GOODSPRINGS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Greetings From
The Goodsprings Historical Society
We’re Back—Save the Date- Sept.11-12, 2021
This month, we would have celebrated the 38th Annual Goodsprings Reunion with a potluck lunch, a miner’s breakfast, good visits and a little business. But things are different now and so, for the second year in a row, our reunion and Annual meeting have been delayed. Government protocols in Nevada predict a full reopening of the State this summer. We are counting on that happening and, instead of waiting for May 2022, we are hoping to reschedule our Reunion for September 11 and 12, 2021. In a time of challenges and uncertainty, we are confident we can make our gathering memorable and safe. Please try to come. It will be so good to see everyone again.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Goodsprings Historical Society and Society business has continued while in lockdown. The Board has developed a wish list of things to accomplish in 2021. Replacing the damaged Goodsprings History sign at the Community Center is a priority, as is partnering with the Goodsprings CAC to place an informational sign at the town’s border. Developing a virtual museum remains a goal. The proposed online museum would archive our extensive photo collection as well as recorded interviews with members. Don’t be surprised if you are asked to record a story for us. We have gratefully collected 2020 dues from members. Dues for 2021 will be collected in September. Look for our newly redesigned membership cards when you renew. Sadly, we have received notice of the loss of members Thomas Fleming and Liz Warren. Please remember to keep us apprised of news about our members and check our website goodspringsnv.org to find activities planned by GHS.
The Goodsprings Historical Society appreciates its members and their commitment to Goodsprings. We hope to see you in September. Stay safe and well til then.
Do you remember when miners shoveled rocks by hand or when there was a mound of green rocks with Pop’s Oasis spelled in white on it at Jean? The story by the Osburn boys reminded me of those memories I’d forgotten. I love to hear Goodsprings stories. Please send them to me so I can share them in the newsletters. Thanks, Mary. tgs1mom@aol.com
Jim and Bob Osburn’s Early Memories of Moving to Goodsprings
Jim, Faye, Bob and Ann Osburn are great supporters of GHS. It is people like them that make our annual Reunions such a special event. The following are some of their early memories of living in Goodsprings.
In 1955, Dolph Bowman was trying to get a contract with Mary Moorehouse to work in her quarry and he felt there was plenty of work for his brother Hardy Bowman as well. So, Hardy, Betty and Betty’s sons Jim and Bob Osburn packed up their belongings in a 1939 Chevy box truck and a 1954 Plymouth and began their journey from Seattle, Washington to Goodsprings, Nevada.
They broke down in Pocatello, Idaho, and it took a day and a half to clean out the fuel line and get back on the road. They arrived in Goodsprings just before the first semester was ending, so the boys had a lot of work to make up when they entered school. Bob, about eleven years old went to Goodsprings Elementary School and Jim, fourteen, and Roma Foster his cousin, took the bus to Rancho High School. Betty Balance was the bus driver, and she took the high school students from Goodsprings, Erie, and Sloan to Arden and then they caught another bus with the Blue Diamond students and headed to Rancho High School. When Betty Balance retired, Betty Bowman took on the bus driving duties. Bob and Jim made lots of new friends in the Goodsprings area such as Patty Poole, Jim, Carol and John Michael Stephens, Johnny Balance, Wanda and Carolyn Smith as well as many others.
Things at the Mary Moorehouse quarry did not work out, so Hardy, Jim and Bob worked various other jobs such as salvaging metal from old junk cars and doing mine assessment work to financially make ends meet. There were many service stations along the old L. A. highway and if someone broke down, they would often sell their car or leave it and find another way to their destination. So, most of the service stations had a junk yard and would hire someone to salvage the metal from the old cars and haul it off for a percentage. Retired Sheriff Butch Leyopoldt and Dolph Bowman kept everyone working.
Hardy heard that Pop Simon was looking for someone to work in the rock yard at Jean, where rock was sorted by size and then bagged for sale. Hardy and Pop signed a contract and Jim, Bob and Hardy went to work. They first cleaned up and organized the yard. Pop bought some lumber, and they built new pallets and repaired the others. They were paid 25 cents for the repairs and 50 cents for the new ones. When they were not bagging rock, they would make ten to twelve pallets in a stack and six to eight stacks, to be always staged in the sacking areas. It was more work to repair pallets than build new ones.
At the rock yard they were sorting white rock from Devil’s Peak. The rock was hauled to Jean by Bill Barry in a 1956 superpower yellow Ford ten-wheeled dump truck. Bill would work at Devil’s Peak, load with an International crawler loader, and then haul his loads over a very rough road to get to the Jean rock yard. Bill would make one or two loads every day. Big Alex also worked at the mine at Devil’s Peak, he would drill and blast the rock down. He was a well-respected old timer hard rock miner who used Swedish steel rather than regular rock bits because it was faster.
At the rock yard at Jean, the work would begin at the Grizzly, which separates the rock by size. The Grizzly had several sets of bars in a grid pattern that let the smaller rocks go through and it was Jim and Bob’s job to break up the larger rocks that were left, using a double jack. The number one crusher would break rocks that came through the feed drawer of the Grizzly and break it down to rocks less than two inches. The smaller rocks would go on a belt to the number two crusher. The number two crusher had a vibrating screen on the top which kept two inch or larger rocks via a bypass plate and then send one inch minus to the left by belt to a set of lead rolls, then carried by belt to their respective bins. The two-inch rocks at the number two crusher flat deck plate were then sacked into 100-pound bags, about six or seven banjo shovelfuls per bag. The bags were used, some were sugar bags and some citric acid. Bob and Jim liked to use the sugar bags. Sometimes there was sugar in the bags, and they could suck on the sugar while they were working. The boys would wire tie the tops shut, then load the 100-pound bags on a pallet five bags per tier, six tiers high, and then Hardy would use the Oliver, a tractor, to move the pallets into the yard. The next step in the rock sorting process was to separate the rocks into the one inch and one-half inch bins. The one-inch rocks were bagged by hand and the smaller half inch rocks were bagged by hand on a sacking machine that Pop had rented from Blue Diamond Mine. All the rock that was hauled during the week was crushed into their respective bins and onto the deck plate for sacking. This was done during the week, sacked, after school, and on the weekends. Sometimes, we would have a hundred tons to deal with on Saturday morning, and it all had to be sacked, as the rock in bags on the pallets, was how everyone was paid. Big Alex, Bill Barry, Virgil and Corky Poole, Hardy and Betty Bowman, and Jim and Bob Osburn put in vouchers, to Pop Simon against the pallets that were finished in the yard, A hundred to two hundred filled pallets were not uncommon. All expenses fuel, oil, labor were charged against the finished pallets. Water was brought from Goodsprings chilled in wet gunny sack wrapped glass gallon jugs. We consumed two or three every day. The Hardy Bowman family worked at Pop Simon’s rock yard for three years. Jim went into the Navy after graduating Rancho High in 1960 and Bob followed him into the Navy three years later into the Western Pacific Amphibs.
Goodsprings Historical Society
Trustees:
Stephen Fleming
Julie Newberry
Dave Beisecker
David Lowe
Lary Anderson
Stephanie Stephens
Don Long
Treasurer: Julie Newberry
Website Manager: Peter Dawson
Newsletter Editor: Mary Blake
The Goodsprings Historical Society continues to be the voice for preservation of the special place that is Goodsprings, Nevada. We educate the public about our history. We advocate for issues that impact the town. We are a presence at County meetings and events. We hope to send more information by email in the future. Its cheaper! Please be sure we have your email as well as your mailing address.
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Membership dues: Sept. 2021-May 2022
Individual………….$5.00. Gold……………..$50.00
Family…… .……..$10.00 Lead/Zinc………….$100.00
Name_______________________. Address_________________________________________
Email_________________________________________ Amount Enclosed_____________
Send to Goodsprings Historical Society, Box 603, Goodsprings, NV 89019
Goodsprings Historical Society
P.O. Box 603
Goodsprings, NV. 89019
The Goodsprings Historical Society
Is a nonprofit organization established in
2001 to preserve the historical and natural
resources of the Goodsprings Township by
educating the public about its environment,
archaeology and history.
Goodsprings Historical Society
P.O. Box 603
Goodsprings, NV. 89019
