The Kitchen
The winter of 1951-52 was very wet in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It rained 91 inches at the Empire Grade that year. There was a very pressing need to have the camp ready for the 1952 camping season, but the County Health Department had imposed a few restrictions before the camp could begin operation. The camp could no longer use the lodge kitchen for preparing food because the kitchen and dish washing facilities were located too near an existing bathroom. The water supply from Manson Creek could not be used since it was not chlorinated. E. Coli existed in this little creek which was the camp’s only water supply. As the Camp Director, I acquired another informal title: Water Quality Controller. No clean water, no new kitchen, no camp in 1952.
I contacted a firm which sold hypochlorinators, a machine that could regulate the amount of chlorine being added to a water supply, our water supply. I installed this unit at the large wooden water supply tank up Manson Creek and set up the regulator to chlorinate all the water going into the storage tank. Because an electric pump ran the unit, two electrical supply lines had to be strung from the lodge to the pump at the tank site. Another new title for me: Electrician. Some of that original power supply line may still be visible today seen along the Pipeline Trail. The whole system, tanks and all went down the creek during the flood of 1955. Later, I made a search for the chlorinator, but it was never found. Tank and all were lost. This should be rebuilt.
Roscoe Jensen’s daughter had given $1,000 toward the construction of a new kitchen. Roscoe was blind and his daughter used to lead him around Mount Cross. I believe they were members of Ansgar Lutheran Church in San Francisco. Jensen Hall is named in honor of Roscoe. When I arrived on the scene in September 1951, four bare stud walls stood on a new foundation for the present kitchen. There was no concrete floor at the time. There were no lavoratories either. We needed to complete this kitchen for the camping season of 1952 or there would be no camping season. The kitchen design was part of Okie Johnson’s overall architectural plan. All of my efforts turned to completing the kitchen. Okie was confident that it could not be completed by June 1952 with volunteer help. He shook his head in disbelief when the first meal was served from that kitchen at the beginning of the 1952 summer camp season. Only the kitchen and the adjoining toilet units were completed by 1952. Everyone still ate outside. The dining hall was to come later.
Clarence Bradley, a Board Member who I mentioned earlier, had given the camp a 1934, yes a 1934, Chevy one-and-a-half ton flatbed truck with one-foot side boards.
The following paragraphs are almost in misbelieve as I retype the Mount Cross story at my computer here in my hometown of Roseburg, Oregon December 2006. Only if you were with me could you believe the following stories about that little “Red Truck.” One thing in its favor was the two speed rear end coupled to the four-speed transmission. Forty yards of concrete had to be poured for the new kitchen and bathroom floors. A small bridge crossing Manson Creek was the only access to the camp from Highway 9. After turning into the camp from Highway 9, you had to cross over this small bridge. I explained about the construction of this little bridge. The bridge was deemed unsafe for truck or emergency vehicles. No fire, gravel, or cement trucks would cross that bridge to the camp. I crossed that bridge with loads of unheard of as you read on.
Gravel, sand and cement had to be delivered to the kitchen building site. Now I became a teamster truck driver. Driving that 1934 Chevy was a matter of necessity. Twenty-seven yards of fill gravel had to be trucked, unloaded, and shoveled through openings which now separate the kitchen from the dining hall. If you were to dig under the present dining room, you would find 2x4’s and 4x4’s pressed down in the ground by the wheels of that little Chevy truck. This round type of pea fill gravel was hauled from the sand pits near Mt. Hermon. I hauled and shoveled those 27 yard of fill gravel which is now under the present kitchen floor. Remember that 91-inches of rain mentioned earlier? We worked through those storms. When I crossed that little bridge with a load, I did so with the driver’s door open in case the bridge cracked and I had to jump. On occasion there was some help, but I recall some big six foot guys doing a lot of deep breathing while lending a hand at the task of moving gravel.
Following the fill gravel, 12 yards of sand had to be trucked in. Those of you who know anything about the weight of sand know that a yard of sand exceeds 3200 lbs. The sand came from the sand pits near Mt. Hermon. That little Chevy one-and-a-half-ton truck was loaded about three yards of sand per trip. Exceeding 9,000 lbs. Following the sand and fill gravel, hauling crushed rock was next. Few people know where the Felton Quarry is located. Going south through Felton. (The name used to be Quarry Raod, but its now called San Lorenzo Ave.) Turn right and soon you are going up a very steep grade. It is one and one-eighth miles to the quarry. I recently visited that same quarry. It’s part of the Granite Construction Company complex (now in 2006 it may have changed.) To determine how much gravel you were to pay for, the quarry weighed you in and out. One time I came back down that steep grade in compound low and the rear end in low range having left the scales at a gross weight of 13,800 lbs. on a ton and a half 1934 Chevy truck. You can believe that I had the door open when coming down that grade and crossing the wooden bridge to the camp. Several trips were necessary to have the proper amount of gravel for a 40-yard pour of concrete.
