Audio
Oral History Project - Bennet, Wallace Roscoe 1980
Transcript
Interview NRGNPP 009
File NRGNPP 009-T
TAPE NINE
Mr. Wallace Roscoe Bennett
Interviewer :
Paul J. Nyden
Beckley, W. Va. 25801
October 1, 1980
PN: Maybe we could start off, if you could just mention where you were born and where you grew up.
WB: I was born at Quinnimont, West Virginia, which is down on the gorge, August 30, 1910. And I spent the biggest part of my life, or the early half of my life in the gorge. We left there, and went to Greenbrier County, and came back to Thurmond in 1918. And I lived at Thurmond from 1918 until 1933, when I moved to Oak Hill.
PN: What did your father do?
WB: He was section foreman on the C & O Railroad, stationed at Thurmond.
PN: During the entire time that you were living in Thurmond, was your father working for the railroad?
WB: That's right, yes.
PN: When you were living in Thurmond between 1918 and 1933, were you employed by the railroad?
WB: I was after I got, while I was still in high school, I worked on the railroad part—time, as a relief clerk and stenographer, on the Hinton division; worked at Thurmond, Raleigh, and Rainelle, and Hinton.
PN: During this period then, between 1918 and 1933, I 'd like to ask you a number of questions about the appearance of Thurmond, and you could add any other thing you wanted to. How many houses would you say were in the town?
WB: There was around 600 people lived in Thurmond at the peak, which I suppose, say, divide that by four, which would be 150 houses; or three, would be 200 houses. However, there were apartment houses; people lived in apartments there above the Banker's Club. And on this side, the south side, that I was telling you about, the old Collins store had four apartments upstairs over that. And then, of course, some people worked at Thurmond, boarded at the hotel and lived else— where, you see. There was two hotels, and they had railroad men would —say lived at Hinton, or Huntington, or Charleston, anywhere board at the hotels and go home on weekends.
PN: What were the names of the two hotels?
WB: The Dunglen’s the one on the south side of the river, and the Lafayette was the one on the north side. Both of them's burned.
PN: Did most of the people that lived in the hotels working there at
Thurmond, or were there tourists or people…
WB: No, worked at Thurmond. However, there was salesman or any itinerants that would come in would spend the night, or whatever, any business they had to transact, and coal operators. Say, if you owned the mines down there, and you lived in maybe Philadelphia, for that matter. They’d come there, and transact their business, and stay at the Dunglen Hotel. And salesmen would come there, I may be rambling off…
PN: No.
WB : Beneath the Dunglen Hotel, on the ground floor, they had a large room that the salesmen would come, they'd call them "dummers" back in those days, and they would bring their trunks, come in on the train, and bring their trunks with samples of whatever they sold. And merchants from up Loup Creek, and up and down the river, would come there and pick out what they wanted. And the salesmen would order it for them, and it 'd be shipped in then by express or freight. That used to be a big deal. Incidentally, one time, I forgot what year it was, but I was a pretty good—sized boy, Billy Sunday came there to preach one time in this basement of this Dunglen Hotel. Come in on his private railroad car and preached. Of course, everybody down there went to hear him, see him and hear him. The only thing I remember about the sermon was that he, the ushers passed the collection plate around they were dishpans, big metal dishpans —— and he made an announcement not to let the pan rattle. He meant he wanted greenbacks instead of change, see. That's the only thing I can remember about his sermon [laughs].
PN: Was he pretty popular back then?
WB: Oh yes, Billy Sunday was something like Billy Graham today; he
was way before your time. Billy Sunday was one of these ranting, raging, fist—pounding; he was quite a character, Billy Sunday was. And he was nationally known; he wasn't just a local preacher. Of course, back in those days you didn't have radio and television to broadcast over; you had to go in person to get your audience.
PN: Was Thurmond a relatively unusual town, would you say, because it had these apartment buildings and big hotels?
WB: For that time, and in that area, it was unusual. Everything centered at Thurmond; it was a hub. It was the junction of Loup Creek and New River. And all the coal that was shipped up and down the river came to Thurmond to be, train made up to go east or west, to go to Tidewater or go west, whichever was shipping the coal. That is, from, between Quinnimont and Thurmond, they'd bring it down; say up to Thayer, they'd bring the coal down to Thurmond to ship it. And on as far away as Ansted, on down; and up Keeneys Creek, and down on south side, there was a lot of mines, see, all down the south, south side of the river, which is this side, from MacDougal. There's a lot of mines up this side, and then there was several mines on the north side of the river. And they all brought the coal into Thurmond, and you make up a train, there you see, at Thurmond for the main line to pick up. So Thurmond was really a hub. There was, I suppose you read the history of it. In 1911, Thurmond did more business than Cincinnati and Richmond. The C & O Railroad grossed $45 million that year, and $24 million of it was at Thurmond. So you can imagine.
PN: Shipping of coal, primarily?
WB: Yea. Many, a many time that I was a boy down there, I 've seen express trains, see back in those days, they run an express train in addition to the passenger trains, and local freights, and manifests. And 1 've seen an express train come in there, and there'd be a mountain of express out there in front of the depot. It'd take them 40 minutes to unload it. It'd delay the train, see; they'd have to stay there 40 minutes just to unload the express off. The express shipments of goods. But now, it didn't all go into Thurmond, see. As I said, Thurmond was the hub. If you lived in Mt. Hope, or Glen Jean, or Oak Hill, you ordered something by express it would come into Thurmond, and then was rerouted onto a branch line, you see, out of Thurmond. So it was handled again, see. That's why there was so much, and the freight depot there —— I don't suppose you 've ever seen it, because they tore it down a few years ago. It was right by the side of the river there, just adjacent to the present depot. And I can remember when, in addition to office staff Stud Ramsey was the freight—house foreman he had nine employees under him just handling freight. Can you imagine that?
I don't know a depot nowhere now that has nine employees handling freight. Of course the trucks took all the business now. But you can just imagine that, how much freight nine men could handle in a day. See, as I say, they'd take it off the main line, and reroute it, and maybe some of it would come to, up Loup Creek; some of it would go down on a local, put it on a local freight, and take It, say, down to Nuttallburg. See, it'd come in on a manifest, or some other fast train, fast freights.
PN: What's a "manifest"?
WB: That's a fast freight, time freight, run on a schedule like a passenger train. I know you've seen a train go by, high speed, with a lot of box cars and oil tankers and such they are manifest trains. Coal trains are mostly coal, hauling coal. Then they have a-they don't have them today —— local freights. Say, they was running a local freight from Thurmond to, well to Ansted, say. All right, they had some freight for Beury, they had some freight for Fire Creek, for Sewell, North Caperton, Kenneys Creek, Nuttallburg, Fayette, and so on, and on down the river into Hawk's Nest. This local freight would drop freight off at each one of them, stop at each one of them stations and drop the freight off.
PN: In Thurmond at this time, could you list the types of buildings there were other than homes? Like you mentioned the two hotels. What else was there?
WB: I'll try to enumerate them. There was two banks: New River Bank and the National Bank of Thurmond. Then there was a theater; Collins had a theater there. Then Stanley Panas had a shoe shop under the Collins store on this side of the river. And then a fellow, a colored fellow named Moses had a shoe shop on the north side of the river above the depot. And then there was several stores down there: New River Grocery, and Snyder—Carter Company had a store down...
PN: What was that, a grocery store?
WB: If it was a Snyder—Carter, It was a dry—goods store; if it was New River, it was a grocery store. Well, they had two rooms one was groceries, one was dry goods. And then there was two jewelry stores in Thurmond at one time, and two drug stores Mankin Drug and then the South Side Drug Company. I can't think of the name of the jewelry. But, and then now, let's see, there was the Dog Wagon we called it, it was a little restaurant there by the railroad crossing. And then on down the street we called it a street, it wasn't really a street there was, called the Greek restaurant. It was there, right beside the Banker's Club today; the old building is nothing but a hull now. And then, of course, both hotels had dining rooms; you'd get your meals there.
PN: Would the Greek restaurant, did it serve Greek food or something?
WB: No, it's just that Greeks run it, they served American food. Greeks run it for a long time, and then it was later took over by Americans. It was right, quite prosperous. They all did a big business. Now Mrs. Duncan had a boarding house on this [south] side of the river; she kept boarders and roomers. I don't think that building's there any more. You know where the Rescue Squad building is? Well, there was another large, behind that was a large building up there that Mrs. Duncan used to. And oh, the Rescue Squad, that was a funeral home, later after this store that
I was telling you about a while ago burned that had all the, old funeral and home, the theater, along with Collins' grocery store, the dry goods store, and Doc Likens' drug Store, and then Collins had a furniture store, then four apartments upstairs over. That building burned in 1922. And then Collins moved his mortuary to the building that used to be the old South Side saloon; it's the building the rescue squad's using down there now. It's been remodel led; it doesn't look much like the same building now. It had apartments upstairs over it.
PN: You said before that about 600 people lived in Thurmond?
WB: Yes, that's about the peak; wouldn't have been room for anymore.
PN: How many lived in individual houses?
WB: I never did count the actual houses, but as you can see by that picture there [pointing to a photograph on his home office wall], which was taken in 1920] there was lots of houses down there. And, of course, lots of them today, there's a lot of them been torn down. There's nothing like the houses down there today there were then.
PN: How many rooms would each of those homes have?
WB: Oh, four or five.
PN: And how would they use those rooms usually?
WB: Well, you'd have a living room, and a kitchen, and a couple of bed— rooms, something like that you know. Railroad men lived in them; some of them had big families; some didn't.
PN: There weren't miners living there?
WB: I don't know of any miner lived in Thurmond, because there was mines close by, and they lived in coal camps. See, right across the river there from Thurmond was Weewind and Erskine, and they built that houses, people that the miners lived. And of course, not very far down— stream was Rush Run, and Beury, and Fire Creek, and so on; they was the mining towns, and all the miners lived in those towns. If you worked back in the old days, you worked in the coal camp, you lived there, and spent your money there. That's why there wasn't so much money in general circulation. Today there's, I made an economic survey of this area in 1965 when I was Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. And there was 87 coal mines that had worked out in a ten—mile radius of Oak Hill then, in ’65.
PN: Eighty—seven?
WB: Eighty—seven; though, of course, that's air—line. Today there's probably way over a hundred. But there's more money in circulation here today than there was then, cause people, if you lived down in Whipple back in those days, oh, before the unions got so strong, if you worked there, you spent your money there. If they caught you spending your money uptown, they'd either lay you off or put you in a water hole —— you couldn't make a living. It was rough on you back in those days. But, no, I lived in Thurmond all od, I don't know of any coal miner lived in Thurmond. And I used to know every human being, cat, and dog down there. And I don't the mine. and know of a single coal miner that worked in the mine.
PN: Just going back to the homes a minute, how would people, say a typical railroad family that lived in one of these homes, how would they furnish it inside? What type of furniture would they have?
WB: Well, they'd have nice furniture. Railroad men was the cream, or the elite I used to say, of the working jobs, or working—class people. Cause, well even back, four to six dollars a day was big money then. Of course, that's, you that more than that an hour now. But they had had nice furniture. When I was a kid, we were so poor, that I used to go visit my friends, and I 'd see linoleum on the floor. I thought they were rich, because they had linoleum on the floor, even though you weren't. We all, we had in our house was wood flooring, scrubbed with lye, and turned white. But, of course, those were happy days; [but] comparatively today, you wouldn't want to go back to it —— outside privies and all that stuff; you'd have to carry water, go out and round up firewood, get up early in the morning and build a fire.
PN: Were most of those homes heated by wood?
WB: Coal, wood and coal, yea, coal principally. You used wood to start your fire, and then you used coal. It takes too much wood to keep your fire going all the time.
PN: There wasn't running water in this whole period?
WB: On the other side, the north side of water over there. But on the south side, except in the Dunglen Hotel; and they, of the river, they had running there was no running water, course, had to pump their water. But the houses just a, carry it out of a creek or stream.
PN: Was there any gas or electricity?
WB: Oh no; electricity, but there wasn't any gas. Wasn't any telephones. Well, back when I was telling you a while ago about Thurmond being the exchange, the telephone exchange for this whole area, I betcha there wasn't, each mine had a telephone, but the individuals didn't have telephones. They didn't have any use for them. Of course, it didn't cost you much, probably a dollar a month. But then you didn't need it, so you didn't have it. Just holler at somebody; if you want to tell your neighbor something, just holler.
PN: What did you eat back then generally?
WB: Well, we ate about the same food as you do today. It didn't cost near as much. But comparatively it did, cause, you was making, well when I started working on the railroad, you got 40 cents an hour. And of course, that's $3.20 a day. Well, milk was six cents a can; I don't know what a can of milk is now, maybe 30 or 40 cents for a can of milk today. Bread was five, ten cents a loaf, and now it's, tear a dollar bill off just to buy a loaf of bread today. Flour was just about 39 cents for 24 pounds back then; lard, cheap, for three cents a pound; butter was ten, fifteen cents a pound.
PN: Did you buy your food at a company store?
WB: No, Collins, you see, Collins had a grocery; we bought all our groceries at Collins. And then there was another grocery store across the river. Then later on, sometime later, the C & O, it was called Fitzgerald and Company —— but they were tied in with the railroad — they had a comissary over there. But only people that worked for the railroad, and you couldn't spend money in it. You see, they'd take it out of your pay, see. You'd go over there and cut some paper scrip, like I showed you a while ago; then they'd take it out of your pay, see. If you bought fifty dollars worth of groceries this half, two weeks, it would be taken out of your check when you got it. Ripley had that in his column one time about that store down in Thurmond that you couldn't spend money in. It was a comissary, and you had to spend that scrip, railroad scrip, paper scrip, it was. They were a little bit higher than anywhere else, you see.
PN: The scrip was issued by the railroad company?
WB: By this store called Fitzgerald and Company, and they were tied in some way or another with the, I don't think it was actually owned by the railroad company, but somebody had a franchise with, they had several different places along the railroad, Fitzgerald and Company. It's the same building that the post office is in, in Thurmond. Remember that metal building as you go down the street there below the crossing? That's where the Fitzgerald store was.
PN: Did you have a radio at this time?
WB: Not till about down around 1930, I think, we got a radio.
PN: What types of programs did most people listen to?
WB: Bradley Kincaid of Cincinnati, who was one of these hillbilly singers. And KDA in Pittsburgh, and WLW in Cincinnati, that's about the only stations around. There wasn't any in Charleston or anywhere else. And incidentally, when you bought a radio back in those days, you didn't have built—in antennas like they have today. You don't put no antenna for a radio today. You get out there and stretch, it'd look like clothesline you 're stretching across the yard for your antenna. Yea, they used to sell them at Doc Ridge, when he run the South Side Drug Company, later years sold radios all up and down the river there, and man would have to out and stretch these clotheslines for antennas. We didn't have much variety though. As I say, WLW and KDKA was about all you had, and then Beckley, Oak Hill, Charleston.
PN: Did you get WSM from Nashville?
WB: Yea, used to get WSM too, cause I remember old Uncle Dave Macon, he sang there. He plays ten songs and never change the tune.
PN: What did people do for recreation or entertainment?
WB: Go to a movie. And then we had a ball field there, and we used to play ball, those younger or who was able to. Men, we called "big ball.” Did you ever see one? It's larger than a baseball, much larger. And you don't knock it as far. The ball field was right there; now it's all grown up and now you can't tell hardly where it was any more. Right beside the Dunglen Hotel, there's some bottom land there where Loup Creek comes into the New River. And if you'd foul a ball, go out in the river and get watersoaked, and then you couldn't knock it ten feet then after that. Not like today, we have these Little League teams, goodness, I don't know how many dozens of balls they use a year. We'd use one ball all year; tape it up with friction tape, you know.
PN: Why did you play this "big ball”, rather than regular baseball?
WB: You'd knock a baseball too far; your ball field wasn't far enough along, you see. You'd have knocked all the windows out of Dunglen Hotel with a baseball; it was right down the block. I 've seen those pretty strong boys hit those softballs up there on the porch.
PN: Did you have any league, like they did in Raleigh County and Fayette County?
WB: Not exactly a league. We had a ball team there, and Beury Mountain had a team, Weewind had one, and we always beat those teams. But when we'd come up Loup Creek to play Red Star or Glen Jean, they'd just beat the tar clean out of us. They had better players and better facilities to play on, better diamonds and so on.
PN: Did you play baseball then, when you were playing up at Glen Jean?
WB: No, we always played that softball. Couldn't afford a glove; had to gloves for baseball. Lord, I used to play first base, and they'd throw that ball over there, and I had blood running out of my hand lots of times. Those boys played shortstop or third base, and throwed that ball over there like a bullet, and they'd just bust my hand, like hitting two boards together. Couldn't afford a glove.
PN: What kind of churches were there in Thurmond?
WB: Well, a union church all denominations; it didn't make any difference what you were. And then, of course, there was a colored church or two on the south side of the river. But John Dragan bought that building that the church was in up on the hill, and uses it to store some of his rafting equipment in. Whichever kind of preacher you could get —— Presbyterian, whatever he'd come in; to make him feel good, everybody in town joined the church. And then they begin, the novelty'd wear off, and they'd begin to drift away. And then he'd get disgusted and leave. [laughs] And everybody'd join the church all over again. So I used to kid ‘em and tell ‘em. But it was a right nice little church. It was attended by, attended, all the time I was living there, it was always full on Sunday.
PN: Were there many immigrants from Europe living in Thurmond?
WB: No, mostly people lived in Thurmond, the immigrants lived, worked at the coal mines mostly.
PN: Not so much on the railroads?
WB: Not so much on the railroads. Now there were a lot of colored people down there. They came from over in Virginia, over around Buckingham. I used to hear 'em brag about Buckingham County; in other words, I thought that God's part of the world. I was going down to Richmond one time, and I said I want to see Buckingham, because I 've heard those colored people brag about it so much. And I got through the place before I seen it. [laughs] Such a little place, a wide place in the road.
PN: Did they work on the railroad?
WB: Uh huh; uh huh. And then they would, they would "shanty" down there. I don't whether you know what that term means or not — "batching" or "shintying”. If you notice going into Thurmond, you see those old boxcars sitting on the track over there, as you're going down the hill into Thurmond. Those are shanty cars. Say you were married, and you
lived in Buckingham, or wherever, well you'd come down, and go home once a month, see. And you'd cook your own, batching is cooking your own meals and providing for yourself. And they didn't charge any rent. They had to have some place for the laborers to stay. That's what they stayed in, the colored especially.
PN: What percentage of the town was white? Do you have any estimate of that?
WB: Oh, I 'd say, like 95 at least. There wasn't too many colored people. Let's see, they worked on the section on the railroad track, and on the shop track, and in the shops over there some. There might have been 50 out of 600, which would have been a small percent.
PN: Most of them were men alone, or were there many families?
WB: Well, there was some families; some colored families lived there. The Moseses, the Masseys, lived over there on the south, mixed up with the white people up above the depot there. This Moses I was telling you about run a shoe shop there, and he had a big family. And, then this Massey lives on up there near the church I was telling you about. Then there's another family or two of coloreds up there, but I don't remember their names.
PN: Did Massey have a business too?
WB: No, Massey j us t worked for the railroad company. But Moses 's sons worked on the railroad after they up, but the old man hisself run this shoe shop. See back in those days, you'd take your shoes there. You wore a little hole in them, you'd have them half—soled; you didn't throw them away. It didn't cost but a dollar, a dollar and a half to have them half—soled. Just like another pair of shoes, see, wear them for another year or two. But today people, but if you got a really expensive pair of shoes, it pays you to have them repaired. But if you have a cheaper pair of shoes, it costs you as much now to have them repaired, wouldn't be worth fooling with.
PN: Did they have any saloons or taverns?
WB: No they went out, see when Prohibition come in. But I 've read some history here in Shirley Donnelly's column. There mentioned five saloons in Thurmond, but I don't know there were. They had the Black Hawk Saloon and the South Side Saloon, but there might have been some others, some cat—holes somewhere, but I don't know where they were. But they were closed when we came there. People still had whiskey, bootleg that they sold there, bootleg whiskey.
PN: Were the moonshiners making it around there?
WB: No, they'd bring it in there, see, they come in on the train with it sometimes, with a suitcase full of whiskey. Sometimes they go to Kentucky and get it and bring it over here. You go up and down the river, and bring in a suitcase full, and sell you a pint or a fifth. I think a pint was about three dollars, moonshine. But you didn't see drunks like you do today, especially around these beer joints. Because, to start with, you didn't have a beer joint in Thurmond. Beer, of course, didn't come in until 32.
PN: Did people make homwbrew, or anything like that?
WB: Never seen any down there, no. They might have made some and drank it, but you wouldn't have known it if they did. I heard of it, but I never did see anybody with it down there.
PN: Thurmond was unusual, though, in that the railroad was the main street, right?
WB: Oh yes, yea.
PN: Were there other streets or paths going off up the mountain?
WB: Well this road that leads from Thurmond to Beury Mountain was, you might say, a main artery through the town. It wound up the hill and circled around on down to the west end of town, and on back down to the railroad. Today, you can make that circle and come back up by the Banker's Club, come on back up to the depo. But back then, you couldn't; you couldn't drive it. Mr. Pugh cut a road from up the top of the embankment there down to the railroad, which he can drive now from, say the depot, down to his place of business, or his home there, but back then that road wasn't cut there.
PN: Did many people that lived in Thurmond have gardens?
WB: No, there wasn't any place for them. Might have had a little patch that didn't amount to much, but there wasn't any. See the yard, one side of the house was a storey or two off the ground, see. and rocky too. There wasn't much suitable for gardening. Now on this side of the river, there was some of them had gardens. But there it was so steep, you might have had a little patch that raised a few tomatoes, peas.
PN: Did people ever keep plants or flowers inside their homes?
WB: Oh yes. Lord, I got so sick of them things when I was a kid. I never liked them in the house; they always smelled like a funeral home to me, a bunch of old house flowers, you know. My mother used to have lots of those things. The sun come out and get warm, she'd have me carrying them out on the porch. Get a little cool, carry them back in the house. Strictly house plants, you know. I don't guess they bloomed year round, but they lived year round.
PN: Is there anything else that you'd say about Thurmond that you think is significant, that I may not have hit in these questions?
WB: I’ll tell you, one thing about in the heyday, and compare it to today, it'd really depress you, but I didn't say it, if you, it meant anything to you, which it does mean a lot to me because I lived there so long. And I could go down there now, and it'd really depress you, really. So many old friends that's gone. See I left there 47 years ago, and the children were grandchildren, grandparents today. I don't know very many people down there now, but it used to be, I knew everyone. But today, I don't. There's not very many of the old—timers living down there. Charlie Wa-Eer-'s still living down there; he used to be chief clerk for the trainmaster over there. He's been retired a long time now. I guess he's the oldest old—timer down there. And Erskine Pugh, of course Erskine [telephone rings].
PN: You were talking about your feelings about Thurmond?
WB: I say, when you go down there today, time was when you'd walk down the street, somebody to and lots of people knew me up and down the street. Always stop and talk to, and chit—chat, and so on. Today, if you go out on the street, you're the only one you see, yourself. You look in the mirror, you see yourself. Except around meal—time, I was down there the other day, about a month ago, evening meal—time. I went down to the Banker's Club, and of course it was full, because the raft—riders, or whatever you call them, were in there having dinner. But, you mentioned entertainment a while ago, back in the old days, when radios did come out, you know, Amos and Andy was a big deal, and Lowell Thomas. Now this was before your time, you 're a young fellow. But Doc Ridge run the South Side Drug Store; actually the South Side Drug Store used to be on this side of the river, but when it burned, they moved over there, and they called it still the South Side Drug Store. There used to be a Mankin Drug Store on the north side, and the South Side was on this side. But when the South Side burned out, they moved over there and still called it the South Side Drug Store. But anyway, every evening around six o clock when Amos and Amdy and Lowell Thomas would come on, everyone that lived down on the street, we called it, and apartments, and anyone else who wanted to go down there and loaf, would sit down on the street and listen to Lowell Thomas and Amos and Andy. We didn't have radios at home, you know. That was a big deal, listening to Amos and Andy and Lowell Thomas every evening.
PN: The two hotels the Dunglen and the Lafayette —— were they centers where people would gather and talk and?
WB: Play poker; the fellows that roomed there would go in there and play poker among theirselves, you know. That was way back before this big—time gambling, you see, when this fourteen—year gambling, poker game went on. That was, they tell me that big—time gamblers got to come in that really broke it up, see, professional gamblers. See, I know that, most of them, those fellows that lives, stayed in the Dung len and Lafayette Hotel would get among themselves out there in the lobby of the hotel and have a poker game, and nobody 'd bother them. It was all quiet; there wasn't any rowdiness or anything like that one way of entertaining theirself. The Lafayette and Dunglen you've heard the story on that, I guess, haven't you — how the Dunglen met its fate, didn't you. Have you ever heard that story?
PN: Maybe you could mention it?
WB: Well, business begin to drop off down there around, let's see, the Depression. Of course it dropped off everywhere. So, I don't know whether I should mention any names, course she's dead now, liable to have me sued. But anyway, the party decided there wasn't enough business for two hotels, so they hired two fellows two railroad men got em drunk and hired them to go set the Dunglen on fire. They went on the top storey and set it on fire, see. And cut out the competition. Well, they caught 'em, gave them three years apeice; they lost their job on the railroad both brakemen on the railroad. Lost their jobs and got three years in the penitentiary. Well, they couldn't prove this party actually hired them to burn. But to get, they knew that she did, but in court you couldn't prove it. So to get at her, they raided her hotel and found whiskey —moonshine whiskey, see. So they sent her to Alderson, the federal penitentiary; and sent her husband he didn't even drink —but his name was, he was running the hotel, he didn't have anything to do with drinking. He was a, the head engineer for Wilson Engineering Company down there, the company I worked for for 12 years.
PN: Wilson Engineering?
WB: Mm. It also burned them out too. [laughs] And sent him to Atlanta for three years, to get at em for burning his hotel. That's how it, the Dunglen met its fate. Then later, back in a, I believe about '57, I know I was City Manager and we sent the fire truck down there. The Dunglen was on fire, and we sent the fire truck down there.
PN: The Dunglen again?
WB: No, I mean, the Lafayette, excuse me, I meant the Lafayette caught on fire. But it didn't save it.
PN: That's when it burned up finally then?
WB: Oh yea, it burned clear down.
PN: In ’57 when…
WB: The Lafayette did. The Dunglen burned March 22, 1930.
PN: Was there still business in the Lafayette Hotel then?
WB: Oh yes. See the post office was in It, and a pool room in it, and then this New River Grocery Company 1 was telling you about had two rooms in the basement of it, it was the ground floor. Yea, there was still, things like. Of course, 1930 came and Thurmond begin to go down. Everywhere did. The Armour Company moved out then, moved their plant there; of course, that hurt bad.
PN: About 1930?
WB: Yea, about that time. They moved to Beckley. Thurmond started going down really in 1922. See, a lot of the business in Thurmond was on this side of the river too, cause as I was telling you about, all those stores over there. In 1922, that store burned, and of course Collins moved across the river. Well, Thurmond was never the same after that, see. It was almost like two different towns; there was almost as much business on one side of the river as there was on the other, see. It was all centered over on the other side then, when this store burned. But it really started down then. And of course by 1930, a lot of the mines had shut down, and there wasn't nothing like the population there. And the railroad, if the mines is not, producing coal, then they cut off the railroad people. I was cut off in 1931, and never did go back.
PN: From the railroad?
WB: From the railroad.
PN: And what were you doing on the railroad?
WB: I was, the last job I had I was secretary to the freight agent at Hinton.
PN: But Thurmond in the 50s was still more than it is today?
WB: Oh yes, yea, yea.
PN: When did it really decline to where it is today?
WB: Well, when these mines around here all, haven't been down enough in the last few years to really keep track of how closely. I t 11 tell you what cut a lot of people off too, when the dieselized the motive power, took the steamers out. See at one time, there was 175 men worked in that shops down there.
PN: In Thurmond?
WB: Yea, in the railroad shops. Beside what was up at the shop tracks up in the east yard. But when they cut those off, and I was down there some time —— last summer, or the summer before last maybe and there was only two or three people that works in those shops now. You can see what that would do to a town like that. Of course they 've cut off, my brother was yardmaster down there for years and, they used to have three yardmasters around the clock, you know, and they used to have three car distributors around the clock. And they had the trainmaster's office had a staff up there, and a ticket agent downstairs, and a baggage agent, express agent and there's nothing, there's a telegraph operator now, that's about all. Upstairs, all those offices up there are vacant now; they 've moved everything downstairs in one office. Railroad jobs theirselves, there's very few. I used to be call boy down there too some. They had 13 train crews, engine crews, well train crews; and today they got one. There just ain't any mines around here working any more.
PN: When you lived in Thurmond in this period, 1819, a 1919...
WB: 1819? [laughs]
PN: and 1933, did the railroad workers have a union of any kind?
WB: Oh yes, yea. B. of R. T. — Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; and telegraph operators had a union too. The clerks, they didn't have any union; they did later after I left the railroad, they got a pretty good union. But when I was with them, they didn't have any union. And the trackmen, nothing like that had a union that amounted to anything. But today, their unions are really strong, the railroad men. In fact, they just about broke the railroad companies' back with the high wages they get today, you know. Those trainmen, they go out there and throw that switch, and go home. They get their eight hours for it. If you was working on a section, went out there and worked an hour, you just got paid for that hour. You didn't get paid for the whole day. But their union's so strong, as quick as they get there, they get their pay.
PN: How about the miners back then? There was almost no union at that particular time, was there?
WB: They had a union, but it was never strong until Franklin D. Roosevelt came in in 1932. And he backed John L. Lewis and made the union strong. Then they got strong. Of course, the mining business didn't really pick up after the stock market crash in 1929, mines didn't really start picking up again until, of any significance until Hitler started raising cane over there. Started preparing for war, and then of course in '41 when the war struck why, of course, they, but they froze the price of everything during the war. You could have bought you a pair of shoes during the war, same price you, before the war, because they froze the price of everything. But brother, the day they lifted it! [laughs] The prices of everything soared. But you had to have a shoe stamp to buy a pair of shoes, a ration stamp. You had to have it to buy whiskey, and gasoline; I 've got some of those old gas stamps right now. You know to, A and C stamps, C was good for five gallons; seems like A was three gallons. Just rationed so much.
PN: When you lived in Thurmond and wanted to travel to another place, could you do much of that, and how did you go?
WB: Well, back in the old days, we used the train. See, my father worked on the railroad, and I worked on the railroad — didn't cost us anything. Travel was free; you got what was called a pass.
PN: To Hinton or Charleston?
WB: Oh yes, we could go to California if we wanted to, because one railroad would honor another railroad's pass, you see. Now you could get to, order what you call "foreign passes" and go to California if you wanted to. It would cost you nothing, train fare, unless you got a Pullman. You go day coaches, you could ride to California and back, it wouldn't cost you a penny.
PN: Did you often go places?
WB: Oh yea, we travel led. No real long trips like California nothing like that. We'd go to Richmond, somewhere. Of course, it was a big treat to us just to go to Charleston. We thought that was something great, just to go to Charleston. Go down, my mother would take us down there lots of times to buy school clothes. We'd ride the morning train down and the evening train back Number Three down and Number Six back. That was a big deal, you know. Of course, Charleston didn't have the traffic [it does] today; you could walk all over, you know, wouldn't have the danger of being run down like you are today. I don't look forward to going to Charleston today. But back then, you know, that was a big deal. In 1919, they built the road into Thurmond. See, up until then, there wasn't any highway into Thurmond at all.
PN: Was that the road from Glen Jean?
WB: Glen Jean, set in, and next Thurmond. But, I forgot who it yea. They built it down to Newlyn. then bad weather year, then they finished it from Newlyn on down to I remember the first automobile that come in there. I forgot who it was now who drove, but it was an Oldsmobile car.
PN: What year was that?
WB: '19. 1919. And later on, I can remember when there was nine taxi cabs come into Thurmond. They'd line up out there, they used to go over, and fight over the passengers and grab suitcases out of the passengers hands. And the railroad stopped them, and made them line up. If I wanted you, I could pick you out, and let you come over and grab my satchel, see. It got so rowdy.
PN: Did you ever own a car? Did your family ever own a car when you were in Thurmond?
WB: Yea, at later years, they did, yea. But early days, no.
PN: In the late 20s, or something?
WB: And you won't believe this. But Thurmond had, and very few people I suppose remember this, Thurmond had an automobile agency at one time. A fellow named Thompson sold Gardiner cars down there. You never heard of a Gardiner car. They 've been gone for years; looked something like a Dodge. Up on the hill there above, it used to be Collins's big store. You go up across the railroad, you go up that first sharp curve, straight on, on up the hill, up on the upper road, a fellow had an agency —— it was just a garage, that's all it was, a family car garage. He didn't stay there long though. Cause he sold my uncle Carl Reed a car, and he might have sold another one too, and he moved to Ans ted. But they did have a car agency there. And they had newspapers printed there one time.
PN: A Thurmond paper?
WB: Yea, the something Herald. Seems to me like I 've forgotten. Shirley Donnelly got it in his column what it was. I 've forgotten the name of it. I don't remember it; it goes back, way back. Before 18; there wasn't any paper when I went there in 18. We got the Cincinnati Post; that was the big newspaper then two cents, yea, two cents a paper.
PN: People used to come to Thurmond from other towns for entertainment, didn't they?
WB: Oh yes. Get your hair cut; you'd come up to see the barber shop down there and pool room's all in the. same place. You could get hair cut on Sunday — from Gray Hetcher and George Flowser. Fourteen [the train] came up around 11:00 or 11:30, and Thirteen went back about 3: 00, up and down the river; one went east and one went west. But if you lived down at Elver ton or somewhere down the river, you'd ride Fourteen up and get your hair cut, and catch the Thirteen back, you see. He did a lot of business on Sunday. Yea, it was, of course, later years, when automobiles, roads got good, people started moving away and driving back and forth into Thurmond. Of course, that hurts too, you know.
[Note: This was one of the more difficult tapes to transcribe. There are some passages where one or two words may not be exact because of difficulties in understanding the original words.]
Description
Railroading, Thurmond 1918 - 1933
Date Created
10/01/1980
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