Are We There Yet?

You made need something to drink and a sandwich for this one.

What a drive. We got away from Wyoming before the winds started to reek havoc. Definitely glad we were headed south as well because the winds along I-80 going east were estimated to gust up to 80 mph.

Most of our drive was down Hwy 191 past Flaming Gorge Dam again.  Thanks to the high winds a lot of the smoke had blown away, clearing the scenery.

The last time we went past this the colors were covered over due to smoke. We past through at the right time, with the sun just right, it highlighted a piece of the hills.

We went into new territory when we made a left turn and headed south to Vernal. Before we hit Vernal we stopped at an overlook that encompassed the Simplot mining operation, and Red Fleet Reservoir.

Simplot mining operation is pulling phosphates from the ground, and after they have mined all the phosphate from an area, they do reclamation and bring the area back to what it was before they began mining, and their doing a nice job.

The highway actually runs over the mining operation, and is somewhere around 200,000 acres. There were warning signs along the road kindly stating "BLASTING AREA, STAY ON ROAD"... we did, even though they were not blasting the day we traveled by.

From the overlook there was a lot to see. In the distance, Red Fleet Reservoir and dam. Considering the area, the Red Fleet Dam is a youngster. It was started in 1977 and completed in 1980. The dam is smaller than Flaming Gorge at a height of 175 feet.

The rock formations supposedly look like battleships, that's why the dam and reservoir were named Red Fleet. I personally did not see the ships... oh well.

The overlook was a nice break in the drive, now it was time to continue. We stopped in Vernal for an exotic lunch. I'm not sure if it was Welsh, Irish, or Scottish... they called themselves Mc Donald's. From Vernal it was a two hour drive to Helper. WAS a two hour drive until we got within 10 miles of the pass summit. We ended up behind a semi pulling an over sized load at about 10 mph, and this went on for almost five miles. The semi made it to the summit and pulled to the side of the road so all of us could continue past, because he would be going slow downhill too.

The RV park we are going to is fairly new, only 18 months old. We made reservations for a site that provides us the opportunity for watching trains.

This is a new RV park from ground up. Originally the land was alfalfa fields owned by five separate people. It took the owners almost five years between buying the property, and red tape before they broke ground. Some of the sites are recycled asphalt, some are hard packed dirt/gravel mix. All the sites have picnic tables and fire rings on a colored crushed gravel. Like a lot of parks, they have tent spaces and cabins. There is a play area for the children that has a water feature for the children to run through. Laundry, bathrooms, and showers are available too. 

Tent Site

Bathroom and Showers

They thought of privacy when it came to showers, each individual bathroom has a shower. Another cool thing about the bathrooms... red/green occupancy lights over the doors.

We're home. I promised an opportunity for train watching.

It is fantastic to be able to sit in front of our trailer and watch trains go by, just like a kid with a new train set. I went on Google and found the RV park. The train yard next to us actually has nine sets of tracks, two sets for traffic. The other seven sets of tracks are for moving cars around, loading, and storage.

The town of Helper Utah is a gem hidden off of Hwy191. It doesn't look like much from the highway, but wait till you get in town. When I say downtown is a small snapshot of the past, it's because downtown is a whopping three blocks long. 

How did a town that was railroad and mining oriented get its name. The town got its name from the "helper" engines stationed here by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The Union Pacific was the first railroad in town.

Looking Downtown

The RV park is so close to town, Carol and I walked all of downtown and hit the Mining and Railroad Museum before lunch. On the left in the above photo is the renovated Conoco gas station, circa 1940s.

Here's the kicker folks:

at:

That's right... FULL SERVICE and . 38 cents per gallon for premium... 

and they gave S&H GREEN STAMPS!!

The car in the service bay has history, and a story.

This is a 1949 Buick convertible. Let's go back in time now... the owner of the gas station bought this car as a graduation gift for his son. His son got married and had a daughter. The car became a wedding gift to his daughter who married Michael Landon (Little House on the Prairie). Somewhere along the way the car made it's way back to Helper, and into a farmers garage. Jump ahead in time... two brothers trying to bring Helper back to life, buy the gas station. As they are renovating the gas station they find a picture of the car sitting in the service bay and wish they could find that car. Well their dream came true, because someone in town knew that the farmer had the car they were looking for. They contacted the farmer, he explained that the first time he saw the car, it was sitting in that service bay. He bought it when the opportunity arose. The farmer was kind enough to sell the car to the brothers, with one stipulation... the car was to sit in that service bay again. The brothers were thrilled with the deal because that was their intentions from the onset. Anyway, that's the way the story was told to us.

There were three gas stations in this town, one at the outskirts in either direction, and one in town. The brothers have renovated two of the three gas stations.

Before I went off track... ha ha, I was at the Mining and Railroad Museum. The first time we walked by it, it was closed, so we continued on down the street to see the rest of Main Street. There are a lot of buildings with their original store fronts and advertisements on the sides of the buildings.

We walked down one side of the street and crossed over to the other. Crossing the street in front of the library was a bit of a treat. Unlike the big cities and the button pushing to cross streets, orange flags are used here, they are posted on both sides of the road.

Once across the street we stopped to visit Big John, the coal miner.

Big John got his name from the 1961 hit song "16 Tons". Big John himself became a resident of Helper in 1964. He stands 18 feet tall, and made of fiberglass. We continued our stroll back up Main Street, and by the time we got to the Mining and Railroad Museum, it was open. The museum is both inside and outside, with part of the exhibits next to the building, others in a lot behind the building.

Before the above machine came into being, the mine ceilings were held up by coal pillars. This machine removes the coal on a conveyor belt, and the mine ceiling is held up by the shields (the fin looking piece).

The shield is designed to hold up to 450 tons.

The museum was created in 1985 and housed in the old Helper Hotel building. There are three floors of history about railroading and mining, with incites to the lives of others that lived in the county. It was interesting learning that most of the hotels catered to extracurricular activities desired by the miners and railroad men... in other words... the top floor of the hotels were usually bordellos. 

             Standard bordello room in the day.

Work wasn't the only thing the men came together for, sports were a big event, especially baseball. Every mining company had a baseball team. Caring for the field was important, meaning there was money to be had for anyone, and that would have been Sam "Shorty" Rachiele, who was willing to maintain the ball field:

This mover saved hours mowing, later on a seat was added to make it a riding mower.

Now when those miners got to work, they got to work. The basement portion of the museum is dedicated to mining. Imagine yourself getting ready for work in the mine back in the day... coveralls, hard hat, head lamp (if you're a miner in the 1940s), and your lunch bucket. You walk to the "Check In/Out" Board and place your number tag on it's respective hook.

 

Miner's Time Clock (Check In/Out Board)

Now it's time to march, or ride smartly into the dark cavern called the office. In some mines skateboarding was allowed if they were on their way into the office.

These miners are taking their skateboards into the office, traveling in tandem for more stability.

The "skateboard" griped on the the tramway rail, and was controlled by their feet. And you thought cars today are made too small for safety sake.

In the office you may spent 10 to 12 hours moving product around, and somewhere in there you get to break for lunch, half hour if you're lucky.

Today when we go to lunch it might be in the lunchroom at the office, with either a bag or "Igloo" lunch box, or more likely out to a fast food joint. The miners didn't have that option, they took there lunches with them into the mines. They sat wherever there was space, usually in a poorly lit area. After lunch it was back to the grind.

In the the earlier days of mining lighting was accomplished by candles, they might have been worn on the miner's hat, or on a candle holder secured in support timbers.

Things have come a long way for the sake of coal mining. The bottom photo is a battery charger for miner's headlamps. 

Working the mines wasn't always a piece of cake (my opinion only). 

I don't see me going into a deep dark hole with a tiny lamp on my head, trusting supports like those in the photo above... looks like Jenga to me, and the opportunity to suck in nasty air. The joy.

An 11 year old boy's project caught the essence of how dangerous  coal mining was:

The yellow dots on the board show where all the bodies were found after the 1924 Castle Gate mine explosion. As one can see, it was a major disaster.

The families were living the life of luxury too.

If the workers were lucky their families had homes that didn't leak, were properly insulated, and had working appliances. Appliances could be anything from the early 1900s to mid 1900s.

I don't see a problem with the refrigerator, it looks to be about the size we have in our trailer. Grocery stores were close to home too, or at least a mile or two down the road.

In their spare time the wives had the opportunity to do other exciting things besides cleaning the house, cooking, and watching the children. Here are only a few extracurricular activities that were available:

The family always needed their worn clothes repaired, or new shirts because the old ones couldn't be patched anymore. Of course they couldn't run around with dirty clothes. Some wives were so lucky, their washing machine was electric.

After all the grueling excitement, some of the moms and wives would force themselves downtown for a little torture at the hands of merchandisers.

Here's the torture salon to some, beauty salon to others. And what better place to go than a store that sells hats to cover the hair that was just done up.

Fashion is SO Important

Some of the residence of Helper that didn't work the mines chose to go into the military and fight overseas. There is several rooms dedicated to those who served.

In fact one of the Naval officers received the Navy Cross for his actions during Pearl Harbor.

The photos in this blog have only scratched the surface of what there is to see.

Now let's talk about the railroad exhibit on the second floor of the museum. Remember I said that the town got its name from the "helper" engines stationed here, well they had an engine turntable too. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad decided they wanted to move it to a higher altitude in the pass, but that didn't work, too many breakdowns. The turntable was moved back to Helper. 

There is a lot of railroad history at the museum, but for some reason I was fascinated with all the train disasters. There were floods, derailings, people falling off bridges... the usual.

The damage in these three photos was caused by the 1917 flood when the Mammoth Reservoir dam broke. Besides this damage, the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad depot was washed downstream. I will leave on a more pleasant note, the town and railroads did rebuilt. If more information is desired, go to: facebook.com/helperutahmuseum.

The next day Carol and I took it easy and stayed close to home. In the morning we walked around the RV park. It isn't a long walk around the park, but it does have a few stop offs along the river that runs at the back of the property.

Steps to the Water

The river is the Price River, and runs fairly fast. The RV park has posted "NO LIFEGUARDS ON DUTY" signs at all possible access points.

After some work around the trailer the day before, we headed for downtown again to visit the vintage car/motorcycle museum. They are not actually a museum, but do have old stuff on display. Their basement is a dream come true for "pickers" that like Harley Davidson motorcycles. Go to Facebook page: facebook.com/VintageMotorCompany/Helper.

The brother we talked to was very knowledgeable about the motorcycles. He explained that police used motorcycles with side cars back in the day.

The evolution of the side car first started with the "greenish" side car, upper right, in the photo. This side car would have been seen in the 1930s. In the 1930s they were kind enough to put a door in the car so anybody, fellow police officer, or criminal, could get in. The red side car, circa 1950s, had a retractable windshield for whomever was getting in the car, once in the car the windshield was pulled back up. Both of the side cars  were made of metal.

 Now... lets talk about the 1960s. The side car above was no frills, except for the fact it was made from fiberglass. If someone was getting in, they had to jump in and hope they didn't hit the windshield on the way in.

The basement:

This was only a part of the "basement of spare parts". The brother that took us on tour treated us to stories about the different parts. 

In the photo above, about middle left, those are the covers that go over the gas tank, to hold the gauges. Through manufacturing, the covers were lovingly named "the skull" during early manufacturing days. This was because the holes in the cover made it look like a skull. Later manufactured covers were lovingly called "the cat" because the small holes looked like slanted cat eyes.

Stay in the photo and look at the chrome covers. Well... some of the chrome ones were specifically designed for police motorcycles. There was a special knob mounted to lock their speedometer when chasing someone for speeding. Additionally there was a hole on the side of the cover. This hole was for a button used to reset their speedometer.

Back upstairs.

Only 25 Made

Not Just a Bike, a Racing Bike

The U.S. government had over 19,000 of these made. The Calvary went from horses to motorcycles in WWII. There are rare to see because our government basically dumped them in the sea after the war was over. This one was found in Australia.

And for the car lover:

This Corvette started as a rust bucket, and the brothers brought it back to life.

And for the surfer out there:

a Real Woody

The brothers are dedicated to recreating things as they were during their original era. With that said, their business is in what use to be the Lincoln Hotel.

We were told by some of the locals that we should take a drive up Spring Canyon Road and see what was left of the old mining towns. SPOILER ALERT: don't look for complete buildings.

What is left of this structure was originally built up so that train cars could be loaded with coal mined from the hills around it. The reason it was built up was so the train cars could be loaded via gravity.

The circled area is the retainer wall for the train tracks. Once the train picked up its load from this mine, it continued up to the next mine. Next stop:

This was the next stop, over the tracks that are no more, in to the building.

At this mine the cars were loaded in side this building.

It got from one mine to the other through the little mining towns. Here is what is left:

Leftover Fireplace

It was still amazing to think about life on the edge of the mountains, mining for coal, in what would have been the middle of nowhere. The water that ran through the area has since been bottled up by the reservoir, and redirection to other areas.

I failed to mention that the roads on this journey were gravel and almost un-bouncy. There was some beautiful scenery on the ride though.

We made a big U-Turn and headed back to town. On the way back we decided to drive up to the water tower on the hill overlooking the town.

This rock formation is called "Balance Rock" by the locals. In fact a restaurant in town is named after this rock. It is hard to see, but a couple of guys maybe 50 years ago climbed the rock to mount a flag pole, but no flag flies from it because they did not take in to account the high winds that blow around here.

I took a three mile walk about 6:00 am one morning, with the goal of getting photos of the renovated gas station on the other side of town. Well... I didn't account for darkness at that time of the morning. That three mile walk, was round trip, I told you this town was small. Let's get to the photos:

One of the Business'

Modifications to the Town

This gas station had a lot of antique vehicles.

It looks neat right? after I took the photos the Helper police pulled in, I thought I was in trouble. He was there pounding on the door trying to wake someone up because of an incident in town. I think you can guess that I figured out I was on private property, all was good, I walked back home.

We took it easy our last day in Helper, and drove down to Price for gas, Walmart, and lunch. With all accomplished we made it home to complete final preps for departure to Green River Utah. There is still much to see and do here.