Flood, Garage and Farmers’ Day

Growing up in Spring Valley, I remember some of the floods. Barely – I was pretty young. I do remember the talk of Congress authorizing the Corp. of Engineers to build a dam above Spring Valley after the Second World War.

Many of us came to believe that it was never going to happen. I joined the Navy in 1956 and not a spade of dirt had yet been turned. By the time I got out of the military service, much to my surprise, the dam was becoming a reality.

The following pre-dam tales were told by Rexford Pence (1905 - 2002). Rex, my father, was born and grew up in Spring Valley. The Ford garage played a significant role in the history of the village, as did the floods, and he experienced it all. Dam Days in Spring Valley is an appropriate time to tell these tales around the camp fire.

Flood, Garage and Farmers’ Day:

Rex: “We used to have a Farmers’ Days in Spring Valley in the fall each year (Author’s note: Dam Days now). The farm kids would bring their livestock in for display and judging. Wally Hanson, the Ag teacher in school usually took care of it, and the kids in his class would bring their young stock in, and their sheep and chickens – and display them.

“We had taken all the cars out of the garage - out of the storage part. (Author’s note: The maintenance and parking side of the Ford garage, now used by Oakdale, still has the rings used to tether the livestock, embedded in the north wall) We turned it over to the school to use for Farmer’s Day. And the water, well it rained and the water was coming up faster all the time and pretty soon it got to where it was - oh, it was about six foot deep in the garage, and the kids had some of their young stock on the flatbed trucks trying to save them.

(Author’s note: Rex, Lyle, Gus Palmer and Donny Woods were working in the office part of the Ford garage putting parts, ledgers and other stuff up higher on the shelves as the water kept rising.)

Rex: “I had been in the water and I was all soaked up so I swam over to the other part where they had the young stock and I told the kids that they had better let the young stock go and come over. I happened to have my boat in there, so I pushed the boat over so they could get in there. They let the young stock go and I brought them (the kids) over in the boat, and they got upstairs where it was safe.

“There weren’t any livestock left in the garage. There was one that landed on top of a lean-to room down by the bakery. A sheep was up on that, and there were young stock down along the rivers or up on the hills. But, I don’t think there were any of them that got drowned.”

Flood, Garage and Escape to Roof:

(Russ: “Then what happened? Did the flood waters keep rising, or subside?”)

Rex: “Well, we’d had lots of rain and the ground was so soaked up. Anyway along about, oh, ten o’clock, the river was coming up pretty high. It was getting up in Main Street (McKay).

“We had plugged all the doorways (Author’s note: in the Ford Garage), that is a little ways up - a foot or so, which usually took care of the flood waters. But, it sure didn’t this time.

“But anyway, along toward midnight, the water was in the office part, and the pressure of the water against the big plate glass windows broke a couple of them in, right where I was standing. I was standing there - I had gone over my hip boots – and I decided it was time for me to get out of there. So we all went upstairs, over the office. There was a room up there.

“The water was getting higher all the time, so we figured we had better chop a hole through the ceiling and get up on roof just in case the north wall of the garage would cave in. That was the wall that the force of the water was coming up against. We figured if that caved in, well the garage roof would cave down on us up stairs there.

“So, we had some old drive shafts there - that is they were new model-T drive shafts, but they were not in great demand any more. We took a couple of those and we chopped a hole through the ceiling. Well then we had to get up through the roof part, so we chopped a hole through the roof, got out on the roof. Just in case the thing would cave in, we would be out where we’d stand a little chance.

“So we stood up there in the rain. Gee, it was just raining and pouring. But we didn’t - we were all so wet anyway that it didn’t make any difference. It was in the fall and we were getting pretty cold, though. But anyway, along about, ooh, probably two or three o’clock the water started to go down and it quit raining, and we figured we would be pretty safe then - which we were. But that was quite a night.”

Conversation: (Russ: “Now that was a different – was that a different flood, or…”) Rex: “Yes. That was a different one.” (Russ: “The big one was in ’42, right?”) Rex: “Yes.” (Russ: “Now this one you’re talking about now, when was that?”) Rex: “Oh, I don’t remember, Russ.” (Russ: “Before or after the big one?”) Rex: “Ya, it was before.

“But there was – oh we had had an awful lot of rain, and there were – well, it seemed that we would have a flood so that the water got up in Main Street almost every summer - sometimes two or three times. But it never got up where it really raised as much trouble with the businesses too. But we used to have to hurry and get our parts up and our parts bins, get those up. And our books – anything that would get wet. We had to get it up on top of the parts bins.”

Flood and Uncle Lyle’s House:

Context: Lyle Pence was my father Rex’s older brother and a partner in the Ford garage.

(Russ: “I remember that Uncle Lyle and Aunt Cora had water in their basement.”)

Rex: “Yes, they had water in …”

Golda, Wife and Mother: “They had water in the main floor!”

Rex: “… yes, up on the main – oh yes. And, yes, they probably had three or four feet of water in the house, in the main floor. We were lucky. We lived up on the hill. Since that, though, that’s the reason they put that big dam in. There’s been several times since that we would have had water up in Main Street again if it wasn’t for the dam. So that was a good thing, once they got that put in there.”

Flood and Stuffed Animals:

(Russ: You lost a – a stuffed animal. What was it? A wolf’s head or something?)

Rex: “Oh yes - a mounted wolf. And, oh, let’s see; I had a pheasant and an owl I think. I had that stuff up on top of the parts’ bins. Some people down in Elmwood found ii - in the woods, down there, where the flood had deposited it. I don’t know if any of the other stuff was found or not. That is, any of the stuffed animals. But, the wolf was so messed up and damaged that I never picked it up.”

Flood and Tanks:

Rex: “We had one barrel of Zerone - that was antifreeze for radiators. And that had floated way down into the outskirts of Elmwood before it got lodged in the trees. Some people in Elmwood found it, and I suppose we had our name – a shipping label with the Ford garage in SV’s name on it. That’s how they knew who it belonged to. So they got in touch with us and we went down – well I took the truck and went down and picked it up. There were Pierce County highway crews there close by and they helped me get it out of the woods and up on the truck. I remember that.

“And we lost one fifteen thousand gallon gasoline tank. We had three of them. One we found way down almost in Elmwood. It floated down. But that was pretty empty. The other two had enough in them so that they weren’t buoyant. They didn’t float. But this one – I think your mother was up on the hill watching, and she saw that big tank float down the valley there. (Laughter: “That must have been a sight.”) Ya.”

Flood and Railroad:

(Russ: “Well, now the railroad track used to go all the way down to …”)

Rex: “Weston.”

(Russ : “…Weston, and it got washed out – part of it got washed out in one flood, and then the part to Elmwood got washed out in another flood, didn’t it?”)

Rex: “Oh yes. That, the railroad bridge got washed out - oh gee, several times, probably once or twice a year. Well of course they had to rebuild it again and they’d fix it up. If it washed out the bridge, they’d put in a new bridge. But that happened quite often until we got the dam.”

(Russ: “Well the railroad was still down to Spring Valley when I was a kid, but I think the railroad was already out down to Elmwood by the time I can remember. I remember the rail bed, but there was no railroad there any more. The railroad spur still came to Spring Valley while I was growing up, but then of course they took it out all the way up to the main line. I think you said the section to Elmwood got washed out in the big flood.”)

Rex: “Yes, that ended it. No more railroad to Elmwood after that. The industrial commission, or whatever - they gave them permission to take it out. I guess they figured we had had enough floods, enough bridges washed out on them. The railroad used to go to Weston. That was the next town down below Elmwood.”

Well, there you have it. Somewhere on my tapes among the odds and ends of conversation Rex tells about the paths that were worn from the fields on top of the hills down through the woods to the valley floor between Spring Valley and Elmwood by many feet salvaging flood booty from Spring Valley. He mentions that, among other things, cases of Skelly motor oil were washed down river never to return home. I’m sure there were rich pickin’s for a few days after the flood subsided.

The Spring Valley Kid

Russell Pence

pence@asu.edu