Legacy of the Chief, Chapter 20: "Formal Dinner at the Birch House-1924" pt 2 |
click on picture for larger image: some of these images appear in the book for this chapter. |
For weeks Douglass had been working on a highly detailed report which was a compilation of the individual reports from each member of the engineering staff. William Douglass assigned W.A. Richelsen to work with all of us in settling on the final document which detailed the operations of the mill and the mine sites. He was particularly interested in determining the nature of the ore reserves for projecting the life of the mine. Everyone in camp was now aware that Birch’s private train had spent three hours on the siding at McCarthy. The rumors were already buzzing. Birch was never known to spend time in McCarthy. Something out of the ordinary was underway. Since the mine had all the appearances of another banner year of production, and everything was running quite well, few could imagine the true reason for the visit. High-ranking visitors had become exceedingly rare. Some ominous meaning had to be attached to it. Frank walked up the wide L-shaped stairwell to his room on the second floor. It faced uphill, looking up the sidewalk toward the superintendent’s residence and the Birch guest house. He could see the lights coming from two upstairs windows of the guest house, where Birch and Jackling would stay over the next several days. Tomorrow would come only too soon. He took off his clothes and set them on the high-backed chair where the laundry-man would pick them up for cleaning and starching tomorrow. Pulling on his robe, Frank stepped out into the hallway holding his toilet articles bag.
at the hill upon which the main part of the mill and tram terminal rested well above the staff house. The hallway lights were turned off. There was just enough light coming through the north-end window to allow him to find the two bathrooms on this floor. There were also five other single rooms. All the doors were closed. He could see a light coming through under the door of one of the bathrooms. He chose the other one. The door into the large dark bath room was open. He entered and found the push-switch. After turning on the light, Frank looked at his mustache in the mirror. It would have to be trimmed. The facial hair helped the young man look more mature, but it was not thick, like that of Russell or the other older engineers. He examined his light, slightly wavy hair and realized he would have to get a haircut tomorrow before the big night. His military training served him well. Frank wanted to look exactly right. When the engineers were together, they were usually informal, but two of the company big-wigs were here. He wanted to look right, but not stand out. He viewed himself again. I still look like a kid. How can anyone take me seriously? My report tomorrow better be right. How else can I ever impress them? I can’t even take myself too seriously. Look at me. I can’t even grow a decent mustache. Oh well. I’m here at Kennecott. I wanted it. I have it. That’s a good start, anyway. Can’t let myself get too comfortable about being here. The place is too much like home. Can’t get complacent. Have to stay sharp. This is my career on the line. Heck, I’m too tired. I’ll deal with this tomorrow.
Morning came early. It was six-thirty when Frank emerged from his room to head for the staff annex for breakfast. He headed down the inside stairs, out the door and down another set of stairs. The wide wooden sidewalk ended at the private mess in the annex. The direction he followed was downhill, passing office, then the hospital. At the base of the hill a wide bridge crossed National Creek just upstream from the flume which passed below the railroad trestle, channeling the creek toward the glacier a few hundred feet below. A few years before, E.T. Stannard had the carpenters revamp the first floor of the original National Creek barracks, so the engineers could have their own mess hall. That was the year the company opened the huge west barracks that contained a 150-man dining hall. The working men now ate at the west barracks. National Creek barracks no longer housed nor fed the workers. The engineers would first gather for the day at the early breakfast in the private mess. This was the first opportunity to compare notes before officially beginning the day. These were the unmarried ones who lived in the staff house. This year there were eight of them. There were two other high-ranking ones who had wives on the site. The superintendent always ate breakfast at his home uphill from the staff house, while the chief engineer ate in his residence along the north cottage row across from the power plant. This gave the lower ranking engineers an opportunity to compare notes before facing the bosses in the office at eight. The group of eight was talking among themselves much more than usual at breakfast . They had only a few hours to finish the reports. Some wanted to arrive at optimistic conclusions about the remaining ore reserves, while a minority preferred the more realistic deduction that there were no more major ore bodies. The minority, including Frank were only mildly impressed with the discovery of the four new veins along the Jumbo-Erie crosscut. Frank happened to be the one who was working on the report concerning the Jumbo-to-Erie 12,000-foot-long crosscut. The new tunnel had been rushed to completion so that it could be operational by the time Birch arrived. The deadline had been met with little time to spare. By the time the distinguished guests arrived, the thirty-inch gauge track would already be in place so the visitors could ride down the new tunnel in a large ore car pulled by a brand-new battery-powered locomotive purchased just for running that tunnel. 
 The engineers were in the process of examining four newly-discovered copper veins encountered during the driving the tunnel. It was the first new copper discovery in any of the mines this year. They had not yet determined the value of the showings, but had to make an educated guess for the report. Frank found the veins to be interesting, but not spectacular. He saw nothing which showed him that they would amount to much. The assay reports were good, but they gave no indication as to the size of the veins. That could only be confirmed with core samples taken by diamond drilling. The process was underway, but there were not enough samples to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Frank noticed that the all the samples showed relatively shallow veins before the drill-heads would strike the barren host rock. This indicated to Frank that each of these veins was likely to be relatively small. The head engineer, W.A. Richelsen agreed with Frank’s conclusion. But Douglass seemed to want to believe that the copper veins were major finds. Frank wanted to be able to tell his bosses that they had found major ore bodies, but his conservative nature led him toward the conclusion that the discoveries were probably only of minor value relative to the great Jumbo or the Bonanza veins. His experiences in the trenches in the Great War taught him never to be too optimistic. Frank pondered the matter long after breakfast as he sat at his desk wondering how best to evaluate the four new showings in the next few hours. Just then Russell popped his head into my cubicle of an office. “It’s official, Frank. We’re all invited to dinner up at the Birch house. This will probably be followed by some poker and cigar smoking, and possibly some brandy or whiskey. Mrs. Nieding will oversee the dinner. After dinner we engineers will be left alone to talk about whatever we want, up to a point, of course. It’s supposed to be semi-formal. W.A. recommends we wear our formal suits, just to be on the safe side. We’ll assemble in the back room of the staff house and head on up there at seven this evening.”
“Sounds great to me, Russell. I have my formal suit pressed and ready in my closet. Anything else?” “Yes, stick to engineering subjects unless W.A. hints to us otherwise. We have to be careful around these high officials to give them a feeling of complete confidence in us. Don’t get into anything personal, and don’t have any complaints. Everything is fine here. Right?” “I got that, Russell. No problem. I’m just delighted to be among these great engineers. I see it as an opportunity. I’ll remember that I have no problems here. And, actually, I don’t. I love this place.” 
“See you in the back meeting room of the staff house a few minutes before seven. Dress right.” “Thanks, Russell. I’m an ex-officer. I think I can do that without any problem.” Frank turned back to his report, pondering over the possible conclusions which would meet the approval of Douglass. I guess I better show some optimism, or Douglass won’t be happy, even though I’m not impressed with the four ore veins I examined. No one seems to think there’s anything major up there. The eight engineers living in the staff house assembled in the rear meeting room on the main floor of the staff house full business attire early so they could discuss their matters of concern before meeting the higher-ups. W.A. Richelsen, entered at five minutes to seven, looked over everyone, and nodded his approval. “Gentlemen, we are about to meet our top bosses at the Stephen Birch house. We have not had an event like this since 1916. We must make a good impression with Birch and Jackling, as is quite obvious. Follow my example and my lead, and everything should go well. Dinner is semiformal, so act accordingly. Watch Birch and Jackling very closely and then look at me before you say or do anything. Now let’s head on out.” The group headed out of the meeting room, down the short hallway and through the front room, which was the preferred common area for the staff of men and women who lived there. The women occupied the third floor. The front room was on the main floor in the southwest corner. It had two large windows on each wall overlooking the office and the glacier. The view from these windows was quite impressive due to the relative height of the staff house to the large buildings at track grade. Beyond the front room was the wide entryway and stairwell. The front door opened to a wide porch and a set of stairs leading one level down to the walkway. The group turned up the walkway, heading uphill. The rambling single-story Douglass residence was uphill on the left. 
To the right they could hear the roar of National Creek where a thirty-foot waterfall plunges into a narrow gorge below the walking bridge in front of the Birch house. The narrow gorge funneled the creek to the back of the hospital. This was a wide area which then narrowed as the creek turned to pass between the two barracks to the south and the hospital on the north. The creekbed below the waterfalls was a flood plain. No one had expected the creek to be subject to flooding, especially since there was a dam above the Birch house which would normally control the rate of flow. Yet the creek sometimes threatened the foundations of these three buildings during heavy rainfalls and when the snow was rapidly melting in the mountains just above the mill site in May and June. |
