The Dam Builders, Part Three

(This is the third in a series on people who actually worked on building Pensacola Dam in 1938-40)

Paul Grace of Tulsa owned his own truck in 1940 and hauled gravel to fill in the bottom of the dams' 51 arches, where a bulldozer pushed it back into the holes for support. He remembers his foreman working in a truck rut when another truck backed over him. (This was Harry O. Koontz, killed Sept 18, 1940, as noted in the Grove Sun of Sept. 19, 1940) Grace also recalls a piece of board falling off the top of one arch, hitting a bulldozer operator in the head. A very dangerous place to work, he remembers.
There was a hotdog stand where the lake patrol office now sits, and drivers would pull up and get a candy bar or snack. On one occasion a large concrete truck pulled up, the driver put the truck in neutral and forgot to set the brake. The truck went over the cliff falling 135 feet, smashing into pieces. "I wonder if that truck is still down there," he said.
Mr. Grace worked for $1.25 a day plus a truck fee for using his own truck. He lived in the little rock cabins at Disney where on Saturday nights "Showtime" occurred.
Seems the nice looking wife of a local foreman like to take showers and always "forgot" to pull the window drapes. Saturday nights also featured the occasional traveling show and movies.
When he answered the telephone for details of this story, he said "I know why you are calling...to remind me how old I am."
But for Paul, age is just another number. But it is 90.