The jobs that Wilson Rawls did beside being a writer were as a carpenter and also in a construction company. Wilson Rawl traveled to South America, Canada and Alaska as a carpenter. This did not hinder his love for writing. During this period he wrote "Where the Red Fern Grows" and four other manuscripts. he kept them hidden for a lonf time as the manuscripts did not have any punctuation and had spelling and grammatical mistakes. He also took up a job in a construction company later on for a construction company that worked on the guided missile range in South West. Later he changed this place and moved to a separate construction site in Idaho waterfalls.