RAILROADS INTO KLAMATH KLAMATH ECHOES -~ .... - . Sanctioned by Klamath County Historical Society Number 16 : First train into Klamath Falls, Oregon, May 20, 1909. Maude Baldwin Photo The Railroad's coming to our town, Take off your hats and cheer it! For nearer, nearer comes the sound. 0, good it is to hear it! The rocks arise from out their beds, What tho' the ages bound them! The Right of Way is o'er their heads, And Progress all around them! We've always held our head up high, Regardless of the weather; For Pride will make our Klamath Falls. 'Tis " Pride and Falls" together! So when we drive the Golden Spike. That makes Hope's consummation, May all our ex and im-ports be The best that's in the nation. To Mr. Harriman our thanks! We ·n not oppose his wishes; We ·u let him breathe our finest air. And catch our biggest fishes; Roland may shoot another Bear. When 'er the times propitious! Copied from the Evening Herald, Thursday. August 27. 1908. Author Unknown. I L Southern Pacific engine number 2251 with the first train Into Klamath Falls, Oregon, May 20, 1909. Arrival of a Southern Pacific passenger train ot the Klamath Falls depot in the early days. Miller Co. Photo II Klamath Echoes Staff DEVERE HELFRICH ................................ Managing Editor HELE HELFRICH ..... .. .............. .. ....... Assistant Editor OFFICERS Klamath County Historical Society OSCAR ANDERSON ... ................................... President BEVERLY CHEYNE . Vice President JIM PETERS . Secretary-Treasurer NORMA UEHLING, JIM COLEMAN, LEONA ANGEL AND ART MILLARD ............................ .......... Directors BEVE RLY CHEYNE ............. .. ............ Programme Chairman Address all communications to: Klamath Echoes, P .0. Box 1552, Klamath Falls, Oregon 97601 THE COVER: Our cover was drawn by Deborah Runnels, formerly Art Teacher at Klamath Union High School. III Editor's Page T he publication of Railroads into of Worden; the far flung Weyer­ Klamath was made possible by the haeuser system which tapped the area Herald & News newspaper files, the west and north of Keno, to and newspaper !iles of the Klamath beyond the Jackson County line; Peli­ Cmmty Museum, and the microfilm can Bay and Lamm Lumber Company files of the Klamaili County Library. mills, which earlv bad railroads in the In addition Ben Cornell. engineer of H arriman Lodge-Pelican Bay area the Oregon-California & Eastern Rail­ west of Upper Klamath Lake. road has been of great assistance Pelican Bay, Lamm and Forrest through information given and pic­ (Williamson River Lumber Co. I Lum­ tures loaned. Otherwise the Edjtor's ber Companies had railroads which own library, picture files and personal tapped the area west of present High­ research over many years have sup­ way #97, from Spring Creek and Sun plied the necessary information for Mountain to and north of Diamond this historical book. Lake State H ighway #138. Farther Commencing during the 1940's, iliis nortJ1, Shaw-Bertram had a railroad writer interviewed many old timers, which extended west into the timber but does not have one reminiscence from present Chemult. that touches on ilie old Weed Logging East of Highway #97. a network Railroad or the California-Northeastern of railroads covered most of the which replaced it into Klamath Falls. Klamath Indian Reservation timber at This history perhaps should have one time or another. T hese belonged been published at a much earlier date. to Ewauna, Shaw-Bertram, Lamm, but the necessary research for infor­ Algoma, Williamson River, Cfliloquin. mation had not been completed to a Pelican Bay. Kesterson a nd Weyer­ satisfactory degree. T he first two and haeuser Lumber Companies. one hall chapters, although not Norili of the KJamath Indian Reser­ directly connected with the rustory of vation lay the railroads of Shevlin­ the Klamath Country, do give. in Hixon out of Bend. which served ilie brief detail, events leading up to the areas east of Highway #97. from both arrival of our first railroads. Crescent and Chemult. Presentlv ilie It is hoped that R ailroads into Gilchrist Lumber Company with its Klamath will finally dispose of the twelve-mile railroad leading from t11e mysteries of why the KJamath Coun­ main Southern P acific Railroad. try suffered through two long delays in northward to the town of Gilchrist is railroad bwlding. which set back the the only Line in operation. The town of development of the area for many Shevlin was ilie subject many times, of years. romantic writings. due to its moving There remains another segment of logging camp and post office, at differ­ the railroad history of the Klamath ent times located in both Deschutes Country which is touched upon but and Klamaili Counties. briefly in iliis history. the logging rail­ Perhaps the most advertised and roads which began in the late teens historically written about local rail­ and still continue in two instances. road was the Oregon-California and Logging railroads long since discon­ Eastern (the Strahorn Line). extending tinued, include the Kesterson roads in eastward from Klamaili Falls. which the area northwest of D orris. and west (Continued on page VI) IV Union Pacific "Big Bay" 11•019 pulling a freight train up Echo Canyon In Utah. Union Pacific passenger train 11949 In El Cajon Pon, north of Son Bernardino, California. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor's Page . IV Chapter I Evolution of Pacific Railroads . 1 II The hasta Route . 8 Ill Next Came Harriman.................................... 17 IV Klamath's First Three Railways. .......................... 25 V Linkville Tro!Jey . 33 VI The Weed Railroad (California-Northeastern) . 42 VII Grass Lake to Holland (Ady) . 49 VIII To Klamath Fa!Js and on to Kirk . 55 IX All New Construction Halted . 65 X New Construction Resumes . 74 XI Recapitulation of the Twelve Year Delay . 84 X II Progress of Transportation by B.E. Hayden . 91 (continued from page I V) several miles in length. They were is still in existence and very much in Ewauna, which operated in the Quartz use by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Mountain area in Lake County; Peli­ Company, which has recently bought can Bay, south of Bly; Lorenz (Crater the line and is rebuilding it to its ter­ Lake Lumber Co.) Lumber Company. minus at the town of Bly. Joining the south of Sprague River; Shaw­ 0. C. & E. is Weyerhaeuser's private Bertram and Big Lakes, in the Squaw logging railroad which extends into the Flats vicinity, west of Bly Mountain. Sycan Marsh territory with its large and the Ackley Brothers, with a short adjoining timber lands. spur into Swan Lake Valley. A number of lumber companies Today, fleets of logging trucks have had lines which led from the main replaced the logging railroads in the 0. C. & E. R. R ., from a few to Klamath Country woods. VI -< Southern Pacific engine 114251 thought ta be pulling up a stiH grode betw-n Weed and Gran lake, California. Chapter I Evolution of Pacific Railroads . Approximately 86 years have passed petitioned two state legislatnres for smce the Klamath Country was in­ exclusive rights to use what he called formed that its first railway, a tiny "improvements in steam carriages." four mile in length logging road high By 1804 he had invented the first atop the north Klamath River Rim in American steam locomotive. extreme Southwestern Klamath Others became interested and a County had been completed. This rail­ John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jer­ road led from the rim (barely inside sey built a miniature locomotive California) northward to the logging which he ran around on a track' in the' camp of Snow. I ts rolling stock con­ yard at his home. The states of New sisted of four tiny Russell logging cars Jersey in 1821, and Pennsylvania in which were motivated from the woods 1823, granted him charters '~hich pro­ by gravity and returned, at first by posed to build a railroad across the horse power, and later by a small former and to the Susquehanna River locomotive. in the latter. Very little seems to have During part of that 86 year span, become of these plans. many delays, changes of plans, law­ But, by 1826, Boston had built a suits and relocations hindered the railr oad of sorts, three miles of completion of the railway system into wooden rails on stone ties, to move this area. To understand these various granite from Quincy to the Neponset ramifications it is deemed necessary to River. and thence by water to Charles­ first give a short synopsis of railroad­ town, to construct the Bunker Hill ing in the United States, especially the Monument. Western portion, prior to 1926 when By 1827, a group of citizens in­ the first main line through the corporated the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Klamath Country connected us to the Road Company. Shortly thereafter east and coastal shipping points both other railroads were organized in New north and south. York, Philadelphia and Charleston, Therefore, according to historical South Carolina. In the beginning, the records we find that in England, Baltimore & Ohio experimented with around 1698, a man named Savery sail cars and horse power, both in its invented the first crude steam engine. direct and treadmill form. Then after many years of experiments Shortly thereafter in Charleston, a and improvements, one James Watt group of railroad builders secured a came up with the first improved steam steam locomotive, the first ever built engine in the 1760-69 period. More in New York, and transported it to experiments and adaptations followed Charleston. In December, 1830 it and England came up with her first pulled the first train of cars ever railroads. moved by steam in the United States, Learning of these advancements, a over a six-mile track. The formal few visionaries in America tried to opening, however, was not until Jan­ interest their fellow man in their own uary, 1831.