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I- ■i fir It ■ Newsletter #92 April. 1993 Page 4 Old Orono Town Hall Builders (continued from page I) Times were hard and Cecil had to quit school after 8th grade. He worked for his room and board while attending school and afterward. He trapped furs. He wcHited for George Tumham on road building. He tried logging in northern Minnesota but returned to the Minnetonka area. Things improved and he was aMe to find work. At age 20 he married Elma Stubbs. He worked at the Wayzata Boat Works and im(noved his skills by taking a correspondence course in carpentry. Gideon started contracting when he was about 24 or 25 years old. He built a house for his sister Mabe and Gene Fertel in Wayzata and fcNr his folks across the lake (typical hip roof design). He built the Bederwood School (Stubbs Bay), the Orono Town Hall and the big house north of the Town Hall for EbnCT Talbert He built a house for C. R. Brackett at his Meadowb^k Dairy Farm and one for John Leslie, the paper magnate. He helped Charles Stubbs tebuUd after the fire (about 1912). He built a large home in Ladysmith. Wisconsin for N. J. Smith, president of Kenosha Paper Company, and many others of which we have no record. Then for a year he wt^ed in the Sl Cloud area. Cecil Gideon met A. R. Van Dyck and Phelps Wyman, prominent Minneapolis architects, who had just letunied fiom Custer State Park, South Dakota. They designed the lodge for the South Dakott State Game and Fisn Association and wanted Gideon to build it Wyman recommended him to Governor Peter Norbeck of South Dakota and he was hired. This was in 1918. Gideon came b^k to St. Qoud and got his family and they moved to South Dakota. In an interview with Avery Stubbs, Cecil Gideon tells of his experiences: */ was put in charge cf a bunch of convicts to build headquarters for the State Game Commission in Custer Park. We had a saw mill and sawed the lumber to build and dried it in a too. We had to get this from ! was head carpentered had 32 years to build it. Once the budding burned and we had to rebuild, i was gamek^fer the first mater. / was Warden and Sherifffor six years.” K,ammustonin%.,uster ram. we naa a saw nuu ana sawea me u gartme where we had heat. I got a machine to do our miUwoHt, St. Paul. ! was paid $7J0 a dixyfor this dangerous jtdt. I wash convicts unda^ me. It took two years to build it. Once the brnUk Giaydon McCulley tells this story about his Uncle Cecil: “One day in the convicts'bunkhouse, they were all standing around. A mouse ran up the corner ^ die walb and across the upper wtUl. Uncle Cecil ^t the head off the mouse. The respect was immediate.titt Later, the State Hsh and Game Headquarters was expanded and made into a State Game Lodge Hotel for tourists. Ptesident Cot^ge stayed in it in 1927. They had but two weeks notice before Coolidfe arrived. Gideon designed and built Coc^ge Inn to house die retinue of newsmen and Secret Service that fidlow a president The 34 summer enqiloyees were drafted to work on its construction. Gideon was coached by Colonel Starling of White House Secret Service on necessary and proper proiootd. Gideon rode horseback with Coolidge to the fishing holes as his personal guide and companion. He was there when Cotdidge fell in the water, a story that never made the press until years after Cotdidge died. Gideon was taciturn and dghtlipped, which made men like uoolidge and Nofteck (governer and later, senator), respect and trust him. Without Coolidge's three month visit in 1927, Gutzon Borglum, the sculpts, and local supporters mi^t not have received the finances necessary to get the Mt. Rushmoie project started. Coolidge. in ms dedication speech at the monument site, offer^ to pledge matching federal monies for donations. i* I ■ii ■ 4 '1 -j li ------------