Oral history interview with Jesse Goddard [with transcript], August 22, 1976.

              FLAGSTAFF PUBLIC LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Mr. Jesse Goddard
Interview number NAU.OH.28.59

 

Mr. Jesse Goddard, who used to work for the Apache Maid cattle ranch as a cowboy and foreman. Interview conducted by John Irwin on August 22, 1976. Transcribed on July 8, 1996. Transcriber: Nancy Warden. 

 

Outline of Subjects Covered in Taped Interview 

 

Tape 1, Side 1

 

Spring round-up at Apache Maid ranch 

Cattle drive to Flagstaff 

Stampede at Pump House 

Route 

Location of holding pens for cattle 

Effect of Babbitts’s slaughterhouse on penned cattle 

Shipping points 

Trail followed 

Number of cowboys herding cattle 

Trucking cattle 

Working with other cowboys 

Foreman at Apache Maid 

Other ranches worked 

Cattle drive to Clarkdale 

Winter and summer pastures 

Round-Up time 

Association Group cattle 

Horses used in cutting cattle 

Chuck wagon 

Sleeping out in the open 

Time off for relaxing

 

Tape 1, Side 2

 

Time spent in Flagstaff 

Drinking during Prohibition 

Meeting other cattle drives 

Babbitt family ranches 

Cattle rustling 

Ear marking calves – “sleepers” 

Sheep ranchers 

Forest Service permits to run animals 

Overstocked cattle during this period resulting in damage to forest land 

Ranch life 

Bunkhouses 

Camping 

Odd jobs on ranch 

Farming on ranch: hay, alfalfa 

Forest Service took over ranch land 

Discussion of Larry Mellon 

Fencing in cattle ranges on Forest Service land 

Water tanks 

Camping and working with “Dutch” Dickinson 

Camp cook 

Meeting up with pack of wolves

 


JOHN IRWIN: This is John Irwin from the NAU Library in Flagstaff, Arizona. I'm talking with Jesse (Jess) Goddard in Camp Verde, Arizona. The date is August 22nd, 1976. In a previous interview with Jess, done by Virginia Rice, last year, a copy which is in NAU Library, much of Jess's background is discussed. But, today we'll be talking about Jess's working on the Apache Maid Cattle Ranch up on the Mogollon Rim near Flagstaff. 


JOHN IRWIN: Ah, Jess, can you tell me something about spring round up at the Apache Maid? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, we'd start the spring round up down here, oh, probably in, around the twentieth of May or something like that, of putting everything on the mountain. Lot of the cows… the cattle went up theirselves. But, ah, we'd have to work this whole Verde Valley. It was all open range then, from Clear Creek to where the Wood's Ranch or so. We had to work the Valley and put these cattle up on the mountain. And then when we got to the… we got them all up, while we started the round-up on the mountain up there where we would gather all the cattle and do the branding. Sometimes, we had in those days they… I'm referring this way back to the twenties. I imagine that some days, like one time I was at… when the spring works at Brady, what they call "Brady, we'd be rounded up there by nine o'clock in the morning. We'd had two thousand head of cattle in spite of…heck, and we didn't want that many. Because, you could not work that many cattle and get all the calves branded. They get… those calves get tired, you know, and they lay down, and don't go to the mothers, and we have an awful time with that. But ah… and we'd work the whole mountain range, work all that country and along up the branding in the spring. And then we would, oh we'd range ride some in the summer if the winds wasn't bad, branding. And, of course, we always had a lot of doggone wood fence building and farming and things like that. Then in the fall, we'd start about the… along, maybe about the twentieth of September. It would take us probably a month or a… maybe longer on the round-ups, because we had a… it was enormous country to work. And we'd start to Flagstaff, and sometimes we'd have a thousand, maybe twelve hundred head of steers. 


JOHN IRWIN: At what time of the month or the year was this, in the fall? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, that would be anywhere from, from generally around the first of November, it's generally when they're shipping times. Sometimes it would be later, but anytime after the first of November you'd liable to run into trouble up there. And… 


JOHN IRWIN: Because of the snow? 


JESSE GODDARD: On account of the snow up there. I remember one time, we was going to Flag; we had about twelve hundred, and we was, we was… had’em in a big holding lot there at the old Pump House. And I don't know what touched them off that night, but something happened, and we had a stampede that'd go down in history of men. Cowboys all over that country that night, darker than the dickens. Be by yourself a lot of times with a little bunch. And I don't know if there was spooks, but every time you got fifty together, why they'd run again. And by Golly, of the next morning when we went to comin' in after daylight, we'd lost very, very few cattle. I thought we'd lose them all, but we didn't. 


JOHN IRWIN: How many cattle did you have? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well about twelve hundred in that haul. 


JOHN IRWIN: Twelve hundred? 


JESSE GODDARD: About twelve hundred in that bunch. That's, you know, that's a long… when they get strung out, and so much of that country, you had to string them out and drive them. It made a long string of cattle when there was about twelve hundred. We'd generally take about, some (?) time three days… didn't have too many, but sometime four days to get to the stockyards at Flagstaff. We'd go to the Wood Ranch the first day, maybe what they call "Blow-out Pasture" the next day, that's, that's up there where the other side of Munds Park where you see, the road says "Willard Springs". 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. 


JESSE GODDARD: That was off to the left of there; a little ways out there, there was a pasture there that we'd put them in. And then the next night we'd go to that holding pasture at the Pump House, and then the next day, we'd run into hell when we got over at Bitter Creek trying to cross, getting to the stockyards of Flagstaff. Then get in there late in the evening, and did try to corral 'em in that corral. That's the sorriest corral that was, I think, that was ever owned by any railroad, because in the place it was situated. 


JOHN IRWIN: Excuse me. Whereabouts is the corral? Where was the corral in Flagstaff? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, ah, it is out there towards your Little America. Out there in that open, not where the highway there… it was, I believe (?) _______, you know, oh, when you get out there in that… out east of Flagstaff where that first road takes off to the… to go to get on the highway… 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. 


JESSE GODDARD: 40? You'll see to your right out there in the flat, a big old pine tree. And that's where the stockyard was. And I'd like to go up there and cut that pine tree down and saw it up and burn it up, because it's sittin' right in the gate. Where we were trying to corral those cattle, they would get right up there to the gate, and they'd just mill around and around and around and attack mill (?), and if we could break that mill (?) right and get 'em started in the corral okay, if the damned train didn't come around that bend up there, which generally always did, and blow the whistle. And then them cattle would take off out through those tin cans and things, and we would have a heck of a time ever getting them back. And Babbitts' slaughter house, right there close; the smell of it didn't help anything on those cattle either, getting them in there, because they was really spooky. Because they would smell it. Cattle right off the range, there wasn't, there wasn't gentle like they are today. And things was quite a bit different. Okay, shut it off. 


JOHN IRWIN: Jess, did all the cattle get shipped out that you got into the corral, finally? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yes. It was all shipped by rail in those days. 


JOHN IRWIN: Then where did the cattle come for the slaughterhouses the Babbitt slaughter house you mentioned? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, we, we took several cattle in there a lot of times during the summer to the slaughterhouse. And I don't know, I guess other ranches and things around there; the Babbitt place'd probably probably brought 'em. And I don't know whether they shipped in any that was corn fed or not. I don't know where they got all their cattle. 


JOHN IRWIN: Was that mainly for local consumption? 


JESSE GODDARD: I think so. Just local consumption, down there at Babbitts', yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: But you think that was a big error to have it so close to the corral? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, they kept, at that time when it was built, it was built way out there in the sticks, but the way it's now, you see, it's right in town. 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. 


JESSE GODDARD: But, it was all right at those days, when they built it out there, but. No, it didn't help them any; it was built so close to that stockyard, with those kind of cattle. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did a lot of people bring their cattle in that way to Flagstaff to get shipped on the train? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, the only place they had in the country was Flagstaff or ah, Clarkdale. 


JOHN IRWIN: Clarkdale. 


JESSE GODDARD: That's the only way. 'Course when they get way over farther east, why they went to Winslow. 


JOHN IRWIN: Winslow. So most everybody drove them in through Flagstaff. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yes. Those people way down in Pine, and Payson… 


JOHN IRWIN: That far. 


JESSE GODDARD: They'd drive them, a lot of times. They'd even come through here going to Clarkdale. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh. 


JESSE GODDARD: But they had trouble any time, yes. 


JOHN IRWIN: Between Apache Maid Ranch and Flagstaff, was there a trail or a road or something that you followed? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, a lot of times we'd be on the road, and a lot of times well we did cross country. The first day to the Wood Ranch, it was pretty much straight across the country there. But from then on, we had the old road, which is very, very much on the same road; it goes up to there today. 


JOHN IRWIN: Was it just a path or…? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, it was a wagon road. 


JOHN IRWIN: It was a wagon road? 


JESSE GODDARD: It was a wagon road. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did that road begin down in the Valley and…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, it went to Phoenix. 


JOHN IRWIN: Like it did now (?). 


JESSE GODDARD: When you're going to Flagstaff, they, they go… well, instead of going out of the Valley here then, instead of going up like they do now, they went up what they call the "Blue Grade". That was just east of where the road goes up the mountain now. But after got up there on top, why they come back together went right to… the old road crossed Rattlesnake just exactly where this new road crosses. Where the Rattlesnake Tank… only this new road goes up to the right and makes a circle about what we called "Red Hill Pass", and come back. When the old road went straight up by "Pine Tanks" and "Dutchy (?) Tank" into the Wood's Ranch. But they all come, then they come together right there on top the hill where you went off into Wood's Ranch. But from then on, we followed the old road very much until we got to the other side of the Pump House, and then we quit it and went straight across to the stockyards and across the road up there. I imagine out through where the airport is now. 


JOHN IRWIN: The airport. 


JESSE GODDARD: Flagstaff, right along through… went through there to go on to the stockyards. 


JOHN IRWIN: The Pump House is where Kachina Village is now? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, Kachina Village, uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: And that was your last night stop before you came to Flagstaff. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. They had a big holding lot there. 


JOHN IRWIN: How many cowboys usually accompanied that many cattle? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well. I don't remember about just how many. There must have been about ten or twelve of us. 


JOHN IRWIN: Ten or twelve? 


JESSE GODDARD: Something like that, yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: And once you arrived in Flagstaff and got all the cattle in the lot, then what did you have to do? Could you leave ____? 


JESSE GODDARD: Go to camp and eat. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: How long was it before the train would come to pick them up? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, between that night and next day, they ship them out next day. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. 


JESSE GODDARD: Put them in that night, why then we had a lot of work to do in the stock yard of cutting them and go different ways; maybe different ages and things like that. Those days, they sold pretty much by the head not for the pound. Yearlings so much, twos and threes. Maybe yearlings twenty-two dollars two years old, thirty-two, and maybe a three year old forty and up. What I mean by "up" would be over three years old. From three years old on up. So it didn't make much difference we chouse them a little bit, because same price sugar (?). 


JOHN IRWIN: Then you had to separate them yourself in the corral. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, in the corral, but there they… that stockyards in Flag, all they had was just a bunch of corrals. You had to do it on horseback so much. 


JOHN IRWIN: Inside the corral. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, in there. We'd have to separate 'em the way you wanted them, and do a bunch of horseback. But in Clarkdale, we'd do it a foot, because it's much faster, 'cause we had a big lane to work 'em in. 


JOHN IRWIN: Why wasn't the corral in Flagstaff improved since there was so much ranching…? 


JESSE GODDARD: I don't know. Who ever laid that out, they just built a bunch of corrals. 


JOHN IRWIN: That's all. That's all. 


JESSE GODDARD: I guess Santa Fe built 'em. 


JOHN IRWIN: When… how long did this go on? There's not a corral there anymore. When did it stop? 


JESSE GODDARD: I really don't know when they tore it down. It was a great thing when they tore it down as far as I was concerned. (Laughs). I don't know when they tore it down. You see they're putting… everything goes by truck today. 


JOHN IRWIN: Do you have any idea about when they started trucking the cattle instead of driving them in? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, they was a truckin' 'em, I guess maybe around twenty-five years ago, something like that. 


JOHN IRWIN: Is that all? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. I think it was really in there (?), maybe a little before that in some places. But now everyone put there own scales in right at their place, and the truck comes and gets them and weighed out and no more of this drives. 


JOHN IRWIN: That must have been very difficult to be in charge of all that many cattle. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, I never would get mad when I was a foreman of that on the round-ups or anything 'til we started to town. And doggone cowboys, cowboys all their lives, lot of them, that we should have rested. If everybody had got in place and stayed there. But they liked to get what we'd call "ride one horse". They like to get behind and peddle "the bull" you know and talk. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh. 


JESSE GODDARD: And, that used to make me madder than the devil. (Laughs). The first day, I'd get by, but the next day, I might tell them to get up there on the sides if we had to straighten out and drive them and stay there. One time, it took at blow out there, I told them to get up there on the side and not come back. I just kept one boy back there with me. Just the two of us. And he said, "Well we can't drive just the two of us." I said I don't need you to help me. I said anybody’s better. I said these cattle behind me don't have any more business being any wider than they are in front. But they crowded me, you know, and everybody would scatter out, because we'd just ride along with the leg over the saddle horn. They'd walk along. The others'd get out of the way, because they had no business being any wider behind me than in front of me. Pay attention to what they’re doing. I used to get pretty darn mad on the… you get working there, why, then they'd bunch up and talk. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: When you were at Apache Maid… that is a Babbitt Ranch, isn't it? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. It was a Babbitt; Jim Ralston was that brought it there, but it was really Babbitts'. 


JOHN IRWIN: You were foreman for…? 


JESSE GODDARD: I got to be foreman about 1928. I went to work there, I guess, first in the fall of twenty-one. And then, and then I was supposed to been working steady there, but I didn't in the fall. I went to work in the spring of twenty-two. And then I worked there off and on for twelve years. 


JOHN IRWIN: Twelve years. And you were foreman from twenty-eight on. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well what time I was there, mostly. Yeah, there was… oh, I'd sneak off and go down the river here and work once and awhile in another outfit. That's where I learned to cowboy. 'Cause when I first went to work up at the Apache Maid there, maybe it would be thirty-five on the round up, something, ______ the cattle want to break out. Why, let it go let somebody else go get it, because there were so darn many. But when I went to work down the river here, maybe about six or seven on the round-up, why you got so when an old cow throwed her head up and there was wild cattle in the herd looking out, you know what was going to happen. You got around in front of her because you didn't want her to break out, because, of course… and we loved to rope, too. But if it was along about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and you was a long ways away from camp and wanted to eat, well you didn't want her to break out of there so you'd have to rope and putt around and lose and hour or two. So you learned pretty quick to get on the ball and stay there. Oh, we had lots of fun down there. We had a lot of roping, you know, and lot of tying them up and leading them in and all that stuff. 


JOHN IRWIN: This is Apache Maid. 


JESSE GODDARD: No, this here was down at the H______ outfit down below Camp Verde, down to Verde Hot Springs, country north. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. 


JESSE GODDARD: That we'd go up there, it was Mud Tank country, all of that. That was the country there. 


JOHN IRWIN: So you worked really in two different places? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: Going back and forth. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: You mentioned also that you sometimes took cattle to Clarkdale from Apache Maid. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, sometimes we'd get lazy. Why, we would take them, we would take them to Clarkdale. Sometimes selling calves, why sometime we'd… there… we'd take the cows with them to Clarkdale and cut the calves away from the mothers then, and then we'd have to bring the cows back. But that was, that was a hard job. You couldn't… after they got to selling calves instead of the yearlings, or two-year-olds and stuff like that with the steers. You know, Joe Kellam in Flag, he lived before your time, and he used to ______ the big old steers all over that country. And, he'd buy the cattle from the Apache Maid and different places, and keep them until they were five or six years old. They'd be great big steers, you know. Oh, big monsters. But, they don't do that anymore. But that truckin' really saved a lot of work when they, when they got to sellin' the calves. Because, if you had to take the cows with them, if you didn't, why you really run the fat off of those calves, and trying to go back to get to the mothers. It was bad in either way. Well, I guess we had no business being a cowboy. It was… 


JOHN IRWIN: Why? 


JESSE GODDARD: Hard luck, I guess. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: What was the route that you followed from Apache Maid down to Clarkdale? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well we came off of the part (?) of what we call "Red Tank Point", that there's about at the foot of the Blue Grade, and put them in the Winter Cabin pasture. Called it the "Winter Cabin Pasture". That's right there where the Sedona Road takes off from I-17; right there. You went right, that road goes through the old pasture there a lot. And then from there, we would, oh maybe we'd work them down and take it easy and make it down to what it's called "Ace Triangle" winter pasture. That would be down there at, well, that's where Apache Maid got there headquarters, winter place there now, where Beasey (?) Bench they call it. Of course isn't very far from, wouldn't be very far down. And we'd even go from there to Wilbert Canyon. Of course they had a cow outfit on this side, that joined ours. And we'd go there to Wilbert Canyon and then from Wilbert Canyon, we'd go to Clarkdale. But it all was all bad. Of course, we didn't know any other way, you know. Everybody's the same way, so… We didn't know any other way, so that is it. 


JOHN IRWIN: How long would it take you for that trip? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, we come down to the Winter Cabin right about three… it would take us about four days. 


JOHN IRWIN: Four days. 


JESSE GODDARD: Right in there, something like that, uh huh. But we never did go to Clarkdale with as big a bunches as we did, for some reason or another, as we did to Flagstaff. Of course, when we first went to work up there, why it seemed like all of the… we shipped from Flagstaff all the time. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, you only went to Clarkdale if the weather was getting too bad. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. I know one time, about the year I left there or something, I got pretty doggone mad at the old boy that was working with the… seeing about those cows. 'Cause he kept riding me on the round-up up there to hurry up, we got to ship these cattle. Well, you don't hurry up when you gather them all. And we got to the Wood's Ranch, and he's supposed to be out a certain day to the ranch with a buyer to, they had a "cut" a comin'. And look them over, you know, and if there was any they wanted to cut out. And, I got the boys all started rounding up the pasture, so loped in to the ranch to tell the guy where to go. When I got there, it was old Ed Thurston. He said, "Oh", he said, "Jesse", he said, "I didn't bring the buyer." He said our contract only calls for the fifteenth. I think that was November. And this here was about, I think, about the tenth. Something like that. And doggone, wind was blowing; big clouds a boiling like it was really going to come a big snow, you know. I said, "Okay, that's fine, but I'm sure as hell headed for Clarkdale tomorrow." Because, those cattle was all ballin' and walking the fence then, and, so I started to Clarkdale early with them. We left early next morning, and I never saw a bunch of cattle line out and take down the country pretty (?) in my life. And we got down there to Rattlesnake, and I was going to be in the Winter Cabin pasture by really early evening. And when we hit the highway, I had to go down the highway, the CCC Camp was moving from, from, oh I don't know where it was. Up on the mountain, where they were moving to Clear Creek. There was twenty-two cars and trucks went through that herd between there and the top of the Rim, that was six miles. Well they just quit. They just… dog gone cars in among them all the time, and their (?) own cattle and calves separated, and all that, and we didn't have it _______. If the moon hadn't come up that night just as we got to the foot of the mountain, we'd have been really in trouble, because it'd been so dark, we had a big old moon come up and light to it. It was way in the night when we got to the pasture, when we should have been down there real early. 


JOHN IRWIN: Was that a usual occurrence? Did that happen very often? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. And that was on Sunday, too. That CCC Camp was movin' off the mountain to that. By golly, we didn't have much traffic those days, you know. Thought maybe might meet a car or two, but… Well meetin' a car didn't bother you much, but it was going down through them that’s where it wrecked you. But I never will forget. I didn't count the ones we met, I just countin' the ones that went down through there twenty-two of them. Finally when we got to the top of the mountain, I had to send a man to the foot and stop all cars until we got off, because, it was graded. If they had started up there, they couldn't go, and we couldn't either. We of had a traffic… 


JOHN IRWIN: How long would it take for you to round up the cattle in order to get them ready for a drive? A couple of weeks or…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, you mean when we'd get ready to go to ship, like up there? 


JOHN IRWIN: Yes. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, when started to round them up, when we started the round up and everything, it took us about a month. 


JOHN IRWIN: A month? 


JESSE GODDARD: We figured a month, maybe, yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: Were there many other cattle companies in the area? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yes. What the call the "Association Group". A lot of different people that owned cattle all in the same range. That's where… yeah, that was the Association. 


JOHN IRWIN: It must have been very difficult to… 


JESSE GODDARD: That's why we had so many cattle. That's why we had so many cowboys. There wasn't so many working for the Apache Maid, there, but there were all the other guys that had, that had cattle there. And some of the guys working for them that ______ ______. And be, guys reppin’ (?) from other place coming from over from maybe the Heart Cattle Company across the mountain. And then from over to the north of us on the side of the Wood Ranch. They'd send somebody there. That's why we'd have so many on the round up. 


JOHN IRWIN: It must have been very difficult to separate the different company's cattle. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah, well, we were used to it, we never… 


JOHN IRWIN: You were used to it. 


JESSE GODDARD: Used to it, yes. We knew the brands, all the brands and everything. Yeah, we were used to it. That wasn't no problem. It took time, yeah. And what we, you'd be amazed at what some of those horses worked. We just used for that. Cuttin' all those cattle out of there, you know. 


JOHN IRWIN: What do you mean? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, there a lot of things (?). We called it "cuttin' cattle". Actually, it's a separate 'em, you know, different brands and different herds. There you'd… some guy'd have his storage (?) bunch maybe out there, and you’d… he'd cuttin' his cattle out on that side. And maybe somebody off over here. But those old, some of them up there we didn't use, only for just workin' that herd. Why, what I mean, they, they were good. They would, they'd come out of there, they'd just watchin' that neck, put that cow out of there, what I mean. And they did it in quiet way and never get the herd stirred up or anything. 


JOHN IRWIN: That's an unusual horse. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, it was, well they was used to it. They’re smarter than you think, a lot of people think. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did you train these horses yourself on the ranch? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, I didn't. I had some I drove like that, it'd help. Some horses come by it natural. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh. 


JESSE GODDARD: They do. Some of them come by it natural. You didn't pound it in their head, no matter what you did. I tell you, they, they come all by it pretty natural. I thought… it seemed like they just natural, some of them just natural born cow horses. 


JOHN IRWIN: When you were rounding up the cattle getting ready for the drive, did you have the chuckwagon come out with you? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yes. That was the main thing, the chuckwagon, and the horse wrangler. I found out right quick when we was runnin' the outfit, if you had a good cook and a good horse wrangler, you had it made. And we had a good cook. We had some of the best cooks ever was up there, and we had some of the sorriest, too. Most of them, Charlie Mulligan, one of them cooked for us most of the time. Boy, did we eat. 


JOHN IRWIN: What kind of food did you have? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, just, ah, beef three times a day mostly. 


JOHN IRWIN: Yes. 


JESSE GODDARD: Which didn't bother, which I never did get tired of it. Potatoes and beans and dried fruit and… We didn't have no fancy salads and that kind of stuff, but just good old chuck (?). I never did turn; no time didn't turn down a good steak. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did you sleep out on the ground? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. Yeah, we didn't have no… 


JOHN IRWIN: You didn't have tents. 


JESSE GODDARD: We didn't have… well, some of the outfits, the other side of us. We never did, we never had any tents. And if there'd come a doggone rain up at night, everybody got up and rolled up their bed and built a big fire and stomped pretty light (?) of that around the fire all night in the mud. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: In the mud. Oh. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, there at the Pump House, by gosh, it rained better than all night. 


JOHN IRWIN: How miserable! 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, gosh yes. I'll say miserable. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, how far was the ranch from Flagstaff, would you say? 


JESSE GODDARD: I think they call it, the road, I think call it thirty-five miles. 


JOHN IRWIN: Thirty-five miles. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: How often did you get into town? 


JESSE GODDARD: Not very often. 


JOHN IRWIN: Not that often. 


JESSE GODDARD: No, not very often. We didn't get, us cowboys, we didn't get in there very often. That was… they didn't want us to go to town. We might go down below the tracks. (Both laugh.) 


JOHN IRWIN: So, once you came to town, you got all the cattle shipped away, then you had a couple of days off, or did you have to go right back? 


JESSE GODDARD: We went right back. What do you mean a couple of days off? We didn't know what a couple of days off was. Any time we knew what, any time we had off was maybe three or four days Fourth of July and a couple of days maybe Christmas. And that was it. 


JOHN IRWIN: That's it. 


JESSE GODDARD: That was it. Other times, seven days a week. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, certainly you had some time in Flagstaff when you brought the cattle in to do a little bit of celebrating. 

 

END TAPE 1, SIDE 1, BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE 2 


JESSE GODDARD: I and Dutch Dickinson (?). We were there around town putting around. And pretty soon, one of the guys, one come and told me and say, "Hey", said you better come down here and get those damn cowboys. Said they're down there at the Mexican dance and all of them drunker than hell. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: And you were in charge of your men, then? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. I went down there, and our darn cook, he had all their hats piled up ________, son of a gun. I told him, I said you dang guys come out of there and get in the truck. We are going home. I was afraid one of those darn Mexicans'd slip a knife in them or something, you know. They was really a chargin' those Mexican girls havin' the time of their life. 


JOHN IRWIN: So what did you finally have to do? ______. 


JESSE GODDARD: No, no they came along with me. 


JOHN IRWIN: They came along with you? 


JESSE GODDARD: They cussed me a little bit, but I didn't pay no attention. They wanted to stay, but I just afraid there'd be trouble, you know. They claim Mexicans ______, I understand kind of a jealous people. 


JOHN IRWIN: Mmm. 


JESSE GODDARD: So I didn't know much about them. No. They came along with me all right. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did most of the cowboys go to the bars along Santa Fe _______? 


JESSE GODDARD: At that time, there was no bars. 


JOHN IRWIN: There weren't? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, Prohibition. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh, Prohibition. That's right. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: So what did you do? What did they do? Did they have private parties? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, you could always buy if you know where to go, and there was always somebody'd know where to go. Like we, we took a big… we took a bunch of cattle, cows and calves and everything from the Apache Maid across to what they call the "Little Hawkins". That's way out towards the Grand Canyon from the Apache Maid. It was another Babbitt outfit, CO Bar country. And, we got back to Flagstaff, and I had to go up to the office for something, and I said you dang cowboys can go drunk if you want to, and I'll be back in a few minutes. I never thought about 'em taking me up on it. And I'll be damned where they got it, I don't know, but when I got back they were drunker than the devil. (Both laugh). We had to get back to the camp at the Wood Ranch. The Wood Ranch then, that was one of the head quarters of the outfit; too, the one Joe Fox has got there now. Yeah, I really liked that place there. We got out there, and old Roy Minter (?), one of them working for me went and laid down on the bed. And I felt awfully sorry for him. I went in, and to ______ that bed, shakin' that bed, you know, and oh, he begged me. Please don't do that! Sorry, Roy, I know you don't feel good, and I want you to rock you to sleep. And pretty soon as he come out of there, he went out and throwed up. (Both laugh). I knew it would. 'Course I sympathized with him. 


JOHN IRWIN: Were you allowed to have any liquor when you were out on the ranch, or the…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah. We had it. There was bootleggers around, you know if we wanted it. I'd tell them this, I said well you guys can drink all you want, but I don't to catch no one drunk. Nobody drunk. And, they never did, like that. So they might take a drink even at night, evening of something, but that's the only. No, you couldn't allow that. Go out there with a bunch of drunks. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go for that. 


JOHN IRWIN: No, they wouldn't last very long. 


JESSE GODDARD: No. No they never, _________. 


JOHN IRWIN: Were there other cattlemen that brought in their herds about the same time that you did? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, yeah, we generally all went in about the same time. 


JOHN IRWIN: About the same time. So you got a chance to see these other people… 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, generally, they'd have their own herd, and we'd have ours. Maybe they'd go one way; they'd go on from Harris Park. Maybe they'd go one way, and we'd go another. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. Did you… what happened if two or three herds all came to the corral at one time. Did you have to schedule? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well somebody just had to wait. 


JOHN IRWIN: Just wait. 


JESSE GODDARD: Wait, uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: That'd be really difficult to, just to keep them around, all that cattle. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah well, we tried to. We pretty well knew which ones, each one, was gonna ship and made contract for different days, pretty much. They wouldn't, they'd fix it so wouldn't caught that a way hardly. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. 


JESSE GODDARD: They would ship different days. 'Cause, they generally went to different buyers. I got drunker than the devil in Clarkdale one time, accidentally. We were drinkin' home brew. We were in there, and those doggone cattle sold three times before they ever left that stockyard. 


JOHN IRWIN: Sold three times. 


JESSE GODDARD: Three times. And every time another buyer'd buy them, he'd want 'em cut in a different way, different corrals; I swung gates there 'til I saw stars. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh! 


JESSE GODDARD: And, somebody, I don't know, I think it was Herb Babbitt, I think, someone had some home brew or something in his car, and maybe we had a little whiskey with it. I don't know. But I finally got drunker than heck. I got so darned disgusted. Yeah, they sold three times before they ever left the stockyards. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did you help arrange the buying and selling, or was that…? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, I didn't have anything to do with that. 


JOHN IRWIN: And it was Herb Babbitt that ran… 


JESSE GODDARD: Well that ran Babbitt. Yeah, Herb was the… they took care of that, mostly. I didn't, no I didn't have anything to do with that. And didn't want to have anything to do it. I told them when I got to run it all, all I wanted to know was when they wanted to ship and what kind of cattle they wanted. That's all I wanted to know, and I wanted them to leave me alone. 


JOHN IRWIN: Was there ever a problem of rustling in that area, or stealing cattle? 


JESSE GODDARD: Are you kidding? Are you kidding? Oh, yes. There was a lot of rustling. Not like you would think. The biggest one that we had that were rustling, was what they called "sleeper"(?) You wouldn't know what that is. 


JOHN IRWIN: No. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, it isn't a drowsy little doggie belong behind the herd, but a lot of them gives a illustration on it. A "sleeper", like if you had a cow and a big long eared brandin' calf runnin' out there, and I wanted to steal it. We went by earmarks, ninety per cent, instead of brands. 


JOHN IRWIN: Instead of brands. 


JESSE GODDARD: Out to watch them. And I wanted to steal it; I'd go put that your earmark on your calf, but it wasn't branded. After it grew up there and left its mother, why, _____ no brand, I'd go cut your ear mark out and put my brand on it and my ear mark. That's what they called sleepin. 


JOHN IRWIN: You cut off the ear. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. The ear mark, yeah. We branded five sleepers in one bunch up there in one day. They had the Apache Maid mark on them, but they didn't have the brands. So we put the Apache Maid brand on them. There was five of them. We always had to watch, those yearlings and things to be darn sure they were branded, because, that's what they called "sleepin”, and there was some guys that were really doing that. 


JOHN IRWIN: How would the ears be marked? 


JESSE GODDARD: They were relatively different. Now, like the Apache Maid, they'd crop the right; they'd cut about half the ear off; they'd crop the right. When way back in the early days, they called it "grub (?). They cut it off real short. 


JOHN IRWIN: They would. 


JESSE GODDARD: Then we had all different… every brand had its own mark its own earmark. 


JOHN IRWIN: This is done right after the calf was born? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. When we branded. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh, when you branded. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, when we branded, we ear marked them. That's when you branded them, yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: What kind of people would steal the cattle? Would they be just local citizens or people coming in from out…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah. Could have been one of your best friends. (Laughs). Sure, one of your best friends. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did many people ever get caught? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: And they were turned over to the sheriff? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, not that _______, but they'd generally fix it up. Well what they'd do there, you know, if they… what they did there for a long time, if a cow showed up with another guy's brand on the calf, they'd put an "M" on its neck for "mistake". And then he'd give you another calf. But we got quit, that old baloney and vet (?) them, by gosh. 


JOHN IRWIN: Mmm. 


JESSE GODDARD: Put there brand on another time, and then your brand on, what they call "vettin’ (?), and had to leave the whole side of the animal branded all right. That was the way they did it. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did, were there any gunfights or any real ______ over that? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, no a lot of them thinks a Wild West you know, a packin' guns and every thing, why… I packed a gun a lot of times. I still got it in there. It's an old antique now. It's a 38 Colt, automatic, pack in my chap pocket. Oh, shootin' at coyotes or any darn thing for that. A lot of them packed a set (?) of gun. But never gunnin' for anyone. That was the most harmless group of all of them, and they never thought of that. 


JOHN IRWIN: That's good. That's good. Let's see. Oh, I was going to ask you, were there any sheep in the area? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, my gosh, there was a world of sheep go through there then. There was a sheep trail that crossed right above here up the river here, and cross right at the mouth of Oak Creek, and went up through Beaver Head Flat and up Beaver Head Point, and it come out and crossed up there at Rattlesnake right where the road crosses Rattlesnake. Out through there, and I think the trail split, one current above the Woods Ranch through there to, I guess, was Locketts through there toward Mary's Lake and that country, and another one went north. And then when it down here, the trail cross the river here and it goes up about, well, like the road goes up through General Crook Trail. It goes up over the mountain. That was one of the big ones. I don't know… here when I was a kid, every night there for a long time in the spring you could always see three or four lights sheep camp when they were (?) up there. There were thousands of sheep went over there. Where they was going then, I don't know. Plumb over the other side of the mountain, somewhere way up on it. I never did know just where they were going. 


JOHN IRWIN: Were… so there were a lot of sheep herds in the Verde Valley? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh no. 


JOHN IRWIN: No. They were… where were they? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, they'd go to the desert in the winter. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh. And then they would come up. 


JESSE GODDARD: Down to Phoenix. Yeah they had a trail, and they'd come up. Yes. 


JOHN IRWIN: Were they herded to the railroad in the same way that the cows were? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. Right down to the railroad they had to drive. ______ ______. They had to go… they had to the railroad. I wouldn't know anything about that. 


JOHN IRWIN: When you were working for Apache Maid, did you ever have any conflict with the sheep people? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. 


JOHN IRWIN: About the range? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, never did. 


JOHN IRWIN: So there weren't many sheep where the cattle were supposed to be? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, you see that sheep trail, they were sheep men. They paid for that. The cattlemen used it all the time but they were used it free gratis when you come right down to it. But the sheepmen paid for that grazing part of that. 


JOHN IRWIN: They did? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah and the cattlemen used it all the time. Well, and the cattlemen'd be mad as heck, maybe, if they got off trail a little ways. But they had a… they had guys riding the trail to keep them on the trail. 


JOHN IRWIN: The sheep. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh, they'd keep the sheep on it. But, _______ ______, the cattle, they, the sheep men paid for their, paid for their part of the range, and the cattlemen used it all the time. 


JOHN IRWIN: Mmm. 


JESSE GODDARD: That's why they (?) really happened. 


JOHN IRWIN: So, there probably wasn't, at least as far as you're concerned, as great a hostility between the cattlemen... 


JESSE GODDARD: Not in this part of the country. Not that I know of. No. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did the Forest Service, at that time, own the land up on the rim? 


JESSE GODDARD: At that time, yes. 


JOHN IRWIN: And you had to contract it out. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, they… permits, and that, yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: Permits. 


JESSE GODDARD: You know that forest is a mess up there, now. It makes me sick to look at it. I was talking to one of the old rangers that was there at the Maid when I worked there, that Oscar McClure. And, he told me, he said, "Well", he said, "I'm out of the Forest now, I can say what I damn please." He said, "No doubt, when the cattlemen first came in to that country they over stocked and really raised the dickens with it." Which I would go for that a hundred percent. 'Cause when, back in this time I'm a talkin', we had an enormous debt loss of cattle here ever winter. 


JOHN IRWIN: You did? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yes, they really died 'cause they'd overstocked and, just starved to death, what it was. 


JOHN IRWIN: Up at Apache Maid? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, all of this country down here. Sure. And they… he said I can say what I please when they… Then he said the Forest come along, and he said we over protected it. And said, well, now, he said, we know it's going to burn, but we don't know when. 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. 


JESSE GODDARD: And I'll agree to that, too. Sure as some of these days, it's gonna really take it. 


JOHN IRWIN: So, there weren't too many huge forest fires back in the 20’s…? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, not in those days. You could see out on those big trees for a quarter of a mile. We never paid much attention to it. A fire would… we didn't have much of a fire. 


JOHN IRWIN: Because the cattle would eat the grass? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well that’s it. And they didn't have any; it wasn't a jungle like it is now. When these trees are so close you could see those little things a comin' up, you know, like these little old pines, real thick. I was talkin' to another one of my rangers that was workin' at the Maid when I went there. Walter Hackamon (?). He told me up at Pioneer picnic one day. He said, I could see what was a happenin', and he said I tried to get them to have controlled burning to stop that. And he said they'd like to can me. Which the cattlemen tried to have them have controlled burning. And go up there in the spring of the year before it got too dry, you know and block it off, and set the fire where it'd burn slow along that old dead wood and that stuff. And that way, that way it wouldn't hurt anything. Now, it's such a jungle, its going to go. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, how, how did the little trees keep from getting spread back in the twenties, when you were there? Did the cattle just tramp them down or…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, I think, they had a real seed year or something on the pines and things had really got a… Yeah, they could range, you know and things, they'd get that seed. They'd get the seeds in the ground. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. 


JESSE GODDARD: That's the way that get, lettin’ (?) cover it up and ever thing (?). Yeah they'd get the seed in there all right. Something happened. They got in there some way. 


JOHN IRWIN: When, when you were working Apache Maid, were you a member of the Cattlemen's Association at that time? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. No. 


JOHN IRWIN: That was after. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. And I don't think there was I don't know whether they had one then or not. Maybe they did. I don't know. 'Cause we just cowboys. We, we was a buck private in the rear ranks. We was… (both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: Let's see, a couple more questions, Jesse. What, what was your daily life like on the ranch? Did you, you sleep in a bunkhouse with other men, or did you have your own cottage? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah. Yeah, we had them, when we was in the ranch, we had, and I slept on a bed, in the bunkhouse, yeah, we was all right then. 


JOHN IRWIN: And the cook that went out with you cooked for you then back at the ranch, too? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well. No, not hardly. They had at times, they had, yes, but, you see, after we got, when the Apache Maid group went home, why, the women generally there, they done the cookin'. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh, there were women there? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. There was Jim Ralson’s (?) wife. They generally done the cookin' then. What, we didn't have but a few cowboys then. 


JOHN IRWIN: I see. 


JESSE GODDARD: After we got up there. 'Course, we was out in camp a lot. When I left the Maid, I never wanted to see another Dutch oven as long as I lived, and by golly it wasn't long after I left there that I bought two. (Both laugh). 


JOHN IRWIN: So, you didn't spend all that much time at the ranch itself? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh, not all the time, no. We was back in camp and different, riding and different things. I was trying to, I was always trying to get some wild cattle out of Beaver Canyon, or some place like that, down in the cedars. 


JOHN IRWIN: And then you had fences to fix, or did you have fences? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah. Well we generally, we'd move up to the Apache Maid from the valley here along about the first of March every year to go over all the fences and everything before we'd move up and before we'd get ready for the round-up, to go. We never… always had something to do. And then we would, we done quite a bit of farmin' up there. That is raising ______. 


JOHN IRWIN: You did? 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh yeah. We had, we raised, we had quite a bit of alfalfa in there, and we raised oats and things. Had our own thrashing machine. Had great big barns, well we fill those old big barns full of that hay. Why go up there, it was one of the most wonderful places on the mountain. And now, it belongs for the Forest Service, and it's all, well, the corrals is all gone; the barns is gone. There were three wells there, and they're all covered up. I think maybe some of the old house is left, but maybe they burned it, I don't know. Just makes me sick. It was a wonderful place. 


JOHN IRWIN: Where did the Forest Service get land? Did they buy it? 


JESSE GODDARD: They bought it from some, I think Ken Wingfield, I believe let somebody sold that or something to a real estate outfit, I believe. And, Forest didn't want, no big… a lot of buildings a goin' in there or something, and they… that's the way I understood. I may be wrong on that, I don't know, but anyway the Forest has got it. They got that now. Oh it was a wonderful place. 


JOHN IRWIN: How long did the ranch continue after you left? Do you have any idea? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. I don't know just how long, how long it was there. It was quite some time. Larry Mellon bought it not too long after I left. And then I don't know. 


JOHN IRWIN: He bought it from the Babbitts'? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. I don't know who he sold it to. He was one of the "Mellon family", you know, and he wanted to be a cowboy, I guess. But you would see him around, you'd think he was just a common old cowboy the way he looked. He was just as common as an old shoe. 


JOHN IRWIN: Was he from Flagstaff, or…? 


JESSE GODDARD: No. The Mellons was old money, you know. And, I got a book here that he, that he wrote on him, and he, gettin' the data, he hated to do it, but they finally got it from him. Said that Mellon name meant money, you know, and, and he went down in the Haiti Islands and built a big house, and built a hospital, free gratis, for those doggone people. 


JOHN IRWIN: He did? 


JESSE GODDARD: But I think he's broke now, yeah. You've heard of that Schweitzer, wasn't it that had a hospital or something someplace in some foreign country? 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. Albert Schweitzer. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, that's, that's where Larry got his idea. And he done the same darn thing. He went to… he went back there and went to school to be a doctor, and, to get a doctor's degree, and his wife, a nurse, and then he was looking for some place to build a, to build a hospital, you know, to benefit the people. And they picked the Haiti Islands. I guess one of the worst places he could have picked. Out from Cuba. 


JOHN IRWIN: Is this the same Mellon that did the ranching? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah he's the one that bought the ranch, yeah. Then he bought, sold that, and he bought a big outfit over there, land grant, or something, over on Fourth (?) Rock. That's out of Seligman. They had the outfit down there by Kirkland, too, I think. He sold the whole works, and then he went to this… 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh he's a very interesting person. 


JESSE GODDARD: Oh. Who else would do that? My gosh. Go to a life like that. And if you read you haven't read the book? You ought to read it. You, we think about diseases and things that we have here. We don't have anything. And those darn people, my gosh, that's something. 


JOHN IRWIN: When you knew him, did you ever think he'd do anything like this? 


JESSE GODDARD: I didn't know. I didn't know what the heck. 


JOHN IRWIN: Did he seem like the kind of person…? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, he was, he seemed like kind of close with his dealings and things, but every year when New Years and all, he'd pull a party over there at the ranch that he didn't pull no punches. What I mean there was every thing there. Even had oysters come up from Phoenix. 


JOHN IRWIN: From Phoenix? 


JESSE GODDARD: There was everything to eat on that table you wanted, and everything to drink. He really pulled a party. There's a lot of things about Larry I couldn't understand that was different 'til I read the book, and I could understand it, understand him more. Because he wanted to be, he wanted to be just a common old boy. He didn't want that "Mellon" name, he says meant money, and he act like he was ashamed of it. Well, I wouldn't have been ashamed of it. But he was, I liked Larry very well. 


JOHN IRWIN: How long did you know him? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, I don't know when he… I don't know just how long I did know Larry. He must have bought that outfit around thirty-six--thirty-seven along there, the Apache Maid. And he came back up here after he'd trained to be a doctor. And he took some training here in the Cottonwood Hospital. 


JOHN IRWIN: He did? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: Where did he go off to school? Do you know? 


JESSE GODDARD: He was in New York. 


JOHN IRWIN: New York. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. Well, in his book, when he, he had a horse or a more or something in the trailer when he came here. He and his wife had separated. And when he come through Texas, they tried to get him to buy some, some land there that oil well on it; struck oil wells. And he didn't want no oil wells. He said if he would have, if he'd a bought that one when they wanted him to, he could have bought the whole town the whole state of Arizona, the way it turned out. And, I never did know it, but he said when his dad got married, his granddad gave his dad twenty thousand dollars, or something like that, and he invested it all in oil and hit the jackpot, and that was the Gulf Oil Company. 


JOHN IRWIN: That was the Gulf Oil Company. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: How did he happen to come to this area? Was he just passing through? 


JESSE GODDARD: I don't know how ________. I don't know how he ever happened… 


JOHN IRWIN: But, he liked here. 


JESSE GODDARD: How he happened to land here. 


JOHN IRWIN: Uh huh. 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, the Apache Maid Ranch and everything, it was nice. 'Course, in later years, there, in about, I don't know just what, what year it was in the twenties, they fenced it up, you know, and then we had our own, we just had our own outfit. That was… these cattlemen never made a dime, none of them, I don't think, until they got fenced. 


JOHN IRWIN: Why was that? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, they could run their own cattle and have their range better. And the way it was before, everybody was trying to get more cattle than the other guy, and that's why they over stocked so darn bad. And that there…, but after they got their own range, and fenced up their own places, why you could have your own good bulls, you know, and others. Then, it… oh, and the cattlemen, they cussed the fences, they didn't want the fences, they didn't know; wouldn't work, you know, but they never did make a dime until after they got fenced. 


JOHN IRWIN: Who was, was it the government that said you'd fence, or, who decided to fence? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, the Forest Service. 


JOHN IRWIN: The Forest Service. 


JESSE GODDARD: The Forest Service started. And then some the cattlemen was for it. And then after they started, why they, they went, but the cattlemen built their own fences. 


JOHN IRWIN: Oh, this was on Forest Service land, but they built their own fences. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yes. Yes. 


JOHN IRWIN: So the Forest Service was good in that decision. 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, maybe they're trying to expose to cut them out of the trees (?). (Both laugh). No, they… but they did. They even… and they built their own, built fences and built their own water tanks and stuff like that. Of course, they never did know how to, couldn't hardly build, now like little old picture, that little old slip that county (?) used, and another one a little bit bigger. And now, since they got the dozers and things, they can build tanks. Those days, they just dam up a little place there. Work for and days and have something that wouldn't last them no time. It didn't rain every day. But now, they build them deep. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, I've exhausted many questions. Do you have anything else to add? 


JESSE GODDARD: No, I guess, I can't think of anything. You might shut that off, but think of something, why you can come back. 


JOHN IRWIN: Okay. 


JOHN IRWIN: Jesse, you have some more things to add about the… 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, I'll go back to before I went to work there for the Apache Maid. I was working for Dutch Ste Dickinson one spring. I was just a kid, and we camped up at the Spring Creek that's out of Cottonwood there, on that side. And I guess he wanted to get rid of me, away from there, so he sent me to the Apache Maid wagon. And told me it was camped in Hance Springs. So I got… it's a long way from there Springs Creek to Hance Springs. When I got there, it was getting late in the evening, and the wagon was gone. So I whipped up those ponies a little bit. We always had nine horses. We had… everybody and his mount (?) would have nine. Eight horses, what we called "ridin’ the day" and then one for night horse. But I found the wagon at, at, up by Walker Creek, that's up by _______ _______. They worked in the valley there. But what I was gonna tell about when Bill Dickinson… I thought that was a… I thought old Charlie Mulligan then, when we was workin' the valley there, was the crankiest cook that I ever seen. I didn't like that son of a gun at all. One day up there, Bill Dickinson wanted me to go to the bed wagon. And I of rather faced a grizzly bear than go to that doggone cranky cook. And when that cook moved camp, what I mean, he moved camp. He'd get up there, and they had work four horses to a chuck wagon, and, what I mean, he'd really leave the wreck (?). I think we was camped there at Beatty (?), was where we were going to camp. And we got there, and I took care of his team, see if the horse herd was getting there pretty quick. And, he said, 'Cause, with the job _______ with the bed wagon, why, they had to haul wood. Get a big load of wood for the camp. He said well, you, he said, “you, I'll help you get a load of wood and you helps me get dinner”. And, I said fine. 

 

And, my gosh, I found out that old Charlie, when he was around a group, he never had anything to say; he never talked. But get off by yourself, why he'd talk a leg off of you. And from that day on, Charlie and I was, was really good friends. And, I told that boss that night, I said, "Bill, anytime you want to send me to chuck wagon, I'll be glad to go." And he said, "Kid, you can go every doggone time, but don't tie up a night horse." He said a lot of these damn guys hates to wrangle or go that bed wagon so bad, 'cause they have to get a load of wood, said they can do the wranglin'. 

 

So when you had to get up and go get the horse, you had to get up real early, you know. And, that old cook had a way he'd wake you up. He'd take two of those old big Dutch oven lids, and he'd put and slap them together and rub them. Well, by golly that would wake you up, if you'd been dead three days there. I tell you that woke you up. 

 

Well, a funny thing happened after we'd got to the mountain that spring. We was workin', started down, ride down there in that open country by what was called "New Tanks", in Five Mile Pass country. And we seen four wolves, only ones I've ever seen. And three of them was a eatin' on a yearling. And the yearling was still alive. And I was a ridin' a little gray horse that was reckless as the devil and I just a kid, and I was, too. And I jerked down a rope and tied the saddle, and I was gonna' try to rope one of them. 


JOHN IRWIN: A wolf? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah. And, and, an old boy, Bill _______ went out ahead of me on an old gray (?) horse, shootin' like that with an old forty-five, pretty soon that old horse fell down with him. He got up and started off and, like a chump, I went after the horse instead of the wolves. That darn horse wasn't goin' no where, and there was thirty-five cowboys behind me, they could have went and got the darn horse. But, I'd been brought up to _______ like that, so I went after the horse. But, I always will believe that I could have roped one of those wolves there in that open country, because, there was, two of them, I think, was big old pups. And that, they was still eatin'. They had all the inside of its hind legs there eat out all the way to the bone. Just snatchin' out, grabbin' out that poor thing, laying there on his honkers (?) still alive. 


JOHN IRWIN: But, there weren't many wolves in the area. 


JESSE GODDARD: That was the only ones that I ever seen. And I worked there many years after that. But, I never did see one before. But, cowboys before that had roped wolves right there in that same country. 


JOHN IRWIN: They had? 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. I'd heard that some of them had roped them right there. Those old big pups, I don't imagine very fast. 


JOHN IRWIN: Well, what would you do after you roped a wolf? What would you do? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, I'd of took him a ride, I'll tell you for sure. (Both laugh). If I could straddle a tree with him or something, why, _____ ________. And we never gave that a thought, what we'd do with. 


JOHN IRWIN: After you did it? 


JESSE GODDARD: Yeah, all we'd want to do, all we'd do is catch him. I'd have… yeah, we'd have drug him to death, dumped him. 


JOHN IRWIN: Mmm. 


JESSE GODDARD: I rode the best horse I had, I thought, that afternoon. I thought maybe I might find him. I was ridin' close to that same country. And, old Bill Dickinson told me, said, "I'll give you a hundred dollars if you rope one." Bounty, you know on them. 'Cause any time a wolf showed up, they had a, generally had a government trapper after him pretty darn quick. Because, they are destructive. But that's the only ones that I'd ever seen there. And I worked there a long time after that. A lot of them chase big old coyotes sometime, and they think it's a wolf, you know, but you see a wolf, you know it. 


JOHN IRWIN: You know it. 


JESSE GODDARD: You know it. Yeah. 


JOHN IRWIN: Let me get this straight about the horses. How many horses did each person have? Each cowboy? 


JESSE GODDARD: Well, we just worked on the grass, you know, didn't feed them. Much. Nine. ________. Everyone had nine. 


JOHN IRWIN: Everybody had nine horses. 


JESSE GODDARD: Uh huh. 


JOHN IRWIN: That was when… 

 

END TAPE 1, SIDE 2 

 

END OF TAPE