SP: All right, to start off can I get your name and your date and place of birth?

JS: Jerry Schmier. Born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, 90 years ago (May 18, 1935).

SP: That’s a good long life.

JS: And about 11 years old I started working in a service station for 25 cents an hour and after a couple years another station offered me 75 cents an hour so I went over there. I was there for two years and I lied my age and so I go to work for Standard Oil Company and I did work for Standard Oil. I was with them for a couple of years or so and then the manager I had was, his name was Al Humphrey, and they let him go, and that hurt me pretty bad because I really liked Al. But so anyhow they offered him a Chevron station so he wanted me to go with him so I did. I went partners with him on a Chevron station. I was there for a few years. Texaco came along and offered to build me a new station if I go with them, which I did and I had done a good job with that station and so they offered me more. Gave me another one on 17th Street, another on North Yellowstone, so I had three Texaco stations. I’m trying to remember.

SP: Back when you said you had to fib about your age, what did you have to tell them to be able to work there? What was the age that they wanted?

JS: Had to be 18 and I was only 17 years old.

SP: Okay, that’s not too bad.

JS: But anyhow I went to work for them then but with Al Humphrey on a Chevron station. Texaco offered me and built me a station. They did and then I’ve done a good job. They offered me more stations so I had three Texaco stations all leased in Idaho Falls. I was there for a few years and there’s a guy by the name of Terry Clark and he had a little Standard station in Idaho Falls. They were in West Yellowstone where Slippery Otter is now and he died and his widow ended up selling it to me for $90,000. I didn’t have any money. I scraped up $40,000 and then made payments to her on that station. I did fairly well there so then I built the Exxon station and then later on I bought the Cenex station. So anyhow I had three stations in West Yellowstone and I also started up a snowmobile operation. Sales, service, rentals and that. But anyhow, going back a ways what really brought me to West Yellowstone was I started racing. A friend of mine was a distributor for Skidoo and so anyhow I started racing snowmobiles and now I started West Yellowstone when all the back east and all over were racing snowmobiles.

SP: Had you been to West Yellowstone before the snowmobile racing or was that what kind of got you here?

JS: That’s what got me here. I was racing before I came here.

SP: Out of all of the places that you went, what was it about West Yellowstone that made you want to come here?

JS: Well racing snowmobiles, and I liked it and so I took on a – that was Skidoo and then I took on a what was the name of it? The other one. But anyway I took some of those snowmobiles and started racing them to start out with and then, I don’t know, I just kind of grew from there and that was 57 years ago that we moved to West Yellowstone and the stations I was getting up in the years so the three stations the snowmobile operation I turned it all over to my sons, two sons Brad and Doug, because they have been with me since they’re 11 years old and so anyhow I turned it over to them and they’ve done a very good job and but they’re getting up the years and tired too so they sold all three stations and the snowmobile operation and –

(Verlene Schmier) VS: two and a half years ago

JS: Yeah, so anyway. Yeah about two and a half years ago so they sold out and since then I haven’t done much of anything. I got crippled up so bad that I can’t really work or do anything much so anyway that’s kind of it.

VS: Tell her about the accident you had that made you quit snowmobiling.

SP: Oh I didn’t know you had an accident that made you quit snowmobiling.

VS: He was racing in St. Anthony, Idaho and a snowmobile came up and hit him right in the back of your ski.

JS: Well it was a cross country type snowmobile race and there was kind of an irrigation ditch that we went across. Well I jumped that and got across that and just as I did that here come another snowmobile hit me in the back with a ski and broke my back.

VS: He was in the hospital for about five weeks.

JS: Yeah.

VS: And he’s had back problems ever since.

JS: So anyway that’s kind of my life story and here I am.

SP: So tell me about when you met Verlene.

JS: I think I was in the ninth grade and I think she was in seventh grade.

VS: Eighth grade.

JS:  And anyhow we were in choir singing and she was right in front of me and she had pigtails in her hair so I pulled her pigtails and that’s how I met her. And then I started going with her.

VS: And we went together for three and a half years.

JS: Yeah about three and a half years that we went together and then we got married. Yeah.

SP: Did you know that she was the one for you?

JS: Oh yeah. We’ve been married 71 years and she’s put up with me for that long. But anyhow when we moved to West Yellowstone 57 years ago I didn’t think we could be here this long but we like it here. But I kind of got tired of the winters a little bit so we went to Phoenix. Bought a home in Phoenix. I liked to play golf so I started playing golf and I got to where I couldn’t play golf anymore so I didn’t want to be in Phoenix any longer. So we sold out there and moved back here.

VS: Came back home. Of course we only stayed in Phoenix.

JS: That was what 20 some years ago.

VS: It was 2016 when we sold out down there. Nine years ago.

JS: When we sold out and came back to West, permanent. Yeah but that’s kind of it. I’ve enjoyed West Yellowstone. A lot of nice people. I’ve gotten to know them. That’s all.

SP: Yeah well you guys helped make it that way and keep it that way.

VS: We bought and sold a lot of property in West Yellowstone.

SP: Yeah, and worked with a lot of people.

JS: Well yeah and then I, a number of years ago, I started buying property and I’d buy something and then I wanted to buy something else so I had to sell that to buy something else and that went on. I bought about half this town over the years. Bought and sold it. Yeah. We still have quite a bit of real estate in town. Quite a bit of real estate on Yellowstone Avenue

VS: and then also on Iris Street all the way down.

JS: And then we bought some property straight across there from the old railroad tracks.

VS: Obsidian.

JS: We still have that. So we still have the property on Yellowstone. We still have that one. So anyhow.

VS: We bought and sold a lot of it.

JS: I did. I bought and sold a lot of this town.

VS: Where the dentist office is. We have that. It was just timbered property and it was Walt Stewart that had the Texaco station and that years ago. He wanted to sell it. It just had trees on it. So Jerry and I, you know, he bought it and turned right around and six months later sold it to Don Bolton. Don Bolton put an antique store in there.

SP: Okay.

VS: He’s the one that built the building there.

SP: We just had somebody in the library asking about an antique store that had been here, you know.

VS: Well that’s the dentist office now. I was trying to think. Yeah Don Bolton was his name and his wife. They came into town and wanted to start an antique store and so they bought that property and built that building for the antique store. But then their health went bad so they moved back to Helena I think and sold it to whoever’s got it now

JS: There used to be a picture of me in the library. I don’t know it’s still there.

SP: It’s still there.

VS: Were those some of the ones that Ken took?

SP: Yeah it was that 59758 project.

VS: Some of the old timers. Yeah, well that’s when Ken went. Ken went around did the kind of the scene interview. He took pictures of all the old timers.

SP: Yep and we have a real real real cute picture of you two together up on our wall still. And Mike Breyers, Shigeko Clarkson

VS: Ah, Shigeko Clarkson.

SP: I know this when they first approached me with coming to interview everybody. All the old timers.

VS: The old timers. Bradley was 11 years old when they moved here so he’s an old timer now too.

SP: Oh maybe I’ll have to come after you also.

JS: Well I’m the oldest person in West Yellowstone.

SP: You’re the oldest person in West Yellowstone now?

VS: Tim Daly?

SP: I haven’t gotten to him yet but I’m going to and I was talking to his daughter Claire and she was like you better make sure you’ve got three days set aside to listen to him.

(Jerry’s family had stopped by to have a lovely conversation with him and Verlene)

JS: Brad and Doug. Doug is the youngest. And of course they both retired after they sold the stations and businesses. And Doug when he was little he used to have to have new toy trucks and graters and stuff. So now he’s got a big truck. He drives a truck for Chris. And that’s what he does. But Doug has been on the board for Rural Electric for a long time. He was, went out of Fall River for a long time. And then he kind of moved up anyhow. He’s right now on a long trip to Colorado.

VS: He’s on the western states Rural Electric board. He’s made several trips to Washington D.C. because some of the congressmen or people in Washington D.C. don’t know nothing about the west. They wanted to shut down all the dams and make it go back natural. So he had to go back and fight that.

JS: I think she’s pretty well done.

SP: Oh no I still got lots of questions for you.

(The family finished their conversation and left)

SP:One of the things that I really love, Jerry, is this. Your family is here coming in. This is cool that you guys are still all in the same area.

JS: These two live on this side of me and Doug and Stacey live on this side. So all three of us are right here.

SP: I think that’s fantastic.

VS: I got an article that I kept. He took a picture of our houses and called this the Schmier road. I got it in one of my scrapbooks.

JS: You said you had more questions for me?

SP: Yes. I wanted to know, the first time you got to West Yellowstone. Did you know this was where you wanted to end up or did you only figure that out after you visited other places too?

JS: No, this was where I wanted to be.

SP: And was that a hard sell for the Mrs.?

VS: Yes. We had just built a three-bedroom, three-car garage, white brick home in Idaho Falls on Belling Road out in the country. It was out in the country then. It’s not now. And it was out in the country. We had five acres and I mean it was our home for our life. Is that correct? It was going to be our home for the rest of our lives. We had just moved into that house in October and I took the kids in our little neighborhood on Halloween to go trick-or-treating because we’d only been gone like two weeks. And when I come back he says, how would you like to move to West Yellowstone?

SP: And I can’t remember. Had you been up here with him or were you like what are you talking about?

VS: And I didn’t come up with him at first. I mean we came up on weekends and he bought the Golden West Motel for a place to live because we were going to be here for the summer and ended up being here the rest of our lives. But no I would, the kids were still in school in Idaho FAlls. So I would come up on weekends and he had the gas station there and I would do the bookkeeping for him and then I’d come back home with the kids until they got out of school and then we’d come up here for the summer. Anyway it was in 1967 and 68. So actually we bought the business in October of 67 from Clark but didn’t open it up until April of 68.

JS: That’s the standard station that’s where Strip Realtor is now.

SP: Yeah.

VS: And when we came up here to open it April 1st in 1968 the snow was so deep that it covered the gas pumps and we hired Ken Larson. At that time they had the garbage dump. We hired him to come and clean it up. So he cleaned out the gas station when we, around April 1st, when we came up here to live. And then when the kids were out of school I stayed down, I stayed with them in Idaho Falls. So we had just built that brand new home in Bellin Road and I wasn’t about ready to leave it, but we kept it for eight years before I let him sell it.

JS: After we moved here.

VS: Decided I needed to keep the family together.

SP: And then the place out at Duck Creek? Is that where you wanted to be was out by Duck Creek at that time?

JS: Yeah. Don’t get that picture to show her.

VS: We built Duck Creek in about 1982. We lived here in town at Golden West Motel until we had an opportunity to sell it to one of our locals here. They’re no longer here, but, and so we moved into, on Dunraven 131. Who was our mayor at that time? Spanauer.

JS: Yeah.

VS: They had that home on Dunraven and they wanted to sell it because they were moving out on Duck Creek. So we bought that home and moved into that from the Golden West Motel. And we lived there for quite a while. The boys all went to school. They were in school while we lived there because we didn’t move out. We’ve been here 23 years in this house since the first of August.

JS: In this home.

VS: And we lived out there for 18 years.

JS: Go get the picture. Show her Duck Creek.

VS: Yeah.

JS: That was a beautiful place out there.

VS: I understand uh Jeff Watts lived in our old house now.

SP: Oh yeah? Did you stay involved in snowmobile stuff after moving up here?

JS: Oh yes.

VS: When we got ready to sell it out there John Costello kind of took a picture of several angles and he took this picture from the back.

SP: It’s so pretty.

VS: Oh it was beautiful out there. We lived there for 18 years. A lot of yard work.

SP: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful though.

VS: We sold it to a couple when we moved here. We sold it to a couple from Billings and they had it for four or five years and then we sold it to Jeff Watts.

SP: At least it’s in good hands.

VS: But I understand they did a lot of remodeling in there and it made me sick when I heard about it. They tore out, we had a great big lava rock fireplace on the one, you know, the wall. You walk into the, it had a big entryway. You walk in on the top level and then you step down into the living room and that fireplace, all lava rock, it’s beautiful. They tore that out and they, because her husband had MS, they raised the floor.

JS: Well that living room fireplace was kind of sunken. About a foot lower than the rest of the house. But I think that was the reason that she did that.

VS: And we moved out there in 1982.

SP: And had the house built, right?Like you, you guys had a hand in designing it.

VS: Yeah, we had it built. We had a local contractor. Well, couldn’t get a local contractor so we hired somebody from Idaho Falls. He had built our home in Idaho Falls and so he came up and built it for us. Great job. So we had the roof replaced twice.

JS: And then I, myself and John Costello, we bought this Madison Addition, what was left of it. And there was a lot of vacant lots and geez, we sold those lots, some of them for $15,000, $19,000. Here in the Madison Addition.

SP: Which is awesome because people could afford that and they needed houses. And what made you want to get involved with the Madison Addition?

VS: Expand where West Yellowstone. Housing. So we picked out three lots here.

JS: Well we redesigned this part right here for ourselves. I actually have four lots right here and I took one of them and cut it up so each one of us had a little more land.

VS: It was like 1,550. So we made three lots out of four.

SP: Sometimes you just need a little more space.

JS: Yeah and we’ve enjoyed it here. I don’t want to go nowhere ever again. I’ll die right here.

SP: What was it that you liked about snowmobiling.

JS: That’s hard to say but I kind of have pioneered it because there was no snowmobiles around. And this Monty White was a distributor for Skidoo and had a warehouse in Idaho Falls. And he set up with Harold Young at that time here. There was a few snowmobiles. They had about half a dozen snowmobiles. But I don’t know. I just started snowmobiling and Monty White was a good friend of mine. He was the distributor so I was able to get snowmobiles. Actually he furnished the snowmobiles at first to race for him once we did that. And then we started racing to all of them. But we raced all over the country back east all over.

SP: That is fantastic.

JS: But the race circuit used to start in West Yellowstone and then travel from there and end up back in West Yellowstone before the season was over.

VS: Western Snowmobile Association always started their first races in West Yellowstone either the first or second week in December when they had enough snow. And they always ended it up in March in West Yellowstone. About the second week in March because we still had snow. But they traveled. Jerry’s been to Couer D’Alene. He’s been back east. Minnesota. A lot of times Minnesota. Michigan. Wisconsin. Which is where the Snowmobile Association started.

JS: It was very competitive back there racing. I remember one race was a cross-country race back there and there was an Arctic Cat hit me in the side and shoved me into a tree and broke one of the skis off of the snowmobile. And I was mad. So I tipped the snowmobile up and rode it in on one ski. And out of 300 and some snowmobiles racing I came in on one ski and I was in 12th place.

SP: On one ski.

JS: On one ski.

SP: Wow. So you were good?

JS: That’s what I did.

SP: And then at the library we were talking about the Snowmobile Expo. Was that related to the races and did you have a prominent hand in that in West Yellowstone?

JS: Oh yeah. Yeah. I was one of the players.

SP: Did your kids enjoy snowmobiling like you did too?

JS: Yeah but not to that extent. Their snowmobiling was just recreational around this area.

SP: How did the changes to the park impact impact what you guys did?

JS: Well I’ll tell you that story. There was a group of us, half a dozen of us, that wanted to go into Yellowstone on snowmobiles. Nothing was groomed and the mounds of snow were as high as this house. Just all over. And we wanted to go in there and park service would let us. So they tried to stop us by saying we had certain criteria. Had to have radio equipment. Had to have a doctor with us. All that kind of stuff. So we made those arrangements and we were the first ones to ever go in Yellowstone Park on a snowmobile.

SP: Wow.

JS: We left here at nine o’clock in the morning. It’s 15 below zero and we got to Flag Ranch that night after a lot of trouble. And it was 40 below. It was quite a trip. We had two of the snowmobiles in the group – There was nine of us total and two of them cut across Lewis Lake and fell through the ice into the water. So we had a hard time but we got those snowmobiles out and away we went.

SP: So you had to pull the snowmobiles out of the lake?

JS: Lewis Lake. Yep.

SP: Wow.

JS: Yep.

SP: And then was there somewhere to stay at Flag Ranch or?

JS: Yeah. They, I can’t remember exactly what it was but we had a place rented. And when we got there we rented this place for the group of us. And we weren’t there very long. One night and away we went.

SP: So had they started doing the snow coaches then or did the snow coaches come after the snowmobiles in the park?

JS: They came after because they couldn’t go in there. I mean I think there’s one guy that had a snow coach and it’s a little bit around here all the recreation. But no, those mounds of snow were some of the biggest, no way in the world a snow coach could go in.

SP: So your group really helped make those things more desirable to go into the park?

JS: Oh yeah. Yeah once we did that trip and pressure on the park and the park started grooming and opened up snowmobiles and for a number of years we had a, had a great time. But now it’s not like that anymore.

SP:  Yeah you’re not allowed to do it the same way anymore?

JS: No.

SP: So the accident that you had that hurt your back did that just stop your competitive snowmobile stuff or did you have to stop riding pretty much all together?

JS: No I started riding again once I got fixed. What happened is I jumped this ditch on a cross country and when I got on the other side I stopped and here came another snowmobile and hit me in the back of one of the skis on that snowmobile and that broke my back. So I was laid up for quite a while but then I got back snowmobiling again.

SP: Did you keep going in the park

JS: Oh yeah yeah.

SP: And then did you go in the park more on your own or did you take groups with you as kind of a tour?

JS: I guided people in the park for a number of years.

SP: Did you enjoy that?

JS: Oh yeah. Yeah well, I mean I made money and had a good time too.

SP: I think that’s a nice thing being able to make money off of something you enjoy. And having a good time doing it. Do you have a sort of favorite memory from either your races or snowmobiling in the park?

JS: Both. I enjoyed racing. I did it for a lot of years and then we had the dealership for ski do here in West Yellowstone and so I took guided trips into the park.

VS: Jerry was given the snowmobile dealer of the year back in, we went back to Wisconsin for the ceremony. I don’t know what year it was. Skidoo 96.

JS: What is that picture of?

VS: When you went back to receive the snowmobile dealer of the year.

SP: I gotta be honest you hardly look any different.

VS: I wish.

SP: I just read also broke my ribs here.

JS: Yeah

VS: That was a talk he gave back here.

SP: Oh there’s the story you just told me. So that was in 1965? When you went into the park the first time?

VS: Yes he was the very first one. Donna Young and Harold Young they were old-time people here a doctor, Dr. Reese from Idaho Falls. They had to have a doctor with them and didn’t they have didn’t you have to have a park ranger with you too?

JS: No. No.

VS: Oh you had the cameraman Rasmussen. Yeah. Cameraman gets pictures. Yeah. And I tried to get some of those pictures from him and I never did get it and he’s passed away now so and then he passed him on down to David uh not David the White, Monty White’s family and I ran into uh it’s been five years ago run into.

JS: Gary White?

VS: Yeah and I said can we have some copies of you know I don’t want to take them from you but you may have copies of them the pictures they took of those guys in the park and he said yeah I’ll see you get some. Well that was five years ago and I haven’t yeah because Rasmussen he was a he was a photographer for the Post Register and so he went with him to take pictures of the journey into the park on snowmobiles no groomed trails.

JS: That was quite a trip.

SP: Well and I’m reading here um that Bombardier let you purchase a groomer and you paid for it by selling snowmobile patches.

JS: For the town.

VS: We had all the businesses in the town and sold them for a dollar and uh we raised enough money to pay for that groomer.

SP: That’s awesome.

VS: Isn’t that awesome?

SP: That is really awesome and then you were the first one to drive it.

JS: Right. I would leave here about six o’clock in the evening and groom Two Top and around. I wouldn’t get back till oh three or four o’clock in the morning.

SP: So you did the grooming overnight?

JS: Oh yeah six o’clock in the evening.

SP: When did he ever sleep?

VS: Never.

SP: So, so you’d do that at night and then get up and do the rest of your work?

JS: Yep.

SP: That’s amazing Jerry.

JS: I’ve had quite a life really.

SP: Yeah. So when you started getting a little bit overwhelmed with the snow what made you choose Phoenix?

JS: That wasn’t that many years ago. Yeah. And snow, cold weather. I wanted to play golf. So we moved. Well, we bought a home. We bought a home down in Phoenix. And we’re out on the golf course. And I played golf for quite a while until I couldn’t play no more. Since I couldn’t play anymore, so I didn’t want to be there anymore. So we sold out in Phoenix and came back here permanently.

SP: Yeah and you never changed your mind about wanting to be in West Yellowstone?

JS: Oh no. Once we were here this was home.

SP: That’s how I feel about it too. I was born in Ashton and then my family moved to Indiana at the end of first grade by first grade year. And I spent all the rest of that time trying to come back. And my mom worked for Shigeko at the resort. So she came back every summer.

JS: Who was your mom?

SP: Dood Powell.

JS: Oh okay. Yeah.

SP: She ran the Frontier Club for a while. And then her and my dad had Mr. Zips, the hamburger joint. But she also worked at the Spur, the Roost.

JS: Yeah we used to own the Frontier Club.It’s one of the things that we bought.

SP: Was that early on or?

JS: I can’t remember how many years ago that was. Verlene’d probably remember. Yeah it was the place in West Yellowstone at that time. Dancing, music, you know. So that’s where the locals ended up having a good time.

SP: And you had the opportunity to be in on that too.

JS: Oh yeah. Yeah.

SP: Yeah. We were just talking at senior lunch about how different West Yellowstone was. Because mom moved here in 79. And you know when the roads weren’t paved yet and everybody would get off work and go party.

JS: Yep. Quite a town. I don’t think you ever knew old lady Peterson. But they used to have the Roundup grocery store. And that rock home just this side of it was hers. And she built the store in the corner. But she was a character. I can’t remember the name of it. But there was a bar on the highway right in the center of town. I can’t remember the name of it. There was a bar there. And old lady Peterson, she used to get up on the bar and striptease. And she had quite a reputation.

SP: Do you know if any of her family is still here?

JS: No. The family still has some ownership of the store. And they still have that stone home. But the one son, I can’t remember where he moved to, somewhere. But he comes back about once or twice a year just for a few days or a week.

VS: This is the talk he gave when he was honored. Snowmobile dealer of the year.

SP: Thank you.

JS: What was the name of the bar on?

VS: Frontier? Lariat?

JS: I think it was Lariat. And old lady Peterson? Yeah.

VS: Got up on the dance on the bar. That’s Jeannie’s mother, not Jeannie. They’re both gone now.

JS: Well, they still have some ownership of the store.

VS: Yeah, they do.