Oral history interview with Bob Davis

Transcript

Transcript

Abstract: Bob Davis worked for the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company and Lee Cypress Company. Davis began working in logging when he was 9 and living in South Carolina with his father. He and his family moved from South Carolina to Copeland, Florida when he was 12. In this interview, he speaks about logging practices in Big Cypress National Preserve from falling the trees, to processing, and selling the lumber. Later in the interview, he goes on to share about growing up in Big Cypress, enlisting in the military, his neighbors, and the dangers of logging.

CESAR BECERRA: Candy Dancers?

UNKNOWN: That's what we used to call them.

BOB DAVIS: No that was the that was the ones that a, is it on?

BECERRA: Yea, go ahead, go ahead.

DAVIS: The candy dancers

BECERRA: this is interesting, what I—

DAVIS: the candy dancers was the ones that a made the road. See they had a right-of-way crew, that's what we called em there but in the mountains the were called gandy dancers and they were usually Chinese see. A then you'd because well let's get back to where where was I now.

BECERRA: you were a right on that handle, you were starting on the handle of the ax.

DAVIS: Ok you'd want your ax to be short handled in girdling the cypress. A long hand for sawing timber. The reason for your short handle cause you're in close see.

BECERRA: yea, yea

DAVIS: Alright, it'd be big around the ax as it came back it'd get larger. It didn't cramp your hands. And then with your and you'd set your ax on with just a little bit of an angle and you could take it almost just like a hammer in other words that's what it became it became your hand.

BECERRA: Extension of your arm, yea.

DAVIS: Yea, and a then you could reach up there because it was it was so precise tuned into you when using that ax that it cut out half of your labor see. And if you didn't happen that way well boy it was like walking a mile with 500 pounds on. Now in girdling every place there would have a blister

BECERRA: whistle

DAVIS: there was no way out of it I don't care what you've been doing.

BECERA: Even if you had a nice ax,

DAVIS: no well yea, the best ax but if you hadn't been girdling you had to go through that.

BECERRA: whistle

DAVIS: And another problem we had out there was a the water is a what you call acid, not acid but

BECERRA: it has the tannin in it type

DAVIS: and a ok,

BECERRA: tannic acid you're right, you're right

DAVIS: now no matter what kind of shoes you wore we used you know

BECERRA: I heard about this

DAVIS: ok and a it would take the a skin off just like lye would and then when you come out of the water and your skin starts drying boy it's the only thing we could do was about 3 times a week bath our feet in let's see alum and vinegar or something like that.

BECERRA: I'm sorry what?

DAVIS: Alum I believe it was.

BECERRA: What's alum? Aloe did you say?

DAVIS: No a, it was some kind of substance but as long as we kept that on our feet

BECERRA: how would you spell that—

DAVIS: I don't know and I I

UNKNOWN: Aloe

BECERRA: alum

UNKNOWN: alum is a drying substance

BECERRA: is it?

UNKNOWN: yea

BECERRA: how do you spell alum?

UNKNOWN: Alum

BECERRA: could be that it makes sense

DAVIS: it could be but whatever you used and I want to say vinegar and it could have been something else.

BECERRA: Well this is good, I've never heard of this, this is.

UNKNOWN: Was it a powder? Alum is used as a powder.

DAVIS: A, ok I think it was powder but it was mixed with something and I want to say vinegar because vinegar was a standard thing you always had.

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: And it you didn't have to go to the store you know.

BECERRA: It's interesting I've never heard of this, good this is good.

DAVIS: I think what it did, I think what it did was kill the bacteria that clinged. But when you as long as you did that why you never had no problem. But you just miss it and rubber,

BECERRA: rubber rash

DAVIS: a all of it. Well everywhere around there it looked like you were scalded or something you know how the hide comes off

BECERRA: yea, wow

DAVIS: and a you would suffer in other words, well it healed it to, because if you did that and you could go back in the water and you do it when you come back out and pretty soon it would heal itself out of words you know.

BECERRA: yea, yea

DAVIS: It was very good. And a, the mosquitoes was very tolerable they wasn't bad. A we used to get a hurricane about twice a year through Miami and this benefited us I don't care what anybody says. A, it would come mostly up through Florida it would bring a lot of water, raise the water table, which we needed. It seemed to kill insects

BECERRA: really

DAVIS: yea, I didn't know this then after a few years I got wiser so smarter you know and a that's because I've been through it. Ok, we went one year without a storm coming through Miami and it would always go around or something and insects doubled. I'm talking about sand flies, deer flies. And one time we had to have a a hat with a like a bee hive you know

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: it was so bad. The second year we didn't get a storm and a anywhere a piece of dry of skin could be they'd be on ya. And a, it has been my noticing the weather because a I like the farming and associated with it and I'm familiar with it all the way up through Florida that the a weather cycle began to change then. And a our insects have doubled, a, it it's just healthy for nature to bring a storm through.

BECERRA: Cleans out things.

DAVIS: It cleans out it does a lot of good it does more good most of the time than damage.

BECERRA: Would it be safe to say that it also a brought a lot of your trees down so you didn't have to cut em, or was that ever the case?

DAVIS: No.

BECERRA: Oh those cypress trees are pretty strong, you're right.

DAVIS: Well, a I think that's what makes a strong tree because if you stop and think when it's growing young, very small, it needs it puts in root, see.

BECERRA: Yea, right.

DAVIS: A and that's just like walking that's exercise for the tree. So if it wasn't for that nature I don't think the tree would grow.

BECERRA: Yea, yea.

DAVIS: It would be a scrub or something. But a, knowing that's why I say it was so beautiful the only place you had a lot of mosquitoes, not only mosquitoes but you can stand a few, would be around fishing where Everglade City a places like that. A no we was out at night there on the canal by a Carnestown fishing and you know we wouldn't have been out there to much if it

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: was full of mosquitoes.

BECERRA: Right, right certainly.

DAVIS: There was a there was a lot of Indians work out there they girdled

BECERRA: did they really

DAVIS: yea.

BECERRA: About a who would you say first before we get to the Indians, would a be would be the percentage between black and whites in the town?

DAVIS: A

BECERRA: just a break up of

DAVIS: I I would say 25% were white.

BECERRA: Really.

DAVIS: Because all your foremen were white, all

BECERRA: engineers

DAVIS: engineers was white, once in a while you might see a black foreman but most all of that was white. A, all the loading and well then the skidders they was white or two that skid but they were usually foreman. Loading the logs going to a Perry was white. There was one crane that they used in the a woods to go around pick up logs and load were you know that was a black. But basically it followed the same a principal any where else in the South that most of the jobs were

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: Like that was white.

BECERRA: A and then the Indians a their their role then a was how many of there were there working a, or was it an on and off thing?

DAVIS: A, it was pretty steady for the older men, the some of the young ones there wasn't very many young ones, they was all a I would want to say in their 50's. Family men you know, and a I knew em real well. Knew some of their kids and one of their kids grew up and oiled the drag line for me. And a, they bought off of us and they knew us and they called my father Old Man Davis. And a, they were friendly a and they lived along there was high places there and a they lived along Copeland a,

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: they had their little places and

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: it wasn't uncommon to a they never they were never no problems never no trouble. Everybody respected them sure, sure yea but there were generally four of five always working. But see logging is a, when you're doing piece work, a you can go out and work today and you don't have to go tomorrow. Or you could work a week and—

BECERRA: What your definition I'm pretty understanding of it, piece work would be there was a certain amount that you needed to do that week or that day and once you did it, you did it and that's it. That was piece work, or was it something that would be on a continuous level? Is that what you mean by piece work?

DAVIS: Yea, in other words sawing logs was piece work. But usually it liked to have a regular team because what you did in sawing logs you take a strip in other words so many feet wide and you'd cut timber there. Well you'd start cutting and you'd cut back and forth and cut to the back line. Well when you got started another group of another two men would take a drift here you know that's why I'm saying drifts. A, now if you didn't show up or something, they couldn't cut somebody had to fill in you know so they one on the tailend would come up and pick your. But they was pretty [inaudible] try to a lot of timber out there and maybe hear of this guy start doing small stuff. Hear of a feller starts in here and it's got big stuff you know boy, he's got to cut ten trees to get this what I'll get out of this one tree so you're getting $1.50 a thousand. So the sawyers were usually married and a well everybody was mostly married but that was a crew that kind a stayed pretty steady. The girdlers most of them were steady, a, some of the oldest men I don't know if this name has been mentioned but the Cassidy brothers, a they were excellent they'd logged up in other places you know. A, there you could go out and work today or week and go somewhere else come back and say "I want go to girdle work, how about me going" "yea go ahead". That's all there was to it, you didn't even go in the office and sign up. You went out there and the man checking your trees and stuff, you turned your time in and cutting cross ties, just tell the man I want to cut cross ties "go ahead". Now of course he was on the payroll but that was, they didn't have a lot of red tape you know.

BECERRA: Right, right. It was all organize later.

DAVIS: Yea, and if you went out there and you wanted to set your little tent up or bark shack or what and bark all night it didn't matter, a it was a freedom a, and of course you didn't working that way and you made more money at piece work then you did by the hour. For a,

BECERRA: now I understand what you are saying ok

DAVIS: ok you work by the hour, say it was 50 cents an hour ok, 10 hours or whatever hour that would be $5.00 if you were working piece work you could make $10 see.

BECERRA: Because piece work inevitably had a lot to do with how much out put you particularly did, the other—

DAVIS: Well the other you couldn't hardly put it on piece work.

BECERRA: Right.

DAVIS: And it worked better to have it on hour then there was a so it just worked out better.

BECERRA: When a and a we'll put a Lee Cypress away for awhile I know you had told me for just a brief period of time you worked for a C. J. Jones before we get into his particular operation a, I'm curious a do you remember the first moment or day or whatever that you ever met C. J.? Does that come to mind?

DAVIS: I a,

BECERRA: is that to detailed?

DAVIS: no, I don't really think that I had a like "Good morning Mr. Jones" a

BECERRA: ok

DAVIS: See I after all I'm a little kid, you know, he might say.

BECERRA: You know that's true, I keep loosing the reality of that. You started at

DAVIS: 9 years old

BECERRA: well at a Lee Cypress how old were you at Lee Cypress 12?

DAVIS: I was about 12.

BECERRA: So and you only worked till about 17 you say?

DAVIS: About 17, yea about 17.

BECERRA: Four or five years. I see. So yea you were a kid.

DAVIS: Well a, and you don't see that

BECERRA: no, no

DAVIS: in a there usually 20's in their 20's

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: When somebody's 20 they look like he's older and here I am

BECERRA: right, so you weren't on that type of relationship with him

DAVIS: no a,

BECERRA: but you knew he was the boss certainly

DAVIS: well I knew he was the owner and everything because but what he did, he was a what I considered like most good boss men or good owners they got men they can depend on.

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: And so they depend on them, they don't have to have there is to many men to have personal

BECERRA: oh, certainly C. J.'s was a big operation

DAVIS: they know, they know when a man is hurting or has a sickness or a death they know that, you know. They are not out of touch.

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: A, the first time went on his job I went to work with a contractor cutting right-of-way and after riding to about two hours on a creeping crawling track man by then after I got off the train I had to walk cause they hadn't laid the railroad and the way he laid railroad I said no. So I worked a week and a

BECERRA: when you mean where he laid railroad, meaning C. J. put it in the most unheard of places a

DAVIS: a, just follow the grade, just like like and one when they tell you that a the water would put the fire out of the

BECERRA: steam out of the yea the fire out of the boiler yea, it's true

DAVIS: oh yea. And you couldn't travel very fast on that and you're subject to jump the track

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and a, I forget what they call this thing that put the track put the wheel back on the track but it's a big contraption it must weight 200 pounds

BECERRA: yea, right, right

DAVIS: and it's got grooves in it and you set it there and you pull and wheel hits it and it jumps onto the track. A, most of the time you could get it the first time but some times it takes three or four times, but anyway a, we were supposed to split the profit I mean the they pay you by the foot. And so a the man draws the money and let me my two my my weekly pay was $7 and half a day. And didn't he paid me you know but he didn't pull his promise out, and so he took off. And so I didn't go back, a.

BECERRA: So how long did you work

DAVIS: Ok, I just worked a couple of weeks that way then I went back to my regular job and then some of my buddies came from South Carolina and a, like boys will, we you can leave a good thing and go somewhere else bad and think you're doing something great. So I went down to C. J.'s and I knew a couple of the engineers and went to work in the mill, the planer mill.

BECERRA: No kidding

DAVIS: I was stacking lumber on the side with my friends, as the lumber comes down you know, you stack this one over here and that one over there. And so the big boss man said a the mill foreman sent word down, one of you boys come up got a job for ya. And so I didn't like that stacking lumber I said "I'll go" and so I took off and it was all in the planer mill and learning to work the planer mill. And the planer mill had these little grease buckets stuck with grease rags, and you had to go around and you know like the engineer and you had to do it regular, well he was using steam but at that time he got a big diesel engine and hooked it up to all his belts cause see that used be that mill used to be on belts.

BECERRA: Well this is interesting, so there was a point in time where C.J. did switch to a diesel?

DAVIS: Yea, and that thing was well these big engines and you had to carry your fuel and climb up there and put fuel in there plus get back before your oil bucket got to hot you know to put oil in there and your supposed to, it kept, it just worked you ragged. And these molders they formed the lumber, what I mean is, they shape it cut it as it comes out, it's usually a six head molder you know each heads got a different cut on it, and a so I did that for a while. A, I never had no desire to go back. And a I went back to my to I went back to oil the drag line 13 weeks. And a the man was scared to teach anybody cause he was afraid you'd take his job. And I had it down in my mind how to do it, in other words, I could at night I could take it and do anything see I knew it backwards and frontwards. So this gentleman took his place had the reputation of training more operators that anybody in the state of Florida, so this man had bent the levers this machine wasn't made to sit down, you had to operate it standing up. And he bent the levers and got him a seat and put there cause he was a big man you know. And that's the way I learned in my mind to operate it. And a so that this new fella comes in and he brings the welder out straightens the levers and throws the seat over in the ditch, and that shot me. And about the second day he said "how long you been oiling." I said "13 weeks" and he said "digging yet?" And I said "no", "Why" I said "well the man won't let me." And he went back and cut I was up to about half throttle. So I've got to get this set up all over again see. And I'm gonna tell you I operated as pretty as you ever saw anybody. I could have reached over there and picked up an egg put it in there and I was so happy, and I don't know how I did that. [laughter] And a, so man I got it, and then the next time which was very shortly cause he'll make an operator out of you cause, a, I couldn't do a thing

BECERRA: really

DAVIS: yea, he said don't worry, I said that's what happens, everybody does it. Cause you set there and get it in your mind and and that falls through and then it seems like you just cut the picture off and a but you still haven't got the feel of everything see. So a he was one of these fellers that when he had to the bathroom he would walk a mile look for a nice log you know where he could sit on it comfortable, and he had overalls on and I was up there and the thing was running and hey that's wasting time you know and he's way down yonder and of course there ain't no boss man out there you know that's normal. After all a man needs a little relief, then I'll I'll dig while he's gone down there so I got to digging and I was just putting it over there and he he I I he hadn't been with me very long and I shouldn't have done it that's there again was a kid see. And here he come running he didn't get a chance to button his overall he was holding them and there was a log from the grade that I was digging on to the machine and about the time he started to get on that log I'd have a bucket of dirt and I would and it took me forever. But what happened was I got to playing like that and a my horse cable the one that picks the bucket up got tangled around got some slack in it and got tangled to the drum cable and here come the boom, and a, so I throwed the clutch on you know and stopped. And a, he didn't act no more than like I just told him a joke or something, never said the first word. Now anybody else, a well I was bigger than he was but anybody else would had cussing me out you know. But he was great man, and it wasn't long

BECERRA: remember his name?

DAVIS: I want to say Harry Coastland, Coleman or Coastland I believe. And it wasn't very long before a he

BECERRA: we we have a, this would be interesting I didn't bring it, we have a listing of employees, a payday listing, maybe I should mail that to you one day

DAVIS: yea, well a I know it wasn't long after I forget how long I started operating the machine. And a, and the machine was, they said it was the first northwest machine that came in the state of Florida for logging. And it was old, wore out, and it was dangerous. I don't know why they put a kid on it they should have put somebody else on it and given me a newer machine, but you'd be swinging and the friction would lock the clutch would lock and you'd keep swinging a and this was very dangerous you know. You'd be traveling and a moving going forward or backward and a you need to turn this way or that way and you'd put down the lever and finally it catches and you'd go to far and a but I made it. Finally junked the drag line when start hitting the sand hills. Then we'd take a bulldozer and just clean the right-of-way and just get on the side put the sand up in the bed and level off. That was a most of the railroad then of course the little ponds we went through you know it was sandy anyway so that's the way we got the grade in the I see ponds.

BECERRA: But as far as the grade goes for the C. J. Jones, there wasn't any?

DAVIS: I never saw any.

BECERRA: You just put it down right on the swamp?

DAVIS: And a and I want to say that the normal going to work would be a two hour trip.

BECERRA: C. J.'s a operation.

DAVIS: Yea, because you just couldn't go fast.

BECERRA: Yea, and and I was told that you never really a got to see the the get back to the town before the sun went down. Came back late, basically every night.

DAVIS: Well you libel to have a wreck which was normal. A, I went there one time I was by myself and a they were starting to check up on the age. I had already got a warning or two from the government man a the office

BECERRA: yea, yea

DAVIS: This boy shows his birth certificate or else he don't work. But I went to C. J. Jones and I had my year figured out what how old I was see, I was going to be 17 I had it all figured it out I could just pop it off like that

BECERRA: right.

DAVIS: And I went in there and a

BECERRA: you spoke to him personally

DAVIS: no,

BECERRA: no

DAVIS: just any any foreman out there could hire you

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: go there an sign up. No you didn't have to, he didn't do

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: alright. And a she said "What year was you", see I got all the information, "what year were you born in", golly and my mind just went blank. [Laughter] And a,

BECERRA: so initially you had it all planned out and zero

DAVIS: see, she said how old are you, I said 17, July 21st my birthday. And she and she couldn't figure it out. And finally she did figure it out what year I was born in to be 17 at that time. So you know I got away with that but a she had seen me for all the years I'd been there cause she would drive by on the road you know and about everybody knew everybody, if I saw somebody I knew who they were and they knew who we were. I didn't know them by name but a but I did and also later one Jones put in a treatment a creosote plant

BECERRA: Glades Lumber & Wood Treatment Plant, yea a little dipping apparatus there, creosote.

DAVIS: Well I thought he pressure treated it, I don't know I knew it was a

BECERRA: there was a dipping area there, which I know that it had creosote there cause a the state came by not to many years after to check the water if it was contaminated so I think that pond there was a dipping pond area

DAVIS: well he probably just let it run out there. A, they they put some money in building it cause I know the welder I used to go with his daughter, a, I mean well day and night you know to get the thing operating but I'm thinking that he may have had a dipping pond but

BECERRA: yea, he also had a pressure, you're right, you're right, he had an area where they would rail the stuff in and pressure treat yea, for a course of over a night or something like that

DAVIS: then I went a in the service and never got back.

BECERRA: How long were you gone and where did you and were you stationed and what have you?

DAVIS: A I was in twice and I can't remember how long I was in each time.

BECERRA: When did you go in the service?

DAVIS: In '47.

BECERRA: ‘47.

DAVIS: I believe it was, yea, it had to be cause I was going to put up my age.

BECERRA: Ok

DAVIS: I was really running away from home and you had to go to Fort Myers, catch a bus and go to Fort Myers, and a my dad could read me like a reading a book and he started off to work and he come back and a I was supposed to go up and give him a toothpick or something and he's looking down at the floor and he says "You going to the Army ain't you son?" And I said how in the world did he know it you know. "Yes I'm going to the Army." "Well I don't want you to go off like that." He says "I'll go sign for you and" said "I want you to always feel free to come home and let me know how you're getting along." So a I went there and went to Okinawa and the first troops that landed after the War, there wasn't nothing, it was like being on the moon. Everything was destroyed, a because Okinawa was stock piled for the invasion of Tokyo see, Japan. And a, and then it took forever when they cut back from World War II man power well they forgot about the rest of the guys still in there, where ever you was at. And a, supplies and things just didn't get to you. Man you were forgotten. So I got back after that and then

BECERRA: how long were you gone, '47 to what?

DAVIS: a, I want to say it must have been '49 when I came back out. I'll have to look

BECERRA: no that's alright when you a did you go back to a Copeland, to Lee Tidewater?

DAVIS: no my family had moved up to a place called Trenton, that's a about 30 miles north of Gainesville, Florida

BECERRA: oh really

DAVIS: on a farm and a I was there and six months after I was there I got a telegram for the Korean War

BECERRA: no kidding

DAVIS: so I went to Fort Benning. Military police a and got out I think I want to say May of 1952.

BECERRA: So it had been a good lengthily period away from a what what was really was one a home to you.

DAVIS: Yea.

BECERRA: A, when was your first trip back a to Copeland? And and describe that, was there any feeling that a life had changed there certainly and.

DAVIS: I guess it was about 30 years.

BECERRA: Cause I guess that's the age where there is a lot of impression. Twelve to seventeen, that's a real a—

DAVIS: Yea, I guess it was a, I'd want to say 25 years I always wanted to go back

BECERRA: really

DAVIS; because of the

BECERRA: sure it was your home

DAVIS: well it was home and it was a pleasant atmosphere and everything was clean. And I remember it like it was

BECERRA: good solid memories right

DAVIS: ok, and then I a a when I got back here and started out again I didn't go all the way, I started out there and everywhere I looked there was if you've ever seen people throwing trash out on the side of the road when you're going out in the woods? Well that's the way the whole swamp looked. Everything that was floating was—

BECERRA: and that was never the case when you were there

DAVIS: oh no, but it seemed like anybody wanted to just went out and throwed and a there was a television ad about pollution and this Indian is in the picture and he's standing on the mountain and a tear has come in his eye you know, he see trash all over the place the wind blowing trash, and I I feel just like that Indian did. My insides hurt, and a, the tomato fields were gone. A, it was just about like you destroy a whole one way of life and a you know. It was good, there was always plenty of work and a

BECERRA: but they had definitely when you returned been an era that had ended

DAVIS: oh yea.

BECERRA: Lee Tidewater was already out of there, by that time.

DAVIS: Oh yea.

BECERRA: Twenty-five years later that would take us into the mid '60's or so?

DAVIS: I want to say it was the 60's a, I didn't even go every far out, in other words that stopped me when I went out to

BECERRA: that pretty much halted it yea

DAVIS: and saw all the trash.

BECERRA: What was the town like?

DAVIS: Well the town itself never was no more larger than what you see now.

BECERRA: Sure, no, no, I I've kept an eye on it from aerial photographs, it's pretty much stayed the same.

DAVIS: Yea, the only thing is—

BECERRA: But who was there at the time and not particular names but who you know describe the community then I guess.

DAVIS: Well basic Copeland was a the farmers. The Janes brothers and the cafe it was always a cafe. A, let's see Janes and his wife run it for a while and then a fella who used to work for Lee Cypress and his wife run it. He was the log scaler you know, you know what a log scaler is?

BECERRA: Yea, with the

DAVIS: scaling stick

BECERRA: scaling stick, right.

DAVIS: He was one of the log scalers and his wife run the cafe there. And his name was Simmons, and I believe her name was Joanne. And I believe she's still living or was two or three years ago I heard because I went to Everglades City and talked to some of the policemen there the patrolmen there and they told me who where she was at and I never did have time to go see her you now because they were good friend and he he scaled my logs in other words

BECERRA: yea, yea

DAVIS: you know, and a, and him and his brother was in World War II, and his brother worked there and so I knew them real well and just to get to see somebody you know I knew her real well too. And a, a, I just never got to take the time to look people up.

BECERRA: Do you remember a gentleman named Frank French?

DAVIS: French?

BECERRA: Frank French?

DAVIS: No, what basically did he do?

BECERRA: Well he worked more for C. J. but I thought a, he was a, he assisted the initial report on logging in the master plan for Big Cypress. I I was just wondering. How about Monroe Graham, Monroe Graham?

DAVIS: Yea, it seems a seems like I recall that. I was over there in the quarters years back and

BECERRA: Monroe still lives there today

DAVIS: and there is another I talked to but he didn't remember me.

BECERRA: Old Blue there was another guy named Old Blue.

DAVIS: Yea, a the ones that would have known me mostly would be was in the saw crew I suppose all of them are dead. Now the skidder, the ones that worked around the skidder, you know a, their in a group together and the saw crew you got a anywhere for up to about 16 men and their together cause when they get knock off they knock off earlier they go and so you don't really get acquainted.

BECERRA: Right, right

DAVIS: You hear em by name and that's not enough to carry,

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: a, I a, but if I had a list of names particularly the white I could a.

BECERRA: When you returned back there and you saw the a pile of trash, a I guess it made it a double the beauty that you remembered it I guess it made it more special as far as your memories. Had you never thought of it so beautiful as to the point to where you saw it in such shambles.

DAVIS: I never never thought it would ever be that way but my let me say

BECERRA: but I'm saying that the view of this a trash make your memories even more a

DAVIS: yea, well I a it stopped me.

BECERRA: In other words had you ever seen the swamp as as a as a was that the time that you came in a to the conclusion the swamp was a very beautiful place, or had you ever had you always seen it as such?

DAVIS: I always I always viewed that everything in the swamp was beautiful, including the coastal Everglade City, it was beautiful. You will never have it like that, even the island out there. A, the canal was beautiful, ok. But one thing that messed up was when they cut the water off and put in other words, don't let the free flow flow of water.

BECERRA: The locks you're talking about?

DAVIS: Well no longer the but the roads that they put across there.

BECERR: Certainly the I-75 and other things like that.

DAVIS: Yea, now

BECERRA: that has killed—

DAVIS: they can say what they want

BECERRA: no the exotic is incredible you can't see anything anymore

DAVIS: well even to the life of the swamp.

He's just about to join The Friends Of The Everglades.

DAVIS: But what I mean even the swamp is not like it was and whenever you have a lowering of water over a period of time, that's what causes the to go bad on you, see.

BECERRA: Oh, yea definitely.

DAVIS: And a, now it's just like a having a lush pasture, everything growing, and then have a drought and sand starts blowing with only here a.

BECERRA: Was there any a, at all, I mean I know there was well that was a little big later the push to stop the logging, that was you were in the war but a while you were cutting out there was there any movement at all against what was going on out there?

DAVIS: No,

BECERRA: no

DAVIS: never, never heard of anybody the nearest thing I could tell you is that a one of the principal owners and I don't know who it was he was connected with Lee Cypress he may have owned Lee Cypress but I guess they finally come to a conclusion and maybe C. J. Jones had a round about way of connecting with somebody else and saying hey you know from the practice Jones was putting in his woods reforesting and trying to preserve and maybe finally somebody was making big money now this is the last stand of virgin cypress there is. When that's cut out there ain't going to be, and so I think to a to pacify their guilt or to cover their guilt feelings up. A, they donated to a

BECERRA: oh they certainly did, no they were very I I completely I know the story and a no it's

DAVIS: I don't know the story true but do know they

BECERRA: yea they did they donated two-hundred fifty thousand acres for the park, exactly, no I understand

DAVIS: well, and other timber I think at Corkscrew

BECERRA: Corkscrew Swamp is what I'm, the Corkscrew was their property the Lee Cypress Tidewater, that's where the in fact during the battle to stop the logging or the negotiations a at if you were at Corkscrew Swamp as you are today if you visited it since you could hear the saws going off less than a mile away from you. You know so it it it got that close and then of course the battle reached the state level, but no you're right the Tidewater Company was very kind and generous and saw you know the importance of that area. There is a little area called Big Cypress Bend today on a a across the street from I'm sure remember it the a little filling station called a

DAVIS: was that north of a 29 on the Tamiami Trail?

BECERRA: a no I'm sorry west of 29 a it was called a W with a W you know Paolita Station, Monroe, Carnestown, it was another one that was Wac, Warner, something

DAVIS: where was the Cypress Bend located at

BECERRA: Cypress Bend is just across the street from it and if I could just pinpoint it you'd remember it

DAVIS: I mean on what highway?

BECERRA: oh, on Tamiami Trail

DAVIS: ok

BECERRA: Big Cypress Bend is right next to is right on the trail basically. It is also another area of the last strand of the giants left other than Corkscrew Swamp. A, oh gosh I can't remember the name. The a you remember every ten miles the little filling stations?

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: Well this is one in between Carnestown and near Collier Seminole right between there's one Weavers Station. Do you remember Weavers Station?

DAVIS: Yea, I think I do.

BECERRA: Ok, across the street from Weavers Station is a place called Big Cypress Bend and there's a plaque there and I want your thoughts on the statement that's said there. There is a plaque that said "this cypress strand was left because when the loggers got to this place they saw that it was so beautiful they didn't want to tear it down." It says that there I mean it could be a folklore type thing, but what's your immediate thoughts to that?

DAVIS: A, I wouldn't believe it

BECERRA: it's funny it's in a stone there

DAVIS: the same thing ok, you know what a dollar is

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: the more I make the happier I am and more I can buy.

BECERRA: That was—

DAVIS: And a logger is no different than a developer or anybody selling goods the more I buy and sell the more I make. And if I was a logger and you know I am if I got up there and I figure out I'd go to bed that night thinking how many trees I'm gonna cut tomorrow and so, yea I'd already I'd already cruising before I went to bed. You know what cruising is?

BECERRA: Right, timber cruisers, right.

DAVIS: Yea,

BECERRA: scoping out the next day is sure—

DAVIS: and if if you was working with my dad you'd be out there with a saw in your hand or close by so you're waiting for the sun to come up so you could see the good enough daylight to cut the tree down. And then you'd work past if you didn't have to catch the train or had walking distance and a lantern you'd work till dark. Then you'd gather your stuff up, fella had a good days work.

BECERRA: We're almost to the end. Last couple of questions for people that might not know anything about logging, tell us some of the dangers that might of been, a a presented themselves out there.

DAVIS: Well the greatest thing they called it the "wider-maker"

BECERRA: a wider-maker?

DAVIS: yea, in other words a women without a

BECERRA: widow-maker, right, right, right

DAVIS: I don't pronounce my,

BECERRA: no, that's alright no I got it, that's what I thought you said

DAVIS: a woman and children without a husband.

BECERRA: Wow, so you nicknamed this accident a widow-maker, what would that entail?

DAVIS: Ok, that would be cutting a tree down, and limbs falling down or getting or broke off because you see the timber stands very close together

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and you're in one position and you've got so many things happening to you

BECERRA: as it's falling it's hitting other

DAVIS: it's falling here come the limbs and it'll sure kill you if it hits you. A, the other danger was a when you're falling logs on top of logs you you never know what's going to happen and that log when it falls down can bounce back and just crush you. A, my dad and I one time hung up seven trees, now that's the most dangerous when sometimes you get in an area where they

BECERRA: swish, swish, there still up but there

DAVIS: where the vines are so interwoven you a and a you know after you cut logs for a while you can put one just about where you want it.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: But a little bit of wind and a vine you cant. So it lodges up in another tree and we're going to try to knock it out we kept doing it a well the vines affected the whole thing so now we got to go into this tree to get em out, ok, now this tree is going to have a lot of force up here cause it's got all this weight on it and before we get it cut in it'll split up, you know what I mean?

BECERRA: Yea, yea

DAVIS: So it kicks the saw out usually and then whenever you it go it will fall faster than it normally would

BECERRA: it's got all this pressure

DAVIS: so a and you got all these trees coming down on you and both of you got to get out of the way.

BECERRA: Wow

DAVIS: I remember the water was going down in the swamp where it was still mucky and we cut up to a big pond and a in those ponds some of the monstrous giant trees there is. If a trees got one little cypress green leaf on it you got to go cut it. It don't make a difference if it looks like some old barn you know, cause the man sees it and he thinks he's got to log it. Well you'll get it logged but usually this thing is such of a giant that you got to scaffold up about sixteen foot just to get where you could run your saw across it.

BECERRA: No kidding.

DAVIS: Well it's so small butted

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: alright then it's a ok you cut everything around it because it just about covers the whole pond and a we had cut this tree Lord it looked just like hey I'm exaggerating but it looked as wide as this room and there she goes, it looked like it would never fall. Slow, and here I am and soon as usually when you are cutting up high like that well it jumps off the stump and it jumped about fifteen foot away from the stump see. But it hit that mud and I'm standing on top of the stump looking wide-eyed and the mud come back and just filled it up and you couldn't have packed it if you'd opened the eye lids up any tighter. So they loaded me out, put me on the train and went to the Everglades and I got it washed out and two days I was back logging.

BECERRA: So another words while you were a on the buttress of that tree once it kicked out it went back

DAVIS: well it

BECERRA: you were standing where now on the

DAVIS: I was on, I say no a when that big tree when you're cutting high like that as it comes down like this it seems like it jumps

BECERRA: a ok

DAVIS: ok. Now it's dangerous around logging. The next dangerous and I think the most dangerous cause it's more of it. Ok is around loading logs. Ok now here, get this, the tongue puller a put hooks the end of tree or picks up throws the tongue on, you've seen them do that?

BECERRA: I've seen, I've seen that on video yea.

DAVIS: Ok that log could have a crack in it a partial break, it could be from a a the weather or for the standing and when it got a little bit weaker and it could drug right in you never see it but when he picks it up it breaks so that throws wood at other piece and so there's been more men killed a with that than any other,

BECERRA: really

DAVIS: yea, cause it's unseen and then whenever you pick it up it could be broken two pieces see

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: and everything just goes haywire you lose control there is nothing you can do

BECERRA: yea.

DAVIS: A, let's see, here's something a lot of people don't know. Usually you had a you always had a section gang, that was a motor car and a flat car and they kept the main line in repair and if they had to do any switching and the old times like the steam scooters well what they did they would a go though the swamp and they would cut a tree the top out of a tree square out and cut out the bottom of it there and they had this long [inaudible] looked like it could be a hundred feet you and I couldn't reach around it. And they would have all their cables and blocks and everything attached to that tree and they'd put it on low cars well they topped this one tree out about thirty foot and then when they were driving pilings near the main piling track and they would slip over and drive the piling back to this tree see. Ok, then they cut

[end of side 1]

DAVIS: South Carolina we had run out of money and there was a large sawmill there and they operated a six or seven steam engines and they logged just like they do in the south. So we worked there for a while and a the first week my dad made $3.00 and that was leaving at 4:30 in the morning and getting back in 7:00 at night. A, and we went to the store and it took the whole family to carry the groceries. And we still had money left over.

BECERRA: So it's safe to say $3.00 back then was certainly, a dollar was a dollar back then.

DAVIS: I'm not kidding it was hard life but if you had a dollar you've got something and then we wanted still wanted to come to Miami and so we kept it quiet and the superintendent on the job at the time found out we was leaving and he said "I'm going down to take a job in the Everglades and a why don't you come down and work for me there you'll double your money you've got a house and everything" and so ok, we was right there in Miami anyway and a so my dad went down first, he liked it so we got the train and come in there at Copeland on the train when the train used to run.

BECERRA: The town that you stopped at first of all for in the first mill was called what now?

DAVIS: Hardeville.

BECERRA: And that's a in relation to is it that's in north Florida?

DAVIS: No that's in South Carolina.

BECERRA: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

DAVIS: That's twenty miles on from Savanna.

BECERRA: Ok, ok and then you then first came then to Miami the first town you stopped at in Florida as far as settling?

DAVIS: No, the first place we settled was Copeland. We left Hardeville on the train and came in to Copeland

BECERRA: I see

DAVIS: The house was there, we moved right in and a went to work within a day or two.

BECERRA: What year was this that you pulled in to Copeland?

DAVIS: I want to say it must have been 43

BECERRA: 43

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: just after the War had begun

DAVIS: yea because a in South Carolina we didn't have anything but radio and I think we didn't have the radios right on. And the worst news was Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Now get this picture we got mulls pull with log carts pulling logs and almost over night you look out there and there's eight or ten of the largest caterpillars and you talk about starting to log we logged like you wouldn't believe.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: Well the whole country set up for that you know

BECERRA: certainly

DAVIS: we came in left there and came on to Copeland and a stayed t re a. he

BECERRA: Bob you might find it interesting that before the War a it had been said that cypress was considered virtually logged out because no one was crazy enough to go into the Everglades to get this stuff but once the War hit there was this new need for materials any type of materials. Cypress was primarily, I was told, used for the production of PT boats during the War the hulls and what have you. A and so I guess the company a was situated at Perry, Florida which is where the logs were sent then

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: a and I was told also that these houses that you just moved into they were also then shipped in pieces I was told from Perry, originally.

DAVIS: They may have been but when I first came there they were well built, you couldn't a asked for a better house for a company house.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: They sized the house up to your family. It had indoor bath and plumbing, it was on pilings and we only had a road filled road and the boardwalks that go out to that you know. And then later on they hauled in dirt and filled in. A, it was a beautiful place really. It's run down and tore up now storms and whatever but it used to be a beautiful place.

BECERRA: Yea, yea

DAVIS: Considering everything else. A, and the cypress that has been a fishermans a boat building material for ages because

BECERRA: oh, sure

DAVIS: and

BECERRA: the wood hardly rots a

DAVIS: a I never known it to rot

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: and a then any down log out there when it's got the heart even if it's under water, it's still good. So a they was

BECERRA: we found some cases where there were logs on the bottom of log ponds for over twenty years and they pulled them out and they were as good as new

DAVIS: oh yea

BECERRA: and that's how I guess it got a there was a nickname given "The Wood Eternal" a the wood eternal it was always eternally a

DAVIS: oh, oh yea yea

BECERRA: hard that cypress

DAVIS: well it was an easy tree to cut. In as far as sawing because it had water in it you know

BECERRA: oh yea

DAVIS: and as you pulled your cross-cut saw through it would just lubricated with water and a there was soft wood

BECERRA: yea yea

DAVIS: and so a it wasn't they only difficulty in cutting logs there was a in the swamp you had a lot of vines you the the trees had small butts and to get

BECERRA: strangler figs also

DAVIS: yea everything

BECERRA: you name it

DAVIS: a then sometimes you would have to scaffold way up to get a log get to where you saw would reach, excuse me,

BECERRA: almost like an egg, once you get past the shell it's easy basically

DAVIS: yea a.

BECERRA: I'll get to those questions on the trees a little bit later. When you pulled in to Copeland, how old were you?

DAVIS: I think I was a 12 and a half 12 and a half or thirteen.

BECERRA: Then I guess then your father certainly went to work immediately did you go to work as well?

DAVIS: Oh yea I worked in South Carolina.

BECERRA: No kidding.

DAVIS: Cutting cross-ties and that's basically what we did. So when we got here I want to say that the water was up cause that time of the year. So the dead trees you see out in the swamp now a and the cause of it is from fire burning through from years ago. Why a we would cut those, and basically my job the tree was very easy to cut with a broad ax, and my job was to go help him cut the trees down and maybe I'd saw them up and I'd rack them together with chains about 4 chains, for ties and a then put another 4 back to that and I'd float them to the track. Well if you come to the track you'd try to find a place that wasn't over your head and then you'd put them up there the checker would come by once a week you know and so that's the way you cut cross-ties a and then when there wasn't a no water well you carried them out by on the shoulder. And a you tried not to cut green they were much heavier and small timber and the green it twist the wood grain twist about three times you know so a.

BECERRA: Also the trees were girdled for like sixty to ninety days

DAVIS: no

BECERRA: left to, left to get the water out I guess.

DAVIS: No, well the rule was you were supposed to girdle the tree and that was cutting the heart,

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: cutting the sap to the heart

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and that don't mean cutting straight around, if you had to go up this a way or that way any way to get to the wood because you got all those lakes and in vain you couldn't get them with the ax you see. So you took the ax and all you had to do was get the red wood all the way around. Now, they were supposed to stand there ninety days before we cut them for logs. But I've seen where we've girdled a tree and sawyers be waiting to cut it down.

BECERRA: Within the course of how many, right then and there?

DAVIS: Right then, because

BECERRA: yea I was told there was

DAVIS: the idea was this, a they inspector looked at it on the car you know, well it's supposed to lose that water that the most weight of it, and a as long as it's got a tip on it where it shows it's been girdled he can't say how long it's been girdled.

BECERRA: That's true.

DAVIS: Now that didn't happen all the time but you know how work is. You'll get

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: caught up or

BECERRA: right, either way the cypress was going to have be stacked for to a year anyway to dry out eventually, so a so I guess a Tidewater Company to go ahead and get more wood they would rush the job I guess then?

DAVIS: No there never was a rush job. A, the skidder foremen I think had ten cars a day. If they could get ten cars loaded even if they had to set up another, a tear down and set up a trail which was the skidding trail,

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: if they that was considered a good crew and a good foreman to load out ten cars. In other words everything in the loggin woods was always a in a competition basis. And an awful lot of it was done in piece work, for instance sawing logs. That was done by paid by the thousand board feet if you got a $1.50 for a thousand board feet. Well that was split between two of you see. So the more thousand you cut or if you wanted to work five hours that was alright. Cutting cross-ties that was piece work. That was a that and the steal gangs the ones that laid the steal and ripped the steal a that was the steal gang wasn't piece work but they had so many rails to lay for instance say they had thirty-two rails to lay. Well they would go lay it, they wouldn't stop for dinner they'd just keep working and when they got through, go home.

BECERRA: That's it.

DAVIS: If it was one-o'clock you know.

BECERRA: Right.

DAVIS: And they were still out there. That's the way they did it.

BECERRA: Exactly.

DAVIS: And and everybody worked, there wasn't no showoffs or anything. A and one of the most interesting thing is to see em loading. Now loading on a car, a low car and a log truck is quite different. You have a top loaded, he stays on the car. And you have tongue puller, and the boom swings and the top loader tells the tongue puller he just points at that log well he may have a log footing but the idea is to get that log as quick as he can. Now there is no way you can hook that log and balance, you know what I mean.

BECERRA: Right.

DAVIS: So it's up to the loadermen to load it. And you got to do it quick, you can't play around with it. Well that tongue puller he gets the tongue so he will hit it and when he hits a tree like that why they have already in the cable see and he goes off like a black bird and guy come here with log cause he ain't got time to wait cause he comes up there brings it to the side and of course it's hanging up like this

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: and he he just worked his machine there and raises it up real quick and drops it and catches it with his brake and that throws it up there and then he moves it and it's on the car.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: And a the prettiest thing is a art to all this stuff, they load the cars like this, they look like it came out of a mold.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: Doesn't matter how many if the logs a little bit crooked they'll straighten it. So when you load

BECERRA: you're absolutely right when you say art you'd be surprised when I tell you we actually have moving film of this going on

DAVIS: you do?

BECERRA: No kidding

DAVIS: And a,

BECERRA: one day I'll bring that by, you'll you'll flip out, it is art and it's incredible the it was work, hard work, but as as I've talked to all the different pioneers and different positions they took a love in what they did

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: it was a it was a challenge in a way to a

DAVIS: in other words just cause that man been up there loading all his life he wasn't no better than this fella on the top on the car you know.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: A and a, so we a it was beautiful to watch and a like you say it's an art that's another art was a laying steal. A, now I did everything I could I could do everything in the logging woods there was. Except maybe skid or I hadn't done that you know with the overhead, and a as a kid you want to try everything so I was a good ax man in other words I could handle with the best of the men.

BECERRA: You look like a good ax man.

DAVIS: Yea, but I was only about 160 pounds then. And a but the one thing I could never do was drive a spike. And three licks was all they needed.

BECERRA: Wow

DAVIS: And they did it just like you'd drive a little nail. And I'd hit the spike and my rear end would jump up.

BECERRA: I, we found a several I mean we there is hundreds and thousands of spikes thrown about I've seen them and they are some serious

DAVIS: when there again

BECERRA: something to put through wood yea

DAVIS: there again that guy could do it all day and probably

BECERRA: and they also had a song they would chant what have you

DAVIS: oh yea

BECERRA: we have several of them

DAVIS: without that that's another thing without that you can make fun of them if you want to but

BECERRA: but it was all very planned out the whole

DAVIS: it wasn't nothing

BECERRA: when they pull on this you know

DAVIS: you have if every man put out ten pounds and you had eight men at that moment you got 80 pounds you didn't get 60 pounds you and it didn't hurt nobody.

BECERRA: No it was quite a

DAVIS: And you could work all day long like that

BECERRA: quite a feat yea

DAVIS: and a

BECERRA: we've got about ten, I think, different verses, different songs of course and they all a had a lot to do with the log boss or whatever and it's there comical

DAVIS: well there was

BECERRA: but they kept them in tack you know

DAVIS: well they was some mean ones

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: and like anyplace anywhere there is always bullies and if you let bullies run you why that will be the rest of your life

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: But an awful lot of the logging jobs were intimidation. You must remember that early logging was like everything else, the sawmill big sawmill come in and people would go to work for it they'd have their commissary

BECERRA: certainly

DAVIS: and a so they paid just enough to keep you in debt just like the old coal mine

BECERRA: sure they had their own money, babbitt

DAVIS: yea well yea and a so you raising a family so you're in a sense in a slavery situation.

BECERRA: Yea you're not really getting that yea I sense that with a lot of the.

DAVIS: In fact the store you could get anything you could homestead out of the store, go out there and you see.

BECERRA: Sure

DAVIS: And now that's the way a lot of this a north and the south was settled was from the logging.

BECERRA: Certainly, yea.

DAVIS: And a, you worked for Mr. so and so a and then as things got more modern why you were more able to go to another place a and work when there was a lot of saw mills

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: but there was an awful lot of intimidation a and basically if you just took a stand said why I'm not going to put up with it why you didn't have no problems.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: They were after all all everybody respected one another

BECERRA: sure sure, I saw that

DAVIS: a, I a girdled, I surveyed, I liked surveying more than anything else because you always what's on the other side there you know

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and a I just enjoyed the whole thing. A, when my father and I got lost we come across this place and it was some bears and they climbed every cabbage tree and tore the top out and we didn't have anything with us but a machete and didn't know what are you going to do if you run into a bear you know. A, we knew they was around from the job panthers and everything but nobody bothers we're out here a already lost and we come across a place where they had spent the night and I've been in a lot of stinking places, hog pens, cesspools and things like that you know but there is nothing that will equal where a bear were a bear spend the night. And I didn't realize that until and oh, to show you we didn't get a stay out all night why a we kept on walking and we came out 1000 feet from the house. Now how we did I don't know. Well years later I was in Gainesville, Florida and this fella said "Do you like bear steak" and he offered it and so ok. So it was pretty steak and my wife cooked it and a I couldn't go near the house, I smelt that same odor

BECERRA: that you smelt that day

DAVIS: that I smelt that day

BECERRA: it all came back to you hua, that memory

DAVIS: and they they they went wild about the meat you know and I had I just left I couldn't stand it but I know today, if I run if a bear is around me I'll know it.

BECERRA: You'll know.

DAVIS: A, a it was surprised

BECERRA: two experiences that day and the bear meat day

DAVIS: a, they were they was it was like going out West in the 40's in the Everglades and around Miami, you a there was game everywhere there was fish everywhere and everything was alive.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: And a I walked on, top this, as much time as I spent in the woods logging, in the pine hills, in the swamp and so forth, we never looked for snakes or gators we just went walk like a wild indian through the woods and a it was like passing somebody on the street and nobody got snake bit. And I often said "thank God" because there was plenty out there you know

BECERRA: yea.

DAVIS: And a it was I was just one of those that thought that we'd never cut all the logs out. And a so after we I left before we completely cut the swamp out went in the service and I've tried to log these poles but my heart just wasn't in it you know. Going back over planted trees and they went back to the old job the old lumber company in South Carolina and loaded logs for a short time, and a we had gone back over where they had 40 or 50 years it seemed like and we had just gone through a thinning out

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and a we weren't doing anything but just getting just poles I call it.

BECERRA: Yea, quite different from these giants out in the Everglades, right.

DAVIS: And I did, yea well I

BECERRA: that must have been a sight for you to be part of some of these huge trees

DAVIS: yea we didn't start, we didn't start a reforesting early enough

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: a now C. J. Jones I understand had already a program in and I don't think

BECERRA: yea, he was rare in that sense

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: there were what I found in my studies as early as the 19 1927 there was a state law however the Everglades were so out there and you know what's the isolated that they just really the company they couldn't keep bearing down on the companies that much so it was ignored. C. J. was one of the first to do things like that.

DAVIS: Well you must remember that the War was on and

BECERRA: certainly I I completely

DAVIS: I don't think that

BECERRA: that's another

DAVIS: I don't think that the swamp would have been would have been logged out like that if it hadn't been for the War,

BECERRA: oh diff oh

DAVIS: because I believe

BECERRA: definitely

DAVIS: I know there was government backing.

BECERRA: Like I said a you know I had read in my studies that cypress in of itself originally taken from Louisiana and other southern states was considered before World War II "logged out" because no one was crazy enough to go deep into the Everglades to get that, so as a timber species it has been said that before the War it was "logged out" no one was going to go down there. However the War changed things everybody

DAVIS: yea

BECERRA: needed a materials any kind of thing that was needed

DAVIS: well the way, the way they had logged before a it a company couldn't do it without help.

BECERRA: Yea and it also helped that the government was buying everything that the company put out no matter what grade it was exactly

DAVIS: yea, right guarantee, you see

BECERRA: a guarantee that did help.

DAVIS: You see where a if you go further up where you got more ground, more solid earth, and when you go through the swamps you can drive piling which is very reasonable as compared to pulling up a grade see. We had four drag lines at one time

BECERRA: yeah

DAVIS: and a you couldn't put piling down here, wooden piling like a they use else where, and a so that makes a difference because you know they, let me tell you something about the drag lines. A if you got a 80 feet link of grade dug that was pretty good. Well if you got a hundred foot you could brag on that. Now get this, whatever the water level was, when they went and cut the right-of-way that's where they cut the stump off with their ax and that stump could be that high you know. Well when you bring the drag line you can't use like you're out here on the prairies mats and things like that you got to pull with logs. So they start from the center of the right-of-way and they cut 75 foot on each side. They got to go through and cut the small stuff and the vines and the right-of-way crew goes in and cuts the trees out of the 8 foot alright then the sawyers come through and cut the timber on the right-of-way and this however it falls so when you come start digging a you did what you can and then you look around and you got to a carry logs with you most of the time and if you get in these big ol stumps well you going to have some pretty big logs see. And you got to hook em and bring them around and you you do as much moving like that as you do digging and then the timber over here you pick it up and bring it round and so you got a little spot to dig and maybe you can get some dirt and maybe you cant.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: You just get the best you can.

BECERRA: And in some cases I was told they dug up anything and threw it down the vain.

DAVIS: Yea, well we pulled all the trash and brush in then you'd put what dirt and stuff

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: a they'd be back going whenever you was in a the I called them a slough where the water was the deepest and it's kind of a pond area because a your stumps were so high. I pulled my drag line up on a stump and I had stuff on each side of the track left over so it took a bunch of logs.

BECERRA: Right, I've always had an interesting a inquiry as far as the the a spur lines. Were the spur lines graded as far as digging up also.

DAVIS: Yea, everything in the Lee Cypress was graded because it was in the swamp.

BECERRA: Everything even the spurs. Right.

DAVIS: Yea. Yea on the—

BECERRA: There was some photographs that come up with that I've actually very visually seen the rail being put right on top of a stump. Do you remember any of this a.

DAVIS: Well for a short, if you're just going to use it for the stump is solid more solid

BECERRA: certainly

DAVIS: than the tie.

BECERRA: Yea, definitely.

DAVIS: A, ok, a you see I you understood a little bit about C. J. Jones how he operated he put his right on the grade.

BECERRA: Yea, we're going to get to C. J. in a second.

DAVIS: Ok. Alright in a piling track, where you drove pilings, well you didn't put them piles that close together.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: You drive a piling here get it between this stump and one here.

BECERRA: Exactly

DAVIS: And then you might be three foot over here.

BECERRA: Whatever you can do, right.

DAVIS: And the ties wouldn't be exactly straight across, see. Well you're not going to be in there very long and it does support the track and of course when you get on that you don't run a race you know you

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: you're careful. We very seldom on a when we have piling in the swamp we very seldom jumped the track. In other words, a so a hitting a stump was yea it give em more stable then it kind a.

BECERRA: Yea, so you did see that, I mean because it.

DAVIS: No I don't recall seeing it but I wouldn't be alright with me.

BECERRA: Right, ok. It could have been that they were probably crossing a very deep a maybe a cypress dome of sorts that might have been very deep.

DAVIS: Well the stump might have been right in the middle and didn't have no grade see.

BECERRA: That could have been.

DAVIS: Ok, and they come up to there and then they got this big stump

BECERRA: right put

DAVIS: and what are they going to do they can't put a tie in there.

BECERRA: Yea, like I said it's just this couple of pictures where I can easily see that that rail is right on the which is strange but unique yea.

DAVIS: I would accept it, I would accept it, nothing unusual.

BECERRA: Interesting. Before we get over to a C. J.'s a describe to me a little bit a your first view when you pulled into Copeland. A, that day, a do you remember a. What was your—

DAVIS: Yea a, keep in mind that I just came out of the real southern style sawmilling and people. And a this was South Carolina and that part was the pure south and even the people there. A, and so coming into Copeland it didn't look like much but when I got over to the Lee Cypress, why man, this is the best I've seen you know.

BECERRA: It was almost like a city a a.

DAVIS: Yea in other words—

BECERRA: Little fancy town almost.

DAVIS: Yea we didn't we still didn't have anything but Janes store there you know.

BECERRA: Right, right

DAVIS: But it was the environment it was clean you had a good house

BECERRA: well run, yea I was told that

DAVIS: and it and everything was well run. You didn't do anything but pay for groceries. And you made good money. You made more money there than you could be in Miami with anything. And a, ok then while we was there we got out and farmed a little bit you know, of course we fished, I mean for pleasure and.

BECERRA: Right. How big was the town when you pulled into it, in

DAVIS: Copeland?

BECERRA: in 43, yea. I'm sorry Lee, Lee Cypress the company town itself.

DAVIS: Copeland, ok, I say it was about there was about 12 white houses for white people and then the blacks section there was the Juke. Let me go back to the black section,

BECERRA: right, sure

DAVIS: you had a boarding house,

BECERRA: it's still there

DAVIS: yea, and they had the gambling table,

BECERRA: ok

DAVIS: and a so that took care of the single men,

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and then you had a I'd say you had 10 or 12 white houses and then across the railroad you had the

BECERRA: Polecat Alley they called it for single men

DAVIS: yea the Juke was all the way down to the

BECERRA: they had a separate church there, still standing church today a

DAVIS: separate church yea. They had a church I think before they had that one

BECERRA: oh really

DAVIS: yea the white building. A, then they a, allowed the colored I would say 20 it seemed like there was more than that. I want to say a couple of hundred really.

BECERRA: Houses or people?

DAVIS: No, I don't know why because I remember a lot of houses over more than you could even see there now

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: but I never did count them you know. And then it was some time later after why then the white people they kind a had a little people get together in somebodies house then finally they built the a

BECERRA: the black the the church the white church

DAVIS: church and then that third row of houses the first one you come to the white section that was built there and a a Copeland was basically just what it is now. Those house that go down 29 there,

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: they were active in a.

BECERRA: Unfortunately I have some bad news for you. There's a one a true, genuine official logging house left from the old town. Unfortunately Collier County bulldozed a lot of a even though the historical museum tried to save it and unfortunately Andrew did just to much damage. And a however their trying to save the a boarding house, the white section of the church and the black section and one logging town. Those three little structures are about all that's left but the other two have been altered a lot so there is really only one, we're trying to save it because you know once that's gone there is just no a telling these people that an interesting little beautiful town like this ever existed. And how life was, and work was work.

DAVIS: Well you see, a well there was another thrilling thing a you don't want to take away from this and that was the farming. A, I believe it was J. B. Janes and his brothers

BECERRA: Wayne Janes still is a good friend of mine. He works at the Texaco station there today on 41 and 29, Carnestown

DAVIS: Carnestown

BECERRA: corner of Carnestown he worked every morning, I'm out there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and every morning I get my paper from Wayne

DAVIS: well you do?

BECERRA: Oh yea, Wayne and I are good friends.

DAVIS: Ok, a Ochopee had two packing houses I believe.

BECERRA: Yea, Mr. Gaunt was the—

DAVIS: Yea and back up from Copeland from the store there was maybe two and I think up at

BECERRA: Deep Lake had a packing house

DAVIS: Deep Lake had a packing house but I think

BECERRA: still there a the remains of it

DAVIS: well I think it was originally used for oranges.

BECERRA: Yea, it was as a grapefruit grove originally, in fact we have a photo of a little narrow gauge railroad that was called the Deep Lake Railroad and it was the Deep Lake Grapefruit Company. It's written on a little locomotive there. It's an old 1920 I think.

DAVIS: Well a ok, that, now, you see all that has growed up and you don't see it and it was beautiful because the tomatoes just miles and it wasn't polluted

BECERRA: yea you don't get that view today

DAVIS: no

BECERRA: you you and nobody has any concept

DAVIS: and I think the best tomatoes came out of there. Now there is another thing people don't know. Is that you have to work the market, work with the market because if you wait on the market somebody else comes in and you've lost you crop.

BECERRA: Oh, yea.

DAVIS: So to plant tomatoes there they had to get out when the water started going down. And that made the area boggy. They had the fields laid out I mean they knew cause see I only plowed one fair, they didn't plow the whole field and a so they put the mules on box shoes

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: and I've been looking for a set of them for

BECERRA: like I said we'll get I'll show you one, a gentleman named a Vince Doore, who's the Ochopee Fire Chief today, is an avid collector of the local history. And he donated two of those shoe type things steal that you said or metal a to the museum and I think I've I'll check for you and if I get a chance to take a picture of them but if every your in, if I locate it a I'll let you know the name whenever you're in Naples again I know the director of the museum real well and he'll be glad to show you. But he did give a pair to the museum.

DAVIS: Well, well it now it seems odd seems like their pulling somebody leg,

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: but a they moved just as good as anybody else and now they usually out there they would cut down Model-A's and shorten bring em up close and instead of putting a just two rear tires on they would have three. And they didn't have to have air in them, you know just something to hold the vehicle up. And that was their they called them swamp buggies and you could take them through most any thing you know.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: They had enough traction there to hold them up

BECERRA: I have a feeling people aren't as resourceful today as they were back then I guess they didn't see anything back then as a problem just there is a solution for everything you know, really. A what happened was that a since he's the Fire Chief and there are certain burns that go on and he works with the National Park when there is a fire that starts, these fields are cleared and he has to go check them out certain things out there and he finds all these and he found two in the mud there (oh man) yea, oh yea, there still. What's nice, even though the fields are no longer visible as terms of how they once were when you were there it it's safe to say that when you're up in a helicopter, and I've been up there, guess what? Nothings changed, because you can still visualize you can see all the, you can't on the ground. It's beautiful, it's very nice. People don't realize how much farming was going on out there, I mean acres upon acres. We found a 1940 collection of aerial photographs that the U.S. Department of War did of Collier County and you'd be surprised it is incredible how much farming is going on. Looking at these air the whole place was farmed. There wasn't one place they didn't touch you know.

DAVIS: I know, any place the salt water didn't—

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: I'll tell you this a let me come back to a dead man's curve.

BECERRA: Sure, sure.

DAVIS: A see Immokalee used to be a cowtown, looked like Dodge City.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: And I know Frank Brown, a I kind a sparked his daughter. He would bring, I worked for a Janes a for little bit, wanted a changed you know get in the store a little bit, and so he'd bring in meat for Janes now back then the way these stores got their meat was a somebody would come around and say how many cows you want or how many quarters and so on. A, well bring it in, so we'd go out and butcher and throw some palmettos in the truck, palmettos over that and bring it in. Now it would be hid, it wouldn't be stolen, if you wanted hogs, that's the way you got your hogs and that was all the way through including over in Lake Okachobee. In the country stores. That was most common way meat got to the store. And there were people who made their living and they wasn't rustlers or anything, they had hog rings and they had an order to fill so they go out there and camp and get their hogs and bring it in and that's what. Well Frank Brown had his daughter and she was kind a cute, we wrote a little bit, but he's one of the old pioneer ranchers a could speak knew all the Indians you know and I saw him, I know he's dead now, and couple one of his boys I can't remember his name, he and I worked together on the job. We helped, we surveyed a little bit. Old Frank whole family was great people you know. He was one of the earliest pioneers but that's the way we got the meat in to the store.

BECERRA: Right, right.

DAVIS: Ok, come back to deadman's curve. Just as you leave Carnestown, and just as you get around the curve going up going back to Immokalee you'll see the old dam, the slide dam you know the,

BECERRA: yes

DAVIS: ok, just beyond it on the left hand side maybe a thousand feet there used to be an old house so we moved out of our castle into that. That was like going out into the worst log cabin you ever saw. And a, rented 10 acres for $100. And we cleared it up and of course we sold a lot of stuff and when the water came up why along side the road there the sewer when it went down had an area about 8 foot 10 foot wide and we cleaned that up and then on the up side of the canal those there's a little a what do you call mounds that follow the canal, dikes.

BECERRA: Dikes

DAVIS: And so we we just cleaned that off and plant sweet potato vines. And there was greens, a collards, mustard, and turnips. And people would just drive by and we'll sell em, Indians buy from us, they bought sweet potatoes. And a we made a lot of money you know.

BECERRA: Neat

DAVIS: And of course we a we had 2 acres of tomatoes. Looked like now we was we had enough tomatoes there to clear $2400. From what everybody told us. And a like you look at it today and tomorrow you go out to pick and it look like you took a steam hose and when down each row. The blight that hit and it not only hit us it hit everybody. And so that's when your tomato farm stopped and they started going to Immokalee or getting out of it because

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: and up till then I don't know if they had a spray or anything you know. But I think that was in 46, I think that was about—

BECERRA: How long did you work for, first of all how long did you father work and how long did you work for the a a Lee Tidewater Cypress Company?

DAVIS: A, well my dad he worked a, I'd say about 5 years. And for them particularly I worked I must have worked close to 5 years.

BECERRA: So you did also work, as soon as you got to the town you worked there?

DAVIS: Oh yea.

BECERRA: Yea, what was your first job for Lee Tidewater?

DAVIS: Well I wasn't on the payroll. In other words a I was my daddys helper. Ok, now the tree after it was cut down needed to be score hacked and that was standing on the tree and cutting it into where the broad ax would take it.

BECERRA: That's to mark the tree that he cut right? Is that not right?

DAVIS: No, when you cut a tree down, say you're going to have a cross-tie it say it's 6 inches thick there alright, when you start up here at the top you'll have a small amount to take off as you get down to the butt of the tree you'll have more. So you stand on that tree and you take a chip out

BECERRA: oh, I see

DAVIS: ok, and you have your chips about that close together so that a you'll have most of the wood off and the broad ax can do more of a cleaning you know.

BECERRA: I see

DAVIS: So I did most of that, well I did all the score hacking and then when I got a that done I'd take me a pry-pole and short cut off cross-cut saw and I'd saw the ties up you see.

BECERRA: Out in the swamp.

DAVIS: Well anywhere, where ever the tie was.

BECERRA: You mean, ok,—

DAVIS: Well you see, now you're thinking of a large cross-cut saw would take and make about make it about 5 foot long, for one man.

BECERRA: Right.

DAVIS: Alright and a you just put a ply pole under it and, now, that doesn't mean I sawed all the time. When my dad got through hewing if I needed help or something like that why he jumped in helped me saw.

BECERRA: I guess what I'm a little confused about is that I thought I was under the impressing that all the logs that left Copeland, left there raw. Is this just for the ties that you used there a for that, just for the road bed, ok.

DAVIS: Oh yea, yea. Yea, your cross-ties on any logging company would be hewed two sides.

BECERRA: Right then and there on site.

DAVIS: Where ever you could find the timber and have a way to get it or maybe the company would have a machine to take them to the track.

BECERRA: But in this particular case. Once a tree came down you then got busy making it into a tie before the actual

DAVIS: railroads

BECERRA: no kidding. I didn't know that. So I thought everything was shipped out shipped back in as ties in a sense no?

DAVIS: No, what you did on the railroad a you had to always have plenty of ties because a ok so here's a steel gang they go rip up this track. Alright they have to pick up 30 rails say that's 15 to each side ok now as they coming ripping those rails up why it was a good time to pick it up and throw it on the shoot and it rolls right up and they stack it on the car see. Ok, now he's not going to have enough to lay that same track because ones going to break or maybe it's no good after it's been used you know so you used all the scape you see. Alright then they need more ties, well a so they come by the tie pile just like the engine would come by the water tank to get water. And a they start it was the steel gang clean operator you know and they get out there and throw out whatever their going to put up there and got lay the next day. That way you always had now you always had you always good to keep several hundred ties or more ahead see. And a so they'd lay the next day. But your ties were two sided and some ties, I call them tie choppers, were just like craftsmen today, some were very precise it didn't make any difference if he was getting twenty cents a piece for em or a nickel a piece. He wanted to be a art, in other words he put his heart in it.

BECERRA: Right, right. It was only squared off on two sides.

DAVIS: Two sides.

BECERRA: It didn't matter the other sides, right. So are you telling me that the ties to build the Lee Cypress Tidewater Railroad in the Fakahatchee, the ties were done and cut then and there.

DAVIS: Yea.

BECERRA: Of cypress? Wow. And I heard in some cases those royal palms would be thrown down too. There's a picture there we saw some royal palms as ties. Very rare but they—

DAVIS: Ok, well sometimes a picture is deceiving to you if your not familiar with the surroundings.

BECERRA: Well no, this was a gentleman a botanist that went out there while you all were out there

DAVIS: ok, ok

BECERRA: and saw several royal palms.

DAVIS: Ok

BECERRA: That's true a cypress could look, you're right.

DAVIS: No, no I don't mean that.

BECERRA: No

DAVIS: Suppose you was ok, suppose you coming up on a good solid island, a good solid ground and you was only going to be there for three months and you didn't need no grade on it. All you need just it was kind of level and a so an old cabbage tree had been cut across a ok so their going fast and they just pull the cabbage tree down and they might spike a rail in it you know.

BECERRA: Ok, ok.

DAVIS: It wouldn't be unusual. The same thing if an oak tree out there could be a ok so pulls it they just cut the oak tree down and say it was that big.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: And they wouldn't have made it wouldn't have to be 8 foot it could 16 foot.

BECERRA: Exactly, I'll show you one of the pictures, you see this real long but no I understand what you're saying. You used what you could but I find it interesting was that the actual ties for the railroad there were actually cut right then and there on site. I didn't know that.

DAVIS: Oh, yea they had to because you'd have the whole crew waiting on you to cut ties and you can't cut them that fast.

BECERRA: Gee whiz.

DAVIS: A, I know

BECERRA: so you were always like you said, 300 or 400 ahead

DAVIS: well

BECERRA: so that the next day they could get a

DAVIS: say say me and my dad cut 50 a day, ok, in five days that's 250 ties. A, but you must remember I want to think that they had maybe it was two over heads but I was thinking they had three overheads and a you got a start off if two then three and then four drag lines. And then ok you get a hundred foot a day see what I'm talking about.

BECERRA: I see.

DAVIS: Or get close to a hundred foot and you got a lot of track to lay. Ok, but then logging down these tracks they liable to break it or you know break a tie and a the cypress isn't very strong wood but it does hold strength pretty good. A, there was one fella, a black man, his name was Charlie, he drove an old packard and to save his tires he took a automobile tires from another car and cut them out like a glove and put them on his rear tires and this was one of the old Packards. It looked like a big German tank, a Sherman tank coming down the road. Now, he he was a tie cutter, he was an expert and he lived down from Ochopee let's see and you had he had a board road that went to his house and old house set over there and a cypress around him you know. And but he would get out there and if he cut 10 it would be everything would be perfect. And he was a very old man when I knew him, I road with him many times you know and just was nice and quite but there again there is a black man that a I want this to be like I'm building a ship and

BECERRA: right

DAVIS; you see had all like that all over the a same as tools, if a man used a ax he'd design his own handle and it was a signature just like a picture being painted

BECERRA: wow

DAVIS: because your hand won't fit my ax handle

BECERRA: sure

DAVIS: and there the handle is the secret for the man to do a good job and not get fatigued. You could go man I I I would never go in the woods with one of these hackers you by in the store now. Let me tell you, to girdle, it would take you a whole day of hard work to get your ax and handle in shape. And then you still spend some time some time in the evening working on your ax. Now a I mean because if you didn't

BECERRA: neat, no I understand sure

DAVIS: it it

BECERRA: you want to be as comfortable as possible with a

DAVIS: ok a you have to think of what your ax was going to do.

BECERRA: It's like walking a hundred miles with shoes that don't fit you.

DAVIS: Absolutely. And a the girdling ax you see if you next time you get an ax take a file and lay it down across the face all the way back to the head. Ok, and you see this high spot and what you want is you want this edge to be flat straight round. Ok, now a when you get that filed that one up and you don't want to take it off fast cause if you do you can mess your ax up. You have to have one of these old grind stones that turn slow you know. And a awful lot of filing, and then your bit you want to round your points just a little bit

[End of Part I Side 2]

[Beginning of Part II Side 1]

BECERRA: A, you were on a, one of the things—

DAVIS: Ok, the a, let me see oh, the section gang did the repair on the tracks and they would a anything there a maybe a train would jump the track. And so the train the way they called the section gang you know it could be way over yonder, didn't have TV or tele I mean telephones or anything so he blowed his whistle five long blasts. And so when he'd start blowing that a way, you know which engine it was a because you would know where it was coming and each engine had its own particular whistle. And a, you just after you were out there awhile you knew which that was a four spot or that was two spot or you know. And you'd listen because the five it blowed only five that meant he wrecked. If he blowed six that meant a dead man.

BECERRA: Wow

DAVIS: So the dead man was on the train and he was coming in, man, ever so often you'd hear, and it was sad to hear, you know. The engine blowing six it would be like boom boom boom,

BECERRA: yea, it would be a slow

DAVIS: yea nobody had to tell you, once you heard it.

BECERRA: Would that have been the same case at C. J. place? Six, would that be just the traditional a?

DAVIS: A that's that would be normal tradition I've a

BECERRA: it could have prob I'm sure it could have been

DAVIS: well

BECERRA: I'll check up on that but that interesting

DAVIS: I sure but now they have they worked closely like that I suppose because that basic practice like a

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: stop sign here a stop sign some where else.

BECERRA: I'll check it but it's something new, it's very interesting.

DAVIS: But anyway, if it jumped its track a if the section gang was ten miles it would take a them to long to get to engine and back out. And so they said well we'll be our own section gang you know. And a, if I can remember, if you've ever had an automobile that had a flat tire and you had to fix it, like the old timers that had to pump it up with a hand pump and take it out and put a patch on it, well that about like the train jumping a track, you know. They are not all that difficult to put back on after you've done it a couple of times

BECERRA: sure, sure

DAVIS: there a low car.

BECERRA: A, a, the signals a, what would be one to you know all the way up were there different aside from that six and five?

DAVIS: No, no they'd be basically each person got his own talent for blowing the whistle. Just pull the whistle and maybe count, he had his own way of maybe count to a certain number and da da da pull it again. Keep the same distance of a of a sound. Like a note

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: there was no prepractice or anything.

BECERRA: No but I mean did six meant dead man, five meant you were coming back home.

DAVIS: No, five meant section gang coming up.

BECERRA: Oh, ok. Oh jumped the track or a wreck. Was there anything, was there anything before three?

DAVIS: No

BECERRA: No, ok I was just wondering.

DAVIS: Each cowboy engineer had his own whistle to coming in and going out.

BECERRA: But five would be much different, and six would be a slower pace.

DAVIS: Well no, six would be about the same pull as five.

BECERRA: Just when you heard that last one, it would be a pretty solemn moment.

DAVIS: Yea, you'd hear it.

BECERRA: Especially if your friend was somewhere else. Everybody star probably started thinking.

DAVIS: Yea, the feeling you had you'd almost pull your hat off whenever it didn't blow no more past five, well you was relieved, see.

BECERRA: Wow

DAVIS: A,

BECERRA: so hopefully

DAVIS: but let me tell you something else. It depends on the, I say that I was basically, but the way they treated the blacks in the early south why I wouldn't be a bit surprised if a they just pull him on the a car and take off and never blow the whistle get in there and you know.

BECERRA: Yea, yea.

DAVIS: A, I gonna tell you this because when I was went back to South Carolina to look up my friends and work on a job, the same man that had the mill was still there, knew me well knew my dad. And I started messing around out on the job and so they found out that I had loaded I mean I'd done worked the drag line and they wanted me to load logs and I had never had loaded. Now this guy was black, all the people around me were black and a they let me stay with the operator for half a day and then they put me loading. A and this is the thing you see how quick they work. They had they top loader and the tongue puller, now I'm loading with the drag line which is a lot harder more difficult than loading with a crane. A crane is made to be a crane and a drag line is made to be a drag line.

BECERRA: Right

DAVIS: But a things they use, ok. And this top loader, when I came to South Carolina he was top loading in, he started when he was a kid and here he is an old man you know. And he's got his boots on, and he's one of these that and I said right there on top of that car. Don't say a word he just passed where he wants the log. And I'd done loaded ten cars out, done loaded pine logs and I was getting tired and I and everyone of them look like they come out of a mold you see. There again it's art work you don't see none of this

BECERRA: right

DAVIS: and if you have to turn the log you turn the log to make it lay right. It stayed on the car better that way.

BECERRA: Sure, sure.

DAVIS: there was a little cut there and we was in a bunch of saplings and I could every time I would hit the thing it'd bounce out and I'm getting mad and I tell the man get off the car I'm loading you know. Get away and I cussed him out and he wouldn't get off he just wasn't making him mad he just but he was doing his job he was teaching me to be a loaderman see. Because he was the one I want that log there that's where I'm supposed to put it. And a so so I like some kid taking off in a hotrod jalopy, I'm going to turn this thing around come in the other way and I know I could get that way in. So I start swinging that thing around and saplings was all over me and there as I got around there before a I realize it it swung to far and it caught the sapling over there and started coming around the other way. But it was coming around faster I could control it and here it come out behind him and here he's running with he had hip boots on rolled down to his knees, you know like a little puppy dog goes up there. And our log cars had sixteen foot reach poles you know from one car to the other.

BECERRA: Yes, yes.

DAVIS: You had thirty-two foot

BECERRA: right, right, right

DAVIS: cars and a it hit him in the back of the legs and it looked like that and he fell down and hit the a well oh boy I know I've killed a man. Actually was my friend, a so I was the first to get to him then he was laying out there you know, blood coming out of his nose and I'm I'm I don't know what to do.

BECERRA: Devastating, yea.

DAVIS: Yea, so they tell couple of them to take him to the car for you know going to take him him in and I expecting for the man to say "you all get you fanny out of here". And the old superintendent said "Well boy, get back up there, start loading." So I got back up there and loading, but I did not have to tell nobody get out of my way when I said get out of my way. And I felt so bad about that you know and I went visit that man two or three times while he was getting better.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: And he he was a so much southern and bred under the southern way like the way they treat blacks he he was embarrassed the didn't know how to they just it was unusual for a white man to come there and show sympathy for hurting him you know.

BECERRA: Interesting

DAVIS: But they were very friendly because they knew us, knew my family

BECERRA: sure, sure

DAVIS: a but I felt bad about that.

BECERRA: Yea, right.

DAVIS: A, like any place as safe as you are, as safely as you can practice, there's always an accident will take your life

BECERRA: sure, sure

DAVIS: and a

BECERRA: wow

DAVIS: but I've been I been extremely lucky

BECERRA: yea

DAVIS: and I I would love to be back there logging again.

BECERRA: Really.

DAVIS: But I would do it differently, a I don't know if you'd do the swamps differently because a a I would pond my logs in the sense I would a take out the bad the crooked and after a certain trees reached maturity why I'd cut a few of them. Cause this would give it a chance for the rest of them to grow see.

BECERRA: Right, sure, sure.

DAVIS: And a I'd fix it so that I wouldn't have trouble with the forest fire that they do. If I had the land like they do now

BECERRA: Right, right

DAVIS: a they just created their own hazard you know back when we was logging why there was free reins, that was like the old west, but a we we did the same practice that early people did. We practiced burning the woods. And we never had no problem at all. There was plenty of grass for the game, it kept the undergrowth down, it kept the woods clean and then lightening did strike why it burnt out quick you know what I mean?

BECERRA: Yea, right, right it controlled the area.

DAVIS: Yea, but we didn't have no census on who controlled this or that. We were hunters if we went out we killed what we needed a and if this place need burning somebody burned it it was a great thing.

BECERRA: Sure, there's a great book you might want to read. Maybe you've already seen it, it's called "Over Forty Years In the Everglades" by Cal Stone. He he said in essence what you just said a that Cal first started out as a hunter, he went out there for the sport but fell in love with the Everglades. And he always shot just what you know there was enough to and then throughout the years he saw the attitudes change where he would come up to a deer kill there were ten deer for no reason, you know, and left there so it just changed in attitude a lot.

DAVIS: It just seemed like we created a different type of human being. It really does, and I I understand the way the Indians felt the idea they had towards all living things and here comes the white man not only white but every I think every nation that had a chance come in and a and and basically we're all looking a the [inaudible] says those are considered good and those who don't have a thought about what tomorrow just make the money you know.

BECERRA: Yea

DAVIS: Big name for myself and

BECERRA: right, right

DAVIS: a I know we never have it a, if we don't get busy and a we're going to have to get it a,

BECERRA: something going

DAVIS: we're going to have to put some not only money but manpower behind it I mean our voices are going to have to be heard. There going to have to be just as demanding, we're just to have to put

BECERRA: as much effort as we did destroying it to fix it

DAVIS: well we're going to have to put more.

BECERRA: Yea put more.

This transcript has reached it's character limit - please contact SFCMC Museum staff for a full copy of the oral history transcript.

Description

Bob Davis worked for the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company and Lee Cypress Company. Davis began working in logging when he was 9 and living in South Carolina. In this interview, he speaks about logging practices in Big Cypress National Preserve from falling the trees, to processing, and selling the lumber. Later in the interview, he goes on to share about growing up in Big Cypress, enlisting in the military, and the dangers of logging. Interviewed by Cesar Becerra on August 5, 1994.

Credit

Big Cypress National Preserve

Date Created

08/05/1994

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