 Barrel Being Lowered Through Trap Door With an Electric Hoist, circa 1970; 96.X1.25. |
"On withdrawal, you'd move from warehouse to warehouse. They had withdrawal sheets and dump sheets ... so you'd look on your sheet and it'd say which warehouse and how many barrels they wanted of that particular bond and the location ... The assistant lead hand had to go in there then and find them, locate these barrels and then tell the crew what to do. In [warehouse #7] you had to, depending on what floor you were on, you had to change the hoist over. The hoist on top in #7 was on a track, and it went all the way across from [rows] 1 to 20 and you had [trap] doors that you had to open all the way up .... Then you'd move the hoist over that hole and there was a button that worked the chain. So then you got it over there and you blocked it there and you had to put irons on the particular row that you wanted to take out, and you had hooks that hooked onto the rack ... that you could roll [the barrel] out far enough that the hooks would be on it and then the guy with the button would [control the movement of the barrel]. And then you'd let [the barrel] down through the holes all the way down ... to a floor."
Donald Oberholzer, barrel warehouse worker, 1953 to 1965.
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