Jim Horton

Jim Horton
Sex	M

Jim Horton was a resident of Warsaw and was over 80 in 1995. He was a village councilman and "had been about the last person in the county who had run dog teams in the old days, before snow machines became popular."^AF29 He is married, but his wife's name isn't mentioned, nor are any children.^BAR732

Warsaw Fire

In 1981, Jim was a village councilman and was one of the few that wasn't on the fire department nor worked at Jerusalem Paper.^SX04 This meant that during the big fire that winter, it was Jim that knocked on doors to evacuate residents to the school.^SX02 He also helped organize the evacuation onto the trains, telling the scared and tired people when and where to load.^SX04 Jim drafted school buses to load passengers onto flatcars and worked at convincing residents that didn't want to leave.^SX04

Jim organized the support for the Fire Departments, things like coffee and sandwiches.^SX05 He ran the school as a rest center because of the space, the cooking facilities and the heat, but when the wind shifted and threatened it with toxic smoke, Jim supervised its move to the scram train.^SX09

It was also Jim that slogged to the town pump house to see what he could do about the lack of water pressure. One of the pump motors was 70 years old.^SX11 The ancient pump motor "has a bearing that's running red-hot, no matter how much oil he tries to shoot into it. He's afraid it'll sieze if we shut it down."^SX15 Jim then "spent most of the next two days on his belly with an oil can in his hand, trying to lubricate the bearings to keep that pump going, knowing all the while that if it seized up while it was running, there could be impeller parts shrapnelling through the pump casing right into where he was laying."^BAR30 If the pump stopped working, much more of the town would have been lost.

At the dedication of the rebuilt Jerusalem Paper plant in August 1982, Jim was the last speaker before Bud Ellsberg.^SX24

Jim had a four-wheel drive pickup in 1981^SX11

Dog Sledding

When Mike McMahon and Mark Gravengood first got into dog sledding in 1987, Jim provided them much practical knowledge, being one of the few with hands-on real experience despite the fact it had been 25 years.^BAR775 Jim taught them things like dominance testing^BAR736 and which dog paws would ice up and need booties^BAR775 and otherwise lent them an old sled that Mark then copied for themselves.^BAR738 It was Jim that identified Ringo as a potential lead dog.^RM08

Jim had learned much of his dog sledding knowledge from Fred Linder's grandfather, Bob Linder.^RM14

One tradition at the Warsaw Run dog sled race was that bib number one was reserved for Jim. Since Jim is in his late eighties as of 1995, he doesn't actually run in the race but the bib is left for him anyway in his honor. As his house was on the edge of Warsaw and just off the race trail^RM15 he didn't always bother to finish the race.^RM13