Copyright © 2007 Lathrop Rush -
last updated: August 20, 2008
Archive Articles....
LIONS, TIGERS, and OSTRICHES AT
SHARPE ARMY DEPOT
By the former Mayor of Lathrop and edited by Lenora Bigelow
Old and incorrigible animals from Flyshacker Zoo in San Francisco were confined in a zoo on the 260 acres now known
as DDRW or Sharpe Army Depot. Sharpe Army Depot was officially dedicated in 1942 and was named after Henry G.
Sharpe in 1948. Until the early 1940’s, McKinley Avenue went all the way through to the McKinley Avenue in French
Camp. The Flyshacker Zoo housed animals that were dying, trouble makers, and just downright incorrigible at Lathrop
away from the public zoo in San Francisco.
Jack Brumley was always known as “the only Sharpe employee almost born at Sharpe.” He was eleven when his family
moved to Lathrop in 1937 on McKinley Avenue across the street from the zoo. Jack and his siblings used to walk right
by the animals as they walked to and from school. The Lathrop School was located at the same spot as it is today,
on Fifth and Thomsen. There were about twelve employees taking care of the animals.
When times got hard the Brumley family moved to California during the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s from Pontotoc County,
Oklahoma. Jack’s parents already had nine children when they loaded a trailer with his mom’s new kerosene stove,
four cane back chairs, a feather bed and all nine children. Jack’s mother, Rose, used to say, “We was poor as Job’s
turkey, but we had a ball. The trip took thirteen days as we just fooled around coming to California because we didn’t
know where we was or where we was going.”
The Brumleys stopped at Tracy to pick peas then followed the crops to Watsonville. In 1935 they settled in Tracy in
a two bedroom house. Two years later they moved to a twenty acre ranch on the eventual Sharpe Depot site on
McKinley Avenue. Most homes in Lathrop during this era were built on 5th, 6th, and 7th Streets. They eventually
bought a house on the corner of 6th and I street. While living there, they built and operated a market on their corner
lot. They built a second story above the market, sold their house and moved into the loft while operating the market.
In the 1950’s Coykendall owned and lived at the market. In later years Carlon Perry (former mayor of Manteca) and
his family lived and operated the market.
In 1936 when Jack Brumley was fifteen years old, he bought a 1927 Model T Ford for $17. He and five other boys
drove to Gridley to pick peaches. The Model T seated only four and on the way back through Sacramento the police
stopped him. The boys were polite and the police decided not to give them a ticket. Instead they gave them an
escort to the Southern border of Sacramento.
When World War II started, Brumley was a burner cutting steel with a torch in the San Francisco shipyards. He
started there when he was only seventeen. He joined the Army and served from May 1943 to January 1946, serving
with the Army’s construction engineers. He saw duty in Guadalcanal, other Solomon Islands, the Russell Islands, New
Hebrides and New Guinea. He was in the Philippines when the war ended.
Jack Brumley loves this country and is as patriotic as anyone I know. However, when the war ended, much of the
soldier’s rations were given to the prisoners of war, and the ships that were to take the soldiers home instead took
the prisoners of war home first. He had to wait five months to be discharged. When Brumley was finally discharged he
was only 119 pounds. Brumley had migraine headaches for six months after coming home from the war.
Brumley married Ruby in 1942 and has now been married over sixty five years. He started work at Sharpe in 1946 as a
crane mechanic, a trade he learned in the Army. He began his rise to the top with several promotions. He became an
equipment supervisor, then a maintenance supervisor. In 1955, during the cold war years, Brumley became a
mechanic inspector for twenty-two ambulance rail road cars. Requirements for the job included four years experience
in seven different trades, ranging from diesel mechanics to refrigeration and electronics. He laughed when he
explained “That makes twenty eight years of experience.” He was twenty-nine at the time. He still got the job. He
saw to the maintenance of the hospital cars in case of a national emergency such as an atomic explosion on U.S.
soil. Most Sharpe employees or citizens knew nothing about these hospital cars or that there were others
strategically placed all over the United States, not just Lathrop. Jack Brumley retired as the Chief of Equipment
Maintenance Branch in 1974.
During his time at Sharpe, Mr. Brumley lived on one acre on the West side of the Fire Station on J Street. J Street
was an apparent dead end at Brumley’s house. I say apparent because according to Brumley the road had been
recorded at San Joaquin County as a through street and wider than any other street in Lathrop. It had been blocked
off from extending to Harlan Road. Even today when you travel down J Street it’s obvious it could almost be four
lanes. But what I’ll bet the Lathrop City Hall staff doesn’t even know is it was recorded wide because the huge six
horse supply carriages could not turn around on fifth, sixth or seventh streets in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. They
needed a nearby street to be able to make a U turn. Brumley had bought the four acres on the West side of his
property and sold it to a developer in 1985. J Street was at that time extended to Cambridge Drive. The developer
ended up building two cul-de-sacs and named the streets after Jack and his wife Ruby. I’ll never forget the first day I
drove by and saw the street sign names. I told my wife somebody has a sick sense of humor. They named the
streets after the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the man that assassinated President John Kennedy. My wife just
looked at me with her usual, and well deserved, “you dummy” look, and said “Mac, what’s Jacks wife’s name?” I just
blinked and said, “Oh, duh.”
Brumley built his own home, mostly from basalt blocks he got in French Camp. He also bought seven huge used
Caterpillar crates from Sharpe for 7 dollars each. Sharpe even delivered. They consisted mostly of two by fours, four
by fours and two by twelves, which he disassembled and removed the nails. He used the lumber to build his house.
Years later he built a dining room and living room on the east end of the house when wood was easier to buy.
During World War II there were German and Italian prisoners incarcerated at Sharpe and also at Tracy Defense Depot.
They were from many different trades. Some were paratroopers, others scientists, academics and so on. Some were
hostile but most were pleasant. When they refused to work “for the enemy,” they were told no work, no eat. They
worked. Wouldn’t the ACLU have a fit nowadays treating prisoners so mean? They would consider that torture. Many
of the prisoners were in the food service jobs at Tracy and Sharpe. Some worked at the Roundhouse. Many of the
prisoners didn’t want to go back home after the war ended. The Federal Government decided who stayed and who
had to go back.
Jack Brumley’s children are Tim, Andrea (Jones), Terry, and Melissa (Costa). Tim and Terry both graduated from Chico
State. The two girls were raised right and even with all the talent, looks and personality in the world became
homemakers. I applaud them for that. Terry became a biologist for the Federal Government and his territory was from
Portland to San Francisco. Tim and I went through Lathrop Elementary School together. I think we only had one
teacher per grade so we had the same teachers. Kidwell, Matthews, Canady, Grinrod, Culver. Do these teachers’
names sound familiar old timers? Tim was one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen. He was great in all sports, an A
student, loved by all girls, old and young including teachers and mothers, and even liked and respected by all men
and boys. He competed against John Holbrook during our elementary school years. The competition between those
two was awe inspiring. They were the most competitive people I’ve ever seen. They therefore were great teammates
at Manteca High School from 1957 through 1961. Tim was a pitcher and John was catcher, Tim was quarterback and
John was fullback. John Holbrook was a Manteca School Board Trustee for quite a few years. Tim was a teacher and
sports coach at Arbuckle California for thirty four years and recently retired.
Jack Brumley has always been a man who never drank, smoked; never intentionally broke any laws and only received
an eighth grade education. While he was advancing at Sharpe there were some well educated bosses who did not like
the idea of Jack having such high positions with only an eighth grade education. One boss in particular tried to derail
him by sending Jack to College of the Pacific (now UOP) having him take college courses of math, science and social
studies hoping he would fail. Brumley said the lowest score he ever received was a 98%. He also said he had good
people under him that were strong in areas where he may have been weak. He said his greatest attribute was a great
memory. Brumley also had many suggestions approved during his career. Five were improvements to the hospital
ambulance cars. The one he is still most proud, was a no smoking policy in all Federal Government buildings world
wide in 1960. Brumley said “If a guy like me can make it with no education, what can a guy with a college degree
do?”
I know how he feels. If I were to name someone in the class of 1961 the most unlikely to succeed, I would have
given it to me. What little I’ve accomplished has to be of God; I sure haven’t earned it.
OH, FOR THE MEMORIES
Click Photo to enlarge
Lathrop Based Publication Since 1998
LATHROP / WESTON RANCH / FRENCH CAMP
