Willis Bullock, a sleigh and a borrowed mail truck, 1936

In February 1936 Willis B. Bullock, paid by the WPA, was driving a heavy tractor for the men opening Arbon Valley's roads. On Tuesday, February 11, he lost his footing, landed in the tractor's path, and it rolled across his left leg. The Pocatello Tribune gave the story a short column on page 3 the next day, and an Associated Press version ran in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

Getting him out

The machine all but cut the leg off. Roy Lindley, a Power County commissioner from Arbon, got him to Pocatello in two stages: six miles by sleigh, then on to the Pocatello General Hospital in a mail truck that Lindley borrowed. Surgeons there took the leg off just above the ankle; by the paper's account he was doing well afterward.

The report does not say where the sleigh trip ended or whose mail truck it was. The WPA, the Works Progress Administration, was the federal relief program that put men to work on public jobs in the 1930s. The 1938 report of his lawsuit calls the machine a "snow-moving device," so the crew was evidently opening snowbound roads.

Who he was

Willis was a son of John H. and Mary Affleck Bullock, who had farmed at Arbon since about 1910. In July 1912 the Logan Journal reported the family back at Arbon after a visit to Logan, well pleased with their new home in Idaho. John Bullock's dry-farm wheat won first prize at the Idaho Seed Show in December 1914. As a boy Willis gave a recitation at the Central school's literary society in January 1916 and argued in a seventh- and eighth-grade debate there in 1920. In 1921 the county listed him among the eighth-grade graduates of District No. 12, Bannock. The 1936 article named a brother, M. A. Bullock, living in Pocatello. John Henry Bullock's obituary of 1942 names among his sons both Myron A. Bullock of Pocatello and Willis B. Bullock, so the injured man was certainly this Willis.

The lawsuit

Two court cases carry his name. A one-sentence item in the Tribune of February 16, 1937, noted that his damage case against Lewis Estep "and others" had been moved from the district court to the federal court. The item does not say what the case was about, and nothing more about it has turned up.

The case that came to trial was against Independent Highway District No. 3, the valley's own road district, formed in 1918, and two men, J. H. Lindley and Ray H. Burge. Bullock asked $50,000 in damages. His side's theory turned on whom he worked for. The WPA paid him, but his lawyers said the road district had the use of him on its snow work, and so should answer for what happened to him. Judge I. E. McDougall presided, and the Power County jurors sided with the road district and the two men, bringing in their decision in the early hours of March 10, 1938. The Tribune put the result on its front page and noted that many people had followed the trial.

The paper does not say who J. H. Lindley and Ray H. Burge were or why they were named in the suit. It also does not say whether J. H. Lindley was related to Roy Lindley, the commissioner who had carried Bullock out. Whether the verdict was appealed is not known.

Afterward

A 1980 birthday notice for his wife, Lecile Moss Bullock, says the couple lived at Arbon until they went back to Ogden in 1937. His father, John Henry Bullock, died at Ogden on April 27, 1942; his funeral was set for Pocatello, with burial in Mountainview cemetery. Willis B. Bullock of Ogden was listed among the survivors. In October 1983 Willis, then of Washington Terrace, Utah, marked his 80th birthday with a family dinner. The newspaper copies of both Ogden notices are hard to read, so those details are less certain than the rest.

On this site: the Bullock prize wheat is among the valley's firsts, and the Arbon area page names the Bullocks among the families found in the valley's land records.

The story as reported

Pocatello Tribune, February 12, 1936, page 3. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.

Willis B. Bullock of Arbon Valley lost his left leg above the ankle after a road-clearing accident on Tuesday, February 11, the Tribune reported the next day in a short item headed "Arbon Valley Man Injured."

The valley's roads were being cleared by a WPA crew, and Bullock's job on it was running a heavy tractor. The paper did not say just how the accident happened. All it gave was that he lost his footing, ended up under the machine, and came out with the leg almost severed.

Roy Lindley, a Power County commissioner, saw to getting him to a hospital. The first six miles were made by sleigh. For the next stage Lindley borrowed a truck used to carry the mail, and in it Bullock reached the Pocatello General Hospital.

Hospital surgeons removed the leg just above the ankle. When the paper went to press he was said to be doing well.

The last line was about family: Bullock had a brother in Pocatello, M. A. Bullock.