G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y P a g e 3 GRANDDADDY OF’EM ALL! One of the first snowmobiles may have been invented by a Boulder River postman attempting to live up to the motto: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Earl Wright, a long, thin man who looks as though he has never held still long enough for an extra pound to settle on his frame, wrote his own postscript to the United States mail service motto. During the forty years he carried the mail from McLeod to the Upper Boulder he completed his appointed rounds in strenuous and ingenious ways. In 1932 Wright carried mail from McLeod to Flemming Post Office, a distance of about 23 miles, come rain or shine. The Boulder Road, at best, is none too good. Always it is narrow and winding, fraught with blind curves. In summer, it is dusty and rocky; in winter it can become a sheet of ice, a badland of drifts. Earl grins, ruefully remembering those days. “When I couldn’t drive my truck, I went on snowshoes. And the day I went on snowshoes was the day I should have used my skis.” Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz In 1934 the post office was moved a mile farther up the road to Hell’s Canyon Ranch, the Wright’s home. As terminus of the postal route, the line of mailboxes was a gathering place for the residents of the surrounding area. Here, in the winter, boxholders as hardy as the mailman, muffled in caps, scarves, mittens and furs, converged on snowshoes to collect their mail and perhaps exchange a bit of gossip with a snowbound neighbor. During the year the post office was located at the Wrights’, winter delivery was made once a week. When, in 1936, the post office was moved to Lazy DA, service continued on a weekly basis until 1938, at which time it was extended to twice a week. In 1945 the mailman invented his snowmobile. This was long before he had heard the roar of a snow machine or seen a goggled driver roller coastering over a mountain trail. “I’d worn out my patience and two tails on my snowshoes, so I decided to use my head to save my feet.” It was indeed a hybrid concoction. Created from a Chevy motor, three pairs of Model A Ford dual wheels, and two 12-inch conveyor belts studded with cleats, it was what its maker called a crawler type. The belts went around the wheels on each side, and two metal pipes on the dash steered right and left sides separately. Beyond this, there was a switch, a choke, a throttle, a transmission, and a brake of sorts. The remaining equipment included a box at the back for mail and supplies, an old car seat for the driver, a windshield borrowed from an inoperative vehicle, and a body of unpainted boards. An added accessory was a snowplow, a cumbersome triangle of Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz rough lumber. It could be attached to the front of the snowmobile, where it was hinged, and could be raised or lowered by means of a pulley. There was a lot of mileage in the homely snow machine, if not much trade-in value. In ten years, until 1955, it covered 1,000 miles. It only failed Earl once, “The brake froze and put me in the river. I rode it down, but I got caught by the scrapers in the wheel and it hurt my hip.” Earl’s grandkids took it apart every time they got the chance.
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