A desire to build a stagecoach can sometimes get you into some very interesting situations. You cannot know or appreciate our full story until you see and read about how it all began.
Our boys have always been creative and made their fair share of attempts at things; the stagecoach was no exception! It all began with a very large stump of a fir tree and the thought – wheels! The rounds were cut from the stump and the axles manufactured from aluminum pipe. The coach could only be described as “rustic”, fabricated as it was out of whatever wood they could find lying around the place.
The horses were trained and the boys were pretty determined to have a stagecoach, even if it was a homemade one. They had it all together and had already made one run up the ditch road. Now for another run up the road. As they headed through the gate onto our road things started to get a bit wobbly. I am not sure what broke away first! The wooden rounds (used for wheels) split, the axle snapped, and the coach tipped over. The horses trotted away, finally free of all the weight behind them.
Our neighbor drove by and took the time to kindly admonish through his laughing grin on how they had made quite a mess in the middle of the road. So they picked up the mess, gathered the horses, and decided to take a picture of what it could have looked like. Believe it or not, this first “stagecoach” was the very beginning of their dream that would eventually become the “Zion Stage Line”.