BH: Did any of those cattle trucks ever get stuck that you know of?
JW: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And the logging trucks. And they too were christened with many names. Yeah—the history of automobiles in the Great Sand Dunes is one of digging and swearing. They best route to drive, of course, was when the creek was running and it was wet. But you had to be careful, very careful in the springtime, when the rollers were coming down that it didn't flood it out your engine. And if the rollers were coming down and you knew how to drive it you always hit them at an angle. That way it minimized the splash. The old cars—the newer cars like the one you're driving today, you could practically drive it in the water as long as you didn't get your exhaust underwater, and it'd still run. But the old ones were highly susceptible to moisture in the distributors, and usually, when you conked out, why you had to quickly stop and dry out your distributor before the sand washed all the way around your wheels and you sunk to the bottom. If you got it started in time, maybe you could pull out, maybe you couldn't. And of course, we lost a coupe in there—a completely brand new one. Howard Shockey was at Bethlehem Motor at that time, and my brother was newly married—1937—and we were moving in from Canon City—that was in June, early June, and the water was running very high, and even that brand new Chevy pick—up flooded out, and down it went, and then we finally got it stabilized when water was running in one window and out the other, and it was just the top was sticking out. Howard brought out his wrecker from Alamosa, and we worked around and worked around to dig it out and pry it up, and got him to pull it out, and they took it to town, and they took the engine completely apart, and cleaned it, and got all the sand out—said they knew they had to get all the sand out or they'd ruin it—and it lasted about a year, and you know, there was nothing there—it wore it out. But uh—my cousin, who was a nephew of my grandfather—his name was Babey—Francis W. Babey—B-A-B-E-Y—who was a great photographer, a professional photographer—and he brought, to my knowledge, he brought the first car in there up to where the creek narrows and the big dune goes up to the left? And uh there's a rocky shore there, and he could park it on that, and it was a front wheel drive Hutmobile
Coupe?
BH: A what kind of coupe?
JW: A front—wheel drive Hutmobile coupe. And he was able to—that front—wheel drive made quite a difference and he was able to get up there with that. Of course he was mostly in the wet,
We knew that. So far, 50 gallon, and not too long after that, in the early 30's, why different ones began bringing vehicles in there. Uh—(unintelligible)—when George Ziegler homesteaded in there, he had an old pick—up of some kind, I've forgotten now what it was, and he managed to get that up there, but mostly what we would do—he lived down at the old parking area—where sometimes we'd come up beyond Wellingtons, beyond the little, sometimes up near Castleman's
Gulch, there, Castleman's cabin, and we'd leave our stuff there and then come down with a team and wagon to move stuff up, and that happened—that was just standard procedure.
BH: Did your grandfather have much to do with any of these cars? Was he around at all when they came?
JW: Only that Hutmobile. He—my cousin could get him to do anything. He—they were both very close, and I've got a picture of the two of them by the old Hutmobile up there somewhere.
BH: That'd be nice. What did he think of motor vehicles, or did he ever say?
JW: Say again?
BH: What did he think of motorized vehicles?
JW: Well, I imagine he was like everybody else—he recognized their good side. Till they got stuck.
BH: There's a story I've heard about—well, I've heard that your grandfather liked to ride on mules, there was a story I was told about him coming down the canyon, and the mule was acting up—and it kept acting up and acting up—and he finally turned the mule around to go home, and when he turned around, there was an 8 foot wall of water coming down. Do you know anything about that?
JW: Never heard of that.
BH: Never heard that story.
JW: Well, I would have to know the location to know whether I would want to believe it, and what constitutes a wall of water. In the springtime, when those—we'd call him rollers—come down—they call em something else—like the shaperoller—you've probably seen that?
BH: Oh, yeah.
JW: I've seen them three, three and a half feet high, and that's as high I think as they've ever gotten, that anyone's ever talked about. But that could constitute, at some point, if he's down in that area, looking around and seeing this wall of water coming. That's the only think that would come to my mind. Up in the canyon—if there was a big wall of water come down there—I was never, in my life, saw any evidence where there'd been big flooding up there.