{"id":20169,"date":"2023-11-01T01:41:07","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=20169"},"modified":"2023-10-30T21:45:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T21:45:06","slug":"longstanding-local-welding-company-changes-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/01\/longstanding-local-welding-company-changes-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Longstanding Local Welding Company Changes Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making history in the Wood River Valley community<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/p>\n

Since \u201973<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"
Snack time with Les Cameron. Photo credit: Isaiah Frizzell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Cameron\u2019s retirement plans include writing a book, continuing his services to the gospel and, as he said, \u201cLetting the Lord guide me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dog Days of Winter Welding<\/b><\/p>\n

Wood River Welding was founded in 1945 in a barn across the street from its current location at 216 South Main Street in Bellevue. \u201cThat\u2019s where they spent the first winter working,\u201d Cameron recalled, adding that there\u2019s even an article about that early incarnation in the old Hailey Times archives.<\/p>\n

When Cameron goes into his own mental archives, the gems he remembers shine at every facet. While most can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Sweet stories emerge. \u201cIt would have been sometime in the \u201950s\u2026 a guy that worked for my dad, Roy Reeder, well, Roy loved dogs,\u201d 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 \u2014 a great big ol\u2019 Chesapeake. \u201cHe was huge, as big as a Saint Bernard,\u201d Cameron said. \u201cWalt was out here in front, with his car, and the dog wasn\u2019t with him. Walt was talking to my dad and Roy was outside talking to the dog!\u201d Cameron laughed a kind of gleeful contentedness of a man who\u2019s lived well \u2013 grounded and thoughtful.<\/p>\n

He went on, \u201cWalt went out there and saw what was going on and says \u2018You\u2019re the only man alive that\u2019s ever done that with that dog. He won\u2019t tolerate anyone else\u2026 you must be an okay guy.\u201d Roy ended up with the wild Chesapeake.<\/p>\n

It Takes All Types<\/b><\/p>\n

A customer\u2014again, a local, a gambling type\u2014helped Cameron\u2019s father and his partner Otis, obtain their current location. Cameron explained, \u201cA guy my dad and his partner Otis were doing some work for said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you guys buy you some land and put up a building and act like you\u2019re gonna stay?… and old Otis says, \u2018Well, sir, you put up the money and we\u2019ll do it.\u2019\u201d Cameron continued, \u201cHe says, \u2018Well, how much do you need?\u2019 And they made a wild guess and he sat down and wrote \u2019em out a check!\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Who was this guy? \u201cWell, he was a gambler, and if risk was involved, he was interested,\u201d Cameron recounted.<\/p>\n

He also recalled the very beginning of Wood River Welding. \u201cThey hired the guy next door\u2014he was a stone mason, Joe Shipman\u2014and he laid the block and built the walls. They got the lumber from the Board Brothers\u2019 Sawmill to build the trusses for the roof,\u201d Cameron said.<\/p>\n

Living History<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cHis pictures are in South Valley Pizzeria and the old Bellevue pictures in Mahoney\u2019s and the ones that are in Atkinsons\u2019 Market up there were from his collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Beardsley\u2019s nephew who did the woodwork for Wood River Welding and built the two big wooden doors that still stand. \u201cHe only had a fourth-grade education, but he knew carpentry work inside and out,\u201d said Cameron, who is a huge proponent of self-starting, self-made people. He said you don\u2019t always have to have the degree or credentials; you just need to know your instrument. Get out there and do it!<\/p>\n

Cameron said, \u201cHe was in here when we built this part [the front office] in 1985 and he\u2019s 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.\u201d Cameron laughs a lot. \u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

They couldn\u2019t get the door hardware; it was all used. However, they did build their own window frames. Nearly everyone in the community contributed their services.<\/p>\n

Caring for Customers<\/b><\/p>\n

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\u2019s been in the office for years as well, but he knows when to call it a day.<\/p>\n

He emphasized the original, core idea behind Wood River Welding was to keep the community flowing. \u201cTheir whole thrust, the idea that he (Cameron\u2019s father) started with was repairing equipment. That\u2019s what it was all about. He accumulated the tools and machinery that he needed to do it with and as you can see, we\u2019ve got a lot of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron isn\u2019t one to fret. He speaks matter of factly about the disposable quality of modern tools, of built-in failure. \u201cIt\u2019s good for the guys building and selling the tools, but I don\u2019t know how good it is otherwise.\u201d Cameron punctuates silences with laughter.<\/p>\n

His father had a plan and stuck to it. \u201cHe was a black-and-white guy. He didn\u2019t look at the gray areas. If there was a gray area, he\u2019d be quick to go back to the black-and-white of things,\u201d Cameron explained.<\/p>\n

Cameron\u2019s dad worked through the winters by himself and when he didn\u2019t have much work, his son said, \u201cHe\u2019d 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\u2019s how they learned to do what they were gonna do. You made your own stuff to work with, and that\u2019s pretty much what we\u2019ve done over the years. We still work on some farm equipment, a lot of work on landscaping equipment and general public stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Les Cameron\u2019s Future<\/b><\/p>\n

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. \u201cWe both had a commitment to make it work,\u201d he said after talking about how rocky marriage can be at first.<\/p>\n

When asked about selling Wood River Welding, he admits \u201cnone of my children are interested in taking the place over and that\u2019s how we got it, my brother and I and our wives.\u201d Cameron just lost his brother in 2015 from mesothelioma after working with asbestos in the Navy.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t do overhead welding so his brother took a look and said, \u201cWell, I think I can do that,\u201d Cameron said and continued, \u201cSo the warrant officer says get this man a helmet and welding tools, and he knew he hadn\u2019t been to welding school, hadn\u2019t been to any schools at all, and he welded this stuff up for him and the old guy says, \u2018Where\u2019d you learn to do that? I know you didn\u2019t learn it from the Navy,\u2019 and Ed says, \u2018I learned it from my dad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking Forward<\/b><\/p>\n

Cameron is happy he made the deal with a local buyer slowly\u2014they both took their time, and not in haste. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know you can\u2019t cover 77 years of history in a couple hours,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for all, Hailey Public Library is set to do an audio interview of Cameron for their historical archives.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making history in the Wood River Valley community BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL Since \u201973 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,72,81,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business-news","8":"category-community","9":"category-history","10":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20176,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20169\/revisions\/20176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}