Merle Swanson

Merle Swanson(1913-2000) lived and worked in Silver Peak during the 1930s, and he had previously worked on the Getchell Mine, near Winnemucca. In the late 1990s, Swanson was recognized as one of Nevada’s few remaining underground miners from the 1930s. At the time of the interview he still owned twenty mines, and he enjoyed sharing his passion for mining by presenting workshops throughout the state. Swanson was interviewed by Victoria Ford in 1996.

     What did we do for recreation around Silver Peak? Well, I’ll tell you, when we got a new man hired up here to the mine, these other guys would get a hold of them and tell them about these two young girls who were down there, at a place off there towards where the old airport is. And these girls’ father was supposedly working at the Nivloc.
     “Now, we can go down there and see them. And they’re really nice girls, but we’ll have to take down a case of beer and a little whiskey, because they like to drink. And you go down there, and you knock on the door.” Well, this one guy there knows all about it, but the other guy doesn’t know a darn thing.
     Pretty soon these girls would say, “Go away! Go away!”
     The one guy knows all of what’s going to happen, but he keeps on knocking anyway. This other guy’s on pins and needles right then and there. But pretty soon the door would open, and this guy would come out with a gun and shoot. And this guy that knows all about it, he’d fall over as if he got shot, and that would really put that other guy in high gear leaving that place. [laughter] He’d come uptown. Meanwhile, we’d be parked in different places, and we’d see him when he got uptown, heaven knows what time.