Orson Clark-12/14/81 - Pg 8

sent word down, called me on the phone. He said, "I have a chance to sell that. Will you take the price of it for what it was to sell for?" That would be without profit, you see. "Would you sell it for that?" I said no and I thought about it over night and I said, "Yes, I will." He said, "I can get all of the back taxes, all of the back water dues, and everything that is against it and get to the cash if you'll take it." I said, "Take it." So when we did that, I was free from up there but I hadn't made much on it. I made the living but I didn't make what you would call a big profit. Well now, since then that was sold to a fellow and he went bankrupt I understand. Then it sold again and on the house that was there, three or four acres and the house, he sold that and got as much out of it as he had to pay for the whole thing. But while I was down here, the house that was on it at the time when we bought it had burned down. The young fellow that was on it was trying to get the thing built back. He started out with a great big Spanish mansion. He didn't get too far with it but when it sold to this other fellow they built it. They built the mansion. It was the mansion and just a few acres of the ground around that sold enough for the whole thing.

Interviewer: The real estate boom came later.

Orson Clark: That's it. If I would have known and just held that another few years. Well, I guess I'm not much of a good investor and the like. I had a place down here, a dairy all equipped with everything, that I had rented while I was up there. The livestock and the milking parlor. I built these just a few years before I went up there. I built the shed and the corrals. I hard surfaced the corrals and the barns and sheds and the like. I had me a good set-up. When I came back, it was in the time things were pretty tough in the'60's, the young fellow that was milking the cows said, "i'm going to buy a dairy. I'll buy yours if you will make the price cheap enough so that I can afford to pay for it." I knew things were pretty tight and going pretty hard. But he was just a young fellow starting out. So I cut it right down to just about cost and he took it. Well, he left it after he had been on it about a year or two and turned it over to his younger brother. He didn't make a go of it so he turned it over to his father. About a year after that his father sold it for nearly five times what I got out of it. But when they did sell it that way, I got my money. So I could do with my money what I wanted to.

Interviewer: When money is tied up that way, it is hard isn't it?

Orson Clark: Yes. When I first came down here, I left the livestock that I had up there with a man. He run it for two or three years. Oh three or four years, I guess. I figured that he was losing me a thousand dollars a year. So I was happy to get out from under this as soon as I could. 

Ruth Knowlton: Was it mismanagement?