Making history in the Wood River Valley community
BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL
Since ’73
From May of 1973 to October of 2023, Les Cameron, of Wood River Welding, created and maintained a temple of service that stands proudly in Bellevue with its original wood-hewn doors, a longstanding institution relied on by countless people in the Wood River Valley.
After 50 years serving the farmers, ranchers, mine companies, and general public in Blaine County, Cameron is retiring from Wood River Welding. With a handful of formidable tools and an historic truck in tow, he is stepping into grace. The tools and truck are artifacts, emblazoned in the history of his father’s business.
Cameron’s retirement plans include writing a book, continuing his services to the gospel and, as he said, “Letting the Lord guide me.”
The Dog Days of Winter Welding
Wood River Welding was founded in 1945 in a barn across the street from its current location at 216 South Main Street in Bellevue. “That’s where they spent the first winter working,” Cameron recalled, adding that there’s even an article about that early incarnation in the old Hailey Times archives.
When Cameron goes into his own mental archives, the gems he remembers shine at every facet. While most can’t remember a phone number, his memory is time-stamped, dated, and contextually saturated in anecdotes and side notes that reveal surprising connections to the history of Idaho and even America at large.
Sweet stories emerge. “It would have been sometime in the ’50s… a guy that worked for my dad, Roy Reeder, well, Roy loved dogs,” Cameron begins. While he sat eating a banana, he continued that there was a customer of the first iteration of Wood River Welding, Walt, a farmer/cattle rancher who owned what is now Lookout Farm. Walt had a dog — a great big ol’ Chesapeake. “He was huge, as big as a Saint Bernard,” Cameron said. “Walt was out here in front, with his car, and the dog wasn’t with him. Walt was talking to my dad and Roy was outside talking to the dog!” Cameron laughed a kind of gleeful contentedness of a man who’s lived well – grounded and thoughtful.
He went on, “Walt went out there and saw what was going on and says ‘You’re the only man alive that’s ever done that with that dog. He won’t tolerate anyone else… you must be an okay guy.” Roy ended up with the wild Chesapeake.
It Takes All Types
A customer—again, a local, a gambling type—helped Cameron’s father and his partner Otis, obtain their current location. Cameron explained, “A guy my dad and his partner Otis were doing some work for said, ‘Why don’t you guys buy you some land and put up a building and act like you’re gonna stay?… and old Otis says, ‘Well, sir, you put up the money and we’ll do it.’” Cameron continued, “He says, ‘Well, how much do you need?’ And they made a wild guess and he sat down and wrote ’em out a check!” Who was this guy? “Well, he was a gambler, and if risk was involved, he was interested,” Cameron recounted.
He also recalled the very beginning of Wood River Welding. “They hired the guy next door—he was a stone mason, Joe Shipman—and he laid the block and built the walls. They got the lumber from the Board Brothers’ Sawmill to build the trusses for the roof,” Cameron said.
Living History
Cameron, beyond his metallurgy, is a historian himself, and when he speaks out comes a living history. Even the people who helped build Wood River Welding were historians.
Take Dick Beardsley. Beardsley, good friend to Cameron, was an amateur historian who had his own dark room and documented the valley with photos of all the oldtimers. Cameron explained how “His pictures are in South Valley Pizzeria and the old Bellevue pictures in Mahoney’s and the ones that are in Atkinsons’ Market up there were from his collection.”
It was Beardsley’s nephew who did the woodwork for Wood River Welding and built the two big wooden doors that still stand. “He only had a fourth-grade education, but he knew carpentry work inside and out,” said Cameron, who is a huge proponent of self-starting, self-made people. He said you don’t always have to have the degree or credentials; you just need to know your instrument. Get out there and do it!
Cameron said, “He was in here when we built this part [the front office] in 1985 and he’s standing there looking at the big south door and they were laughing. I said what are you laughing about? And he said when we put them up in 1946, they were temporary.” Cameron laughs a lot. “He was one of those guys, he worked at the mine, doing carpentry work. He worked underground, too, set timbers, and did all the stuff they do underground. He was a demolition guy in World War II in the Battle of the Bulge.”
They couldn’t get the door hardware; it was all used. However, they did build their own window frames. Nearly everyone in the community contributed their services.
Caring for Customers
Cameron talks fluidly, recounting his reasons for easing out of welding due to optical aging and the general slowing of hands that arrives at the speed of life. He’s been in the office for years as well, but he knows when to call it a day.
He emphasized the original, core idea behind Wood River Welding was to keep the community flowing. “Their whole thrust, the idea that he (Cameron’s father) started with was repairing equipment. That’s what it was all about. He accumulated the tools and machinery that he needed to do it with and as you can see, we’ve got a lot of stuff.”
Cameron isn’t one to fret. He speaks matter of factly about the disposable quality of modern tools, of built-in failure. “It’s good for the guys building and selling the tools, but I don’t know how good it is otherwise.” Cameron punctuates silences with laughter.
His father had a plan and stuck to it. “He was a black-and-white guy. He didn’t look at the gray areas. If there was a gray area, he’d be quick to go back to the black-and-white of things,” Cameron explained.
Cameron’s dad worked through the winters by himself and when he didn’t have much work, his son said, “He’d make tools that he knew he was gonna need for the summer. He was a blacksmith. The old blacksmiths made their own tools and that’s how they learned to do what they were gonna do. You made your own stuff to work with, and that’s pretty much what we’ve done over the years. We still work on some farm equipment, a lot of work on landscaping equipment and general public stuff.”
Wood River Welding has done quite a bit of work over the years for Sun Valley Company, loggers, miners and the broad spectrum of needs and services for the public in Idaho. The company is a veritable beacon of good business and no-nonsense, solid craftsmanship.
Les Cameron’s Future
Cameron talks passionately and with humor about his faith, his work with the church, his kids, artificial intelligence, and his marriage. He and his wife Thelma just celebrated their 44-year anniversary in July. “We both had a commitment to make it work,” he said after talking about how rocky marriage can be at first.
When asked about selling Wood River Welding, he admits “none of my children are interested in taking the place over and that’s how we got it, my brother and I and our wives.” Cameron just lost his brother in 2015 from mesothelioma after working with asbestos in the Navy.
His brother Ed had been taught welding from their father and while stationed on a hospital ship in Long Beach, California. The Naval Welding School alumni there couldn’t do overhead welding so his brother took a look and said, “Well, I think I can do that,” Cameron said and continued, “So the warrant officer says get this man a helmet and welding tools, and he knew he hadn’t been to welding school, hadn’t been to any schools at all, and he welded this stuff up for him and the old guy says, ‘Where’d you learn to do that? I know you didn’t learn it from the Navy,’ and Ed says, ‘I learned it from my dad.’”
Looking Forward
Cameron is happy he made the deal with a local buyer slowly—they both took their time, and not in haste. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to let go. He walks the floor of Wood River Welding, describing magnificent statuesque machinery with all the grace and gentle nature of someone at peace in life.
“You know you can’t cover 77 years of history in a couple hours,” he remarked.
Fortunately for all, Hailey Public Library is set to do an audio interview of Cameron for their historical archives.
Meanwhile, visitors are welcome to stop by Wood River Welding. Bring Cameron a banana and ask him about the Chesapeake dog. It is a one-of-kind place to laugh, to soak in the history of the Wood River Valley and one of its longstanding families who helped create the community.
