Santa Barbara Island

NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine Of The Santa Barbara Historical Museums Vol. XXXIX, Nos. 3.4

AutumnAVincer 1993

In cooperation with the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, we are pleased to ojjer to our members this special double issue ofNOTlCIAS on the history ofSanta Barbara Island. We hope you enjoy this look at a ■ unique corner ofSanta Barbara County.

Michael Redmon, Rdicor of NOTICIAS The Sanca Barbara Historical Society 136 E. De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara. California 93101 Single copies $8.00 ISSN 0581-5916

SANTA BARBARA ISLAND

SANTA BARBARA ISLAND Edited by Marla Daily in collaboration with the Santa Barbara Historical Museums

OCCASIONAL PAPER NUMBER 6 1993 SANTA CRUZ ISLAND FOUNDATION Santa Barbara, California

Santa Cruz Island Foundation publications: Santa Cruz Island Anthology edited by Marla Daily Occasional Paper Number 1,1989 Northern Channel Islands Anthology edited by Marla Daily Occasional Paper Number 2,1989 Senor Castillo, Cock of Santa Cruz Island

by Helen Caire Occasional Paper Number 3,1990 A Step Back in Time: Unpublished Channel Islands Diaries edited by Marla Daily Occasional Paper Number 4,1990 Chapel of the Holy Cross, 1891-1991 Santa Cruz Island edited by Marla Daily Occasional Paper Number 5,1991 Santa Barbara Island edited by Marla Daily Occasional Paper Number 6,1993

©1993 Santa Cruz Island Foundation. All rights reserved.

Published by the Santa Cruz Island Foundation 1010 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101 in cooperation with the Santa Barbara Historical Museums Cover design by Judy Sutcliffe Cover photograph by Wm.B. Dewey Book design by M. Daily Printed by Kimberly Press, Inc. Goleta, California ISBN:0-945092-34-2 First Edition

To Denton O.“Buster” Hyder whose family lived and worked on Santa Barbara Island from 1914-1929

PREFACE The Santa Cruz Island Foundation was established by the late Dr.Carey Stanton to promote research on the California Channel Islands. This current work has been undertaken as the sixth in a series of occasional papers which will,in part,fulfill this mission.

Little has been published concerning Santa Barbara Island, smallest of California’s eight Channel Islands. In 1986 while researching the histories of various Channel Islands, the editor first learned of a Hyder family who had lived on Santa Barbara Island for a number of years after the turn of the century.Some 70-odd years after the Hyder family had lived on Santa Barbara Island, I discovered Denton O. "Buster" Hyder living on his remote homestead in the Cuyama Valley in Santa Barbara County.

Buster(as he prefers to be called), born in 1905,grew up on tiny Santa Barbara Island. He was the sole son of island lessee Alvin Hyder.Amazed by this fortunate discovery,I began interviewing and tape-recording Buster's first-hand knowledge of the island and its early years.Thus began my friendship with a remarkable man who has few modern conveniences, no telephone,and who lives alone, 16 miles up an unpaved road from the nearest civilization. Buster's tapes present a living window into the past -a direct line to California’s Channel Islands during the early decades of this century.

Using both historic and contemporary images, photographer William B. Dewey helped assemble the photographic history of Santa Barbara Island found on these pages. In addition, he photo-documented Buster Hyder’s first return to Santa Barbara Island after an absence of almost60 years.

In 1993,the Santa Cruz Island Foundation sponsored the installation of a small museum on Santa Barbara Island in Channel Islands National Park facilities. This occasional paper was published in conjunction with the opening of this museum to honor the Hyder family on Santa Barbara Island.

Marla Daily

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author gratefully acknowledges the following people for their contributions in preparing Occasional Paper Number 6: Santa Cruz Island Foundation Directors David D. Watts of Los Angeles and Eric P. Hvolboll of Santa Barbara voted financial support. Administrative Associate Lauri Kelty assisted with publication logistics. Denton O."Buster" Hyder graciously pro vided the memories and family photographs which made this publication possible. Shirley Jensen transcribed hours of Hyder tapes. The Santa Barbara Historical Museums collaborated on a special publication of Noticias of this Occasional Paper. Island Packers and ChannelIslands National Park generously provided island transportation. William B.Dewey coordinated the photo graphic aspects of this publication.The Channel Islands Archive at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History provided valuable assistance and resource information.The 1993 members of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation Advisory Council are grate fully acknowledged for their valued participation and encour agement throughout the year. Kirk L. Connally continues to be a source of support and inspiration in both my professional and personal life.

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND FOUNDATION Directors -1993 Marla D. Daily Eric P. Hvolboll David D. Watts

President Vice-President/Treasurer Secretary

Lauri Kelty

Administrative Associate

1993 Santa Cruz Island Foundation Advisory Council Duncan & Meredith Abbott Charles Allyn David Anderson Michael Benedict Rosemary Bergen Shull Bonsalb Jr. Anthony Brown Jonathan Brown Helen Caire John & Vivienne Caire Chiles Patricia Clark Mark Connally Oswald Da Ros Diane Elfstrom Devine Bill & Anne Dewey Phyllis Diebenkorn Lucy Brown Doheny Tom Driscoll

Anthony BCroll Robert & Norma Lagomarsino Lyndal Laughrin & Ann Bromfield Edward R. Lewis Francis McComb John & Barbara Merritt Norman Neuerberg Christopher Noll Doyce B. Nurds,Jr. Mark & Janie Oberman Dennis Power Charles J. Rennie in Earl Rider C. Mack Shaver Clifton F. Smith

John Gherini Polly Goodan Theodore S. Green

Edward & Barbara Spaulding Steve & Janice Timbrook AlVail N. Russ Vail Carol Valentine

John Hundley Eric Hvolboll

Joseph Fidler Walsh David D. Watts

Jarrell Jackman John R. Johnson Steve Junak

Msgr. Francis Weber Marion Witbeck

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 1. Introduction to Santa Barbara Island

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by Marla Daily 2. The Hyder Family on Santa Barbara Island (1914-1929) as told by Denton O."Buster" Hyder Landing Cove(8) The Track (9) Hyder Hotase (9) Uncle Cleve (14) Water(15) Rabbits(18) Sheep (19) Horses and Mules(23) On Plants(24) On Agriculture and Avifauna (25) Places(28) Caretakers(29)

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The Departure (30) 3. Buster Hyder on the California Channel Islands and related topics San Nicolas Island (31) San Clemente Island (34) San Miguel Island (35) Santa Rosa Island (35) Santa Cruz Island (36) Santa Catalina Island (37) On Killer Whales(38) Elephant Seals(40) Movie Making(41) Gambling Ships(44) Rum-Running(45) Jesse James(46) 22nd Street Landing(48)

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4. Buster Hyder Returns to Santa Barbara Island Photographs by Wm.B. Dewey

50

Map of Santa Barbara Island Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Santa Barbara Island ranger's residence and visitor center, 1993.

(Wm.B. Dewey)

VPOINT CONCEPTION SAN MIGUEL

,^SANTA BARBARA 'X \ \, SANTA MONICA SANTA CRUZ X MOUNTAINS LOS ANGELES

'anacapa \ 'PALOS VERDES

SANTA ROSA SANTA BARBARA s

SANTA CATALINA SAN NICOLAS

SAN CLEMENTE Map of the California Channel Islands Courtesy Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

INTRODUCTION TO SANTA BARBARA ISLAND At approximately one square mile in size,Santa Barbara Island is the smallest of California's eight Channel Islands. It is located 38 miles from the nearest mainland coast, and 24 miles from Santa Catalina,its closest island neighbor.In 1980,Santa Barbara Island became one of five islands included in Channel Islands National Park, the only National Park in Southern California to date.

With California statehood in 1850, unclaimed and unin habited Santa Barbara Island changed ownership from the Mexi can government to the United States. Shortly thereafter, a U.S. Coast Survey team visited Santa Barbara Island, and in 1871 a survey station point was established atop the island's highest point. Signal Peak. For the remainder of the 19th century, this small oceanic outpost was occupied seasonally by fishermen, transient seal hunters and Chinese lobster trappers. In the 1890s, H.Bay Webster,lessee of Anacapa Island,built a cabin on a Santa Barbara Island promontory which today bears his name.In 1909, the island was officially leased by the U.S. government to J.G. Howland for$26 a year for five years. Although his lease forbade subletting,Howland sold fishing rights to Japanese and Chinese fishermen,and rented island space to an abalone pearl propaga tion business.

In 1914 when the Howland lease expired,Alvin Hyder of San Pedro became the second lessee, paying $250 for his five year lease. The subsequent development of Santa Barbara Island became an extended Hyder family affair. Alvin Hyder and his wife and two children were soon joined on the island by Alvin's two brothers, Clarence and Cleve,and their respective families.

As many as 17 people lived on this small island which provided no fresh water and little protection from the weather. A two room wooden ranch house was built on top of the island for the families of both Alvin and Clarence to share. A barn and chicken houses were located nearby. Cleve and his wife built their own small house niidway from Landing Cove to the top of the island.

To eke out a living on Santa Barbara Island, the Hyders imported horses, mules,rabbits,ducks,geese,turkeys and chick ens. Time and again chickens were blown out to sea before they could be cooped at the onset of high winds.One crop of hay was successfully raised after a two year effort of clearing the field, introducing farm equipment and seed, and hauling mainland 3

water to the island,only to have the San Pedro buyer run out on paying his bill.The raising ofsheep for wool and meat became the mainstay of Hyder operations. Building materials, supplies, waterand livestock were hauled to Santa Barbara Island by Alvin aboard his boat, Nora. To supplement the family income, he hauled animals and supplies to and from the other islands.

During the "dry years" of Prohibition, Alvin Hyder was well known for his prowess and agility in rum-running the length of the Southern California coast.

Hyder family life on Santa Barbara Island was one of isolation and hard labor, completely lacking in conveniences or immediate contact with the mainland. Lack of supplies and hunger was known to drive family members to eating mice. And yet the Hyders stayed for nine years, dependent upon calm seas and adequate rainfall to maintain their marginal island enter prise. Family members came and went. The island population peaked at 17 and dwindled to one—Buster Hyder, sole son of Alvin, who was once left alone to tend the sheep for several months.

In 1919 after the Hyder lease expired, Santa Barbara Island was again advertised by the government for lease to the highest bidder. Alvin Hyder was outbid by Abbot Kinney of the Venice Chamber of Commerce who bid $1250. Kinney dreamed of a public camping and fishing development on Santa Barbara Island,complete with a biological station and an aquarium.Even though the Hyders did not win the lease bid, they did not vacate the island. Lease or no lease,they were determined to remain on the island. In 1920,Abbot Kinney failed to pay his lease fee, and his lease was revoked.

It was not until 1922,after nine years ofstubborn determi nation followed by failure, that the Hyders packed their things and moved to the mainland. They tore down their imported island improvements,and took with them most of their lumber and materials. Their animals were removed, with the exception of the expanded rabbit population and one mule.

Earlier in the century, before moving to Santa Barbara Island, Alvin Hyder had filed a homestead claim for 320 acres in the Cuyama Valley of the Santa Barbara back country. Rugged and remote with conditions not unlike those of the island, the Hyders relocated to begin ranching and farming efforts anew.

Throughout the 1920s, they continued to use Santa Barbara 4

Island as a grazing ground for their sheep, in some instances transporting animals from Cuyama Valley to and from Santa Barbara Island. To this day,the Hyders are the only family who permanently resided on Santa Barbara Island.

In 1937,Buster and his fatherbuilt a large boat,Sportfisher, and Buster began running public fishing trips out of San Pedro.

Together they founded 22nd Street Landing. Alvin continued hauling livestock and supplies to the various islands aboard Nora II. In 1938 while Buster was helping his father with a load of sheep at San Nicolas Island, a severe storm swept the island.

The Nora II capsized, and Alvin Hyder was drowned — Buster survived. That same year, Santa Barbara Island was designated a National Monument.

Buster continued in the sport fishing business until he was in his 60s, retiring to his family homestead in the mid 1960s where he continues to live today. Still without public utilities or paved access to his ranch,Buster continues to enjoy life with few 20th century modern conveniences. Twice a day he walks three miles to unlock and lock the gate to his homestead.Once a week he journeys into New Cuyama to buy supplies, to pick up mail, and to say hello to friends. I am privileged to be counted among them.

Marla Daily Santa Cruz Island Foundation 1993

5

Buster Hyder, ca. 1908 6

THE HYDER FAMILY ON SANTA BARBARA ISLAND AS TOLD BY DENTON O."BUSTER" HYDER The following story was told to the editor over the course of several taped interviews between 1986-1991. Some parts were recorded on Santa Barbara Island in 1986 during Buster Hyder's first return visit to the island in almost 60 years. At that time, he was 81 years old. Other interviews were taped in the Cuyama Valley, where Buster lives alone with his cats on 320 acres originally homesteaded by his father after the turn of the century. Access to the ranch is by dirt road. Generators supply electricity, water comes from a well, and there is no phone. Weather and roads permitting, on Tuesdays, Buster makes the 32 mile round-trip drive to New Cuyama to check his mailand to buy supplies. The other six days ofthe week,Buster walks to his ranch gate,unlocking it in the morning and locking it in the evening,— a round-trip ofsix miles.

For ease in reading, Buster's conversations have been organized by subject matter. The thoughts and expressions are his. As Buster explained during the taping, "Everything has to be true or I won’t say it."

I was born in San Pedro,California on May 20,1905. The doctor says I’m going to live to be over 100. When I was 10 years old I went to Santa Barbara Island to live. My dad leased the island for about $50 a year. That ain't the first island I had been to. I had been to all the islands when I was a little kid.See,I was working with my dad when I was five years old.I was boxing the compass — I was working.

My dad was always on the water.Hecomefrom Missouri and landed down Bolsa Chica Bay in Newport. He went on to sailing ships. He was deck hand and finally he was skipper hauling lumber down from Coos Bay, Oregon. When I was a little kid my dad towed all those logs down to San Pedro so they could make those trusses where the train went. You go there to that graveyard in Bolsa Chica today, and it's all full of Hyders.

They are all buried out there.

When my dad gotthe lease[1914-1919],there was nothing but wild cats and all kinds of mice all over the island then. No 7

sheep. When we went over there, about 1915 I guess, I was 10 years old,or prettin'near eleven. My dad was nuts to be interested in Santa Barbara Island. He was just a hard-working guy. Why he ever went out on that god damned island, Santa Barbara — there’s no water.

The trail to the top of the island was there.Somebody else had built it, but we widened it. It was real narrow,and we got in there with a pick and shovel and widened it. That volcanic rock, when you hit it with a pick, sometimes it will crumble pretty good. But anyway,that was my job, keepin' this trail open with a shovel.

I remember one time when I was about12 years old,I run all the way up. I got about half way,and oh, my chest gave an awful ache. I got home at the top and I run in there and told my dad that I was havin' a heart attack. The ol' man says, "Bull ...., you’re too damn young to have a heart attack." I guess it was gas or somethin'. I sure can remember that exact spot where it start hurting.

Landing Cove When I first went out there, there was nothing but a little shack where the landing is, in a little bight by a blowhole. There was a little bridge across with a wooden Chinamen house.They were all lobster fishermen. There was a pair of skids right out in front where they pulled their skiffs up. It was a little tiny shack with two bunks in it. My mother and dad stayed in the top bunk, and my sister and I stayed in the lower bunk. The mice was all over the place, and my mother was scared of mice. But anyway, we survived the night. We came over here on the O.D.,our speed boat, and we anchored [at Landing Cove].

The bridge went right across.It was a wooden bridge,and on the west side it had a rail. Boy,I tell ya', you could see finger prints in that thing,'cause the water was swayin'in and out,and it was really shaky to go cross that little ol' bridge. But that’s the first time I was ever on the island.The first time I went there I was about3 years old,and Ican still remember that. When I came back after I was here the first time,thatshack was gone.The bridge was there, but the shack was gone.

There’s still an eye-bolt down in the rock there at Landing Cove. That’s where we'd come in and tie up. If there's no surge, you could do anything. We just come in and load with a boom.

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When there's a heavy surge, you can't hold a boat of any size in there,so we had to take everything out and leave. That's it.

The Track At the landing my dad built a wooden track that went clear up to the house. We had a sled on the track that we let up and down with a long rope.That was all volcanic rock we had to drill with a hand drill to cement those spikes in for the track.Talk about workin'. We done it all with a pick and shovel. The tracks went right up over the top of the hill. We used the sled for gettin' everything heavy to the top of the island or back down. The bottom of the track was set on the landing, and when the sled would come down, we'd fill it up.

I wish they hadn't taken the track out. Why they done it, I guess,is to get the 2x4s. We had them all rounded out, and I'd go down there and grease'em with an oil.

We had two horses and two mules. We had Dan,Charlie, Beck and Jack.We'd use ol'Dan up at the top of the track,and he'd pull the sled up to the top. Then we'd lower it down by hand. At the end of the barn we had a great big 12x12,and it was anchored to the ground.We’d take a couple turns in the sled rope,and slack it on down.The horse wasso smart,when he got to the end of his travel, he'd stop. Because we would stop him, he finally learned that that's where he was going to have to stop every time. And that's what he'd do. When we'd load the sled up at the landing, we'd pick on that pipe so you could hear it echo at the top, and Dan would start out. Old Dan, he knew right where to stop the sled so we could take a turn on it when the thing was on top of the island, that's how smart he was.

The Hyder House My dad built the house before I got here. He came over and built the thing—him and his two brothers,Cleve and Clar ence. Then I came over later. They built a long house with a section in it. Clarence and his family lived on the opposite end of the house.

The material for the house come from Pedro — the oI'fish markets in San Pedro.They were goin' to build a municipal yard there,so they tore all the old fish markets down. My dad bought all the lumber that they torn down,and he brought it over to the island. That's where we got the lumber. He brought it over here 9

Hyder cabin atop Santa Barbara Island in 1939.Note the trail to Landing Cove and the remains of the track from the landing to the house.

(National Park Service)

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The Hyder family house ruins on Santa Barbara Island in 1946.

(National Park Service) 10

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Alvin Hyder (right) with his helper, Joe, working the track lines to bring the gear sled up the hill from the landing, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection)

Alvin Hyder and his helper, Joe, with a sheep on the sled, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection) II

Buster Hyder working on the dock at Santa Barbara Island.

(Hyder Family Collection) and used it, and later took it back and used it again for our ol' airfield that we had.

When I first came here to this island to live, we come over in the night.I can still remember we got here before daylight,and the cistern at the house was dug but not made. Me and my sister sat on the big pile of dirt that they had dug out,and we watched the sun come up. We sat there and we just watched the daylight come,settin' on that big pile of dirt. I was happy. When you're that age it's wonderful out there. We thought we weren’t gonna have to go to school for one thing.

Our house had big cables on the west side of it to keep it from blowin' over the hill when them hard winds would come up.Even then the house would shake—60,70 mile windsblowing down right from San Nicolas Island, right over Santa Barbara Island. We called the wind "the woollies." Them woollies come in, and boy the wind ’ll blow and the house 'll shake and the ol’ cables 'll tighten up, and then it'd calm right down. Pretty soon another big woollie would come through,and we watched more gosh darn chickens and turkeys and our stuff blow out in that ocean— blow 'em clear off the ground. Blow 'em clear out.

12

The way we had our house,the beams was 8x8s. It was a frame house,and we had a great big beam through her. We tied on to her with a cable with a dead man on both ends so the house wouldn't blow away. We had a three-quarter inch cable on it. A lot of times you could feel it lift off its foundation,and my sister would get so scared she thought those woollies would get her.

'Course she was pretty young.They hit in cycles.It'll just be calm, and you could hear'm cornin'—^just whistlin'. When they hit,boy, hang on!

We had goats and sheep and pigs, and we had turkeys and chickens. There was probably about 8 or 9 of us here at that time. Paul Wills lived here on the island with us too. He was a tough ol'boy,that Paul Wills. He was just a guy who came to live here with us on the island. It got to be a regular settlement.

When I was livin’ there,there was no lights on the island.

On a real black night, you couldn’t ever see out the door. We could see a boat cornin',though,and we figured that maybe they were cornin' here, so my dad got out there with a lantern. He'd wave the lantern— one of those regular ol’ lanterns,to bring’em into the landing. You couldn't see because the island was just black. So he'd get out there and wave that darn thing for about five minutes 'till he saw them come in and drop anchor. If they wasn’t cornin’ here,they're goin'to San Nicolas and they wouldn't pay any attention to it. That’s what we used to do. My dad used to swing the lantern. He was the lighthouse. This happened maybe four or five times in a whole year. Not all the time.

The next morning you’d go down to the boat,and they’d give us a loaf of bread or two.It all tasted like gasoline 'cause of them damned ol’ gasoline engines. But anyway, we bummed some groceries off'em,and give'ema leg of mutton for exchange.

That's what we did a lot.

We had our own boat, but my uncle would come out here and bring us supplies. If there was a boat cornin’ here directly to fish rock cod,since we knew all the fishermen,they would put all oursupplies on it and bring’em out to us.We'd go out in the skiff, bring it all in and carry it up that damned hill. But we used the sled mostly for transporting big heavy stuff and sheep goin’ and cornin'.

With a whole lot of us kids out here, we had a ball. Of course we had to work hard. The ol’ man got up with a lantern, and went to bed with a lantern. Eight hours was just gettin' 13

started.He worked all the time. He was a hard working man who never knew when to stop. I couldn't compare to him at all, the way he used to be. But I used to be right behind him,followin' him. At that time on Santa Barbara Island I was his only son. But 20 years later I had a brother and a sister born. That'll happen in a woman's change of life, you know.Later, my brother got killed in a car accident when he was 21 years old and just gettin' ready to be married.

Uncle Cleve My uncle Cleve lived in a little house down below us, about half way up from the Landing Cove. It was just one big room—the bedroom and kitchen was together. He was over here mostly for lobster fishin'. Just Cleve and Margaret his wife lived here. They never had any children. He was the youngest of the litter of 12 kids. All Missourians. He was quite a guy. My Aunt Margaret taught school— taught us kids school there. She took the old apple boxes out and made the seats, and we went to

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Cleve and Margaret Hyder's house half-way up from Landing Cove.

Parts of the foundation can be seen today. (Hyder Family Collection) 14

school right in the house. When I used to make a mistake, she'd say "that ain't the way it was when I went to school." Boy I'd get madder than heck at her.

Cleve had tanks around his house to catch his water. He caughtit all off of the roofs.In the winter time he had trouble with the water cornin' down around his house because it was built in a gully. He used to have a great big ditch for runoff. You can still see a rock wall he put in where his house was. He had a clothes line right across the gully,and one time my dad and I came down one day,and Cleve had two rabbits hanging on the line that he had skinned.My dad jumped on him and says,"I don't mind you gettin'one rabbit,but you got two of'em. What are you going to do with other?" Cleve says,"Just take a good look.They ain't two rabbits there, it's only one." So I remember my dad says,"TVhat do think I'm crazy?" One of'em was a cat. And you can’t tell a cat from a rabbit when it's bangin'on the line skinned. My uncle, he ate the cat, too. He ate it.

My uncle and my dad,they got along pretty good. When Cleve would get drunk, the ol' man would beat'im up. But my dad was strictly against drinkin' and smokin'. None of them smoked. Cleve chewed tobacco, but dad didn't mind that. Not the worst habit in the world. But anyway,they got along pretty good. No complaints.

One time Cleve had all these lobsters out where the boats moor now,and a great big gully washer came,and all that mud and muddy water wentoutand killed'em all.Cleve never got'em out of here quick enough. He lost all that two months of fishin'.

Right on the tip of Webster Point my uncle Cleve had another cabin there. See, he fished here on lobsters all over, and we'd have to row all the way around from one place to the other because of better fishin'.So we wentahead and built a shack over on Webster Point. Him and Margaret and a guy named Ben Pearson fished outof Webster.They had a pair ofskids out down there to pull the boat up and down. That’s the way they made their livin', just crawfishin'.

Cleve lived on the island the whole time we were there, and then when we all pulled out he went back to the mainland.

Water We checked everything we could get in,lookin'for water.

Nothing. No water at all. We had to catch everything. Boy if we 15

had got water here, we would have been all right. Tough goin', you know? You had to limit your drinkin' water. It had to last a year. Then it got stagnant. Many times when it was rainin' I’d drink water out of horse tracks. No kiddin'.

A lotta times we had to drink mice water. It was terrible.

To tell ya the truth,I couldn't guzzle it too well either ’cause I was the guy who took the mice out of the water everyday.I had a long cane pole with holes in it so the water drained out around 'em, you know. And then I'd bring'em out. Boy,it was hard to drink it. But when you don't have anything else, you have to drink it.

Mice, heck. We had mice crawling in the beds.They're all over the island. When I first come here, though, they were a lot thicker than they are now'cause you don't see'em in the daytime runnin'around like we used to. There was never no rats,though, just these little ol' mice. My mother was scared to death of those damned things.

I'll tell ya about water though.In the winter time when it rained I'd get an ol' cup, and I'd get out there where rain was cornin'off the roof and catch it. But soon as it started to rain,first I had to get there when the roof got all wet to scrub the sea gull crap off of it and get it all clean. No kiddin’. The roof was all tar paper. No tin, just all tar paper. I had to scrub all that off. Then when it got really rainin' we'd turn a drain back into the cistern.

That was one of my jobs.

We had two great big cisterns built out of concrete by the house. We had a little Rambler engine down at the landing,and an inch and a quarter pipe went clear up to the house to the cisterns where we pumped water up that my dad hauled over to the island. The cisterns held all the water for the house.

Since there was no water on the island, we built a big dam and a pond on the west side of the island there by Webster Point so we would have water for the horses and the mules and the sheep. We built it with a scraper. I can remember that. My dad was driving the two mules,and I was handling the scraper.It was a heck of a job with one of those haying scrapers. That thing would hook under something and throw you clean on over the mules.The pond is still there if you look real close.It’s a dirt pond.

Come right straight down where Signal Hill is, and its prettin' near down to Webster Point on the end.It's a great big pond.The rain water would come down there and fill that up. It's all hard rock under there. It stayed full of water prettin' near a year 16

because of the hard pans there. We’d catch the water all off the hills. That's where a lot of the sheep and the horses 'specially watered there. We had all of our sheep corrals down there where we sheared our sheep.

We had a great big horse,ol'Dan.I'd get on the horse and ride out everyday.I had a bucket with a rope on it,and I'd dip the water out, pour it in the wooden troughs and feed the sheep water.I rode there everyday on horseback,back and forth. When we put on the bridle, he knew where we were goin',and he'd go right out there and drink. The hay was at the other end,and he'd go home. I'd just sit up there and hang on. Sometimes mother would lift me on—no saddles, no nothin’.

We built water reservoirs, too, on the south side of the island. Follow the ravine down the east slope off of Signal Peak to see where the reservoirs used to be. They are still there. They are covered up with mud. There's a big gully run down to them, and me and my dad had to clean that out every summer— get all the debris out of there. There are two ditches cornin’ off the mountain gully, one to the north and one on the south of a bald spot. We used them both. They both come together. The ditches were made of cement.I got all the volcanic rock and sand to build these. We hauled the water for the cement over in the wagon. It had great big wheels on it. I'd fill'em up with salt water, pump 'em full and then I'd bring them over. While they were workin', I was doin' all the haulin' with a team. We built forms and cemented it. We had no reinforced steel, nothin’ like that. When we built this here I was 13 years old.

Right by the big reservoir we had a big wooden settle tank that the water went in first. Then it settled and then went over. The water collected in there and come down. We had it ditched like a roof of a house, and it was about 50-70 feet long, and maybe 100 feet wide—that reservoir. This is solid rock. Like cement.

If you had a gully washer it didn't do any good. When it start rainin',say midnight or eleven o’clock, my dad jump up,put on his raincoat,and come all the way over here and watched that water all night to see that it didn’t get side-tracked,'cause we needed it. He would take no chances. He was right here all the time when it rained.

One time we went way back in a sea cave by skiff to see if we could find any fresh water drippin'. Anything to get water.

17

We got off on the beach, and we walked way back underneath there,and it was all dark.There was a big bull seal up on a bench, and he come roaring down out of there. My uncle and my dad started to run,and I fell down.That great big bulljust missed me.

I will still back,so they turned around and come back and got me, but the bull seal went on out. We were way back, I imagine about 75 yards back under there, and still beach. But we never found water, no place on this island.

We made our concrete on the island. Over on the top of Arch Point, just down below the light, that's where I got all the gravel. Td take a rake and rake it up in piles, and then load it in the wagon and bring it over.I'd take the gravel out and we'd mix that. Allourconcreteismixed with salt water.You mix it all with salt water. There was a little sandy beach over on the side of the island where we rowed over with a skiff and got 50 pound bags of sand.

Rabbits We put rabbits on the island about 1916. I don't really remember how many we brought out.I was there to unload 'em.

I know there was an awful lot of'em.We probably had about800 head of Belgium hare rabbits. We had rabbits all over. We brought the rabbits all at one time in cages,and turned 'em loose right up on the side of the hill.

We accumulated them in a little 1912 Model-T fish wagon a Slav, Marinkovich, kept in our big ol' barn in San Pedro. He'd go to bed real early,so we'd steal it at night. We'd push it down the block and crank it up.It had carbide lights on it. We'd go out and round up these rabbits between there and Los Angeles.They were tame Belgium hare we’d go get offthose little ranches where they were raisin’’em to sell for food.

Rabbits were very cheap in those days. The plan was to see if we could raise'em on the island and then sell'em back on the mainland.They did good there,except that cats caught some of 'em. Cats kill 'em. The cats were on the island when we got there. We done everything to make a living. We were poor you know.

Later on when I was in the sportfishing business.I'd take rabbit hunters out there and put them on the island. We'd go out there and fish one day on the weekend— I'd take them out Friday night. We'd fish all day Saturday and get all the rock cod and bass we wanted, and then I'd put them all on the beach there at the 18

landing. They'd go up and they'd come back with just tons of rabbits. Freeze them all down and eat them later. I’ve heard they killed them all now.

Sheep We brought the sheep to Santa Barbara Island. We took about 300 sheep to that island. We bought them from Caire on Santa Cruz Island. They were Rambouillets. We just let them go all over Santa Barbara Island. My dad was definitely the first person to take sheep out there. There wasn't any evidence of old bones of sheep that was out there before us. To get'em on the island,we hog-tied'em by puttin'all four feet together and taking rope yarn and wrapin''em up so they can't kick and then puttin’ ’em in the skiff. We'd unload the sheep right at the landing,and they’d swim to the beach.

Then when we got ready to ship them, we put up just regular wings [fences] to drive them in. We'd hog tie them, load them in the sled, and then let it down the hill. We rendered it down, and then the horse pulled it back up. Rendering,I mean, take a turn on the post and let it go down,'cause it was pretty heavy when you got ten head of sheep in there. That's about all we’d put in there.I don't know why. I wish they hadn't taken that track out, the track goin' down the island.

Man,I tell you. My dad wouldn't give up. First he took them sheep off Santa Cruz Island and brought them to Santa Barbara Island. Then he shipped them to Sterns Wharf in Santa Barbara. From there 1 hauled them to the Guadalupe yard, fed ’em, watered 'em,and loaded them back up and took'em to the ranch and turned 'em loose—back to Cuyama Valley to our homestead—my ranch that I live on now. There was a fence ail around 400 hundred acres, but it just didn't pan out. At Cuyama there was too much loco weed.And the coyotes— every morning you'd go out and find sheep with their sides ripped open. We decided well, this ain’t gonna work. So we took them to Point Conception and left them there,and they robbed us blind. They just stole them right and left. We wouldn't have nothin' left. So there's where's my dad made the big mistake I think. We had a Rio truck with a double decker, and we hauled the sheep down to the stockyard in Wilmington and we loaded them on that boat and done it all over again. We took them gosh damned sheep all thewayback to Santa Barbara Island! Ican'tneverseewhyhe did that. I had to stay with them until they got fat. For what little 19

pounds they put on,oh what a job. I had to stay there six months on that island by myself. So we fattened them up and then took them to market,back to Stearns Wharf again. Those poor son of a guns,you know. I would have gave up.I tell you I would have never took them sheep back to Santa Barbara Island. Skinny or not I would have sold them. That was too much. And here I was over on that damned lonely island. It rained all winter.That's the history of the sheep.

Santa Barbara Island was the only island we had sheep on, but we hauled all the sheep and all the wool from San Clemente, San Nicolas and San Miguel. Bob Brooks had San Nicolas and also San Miguel Island. He had sheep on 'em, but whether he was associated with somebody else, I don’t know.

That's when Herb Lester lived on San Miguel. He was a good friend of mine. I used to go up to the house—he had these two little girls, you know,and they all lived there.So 1 used to go up there and visit. That's when George Hammond flew out there.

Sheep were hog-tied,lowered on a sled,and rowed to Hyder's awaiting boat for shipment to the mainland.

(Hyder Family Collection) 20

Off-loading sheep by skiff from the Hyder's boat, Nora II, onto Santa Barbara Island, ca. 1918. Note the number of sheep on deck.

(Hyder Family Collection)

Alvin and Cleve Hyder throwing sheep out of the skiff to swim ashore.

(Hyder Family Collection) 21

Cleve Hyder shearing a sheep on Santa Barbara Island, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection) 22

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Extensive sheep corrals were located on the west side of Santa Barbara (Hyder Family Collection) Island above Elephant Seal Cove.

The Horses and Mules Dan and Charlie were our horses, and Jack and Beck were the mules. We were down by Webster Point one night shearing sheep, and we had ol' Jack and Charlie tied up to the wagon ready to go. or Charlie, he balked, and he wouldn't go. My dad beat on him with a 2x4, and the women were all crying. He jabbed him right in the rear end with that thing, and he broke it— broke the 2x4. Then he jabbed him with that point. Poor ol' Charlie. Finally after about a half hour of the ol' man heatin' 'im, we come up with the wagon. I remember that just like it was yesterday. I felt so sorry, not for the horse he was heatin' on, but that the horse was takin' such a strain under 'im.

Charlie broke his neck going over a cliff when we was herding sheep. We were makin' a drive with the sheep, and we were gonna' ship a bunch. My Uncle George was on Charlie riding horseback, and I was on foot, just up above Graveyard Canyon. Charlie slipped and fell. I was right there. I looked up and here they went. I could see the horse go over and hit right down on the bottom. I thought—well, now I'll take my uncle home and put him in the graveyard. But he come spoutin' up out of there, and he didn't even get hurt. He cleared that big cactus 23

patch there and hit feet first. But it broke 'oI Charlie's neck. He was killed instantly. He never even moved. His neck just went like that. Charlie wasjust left there.For a long time the bones laid there.My uncle George came back about five years later and took the head home,and he put it up on his garage. He thought a lot of the ol' horse, but I didn't. He was an ornery son of a gun.

Couldn't do nothin' with 'im.

Jack was our mule. Ol' Jack, one time he was walkin' along up here on the island during the night, and the next morning we found him all cut to pieces on the coast. He fell off a hill. So, two or three days later we got 'im into the water and swam him on back to the cove and brought himback up.One day we were taking a load of gravel out on Arch Point— there is all that little fine rock there the reservoirs is made out of. I had a rake and I'd rake that gravel up,and I'd load this great big wagon.Jack dropped dead in the harness up there pullin'a load of gravel up the hill. That’s the story of ol' Jack.

When we left the island, we went over to get Ol'Dan. He was such a good horse we went there to bring him home. We got him down where the landing is, and we dumped him in the ocean and put his head in the back of the skiff. We towed him— we had an A-frame so we could lift him up onto the boat. We were going to take him home.We put a sling around him,picked him up, and just as his feet hit the deck, he give out a big "whorple' and fell over dead,just like that. I don't know what happened. Must have cut a blood vessel. We had a big rope too, but he was big and heavy. He died right on the boat,so we just dumped him over. It was the only thing we could do with him.

The last time I saw him, he was going with the tide. You know, it was our own fault. I think of that sometimes as real sad.

We had Beck still, the old white mule, standing over on the beach. We thought the same thing would happen to Beck,so we left her. We thought,the pond goes dry and she won't have nothing to drink, so we went back about a month later, and no Beck. Either the fishermen got her, or she came down there and she jumped in where she saw Dan drown. The ol' Slavonians— they eat mules. We don't know what happened to her.

On Plants When your not interested in stuff, you don't notice a lot of things. I remember mostly ice plant on Santa Barbara Island, 24

and what we call Cabin Stalks [Coreopsis gigantea]. Those things that come up. We cleared quite a bit of Cabin Stalks, and we pulled 'em up over at Arch Point. That's what my dad always called 'em,so I thought that was the name of 'em. I don't know where he come up with the name. Cabin Stalks is the only name I ever knew.Before I come over to the island, we was bragging all the time when I wasa little kid that we was gonna come over there and pull the Cabin Stalks. My dad said,"You go ahead just keep tellin' people that. You're gonna really get tired of pullin' Cabin Stalks." I'll never forget that.

When they were green I used to break them off and scrub my teeth with them.No Idddin’.We had no toothbrushes in those days, and no toothpaste. So I used to clean my teeth with the things. It's just like eatin' an apple, and it just keeps your teeth slick and clean. Maybe that's why I got all my teeth still. But the sheep, they wouldn't touch it. No,they wouldn't eat it.

And that darn Devil Cactus—I used to run into'em with my feet. I went barefooted all the time over here. You run those damn things in your toes, and they got barbs on 'em and you can't get'em out. Today the cactus is just like it was when I was here as a kid. Don't look like it spread very much.'Bout the same.

We had lots of foxtails too.

On Agriculture and Avifauna We planted Blue Gum trees in the shape of my dad's initials, A.H., but they died and never made it. There was about two dozen of them to make the "A.H." My dad said,"Some day they'll be flying over here with airplanes and they'll see my initials on the side of the hill." We planted them on the flat off the side of North Peak. Right there was a big A.H. He was so proud of that, the first thing off the boat he would come up with the water bucket. The ol' rabbits would chew a few of them off, and we knew they were gone. That was about 1919, pretty close to 1920. That’s the only place we planted them.

We never planted any fruit trees. We tried a garden. My dad told Aunt Margaret and mother to go out and weed the garden.The weeds were so good,they thought it was the garden, and they pulled all the garden up. That's the truth. They pulled all the garden. My dad was madder than heck.

We tried everything to make a livin'. We grew hay.There should be an old hay baler settin' on the island,if it isn't gone.

25

I

Cleve Hyder driving the hay wagon next to the cut hay crop on Santa Barbara Island, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection)

Cutting the hay crop on Santa Barbara Island, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection) 26

Mules Jack and Beck driven by Cleve Hyder pulling the hay rake on Santa Barbara Island, ca. 1918.

(Hyder Family Collection) We left the hay baler and the rake sittin' over there. It's hard to believe,but we brought the hay baler over on the deck of the boat, and we brought that thing up with a cable. The cable broke when we were prettin' near at the top, and that damned thing tumbled all the way back down. That ol' hay baler, it got away from us and went tumblin’ over the hill into the water. It wasn't deep,15 or 18 feet deep there. We had to fish it out and do it all over again.Paul Wills had to dive down in the surge. He did our rough work for us.He was a good swimmer and all.That time we were sure it didn't get awayfrom us.My dad had a blacksmith out with a great big sledge hammer, and he straightened everything out.

We grew hay all the way out to where those Badlands are, clear through that whole area. We planted from the foot of the mountain clear to the south end of the island. I got pictures of barley that was pretty high. We would have made money on all of our hay, too. We shipped it to the beach there on 6th Street.

Them days they had no cars, just livery stables. All the rich people in town had to use big livery stables with horses— takin' care of'em. We sold our hay to this guy,and he went bankrupt.

We lost all our feed and all our work for one year. We got 27

skunked. I can still hear my dad moanin',"That guy goin’ broke and we lost all of our money!"

We never farmed other places because the guano was too strong. That’s what killed all the potatoes. We burned one area two or three times so we could plant potatoes. About a block square,that's all we burnt,nothin'else. The ice plant was all dead and brown,otherwise you couldn’t of burned it. Then we get up there with a wetsack and put out the fire where we wanted it. We beat the fire out. It didn't burn. It just smoldered like. Then we plowed it under and planted the potatoes. We was a failure at potatoes,so we finally give that up. We thought,if we getfurther away from where the sea gulls nested it would be all right. It wasn't. There's too much guano in the ground for 'em. Too fertilized. It burned 'em.

Talk aboutsea gulls!Sea gull eggs are good to eat, but you have to boil them'cause they're so oily. When the sea gulls would start layin',I think it was March or April,I come over with a cane and big water buckets, and I'd take one out of each nest and take 'em home.They had to be fresh. Take'em home,boil'em and eat 'em. A sea gull will lay its second egg if you take one.They don't want me to steal their eggs, so those ol' sea gulls were really pecking at me. Talk about squawk and holler!

The pelicans stayed on the north side of North Peak.

There were a few ravens out there too, but most of the ravens were out on Santa Cruz Island.

One time my mother cooked a great big custard pie, but she played a trick on us. We got through eatin' all that beautiful custard,but she just had a little thin layer of custard on top of all this barley.She boiled it and put it in there under the custard. We went down there and it was gosh damn barley.

Places For place names, about all we had was Arch Point, Webster Point, the Northeast Landing [Landing Cove], and the Graveyard. That's all the names we had in those days. And Sutil Rock.

There aren't any beaches where you can land on Santa Barbara Island. There's nothin'. Just the landing at the cove,and Arch Point if it's good weather.You can get up there all right,and the Graveyard, too. You can get up there. Otherwise there's nothin'. No place to get off like a landing. Where the peaks goes 28

up to the top, right down below it there's a little sandy beach there. That's where we'd go in on the beach and get the sand for cement.There isn't any sand off the south end.There’s a lot offine gravel in those big caves, though—little pea gravel.

Where Arch Point is now all fell in. When I was a little guy we rowed through there. It was water then. It used to be open.

I think my dad might have named Graveyard Canyon.

One of the old whalers buried a couple of guys there—the old sailing whalers. My dad found the grave, so he named it the Graveyard.I know there's a lotta snails in them rocks down there.

On the hillside right up there past where my Uncle Cleve's house was—when I came here, there was a cat den in there. Just the skeleton. I'd go up there and always take a look at my skeleton when I was a little kid.

You take over'tween where we had our dams and Webster Point—there's very little feed there except on the slopes on the side of the mountain. There were so many sea gulls over there that nothin' would grow.

The Navy, they were gonna make this thing like San Clemente, a target. They tried to put it through, and the government finally turned it down. President Roosevelt made this a monument. He said,"No deal."

Caretakers You ever hear of a woman called Margaret Blue? She had a Boy Scout camp in Avalon.She always had three goats that she took every place she went. She lived on all the islands, and we had her as a caretaker for a long time. She brought her goats out here with her. They were her babies. She'd never been married, she was single. The last time I saw her,I towed her over and took her off Avalon Bay. It was about four o’clock in the morning. I picked her up in the dark,and she rowed on in.That's the last time I saw her, and I don't know what ever happened to her.

Then we had Russian Joe. Don't get him mixed up with Russian John who was at San Clemente.Russian Joe, we had him on here and we didn't show up for about two months. Heck. We had no one to replace him at that time,unless I'd stay. And oh boy, he got enough of this place! He wanted to go home.My dad said to him,'"Why do you want to go home?""I gotta have a shave," he answers."Well,I got a razor out there" says my dad.But that didn't work. He wanted to go home.

29

We had my mother's youngest brother Phil. And Ethel was out here, and they stayed on the island a long time as caretakers. Of course, Cleve and Kelly, they stayed here, too.

Otherwise I was here. But we had work to do. We had sheep to haul from all the islands, and we couldn't be here all the time.

That's way up in the 20s. We had other things to do,and we went rock cod fishing out on Cortez Bank to make a livin'. It was tough in those days, you know? People were poor.

The Departure So anyway that's the story ofSanta Barbara Island. Letssee if I can remember when my family left the island. You can figure about 15 years after we started,so something like that. Well,it was the late 20s. There was no sheep left when we left. We took them all to market. The only thing was left after was maybe a couple of goats and the old white mule. Beck. The reason we got off the island is that Abbot Kinney ofSanta Monica— you know, he had all the concessions there—he was going to make a big summer resort out there. So when it come up for bid of course we bid $50 bucks again. It was under the lighthouse reserve then. Kinney outbid us and told us to get off. At the time my dad and I, we were training kids out of high school how to fly—flying down on Main Street. So we went back to the island and we tore the barn down.

We wasn't supposed to take anything. We tore the barn down and come back on Main Street and made a hangar out of it. That’s the only thing we got. The hay bailer, 1 imagine the mowing machine and everything is still there if it hasn't just rusted to the ground. It's all gone.With all that took place with my background at Santa Barbara Island,it seems like yesterday.It just don't seem like it's been that long.

30

BUSTER HYDER ON THE CALIFORNIA CHANNEL ISLANDS AND RELATED TOPICS From the early to mid part of the 20th century, Buster Hyder spent a considerable amount of time on and around all eight California Channel Islands. Buster's firsthand knowledge extended beyond the islands to important historical times and events, including rum-running during Prohibition and gambling ship operations in Southern California. Here,in his own words, are additional stories about the Channel Islands, elephant seals, movie making, killer whales, Jesse James, and Buster's business venture,22nd Street Landing in San Pedro, which is still in operation today.

The Channel Islands I worked all the Channel Islands—all of'enn.Bob Brooks, he owned the lease on San Miguel Island, so I took care of that island—hauled all those sheep. I went in there to Cuyler Harbor where I hauled sheep from. I had Bob build a little wharf where I could go in there and load. Then Ed Vail got a hold of me on Santa Rosa Island. I guess he’s dead now. Anyway,he got to me to haul some of his stuff. The Agees was on San Nicolas. I’d run up and down the backside. I was hauling all the sheep from the islands, so I was busy. I had to take horses back and forth too.

San Nicolas Island San Nicolas Island blows all the time. That's a blow-hole, that place. I hauled sheep from San Nicolas Island to Santa Barbara Island.I got pictures of'em,swimmin’right in at Landing Cove on Santa Barbara Island and cornin’ ashore.

The best place to anchor on San Nicolas is on the south end of the island under the sandspit. Right inside the sandspit they had a wharf.We werefurther offthe island when we had our little spot,and a little further than that is where Corral Harbor is.

Corral Harbor is where we unloaded sheep when we first started on San Nicolas. There's a little point sticks out, and they had a house on the beach there with a big corral in back. A wood house.

When we went up there we had Mexicans that just had regular skiffs. They hog-tied the sheep on board and rowed them in. It was my job when they lifted them over to cut the hog ties and 31

chase them into the corrals. We had this Mexican Joe out there, paying him to be out. My dad paid him thirty dollars a month.

That’s all he ever paid.My youngest uncle.Bill,and his wife lived there for a long time and they watched the sheep. That was way back in about 1936,1 guess.

Later when Bob Brooks had San Nicolas Island and the Agees were over there as caretakers, we had a pier on the sand beach by where the house was up on the hill,and they got a spring down below.The pier stuck out and had a rock out there. We had to come and get a head line out, and then put the spring line out and slack back. The boat’s back end would be open in the breakers to load those sheep. You had to go in on a high tide to get'em. One time we come in here and they throw this line, and they never even throw it close to me,and I missed it. We went up on that rock sideways,but we got out of it without any damage.

But boy,it was close. We’d go in there at midnight and do all that 'cause the tide was high. We had to load those sheep in the dark.

What a rough way to go.

My dad got drowned at San Nicolas Island. That’s where my dad is in his watery grave. We lived there in San Pedro at that time. We were out there on the Nora II at anchor.That was when they had a government wireless station on one end of the island.

We were a layin' way out because the seas were so big. We was layin' on the anchor,and the current was running fast down the island.I wasin gettin’all the shearing equipmentand the wool off the island with a 16 foot Hollister dory.It gotso bad I had to have my uncle George who was with us get down on his knees and help me buck the wind with another pair ofoars.We went in,and I got a load of wool and came back, and boy, those swells kept cornin’ up. They kept gettin' bigger. One of'em hit the Nora II broadside.Even though we were way outside the pier,it just tore the house off the boat. I was on the outside, and I told George,I says,"Bail out!" So I bailed out one side, and he bailed out the other side.The next swelljust flipped her over. I was excited and I started in,and I got on a big one. It was gonna hit the bottom of the boat. I went under and I just started rollin’ in the sand and rocks,and I come up underneath the boat.She had a pipe rail that was bumpin' in the sand. I was underneath there, so boy,I just squeezed out in between there and came up. She was layin' upside down just like a model, with her propeller and rudder stickin'out.Then Iswam just hard as I could to keep from the next 32

The Nora II capsized at San Nicolas Island in 1936. Buster Hyder's father, Alvin, lost his life in the accident. (Hyder Family Collection) one gettin' me into the propeller. About that time I saw this big one which just broke, and my dad came up, and I says,"Is that you,dad?" He said,"Yeah." Another one got me and rolled me upside down, and the same thing again. They were terrific— bad.The next time I came up,I saw the back side of one of the big seas, and I saw my dad's hair swirl. That was it. I never saw him no more. The Hollister dory was all busted up.She went upon the beach and disintegrated practically. I was plain lucky I made it to shore.

The Coast Guard camefrom San Pedro. They had a Navy man stationed on there, so they went down to the sandspit and they anchored down there. They said to bring the skipper of the boat, only they didn’t know who got drowned. So me and Roy Agee, we was on the island. We jumped on these horses and we run 'em clear to the east end of that island. We went down there and they were layin' at anchor there.They towed a dingy in with a motor launch, and then turned it loose on the edge of the breakers. These Coast Guard guys rode in and they didn’t do nothin'. I'mtellin'ya! They didn’t look to see what the seas was cornin', watch the ship or nothin’. Gosh they come in there and got dunked—turned over.One guy was underneath.We got it all 33

straightened out, and I told the coxswain,I says,"If I'm gonna' ride with you,Fm gonna tell you what to do!" No kiddin',I says, "You guys don’t know nothin'." I waited for the third big breaker to come,and I watched the ship. So anyhow, we got out. They dropped the davits over the side and picked us up and put us on deck. When the chief comes down,he says the skipper wants to see me up on the bridge. They took me up there,and I could see 70 miles an hour on the wind gauge, layin' on that anchor. You couldn't stand up, you couldn’t do nothin'. I went up to talk to him,and I told him who I was.I says,"Fm the skipper's son." He says,"You know, we came from Catalina up here last night. I'm the one that went after Amelia Earhart. I go out in typhoons,but I never saw anything like that." We started back on the Coast Guard ship. They couldn't issue nothin' to eat because the ship was rollin’ half way under when she'd shear off on a big sea.

She'd lay over. I was up on deck. The life boats is in the center of her,and the watercome up to there,so I finally wentdown below.

Thatship would roll,and that porthole—well you could see blue ocean one time, and next time you could see the sun. They couldn'tsteer.She'd justshear off,and they couldn't keep steerage.

Now that's what you call really a sea runnin'. That skipper told me that he never saw anything like it. They let me off at the isthmus at Catalina, and the wind is still blowing. They put me on a 175 footer,and that damn thing pretty near sunk. We got in to San Pedro and everything was flooded. The oF devil sure could'a get me before I get old. That's the truth.

I went right back and looked for my dad.I stayed on San Nicolas ten days and never did find him.Everything in that gosh dang boat went up on the beach. All the shearing equipment rolled up there, but not him. Where did he go to? You'd think a person would go up there,too. He was 56 when he got drowned.

He was a young man then.

San Clemente Island San Clemente Island was the same way. We had to work the tides all the time,'cause the piers was in such shallow water.

You'd go in there with a boat drawin'four feet of water which she did, and you'd put a load of sheep on. When you load, you go down — you lose about four feet. You got to have plenty of room under you. But Clemente, on that pier there, we'd bump the bottom all the time. We had a big ironwood shoe on the boat. We 34

built her for that business. They go in there and bunap on the rocks. We done everything but come up in the corrals and git'em.

That's what I always said.

E.B.Blair was the guy that had the lease on San Clemente Island—the first that I ever worked with. I think my dad at one time had some dealings with a guy by the name of Rob Holland who had the lease.That was way back when I was probably a year old. He had the island. I started hauling sheep and wool there when I was a little kid.

So we just kept on. My dad sort of got off and I’d start running the boat and I hauled horses, mules, sheep, grain, everything to all the islands.

San Miguel Island I used to haul the sheep off San Miguel Island for Bob Brooks. I can't tell you why,but that's the best spring Iambs that I ever hauled. The best sheep I ever had. How they got that way on that damned island,I don’t know.San Miguel— that's the end of the world. We built a little wharf right there at Cuyler Harbor.

I used to go in there at the harbor where there was a shed that had a picture of— like a sea gull laying an egg on it. Right there is where we built the wharf to come in and unload sheep. They had sheep on there, and Herb Lester had a couple of horses that I know of. There was no cattle and I never did see a goat on there.

There was a spring on the island, right north of the house. It's awful brackish and salty. I couldn't drink it.

Herb had a collection of guns in his front room,so we give him our whaling gun. I got a picture of him with it holdin' it with a harpoon across his lap. When I saw it last it was hanging on the wall in the front room.He had guns all over the place. Why he ever committed suicide,I don't know. You have to be pretty brave to do that, I think. I couldn't do that.

Santa Rosa Island I worked for Ed Vail on Santa Rosa Island. I hauled hogs and calves.That's all,but no cattle. The Vaquero I was running at that time, hauling the stuff 'til the war came on. Then the government grabbed her.

One time I went up to Skunk Point huntin’ hogs up there.

I was sleepin’ in the bait tank of the boat. I had the bait tank dry and painted. Some guy aboard had a gun, and it went off at six 35

o'clock in the morning. It went right through that bait tank and just missed the end of my nose! I was lyin' down. I took and run a rod through there where my pillow was and the bullet went, and he missed me about a few inches.

I took the guys up to Skunk Point to where that little beach comes around when you come up on top. It's a sandy beach. I told the guys,"I'm gonna set you all on the beach in the dory. Up on that little flat above there, there's nothin' but hogs rootin’ around up there. Now you wait 'till you all get on the beach, and you go together up that little path that comes up on top." I says, "You all go 'n spread out and start shootin' hogs.

You'll get'em. But if one guy goes up there ahead, them hogs is gonna spook." So they went up there, and bang, bang, bang, bang.Here come an ol'sow with a bunch of little pigs.They were all strung along.The guys got to shootin'at this ol'sow— she was a big thing. They had 30.06s, and they were shooting and shooting. But she just kept a cornin'. It weren’t very long that everybody was over that path and down onto the beach. They run down this trail, hit the beach, and they go out into the breakers. Boy, I’ll tell you. I'll never forget that—I laughed so hard, ’cause I was out there in the dory. One guy stood his ground,and he shot it,'bout thirty feet before she got to'im. That hog was all riddled with bullets, and she just kept a cornin'.

Santa Cruz Island Later Gherini owned the east end of Santa Cruz Island, and I worked for Gherini. He was an attorney. I worked for him a lot out of Smugglers.

I was interested in diggin’ Indian stuff out there. I'll tell you why I was interested in diggin' in Indian graves. I was deckin' with my dad up there in the albacore season. If the fish wasn't runnin'there was nothin'to do, so you lay there offshore.

I'd go on the beach there and go up to the old two story adobe at Smugglers— it had the sundial out in front,and it had a well and a hot air wrench over the well. There was olive trees on the slopes. I'd go there when I was about 15 years old. I found these bones and part of a skull stickin' up where I was walkin' around, so I started to dig.

Sometime in the late 1930s I took a Park Service Ranger to Santa Cruz Island to Smugglers to find artifacts. That's how I found a graveyard. There's a place there where the Indians had 36

a great big round sump hole. I dug down,and it was just like somebody just throwed them in there and covered them up.

From where the ranch house is—that little point that runs out where the sandy beach goes around. Right straight up there. I dug many Indian skulls up there. What I'd do is I'd find a grave and I'd go down along side of it,dig it,and then scrape all around and find the skeleton layin' out on its grave. They had beads around their neck. I'd scrape around the necks and sift the sand.

They had mats underneath'em where they had put mats down to lay'em on.It was all crumbly.All I’d do is take the heads. I had two gunny sacks full of heads. I took 'em home down to San Pedro where we had a big long porch, and I put'em all on the porch. My motherjust got disgusted because everybody stopped and come up and looked. I took and put'em back in those two sacks and I put'em in the garage up in the attic, and about two months later they were gone. Somebody stole them all. There's one that I give away. It was a woman, with those real narrow cheeks. But in those days we didn't think nothin’ about it. That was way back.

Santa Catalina Island Nobody ever got shot while I was on any of the islands.

The only place I had anybody get shot was when I was going sport fishing to Santa Cruz Island,and they wanted to go up the back side of Catalina and shoot goats off of the boat. So this one kid, he was runnin' around. He was about 30 years old— a great big husky kid. His father was there. A passenger came to me,and he complained about that kid whooshin' a gun around their faces. I didn't know the people— they were in a big fishin' party.

I told the guy,'"Why don't you go up to the guy that’s got the party and complain to him?" I hated to jump on the guy,but he didn't want to do it. So I called the leader up to the wheel house,and I 'splained to him thateverybody was kickin’.He got mad.Hesaid, "That boy knows more about handling a gun than these guys that's with us." I says,'Well, I'm not going to argue that part."

The kid went right up on the bow of the boat— he always filled his own shells for the pistols and everything— he went up there and he spun that barrel. One of the caps was stickin’ out too far.

He had the gun right down on his shin. It was a 45, and it went off right through his leg— right through the shin bone and down into the tip.So I said,"Well,I'm goin'to have to get you home,the 37

party is off.""Ah,no,go ahead,go ahead," the kid says. He was numb,and he didn't know that he was damaged.I says,"No,no way!I'm gonna take you in. Ijust lost the trip on account of you."

Let me tell you, before I got to the west end of Catalina he was screamin’. We got him to the hospital within four hours. First they cut his leg offat the knee,but he got gangrene.They cut it off up here at the hip,and he still died.The kid died.Gosh darn— he knew so much about guns, and still he shot himself.

Another time, a guy accidentally shot himself. He just grazed himself, and the bullet went up through the top of the wheel house. Just careless.

On Killer Whales Over on the west side of Santa Barbara Island I’d see the orcas go after sea lions. I'd see them wallow right up on the beach and I'd watch them eat them. One of those orcas I saw one day, he caught a sea lion in the water. He was one of them big bull seals. They were schooled, you know—the seals. The seal was big, around and ten feet long. That orca was the male with the big sharp fin. He just took that bull seal in his mouth and he just bit him in half. One half went this way, and then he swirled around and got that half and down it went. He was a big orca though. Boy he was big.Orcas were around there quite a bit. You had to look out for them, because we fished all the time with lobsters and skiffs. We had to row.

Sometimes you can see orcas outside in the channel with the sea gulls following them. They always came in the summer time, somewhere around August or September. You could see them prettin’ near every year.Maybe you could see them outside, or maybe they would be in close trying to catch seals.They would take a run out and they come up clear out on the beach on top and then they roll back. They'd know how to get off and get back in the water. The seals come up to get away from the orcas.

Sometimes the pups don't know any different, and they'll go right on out and the orcas get'em.Funny thing. You’d think their mothers would tell them not to, but they don’t.

On the north side of Santa Barbara Island is the only sand beach on the island,just a little place where there is a little sand.

We'd go around there, my uncle and me in the skiff, and we’d load these sacks of sand to mix with the rock— the volcanic rock.

One day him and I was coming around and we was pretty near 38

to the landing right there where that blowhole is. These orcas took after us and we were loaded right down to the gunnels with all this sand. My uncle was as white as the sand,he got so scared.

He was white and was sick in his stomach from pullin'so hard.

He was on one set ofoars,and I was on the other. I was only about 7years old,so heck,that was fun for me. Here those things come, and boy we hit that beach and we run.Those orcas went half way up on the beach trying to get us. Boy, my uncle knew if they ever caught us that was it— the end of us.There wasn’t any seals or sea lions where we landed. They weren't after them.I saw them go up after seals on the beach,you know.But they were trying to get us.They meant business,and Cleve knew it. At that time at Arch Point you could go through there with a skiff. It was all water then, and now it's filled in.

Way out we saw other whales around there. Not up close to the beach. You could see them spouting way off. We lived right where you could see Catalina and San Pedro. Quite a long time ago when I was going to the west end of Catalina,Isaw what looked like a boat upside down. I went over there, and it was a huge whale. Underneath it was one of these great big orcas chewing on it. He had killed it and he was eating it. It was all chunks of blood. The dead whale, he was probably 70 feet long.

You know what the orcas do? They get a whale when he comes to the top. They jump up and hit on his blow hole,and they beat it shut so he can't breathe,and then he drowns.It has no air. I saw him jump right out of the water and hit right on top of him.They cut their wind off. It's like some guy smothering you to death. I rode right up to it. At the time,I had 50 people on the boat,and they all run up looking over the side.Thatsun of a gun orca come up and hit me in the bow,right over on the port side. That boat just shook. It was a big orca. Then it started to swim down the side, and it hit right where it says "DAILY." All these people were there,and thank goodness they didn't go over the rail. It hit on the boat,and then he dove. But anyway that shows you what orcas can do—they attacked a boat that size. If she had been a little boat,it would have been too bad. Knocked you clear out of the water. I don’t like orcas!

[The killer whale event described by Buster Hyder where whales would "wallow right upon thebeach'tocapturesea lions,wasdocumentedforthefirst timeby aphotographer in the mid 1980s on the shores of Patagonia,South America. Buster had observed this phenomenon on Santa Barbara Island more than half a century earlier.]

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Elephant Seals There was never none there on Santa Barbara Island. But we went to Guadalupe Island and we got6 of them.There was all kinds ofthem down there.The Mexican government wouldn't let this government get a pair. Berkeley told us, you go ahead and get them and keep it on the quiet. We went down there and I got pictures of that. We went down and we got those sea elephants.

I got pictures of my mother shooting them. We went down there and we brought them up here. We brought them back so we could skin them out on Catalina. We brought four of them back dead.We went on the back side of Catalina and skinned them out to get the bones and throw all the meataway. We had to hide over there. None of them elephant seals went up to Berkeley alive.

Only the bones. You go to Berkeley and you'll see their bones.

We brought two back alive. My dad got one,and I don't know where the other one went. Somebody got it, but I don't know who.Over at Long Beach he made an arena there at the Pine Avenue Pier. He took one in there,and he and charged two bits to see him in there fighting this sea elephant. He'd get with him and play with him—get a little excitement going,you know.Oh, we were just knocking them dead over there. Man,all the other amusements was squawking. Everybody was spending their money to see that seal. We went down there one morning after three or four months, and by golly someone had cut that big heavy hog wire,and old man sea elephant went out. We wentout down there, and here he was,just laying on the beach. He'd go as far as the breakers. That's as far as he went. He never tried to get away. We fed him so good. He knew my dad so well that he followed him back in. We got him back in that place,and my dad went and got a gallon of chloroform with a great big sack and stuck it right over his head and put him to sleep,and he's up there in Berkeley now too.

We originally caught them on Guadalupe Island with a net. We took two good cowboys that knew how to rope and roped them. We got them on the beach and we built a frame around them, a wooden frame.Then we floated them out to the boat,the O.D.,and picked them up and put them right on the deck.We had water goin' on them all the time. That was 1916.

They are still down at Guadalupe now, because I saw them when I wassport fishing.I sport fished 50 years.I could see 40

v: Mrs. Alvin Hyder on Guadalupe Island, Mexico posed to shoot a bull elephant seal, ca. 1916.

(Hyder Family Collection) them standing up like an old barrel and just go straight down.

Unlike seals, they just submerge straight down.

Movie Making I can tell you all about Ira Eaton on Santa Cruz Island.

About him and his daughter.See,in 19261 worked on a picture— Peter Pan. That was a good picture. We pretty near lost that ship on the beach. We couldn't hold her off. I worked on two more since then at Ira Eaton's place there at Pelican where he had his white house up on the side of the hill. Eatons had a camp up on the hill and they housed all these movie people up there. It had a long walk that went up the hill.

We'd come into the landing to take all these movie people to other places. I’d have 150 people on the boat sometimes. They made a place in that first flat rock where you go up the hill at Pelican Bay. It's still there,that rock. There was steps all the way up it. There was a beautiful walk went clear on up. A wooden walk with rails on the side.I haven't been back there for years,so I don’t know what it looks like now.

One time we had picked up 110 women at Pelican Bay for this one picture. We had surfmen to put them on the beach up at 41

Valdez. At Valdez you know there is a cave right at the west end of the sandy beach. At the cave you can come in from the ocean and also from the land. When we returned them to Pelican Bay, I'd nose right up to the rocks with the bow and work right ahead with the propeller. They'd have two guys lifting them off. They would step up on the forward bit and then they'd pull them up, and up the walk they’d go. But these surfmen got madder than heck at me because I'm doing that. But I'd just saved them a lot of work. Otherwise I'd have to lay off there and go back and forth.

Well,wemadea pictureatCuevaValdez called Neptune, right after Peter Pan. They had wooden floats with great big plaster of Paris shells—all pink. They'd sink the floats just enough to look like the shells were floating. All these women were supposed to be nude because they had a flesh-colored thing they used to pull up on. But it looked like they was all nude.

They'd all jump in the ocean.

We also worked on some parts of Dante's Inferno. Those women were nude. It was taken inside the cave at Valdez. The men were these great big husky guys they got from someplace.

They were all bronze with olive oil on them,and they were alljust slippery. You could tell they was just hard to hang on to. They threw some of the women over a big fire in there.

For one movie I had a tow boat to bring a big ship around and take it over to Smugglers and anchor it at night. The next morning I'd bring it back on location. I was there for about three months with Ira Eaton. He had that little white-clippered boat, the Sea Wolf. He'd take the movie films in every night to Santa Barbara to be processed, and he'd bring them back so the guy running the outfit out there could look them over. Every day he run across the channel.

I worked on Birds of Paradise with Joan McCrae and Dolores del Rio. We took that over at Catalina in Johnson’s Lee. I was about two months on that picture over there. Then I worked with Lloyd Bridges on a lot of pictures up at Paradise Cove.

You remember the picture Jupiter's Bride? They took a lot of it up at Hearst Castle swimming pool and we took a lot of it.

But I don't remember what year it was. Part of it was on Santa Cruz Island, I think. But most of it was up here in the pool at Hearst Castle.

The last boatI was using for the movies was the Sportfisher.

They liked her because they could put all their sound equipment 42

inside and it wouldn’t interfere with the outside. I'd carry a lot of props and a lot of people.She's still running,and will be running 100 years from now. She's running out of Belmont now. I talked to a guy the other day who went fishing on her,and he said she’s so run down you just wouldn’t believe it. She has no paint. She's dull. I kept her like a yacht all the time when I had her.1 hauled her out twice a year at San Pedro boat works. You wouldn’t believe it. She cost $10,000 to build back then—$10,000 complete.

The Nora II was just like her— the boat my dad got drowned on.

When I built the new Dina Lee,she wasjust a cracker-box.

Had two 671s in her. She was a nice boat and bunked 70 people.

She cost$110,000,but she was nothing compared to the Sportfisher.

Buster Hyder worked on Santa Cruz Island for the filming of Peter Pan. Story author Sir James Barrie chose Betty Bronson for the lead role.

(Santa Barbara Historical Society) 43

Gambling Ships More than 50 years ago,hulking gambling ships lined up along California's coast in Santa Monica Bay,Redondo Beach, and Long Beach, enticing gamblers to their offshore casinos. An estimated 850,000patronsa year were taken by water taxi to the floating casinos.Themost lavish gambling ships wereownedby Tony Cornero. Each ship's estimated daily take was in excess of $20,000.Cornero becamestate Attorney General Earl Warren's main target in his dedication to stop the gambling ships.

Warren condemned the ships as "the single greatest nuisance" in the state, and ordered raids of ax-wielding authorities to destroy slot machines,roulette wheels and crap tables. During what became known as the "Battle of Santa Monica Bay," Cornero held outfor nine days aboard his ship, Rex,barricading the gangplanks with steel doors and fending off raiders with water hoses. Cornero eventually surrendered, and was soon cleared in court of violating state gambling laws. Congress outlawed gambling in U.S. coastal waters.

When the gambling ships was running off Long Beach, I started running to the MonFalcon. I hauled gamblers out from Long Beach— the P & O dock. I hauled them there for about6 to 8 months, until she burned up. The gambling ship burned up.

Then they brought the Rose Isle up there. Fellows by the name of Billy Gleason and Shorty Boseman. They were Saint Louis Jews.

They started the gambling business out there,so I took my fleet of taxis and I started running people out of Long Beach. I'd run, and I kept running. Pretty soon Ed Turner got the Johanna Smith outthere. She wasa wooden lumberschooner,and they converted her over. By golly they were out there a year and SHE burned up.

So then,Billy Gleason, he sold out to Ed Turner and I was out of work for just a little while. Then Earl Warren shut them down.

He throwed everybody in jail. Thank goodness I wasn’t on one of those trips. I didn't get caught. But anyway he shut them down and throwed them all in jail. I run out there for about five years to the gambling ships.

Theystarted the gambling ships up again offSanta Monica, and Earl Warren went out there. Tony Cornero,the guy I worked for,was mixed up with that.They pulled him in,and that was the end of the gambling ships.

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It cost you a quarter to get out. That's all the fare it was, and you got a free meal on the ship. Beautiful. Oh man,they had fifteen cooks taking care of all those people— go out there and eat. Talk about feast! The best you could ever get. And all that gambling. I was always clean-up man. That was my job because I was the taxi at 4 in the morning. I'd bring everybody in. The ship closed down at 2 A.M.,and everybody had to be off except the dealers. They'd get in big poker games out there. I'd come and tie up along side and wait till they'd get through so I could take them home.I'd take them back and kick them off at the beach again. Every one of those guys had god damned 45s right along side. Boy they were tough, those dealers.

One time when I was along side the gangway, this Mexican fellow—a young fellow probably about 20 years old, yelled "Hold the boat, hold the boat, hold the boat." He run and got his suitcase and away he came. He jumped on board,and I took him in and dumped him off on the beach.When I come back, there was all this excitement. Shorty Boseman,the other owner, he had been killed in his stateroom. What I think happened is they got in a fuss over a woman and this Mexican killed him. I never let anybody know who killed that guy. I never said nothing to nobody.Why? He was a dog-gone old gambler and a no-good, and I didn't care for him. He was a little short fellow about 5'2".

That's why they called him "Shorty." So anyway I never said a thing about who killed him. I knew who did it, because that poor Mexican boy—he couldn't get on that beach quick enough.

Rum Running It was after the gambling ships I started the rum-running.

I got mad when that dog-gone Earl Warren shut us down out there. I didn't haul rum,but they call you a rum-runner. Scotch and bourbon.The first I run was from San Pedro to Cortez Bank.

That is where the mother ship was laying. I would haul from there in.I didn't have radio communications.She was just laying out there at the buoy,at the high spot.I worked for Tony Cornero, the big crook. Tony and Lou. Lou would run the warehouse in L.A. I hauled for them. They would give me my orders,and I'd known right where the ship was,and I'd go right out there load up 400 cases ofScotch or whatever the order wasfor,and I'd bring it in.

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I had a regular rum-runner boat. I took the Dublin — she already had a Liberty in her, a 450 h.p. Liberty. It’s one of those 12 cylinder Liberties they had in old bombers in World War I. I just converted her over and put a big dory on the back end. So I went to work for Tony hauling whiskey. I hauled whiskey all up and down the coast. But I really had a break. Tony had everything bought off from Piedras Blancas right into L.A. Whenever that truck load of whiskey came through Santa Barbara County they met him at the boundary line between there and San Louie [San Luis Obispo], and went right into the warehouse where Tony was running. He had everything bought off. Tony had all the Coast Guard bought off for me as much as he could.

Whenever they would send their patrol boat that way,I went this way.He was pretty good.I still had a lot of encounters with them though.

I operated the Audry B out of Buchon.I worked above the light house in Santa Barbara. I never did work down below Long Beach. Bert Radcliff, Poker Anderson,and a lot of those others. they worked down in there. But that was hot country. That's really rough. I worked from here as far up as Piedras Blancas.

That was my area. I done my own rum-running,my own surfing and every thing. I was an expert surfman. So everything was worked at night. You couldn’t see anything.

I used to unload all the whiskey with a Hollister dory we ordered from down there in Boston. Tony Cornero ordered two of'em.They got to the west coast by train in a crate. They are 16 feet long, and real narrow at the bottom and they flare out. You could turn one loose in the surf,and it ’ll go into the beach all by itself and never get a drop of water in.

Ira Eaton got caught on Santa CruzIsland. He had a blind pig out there where you go up to Eaton's place — there is a little cove back on the side where he had all the whiskey hid. Bert Radcliff is the guy that turned him in. Either him or Dick Bomgartner. Dick Bombgartner got drowned on San Nicolas Island going through the surf.

Jesse James My dad come from a big family. There was 12 kids. The ones I knew—there was Sis, Clem, Ed, Clarence, my dad and Cleve.

They was the only ones left. The three youngest ones were the ones stayed out here.Clarence, my dad and Cleve.Cleve is short 46

for Cleveland. Anyway, they was some boys. They were good fellas. They were honest.

Ed,the ol' rascal,he was in the Jesse James gang. Let's put it this way—when they lived in Missourithey sure were neighbors with the James'. My dad told me my grandmother put diapers on Jesse when he was a little kid. Uncle Ed used to tell me some of the stories about when he was with'em. He was only in the tale end of it. But you know,Jesse James, he came back to Missouri after fifty years and they told him he was just a crank. He come out of hiding and they wouldn't believe anything he said.

We found out that Jesse was in Santa Monica when we was there. My uncles all went over and they talked things over, and it was HIM.But nobody'd believe it. I was still goin'to school then, and I wanted to go but I couldn't. Was I disappointed!

Anyway,that was Jesse James.And he talked about how they got out here,and when he was over around Reno or someplace they robbed the payroll of the Army and buried it in the caves someplace.When they wentback,probably a year later,that cave had slid in from the top and they couldn't get in there. All that money is still in there. Up a ways around Reno.

The story he got going was that this guy they shot the head off—they told everybody that was Jesse. After 50 years nobody'd believe him. But my grandmother said it was him and Uncle Ed talked to him.

His gang, they'd go down through a town, the whole gang of'em on horseback,and they'd get to shootin' up in the air.

If the lights didn’t go out they shot 'em out. Ed told me about when they got in a fight in the forest. But oh, Jesse there he'd pound his ol' hand on the table. He says they blame us for everything and it was the other gang that was there,the Youngers.

They’re the ones that caused all the trouble and they blamed it all on to Jesse and his bunch.But he said they were the ones that were the mean ones—the Younger Brothers. They blamed the whole thing onto Jesse James,and he was really mad my dad said. He wasn't the guy you see in the movies. He was a short fella. He wasn't tall—kinda husky.

Uncle Ed rode an old Excelsior Motorcycle in those days.

That doggone guy,he'd get drunk and ride that thing every place.

I was a little tiny kid there in town, and he'd get me on the handlebars and away we'd go with that ol' motorcycle. Oh, blast—what happened every time my mother caught me when 47

I'd come home. Why didn't she beat up on Ed? She'd beat the tar out of me for gettin' on there with 'im. Good ol’ Ed. Anyway,he lived in Huntington Beach before he died. He had a still down there. He got on that ol’ Excelsior motorcycle and I guess he thought he was in the ol' Jesse James gang. He took those ol’ 45s and put ’em on, and he could ride that motorcycle without handlebars. He went down through Huntington Beach and started shootin’ everything up. And they got him, boy. They socked him away,and they found his still and everything. That was during Prohibition.

Oh,boy,Ed was a rough ol’ guy. He was a preacher too.

That son of a gun. He’d get up in church and tell everybody the ol' devil goin' to getcha. He’d leave that damn church and go down Beacon street in Pedro when all the ol' sailing ships come in, with all those gosh damn ol’ gals and all that drinkin’,and he'd get drunker 'n heck.

I happened tobe there one time when Cleve and Margaret come up to Ed’s in this old Oldsmobile.They were all dissatisfied the way my grandmother's will went—who got the money and everything. Ed thought they got the best of the deal. The Oldsmobile was settin' out and Cleve and Margaret come down the little walk.Well,ol'Ed spotted them and he took those 45sand he danced them clearback to that car.He never hit'em,but he was close.I remember that,boy.I was a big kid then.I don’t know how old I was,probably 16. Ed was shotin’ at their feet and they were dancin'to that car—thatol’Oldsmobile with the rounded radiator.

My dad,he wouldn't take none of the will.Hesays,"I’m not goin' to fight over it. You guys go ahead and divide it up." My grandmother left maybe 10,000 bucks.In those days that was a lot of money,and they fought over it. That ol’ Ed. He finally got too old and died. Buried him down there in the old cemetery in Huntington Beach. But he was a character.

22nd Street Landing I started in the sport fishing business in 1937. That was the first 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro before the war. I started there, and I run to Catalina and also local on the Horseshoe. [The Horseshoe was an area southeast of Los Angeles where there was an extensive kelp bed and hard bottom where fish congregated. Today the kelp is gone.] It was a dollar to go fishing on the Horseshoe,bait and everything. I used to pay 25 cents a scoop 48

for bait then, and now I see its $20 a scoop. It was a dollar and a half to Catalina round trip. I only went to Catalina on the weekends, Saturdays and Sundays. Things went up since 1 got out of the business. When I quit 20 years ago I was getting $20 for an albacore trip, which wasn’t bad. I fished albacore all the time when the albacore came.

We had started hauling albacore from Santa Cruz and all over, and we hauled albacore for the canneries. When I was about 14 years old I started running albacore myself. I run one of the boats hauling albacore.I finally had to quit because the Coast Guard got on to me. I was too young. I was hauling to where Todos Santos Island is. I was hauling from there to the Asobetes cannery in San Diego. That gosh damned warden officer, every time at Ballast Point when we had the barge he'd stop there and say, "Where's the Captain of this boat?" I'd say, "He's ashore talking to his wife." About the fifth time,he got mad.He says,"If that Captain ain't on here next time.I’m going to tow this boat in."

He never suspected. He never did catch me. I told the barge master," I’ve got to get out of here." So he says well we got some albacore here and you’ve got to go to the east end of Clemente there's a barge there and go on into Pedro with that fish. So my dad was down here running the Blue Sea, a boat called the Blue Sea,so that was the end. The old man had to get back on the boat.

But me and another little kid about my age—he's still alive—he's down in Arizona, we were two little kids running that darned boat you know. But oh that was rough on me. I was scared half the time. Sick at your stomach for fear you know, running the boatin the fog.And the old man would have cut my throat ifI had put it on the beach. You know,it's too rough on a little guy. So young.

After World War II, Buster Hyder bought the 22nd Street Landing sport fishing business with two partners, Frank Hall and Pete Donaldson. In the mid 1960s,Frank Hall bought out both Buster and Pete. Frank Hall continues to run 22nd Street Landing in San Pedro today.

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BUSTER HYDER RETURNS TO SANTA BARBARA ISLAND Photographs by Wm.B. Dewey

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Buster Hyder returned to Santa Barbara Island in 1986 after an absence of half a century. He successfully relocated his family's former home site.

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Helicopter approach to Santa Barbara Island from the south.Note Sutil Island to the left, and Landing Cove to the right.

Buster Hyder waves on Santa Barbara Island after landing here for the first timcinalmost60 years.(Left to right:Botanist Ralph Philbrick,Jane Baxter,helicopter pilot Seth Hammond,Channel Islands National Park Superintendent Bill Ehom,Buster Hyder) 51

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Looking over Santa Barbara Island,Buster Hyder recalls hisearly lifeon this remote islandic outpost,38 miles from the nearest mainland.

Buster Hyder explains how fields were cleared on Santa Barbara Island.

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Second in line,Buster Hyder leads the way to the top ofSignal Peak,the highest elevation on Santa Barbara Island at 635 feet above sea level. “

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Buster Hyder heads toward Webster Point where his family had extensive sheep corrals.

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SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES President

Mr. David Gledhill . . .

Dr. C. Seyberc Kmsell

Second Vice President

Mrs. Susan B. Simpson Mr. Warren Miller . . .

Secretary Treasurer

Mrs. Tamara Cerio

Mr,Thad MacMillan Mrs. Delfir^ Mott

Lani Meanley Collins Mrs. Nan Djordjevic Mr. Richard Glenn

Mr.John Pitman Mrs. MaryThorson Mrs. Jo Beth Van Gelderen Mr. John C. Woodward

Mrs. Jean Goodrich Mr. Lawrence Hammett

Mr. Charles L. Turner, Interim Executive Director LIFE MEMBERS Mr. Stephen A. Acronico Mr, and Mrs. William B. Aaibell Mr. and Mrs. J.W Beaver Mr, and Mrs. DanilyBell Mr. Marvin J. Branch Dr. and Mrs, Ashleigh Brilliant Mr. H. R. de la Cuesca Burkhart Mrs. Virginia Castagnola-Hunter Mr. and Mrs. Pierre P. Claeyssens Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cleek Mrs. M. C. Conkey Mrs. Florence Corder-Witter Mr. J. V. Crawford Mr. Richard G. Croft, Jr.

Mr. Richard C. Harpham Mrs. Natalie B. Clark-Harpham Mrs. Glenn D. Hillebrand Mr. Eric P. Hvolb0ll Dr. C. Seybert Kinsell Mr. and Mrs. William F, Luton, Jr. Mrs. Jane Rich Mueller Mr. Spencer L. Murfey,Jr. Mr. William W. Murfey Mr. David F. Myrick Mr. and Mrs, Godwin J. Pelissero Miss Frederica D. Poett Mrs. Rena Redmon Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ridley-Tree Mrs. Alma R. Ritchie Mr, and Mrs. Wade Rubottom

Marla Daily Mrs. R. E. Danielson, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Oswald J. Da Ros Mrs. Albert de LArbre Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Fish

Mrs. Melville Sahyun Mr. and Mrs. Peter J. Samuelson Mrs. Nina Sandrich

Mrs, Helen W.Foyer Master John Galvin Mr. Michael Galvin

Mr. and Mrs. J. Terry Schwartz Mrs. David Shoudy Mr. Walter G. Silva

Miss Sally Gane Mr. and f^s. Keith Gledhill

Mr. and Mrs. Burke H. Simpson Mr. Ivano Paolo Vit

Mr. and Mrs. John C. Woodward BENEFACTORS: Santa Cruz Island Foundation, Northern Trust of California

Categories of membership; Life/Benefactor, $5,000 or more; Museum Circle, $i,ooo; Patron, $500; Associate, $250; Business/Professional, $250; Sustaining, $125; Supporting. $75; Dual/Family, $45; Individual, $35. Contributions to the Society are tax-exempt to the extent of the law.

Museum & Library: 136 East De la Guerra St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101 ● Telephone: 805/966-1601

NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine of the Santa Barbara Historical Society P.O. Box 578 Santa Barbara, California 93102