50s style Coke machine

The 5 Cent Coke Machines

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You must be an old timer if you can remember Trona’s Coke machines. I don’t know why but the seemed to attach young boys like like a magnet. There was something magical about a machine that could dispense such a wonderful product. I still remember what it sounds like when it was dropping into the opening. The fact that it was a machine and that we were boy probably had a lot to do with the magic.

I still remember the taste of my first six ounce vending machine Coke in a glass bottle. Today’s Cokes and Pepis don’t even come close. The machines kept the Cokes super cold and on a hot day there wasn’t anything better to cool you down. The fact that my mother forbid us from drinking Coke made it taste even better.

Each bunkhouse had at least one Coke machine and some had two or more. A nickel doesn’t sound like much today but in the fifties coming up with a nickel wasn’t easy for a young boy. The word hacker didn’t exist back then but Coke machine hackers sure did. Some of us tried slugs but the machines had magnets and gaps that deflected iron slugs and coins that were too heavy or light so if anyone did get a slug to work it was exceptional luck.

Probably the best hack I’ve heard was waiting around a machine and then complaining to the first adult that came by that the machine ate your nickel and didn’t dispense a coke. I don’t think I ever did this but someone who did told me that it worked every time.

There was one daring young man that I know that learned he could stick his hand up the opening, tug on the bottle a little and out it would come. One day he did this and about 15 bottles came out at one time. Most of them broke when they hit the floor and most of the kids that were watching immediately scattered.

Since the machines had moving parts there was a risk of losing a finger or maybe a hand but no one ever got hurt by doing this that I know of. I’ll confess that every once in awhile this is the way I got my forbidden cokes.

Eventually they changed the machines to a different style that made it impossible to pull a Coke out without paying but there were hacks that worked with limited success on these too.

When you think about it being able to deliver a bottle of Coke for a nickel in a bottle that was washed and recycled came pretty close to being magic.

John C Heater

John C. Heter – Class of 1963

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John C. Heter passed away on June 19, 2013 in Ontario, California. He was 68 years old. John resided in Ridgecrest, California since 2010, having moved from Valencia, California. He was born May 3, 1945 in Trona, California. John was a geologist before retiring in 2010, and served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970. John will be missed by his Facebook friends.

Gerald Smith “Jerry” Eyre – Class of 1950

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Gerald Smith “Jerry” Eyre died Oct. 15, 2012. He was 81.

Jerry was born July 15, 1931 in Lovell, Big Horn, Wyo. to Orton Berdette and Helen Lovevoize Smith Eyre. The Eyre family moved to Randsburg in 1935. Jerry was one of seven children. His father was employed at the famous Yellow Aster Gold Mine in Randsburg as a hard rock miner.

A strike closed the mine in 1940/1941, so the Eyre family moved to Ridgecrest and lived for a short time in one of the Joe Fox properties situated near what is now the IWV Water District office.

Jerry’s father found employment at the American Potash and Chemical Company in Trona, now called Searles Valley Minerals.

The family moved to Trona in 1942, where Jerry attended the Trona School System until he graduated from high school.

Jerry married Mary Ann Beach of Ridgecrest.
The marriage was blessed with three sons Jerry, Vince and Brad.

Read more: http://www.ridgecrestca.com/article/20121107/OBITUARIES/121109803#ixzz2V7AwUo36

Trona’s First Pool

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Trona’s first swimming pool was not Valley Wells. It was Crawley Pond and was located by the plant near the Number Two Evaporator House. The first photograph of it below is from a scrapbook put together by Elisabeth and Peggy Gauslin while they lived in Trona in about 1915. It was sent to me by Elisabeth’s son, John Whitelaw. The second picture is from the files in the SVHS Library  and was sent to me by Lit Brush. The third picture is the new Trona pool and the picture was stolen from the Trona Alumni page on FB. Pools in Trona have come a long way haven’t they?

Crawley PondCrawley Pond with members of Gauslin Family — J. Whitelaw Collection Circa 1917
Crawley Pond 1Crawley Pond — Courtesy SVHS  Circa 1917

 

Trona's New Pool

Trona’s New Pool – Courtesy Facebook 

West End Pool

Westend Pool

Valley Wells

Did You Know?

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Did you you know that Amelia Earhart‘s husband George Palmer Putnam died in the Trona Hospital in 1950?

George Palmer PutnamHe had Just completed his popular book, Death Valley and its Country. The Putnams liked Death Valley so well they later purchased interest in Stove Pipe Wells resort. When he became ill while he was there he was rushed to the Hospital in Trona. The picture on the left is from the SVHS Library.

Joe Whitelaw’s aunt, Mary Margaret “Peggy” Gauslin, lived in Trona  when she was ten. She  joined the Ninety-Nines, an association for women pilots, soon after she soloed in February 1930. She was a member until 1936, and was active in air shows. Amelia Earhart was a charter member of the Ninety-Nines which was founded in 1929.. Peggy probably never knew Amelia but it is an interesting coincidence. Peggy was born in 1905 and lived in Trona from about 1914 to 1918 while her father was building and then managed the California Trona Company plant. There are several pictures of her and her family in Trona on this web site.

According to a Curtiss-Wright newsletter dated April 6, 1930, Peggy and two others that week became part of the 200 (female) licensed pilots on record at that date.  “Of the 200, 17 were transport pilots, 22 were limited commercial pilots and 161 were private pilots.”

Later in Peggy’s life she worked for the Los Angeles Times as a clerk. She died in Orange County in 1990.

Trona 1940 US Census

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This week I spent some time looking at the 1940 census for Trona. It was quite interesting and I think it would be worth my time to study it in more detail. Here are some interesting examples:

  • The population  in 1940 was 2014.
  • My father’s salary was $1800 a year as a laborer.
  • My father paid $12 a month for rent.
  • A chemical engineer made $3000 a year.
  • The barber, butcher, dentist, bartender, deputy sheriff and the priest all worked for AP&CC.
  • Not everyone in Trona came from Oklahoma, Arkansas or Missouri.
  • Harvey Eastman Sr. was born in Cuba.
  • There were 21 single women and 1394 males including married men and children.
  • There were 780 men living in bunkhouse or tents.
  • There were 32 women living bunkhouses.
  • There  were 1160 people that had lived in Trona since 1935.

In 1920 the population of trona was about 700 and in 1930 it was about 1000.

To look at the 1940 census for free I recommend using the LDS Family Search site. As far as I know it is the only free site that is indexed and searchable by name.

https://familysearch.org/

Trona to Austin

Trona to Austin: How Life Snuck Up on Me

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Some of you may remember Paul “Butch” MacLean, especially if you you were in the class of 1959. I don’t remember him at all but I do remember the places and the people that he wrote about in his chapters about Trona. Paul didn’t write this book in hopes that it would be a bestseller. He wrote it so that his children and grandchildren could read about and know about his life.

If like me you grew up in Trona about the same time Paul did you should enjoy this book. If you grew up as an ordinary child and became an ordinary man like most of us you will be able to relate to Paul and the story of his life.

I’m glad that he decided to share his story with the rest of us by using a self publishing service. The book is a fun read. I can recommend it.