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Show ."V" ,.- . . j r --? - 1 " i , j i , l Ironworker Gerald Black A Dangerous Job But He Loved It! ESCALANTE - Eighty-five year old Escalante resident Gerald Black, recently moved from Escalante to The Dalles, Ore., to be near his daughters. Not long after his arrival there, he was invited to an Ironworkers Union party where he received recognition and was awarded a 60-year union membership mem-bership pin. What Black did for a living those 60 years, is considered so dangerous today that it is illegal. Black rode the hook. He was an ironworker who helped build the dams and bridges of the American West. As cranes lifted tons of steel and concrete hundreds of feet into the air, Black stood atop the load as a guide. He started as an ironworker on the Shasta Dam in California in 1942. The dam was considered consid-ered so vital to the war effort that men, like Black, were excused from the draft. It was said that the life expectancy of an ironworker in those days was eight years. He worked on 15 more dams ' after that, including McNary Dam in Umatilla, Ore., and dams in Canada, Pakistan, etc. It was hard, dangerous work and co-workers trusted one another with their lives. One of Black's daughters finished fin-ished the eighth grade in Karachi, Pakistan while her father worked on the Mangla Dam. Hard to believe in those days that he came from a town in the big empty spaces of America: Escalante, Utah. But Black ended up seeing a good chunk of the world. He saw many fellow workers injured, maimed and killed over the years on the dangerous jobs. Black's own brother, Alton, also an Escalante native, was severely injured working on a dam in Nevada and died when he was working on the Canyon Ferry Dam in Montana. Their mutual friend, whom they remembered as Curly, died working iron in Revelstoke, B.C. But for those who made it through, they celebrated as they have for years at the union locals anniversary party by eating eat-ing prime rib! |
