“Welcome to my world” says Reid

By PHIL FAUVER Guest Writer

Vaughn Reid’s Museum of Creativity at Clawson was recently toured by the historical society. On the way to Reid’s museum the group saw the UFO Landing site on the slope, where a couple of space ships and the sign that warned, beware of snakes were seen. After passing the airplane on a post, the two buzzards sitting on a tall stump and a mine entrance the group came to the do nothing wheel or water wheel.
The museum is a large building held up inside by three very large trees and large beams. A tree is placed at each end and one tree is placed in the middle. The high roof is held up by very thick sturdy wooden beams. The plank floor has been sanded and polished. The many tables, lamps stands and other items made of wood are mostly highly polished. Reid calls this his three tree house. This house was very comfortable and very pleasant.
Inside the museum, Vaughn greeted everyone and welcomed them. Reid is a blacksmith, a machinist, a mechanic, an artist and all around good guy.
Reid said he spends a lot of time at this place, making things in his next door machine shop. Reid said, “The snow was so deep this year, he had to build a new snow plow, the old one could only push the snow so far.”
One of the first things he pointed out in his museum was his wood and coal burning stove that was giving off welcome heat making the room warm as the day was cold outside. This stove is decorated with a deer and elk painted white, and a white painted pine tree over the fire door. Above the door of the stove is a five or six gallon brass kettle that holds water to raise the humidity in the room during the winter, it also provides hot water. The large stove at one time had been part of the boiler from a sawmill on Horn Mountain.
Reid continued the tour by showing a small table and wash stand he had made this winter. He found the pan for the soap and water on the internet for a dollar and it cost $14 dollars shipping.
Next he pointed to a large circular saw blade hanging on the North wall, with the title Reeder Saw Mill hand written on the blade. That was the original blade from the Reeder Sawmill. The sawmill had been on the terrace right at the head of Reeder Canyon.
There is a colorful lamp made this fall. The lamp is installed on a tree stump that makes three complete twists from base to where the lamp is installed. Someone asked Vaughn, “Where did you get a tree, twisted like that?” “I told him, I got it up on twisted tree ridge. When it was nearly finished I told him, we need a bent board, we will have to go up to bent board gulch to get a bent board. He thought I was joking. So we went up, and we weren’t there more than 20 minutes, when I said here is the bent board, see how it is bent around that tree.” The bent board attached to the twisted tree, makes a real nice shelf, shellacked and varnished to a high sheen.
The hot morning wood stove was next to be seen. It consisted of a hollowed out log about one and a half feet across and three feet high with a door cut in the front and a hollow four-five inch in diameter post for a chimney. Inside was a red flickering light that appeared to be flames burning. On the outer part of the door of this log were the words, “Hot Morning Wood Stove.” This is guaranteed for one hot morning. Two halves of line shaft pulleys were holding up a shelf along the South wall. The door bell clanged loudly as others arrived.
Bart Cox picked up a pulley that had been used in the old Orangeville cultural hall to raise and lower the curtain. The curtain that Gavin Jack painted. A small red fire hydrant on display was one of the first fire hydrants in Orangeville. “The hydrant was on the corner by our house when I was a kid,” said Reid. The hydrant was part of the first system put in at Orangeville.
“This table was made out of the butt of a tree and you can see all of the burrells or knobs on the stump. I found this tree down off of a ledge. It was dead. I cut it into pieces and it took me three days to work it up over the top, because I did not want to break off any of the burrells. Underneath the table is large piece of steel slag. A splash of steel that fell out of the ladle. It looks like someone’s foot track is still in it,” said Reid.
Near the east window stands a hand cart, with steel wheels and polished wood side boards and handles. In the box of the hand cart are steel candle stick holders and clothing hangers formed in the blacksmith shop. Also in the cart was a shiny brass kettle.
There were many tables made from twisted trees stumps. Under one of the tables were a few small stuffed bears resting on the roots. Another table has what appears to be a marsh with ducks on it.
Reid displayed a vase made in his shop using his lathe. The vase is made of mountain mahogany from Horn Mountain. Reid said, “Mountain mahogany is the hardest wood that I know of, growing in Utah. You can see that it is pretty hard. The wood is heavy. The Russian Olive tree wood is also a beautiful wood to make vases and other things.”
Richard Fairbanks suggested that Reid show the petrified wood pot. The first one he ever made from petrified wood.
Reid said, “We have here a rope block and another tree. You are in the treehouse, because there are three trees holding up the roof. When I was six years old my dad made me this little wagon. It is a wagon made of wood with metal wheels. The wheels were from the wagon my dad had when he was a kid. I have a picture of him sitting in his wagon.
Bart Cox found a two-foot long strand of thick, what he called Texas barbed wire. Everything from Texas has to be big.
Reid showed the group a kitchen water pump, a wheat or corn grinder, and a large gallon size milk bottle, he said he has milk bottles, from half pints up.
Reid has been collecting historical items and old things for many years.
Sitting in a corner was a milk separator for separating the cream from the milk. The milk would be put into the large kettle on top and while someone turned the crank, the milk was allowed to flow into the separator and milk would start flowing out one spout and cream out of the other. The painting on one of the walls of an elk was painted by Cliff Oviatt.
On a west wall was a broad ax collection and a cross cut saw collection. In the southwest corner of the big room is a doorway into a room that will eventually become a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom.
A southwest door leading to the outside has a large wooden Z made of thick boards across the top and bottom of the door and one board running diagonally from top to bottom across the door. Vaughn calls this his Z door. This heavy wooden door made of thick wide lumber also has two large three-four foot long four inch wide metal hinges made in his blacksmith shop. Vaughn spent one whole summer making those hinges.
On another wall are some plaques with interesting statements, such as, “I am sorry we quarreled, I hate it when you are wrong.” “Of course I don’t look busy. I did it right the first time”. “If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger tool.” “I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.” “They changed the West. Barbed wire, fence posts and Henry’s Model T.” On a table sat a book with a wooden cover. The title of the book is “Everything Men Know About Women.” Opening the book you find that all the pages are blank.
Reid pointed to a statue of an Indian on a horse waving a buffalo robe to let other Indians know he has found the buffalo. He said, “This was presented to me by the Intergalactic Counsel for providing and maintaining the UFO Landing Site.”
Hanging on one of the trees or big posts in the room are several coils of a heavy thick rope. His grandchildren ask what is that rope for. Reid explained to them, “When I went to school the girls played jump rope with that rope. We had one small girl in our class that was six foot six and weighed 280 pounds and I always felt sorry for her because all the bigger girls were picking on her.” Over head is a chandlier made of a wagon wheel.
Reid next demonstrated early pioneer tools, how pioneers made wood shingles and a tool for hollowing out logs for water troughs. One of the tools was called a shin ax or a toe ax, depending on what you chopped off. They were used for squaring up timbers. Many other early wood working tools were on display. Traps were hanging next to some animal skins, such as a skunk, a badger, a coyote, a raccoon, and a red fox. Above these is a metal depiction of an old trapper heading out on the trail. Only a few things seen have been described and photographed. There are so many things on display at Reid’s Museum that it would take too many pages to describe them all. The group was next taken out to see the machine shop, lathes, drill press, and other tools, used by Vaughn to make many of the things in his museum. After the tour a pot luck lunch was held at the Clawson Park Pavilion.
Everyone on this tour felt they had learned much additional information about the history of Emery County.
The historical society meets once each month to keep the history of Emery County alive.