women have 400, we'd have probably maybe 250 or something like that on a shift, and they worked throughout different areas of the mine. We always had two men working together, kind of a buddy system, you might say. So one got hurt and he could get help to help the person. Shift bosses, we had shift bosses for various sections of the mine, they just had maybe the upper levels down so far, and then we'd have another section for another shift boss. We had four or five shift bosses all the time. And they made two rounds of shift to check on the men, and then they wouldn't have partners with them, of course they would be, because they were walking along all the time. Like myself, I'd go wherever I wanted at any time. I tried to go through all the mine each week, all the sections of it. Then we had engineers that did a lot of work on the ground. Did you have any interesting experiences while you had that job? I didn't have any fears or anything in going up and down raises. I would go up and down the raise without any problem, because you couldn't see, you could only see as far as your light had shined, and as long as you didn't see around you, I guess you felt secure. But there was one time that I actually did have some fear. I did a lot of, along with the safety work, I did a lot of engineering work. I went up in the stope to map the stope, and the company had it, and they were going to turn it over to the leasers. The company pulled all of the rock out of the stope. I went up a raise, and there was a flat area of stringers in the foot wall. Of course you could see down, it was pretty steep, about this wide. You could see as far as your light had shined, but you couldn't see any farther. I walked over, this rock slanted a little bit, and I walked over without any problem of falling or anything. I did the mapping that I was supposed to do, and I went to go back over that raise, and for the life of me, I just could not do it. I had the fear of slipping and falling, and so I sat, and I sat, and I get up, and I think, well, I can do it. I just did not have the nerve to do it. Then finally it dawned on me, there was another raise just shortly, and so I went over and went down to hit a raise, but I could not cross that. That was the only time that I had any fear of underground, and being alone, of course, you know, I guess that entered into it, too. Was it normal for men to go to war as you did and come back and continue to work at the Idaho Maryland? Yes, there was a lot of the men who did come back and go to work, but during the war, the men made better wages working on the defense plants and things like this, and a lot of them got work, rather than go back underground, they got work on the surface that paid better wages than they did, and so it was harder to get good men after the war, and then another factor that entered into it, the logging industry, became a lot more prevalent up in this area here, so a lot of miners would fall trees in the summertime, and when winter had come, then they'd go back and work in the mine, and that made it hard for the mine to do that, because they would rather have the good miners, you know, but that was another factor. Would you say there was a culture that differentiated the people that worked underground from the people that worked on the surface? Did the miners stick close together, or did you experience anything like that? Well, the miners were quite friendly with one another, but I don't think that would be, I think they would once they left the mine, I think they'd just be like anyone else going to a different job, you know. Did you ever have the opportunity to meet Errol McFly personally? Well, when I went to work, it was in 1941, and I would see him, not daily or anything, I'd see him quite often, but I can honestly say that I could have spoke to him at times, but to have an acquaintance with him, I never did, and I'm sorry that it didn't happen. I really would have liked to have known the man more. What was your impression of him? Do you imagine he seems to be pretty modest? He was, he had an Auburn automobile that I would just love to have today. It was a nice car. He wore, I guess they call them patees with the boots up to here, and dressed real good, kind of a tan color, as I remember, a very stately looking person, common. He was in and out of the office a lot. I worked on the surface quite a bit. The first day of the room was just a stone's throat of where he'd parked. But I don't know, he was, he well liked everybody, all the miners and all that you liked him. His wife had real red hair, not real red, it was kind of a reddish color. Very stately looking lady, dressed real well. I later on, after his illness, and she was on the board of directors, and at that time, when I was a safety engineer, I had an office right inside the door going in and out of the building, and I'd see her periodically when she would be up. But I would have liked to have known Harold Wall better. Did they have any children? No, no children. Well, is there anything else that's important about the property that you'd like to let us know, or any other interesting stories that you've heard over the years, or you were a part of it? No, not really. One thing, in the 1950s, I don't know exactly, in early 1950s, I got permission from Malcolm Hamill to come up and fish in the pond here, the reservoir here, and some nice big German brown trout, some of them bigger, and you could see them there in the water. And I guess I came up four or five times, I couldn't get to one of those fish, I was loving their money. They weren't interested in anything I put in that water. They just weren't. It would have been nice had the World War II not come along, and Harold McBoyle complete his work that he would like to have done in the reservoir area here, and also, well, all of the areas that he was involved in, because he, I don't know, Harold McBoyle is buried over in the cemetery off of Bennett Street, the one up there. And the far one, I can't think of a name, but anyway, he and his wife are buried side by side, and there's a tree growing right over their graves. What were his plans for the reservoir and the rest of the property? I know he planned to put some tennis courts in. He was, when he went to college or university, he was one of the tennis champions there. He did a lot of tennis in his earlier days. I don't know what all he was going to do up here. Where this building is here, I believe, is where he was going to build his home. He was going to overlooking the ranch down there. Of course, you can't, looking out the window, you can't see it now. But I'm sure that those trees wouldn't be there if he lived here. But, and then I understand this, what's this built by, what's his name? Gilmore, and so. I'm not sure. I don't know. But I know he was going to build the home here. This was way after his time that this structure was built. I can't think of anything. The Earl McMoyle. After the building was stopped on the hill, the hospital building, he, of course, like I say, he was an invalid. He had transferred the 500,000 shares of stock to the association. Then, the three men that were on the association with he and Dr. Jones, they voted against him. They used the stock, the 500,000 shares of stock, to vote him out of his position on the board of directors. He was a manager, he was a director, but the manager of the Piedahomaerum Lines, which then he didn't have enough of his other stock to maintain his seat on the board. So, there was enough stock in his wife's name, then she was voted on to the board. These men that voted against him, were men that he made million years out of over the years. So, it was a sad story. Now, then, there was 375,000 shares of the stock that weren't paid for because the hospital didn't go forward. So, the association had never paid him for that amount of stock. So, he was able to get a new board, a new board of directors for the association appointed. He was able then later on to retain the proxies on the unpaid stock that got him back on to the board of directors of the mine. It was quite a thing, really. How much gold do you think was taken out of the mine when he was in charge of it? Around $30 million, I think, is the figure that was given for the amount of gold that was taken out during that period of time. $30 million? $30 million. And besides his charity with the hospital, did he do any other philanthropic stuff with his money? I've never been able to find out how much or what amount, but I don't remember the year that the present Catholic Church building in Grass Valley was built, but it was somewhere in the late 30s, early 40s, and I'm quite sure that he probably was a big donor to the building of that building. He was Catholic. When he, at his funeral, the bishop from Sacramento came up and did part of the service. The local priest at the time was involved. There were five priests there at that funeral that participated. So a man has to be pretty well-liked to have that type of service. The two mines closed down during the funeral service, and some of the businesses in Grass Valley did also not all of them I understand. The five or six pallbearers were men from the heads of the various departments in the mine, the middle superintendent and the surface superintendent. So what happened to all the men when the mines shut down? They went into their work mostly. And how many were left at that point working for the mines? Just before it closed. Well, we were down to probably 40 men, something like that. After the war, we got up to around 440 men at tops, and then it fluctuated down toward the end. We quit mining gold in December of 1955, and the last 10 or 12 months we mined shillite or tungsten, and we're just able to. But the price of gold was $35 an ounce after the war, and the prices continued upward where you weren't even making profit at all. You're going in the whole week, so that was basically how that worked. Can I ask a sort of unrelated question? I'm just curious because you grew up in Grass Valley. I keep hearing about Brunswick Lake and how much fun it was, and then it was like dances on or near the lake. What was the whole Brunswick Center like before? That was Lake Olympia. Lake Olympia was located kind of behind that area where the PG&E has a substation out there on Sutton Way. It cost me that cinema back in that area there. During, well, gosh, when I was a kid, I was out there an awful lot. They had a fair-sized lake about three acres, something like that. And in the center of it, there was an island with a dance hall there. And then there was a walkway, a wooden walkway about six feet wide that went out to the. . . It was a floor that had some springs under it. It was a nice floor, hardwood floor, of course. And a bandstand on one side. We had bands that would come up from Sacramento, from Harman, from Mariusville, some of the local bands. And during the summer of Wednesday and Saturday nights, they did. And they would dance until midnight. And then close to where the walkway started, there was a restaurant type of there. And they'd have meals, light meals. And there was an intermission at one o'clock, I mean, at 12 o'clock. People go out and eat, and then come back and dance until 2 o'clock. In the morning? In the morning. And at 2 o'clock in the morning, there would be a lot of people still there. And they danced, Waltz's, Foxtrot's, and that's sort of like they did in those days. And then they had a bar, a separate building for a bar. And then they had to change houses for the female and male separately, of course. And people would go and change and get in their bathing suits. And they had three, oh, I'd say they're probably ten by ten, maybe twelve by twelve. Well, I guess we call them toadstools, but they're kind of built up above the water with a little ladder. Probably above the water, maybe two and a half, three feet. And you could swim out to those, to one, and then you could swim to the other. They had boating. There was canoes and rowboats also that you could rent. There were two bits an hour, something like that. They had a high dive, probably thirty feet at least, above the water. There was a springboard close to the water. There was a small pond, not a pond, in his regular concrete swimming pool for the kids, for the young kids. And then upon the hill they had to place for overnight camping for people. And it was nice. Now the Glenbrook Basin at that time had very, very few buildings out there at all. Not too many, just a few. How would the size of the Olympiad compare to the size of the reservoir up here? Oh, I'd say at least twice the size of this, at least. The water drained two ways. It came down to the basin there. It's all under, you can't see it hardly anymore. It's still there, but it's underneath the parking areas and the pipe. It still drains. So it was a natural lake, but now it just drains off? It just drains through. I don't remember, it was probably in the early 50s, late 40s, somewhere back in there. They had to breach the dam and let the water just flow. Because there was a lot of houses, the older houses up in the hill behind B&C and then kind of in the hill. They had septic tanks and of course a lot of the effluent from that whole area was coming down and the coliform count in the lake was just too high to have people swim anymore. So that's when they closed it. They did have some roller skating in the hall after the dancing had ceased. The reason the dancing ceased is because after the war people got away from dancing and then television came along and other things and the attendance just dropped. Sounds like it was a very fun time while it was existing. Yeah, those were good days. As kids we never had a want to have anything to do. It was always something to do. They were days that were hard on the people, but in other areas of the country. In 1941, for instance, when I went to work at the Idaho Maryland, they had at least 300 men every Monday, Wednesday and Fridays lined up. The hiring hall was where the road to Rooter is there on Idaho Maryland. That was in mine building and where they did the hiring. There would be a line clear back to where you turn in since Teniel crossed the bridge there, at least 200-300 men. There was no work and the lines were hiring, so that made a big difference in the area here. I know there was miners underground working that were in the dust bowl in Oklahoma when they had problems there and people from a lot of different states came. Can I ask another question? Sure. Do you know how Idaho Maryland got named? No, I don't really know how the name Idaho came about. Now, I understand the Maryland name comes from a part of the family. I think the name of the family, anyway, they had settled in that area and the Maryland got its name from that. I'm not positive of that. Idaho Maryland, I can tell you that the Idaho mine was the original mine and the Maryland mine was a small mine that had property adjacent to the end line of the Idaho. In 1893, the Maryland mine bought the Idaho mine and that's when it became Idaho Maryland.