We started our day at the International House of Pancakes, just down the street from our “campsite” in the WalMart parking lot. Having completed his “Sabbath year” of rest and reflection, Aaron marked the occasion by treating us to breakfast. It was vaguely reminiscent of my grandfather’s free breakfast when he passed through here:
June 6th, 1922
We slept well till seven when we were awakened by the sheriff who had breakfast for us. After we finished it instead of letting us go, he made us cut the grass around the city hall. It sure was some lawn. In this jail there was an artist. He had all the walls covered with drawings he had done. They were very good. He wouldn’t tell us why he was there but he said he had three years to do. While cutting the grass we met the mayor of the town. He told us we would find a good road between Provo and Salt Lake City. After they left us go we took the mayor’s advice and hit the highway which was one sheet of concrete all the way to Salt Lake. Were picked up by two Morman fellows who took us one hundred miles to Salt Lake City. Here I got the surprise of my life. We found the Mormons very sociable and the city is the most modern one I was ever in.
We reached Salt Lake at 2.00P.M. Our first thought was food so we went to a restaurant and spent the last of our money which happened to be 40¢. I want to tell you we sure felt queer 700 miles from Frisco and broke. We walked all over the town trying to hock our camera but had no luck so we held on to it.
Our 2011 ride into Salt Lake City was also one of concrete and industry, which obscured an otherwise attractive valley between two mountain ranges. I also was impressed by the cleanliness and orderliness of Salt Lake City, once you get used to the confusing street numbering system. However, unlike Pop Pop, our first order of business was to visit the Mormon Temple Square.
Having been there previously, I let Aaron lead Dad to the important monuments and sites, while I took advantage of the renowned genealogy tools offered by the Latter Day Saints. I wanted to solve a puzzle that was nagging me about Pop Pop’s trip. The family legend was that he took this trip in 1922, after finishing his service with the Navy. However, his high school yearbook said he “did his bit” for the USA during World War I, which ended in 1918, shortly before his graduation in 1919. Thanks to the Mormon internet resources, I was able to locate my grandfather’s PA veteran burial record which solved the mystery: he served on the USS Rochester from April 1918 through January 1919. As an 18-year old he was too young to be drafted, but apparently enlisted in the Navy, to support the US, but avoid fighting directly on his father’s native German soil.
After rejoining Dad and Aaron, we headed west of town to pick up my grandfather’s trail :
June 6th, 1922 (cont.)
About 6.00P.M. we hit for Garfield, Utah. Our idea was to take a train from there as it would be too much of a risk to take it from a big station like Salt Lake. A Morman woman picked us up and took us there. The mosquitoes were terrible. They bit twice. Here we waited for the train which was to come through about 12.30 {am}. Maybe it didn’t go through too - All we saw was a streak. Well we were out of luck. Things sure looked bad for us. We walked back to town and woke the sheriff up. He was some guy, didn’t even make a fuss when we got him out of bed at one in the morning. He gave us a bed to sleep in which sure felt fine. I guess we didn’t sleep much as we were worried about our future. We had all of 600 miles of desert to cross and no money.
Aaron and I found Garfield on a Google map search but learned that the town had been abandoned, due to the expanding copper plant nearby. Many of the townsfolk actually moved their houses to the nearby town of Magna, UT. All that was left of Garfield was an intersection with some weed-covered railroad tracks, so we took off to see the Great Salt Lake, and continued to read Pop Pop’s diary:
June 7th, 1922
Mr. Sheriff certainly was good to us. He left us shave and then gave us a swell breakfast. Asked us how much money we had and when we told him we had none he gave us five dollars for our camera. Now you can’t beat that, and he was a Morman too. Well we left Garfield in very good spirits. Walked up the railroad tracks to a place along the lake called Black Rock. Here we washed our clothes in fresh water which was on one side of the tracks.
The Western-Pacific R. R. ran their tracks across the edge of Great Salt Lake on an embankment so on one side there was fresh water and on the other salt. We then bathed our selves in the fresh to get clean, then we went into the salt water. Talk about salty! It burnt our eyes so bad we had to get out. Made our skins itch all over. A bunch of Morman kids didn’t seem to mind it at all. After we were all cleaned up we again swung our packs and walked. We walked right into the desert which starts at the edge of the lake. It wasn’t so bad at the beginning but the farther we went the worse it got. We came to a small town. I forget its name. Here we bought some milk and a loaf of bread. We sat down and ate it and then waited for the train. Took the train at about eight. Rode it blind {between the cars} into the desert to Wendover, Utah. Arrived here at 3.30 A.M. We just laid around in a box car all day. It was too hot to sleep.
After we read Pop Pop’s diary, we wandered alongside the Salt Lake, which still has a small Marina, despite the fact that the lake has been receding steadily due to evaporation. On a visit in 1972, I remember being able to float in the water, and experienced the same burning eyes that my grandfather mentioned. However, now you can only wade in the water, unless you walk a long way out. As we wondered what our next stop would be we looked out and saw clearly the “black rock” from Pop Pop’s diary. The unpaved access road to Black Rock quickly became impassable for our large RV, so we had to settle for a nearby pull-off on the highway, where we could also see how the railroad embankment separates the fresh and salt water.
From here we headed off into the long Utah and eastern Nevada desert. We were glad we were able to cross in a matter of hours what took Pop Pop over two days and three trains. We were also glad for the unseasonably cool weather. Apparently June in 1922 wasn’t so cool:
June 8th, 1922
After sweating the day away we got a freight at 6.00 P.M. If there was one bum on it there were three hundred. No kidding. All kinds: cow punchers, sheep herders, bums, ni--ers, etc. so we joined them. They were on the roofs inside, up on the engine. The crew couldn’t do a thing with them there were so many. We rode this into the desert further. All the guys were singing. We had a swell time on it. The towns in the desert are about 130 miles apart so if you get on a train you are good for a hundred miles or more. We rode this to Elko, Nev. where we slept in the sand house of the round house. You see each round house has a sand house where they keep sand. There is allways a furnace going in there to keep the sand dry so it made a good place to sleep as it gets very cold in the desert at nights. Arrived at Elko at about 1.30 A.M.
June 9th, 1922
Left Elko, Nev. At 7.30 P.M. Rode blind baggage to Winnemucca, Nev. At first we had no idea about the length of the desert but now we knew. We had covered about three hundred miles of it and we were still in it. Well after a hard ride we blew into Winnemucca at 12.30 P.M {midnight}. Here we slept in the sand house.
Like Pop Pop, we ended our day in Winnemucca, NV, stopping briefly near the Bonneville salt flats to fill up our nearly empty RV. It cost $200 to fill the 60 gallon tank and 3 credit cards, since most cards have a $75 limit for gas stations! Using our blackberry and GPS we located the Winnemucca WalMart, parked our RV, turned on the heater to make up for the high Nevada desert, and dropped off to a deep sleep.
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