Roadside Rest

ROADSIDE REST Men Are Not What the Boys Used to Be

As is the custom this sea-son and other months, in several Arizona towns with frontier mining traditions, there will be staged old-time rockdrilling contests. Predictably a winning depth will be somewhat less than 11 inches in the alloted 10 minutes. Men aren't what they used to be.

In fact, the men are not what the boys used to be. And the closest boys today get to rock drilling is dancing in the Hard Rock Cafe. Back in the golden age of hard-rock drilling in Bisbee, Charlie Corbett and Billy Kelley, both younger than 16, sank a piece of drill steel 20% inches into a boulder of granite in their 10-minute period. Their accomplishment was merely a preliminary to the serious grownup activities.

Vern McCutchan pursued a lifelong hobby of researching the heroic deeds of pioneer miners. He knew firsthand the men who established Bisbee's reputation as the Mining Queen of America. "The Cousin Jacks, the Polacks, the Bohunks, the Chaws, the Swedes, the Mexicans, the Indians drank, gambled, loved, and brawled in Brewery Gulch, and worked side by side in the mines," reported McCutchan. "From this heady atmosphere emerged the greatest athletes the world has known, the hard rock drillers. They were giants of strength and stamina, and the mines of the Southwest sent their best teams to challenge the champions of Bisbee.

Before power drilling, holes for explosives were sunk by hand. A miner alone drove steel bits with a four-pound, single jack hammer. As a team, two men traded turns swinging an eight-pound hammer and rotating the steel in the hole.

Either way, it was man's work and man's play.

In 1903 the Copper Queen Company squared a sevenand-one-half-ton slab of contest granite. The Bisbee rock grew famous, and it was shipped to contests all over the Southwest. Matches were of three types: singlejacking, doublejacking (taking turns), and straightaway, the latter in which one driller would swing the hammer without rest while a partner wrapped a fist around the steel. Those days, all matches were for 15 minutes.

Unbeatable doublejacks were the team of Chamberlain & Maca, big Bisbee miners with barrel chests and tireless arms. In 1903, teams from Montana, Colorado, Idaho, and British Columbia were attracted to Bisbee by an $800 prize. When Chamberlain and Maca were done, the granite was penetrated 46% inches, a doublejacking record that stands to this day.

In other years, Bisbee's best was not good enough. Fred Yockey, a stonemason from Cripple Creek, Colorado, entered his name, and two friends blanketed the town with bets. Yockey was disarmingly slight of build, and the odds were against him.

But when Yockey got the sig-nal, he started swinging at the astonishing rate of 140 blows per minute, using a peculiar sidewinder style.

"He can't last long," came a yell from the crowd, but Yockey never slowed. His depth was 26% inches, a world record for singlejacking. Yockey and his pals returned to Cripple Creek with the $400 prize and much of the mad money of Bisbee.

Another significant exchange of funds attended a match of McIver & Ross vs. Pickens & Bradshaw in 1905. They earlier had tied at Douglas at 44% inches. The Bisbee rock was freighted to Bisbee, and a few weeks later came the rematch.

P&B had their drills resharpened, but M&R feared that sharpening might cause their steel to crystalize and shatter. It may have been the decisive factor in the match. McIver & Ross drilled 44% inches. Bradshaw & Pickens exactly duplicated their Douglas depth, and won by an eighth of an inch.

Considered the Babe Ruth of drilling was Sell Tarr, never defeated in straightaway competition.

In 1903 the challenger was Bill Ross, keenly trained and copiously muscled. Ross went first, swinging 70 strokes per minute from start to finish. He drilled 35% inches, and the crowd gasped.

Tarr, a bit over six feet tall and trim at 180 pounds, also began at 70 blows per minute, but as soon as his turner, Ed Malley, had established a true hole, he stepped up his rhythm to 85.

So intense was the effort, that on the changing of the 13th steel, Malley received on the side of his head a glancing blow of the hammer. Stunned and swaying, Malley never lost his grip on the steel, and with the blood from his temple lubricating the drilling water, Tarr drove on to a world's straightaway record of 38% inches. The age was fiercer, the men hungrier. And if, on Independence Day of 1996, the drilling granite is barely scratched, it is because men no longer must labor for life itself. And modern boys may enjoy less demanding (but as rewarding?) diversions.