Minugh recalls tower building years

This day and age photographs are taken every second by cell phones, but that wasn't the case in the 1960's.

A camera's film still needed to be developed in a dark room or taken to the local drug store or mailed away and in a week or two the photos were mailed back.

Also, not very often does a happen-stance photo end up in a museum only to be discovered by a friend years later.

Al Minugh of Dodson, Mont., brought in a copy of one such photo, but before we get to that story, Al revealed a little of his backstory.

Minugh was born to Alfred "Mac" Minugh and Mary "Celia" (Phares) Minugh of Dodson. He was raised on the family farm and ranch. He graduated high school and then decided it was time to look for work. A guard rail job was available out at West Glacier but when he arrived there was 14 foot of snow. You couldn't build guard rail in that kind of snow. Minugh got back on the train and headed home.

"I got off the train in Havre," Minugh recalls. "I walked down the street and it was pretty cold out and I seen this employment office. I figured what the heck I'm looking for a job. So I go in and ask the gal if there is any chance of something?"

Unfortunately the answer was 'no.' It was -20 below at night and nobody was hiring. Minugh stayed awhile in the employment office just to warm up. He had just got off that train and was penniless. While he was sitting there a guy came in looking for some help. The man spoke with the girl and she repeated that as cold as it was he was not going to find laborers around Havre now. When the man started to walk out, Minugh got up and asked, "Is there any chance of putting me to work?"

Minugh was only 18-years-old so the man asked the employment gal if it was okay. She replied, "You better take him that's all the choice you got!"

That's how Minugh started a career in helping to erect radio towers from the ground for the Tower Sales and Directing Co. The Havre KAVR tower was the first erected in the area and Minugh was to dig the base hole for the concrete. That was in November of 1946 and the hole was to be 3 foot wide by 3 foot deep. Because the ground was frozen solid the hole turned out to be 3 foot wide by 1 ½ foot deep when concrete was poured.

"After we finished there they asked me what I was going to do?" Minugh said. "I said I don't have anything to do. Then they asked, well do you want to come along with us? And I did."

They went on to Livingston, Mont., Powell, Wyo., Spokane and Bellingham, Wash., then San Francisco, Calf., marking the first time Minugh had ever been out of Montana.

There are three memorable tower sites for the young Minugh.

In Arizona they erected three towers for the radio station with the call letters of KOOL owned by Gene Autry. Unfortunately Minugh did not get to meet Autry.

They then went on to a town just a few miles out of Kansas City – Liberty, Mo., the home of historic outlaw Jesse James. The crew was there quite a while because in the area where the towers were to be erected a bunch of land had been leveled off and it was a big mud hole.

"So we got to know quite a few of the people around Liberty and they told us stuff they knew about the James family," Minugh said.

Kansas City was also where Minugh's first child was born, a daughter, a very good memory for Minugh.

"When you're not at home and you're traveling all over the country it's pretty hard to raise a family the way one should," he added. "We had a trailer house and we moved like any other gypsy."

Tower work had slowed down and he was working for another company in central Washington when he was drafted in November 1950. He went into the 40th division of the California National Guard in Camp Cook for training. He never had to serve overseas in Korea.

"You had to have over nine months left in the service before they shipped you overseas. I had seven days leave and at the end I had less than nine months left. I was sent to Fort Eustis, Va., the transportation center for the Army," smiled Minugh.

The reason the Army sent Minugh was because on the military paperwork he had filled in that he had worked for the railroad.

He actually worked for the railroad only two weeks before he had graduated from high school. It was two weeks before the railroad found out and had to let him go.

"I worked as a track inspector. That lasted until my time was up in 1952 and came back to Dodson," Minugh stated.

The Army was to give him two weeks of unemployment that was only about $40. It wasn't very much and it took a long time to get it.

"I laid around my folks place for about a week and couldn't stand it. So I called the old boss and asked if there was any chance they might have some work for me," Minugh hoped.

They did need help in Idaho and Minugh went right to work for them until 1957. They were building TV and FM towers then.

In 1957, work slowed down again and Minugh was in Seattle. He decided to become a structural engineer since there was a shortage in that field. Other engineers had informed Minugh that there was one question that had to be answered correctly or you were done. The question was 'when you get a set of plans what was the first thing you look for?'

"The stamp!" he answered. "When you get a set of plans the first thing you look for was the stamp from the city of Seattle, if it didn't have that stamp the plans were no good." Minugh then formed a corporation and went to work in Alaska and had contracts with the Coast Guard. Most of the work was inspections for the Coast Guard LORAN (Long Range Navigation system) that was developed in World War II. After Alaska there were some new radio station's going in mostly around Washington and Oregon. At that particular time he had his own business in Seattle. Minugh then discovered a company out of New Jersey was selling towers clear out west and thought that sounded like a pretty good deal.

"So I designed my own tower," he said. "I took all the good things that I could find off of other towers to make them easy to put up, and cheap, and last. I started doing that and it really worked good."

That brings us to the photo of Al Minugh, discovered by a friend, on display at the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle.

The photo cutline reads: Al Minugh about to climb the flagpole near Suzzallo Library, University of Washington, Seattle, 1962. It was actually taken after the act of retrieving a rival team's flag from the pole.

Minugh relayed the story, "The University of Washington had a football game the day before and the University of British Columbia cut the lanyard on the flagpole and sent their flag up to the top. The flag then couldn't be brought down from the ground."

Somebody got a hold of Minugh and wanted to know if he could get that thing down? Minugh described how he scaled the flagpole, "I had to crawl up that steel pole to get that thing down. It took me about an hour to get up there. I went up the ladder as far as it would reach and then went up with some stirrups I built. With one stirrup on each foot, I could trade them and work up. It wasn't easy, I had blisters (on his hands)."

The flagpole was 90 feet tall and about 3 feet around at the base.

"I didn't know they were going to take a picture. That's how this wound up in the museum. I didn't know it was there until somebody told me," stated Minugh.

(The Phillips County News was unable to obtain the photo, property of the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle, Wash. The photo may be viewed at [email protected] image #1986.5.36068.2)