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Show Down Memory Lane BY JOHN J. CREEDON . MY FIRST JOB One of the most outstanding man made Bingham landmarks, now all but completely removed or covered over, was the Old Tramway skirting skirt-ing the left side of the Canyon up to the mouth of Bear Gulch, where it crossed the Canyon on a wooden trestle and continued on the right wall of Jordan or Galena Gulch. This tramway was built in the days of hand work and black powder, pow-der, in the late "80's" by the Old Jordan Company. The track was 39 inch gauge, the same as the old narrow gauge railroad, originally built into Bingham by the D&RG railroad, later made over to standard stand-ard gauge width. This tramway was taken over by Standish and Jimpson, two early-day early-day business men, and operated in connection with their coal and lumber lum-ber business, which was later sold to George E. Chandler, who incorporated incor-porated the Bingham Coal and I ..mkr Pnmnflnv bout 65 pounds, riding the first horse with the others trailing along down the three miles of dusty road in the summer and the mud, knee deep in the early spring. There was no sidewalks in the canyon and anyone that was unlucky un-lucky enough to be along side of the muddy road enjoyed the pleasure plea-sure of a mud bath. When I was asked by Mr. Jimpson Jimp-son one day, to drive a one horse passenger car to take Mr. and Mrs. Ray Bemis from the Bingham train to the Galena Mine, I was on my own. There was no means of informing in-forming the ore train coming down that the passenger car was on the way up each had to watch for the other. On this day, the horse, "Ned" was more on the job than myself, because just at the sharp turn below Colonel Wall's Starless Mine, 1 saw Ned's ears stand up and almost at the same instant, Ned iumDed down hill off the track and My firslt remembralnce of the tramway was as a small boy. I watched Grandpa Tibbie (grandfather (grand-father of Clyde) work on track repairs. re-pairs. I remember his old white horse that rived to an old age. This tram way was operated to convey supplies up to the Old Jordan Mine and cars loaded with ore and dropped drop-ped down the steep grade by hand brakes. On the trip up to the mine horses were used, two or three in tandem tan-dem according to the size of the load on each car and the trip usually us-ually consisted of ten or twelve cars requiring some 20 to 25 horses. I Here is where the ore train hit the passenger car, throwing us to the ground. Mrs. Bemis remained in the car. The ore train came to a stop with each car touching the one ahead. However, the passenger car was not thrown off the track and started start-ed down grade with Mrs. Bemis on the floor between the two lengthwise length-wise seats, with no one in control. One of the ore train drivers was my good friend, Victor Finnel, who ran along side and put on the brake and stopped the car with minor bruises to the three of us. The men lifted the passenger car off the track, so the ore train could pass, then lifted it back on the track and "Ned" and 1 proceeded to complete the trip. I braked the car slowly back to the yard and "Ned" came home on his own power. The men who made up the .ore train were the leader, L. B. "Ren" Jenkins, Dave Wherret, Joe Shelley, Oscar Christopherson, Victor Finnel, Fin-nel, George 1 lobbs and Gene Barton, Bar-ton, all fine .men. The proceeding article came from the pen of my good friend, Isador Gauchet, who I am happy to report has recovered from a severe heart attack suffered in January. Mr. Creedon ' came ,or J was hired to lead the string of horses back to the yard, my first job. I rode the lead horse followed by the others with the halter strap of one tied to the tail of the preceeding horse. Not many people now living, can recall i seeing a small boy of I I years, a- |