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Show The voices of V alle - Hi By David Neu The last time I drove down Highway 40 toward Heber, it was raining and there was no neon sign blinking along the side of the road at Keetley. There was no hot coffee at the Valle-H- i Cafe and Motel. was abanThe Valle-H- i doned. I pulled off the highway and glanced uneasily at the building before continuing down the road which leads across the meadow and up to the old Park Con Mine, now the back entrance to the Ontario. I got out just past the creek which was gushing down from the valleys north end. White clouds hung around the valley j edge dropping a steady drizzle of rain. I had been sneezing for a week, but I couldnt resist walking this road. Fritz, my year old German Pointer, was already 40 yards ahead, pausing only to look to the stand of trees across the meadow where an occasional chirp of a meadow lark reminded me that this was spring. Rain drenched dandelions hunched over in the meadow to the right. A night crawler inches across the road, so slowly that I had to stop to see where he was going. His wet body shined from the rainfall and I wondered if he could sense the .drenching that the government had planned for his kind five years hence when the road, the meadow and the town of Keetley would lie 130 feet below the high water level of the Jordanelle Dam. There are of course a few snags in this portion of the Central Utah Water Project. The loudest protest is coming from the Noranda Mining Company who claims the series of underground faults under the flooded area would transport water into their mines making the already 'difficult water problems un- bearable and the mining unprofitable. The voices of Keetley, however, are rapidly fading and the voices of the Valle-H- i have long since drowned. I know youre going to like this place, my husband and I have fixed it up nice. If you get lonely, you be sure and come down to the restaurant. My name is Irma and I like talking to you That was Irma boys. Christiansen in January, 1976. A month later, Irma started telling me about the f Author, David Nea ' potential gold min$ I was living in. We were alone in the Cafe. Irma was a little too sweet for most of the oil workers and diamond drillers who lived in the place and ' .she never opened the bar in tiie back room where neon beer signs and velvet paintings of nudes lined the wall. Instead shed go to the bar and bring the beer back to you at the cafe counter. Im getting awfolly tired of this place, said Inna as she set the Oly down in front of me. Kennys on the road all the time in the truck. I hardly ever see him and it gets awfully lonely. Now a young guy like you ought to buy this place. Like my friend Bea - you know Bea Kummer up in Park - like she says, Irma youre sitting on One winter just after the a gold mine here! She says its a fact theres going to be a new ski area up past the mine on that mountain there, start of World War II, George was shoveling snow from the parking lot, and a . and theyre going to have to use this road to get into the place. Now you can imagine what kind of money a young couple could make here. Of course, youre not married ... are you? but still ... Irma would have been a great salesman if there had been anything left to sell. Rust was taking over the vegetable producer from . California stopped in with a group metal shower stalls, the wooden porch was buckling from the snow and rain and a :reek ran through the clay iloor of the cellar. I discovered the creek late one night when Irma asked me to go underneath and light the pilot on the water heater which had gone out about the time a lady in the motel unit wanted a hot shower. So much for the gold mine. In the years of 1921 to 27 when the Park Consolidated Mine was producing just a trace of gold along with its high grade lead and silver, the original owner of the Valle-Hi Motel, George A. Fisher, basked in the profits. Fisher bought the McDonald ranch property and constructed the boarding house for the miners (later to become and a Cafe and the Valle-Hstore across the street which now sits dejectedly under a straighter than you can imagine and the fields have never looked as beautiful since." The brief surge of travel after the war brought times to the motel and cafe. During this time, pro-pero- sign reading Wickee-U- the Ann Fisher who now lives in Heber, recalls that they charged $1.50 per night for a bed. George had a mineral display he used to keep at tiie store, said Anne. He called it the feds gold, and wed give tourists a sample and theyd nearly always send us something from their home state. endless throng of travelers on lifes highway. Fishers Motel was built perpendicular to the highway and faced the Wickee-U- p Cafe. The widening of the road to the mine in the early 1950s used up the parking lot and necessitated turning the building 90 degrees. Park City residents Kenneth p luring highway travelers. Georges widow, 91 year old us George wrote a little book called Along The Road which he printed in 1950 and handed out to his customers. The bode was dedicated to i) Cafe. When the mines closed down in 1932, Fisher remodeled the boarding house iftto a motel in hopes' of of ISO Japanese immigrants he was leading to some government camp in Utah where they would be detained during the war. The affable and enterprising Fisher said he had plenty of room at his place and the group spent the next seven years living iri the Valle-H- i cultivating the fields into crops of vegetables, peas and lettuce. Bea Kummer, Park City Historian, recalls that the rows of lettuce were ! . . Kunlmer and Art Workmen worked on that project as employees of the ' Havens House Moving Company. Shortly after: that, the Fishers sold ' the ranch including the motel and cafe to Salt Lake Realtor Grant Woodward, who allowed the property to sit idle for several years before selling the motel in 1965 to Kenneth and Irma Christiansen who named it the Valle-H- i. I left the Valle-H-i in April, 1976; and didnt return until October of 1977. By that |