Cars

When I went to patrol the Highway 89 I was assigned a car that had been used. All of us rookies got older cars.

Orville Judd was the man that kept the Highway maintenance equipment running so I could always depend on him to keep my car working.


Late in the summer of 1955 while I was patrolling in the House Rock Valley a calf jumped out in front of me and knocked my radiator into my fan.

The entire House Rock Valley area from Marble Canyon to where we started climbing the Kaibab Mountain was open range, no fences along either side of the highway. The summer rains caused lots of grass to grow alongside the highway so the cows would graze along the roadside.

I was brought another older car to drive while mine was being repaired in Flagstaff.

Later that same summer I was clocking a tourist on the north rim highway but he spotted me and slowed down real slow. I went on around him and was going about 50 mph when I came around a gentle curve and a young deer jumped right in front of me.

I hit my brakes and the right front wheel locked completely up pulling me up onto the shoulder from where the car toppled onto its top in the middle of the road. I got out with difficulty and went to check the deer out. The young deer jumped up and ran off.

The tourist had arrived in time to see the deer get up and run off. I got his name and address in California then he took me to VT Park Lodge about 10 miles down the road. I called for help on their phone as I still had no radio contacts.

My Sargent didn't believe what had happened til he contacted the witness. Then I told him to drive the car even though its roof was caved in. He went a little ways and hit the brakes and it locked up on him too.

My first car wasn't repaired yet so I got a third old clunker. These were old worn out Fords.
I had the third car for a couple of months before they called me and told me to come get my first car as it was fixed.


I drove to Flagstaff the next day. It was a very stormy day.

By the time I was ready to head for Fredonia; it had snowed 3 or4 inches and was snowing hard. As I was driving on Hwy 66 in East Flagstaff I witnessed a new car heading west drive under the rear of a Highway Dept. Snow Plow. I turned around and parked behind the accident with my flashing lights on.

I radioed the dispatcher about the accident and he told me to go ahead and investigate it because the surprise early snow storm had all the local police busy already.

The victims were not hurt but could have been decapitated if they had been going faster. They had flown from their home in California to Detroit, Michigan. They had bought the car at the factory at a big saving and were driving it home. The top of the car was ruined by the snowplow.

I got the accident victims in my car which was clearly on the road shoulder. as I was filling out the report all at once a pickup driven by a Navajo ran into the rear of my car!!! We all had whiplash and my car had to go back to the shop. Another patrolman had to come and investigate my accident.

(The Navajo that hit my #1 car and caved the trunk in was driving drunk and had locked up his brakes and slid into my car. He spent time in fail for drunk and reckless driving.)

It was getting late in the day when I left Flagstaff in car #3 again. The Sargent though I needed to be in the Kaibab area with the snow. It was the day before hunting season opened and mobs of people had come north to hunt deer on the Kaibab Mountain

Many times while driving from the north rim to Jacob Lake I would see 500 to 700 deer in the park area. One evening while I was in the checking station a lady came in from the south and asked if I would sign a statement stating that they had seen 560 deer form the north rim to Jacob Lake. I signed it for her. She said, "I am going to be telling people about seeing that many deer and they won't believe me. We counted all we could."