In the summer of 1980, the Vale District of the Bureau of Land Management conducted a series of interviews centered on but not limited to individuals who lived along the Owyhee river near the town of Watson. Most came to the region during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. With the exception of Josephine Lytle, who settled in Vale with her husband, an attorney specializing in water litigation, they all lived on ranches. In the course of the interviews, they touched on many elements of work, leisure and daily activities, providing rich insight into early life in the region.
In 2010, I happened across the interviews in the course of researching the lives of my godparents, S. Conley and Stacia Davis, who had ranched at Hole in the Ground and elsewhere in the canyon. The interviews were recorded on tape cassettes and in the care of the BLM staff archeologist, the late Diane Pritchard. The interviews had been conducted by Julie Ann Martin, who was a summer hire and apparently not an experienced interviewer. Her subjects, however, were enthusiastic about the topic, and she had little difficulty encouraging them to talk. The result was a wealth of anecdotes and information, sometimes incidental to the questions she posed but equally interesting. The comments of one interviewer might corroborate or expand on those of another; someone might tell a story about a neighbor that the person perhaps would prefer to have left untold. It was from Walter Perry’s interview that I learned Stacia once managed to take off in the sheriff’s car to warn her husband that the law was out to arrest him for making moonshine. (According to my mother, Conley gave me my first sip of whiskey when I was two months old. These were the individuals responsible for seeing to my moral education, which may explain a few things. They were by all accounts and my own experience wonderful and generous people.)
Subsequently, typed transcripts of the interviews were made by Alice F. Brondson, Jordan Resource Area archeologist. These are sometimes summaries or paraphrases rather than faithful records. Colorful language or words that might be considered inappropriate today were omitted, and rambling passages sometimes tightened up. As Ms. Brondson later explained, names were typed phonetically and may be mistakenly recorded.* Generally, however, they represent faithfully what was said. Regrettably, little use has been made of this trove of information for understanding early life in the Owyhee. Many of the transcripts–perhaps all–were published in the Malheur Country Review, newsletter of the Malheur Country Historical Society. Judging by that for Stacia Davis, which was published just before her death in 1990, some of the Review versions may have been revised to incorporate additional information. In the course of the interviews, some of the subjects showed photographs of the people, places and objects they were discussing. Regrettably these were not adequately described nor is it known where they might now be found. Also regrettable is the condition of the recording of a boat trip on the Owyhee reservoir with Joe Beach pointing out various sites now covered or isolated by the water. His description is largely obliterated by noise from the boat’s motor.
What follows is not intended to be a comprehensive examination of early life in the Owyhee. Rather, the discussion is centered around the observations of the seventeen interviewees. I have attempted to extract information on particular topics or broad themes and organize it into chapters. Occasionally supplementary information from published works is included to provide context. These are given short-form citations in the notes; the full form may be found on the “Resources: History, Culture, Geography and Geology” page. Because of the often unstructured manner of the interviewer’s questions and a willingness to allow her subjects free rein in their responses, information on a particular topic can be scattered. It must be recognized, however, that her approach elicited a wonderful store of fascinating information. Sifting through it at times proved so enjoyable that I forgot to take notes and had to backtrack. I hope that by organizing and publishing this material, I can make it more accessible and foster a better understanding of the people who settled the Owyhee Canyonlands and of their lives, their aspirations and their achievements. Additional anecdotes about several of these people and their world can be found in the books by Mike Hanley, IV, John Sackett Skinner, and others.
Finally, this will for some time be a work in progress. Interested readers may want to check back occasionally for new chapters as well as additions and revisions to old ones.
The Interviewees:**
Clinton Lavern Anawalt (1906-1980)
Joe Beach
Sophia Bethel
Chesley Blake (1916-1992)
Charlie Cronin
Stacia Davis (1898-1990)
Leonard Duncan
Josephine Lytle (1884-1980)
Opal McConnell (1897-1997)
Ray Nelson
James Page
George Palmer
Walter Perry
Ethel Raburn
Bill Ross
Kirt Skinner (1922-1995)
Josephine Scott
*Information on the recording and transcribing of the interviews is from a forward by Alice F. Brondson to “Owyhee River Oral History Narratives,” a loose leaf bound set of the transcriptions at the visitor center at the Owyhee Dam.
**Names are given as they appear in the interview transcripts.