Part two
Al Clayton atop a load of hay on his Diamond T truck in the late 1940s. Kenai Lake is in the background. Photo courtesy Maraley McMichael
Al Clayton's Diamond T loaded with a cement mixer in the late 1940s. Al is in the blue shirt.
Al Clayton's Diamond T Truck loaded with sheetrock and other lumber on on the road between Moose Pass and Kenai. The materials were for the territorial school in Kenai, 1948-9.
Editor's note: Al Clayton, who died in 2008, recounted his Alaskan truck driving experiences to his daughter, Maraley McMichael, in 2005. She has written and submitted the story in two parts, this being the second part.
Once I sold my food goods, I started thinking, what am I going to d o with my Diamond T truck?
I decided to sell lots from land I owned a ways out of Anchorage, in Spenard. My property, which would later become 25th Avenue, bordered that of Dr. J.H. Romig. I sold some of these lots for $87 a piece.
I drove my Diamond T out to McKechnie Sawmill by the Butte near Palmer and loaded it up with house logs, brought them back, and started building a cabin for myself on one of the lots, while living in a tent. Figuring that a lot might sell even better with a load of logs sitting on it, I got more loads, this time of 16 foot, three sided logs, and ended up building a second cabin. I also modernized the original house I built in 1940, putting in a well, pressure system and plumbing to get it ready to rent. These activities kept me pretty busy clear up until fall.
In October, deciding it was time to go back to Seward, I arranged to put my truck on the Matheson Brothers Barge in Anchorage. They crossed Turnagain Arm and docked in Hope long enough to drop off my truck and me. There was no road connecting Anchorage to Seward in 1947.
Back on the Kenai Peninsula, I used my truck to haul hay for Frank Towel in Cooper Landing and delivered hemlock lumber to the sawmill at Bear Lake in Seward. After the lumber was planed, it was brought back and used for the flooring in the Cooper Landing Community Club.
At this time, the Alaska Road Commission was pushing the road from Hinton's Lodge toward Kenai. It was mostly just a "cat trail." There was a lot of brush to clear, many swamps to cross, and bridges to build. One of their burn piles got away from them and burned 50 square miles.
After the road was pushed through to Kenai, I heard about a contract open for bid to haul construction materials from Moose Pass to Kenai for the new territorial school. I won the bid and hired two other guys to help-Bill Bratten, who already carried the mail from Hope to Seward, and Bob Jacobs who lived in Moose Pass.
There were three train boxcar loads of sack cement plus steel and sheetrock on flatcars, making a total of 300 tons of material for us to move. Hauling the cement, we could do two loads, five tons each, to Kenai a day. I was getting $100 a day and paid my drivers $25 a trip. But, when I wasn't hauling cement, I couldn't afford the drivers anymore. Two other fellows from Moose Pass helped load the steel.
On one trip, with a load of 24-foot steel H beams and sheetrock, disaster struck. I couldn't climb a certain hill, not taking a big enough run at it. Using the brake, I backed down the hill and was just sitting there at the bottom, when the heavy weight of the truck made the rotten culvert give way. My fully-loaded truck just lay over on its side like a horse. Since there was a gully and creek right there, it rolled all the way over, upside down with all four wheels sticking up.
I caught a 7-ton hydraulic jack in midair so it wouldn't damage the truck further. After the truck and I came to rest, I took out the wrecking bar, which had gotten mixed up in the spokes of the steering wheel, and laid it down on the ceiling of the truck. Then I climbed out and unhooked the battery. I didn't want any sparks since gasoline was dripping out of the gas tank. The transmission oil, engine oil, and oil in the rear-end all ran out eventually.
After a while, a gravel truck came by on the way to Cooper Landing. The driver said if I got the right equipment, he would wait and try pulling me out. He sat there on the side of the road most of the day. One lane of traffic was open. I got word through another passing vehicle to Bob Jacobs in Moose Pass to come out with rope, a snatch block and other gear we needed. When he showed up, we tied a line around three spruce trees, using the snatch block. The second line went from the frame of my truck through the snatch block, to the gravel truck.
I also loosened the binders on my load. After we got everything ready, the driver of the gravel truck slowly pulled forward. The truck righted itself, leaving the load of steel and sheetrock behind. It took us two days to re-load. It took Bob and me, both, to retrieve the spare tire from the bottom of the steep ravine where it had rolled. The only real damage to the truck was a dent in the hood.
That hauling contract for the territorial school brought in enough money to pay for the truck, but not much extra to buy new tires and such. I decided I didn't want to be a trucker after all and sold my Diamond T. The trucker's life was not for me.
Al Clayton, Sr. enjoyed many adventures while calling Alaska his home from 1940 until his death in 2008 at age 94. His daughter, Maraley McMichael, lives in the Mat-Su Valley. Contact her at maraleymcmichael@gmail.com.
