Ketchikan

STAN BISHOP—A TRUE SOURDOUGH

KETCHIKAN

Stan: I took [the horses] up to the park [in Ketchikan]. At that time I had a skating rink up in the Fair Building.

Don: I remember that. Upstairs.
Stan: You do? And I rented these horses out to whoever wanted to ride them at 50 cents a crack.

Don: I bet I rode one of those.
Stan: And some of these little Indian kids would come up and stand about ten feet and the horse’d raise its tail to do something and they’d jump back. They were just all bug-eyed; some of these Indian kids had heard about horses but didn’t know what a horse was. So I kept ‘em on there for about two weeks, renting rides out at 50 cents a ride.

At that time I had all the upstairs to the old Fair Building and it was a skating rink. My only problem was people wanted to speed skate and it wasn’t long enough for that and some of these Lighthouse boys, these big huskies would come in for their time off and they would get going so fast they couldn’t make the turn on the south end and they would hit the railing, my pipe railing, and go right over the top of it sometimes. Fly over and land on their back, on the back side. One of ‘em ruined my cash register one night. His skates came down on my marble cash register and broke the front off of it. And he paid for it. They paid off all their damages. Those boys played hard but before they left, they always said, “Well, what do we owe you?” And I’d say, “Nothing, I’m happy to have you.” “Well, we broke this and broke that.” “Well,” I said, “I’ll make up for it some way.” So although they liked to play rough, they came around and settled up for the damage always.

Louise: Was this in the late thirties? Why did you have a skating rink?
Stan: I came in to make extra money to feed the family. It was fill-in jobs that I had to do to keep money coming in. And I worked in town, too.

Louise: So the rest of the family, though, stayed up on the river and worked the place?
Stan: Back and forth. At that time, Dad was up here then, by that time. And he wasn’t too happy about coming up here to start with but after he was here for a year, he didn’t want to go back to California.

Louise: In the thirties, though, you lived on the river …
Stan: I was everywhere. I worked over on the airfield. I went over and worked on the airfield for two years and I was sending money home, back to keep the family going. We stayed in the barracks there. And I was a carpenter; my carpenter boss was Leo Ingman.

* * * * * * * * *

1.Introduction	2 Early Years in California	3.Coming to Alaska- Yes Bay	4.Becoming a Disciple of Alaska	5.The Unuk River	6. Keeping the Light On	7.Homestead on the Eulachon River	8. Fur Trapping
9.Home for Thanksgiving	10.Placer Mine on the Unuk	11.Building a Road to Canada	12.Freighting on the Unuk	13.Ketchikan	14. Wartime Work-Ketchikan	15.Port Stewart & Ketchikan Pulp Company	16.Epilogue

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