Note by Judy: According to Searcy County Source Book #1 edited by Mary Frances Harrell the Dinky Line served the HD Williams Cooperage Company and either directly or indirectly half the people in the county were employed by the Company. It made stave bolts, logs, cordwood, crossties and staves. (staves were used to make barrels, mostly for whiskey) . The entire railroad, ties and rails were taken out later. Most of the timber had been cut from the surrounding hills and prohibition severely limited the demand for barrels. There was also a company just called the "Export Company" that bought the timber and or lumber and shipped it out by rail. Remember all of this was done by hand saws and axes. No power tools of any kind out in the woods. This is a transcript of a cassette tape made February 1980 at Carnegie, Oklahoma. The tape was recorded primarily by Toby Lonzo Holsted who was 93 years old at the time. Questions are asked by Judy Holsted Oldziewski. Also in the background you will sometimes hear Mary Ellen Harness Holsted, his wife of 75 years, and Judy's mother, Fannie Sue Kelley Holsted. T. L. as he was usually known was born and raised in Searcy County Arkansas. Both TL's and Mary Ellen's ancestors were among the very early settlers in Searcy County. They came from Missouri and Tennessee in the 1820's to 1850's. Lemuel Holsted, TL's grandfather was listed in the 1840 census. His great grandfather Robert Adams is believed to be the first white man to settle in Searcy County coming about 1817. Mary Ellen's family came from Tennessee to Arkansas but orginally settled some distance from Searcy County. However they were in Searcy County by the 1850 census. Mary Ellen and TL lived near a community known as Welcome Home at the time the events in this tape took place. It was probably about 1910. Welcome Home is about 20 miles by road from Marshall which was the nearest town and county seat. The town of Leslie is nearby . Note: Anytime in this tape TL talks about the road he means the railroad which became known as the Dinky train. Prior to this tape Judy had asked TL about the first time he ever saw a car and a train and he had answered. When asked the first time he ever saw a plane he couldn't remember but then stated he remembered the first time he ever saw a big truck. The tape begins with TL saying the truck came and hauled timber out of that country where I lived. It hauled timber out of that country where I lived. We had a railroad to run out there in the country about 20 mile. They built a railroad to take it into Leslie, Arkansas. That was the town you know and they hauled a lot of timber in there. I remember the first time it (the big truck) come through there. I was working on the road. We saw that thing a coming. Of course we knew what it was. They told us what they was going to do. It would come through that day and it was going to haul timber. And it hauled a lot of timber out of there. They called it (the truck) old something or other. Old Monday, I believe that is what they called it. They hauled a lot of timber out of there. There was places of course they couldn't go with that truck and they used wagons and mules to haul this timber to where this truck could get to it. (Judy) They used the Dinky train to haul timber with too didn't they? (TL) Oh yes, they used the Dinky Train. (Mary Ellen in background) After they got the road built and the train track built they hauled on the Dinky Train. (TL) They built a road there. I helped build that road. I worked all winter there. I stayed in a big tent. Me and one man and one woman worked on the inside. We cooked for a hundred men. It just happened that was a bad winter and there was snow on the ground about half the time. I was glad to be in that tent. I worked in there all winter, about three months. (Judy) So you were cooking. (TL) We was a cooking and a washing dishes and cooking for a lot of people. I slept right between two big range stoves every night and I got up at three o'clock every morning and lit up the stoves, at three o'clock. We had to start at three. You see the men had to go to work at six. (Judy) Grandpa, how did you wake up? Did you have an alarm clock? (TL) No, I just got in the habit of waking up, you can do that. You can go to waking up at a certain time and you'll wake up. (Judy) Were Grandma and the kids just living in your house during this time? (TL) No they was living, Oh yes they was living--(Mary Ellen) We was living at home while you were off down there at work. (TL) We lived at the frog pond place then when I was doing all the work on the railroad, cooking there. (Judy) So they stayed there and you went off to work. (TL) yes. (Judy) How much did you get paid for that grandpa? (TL) I got 15 cents an hour, dollar and a half a day. (Judy) And all you could eat. (TL) Yes, that's what I got, a dollar and a half a day and we worked 10 hours. That was just 15 cents an hour and we was glad to get that. Finally I put my mules on the road. I had to hire a man to drive them. I put my mules on the road and I got I believe it was three dollars, three dollars for me and my mules, the whole thing. Of course I had to pay my hand out of it but I gave him a dollar a day to drive my mules. That's when I was working on the road. I wasn't in the kitchen then. I was on the road. They kinda learned I could dress up and do this kind of work. They put me on the back end of it to dress the road up, finish it you know. (Judy) What do you mean by dress it up? (TL) Level it up and get it in shape where they could get over it. (Judy) Were you putting gravel over it or what? No we just graded it. We done it all with mules and plows and slips. You don't know what a slip is do you? (Judy) I sure don't. (TL) Well it's a thing you load this dirt with, you usually hook the mules to it and you load this dirt on this thing and move it wherever you want it, dump it in different places. We built all that road. We didn't have nothing else but mules. Later though they got a grader in there, right on the tail end of it and finished it. We ought to have had a grader all the time and didn't have it. (TL) Mary, I can't hear what you are saying. (Judy) She's saying you moved down there eventually. (TL) Yes we finally moved on the road in a tent, stayed there. I guess we worked on that road six or eight months. (Mary Ellen) That's where we tore up the stove. (TL) Yes, we had an old cook stove. It had been sitting you know and we had cooked on it for years. As long as you just let it sit there it was doing all right. But when we moved we took that stove and when we moved it out of the wagon, when we moved it out of the wagon I believe it fell into 40 pieces. All them rods was rotted out and rusted out and it just tumbled. There we was, didn't have no way to cook. Well I had a heating stove and I got me what they call a drum, you put it up above your stove, hook it on to your pipe just above your stove and you can cook a few things in that. (Judy) Grandpa, where was this road, where did it go from and to, this road you were building? Where did it start, what town or where did it start? (TL) What's that ? (Judy) That road where did it start? (TL) It started at Leslie , Leslie, Arkansas.(Judy) Where did it go to? (TL) Back up in the mountains, right in the country where I lived. (Judy) Oh, it was built up in the mountains to bring the timber out. (TL) That was the purpose of the road, to haul that timber out. (Judy) Is that road still there? (TL) No they took it up. It's been took up several years. So that road was built just to haul that timber out.It went on out to 27 Hwy. (Judy) It went out to 27 Hwy. (TL) Right where we lived, yes, within a mile of where we lived. It was about a mile from where we lived. (Judy) I'll say. (TL) I helped do all of that. We thought we was making money overhanded you know, getting 15 cents an hour! (Judy) Did the tent house all the men or did they just live here and there? (TL) Some lived along the road, some walked quite a distance you know to the job. A lot of them lived right on the road. (Judy) In tents? (TL) In tents. We would have camps you know. Maybe there would be several tents right around in one place. We would have a camp there so we could work. (Judy) How often did you move the tents? (TL) We didn't move them but once. (Mary Ellen) We moved twice. (TL) We had to move a time or two when they were shooting them big hillsides off there with that dynamite. They would come and tell us to move out. We didn't move our tent but we would get back up in the woods when they was shooting, putting on them big shots you know. You could stand back . I would get way back when they was going to put them shots in . They just drilled it. They used black powder. You could stand back here and when they set them shots off you could just see that mountain move before you heard any report. It would just move. (Judy) Grandpa, how long was the road, about how many miles? (TL) About 20 miles, that railroad was about 20 miles long. (Judy) Was this a railroad or a road? (TL) It was a railroad, it came right up what we called little Red River. (Judy) That's what you were working on. (TL) Yes (Judy) The roadbed of the railroad. (TL) Yes. (Judy) Did you help lay any of the ties or just grade the road? (TL) I done some of the first that was done. I pulled stumps there for I guess three or four months. I had a stump puller. I couldn't tell you how you wound it up to pull these stumps. But what we had was an outfit we could hook on, we would hook on to a big stump out there, the biggest one we could find and put the machine on that one. Then reach out and get them as far as we could reach and just work one lever like that. After a while you could see that ground begin to bust and pull them stumps. It was a stump puller. (Judy) Did you ever lay any of the ties for the railroad or anything? Did you put down any of the rails? (TL) Oh yes, we done a lot of that, laying them ties. Done a lot of that kind of work. Helped build bridges you know. (Mary Ellen in background) Tore a mountain down and built a road. (TL) When we was building that road, up there to where I lived we just took the side of the mountain, moved right along up a creek, right along the side of the mountain. They throwed rocks over there in a man's field, an old widow woman's field. They had to go in there and powder them and blow them up with the powder. Bust them up and haul them out. Just ruined her field til they got the rocks off it. When they put out them big shots there it would move the road for a mile right up the creek there. You could see the whole side of the mountain pushed, pushed off. They used black powder. (Judy) They didn't use dynamite? (TL) No they used black powder. It come in cans, just about like a five gallon can. One time there they put out a shot and I didn't get far enough away. I ran off just about as far as from here to that house or a little further. I got behind a big rock. Boy, that jarred me! I like to get out of there, get away from there. There was a powder house right there, not far, they kept the powder in. I ran in there one time, time of a storm. I was working down there. I thinks to myself , if lightening strikes this thing you couldn't find enough of me to find out who it was. It rained and we had an electric storm but it didn't happen to bother us. (Judy) Was there anyone in there with you? No, just the powder. I was handling the plow once and I plowed up a whole bed of dynamite once. They used some dynamite on that after they got out on the hill a ways. They used some dynamite. (Judy) You were plowing on the road? (TL) Yes, we was plowing. What if we had hit that cap with that plow, no telling where I would have been. That was the fault of the man put the powder in. When them shots went off he ought to have known how many went off and he didn't tell us. We plowed up half a bushel of dynamite. Just say if that plow had hit that cap. (Judy) It would have been all over wouldn't it? (TL) It would have been all day with us. That would have been the end of it (Judy) What did they do with the dynamite you plowed up? Did somebody come and get it? (TL) Yes, just some of the hands. We told them where it was at and went down there, dug out all of it. I guess they got it all out. They had to. Had to get it out of there. That was about the first start of the work we done on the railroad. No, the first work I did was when I pulled stumps. No, the first work I done was I helped cut the right of way you see. Cut all that timber out. We just sawed those stumps off and then we pulled the stumps, pulled that out. (Fannie Sue) Did anybody buy those stumps and things for wood? Did they take them for wood or just haul them off or what? What did they finally do with them? (TL) Just drug them off the highway, (he means the right of way) off the railroad and left them. Just got them out of the way. They had to be destroyed, pulled out of the way. They wasn't fit for wood no how. (Fannie Sue) Did they finally burn that all up or did it just deteriorate? (TL) Just deteriorated, rotted. I guess a lot of them are laying there yet. (Fannie Sue) I wouldn't doubt it. (Judy) Grandpa, that timber you cut, did they sell it? (TL) No, they didn't sell it. They made ties. (Judy) Oh, they made ties out of that timber. (TL) They made ties out of that timber. We cut you know a lot of it. Of course they got a lot that wasn't on the road. They didn't get enough to build the road. (Judy) What kind of timber did they use to make the ties? (TL) Just anything for that railroad. Anything that would square up 7 x 8, 7 x 8 I believe it was, 7 x 9. That was the size of the ties. (Judy) It had to be 7 wide and 8 or 9 thick. How long were they, how many feet long? (TL) I think they were 8 foot for the railroad ties. (Judy) That's a pretty good piece of wood, 7 x 9 by 8 foot. (TL) But they knew that railroad wouldn't be there to long. They just used everything. Anything that would square up to what they wanted. That's what they used. They made bridges, they cut that timber off that highway (again he means right of way) or most of it to build their bridges with. See they had to build several bridges on that road getting out there. (Judy) Did you help in building those bridges and everything? (TL) Yes, I worked on all of it. (Judy) Now is this the same place you cooked? Did you cook during the winter and work on the road during the summer. (TL) Yes, it was the same railroad as we done all that cooking and washing dishes. We just had a big old vat. It was as long as from here to that stove there. We would just pile them dishes in there. We had a lot of hot water and we would just stir them up you know. We didn't wash them clean, we just got them to what they looked pretty good. Same way with the meat we cut up. They would back in there with four quarter of meat and just dump them at one end of the tent. We did all the cutting of that thing up and boiling it and fixing it for them to eat. It wasn't fit to eat but they eat it. (TL) And we used more apple butter than anything we had there to feed them men. It was a sight on earth at the apple butter we used in there. Why they done that I just don't know. Well they just liked it I guess. (Judy) Did you fix your own bread? Did you bake your own bread? (TL) That woman cooked our bread, me and her and another man but the bread they eat was loaf bread. It was hauled in there. I don't know where they baked it. (Judy) But you didn't bake bread for all the men, just for yourselves. (TL) When we got the all fed this woman would cook our meals and we would eat after we got shed of that bunch. (Judy) You didn't eat the same thing they did? (TL) No, we didn't eat the same grub they did. She cooked good stuff for us to eat. That beef, we didn't clean it up or wash it the way it ought to have been. (TL) I made coffee in two 10 gallon cans, sitting there on a big stove. (Judy) What did you do, just boil it? (TL) Yes, I'd pour about a gallon of coffee in one can then the other. Oh, I might not have put in a gallon but I made it pretty strong. (Judy) How did you strain it? (TL) Huh? (Judy) How did you strain it or did you just let the grounds go to the bottom? (Fannie Sue) Just let the grounds go to the bottom. (Judy) How did you strain the coffee? (TL) We didn't strain it I don't reckon. We just boiled it and they (the grounds) all went to the bottom. (Judy) They had a card or something. Tell me what they did with it. (TL) Are you ready for me to tell it? (Judy) I'm ready. (TL) You know on a job like that they fed these men you see that worked. Well you carried a meal card, what they called a meal card. They punched that card every day. Well every time you went to eat they punched your card and that's the way they had of keeping up with it. Well every day before you quit work. about six o'clock this man come through punching your day card. That showed how many hours you put in and it kept up with the work. They had to do that in order, that's the way they did do it. To keep up with the men's labor. How much labor they done and how many meals they eat. Them meals was all charged to them and they had to pay for them meals. (Judy) How much did the men working on the road get? You were getting 15 cents and hour. How much were the men getting? (TL) That's what they got. (Judy) They got the same thing. (TL) That's all they got, 15 cent an hour, that's what they got. They worked 10 hours. They didn't work no eight hours them days. (Judy) They worked six days a week? (TL) Yes. (Judy) Sunday's they got off ? (TL) They took Sundays off and that was the only day they took off . (Judy) How often did they get paid, every week? (TL) Every two weeks they paid, paid off every two weeks. (Judy) How did they pay you? (TL) Paid you with a check. (Judy) You got a check, not cash. Where did you go to cash the check? (TL) You could cash it anywhere, the stores, any town would cash them. That wasn't no problem at all to get the checks cashed. They was good. You could cash them anywhere. (Judy) What company was this? Do you remember the name of the company? (TL) It was the export company. What they called the export company. Bought up all that timber in there. (Judy) But you don't know the name that was on the check or anything like that. (TL) It went on the name of the export, the export company. (Judy) That's all they called it. (TL) That's what they called it. They bought up all the timber in that country. Bought everything that would square up a 2 x 4. Wasted a lot of good timber. (Judy) Did they get most of the timber out, did they cut most of the timber out? (TL) Yes they got all that was any good. They got most of the timber before they took the railroad out. END