HomeMy Public PortalAboutBean, Harry 4) HARRY BEAN 1
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The date is October 2, 1974, and we are in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harry
Bean, in the Rose Park Trailer Court, in Meridian, Idaho. With us at this
interview today is Harry Bean and his wife, Gladys, and my wife, Lillian
Dawson and myself, Al Dawson.
AL DAWSON: Harry, will you tell us a little bit about now of where you were
born and how you came to Idaho?
HARRY BEAN: I was born in 1892 in Marathon, Iowa. My father owned a
nursery and he was quite a horticulturist , and he had heard so
many fine things about Idaho, where he could raise all kinds of
fruit and no frost, so he and his brother came West in 1900 to
visit Idaho and to see what kind of crops they could raise here.
Of course, he was interested and he bought 160 acres of land just
south of New Plymouth; it was all sagebrush. So he came back
to Iowa and he sold, and then the family moved West in 1903.
It was a large family, six or eight, I don't remember how many.
Then we started to develop that sagebrush land. He did raise a
lot of fruit and he liked all kinds of fruit, particularly he was
interested in peaches and apples. We had outgrown the family and
the house was kind of a shack when we first landed at New Ply-
i3TOE mouth
FILE: In 1906 we used to take a team of horses and we'd drive up
as far as Sweet; we'd stay all night at Sweet and then we'd go on
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up to Dry B4uck and load our lumber and then back to Sweet that
DO moT
night and then on home the next day. It was. a big, hard three
day tripIn the years we stayed at Sweet, or the times we were
J PAYETTE LAKES � '
PRoGREssmterm3he noticed the fruit growing there and he thought that was
the place to move, he liked that better for his fruit and growing
his fruit.
Then in 1910 he sold his ranch at New Plymouth and we all
moved to Sweet.
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I went out to Mc Minnville College in 1911 and was out there
four years, then the war was coming on so I went back up to Sweet.
I've had bees ever since I was a kid and have always liked
the bee business, so I went back into the bee business. And then
after the war was over I came back and we went back into the bu-
siness.
The fall of 1920; Dad had built a fruit store up at Cas-
cade, and so we told him we'd go up there and operate the store
that winter and take up a couple of ton of honey and we'd sell it
that winter. That was the winter that the telephone company star-
ted. Our supervisor there, Guy B. Mains, talked to the business-
men. The railroad was built in there in 1914 so the town began
to grow, and we had a local man there, Hill, who put in a little
power plant up on the river.
AD: Mr. Bean, you mentioned about the World War I. Were you in the
service?
BEAN: Yes, I was in the service and also my older brother and a younger
brother were in the service. The war was soon over, when I went
in, I was only in about six months, and then I came back, but my
brothers remained in quite a while after that.
AD: Shall we continue with the bee business?
LILLIAN DAWSON: What about the telephone company and when it started?
BEAN: Oh, yeah. Guy Mains had a little old magneto switchboard out
there at his ranger station. He had a few lines in there, so he
offered to get us the switchboard and give us what help he could
if we'd build this telephone system. So, in May the 21st, 1921,
fifteen businessmen, including myself incorporated and sold stock.
I think there were only fifteen shares at $50 a share. Of course,
/•
3
BEAN
a telephone system didn't cost much in that day.
But we organi-
I think our first subscribers
zed and it was built that summer.
were- we had about fifteen to start with. Then in 1921, the
was formed and we had to locate a place to put
telephone comp an y
the switchboard. So, we agreed to take the switchboard and do
all the operating and the maintenance and all the other work that
goes along
with the telephone business and we received $200 a
month, for the rent and all. Then in the spring of 1922 we sold
the business then, wasn't too interested in it, didn't look like
it would be worthwhile, so they wanted to sell some of the stock.
So, in '23 my brother came up from Payette and we purchased all
of their stock; so we owned the telephone system. At that par-
ticular time we had one old grounded circuit to Mc Call, it belon-
ged to the Forest Service; the Payette National Forest and the
Idaho National Forest. We only had one circuit from Cascade to
Boise and the service was pretty poor and it took a long
time to
get a call through. In 1923 we obtained a franchise to build a
telephone system in Mc Call. There was a toll phone in the old
Bailey Drugstore. It was a grounded circuit and of course,
it was
always noisy but most of the time the Cascade operator would have
pretty
hard those years and
it was difficult to borrow money. Edlo -
baum had an old magneto switchboard which he had abandoned after
Mountain States had been abandoned in New Meadows.
The Forest
Service had lines to New Meadows, Yellow Pine, Paddy Flat and
operated over 400 miles of grounded
Cascade. At that time they o P
circuits in the Idaho National Forest. We installed a switch-
board in an old building owned by Helen :Juzadder . It was across
BEAN 4
the alley south of Ted Harwood's building. We strung five miles--
we strung five more circuits on the Forest Service poles and with
the four circuit lines of the Forest Service, we were in business!
In 1924 our first subscribers- I don't have them, I have them up
at Mc Call; I know exactly which ones- some of the numbers they
had in those days. And then in '36 we built a new office on
Lenora Street, which is now the parking lot of Shaver's store.
The building was moved out past the golf course and is still an
old private dwelling.
The town was growing, more business firms and more resi-
dents. The golf course was completed in 1931 and that brought a
lot of new summer hones and businesses.
World War II, we only had a circuit to Boise and a friend
of ours, Eddy Cruzen, he was quite a cattleman in that country,
and he's known all over Boise and this country. He used to come
in and place calls and my wife was operating at that time and
Eddy would bring three, four or five calls that he wanted to com-
plete. And sometimes it would take an hour, maybe he'd be there
two hours before we could complete the calls. And the only place
you could place a call in those days was with the operator. You
didn't have any booth or anything, you went in and the operator
would take the calls and she'd keep getting reports on 'em, and
he used to bring some magazines and our office had a daveno in
there where he could lie down and read. So it'd take sometimes
all afternoon to complete a few calls.
AD: That's real interesting.
BEAN: Now, whether those things are interesting--
GLADYS BEAN: One night was interesting; we had no night card, we didn't
BEAN 5
give night service. Our daughter was operating at the time, and
all of a sudden we heard men's voices out there, and then we heard
this thing, "See what I mean, see what I mean?". And then he lau-
ghed, and then we knew it was Eddy Cruzen. And he was pulling a
deal, and he wanted to do it in private, he didn't want to do it
from the hotel, where people could hear. So, he came up here and
got daughter out of bed and placed his calls, and he called these
people and got his business transacted right now. Taking care of
it before anyone knew what was going on.
BEAN: To tell these things as they happened, you get the dates wrong,
but I have a diary that I've kept since 1940 and sometimes I can
go back to that and get all of the things that happened, but just
to remember them now is too difficult.
AD: May I ask a few questions that come to my mind? First, I'm a
little bit fascinated with the early days there of the phone com-
pany. What happened? Did you have difficulty in wintertime with
lines going down and how would you repair them and things like
that? Storms.
BEAN: Well, thank heaven, we didn't have very many lines. In other
words, we only had one circuit from Mc Call and that was thirty
miles, and in case trouble between Cascade and Mc Call, we had a
team and a sled, that is, our neighbor did, or one of the farmers.
So we'd take the sled and the team and we'd go on up to Donnelly
and put 'em in the barn for lunch then we went on up to Mc Call.
Today where the new Idaho First National Bank is was the livery
barn. Roy Stover operated the barn and we would leave our hor-
ses there overnight, and of course, if we didn't find it going
to Mc Call, we'd find it going back. We stayed all night at
Bill Dinehart's old hotel. It burned down and a new one has been
BEAN
built where the old one was. So, of course, the text day we'd
get back and it wasn't too bad. We'd usually take blankets and
some charcoal stove along to keep our feet warm. And, as time
went on,- in the summertime we had an old Model T Ford, course
the roads weren't open- oh, by the first of May usually we could
drive from Cascade to Mc Call, and that wasn't too bad. But of
course, as lines grew and more business, it made it a little
more difficult.
AD: Again back, of course people today, especially the youngsters,
all they think about when they put in a phone call, they dial a
number, and it's all automatic. In those days the operator hand-
led the whole thing, didn't they? Is that the way it worked in
your exchange?
BEAN: Yes, it was the old magneto board. One of our first lines, I
was telling Gladys, I think there were thirty-two on it; but I'm
sure there were twenty-five residents on it in Long Valley and
of course, it was pretty hard to put a call through. You listen
on the line and it was busy. We had one lady that had a string
on the receiver hook so she could listen in on it and if somebody
started to ringi.ug she'd pull the hook down so the calls would
go through a little bit better. But, if you could get hold of
the operator, why, you put your number in, when she was calling
from one to the other it was always, "Number, please." Of course
originally it wasn't even number, "We want to talk to Paul 1411.4
We want to talk to Logue's Grocery Store." Or the butcher shop
or to Dr. Noge. It wasn't till quite a while after that we got
the directory out. And then after we did get the directory out
we had a lot of trouble because they still wanted to call Doc.
BEAN
Nogle and the garage; so it was a lotta fun, there's no doubt
about that part of it. (Chuckle)
AD: Were there any emergency calls, dramatic things, where you had
to get people to a doctor or something in a small community like
that?
G. BEAN: Well, yes, there was; I was thinking in Riggins. We had this
Grandma Wilson, she was a polio arthritic in a wheelchair, and
she was very efficient and also she just took charge of the whole
community and she might interrupt a telephone call and say, "Now
listen, that's all wrong, you don't have that right, and you
shouldn't be saying those things!"
AD: Would she interrupt the phone call?
G. BEAN: She could, because everybody loved her. And one night she woke
up, just something, ESP woke her up and she called her daughter,
"Get to the phone quick, there's an accident at the mill!" and
there was a fellow very, very seriously injured. Well, if this
doctor didn't want to come, because we had just the one doctor,
and he wanted a little more freedom and yet he'd want people to
know where he was, so he'd leave word with the operator where
he would be. Many times at bridge club they'd call and say,
"Do you know where the doctor is?" And someone would know, "Yes,
he's such and such." And if he was playing cards or he went
fishing, they could get hold of him, through there. And with a
dial he said you never could leave any word, you had to be right
there to answer the phone. And he made his decision to come.
BEAN: After the railroad was built from Emmett through to Mc Call, it
was completed in 1914, and at that time Roseberry was quite a
prosperous town over there, and of course, missed Roseberry by
BEAN 8
a mile and then the hotel moved over and the bank moved over to
Donnelly, so there was no telephone system there so we installed
the first old magneto switchboard in Charlie Howe's off ice,his post
office he operated a post office and it was there for a few years.
And then finally it was moved over to the hotel and Mrs. Henry
Moore operated for us there for years; she operated until it went
dial in 1955. Then New Meadows; we went over to New Meadows in
1926. At one time the Bell System owned a little telephone sy-
stem there. Colonel built the old Pacific Idaho, PIN they
called it anyway, and he built a beautiful bank building and a
hotel and a big, beautiful residence, and we put our first tele-
phone system over there in the old Colone_ house and we
operated that until 1928 and it burned down, and then we moved
the switchboard back over to the Colonelresidence and so
we had to move it out of there when it was sold and then we moved
it into a service station and operated a service station and the
telephone switchboard besides, so you can see how efficient it
was. And then Blake Hancock got us a building downtown, so we
moved the telephone over there. And all we had in those days was
a grounded circuit from Mc Call to New Meadows, and of course,
every storm that'd come up, a tree would go down, so there was
no way to get through there. So we went through, let's see, it
was ? Flat, two of them over there, and there was no way to get
you- you could drive part of the way, but most of it was just
a trail through there and we had some pretty difficult times over
there. The Bell System, it went from Boise around through Weiser
and Cambridge and Council and into New Meadows.
AD: Speaking of the Bell System; now later on did you become aff ilia-
BEAN 9
ted with the Bell System? Explain the systems there. Yours was
an independent system, of course.
BEAN: Yes. It's an interesting thing, Al. When the Bell System first
inveted the telephone, there was no independents that could operate.
They couldn't even build their own telephones, they had their pa-
tents. So it was along about 1968- I have an old telephone out
here now that was built in about 1892. It was built by Stromberg-
Carlson, and after the patent expired, why then of course, indepen-
dents could buy telephones and set up for business, so they grew
fast. While even today there's an independent telephone system
5 a 7 at Cambridge and there's one at Midvale and I forget how many over
the state of Idaho, but there's thousands of independent telephones.
But times grew- and in particular there was a Bell Telephone Sys-
tem and the next largest one was the General Tel; it's a large na-
tional telephone system. And then of course, we sold out to- in
1961 to the Continental Telephone Company. And the Continental
Telephone Company bought up all the little independents. At one
time they owned about 90% of the territory and about 10% of the
telephones. You couldn't imagine how much territory they had to
buy to get a few telephones. And of course today the Continental
Telephone is the third largest telephone system in the United States.
Cranking a telephone you ring once and turn it, oh, maybe
fifteen or twenty times around and you don't get the operator and
you get a little bit upset and you try again and maybe the third
time. Then to get a little pressure down you turn it just as fast
as you can and turn it and turn it and finally if you don't get it
you give up. Elmo May operated the Cascade Garage and he had a
little trouble getting an operator. At that time we had the old
BEAN 10
10-20 Yale desk stands on an extension; you'd pull it out so you
could talk on it and then push it back when you were through with
it and get it out of your road, and he was having some problems
so he finally got mad and he grabbed it and he pulled it right
off the wall, the whole thing clear off the wall. And he walked
two blocks and took that telephone, and I was in and he threw it
down and he says, "There's your damn telephone." And then another
time at Mc Call, Bill Dinehart was one of our first subscribers
in Mc Call, and of course we just had one operator and they work
on shifts; something come up- he had some trouble with it and he
came up the next morning and he said, "Harry, You can do two things,
you can either get rid of that operator or take out my telephone!"
And I said, "Well, Bill, I won't do either one. I think we can
figure it out." And of course, we did. Those things were common
those days.
LD: There was more relationship between people than there is now?
BEAN: Yes. The operators knew all of the subscribers, you know1and the
subscribers knew the operators and it was such a personal thing
in those days. We had an attorney, Rex Kemmel (?), was one of
the first attorneys at Valley County, the second one, I guess;
but anyway, he was going with a gal down in Rupert and they didn't
have telephones, his office was number six, so this gal would call
number six and we knew Rex wasn't in there, so it doesn't answer.
Maybe we'd go on all day, "It doesn't answer." till finally we'd
find Rex and then the call would come in, "Yes, we can get number
six, now." That saved him a long toll call, you know, when you
had to put person-to-person in. But they were all human, every-
body knew everybody.
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LD: Everybody was looking out for the other fellow?
BEAN: Yes.
AD: Harry, how about the hours? Could you call twenty-four hours?
You didn't operate it all the time did you?
BEAN: Normally, it was from seven in the morning until ten at night.
And there were some offices actually closed, nobody in the building
at all. And that wasn't good. But later on there was always some-
body in the office and you'd wake 'em up and get an emergency call
through. Some independents even charged extra if you called af-
ter ten o'clock at night.
G. BEAN: They had a regular bed setup right there.
BEAN: Yes. Most of the telephone offices were built more or less in
homes, little offices, and you cook and eat and live there. That
was your home and you operated on the side.
AD: Back in the '20's what would be the average phone bill then to
those subscribers?
BEAN: Well, the rate was two dollars for a residence telephone and three
dollars for a business telephone, and toll rates were pretty high.
The evening and night rates came on- I don't know what year- but
before that it cost a lot. Cost us I think about a dollar and a
half to talk from Mc Call to Boise; so the rates were high. And
we'd have many, many telephones that when we'd bill them out at
the end of the month there wouldn't be any toll calls on 'em at
all. And of course, today that seldom ever happens.
LD: Could your system hook into the other systems all over the country?
BEAN: Yes, we'd dial and call Boise and of course then we could dial
anyplace on the Bell System, we went right into the Bell System
and of course, the Bell System went into all the independent sys-
BEAN 12
stems. But toll calls those days from Mc Call to New York or
places like that, they were very high; I don't remember right now,
but it seems like two or three dollars to get a call through.
AD: Was it possible in those days to call overseas? Could they call
overseas in the '20's?
BEAN: No. No, and I can't tell you when the first time either. I'd
have to look that up.
G. BEAN: They could in '43, I remember that.
BEAN: 1943? Well, maybe it was before that, but I just wouldn't have
that record at all. It would be interesting to know. I remember
when the cables were laid.
LD: These were the cables overseas?
BEAN: I don't know, but I suppose now it's all microwaves.
AD: In wartime, was there any time when the government took over? Did
they have priorities on all lines, or anything like that? Would
you explain that, Gladys?
G. BEAN: I know if we put in a call we had to get a priority number and
certain things got priority over others. And it was pretty hard
to put in a call unless you had a high priority number. And I
don't remember the classifications of it at all. I remember just
this one instance- when (noise blocks out the words here)
LD: What year was that?
G. BEAN: '42. When this plane was lost back at ? Lake. And there were
twenty-one men, I believe, on it, it was down and couldn't find
any trace of it. And a couple of weeks later our local flier up
there that flew the mail back in, Penn 2.MTT , quite a noted
flier, he knew the country so well that each time he'd take the
mail back to Warren he'd circle around to look and he saw the
BEAN 13
trees were broken off, and he saw the men out there. That was
the first signal he had that he'd found it. But he came right
back, he couldn't stop, he was too loaded and when he came back
it was too dark to land, but he came back and called Gowen Field
and said he'd found the plane. So the next day- He said, "We'll
take food out right away and drop it there in the morning." And
they said, "We'll take care of it ourselves." So the next day
he went out and started bringing- he could only bring in, I think
two at a time- and he brought them in and got into a little trou-
ble with the government.
END SIDE I (cassette)
G. BEAN: These two men had left and went out to search for help, and the
fellows got into a ranger Station, I don't know how they ever made
it, but they broke into this ranger station where they left food
stocked for the winter just for emergencies. And there was a tele-
phone there, the old crank type, and he started cranking it, I
don't remember the operator that was on, and she said, "What on
earth is that drop falling for? There's no one on that line. That
line is closed." And it kept dropping and finally she said, "What's
going on?" And someone said, "Who is this?" And she said, "Well,
who is this?" Well, it was this fellow. And she got very excited
right away. He said,"We're at such and such a place, and there's
a name and we're at that station." She got very excited and she
called- and he said, "I want to talk to my mother.c In New York
or some place. And so she got on the phone and the operator said,
"What priority?" And she said, "Priority! Priority!
this flyer and he wants to talk with his mother." Everything was
dropped and they just put him right through. And she had to re-
BEAN 14
peat the message. And she said everyone was crying. The Boise
operator had to repeat because of the poor line out there. And
I remember that for the priority. I remember that so distinctly
because they just broke down on priorities and put the call right
through, didn't pay any attention to it.
AD: I was at:Gowen Field when that happened. I was stationed at Gowen
when that happened. I didn't know the details you are telling.
G. BEAN: I'm not sure that everything is accurate, but I do know about her
reaction on the phone. She was quite an exciteable person and I
remember how excited she got. And the next day they went out with
the snowplows and brought them in.
BEAN: That fellow; I can't think of his name.
AD: I think it was Colonel Moore that was in charge of the base when
this happened, because I was at Gowen Field at the time. I re-
member the lost fliers. And it was Colonel Moore that was head
of the Gowen Field Base at that time.
BEAN: Well, you take all the early years of aviation up in this country,
it's fabulous, you could write a whole book on that. The accident
they had up on West Mountain. Penn Storr, he came in with the
Johnson Flying Service.
AD: There no question, the phone company and the exchanges, Harry,
have certainly played a part in living, all facets of life.
This part, as we say, is the human interest stories that
you remember and the factual history will be documented on another
tape.
Are there any other memories that you have? Just little
incidents that you remember in those early days? Problems you
had to overcome or things like that in the maintenance of the
BERN 15
service?
BEAN: Well, we've pretty well gone through it I think, Al, when we
were talking about the team and the sleds. In those days of course,
we had dog teams, too. We had a good dog and a good sled and we
could get out to quite a few places to carry some of our tools;
climbers and telephones and test sets. And then of course, we had
the snowshoes and the bearclaws and that sort of thing.
LD: How many dogs did you have?
BEAN: This was a famous leader 1 the Irish setter, that Warny Brown
at Mc Call- we got it from him, so one dog was all we needed.
It's just big wide- little dog sleds were made wide like skis; a
couple pair of skis. That all- we had just the one dog.
LD: Did you follow the dog? Would he carry the equipment? Or how
was that?
BEAN: Well, either way. We'd go ahead and the dog would follow us.
LD: With the equipment?
BEAN: With the equipment.
LD: And how would you go? On skis?
BEAN: We'd go on skis or snowshoes.
AD: Another thing, Harry, did you have all telephone poles that your
lines were strung on, or would they use trees? How was that done?
BEAN: Well, we had both. Depends on the community. Of course, up through
the valley where there were no trees, of course, we had to have our
own telephone poles. And when we started out in 1923, lodgepoles
seemed to be the easiest and the cheapest to get. You could get
a good pole for fifty cents. Have it peeled. The lodgepole, you
put it in the ground and in three years it'd rot out. That was
before the days of preservatives. So, as time went on this preser-
BEAN 16
vative became pretty popular, so we treated all the poles first
with tar and creosote. But later on they used this torpeno (?)
and there's poles today that I think have been there since 1914.
And it depends a little on the ground, how long they will last.
LD: How deep did you dig into the ground usually?
BEAN: Well, that all depends on how much clay or how much rock or how
much hardpan. My brother and I were digging a hole down in Round
Valley and I don't think there's any clay on earth that's as tough
to dig through, you can't drive anything into it. And we'd dig a
while on a hole and if we'd get it down a foot deep,he'd say, "Well,
that's deep enough." And I'd say, "No, we got to go down at least
twenty-four inches here and maybe thirty inches." That that be-
came kind of a standard thing with us. If we was going to dig an
Arthur hole, it would be real shallow, but otherwise it would be
down three feed; they should be down. Depends on- we had twenty
foot poles; twenty-five, thirty and thirty-five. There was a time
when we used eighteen foot poles- eighteen feet long. And of course,
they don't have to be in the ground- of course, if it's swampy or
like that, you just can't hardly hold them in at all.
LD: Is it the snow that would take your lines down or would trees
fall on them or what would happen?
BEAN: Both. We've had two or three bad blizzards; we had one in Cas-
cade one time,that was in 19- - what year was it that Harper and
his gang came down from--?
G. BEAN: About '48, I'd say.
BEAN: It was a terrific sleet storm. And the east and west lines seemed
to load up lots more than the north and south lines. And we had
this storm and it broke pretty near all the crossarms; the weight
on the wire and on the arms and some of the icicles that would
BEAN 17
grow on, would be six inches through. Just like beads; it'd go
up and down the line. And of course that would break it down. And
this time I don't think we had any lines working. We had an outfit-
an independent company over at Homedale, he brought his crew up
there and we were about three days before we could get the thing
together again and then it took a long time to find the trouble.
Those storms didn't come too often. And then of course, in the
Forest Service, we had what we called the swinging insulator; you
tie the insulator onto the tree and run the wire through the in-
sulators so it would slide back and forth. So if a tree fell on
it in the forest someplace it'd just pull the slack and maybe the
wired go clear to the ground but it wouldn't break the wire; of
course if they were tied fast why the tree would break the wire
and then you were in trouble. But the swinging insulator was really
the thing that made it possible to maintain 400 miles of telephone
service, like the Forest Service did.
LD: How many lines did you have? In the old days there was just one
line that two people could talk together at a time; was that the
way it was? Or how did that work?
BEAN: Well, of course, originally the old grounded circuit,just have one
wire and the ground acts as the other wire. So you run one wire
into the telephone and the other side of the telephone into the
ground, and there you have what we call a grounded circuit. And
that's the kind that was always noisy. And you could put as many
telephones on a line as you wanted to.
LD: What I mean, is only two people could be talking at one time, al-
though if others had the line, they could talk into it too, but,
I mean theoretically it was only just two people talking to each
BEAN 18
other. How many could be talking at once?
BEAN: Well, they could all talk at once! But it would be rather con-
fusing!
LD: Now, for instance, we have two telephones in the house, two could
be talking at once, but still it would just be one party at a time.
BEAN: Yes, that's right.
G. BEAN: One could be talking to number seven and two could be talking to
number three.
LD: Each one had to have a single line?
G. BEAN: Number one line might have two parties on it; number three might
be a private one; number four might have ten on it.
BEAN: One interesting thing with the old magneto board where you'd crank
and ring the bell in the office; this switchboard we had had fif-
teen bells. And these bells were all tuned to different tones,
so if you were watching your biscuits bake you could tell exactly
what bell was ringing, whether it was ten, twelve, one or any of
'em if you got used to it, so you knew exactly and you would go
in and plug it into that bell and you had it. And later on they
got a little hootenanny that hung onto the bell that vibrates and
that would let a little thing flop down, so sometimes you could
tell, but normally the bell would ring and they'd all be down but
you depended on the bell to know who was calling in.
LD: And your ear had to-
BEAN: Tuned to them.
AD: Has there been much improvement on the transmitting lines themsel-
ves? The system thing, since the time- in other words quality of
tone and everything- since the time you started and what they have
now?
BEAN
19
BEAN: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I should say. In those days they had what they
called repeaters on. When we used to talk to Boise, without re-
peaters the voice would be so dim that you couldn't hardly talk,
and when we talked long distance, you just couldn't imagine talking
to have
so far, but they had repeaters all the way. Of course, nowdays
with electronics you can talk to New York just as easy as you can
talk across the street, there's no resistance. I don't know what
they are, but it's like the moon- distance has no effect on this
new system. But cables today, the wires are very small, use a 26
gauge and used to use 22 and 18. But they still in cables, they
still have to have repeaters in it to step the voice up. They got
into that after I quit the business.
AD: What was the span of years? You've told us of when you started,
shall we go back to when you completed the business, when you were
tired of it or sold it or what? Could you go on from there?
BEAN: Well, we started in May, 1921 and we continued in the service; we
lived six years once in Mc Call and then in Cascade and then back
up to Mc Call, and wherever the business was, seemed like we'd move.
And we told the telephone- we were looking the other day- I think
it was in 1961, so we were there- how many years? That would be
fifty years that we were in the telephone business.
G. BEAN: And you continued at Horseshoe Bend for four years.
BEAN: Yes, that's another phase of it, but we were primarily thinking
of Long Valley and that community.
LD: You saw the area grow then a great deal?
BEAN: Oh, yes. We used to peddle fruit up there in 1914. We were always
in the fruit business. We loved the fruit. Dad would raise the
fruit and we'd go up to Long Valley in a Model T Ford. In those
days there was Thunder City. We used to go through Thunder City
BEAN 20
and then on over to Crawford, into Van Wyck into Roseberry then
into Lardo and Mc Call. And those were all little towns till the
railroad was built in there and then of course, Thunder City was
the first one to- it moved a lot of its buildings into Cascade
and Crawford moved its bank and store in there and Van Wyck moved
the hotel and grocery store and Doc Nogel's home; a lot of them
moved. So of course, old Van Wyck is now underneath the Cascade
Reservoir Lake.
LD: It is no more.
BEAN: No more, no. So we've really seen it grow from nothing to quite
a city now, Mc Call. I was going to look and see how many subscri-
bers they had now, even from the time we sold, 1961 up to now, it's
just grown so much and so many more telephones. Now the Continen-
tal Telephone Company- it's called the Idaho Telephone Company now-
is owned by Continental, and they practically have private lines to
everybody in this whole territory. All the lines are plowed under-
ground. There isn't a pole :now between Cascade and Mc Call; the
poles are all gone and it's all underground, so its maintenance
has been cut so much.
G. BEAN: Now, it doesn't matter whether it rains or snows it won't hurt
the lines.
BEAN: No, it won't hurt the lines.
AD: I was wondering one thing: what's your opinion with the big corpora-
tions taking over all- big business is getting bigger- do you think
the little independent phone companies will survive or will they
be absorbed by big corporations?
BEAN: Well, it's a problem; we sold out in 1961 and it was growing so
fast that it just seemed impossible to get money to keep up with
BEAN 22
the growth. We went into a- one of the small business loans
with our rural telephone association-- see, we borrowed money
then from the government for 2%. But it was growing so fast and
we were getting too old to run it and we didn't have any child-
ren that was interested in it, and they gave us a good price,
as far as we know. Harper Saunders owned the Homedale Telephone
Company; that was Homedale and Wilder and Marsing and then he
finally went into Jordan Valley. And Harper had a lot of money
borrowed and he was in the same problem and the Public Utities
was getting strict, everything was more regulated. And so I was
talking to Harper; he sold out a year ago and we had quite a talk
last week, and Harper said, "You know, we were mighty lucky and
fortunate we could sell our company and get out of it." And
that's probably true in lots of things. See, the power company's
the same way; there was many, many independent power companies.
They had one at Cambridge and one in New Meadows and one at Cas-
cade and one at Mc Call and they had one at Donnelly, but they
were too small. I hate to see it, but that's the way it's been
all through.
LD: The cost of operations becomes so great.
BEAN: And the same way with grocery stores and everything we had. I
guess barber shops are about the only ones that aren't national.
AD: When you first started with the phone company was the Public Utili-
ties controlling then; were they in existence to control your
type of business?
BEAN: I don't know, Al. The first time I remember the Public Utilities
was in 1928 and we started in '21 and ? was the
president of the Bell System here, or the superintendent, and he
BEAN 23
was telling me about the Public Utility, so we went over and told
'em what we had and that's our first record of Utility, we'd been
in, I'm sure, seven years before we even knew there was any Pub-
lic Utility. But we know it now! And they have a terrific hard
job, I'll tell you.
AD:• I imagine they do. There's certainly some interesting things
here. I was wondering, just curious too, again, I have an ac-
quaintance I should say, down in Albion, Idaho that has a little
phone exchange. Are you acquainted with him?
BEAN: Oh, yes, I know him very well, knew his father; Dean runs it now.
AD: Yes, he's the mayor of Albion.
BEAN: Yes. And what was his father's name? Don.
Al, this thing originated with Mary Thurston; Mary Thurston was
Dr. Thurston's wife, who was so many years at Council, and he
was there during the war and he was telling me the other day,
there was a lot of flu and epidemics during World War II, remem-
ber? And I was over there one day; he had a helper, I don't know
what you'd call him, but he was like a nurse, and I was in his
office, that was in the evening, and he went in and told Doc, he
said, "There's the 100th patient I've had today." And Mrs. Thurs-
ton told us the other day that there was 106 and I happened to be
the 100th person that was in his office. Now, if you can imagine
that! There were so many sore throats and infections. And of
course, the nurse, whoever he was would do a lot of that stuff-
Doc Thurston couldn't do it all. But it's amazing how everybody
was worrying, the war, you know, was going on and the troubles they
had; I think those were hard times anyway for mothers and fathers.
AD: It's hard to believe that one doctor could handle that many people.
BEAN
24
AD: The doctor must have been worn out before the day is over.
BEAN: Well, that's true. Of course, there were lots of dressings and
in those days they used iodine and swab out your throat and that's
about what you got.
AD: World War I, though was that flu epidemic that you probably re-
member, World War I was I think even worse than they had in World
War II. Do you recall that one? In 1918.
BEAN: Oh, yes indeed. It started out at Camp Lewis and then went from
there to Edgewood, Maryland, the Chemical Warfare Service, and,
oh, dear, it was terrible. All the barracks were provided with lit-
tle canvas partitions between each one. But you go out to the
railroad station you'd see so many caskets out there that it was
unbelievable.
AD: At that point I heard, and maybe you could substantiate it, I
heard they were killing more with the flu than the bullets were,
at that point of the war. More people were dying from the flu.
You remember the masks they used to wear over their face?
BEAN: Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I remember in particular at Camp Lewis, how
different fellows are, after we'd eat we had to throw our coffee
out and then we would go and get salt and soda and everyone was
supposed to go out and rinse their mouths out, every time, and
of course I was always there, but the other guys would throw it
out and never pay any attention to it. Seems like some were more
frightened than others, I guess. But it was bad.
AD: Did you get the flu?
BEAN: No. Never got the flu. I don't know whether the salt did it or
what! (Chuckles)
AD: Well, we kind of got off the subject of the phone company, but it's
BEAN 25
all interesting, it's all history.
BEAN: I'll tell you another human interest story: This Grandma Wilson
that operated for us in Riggins, a fellow called up from up the
river, the Big Salmon, and he had a cow that was bloating and he
insisted that she get the veterinary and get him up there as quick
as she could possibly, and they had to have him. Of course, there
wasn't any close and she couldn't get a veterinarian and she finally
said, "I'll tell you what to do if the cow's bloating." Says, "Get
her up on a tall manure pile and get a bottle of kerosene and put
down her throat so her stomach goes back and she'll be alright."
And the conversation went on quite a while and so I was interested
in it so the next day I saw Mrs. Wilson and I said, "Well, what
happened to the cow?" "Oh," she says, "I don't know, it either
lived or died!" (Laughter) Of course, when we were kids that's
the way they cured the bloat. Those cows get on alfalfa, you've
been around that probably, and bloat. But she was a character!
AD: How about the time, Harry, when the World War II ended, you know
the celebration there?
(few words lost by a gap in the tape)
Lardo-
Why did they change it?
BEAN: I don't know. At first it was Payette Lakes, they called it Payette
Lakes for quite a long time. Then, of course, Old Dad Mc Call-
it was named after him, he was one of the very first that settled
in that country.
AD: That goes way back?
BEAN: Yes, that goes back.
LD: Do you remember when there weren't many summer homes up there and
it was just- in '21 did they have many people up there for summer
BEAN 26
homes?
BEAN: In--
LD: Mc Call.
BEAN: Well,- trouble is, Al, I can't remember names. Newcomb was one
of the first ones to establish summer camp. Newcomb, he had what
he called No. 1 and No. 2; and No. 1 was right where the Boise
Cascade mill is now. And all he had was tents; they had the tent
frames, and they were all tent frames and they were all set up and
he had a good business all summer. Then he built Camp 2, and that
was upp farther on the lake and they were all tents. And then the
Forest Service had a piece of property that was leased to Lakeview
Camp, and it was a larger camp, and they were all tents. In fact,
we rented one of 'em when we were building the telephone system in
there in 1921. Just the tent frame with a floor and you put a tent
over it, and they were nice. Then of course, out at the other
beach out the other way, the one that Simplot bought. Up there,
one particular time I remember was- it was a pretty nice summer
and when the weekends were good it's always nice up there, but when
the rain comes over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you know, it's
disagreeable in a tent. There was one fellow on Labor Day- every-
thing was just flowing, the town was just full, you know and it
started to rain Friday and they went out just like a drove of geese.
I was over there Monday morning; there wasn't a tent, every tent
was down, they took 'em down fast, it was such a deserted place,
the lonesomest thing you've ever seen, but now the old Payette Lakes
Camp is all mobile homes. They built quite a few homes there but
they're not in use, the whole thing is a beautiful park for mobile
homes. Of course, in the early days the old Payette Lakes- oh,
BEAN 27
dear, I'll remember the name of it, I could tell you more about
it- but that was on the west side, it's still called the Payette
Lakes Club and those lots were all laid out in 1900. And Harold _
Finch here in Boise, he was one of the first ones to buy a lot in
there. But now they're all homes- nice homes along the lake.
LD: Did the original residents live around the lake? The people who
made their home in Mc Call all year long.
BEAN: Very, very few. There was no regular year -round residents only
right in Mc Call. Of course, the problem in those days was snow,
and you had to be where you could get into town. But now there
are more homes- quite a few living out the year-round.
AD: We certainly have enjoyed the hospitality here Harry and Gladys
and my wife and I know that what you have told us here, so many
interesting stories will be of value in this historical program.
We want to thank you for your hospitality this afternoon.
BEAN: I certainly enjoyed it. I kind of dreaded you coming because it
was all so not clear in my mind just what you wanted, but it's
been a real pleasure and I think this was a wonderful afternoon.
END OF TAPE
Transcribed on May 24, 1978 .
by Frances Rawlins
Second Section BOISE,IDAHO,TUESDAY MORNING,DECEMBER 26, 1961
'
FORMER AND PRESENT employes of the Gem State Tele• Rowles, McCall; Elmer'Davis, Cascade; Jay Morell, McCall;
phone Company honored Harry R.Bean,who is retiring after Bernice Boise and Harry
40 years of active management of the company. First row, Nock, Cascade, Valley County senator. Present but not in
from left,Jean Anderson,McCall; Mary Thompson, Cascade; the picture were Mrs. Grace Hoff,McCall; Mrs.Ethel B,Wail-
'Josephine B.Moore, Donnelly; Willa Whitson, Cascade; Carmen son, Riggins; John Bean, Boise; Mrs. Harry Bean,Boise, and
Tr"win,` Cascade and Ruth Mason, McCall. Standing, Grid Harper Saunders, Homedale.
* * * *
• * * * * *
s
Valley County's Pioneer Telephone Official
Harry Bean Plans Retirement With Y End
CASCADE—With the close of .,`
k. ;
the year Harry Bean, for 40
years the president and general Z
manager of the Gem State Tele ' ' u. `` :
c
phone Company here, will re ti. rt::'j , :. ....
tire from active service. The
long-time r e s i d e n t, known ' k
throughout the area not only i ,. ,:
as the "telephone man" but as 4:$ ,
a friend and counsellor, will . v
continue as a member of the 1 u;
board of directors of the organ A
ization but will step out of the ::' . 13:.., r
"driver's seat" he has occupied ,
since the company was organ-
ized in 1921.
Grid Rawles, who has been
identified with the company for A
a number of years, will take t .•
over the reins Bean relinquishes. e ss
The telephone was by no it.';:.:.,APt.f.:,:i.":,,
means a novelty when Bean de-
cided to introduce the instru-
ment in the Cascade country,
but when he started his com-
pany, there were only 11 homes
to be listed as-trubse=i-beis. With
what now would be considered
primitive and make-shift equip-
ment and operational facilities,
these 11 subscribers formed the
nucleus of what today is a cir-
cuit of more than 200 homes
in Valley, Adams and Idaho :'>
counties.
At a testimonial dinner given
recently at Cascade to mark GRID R, WLES, left, presents a gold watch to Harry Bean,
Bean's retirement, many of retiring president and general manager of the Gem State
those 11 original subscribers Telephone Company at McCall.Bean,who organized the corn-
were present to pay their re- pany with 11 subscribers, will give up active management
spects and enliven the evening the first of the year when Rilwles will take over.
with stories of all sorts of inci-
dents-both in the light and
serious vein — that naturally
would result in the growth of
such a public service organiza-
tion.
Starting out with phones in
just three towns-McCall, Cas-
cade and Donnelly — the com-
pany grew steadily not only in
those towns but added such
communities as New Meadows,
Riggins, Horseshoe Bend,Sweet,
Ola and Fairfield.
And, as more towns and sub-
scribers were added, Bean was
able to improve the equipment
and service, converting from
the old magneto operation to
battery and then to the seven-
digit dial.
Especially during the early
days when travel by road was
much more difficult and at
times almost impossible, the
phones played a vital part in the
growth and well-being of the
communities.
Among those who remember
those first days and were pres-
ent at the testimonial dinner,
for Bean are Mrs. Ben Lloyd,
Mrs. Viola Callendar, Judge and
Mrs. V. E. McMasters, Mr. and
Mrs. Ben Hart, Mrs. Iva Mad-
den, Mrs. Elsie Williams, Mr.
and Mrs. Jack Lloyd and Mr.1
and Mrs. Howard Gestrim.
In addition to these first sub-
scribers, many of the other 160
guests were the children of
those early residents — some
of whom have since moved
away from the area.
Among those were Mr. and
Mrs.Roy Arnold, Sr.,Boise; Mr.,
and Mrs. Harper Saunders,
Homedale; Mr. and Mrs. Les
Ulmer. McCall; Mayor and Mrs.
The Idaho Statesman 12/26/1961
ating. Interment will be in the
Sweet Cemetery,at Sweet,Idaho.
Mr. Bean was born on Dec. 8,
1892, at Marathon, Iowa. In 1903,
he moved with his parents to New
Plymouth. He attended Linfield
College at McMinnville, Ore.,
x �
from to 1914, at which time
he returned to Sweet, where he
.,.
farmed and raised honeybees
Mg§ 4:*IV: until 1920. He married Naoma W.
Harry Ralph Bean Tallman on Jan. 9, 1918, in Coeur
d'Alene. She died on April 7, 1933.
Services for Harry Ralph Bean, He later married Gladys E.Flem-
90, of 5277 Kootenai St., Boise, ing on April 6, 1938,at Hollywood,
who died on Sunday,July 31, 1983, Calif.
in a Boise nursing home, will be In 1921,Mr.Bean moved to Cas-
conducted on Thursday,Aug.4,at cade where he started the Cas-
1:30 p.m.in the Summers Funeral cade Telephone Company. He ex-
Home, with Rev. Stan Tate of the panded the company to include
Moscow Episcopal Church offici- Donnelly,McCall,New Meadows,
Riggins,Horseshoe Bend,Garden
Valley, Ola and Sweet. He
purchased the Fairfield Tele-
phone Co. in 1959, and the com-
pany became the Gem State Tele-
phone and Telegraph. He moved
to Boise in 1954. In 1961, he sold
the telephone company to Conti-
nental Telephone Co., and retired
in 1965, when he sold the Bend
Telephone Co. He moved to Me-
ridian in 1973.
Mr. Bean served in the U.S.
Army during World War I and
was a charter member of Frank
Speckelmyer Post #60, Ameri-
can Legion. He was also a mem-
ber of the All Saints Episcopal
Church; a 50-year member of
Ionic Lodge #83, AF & AM; and
the Scottish Rite Bodies of Boise.
He was a member of El Korah
Temple of the Shrine; Royal
Order of Scotland; past patron
and a 50-year charter member of
the Valley Chapter #74, Order of
Eastern Star; and a past grand
patron of the Grand Chapter of
the Order of Eastern Star.He was
also a State Representative from
1937 to 1941; was a life member of
the McCall Golf Association; and
on Dec. 7, 1980, was featured as a
Distinguished Citizen in the Idaho
Statesman.
He is survived by his wife,
Gladys of Boise; a son, John
Charles Bean of Bozeman,Mont.;
a daughter, Betty Jane Rowles of
Challis; three sisters, Martha
Ramey of Boise, Myrtle Hardy of
Weiser, and Evelyn Amos of Em-
mett; nine grandchildren; and 12
great-grandchildren. He was pre-
; ceded in death by five brothers
and three sisters.
Friends may call at Summers
Funeral Home on Wednesday
from 9 a.m.to 8 p.m.
The family suggests that con-
tributions may be made to a fa-
vorite charity.