Carroll Creek Pack Station 1

Deborah Cook of Jackson, CA writes.

Ray,

I was real pleased to run across your website and see that you have a brochure and pictures of Chrysler & Cook. I am the niece of Ted Cook who owned the pack train. He had no children of his own and so his biography is left for me to compile for our family history. My father, Fred Cook, was his brother. My father was 51 when I was born, and now myself, just under 50, I find that I am fortunate to have heard the stories of the early Owens Valley first hand from those who lived them.

I have some photos of Ted and his wife Margaret at the Carroll Creek station, some taken on a hunting trip up Mt. Whitney, my father on horseback in the Alabama hills, etc, and am putting together more info. My father, born in 1902, was the youngest of the Cook boys. He worked with uncle Ted for a while and was also a packing partner of Leakey Olivas and Fred Burkhart. I noticed that the article by Livermore mentions all of these names.

I have been over in your neck of the woods several times this and last year. I am an archaeologist and was over to Fish Springs doing work at the Buckeye Mine that was covered up with dirt this last spring from Cal Trans widening the road. I was back again last October for the Lone Pine film festival. What a grand time. I took time to ride with another packer out of McGee Creek. He had stock brought down for the festival so we took a ride in the Alabamas. I was pleased that he was there. I didn't want to trailer my own horse over for riding as it is a 7 hour drive over the mountains and my mustang does not take quietly to a long trailer ride. I live over on the west side in the hills near Jackson, CA.

I want to thank you for helping keep the history of Chrysler and Cook and the other pack trains alive.

Deborah Cook (Jackson, CA - Oct 2002)

Chrysler & Cook

This partially destroyed 1937 packing permit with Frank Chrysler's signiture is all that I was able to salvage from the Frank's burned out home at Carroll Creek circa 1969. This house once contained all of the records from the early years of Mt. Whitney Pack Trains when it was under the ownership of Frank Chrysler and Ted Cook. It was a sad event when the home burned down. Many valuable packing records from those early years of packing in the Eastern High Sierra were lost forever. Even I didn't understand the value of the records which were lost.