Firewood For Victor, Colorado by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack).

Firewood For Victor, Colorado by Charles Norman Spray (AKA Jeep Hack). ©

It was the summer of 1948 when this took place, I was twelve years old. I would become a teenager at the ripe old age of thirteen in a couple of months before the summer was out.

I was able to get a job working for Bill Graner in the timber. His ranch was at the foot of Cow Mountain, just North off the Corley Highway (now called the Gold Camp Road) that led down to Colorado Springs. Bill had a contract or a lease with the Forestry Department. that permitted him to clear fallen dead timber off the Southwest slopes below Pikes Peak over above his ranch. This was before the days of oil, gas, etc. Everybody still used coal and wood stoves for heating and cooking, hence the need for the wood that this job helped to provide.

I remember the first night at the ranch. It was pretty normal. However being awaken at four a.m. every morning thereafter took some getting used to. I vividly remember my first day on the job. I was so tired when we got back to the ranch after work that I had to be repeatedly told to eat my supper. I was so tired I ate very little and went straight to bed. No sooner had I put my head on the pillow when I was awakened and told to get up for breakfast. I felt like I had been allowed to sleep only an hour or so (in reality it was probably more like ten hours). After the skimpy supper I had allowed myself the previous evening, I more than made up for it as I had to be literally dragged away from the breakfast table to go work.

Charles Spray (also known as Jeep Hack) & classmate Georganna McCleerey, April 1949. Photo shared by Georganna McCleerey Peiffer.

Luzzetta, Bill’s wife, like most ranch women was an excellent cook. For breakfast we would start off with a big bowl of oatmeal cereal topped off with brown sugar and fresh cream cold from the spring house. Then we dove into a big stack of pancakes with fresh eggs on the side. We always had meat at breakfast—not the skimpy bacon that cooked up, but bacon sliced thick; sometimes maybe a thick slice of ham, a pork chop or maybe a beef steak. It was a big breakfast for hungry boys and the long hard day’s work ahead of them.

Bill had a pickup with a staked-bed rack on it that we drove back up over the ridge to the higher slopes above Bison Creek where we would be working. I remember how later in the day you could hear the Cog Trains going up Pikes Peak—click, click, click. A workhorse was kept in a small corral by the creek where we worked. We would put the harness on him, hook a length of chain onto the singletree and take him up the mountain. We were ready to go to work!

Map shows locations referenced -- Bison Reservoir, Cow Mountain, Victor, Cripple Creek, and Road 8 = Corley Highway now known as Gold Camp Road. Bill Graner's ranch was located at the foot of Cow Mountain off the Gold Camp Road.

Bill had set up an old Model T engine on the frame. A large flat belt ran from a wheel on the engine back to a platform where a thirty-inch circular saw blade had been mounted. At the end of each day we took the logs that had been skidded down off the mountain and sawed them up into pieces to a length that would fit in a stove firebox. Then we stacked them in the pickup. At the end of the day that load of wood was driven back down to the ranch where it would be transferred to a larger three-ton truck.

At the end of the week, on Saturday, that truck was driven into Victor. The wood was distributed around town to those that had ordered it.

This was an excellent opportunity for two hard working country boys to take the quarter they had been given and partake of some goodies to be had at Harshberger’s Store in the big city. This usually included an ice cream cone with two big scoops of the many flavors available and a pocket full of penny candy for the road.

After delivering the wood in Victor, we treated ourselves to ice cream & penny candy at Harshies. Photo shared by Georganna McCleerey Peiffer.

Collection of two-man cross cut saws. The saw Bill and I used to cut the downed timbers into lengths that could be skidded down the mountain was 8' long.

This was before gas powered chain saws were in use so we sawed the timbers with an eight foot cross cut saw. We cut them into a length that could be skidded, then we looped the chain around the log’s end so Earl could hop on the horse and skid it down the mountain to the saw. Earl Allen (Bill’s stepson) was my close friend, a year younger than me and much smaller. He stayed on the horse while I slaved on one end of that saw.

The first few days until I got toughened up, I thought my arms would fall off. They burned like crazy. I can still hear Bill who was on the other end of the saw hollering at me “Boy, Quit leaning on that saw”!

Long days and hard work. At noon we’d retrieve large syrup cans that had been filled with ice-cold whole milk from the icy cold water of Bison Creek and take a short break. The big sack of sandwiches disappeared in a hurry.

One day while working on the mountain cutting and skidding dead fall logs, I hooked up one trace line from the skid horse’s harness, stepped over it and was reaching for the other line so the chained log could be hooked up to the singletree and skidded down the hill. Bill, usually a quiet reserved man, started yelling and cussing me saying to “git away”, that he would do it. He offered no explanation for his outburst. Still troubled that night I asked Luzetta, “What did I do wrong to have Bill tear into me like he did”? She told me the following story.

Depiction of how the downed timber logs were skidded off the mountain with a horse & singletree.

When Bill was a young man working along on the same mountain doing the same thing, he did exactly what I did. For some unknown reason the horse spooked knocking Bill down. His leg caught between the singletree and the trace. His leg was crushed when the log was dragged over it. Bill crawled off the mountain, then drove his pickup back down to the ranch, on down to the Corley, then over the many miles to the Cripple Creek Hospital where the leg was amputated. It was providence along with a lot of intestinal fortitude that, physically injured as he was, he was able to drive a stick shift pickup at all, let along that far. Luzetta’s story answered my question as to why Bill walked with an artificial leg. She assured me that he wasn’t angry with me.

Returning back home at the end of the summer, I had to buy new school clothes as none of my old clothes fit me. I’d grown up about three inches and filled out considerably. No fat just hard muscle. I think I ate Bill out of house and home—a hard working boy doing a lot of growing.

Bill gave me thirty five dollars and a load of wood for my summer’s work. I really appreciated that wood as it was a lot easier to chop than the old gnarled pine pieces we’d blasted off the stumps on the surrounding mountains, stumps left by the timber cut and needed for shoring the tunnels in the early mining days. At home it made my nightly chore a lot easier—making sure there were two stacks of wood behind all three household stoves, along with two buckets of coal by each stove.

After purchasing school cloths, my Mother gave me the extra money I needed to purchase a Winchester Model #94 30-30 Carbine. Something I had always wanted, something that made the long hours and hard work of the summer really worthwhile!

Winchester Model #94 30-30 Carbine.

"FIREWOOD FOR VICTOR, COLORADO" (submitted October 2020) by Charles Normal Spray (also known as Jeep Hack). ©

Click below for companion stories by Chuck Spray (AKA Jeep Hack):

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To discover why Charles Norman Spray was also known as Jeep Hack by his family and friends while growing up in Victor, click this highlighted link to his "Recollections of Life in Victor During the Great Depression, World War II and After".
Bill Graner was born Sept 13, 1904 and died April 3, 1991 at age 86. He is buried in Victor's Sunnyside Cemetery.
Charles (Chuck) Spray included this preface titled “ THE WHY OF IT ” with his more personal memoirs submitted in December 2019. My daughter who was always telling me “Dad, write down some of the stories you are always telling me.” But I’d continue to procrastinate. Finally, to appease her I started writing. The more I continued to write, the more that came to light. Sometimes I’d worry about how to start and just how or what I wanted to say. Then I’d remember what that renowned writer of western tales Louis L’Amour once said. “Don’t wait for an idea. Don’t wait. Just Write”! He also was to have said another verbal truth, “You have to turn on the faucet before the water starts to flow”! “Just Write”.
Bear with me. I hope you have the time or inclination to put up with the ramblings and recollections of a world weary old man. Perhaps in the telling I’ve stirred up a few recollections you might have of your own life. Put them down. Don’t wait. Write them down for your grandchildren and their grandchildren to follow. The children of today need to know that some things weren’t always the way they are today--things that will never be in the history books nor be taught in the schools, things that made up your life. It’s important they know of the world you knew, what took place before I-Pods, texting, and the abuse of one of man’s greatest inventions, television.
Please forgive my grammar, spelling, punctuation and over-all abuse of the English language. The Cherokee people have no word in their language for goodbye, so I’ll just say “Happy Trails” until we meet again.
Chuck Spray

THE PAST MATTERS. PASS IT ALONG.
The Next Generation Will Only Inherit What We Choose to Save and Make Accessible.

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