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LIFE IN THE CAMPS: SMITH RIVER CAMP 1955-1957

A REMEMBRANCE FROM ED SPRAGUE, SEPTEMBER 2011

In the 1950’s the Smith River Camp was one of the largest Pacific Northwest construction camps being 

used by the Bureau of Public Roads. It served as headquarters for several projects, housed survey, 

construction, and maintenance crews, and was often home to contractors as well.

It was a September afternoon in 1955 when 

the new BPR employee arrived at the Smith River 

Camp. He had followed a project crew member 

into the camp, his personal vehicle still splattered 

with mud after being towed out of a river.

The remote camp, located about 40 miles 

northeast of Reedsport, Oregon, was accessed by a 

road of diminishing quality. Ed Sprague recalled 

that “the first part of the road was paved, then it 

went to gravel, then we were in the work area. I 

followed a road grader and then he stopped to let 

me go by at the first river crossing.” A GS-2 who 

was reporting for his first assignment, Ed got out 

and “asked if I was supposed to drive my car down 

and across the river. He said yes, unless I wanted 

to carry it across.

“I went down across the river and made it 

up the other side,” he said, but then got stuck 

attempting to cross the next river. “I was sitting on 

the top of the car when a Power Wagon came 

along. Don Hounder got out with a chain and 

hooked onto my car and yanked me out. He said to 

follow them into camp.

“Many new hires came in on the days 

following my arrival,” he recalled, and those that 

liked the camp life stayed with it. Some, however, 

“wanted no part of staying ±40 miles from town.” 

The camp had “an old army type four wheel drive 

Power Wagon” and the camp driver used it to make 

“a weekly grocery/mail run to Reedsport....(He) 

used to go around and ask the crew if they wanted 

anything from town,” and the trainees who wanted 

out would catch a ride on that next run. Ed didn’t 

leave the camp himself for a good six months after 

arriving. “I stayed there in camp until May 1956. 

The roads were such that I didn’t want to go out 

down the river. I waited till Weatherly Creek Road 

was dry enough to go out to Highway 38 east of 

Scottsburg.”

The camp was powered by a generator 

“which they shut off at 10:00 pm and fired up early 

the next morning. We lived in a long bunk house 

that housed about 30-plus engineering crew 

members and camp help, two to a room. I bunked 

with a trainee from Minnesota. He only stayed 

about a year, then he went to another job.

Detail from a 1984 BLM Resource Map of Oregon.
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“We ate in a large building next to the 

bunk house,” Ed remembered. “In the morning, 

just before breakfast, we would fix our lunches.” 

The cook set everything out on a table: “lunch 

meats and breads, some fruit, and a large coffee pot 

to fill your Thermos.”

When Ed first arrived the camp had a cook 

named Cecil. “He was a cranky old cook in the 

morning, (but) he ran a tight ship...didn’t take any 

guff from the crew....If Cecil left for a weekend we 

were on our own to cook for ourselves.” Cecil was 

there when Ed arrived, remained “for about a year 

and a half....and was replaced by a cook named 

Bill who...was there when I left....The cooks 

always did a good job. The meals were very good 

and not many people complained.”

He recalled that “some of the crew had 

wives and children and lived in their house trailers 

using the camp’s generator.” Sometimes, he said, 

the cook would make a special dinner and “he 

would invite the families...to eat with the crew.” 

Lonnie Rogers, who lived with his wife in a 

trailer, “would come through the bunkhouse and

Eight-yard Linn tractors were used to haul materials during 

construction in Willamette National Forest, 1933-34. Final 

Construction Report, Santiam Highway, NR-23-H.

WFLHD Archives.

tell everybody to ‘clean up and cover up’ as his 

wife was passing through to the cookhouse.” Ed 

remembered that Elmer Underbakke and his wife

also lived in a trailer at the camp.

“In those days the BPR also did all the 

maintenance on the BLM roads, so we had the 

maintenance crew working out of the camp.” That 

crew included a foreman and 8 or 9 truckers and 

equipment operators. “They maintained all the 

roads...in the area” once they had been completed.

“I remember the maintenance crew needed 

some help one time” when one of their drivers was 

sick, so Ed drove a truck for them “for about a 

week...The foreman was a nice guy. (He) showed 

me what he wanted done (and) rode with me 

once... It was something different for a spell and I 

enjoyed the change.”

M. E. Martin was the Resident Engineer, 

and the camp was home to crews for five or six 

different projects, “along with several contractors 

who were working many jobs. I remember a 

contractor named Thunderbunk who was working 

down Smith River doing a lot of rock work.” 

Whenever they shot a rock cut, he said, “the rock 

would fly across the river and knock down trees,” 

leaving virtually nothing standing. “It looked like 

it had been bombed.”

Another contractor he remembered had a 

large camp further up the river. Dennis and Sons 

“worked several projects,” and had even built 

themselves “a small airport up on a ridge...out 

Weatherly Creek,” so they could “fly in parts for 

their equipment.” One of their projects was “the

“Shooting stumps” on a reconstruction and grading project 

in the Mount Hood National Forest. Final construction 

report, Columbia River Highway, 28-B1, C, February 13, 

1939. WFLHD Archives.
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road to Roman Nose Mountain. There was a big 

quarry at Roman Nose for many, many years,” Ed 

remembered, and “the grade on that road was 17 

percent, the steepest grade I’ve ever seen.”

Every once in awhile Dennis and Sons 

invited the BPR crew up to their camp for the 

evening meal. “It was like eating out—they always 

served great meals.”

Ed remembered that “roads in the Smith 

River area were built different above the camp.” 

Many of these roads were single lane roads with 

turn-outs, and “they had a 4 or 5 foot layer of shot 

rock—big rock—which was called cushion which 

they used when running along river grade through

low wet areas. It set the road bed up out of any wet 

areas 4 or 5 feet.” He added that “the main roads

was great, the deer and animals were so tame, you 

could almost feed the deer by hand.”

Ed recalled going into Reedsport for a 

movie one weekend with another employee, Jim 

Brannon. They were driving back along 

Weatherly Creek Road on the way back to camp 

when the headlights picked up four cougars. The 

big cats “ran down the road for about a half mile in 

front of Jim’s car. The thing you never forget is the 

very long tail a cougar has.”

The road curved sharply to the right and 

the cougars ran up into the brush. Jim stopped the 

car and “we backed up a little. We could see their 

eyes, as they had stopped and looked back for a 

moment.”

were two lanes.”

“The camp mechanic was Dick Kimble. 

He kept all the vehicles and equipment running. 

Dick also ran the grader, and (he) opened and 

graded the Weatherly Creek Road in the spring so 

we could go out that way to Highway 38.”

By 1956 the Smith River Road was 

“greatly improved to Spencer Creek.” The crew 

parked their personal cars at a ranch just above 

Spencer Creek, and “on the weekends we used to 

take a Power Wagon from camp to (the) ranch.... 

We would carpool to Portland in several cars” then 

meet back in Gardiner, just north of Reedsport on 

Coast Highway 101, at the Teddy Bear Tavern. 

Then it was “drive to the ranch, pile out of our cars 

and into the Power Wagons” and head back to the 

camp for another week’s work.

Ed remembered driving back to camp with 

six people in his car one time, and “most were 

feeling no pain.” The guy sitting next to the front 

door accidentally hit the handle and fell out. “I was 

going about 30 MPH. Needless to say he got 

bruised and skinned up bad.” The fellow was 

tough, however. During World War II “he had 

been...a bomber pilot and had a steel plate in his 

head. We put him back in the car...took him into 

camp, cleaned him up, and put him to bed. He was

up in the morning,” Ed added, though he was 

moving a bit more slowly. “I think he worked in 

the office for a week or two to heal up.”

In the rather remote wilderness around the 

camp, wildlife sightings were not uncommon. “We 

were pushing roads through the forest and BLM 

land. Running line out ahead of the construction

A channel change was made to the North Santiam River

during a 1935-36 project. Final Construction Report, Oregon 

Forest Highway Project No. 24-F2. WFLHD Archives.

Once the road to the camp had been 

improved, the crew members could bring in their 

own vehicles. One weekend in 1957, he 

remembered, Ted Daniels “brought in a new 

Oldsmobile, Leroy Borstad brought in a new 

Studebaker Silverhawk, and I brought in a new 

Ford, all on the same weekend.”

Recalling some of the other members of 

the crew, he noted that he used to car pool with “Al 

Gerolph...He got there about two days before I 

did.” Bill Regal was one of the party chiefs, “(he) 

was from New York. Frances Bennett was there; 

they called him Benny and he had a little green 

man that used sit on his shoulder. He was a 

character. Al Calayes was at the camp; he went to 

Alaska with the State in the mid 1950’s....Mel 

Hanson and Jim Kernole were there; they lived in 

the bunkhouse.”
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Although there were many other 

employees on the various crews, one who stands 

out in Ed’s memory was the camp swamper. Hew

kept things clean and in good repair. Ed 

remembers him as a “remarkable man who had 

traveled all over the world. He was always writing 

letters...and receiving letters from all parts of the 

world. He never owned a car. He said he would 

walk to where he was going. He was really 

interesting to talk to.”

Ed’s annual salary as a GS-2 was $2,960, 

“big bucks in them days,” he said. He enjoyed the 

time he spent living in the camp. “We worked hard 

and the food was good, it’s something to always 

remember. There were always great people on the 

crews and fun to work with.”

An Engineering Camp used on the Whitewater Creek Bridge project, North Santiam 

Highway #24, Oregon Forest Highway Project E-24-D2, 1933-34. WFLHD Archives.

Ed Sprague wrote up his memories of two years at the Smith River in time for the 2011 luncheon of the 

Old Road Gang. Retirees with stories to share may send them to marili.reilly@dot.gov.