Narrator: John Pinky Hailstone Date: By: Richie Woodward Track 1 [Accession # 88.1.13B] RICHIE WOODWARD: OK, I d like to know what you did for a living when you worked. JOHN PINKY HAILSTONE: I worked mostly in the woods as a logger. But I followed a lot of different jobs. I retired at the Creamery down here. I worked two years there before I retired. RW: Well, let s see JH: Logging was my, you might say my life job. RW: Uh-huh. Do you remember anything about the pest house? JH: Oh, yes. I remember the building really well. It was, oh, near where the school is now. RW: [Inaudible] house. JH: Yes. In the bend of the railroad tracks. BOB EVANS: What did he have up there, smallpox or what the heck was it? JH: Well whatever disease, you know, that they were really afraid of at that time. Smallpox RW: Real contagious. JH: Yeah. And there was I can t think of it at that time, but it was in the throat. BE: Diphtheria? JH: Yeah. Diphtheria was a very dreaded RW: That was the other disease that [Dallas] Darst was talking about. 1
JH: But smallpox was dreaded. BE: Yeah, had a lot of them die. RW: How old were you during the Prohibition time? JH: Oh, old enough to get out with the boys. [laughter] I was born in [18]96. BE: That would make you how old? JH: I ll be 79 this year. RW: Can you tell me anything in particular about Prohibition? JH: Nothing, except there was a lot of graft in it, you know. The sheriffs collected from different bootleggers and that kind of stuff. BE: There were a few stills around here, too, weren t they? JH: Oh, yes. There were quite a number of stills. RW: You know anything about the Bush massacres, the Bush massacre? JH: No, I ve heard too BEy stories about that, but none of them correspond. So I don t think there was ever a Bush massacre. RW: You don t? JH: That s my opinion. RW: Uh-huh. JH: If you would take him down to Floyd Bush s place you know where he lives? BE: Yeah. JH: Take him down there, and if there s any stories left, he should be able to tell you about them. RW: What about the Issaquah ferry? 2
JH: Oh, I ve ridden on the Issaquah ferry a number of times. I worked for one of the trucks that hauled bottled milk from what they call the yeah, but I mean the Fred Tibbetts s place down here. You remember when they built that fancy dairy? And we used to see you went from Newport to Leschi Park. And then from Leschi Park, why, you went up over the hill, and then back down to Rainier Avenue. RW: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. JH: Instead of having that tunnel. RW: Uh-huh. I see. You remember the floating bridge going in? JH: Oh, yes. RW: Did that make a big change around Issaquah? JH: Well some people were very proud of it and others were kind of just grumbled about it. Just the same as anything else. RW: Do you remember anything in particular about celebrations? I know there was a lot of them, and they were a lot different from the way they are now, here in the town. JH: Oh, yeah. Of course, what killed the celebrations here was, you know, doing away with our Labor Day celebration. Now, they ve turned it into a salmon bake. RW: Oh, yeah. What was it like? JH: Well, the whole community, you know. It wasn t only Issaquah, it was a lot of people would come in here. And it was just a get-together for no particular profits. RW: Just to have fun. JH: Yeah. BE: [Inaudible] 3
JH: Oh, yeah. Of course, you met people probably from the adjoining towns that you wouldn t see any other time. RW: Uh-huh. What about the they had horse races I ve heard of for celebrations JH: Oh, yes. They had horse races. They used to run from the railroad track, you know, north, and run south up to this intersection, about a quarter of a mile. RW: Yeah? JH: Oh, every guy around the country, you know, around my age, why, was either riding or very much interested in the races. RW: What about, do you remember the first wobe mayor of Issaquah, when they recalled her? Do you remember anything about what kind of a lady she was? JH: Not to amount to anything. I think she did take in quite a few of the older people and take care of them. As far as what she did as a mayor, I don t know a thing about her. RW: You don t know. Do you know anything about coal mining, the strikes or? JH: Oh, yes. We had [inaudible] some of the strikes, there s no [inaudible] about that. The last time that they brought any amount of scabs into this territory, why, it was when they were on strike at the old mine up here. And whenever any of them come in on the stage, why, someone would ask them where they were going and a few things, and some of the rest of us would go down around and get back up on the track. And the track was the main thing leading up to the mines at that time. Most of the time, we stopped them. RW: What about the Odd Fellows Hall? Do you remember it? JH: [inaudible] RW: Do you remember any of the members or were you a member? 4
JH: No, I was never a member. My dad was. RW: Any particular meaning in Odd Fellows? I mean, why was it do you remember why it was named its name? JH: No, I have no I never did read their or hear why it was named. But they used to have their annual celebration. I remember real well. It was the 26 th of April. And they put on a large dinner, you know, for the members and their families. RW: What about the Ku Klux Klan? JH: Oh, I had my fun with them, too. RW: [Laughing] BE: Was you in on any of those deals with the Klan? Did they have one up here? JH: No, I was never a member, you know what I mean. But that was during the bootleg days and we had, oh, it was a family lived down in the valley, and we took a I worked as a powder man for many years, you know, on right-a-ways and the woods and on construction and that kind of stuff. So I told three or four of my buddies, I said, We ll go down there and burn a fiery cross. And we did. And it was many, many years before anyone around knew. They were blaming the Ku Klux Klan for doing it. It was really something. We made the cross out of long split cedar. And then we come up and rubbed the boxings on the railroad cars and well, it was waste filled with oil in those bearings. And we got that and wrapped it across and made a big cross out of it. [chuckles] We had a long torch to light it with. And every bootlegger and horse thief had a dozen different dogs to detect people, you know, coming in. And they were I don t know, but I expect they must have had at least a half a dozen. By the time we got that lit, why, they were all down there. [laughing] And then, see, part of the Klan burning of the cross was to fire three shots. So we put in I rigged up the three shots and put them up on stakes. And about the time the dogs got down to where the fiery cross was, why, the first one went off and they all [laughing] they all ran back to the house. That was quite a deal. 5
BE: Where did you have the cross? JH: Down at [inaudible]? BE: Oh, down at the foot of the gravel pit. JH: Yeah, right where RW: Were you talking about that? JH: Well, your brother Bill [inaudible]. BE: Yeah. RW: What about the Issaquah Theater? JH: Oh RW: Just the same now as it was before, huh? JH: I expect. I haven t attended it for so many years but I knew, you know, was acquainted with the fellow who built it. BE: Who built it? Ed? JH: Yeah. BE: I didn t know that. RW: I can t think of anything else, can you? What about the cemetery? There s nothing much to be said about it or? JH: Well, of course, it has recently been cleaned up a great deal. For many years, it was just well, in recent years, they did mow some of it; but this year, they even cleaned around the headstones. Made it very respectable. RW: It wasn t like that before. It was just JH: Oh, no, of course. 6
BE: It was full of Scotch broom, wasn t it? JH: Yeah. Yeah, it was just a stone here and there and it was growing up wild. RW: What about the atmosphere around the town during the Depression? Was anybody really upset, or was it just carry on as normal? JH: I don t think that this town was hit too bad. I raised a family of four, or we did, during the Depression. Had four youngsters in high school er, not in high school but in school. RW: Did you go to school up here at the schoolhouse on the hill? JH: Uh-huh. Yes, I went there. Through the eighth grade. BE: [inaudible] JH: Yeah. RW: What was that like up there? JH: Well, it was just a square building. The main entrance was in the middle. And there was two stories. And then, as you went to the stairs to the right, there were two entrances here for, you know, the lower rooms. And then your stair went up on one platform and then returned over here, for the upper grades. And then there were four rooms up there. That took care of all of the students in Issaquah. RW: There weren t very many then. JH: No. What were the teachers like? JH: Well I think you guys would be better off today if you d have had some of them. RW: [Laughing] BE: I m sure! [laughing] JH: Some of them were pretty rough. 7
RW: They were just rough, huh? BE: They were not very [inaudible] either. JH: Well, of course, I don t say, but they were I met up with a few teachers that I really enjoyed. I couldn t complain about the teachers. I think most of the time when we thought they were pretty rough, why, we deserved what we got. RW: Like leaving over the hill or something? JH: Well, we didn t very often. Oh, once in a while, of course, when the weather got too hot, we d have to go swimming or something. RW: We d have to go swimming! [laughing] OK, that s just about it. Can you think of anything you d like to add? JH: No, I I could mention a few things but you probably have it already so RW: Well, you know, it never hurts JH: But like I told Don, if you were interested in anything about the Bush massacre, of course, I knew the older people. I knew Grandma Bush and I knew the whole family of the generation which was much older than me, or than I. And I never heard a true story about the Bush massacre. I think there was one time, but they sent up they claimed some of the Indians came in from Snohomish or somewheres north and started a rumpus, but I owned, for BEy years, one of the first breech-loading rifles that was in this community. I got it from John Bush. RW: Oh, yeah? JH: My older son has it now. I gave it to him years ago. BE: Was it muzzle-loading? JH: No, it was breech-loading. It had shells. In the muzzle-loading, you had to use the RW: OK, thanks a lot. 8
[tape recorder turned off] BE: around by Sunset? JH: Yeah, down in that area. She was going to school, you know, to college to be a teacher. And she had to get out and get some of the Indian history. And she said that I took her up to Tom Mason s. She got enough of a story that I guess the people that examined the story and read it, why, said it was wonderful. And they asked where she had picked up that information. They thought that she had picked it up from, you know, some earlier books or something of that kind, but I can t say that it was 100 percent right, but anyway, she was very happy about it. BE: Did you ever hear anything about that hanging over by the Marchettis, a maple tree? JH: Oh, yes. My older brother witnessed that. RW: Uh-huh. JH: I asked him, oh, a few different times, you know, about the deal. And he was the only one that I could find in this community who could tell me different parts of that. You see, they what I wanted to know was what they did with the bodies of the two men that were blown up in this explosion. And he told me that they were buried in that little corner, where they had that uh public building there, across the creek from the fish hatchery, that apartment house. RW: Oh, yeah. JH: They were buried in that corner. BE: What explosion was that? JH: Well, you see, why, they hanged the man. He went down and blew up part of a house. Of course, the whole history of the thing was, at the time then, why, we had instead of we did have hotels in this town. I don t mean that, but we had many of the men that worked in the mine were single men. And a lot of the 9
women had what they called rooming houses. They would have board and room for so much a month. And this fellow came to one of those boardinghouses and he and this woman that was operating it had known one another in Europe. I think in Austria or one of the German you know, close to Germany. And he wanted to board there with her, but she wouldn t let him. So, her and her daughter lived in a little sort of a lean-to built onto the house. They slept in that. And, of course, he got that information. And when she had refused him two or three times to let him come in there and stay, why, he brought powder from the mine, and one night he blew up this part of the house. And during the time from when he had talked to her until he was ready to blow it up, she had moved her bedroom upstairs and moved a couple of her boarders in there. And, of course, they were the ones that were killed; and that s what the hanging was about. The town folk just organized and got the guy and took him up there and hung him. They had a trial in the little union hall up there. RW: Where did they hang him at? JH: Well, they just took him down over the hill now, what would that let s see BE: That was Marchetti s there, wasn t it? JH: Yeah, that was Tom Marchetti s place, right just across the alley from the Tom Marchetti BE: Where they built the schoolhouse and [inaudible]. RW: Uh-huh. JH: You know, from the school, it s on that side, on the west side. That was the original school grounds, of course. But they just held their court, and they found him guilty, and they went down there and strung him up and left him. RW: What hotel or boardinghouse was this that he JH: Well, you know where that castle is now? 10
RW: Uh-huh. Yeah? JH: It was near that. RW: It was near it. Was it the one on the four-way intersection down here? JH: Oh, no. RW: That was the Bellevue Hotel. JH: That would be in this corner, you see, over here, that s filled with Thriftway and that bunch. That was the Bellevue corner. RW: Oh, that s right. Yeah, that s right. So it s kitty-corner oh, I know what you re talking about. JH: You know where the Craft Castle is. You go down a block from the four-way stop. RW: Uh-huh. And you turn right. JH: Turn right and then left into where the Craft Castle is. And it was right in that vicinity. BE: Around there where [inaudible]? JH: Yeah, right near Burns old place. Could have been Burns s old place, I couldn t say for sure. BE: Oh-h. RW: What about that shooting? Do you remember anything about the shooting out here during or was it, Bob? BE: [inaudible] RW: Yeah, right out here. You were telling me something about it? 11
JH: Well, I did have a pretty clear view of most of that because I was moving from do you remember what Babick s house was over there on the corner? Across from Jack Legg? BE: [inaudible] what I know. JH: Well anyway, the wife and I and, oh, I think our oldest daughter was probably a year old, and we were using a team of horses and a wagon to move from there back down into Darst s old place. And I witnessed most of it. It was you know, there was a lot of talk about it. There really wasn t much shooting. Old Ben Legg just, I guess, did fire one rifle shot, and it was supposed to have hit the powerhouse they used to have down there? Wasn t that guy s name [Thomas] Evans? BE: Yeah. JH: Yeah. BE: He was in Puget Sound [inaudible]. JH: Yeah. And he some reports had it that she was working at the cupboard or the drain board and the bullet came through and splintered part of the cabinet that she was working at. I never did go into any detail about it. RW: Well, just exactly what was it over? JH: Oh, a drunken argument. Then, of course, the sheriff, the county sheriff, come out here to pick up Ben Legg, and he fired a few shots at them before they finally hit him. I think they hit him in the elbow or someplace. So that shows that. I can t remember the names did you ever hear of the shooting that was up behind Stefani s house, and what led up to their road from there? It was a logger that was working at Hobart when his wife and another woman, I guess, were out celebrating most of the time. And he came home one night, shot the two women and then shot himself. But that was when Case, a fellow by the name of Case, was marshal here, when we had the one. RW: Does he still live here? 12
JH: Who? Case? RW: Yeah. JH: No Issaquah History Museums 88-1-13 RW: Somebody at school interviewed somebody who used to be sheriff here or something. JH: Oh, that was probably Seil. RW: Maybe that was it. JH: Eddie Seil. BE: It was. JH: Oh, yeah, it could be [inaudible] BE: Called him Edgar or something, didn t they? JH: Eve Watkins was around here [inaudible] END OF INTERVIEW Track 2 [Accession # 88.1.13B] This track not transcribed. It is Richie reading his final paper on mining into a tape recorder. This paper is on file at the Issaquah History Museums in its research center. 13