The Office at Spirit Lake.
Mr. Hugh McPhee, the superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company at Los Angeles, Cal., was night operator at Spirit Lake on the trans-continental line in his early boyhood days. Every operator that worked for the trans-continental line knows Spirit Lake because each one of them served an apprenticeship at that station.
The O’Shaughnessys kept a boarding house at Spirit Lake, the only house at this dismal place, but because young McPhee insisted upon wearing a “boiled” shirt and white collar, he found himself debarred from putting his feet under the O’Shaughnessy table. The young man, however, was full of resources and determined to do his own cooking and sleep in the office.
The first station east of Spirit Lake was then called Hades and the station west was named Satan. McPhee would get his milk and eggs from Hades and his staple groceries and meats from Satan. The names of these stations have long since been changed to something more euphonious.
The fact that there was an operator in Spirit Lake office at night induced the belated trainmen to call upon him repeatedly for orders helping them over the road and presently McPhee found he was working as much at night as he was during the day. An appeal to the superintendent was made and a few days later the train stopped at Spirit Lake and a tall young man, very dudishly dressed, stepped into the office.
“My name is Archibald Merriman and I am to be night operator at this station,” began the young man. “Where can I find a boarding house?”
Young McPhee told him that he would have to take “pot luck,” that there was no hotel or boarding house, but that he could share his commissary.
This did not seem to greatly enthuse Merriman, who stated that he did not know how to cook or make a bed. He was from Nova Scotia and he thought that if he could go back there he would never return.
He worked for five nights and one morning he was missing and nothing was ever heard of him afterwards.
An old Indian called “Big Thunder,” but better known as “Medicine John,” was a frequent visitor to this lonely depot and he suggested that the “Evil Spirits” in the lake might have kidnapped the night operator and thrown him into the lake, and inasmuch as no claim was ever made for the five days’ work performed by Merriman, a matter so very unusual to the telegraph company, one is lead to believe that the old Indian was correct.
Big Thunder had purchased from Merriman a big brass watch and chain, which he carried on the outside of his coat. The Indian had also fallen heir to Merriman’s plug hat which is still historical in Spirit Lake. When Big Thunder was asked the time, he would gravely open the watch, gaze for a minute at the hands and give out the information “Just half an hour.” Were he asked a hundred times a day, he would never deviate from his reply, “Just half an hour.”
Spirit Lake is now a great summer resort. The O’Shaughnessy hovel has made way for a very pretentious hotel, “Big Thunder” no longer gives out the correct time to enquirers and the spirit of progress is marching on.