Second Interview with Lynn Lyman

Interview with Lynn Lyman, Blanding Utah

June 20, 1987

by Deniane Gutke Kartchner

Hazel, Gary, and Lynn Lyman in Blanding.  (SJHC photo)
 
Gutke: Could you tell me some of the projects that you worked on in the CCC's?

Lyman: Well, I could tell you some of the projects that the boys worked on. I wasn't out working on the project; I was in the shop mostly or teaching the boys how to drive. They developed springs, put troughs in for cattle to water, and built corrals and roads. They built quite a bit of the road down through Brown's Canyon, across Recapture and out on the Mustang Mesa. They also did a lot of work down this side of Mexican Hat on Lime Ridge. I think they went out to Cigarette Cave. They developed the spring back in the cave and put in some watering troughs for the stock there. It's pretty much gone to pot; they haven't kept it up. There's no water to the troughs anymore.

Wind Whistle Spike Camp.  Water troughs being built at Dry Valley by CCC boys during the 1930's  (Donna Wozniak photo)
 
    All of the jobs were not really practical; I think the main object of the CCC camp was to furnish employment for these boys. Most of them came from back East, some from Ohio and some from New York. They were boys with nothing to do. I guess their parents were having a hard time too, so they got them into these CCC camps.

It was a little too political for me; I didn't like it. I didn't mind the mechanical work and all that, but then you had to go to their staff meetings and everything. I didn't like that: filling out reports and stuff.

Gutke: So all in all, do you think the CCC camps were worthwhile?

Lyman: Yes, they served their purpose; they got a lot of these young fellows out of the slums of the cities. They brought them out and offered them opportunity and a more wholesome life. A lot of them took advantage of it and some didn't. Brush Keele got to be one of the best cat operators in the country, and I guess Willie Certonio did too. They made money at it! I think most of them benefitted from it, but there's a certain group that no matter what you do for them they don't take advantage of it.
     

Negative Impressions

Gutke: One last question. What is the one thing that impressed you the most about the CCC's?

Lyman: Well, the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the trouble my brother got in, when they beat him up and broke his jaw and everything. Then the safe that they stole out of the business that belonged to my brothers and me. I wouldn't say that working for the CCC camp was the happiest time of my life. There were just things about it that just kind of irritated me, and eventually they built up until I quit. I wasn't fired; I quit. Half of the fellows that were running it-- what you'd call the big shots--were the partying type of people. That didn't fit into my program at all. They weren't my type at all. Of course these other men, Floyd Nielson and Dan Perkins, were more of my type of people. The whole thing just gradually built up in my mind, and I got out of it.

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