Re: Sumpter Valley Passenger Operations

Brian:

There is something hard to recapture here of the flavor of life in the Sumpter Valley country at the time. The depression hit them hard.

I met my late friend and long time Baker area resident Bill Gardner when he and my wife shared the same doctor for their cancers. Bill started his logging career working to steam along the Sumpter Valley and drove this "stage" route (as he called it) as far as Prairie in the early days after the train runs were dropped.

Before the War he parlayed his driving experience to purchasing a truck and scrapping out abandoned mining equipment wherever it could be found, with some hair raising (to me) accounts of places a truck could be taken if one had the nerve. Bill did. Since the scrap prices were high and with the depression just ending he was making astounding money for the time and place.

Of course he later faced some of the same steel he sold coming back at him during the War as bullets; he served as a navigator on patrol bombers in the Pacific. (His last words to me were of many of the times he almost died; searching the historical records of what he lived is sobering).

He last ran a logging show (using helicopters due to difficult access) in the Snake River country to the east at the age of 84.

I believe he was typical of a breed of folks resilient, lacking in self pity, and able to face change with ways to move forward.

Timothy