Claude Dallas -- Whatta Ya Think?

I cant speak for now, but in the early 60s when I did it most of the jobs were for 6 months, anything over that and they had to make you perminet. Most of the jobs were political appointments meaning some congeressman got his son or nephew a summer job. I knew someone that got his job that way in 59. However I was going to forestry school with him and he told me what application to get, so I applied and hired into yosemite in 60. There is always a few who didnt show up, so someone passing through does stand a chance to getting a labors job cleaning rest rooms or whatever.
In 1961 I hired in to the tetons. A guy was hired off the road. I still remember his name. Bob McCurdy, said he was from chicago. I will kick the stuffing out of him if our paths ever cross. He got in good with us, was a lot of fun etc. Then overnight he borrowed from everyone he could. He stold a car from one of our boys on trail crew that was up in camp and would get back every other weekend. Only a couple of us had cars, he had told his mates they could drive it once a week or so to go to jackson. So he got a couple day jump. It being on National Park service land the FBI was looking for him.
I stayed a few months after the college kids went back to school, and far as I know, he and or the car was never found. The guy he stold the car from said he also lost all his money he had hid in his bunck and other stuff. I had lent him some money that night too, as had others when we compared notes. I used to dream of running across him.
Other than that, most of the guys were great to work with and those jobs were some of the best days of my life. All kids should do that kind of thing a summer or two if they dont go in the service!
 
Dept. of Wildlife game wardens in NV are full LE and I have seen them do traffic stops on the road. They are out alone where everybody is armed, and now they have to look out for Mexican pot farms--yikes--I hope I don't come onto any of those.

I was hunting in northern NV when Claude was on the run.
Folks put out food and gas for him. There was some sympathy for him for his lifestyle and the self-defense aspects of his case. The conventional wisdom was that he would have got off if he hadn't reloaded and shot them in the head.
 
I think I told this before. My grandmother told me a story of when she was a girl in siberia, probley in the 1890s. The men from her village were getting harrassed and arrested for poaching. They caught the equivlant of the game warden, split a stump, and shoved the guys beard in it and left him for the wolves!
 
Wick;

Thanks, your explanation of the Election process over there. Things make more sense, now. I hope you get what you and the others want in 2012. For just a couple of Years we had to "declare" and could only vote for "that" party. That process sucks and we managed to end that 'system' after only a couple of elections.

For many, many years the local County had a Department of Public Safety with an appointed "Chief" while all the rest of the Counties still had elected Sheriffs. Just a couple of years back the County residence tossed out the DPS system and voted in a new Sheriff. I couldn't believe it when they voted for the same idiot who had been appointed by the Council - Go Figure! He's now in 'the other Washington' but still feeding at the public feed bin as a Republican. He sits just to the Left of Hillary on issues of Gun Control and letting off the other criminals.

One of my Best Friends from HS who worked in Search & Rescue with us did a hitch in the Marines and then went into the NPS at Mt. Rainier(he worked as a Volunteer every Summer during HS) and stayed there for many Years and became their first LEO. He headed up their SAR Unit and had more than his fair share of rescues and Presidential Citations for some of the Crazy things he managed to get done. He finally got transferred to UT about 10 Years ago but had been at Rainier for more Years than any other Ranger.

I had been a LEO for a number of Years when he got his Commission and we talked a number of times about that part of his Job. He wasn't making a fortune but he was doing something he enjoyed. He once told me he made a trip to the top of Mt. Rainier about once a month - Winter and Summer - of course, he loved that part more than any other. The West end of the North side of the Olympic National Park was part of my Patrol area as were several of the other NPS lands out on that end of the State and I worked with the NPS LEOs a number of times and they all were some of the most professional Feds I ever met or dealt with. I suspect the fact that they had to volunteer for those positions did mean they really took their jobs very seriously.
 
When I went to work for NPS I was a real exception. They kept telling me that I needed at LEAST 6 years as a seasonal, part-time ranger before I could be considered. THere were only 6 Junior Colleges in the Countruy that offered a LEO course of study, 2 years that NPS would accept. Because my dad spent nearly 40 years with the Federal Goverment as a civilian engineer with the US Bureau of Reclamation I was a lot better versed in the rules and regulations than nearly everybody working for NPS.

After being told I needed the seasonal stuff by the personnel person up at Cratyers of the Moon, Then Seatttle and the Denver. I finally got frustrated and called DC. The USBR Personenell Director have given me the telephone number for a big wif at NPS.

When I called and told him I wanted a perminent job as a LEO Ranger there was a long silence and then he started the spiel on 6 years as a temp etc. I interupted and excused myself and then went through the list of why I was qualified and why he could and in fact had TO HIRE ME. Again another long delay then he laughed and said he'd call me back within the hour.

I had the advantage that most guys simply don't.
More than 30% VA Disability rating. That gives you 10 points preference points but it also puts you at the top of the register and the agency can not pass you over to hire a non disabled Vet. I had already been a perminent Federal employee with carreeer staus, thus non competative re-instaement. I had already been to the Federal LEO Accademy and a sworn Federal Officer. All of which pretty well assured I'd get hired.

A hour later he called me back "So son, what park did you want to go work at"? I was offered Olympic, Ranier and Great Basin and took the GS job at Great Basin. At the time it was the newest park, had the fewest visitor days and was actually closed the most time, through the winter other than the visitors center and Lehman Caves.

I really liked the job and the people I worked for and yes there was a lot of weirtd stuff that reflected the difference between LEO types and the other people. The down side is like Indian Reservations, the things that Rangers can handle is very limited and ALL Felonies on a Federal Reservation (property) falls to the local FBI. Sometimes the working relationship with the FBI guys is good, sometimes it's not.

I made the mistake of telling the Supertindant that I knew how to survey. As the boundries of the Park were still not surveyed and marked the rangers and I spent a lot of the first summer/fall surveying and posting the boundries of the park!!!!! At least it got done. Al told me if he had to apply for a engineer and a survey team and do the paper work etc. that it would have taken 3 to 5 YEARS given the NPS budget at the time!!!!!

I remember a time the superitendant sent us to do a portion of the boundry. I never thought about it, got 2 4x4 pickups and drove over and did the job. When we got back the super wanted to know when I was going?? We are done. He actaully had thought we were going to back pack int the area and set up a camp etc even though the boundry was an old mine with a road that ran right to it!!! "That's not how we do the job". Really, you do now. I'd checked to make sure the road was not posted as closed in the park regs so I just couldn't see a reason not to use it.

The only reason I left was the distances involved. We had even though about the wife quitting her job with ATT and bringing the kids and moving to the Park. Then I looked at living in Park housing, in a very isolated community (120 miles into Ely) and having my grade school kids on the school bus over 6 hours a day and up over Connor Pass on icy roads twice a day and even "I: couldn't rationalize being that self centered. Instead I founf the job in the IGs Office at DEA and trnadered out.

Working for NPS is really a life style and about choices and in many cases sacrafice.

As Federal Empoyees they really really suffer from little or no promotional potential than nearly other Federal Agency I've ever been around. They don't change because they don't have to and always seem to have enough people apllying and willing to work to fill the slots.

I can tell you that the same conditions existed at DEA or Treasury or even BLM, there just wouldn't be any Rangers, period.

The best

Ross W Thomas

Sorry this was off subject and has zero to do about "Claude".
 
I know it's off the topic of Dallas but I did meet the man after he was finally caught because there were rumblings about his getting a chance of venue and it would have likely been to Seattle. At the Time I was Working for Snohomish County and frequently we housed Federal Prisoners because the King County Jail charged almost double what we did to do the same job. Claude was not a Happy Camper even if he did get one of our 'Deluxe Suites' at the time.

At one point I really learned what it is to be a "minority" because I worked for the BIA on a Reservation as a LEO/Fisheries Patrol Officer. My Boss(the CoP) was from Puerto Rico, the Sargent was 15/16 Quilleutte, I was the token White Guy and the fourth man was pure Ho Indian.
 
Ross, I loved those two seasons I worked. However I got a little peeved on some of their policeys a few times. Once we had to burn down a very old beautifull log cabin that probley had history and in a beautifull setting because it "wasnt natural and wasnt there before the white man"! To me it seemed sacereligous.
I thought it stupid the park service didnt want to put out that fire in yellowston years ago because it was by a lighting strike and natural. Yet anything man caused they broke their butt fixing.
In yosemite I hired in as a blister rust checker. Then we cross trained for fire fighting as we were a big crew. That was 1960 and I was given to belive it was the first time they trained the blister rust crew to fire fight. It so happened it was a record fire season and my crew fought more fires than the fire guards did. Every other weekend half of us would be on standby and we rotated weekends. By a fluke every weekend I belive we had a fire.
I racked up a lot of OT by chance as all the helicopter pilots knew me and would ask my boss for me, I got endless hours and I heard the park supertendent was mad as I made more than him. That was because if you didnt get a day off all following hours were time and half untill you did get a day off.
Back then (1960) I think the pay was $2.14 a hour. We were charged about $3.50 a day for our grub that was out of this world. Seems they charged us .90 cents a week for clean sheets. We mostly lived in tent cabins. I did do about 2 weeks in the middle of nowhere twice on fires with just those paper sleeping bags. Sometimes we were took to the fires by helocopters but it seemed we always had to walk out. Several times they sent a light plane out that would drop a milkcan of stew tied to a parachute. I worked with the pilots a lot ground crew filling up water blatters etc, they were just experimenting and learning then. We lost 3 choppers that summer. One guy crashed right after he dropped me off. He got busted up bad but didnt die. A few years later I was a studio cop for universal studios. I ran into broderick crawford and asked him about the pilot he used on the old highway patrol series as I slightly knew him, he had flew me to a fire on my first chopper ride. Broderick told me that he had dropped into a fire and was killed. After that I read about a friend I had made in those days also getting killed flying a chopper. His dad was a contract pilot and teaching his son the ropes while I was working with him in a large fire in sequoia NP where they sent us for a couple weeks. I know we hugely over loaded those choppers back then. A few years ago my wife had always said she wanted a ride on one. We were driveing through the bad lands and I saw a gypsey pilot giveing rides. I noticed he had a bell G-3 and I had been on the old G-2s plenty. He pulled out a scales as we both are huge. I bowed out and paid for two tickets for her. (he wouldnt take just one person at a time)
That kind of peeved me as many times we took much more weight on the lesser powered G-2s, and at a lot higher altitude, but he had to play by the rules. How did I get off on this?
 
But they ARE heroes and they WERE killed in cold blood.
Click to expand...
I had only a vague recollection if this incident before reading this excellent thread. The only innocent man in this sad event appears to have been Conley Elms. I hope Elms is remembered as a good man who died in the course of duty. Pogue was most definitely not a man who's memory and deeds should be celebrated.

Also, actions taken during any event where tempers are high and death threats are made can hardly be considered "cold blooded".

Thanks to Wickahoney for his terrific posts. You SHOULD write a book!
 
Feral: NPS ;-)

I actually loved the job. I also worked for BLM as a Back Country Ranger for 3 years. Out of my LEO total time the outdoors stuff was always the funnest job. Even at Wasco County, OR, the floating the Deshutes River and patrolling the Columbia River was a lot more fun than running down the road in a P car. ;-)

The problem was you just couldn't raise a family or live anything resembling a "normal" life and do the jobs. The duty stations and assigments were very remote or at least the fun ones.

The problems I had as a Ranger at the Park almost alwayss related to employees and the small number of people that had to interact constantly. It was sort of constant Cabin Fever.

Sure we lost a hiker or two on the 4th of July in a snow storm at 13,000 feet on Mt. Baker. WE also lost campers fairly regularly from strokes and altitude sickness because they could driv3e their motor homes to a camp ground that sat at over 10,000 feet. The little old men and their wives and NPS didn't think of the altitude!!!! If we were lucky the docent would get a Ranger and we could get them down to Baker, NV and well below the danger zone, before their lungs filled up with fluids. That and having the maintenance staff delivery firewood so people would try and cut down our Bristle Cone Pines that were 4 or 5 thousand years old!!!!

Domestic Violence was higher than the national averages, among NPS employees. If you simply NEVER have a chance to get away from the very few people you interact with or the wife, it wears pretty thin.

A Great Basin NP we had a rash of vandalism. Some of it pretty serious, sabotaged fire engines etc. The investigation caused a lot of raised eyebrows because it turned out to be entirely the children, sub teen and early teens of NPS employees of the Park. They were simply bored to death and roamed around like a pack of wild animals, breaking stuff.

The Super got reelly mad because he could smell dope from the employee housing. He wanted me to arrest everybody. I pointed out that as a perminent he had his "stuff" pictures on the walls, and a house and his family. The seasonals had 3 to 4 people essentually living in a motel for 6 months out of the year with 4 other people in a double wide with zero to do after their 8 hours. Gee they got bored and smoked some dope.

I was most proud of the break/rec room. We were in a shadow behind Baker Mountain and couldn't even get TV with satelites. You can only read so much and or hike the back country so many days in a row. I pointed out to the Super that our rec room was used for storage and we didn'y have anything for the off duty people to do. Then I started a investigation and found a $75K per year exspeniduture for "employee recreation" in the budget for at least the proceeding 6 years and even further back when we were a National Monument rather than a Park. I simply asked politely where the money was? Where were the reciepts? I nevr got an answer.

What we did get was the Rec Center was cleaned out. WE bought and installed 3 pool tables, 3 table tennis tables, Foos Ball, Pin Ball and spent a crap load on movies and a big screen, weight machines everything the employees voted for.

Al only resisted once, when he wanted to charge enough to make a profit on the Pepsi/Coke machine. I won that one also. Pop was sold at cost to the employees.

By the time I left the park we had constant attendance at the rec center as people worked throughout the day and had long nights. Once the kids and employees actually had SOMETHING to do with their time most of the problems disapeared. I nevr did find out where all the money went prior to that. ;-) Amazing how effective something as simple as a Pinochle Tournement can do for moral. Heck we had LOTS of rangers trained a Recreation Specialists. I just used one or two for the employee's mental health rather than the tourists.

Oh, LEO Rangers cross train as fire fighters and get their Red Card. They just don't usually get sent out of "Their" Park.

The best

Ross
 
Wick, do you recall that documentary from the early 80's maybe, about modern cowboys on a Nevada ranch. My dad taped it 'cause he hunted around this area. It had a cowboy who traveled in what looked like a chuck wagon and played guitar and sang pretty good. A guy with a sandy mustache. Did you ever see this? Can't recall the ranch.
 
Yes, I saw it. The guy you speak of, with the sandy colred, handle bar mustache, is Wadee Mitchell. There is a very good article on him in this months WESTERN HORSEMAN. I try but don't always make it down to Elko, NV every year for the Cowboy Poetry Fair. That and the Big Loop Rodeo in Jordan Valley, OR are my two big social events of the year and maybe the Owyhee County Cattlemens Assoc Picnic in Silver City, ID. I lead a pretty reclusive life any more. ;-)

I always get a laugh out of the various coffee table books, BUCKAROOS, IDAHO COWBOYS and calendars of Cow Girls of the Great Basin etc. It's fun to look in them and see friends and family. ;-)

the best

Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID
 
This whole thread has become an interesting window on an area and way of life that
I know almost nothing about.
It's always an education to hear the full story
about something like this.
Thank You all for taking the time to unfold
your lives and story.
Really enjoyed it.

icon_cool.gif
 
Our big thing was plain ol penny ante poker. That also led to a couple scraps. I remember one night in beaver creek, our camp, a couple guys came to us for help. They had been hikeing that morning and a moose ran them up a tree. It wouldnt leave untill late dark. They climbed down and seen our lights. I drove them back to their camp a good 20 miles.
Both seasons I would estimate we had about 25 guys from all over the country, we were all about 19 to 22 years old. Most all but me were students that worked the vacation break, I worked the full 6 month appointment both seasons. It probley was very similar to what the old CCC camps were in the 1930s. Some of them were rich congressman kids or nephews etc.
They also hired some locals. I will never forget one. Hank McCraken. He was a war two vet. He had lost his 1st wife, had kids by her, married a widow with kids, they had kids and she died. Hank looked cowboy, stood close to 6ft 3 or 4, skinny as a rail and looked poor. I would drop him off to the old single wide park service trailer he had, and it would almost break your heart. He was probley between 45 and 50 years old, a widower with the oldest kid, a girl about 13 that watched the other 6 or so, they would all come out to greet him in a line.
He looked like a drifter like sam elliott and not a married man. Sniff.
 
Another one of the things this Country, in general, has forgotten is our National Parks. The folks in "the Other Washington" including BO are working to spend Billions of Dollar$$$ on the inner Cities but they have forgotten the many National Parks in their Budgets. Many of them are terribly understaffed and the staff that is still there are grossly underpaid for what they do.

State Parks, at least here, are in even worse shape!
 
One social card game still played in the boonies is Pitch. I hardly find city people who know what it is or how to play.
 
Ross, thanks for your input on this story. After reading the Olsen book your insight into the area, those involved, etc is most interesting. Thanks again for taking the time to give your detailed input!
 
Steave: Funny you should mention it. As God is my witness I was in the post office in Murphy shipping a gun out on Tuesday.

The postmistress, Vicki is a cousin. That day she had taken the afternoon off and Mindy, little red haired gal about 20 something was watching the post office with her 3 year old behind the counter playing and watching LITTLE MERMAID on a video. Not something you would see every day any place else but NOT out of the ordinary here..

Somehow the sending a gun got her started on, Bill Pogue. She went on to relate how much her dad hated him and that when she was 5 years old they got stopped coming in off the desert with a load of calves and Pogue stopped them and decided they were poaching so he had them unload 17 yearling calves out of the goose neck, alongside the Mud Flat Road, so he could search it for illegal game. Of course there was nothing illegal in it.

She said she remmebred it like it was yesterday.

People ask why the residents down here "disliked" the man. ;-( Funny but the subject still, after all these years, just comes up in conversation.

In this part of the country if you have 2 people you play Cribbage. If you have 3 people you play Hearts. If you have 4 people you play single deck Race Horse Pinochle.

Iused to play Pitch with Grandpa George and my Dad. It's been so long now I have forgotten the rules. It's interesting because card games also are one of those things that are regional and even local. My father was born and raised in up state New York. He played all kinds of odd and weird card games that actually dated all the way back to the Revilutionary War. I know we played Euchre though I have no recollection of the rules now. We also played Whist and a couple of other really old card games.

The other 4 person game, played with a partner still played a lot arounf here in the bunk houses is Spades.

It's funny but Poker in all it's variations isn't played much if at all and certainly not in mixed company. My grandfather didn't like it as too much of it was "luck" compared to other card games.

Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID
 
I'll appologize first, this will be my last Cluade Dallas, Bill Pogue or Con Elms post. I think we have or at least "I" have whipped it to death.

That being said, after I posted last night I sat here and thought about the whole mess and the fact that all these years later there are still people in the community that remember Bill Pogue with a bad taste in their mouths and for a woman who was 5 years old at the time his behavior and attitudes are as clear as if they happen yesterday.

When I think of that I think of my owm legacy as a LEO and simply wonder why you would go through your life alienating nearly everybody you deal with.

Yes, I know there were people that worked with him that profess to have liked him, HIs daughter has certainly spent years trying to rehab his memory but I think that's a lost cause.

When it's all said and done due to human frailty and ego a mans reputation and life will go down to the general public and those he supposedly served as not well spent. Another, Con Elms will be remembered a a nice guy and a decent human being who unfortunately chose his loyalty to the agency and his partner above the public he swore to serve and it ended up having dire consiquences that will reverberate thoughout his family for generations. Claude Dallas through his own actions and decisions gave up 30 years of his life and a life style he loved and has to live with his actions and their ultimate consiquences.

All over a misdemeanor game violation.

As a retired LEO I hope in the end the those that do remmeber me and I see no reason many should, at least think of me as having treated them fairly and civily and for those I worked for and with that I was a decent officer, pretty smart and a bit of fun.

After all, once they put the dirt over us or whatever else we choose, that's really all we leave behind, the intangible.

respectfully

Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID

Via Condios
 
Well said, Ross. And thank you for your enlightening posts on this topic.

Your closing sentiment reminds me of what another writer had to say on how to live one's life:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
 
Ross,

No need to apologize, as Onomea said, your posts have added another dimension and a lot of additional info to this story.

My wife is reading the book right now, she had never heard of Claude Dallas and knew nothing of the story. I'm going to print out all your posts and have her read them after she finishes the book, be interesting to get her read on it as well.

Thanks again!
 
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