Hello! I am the boiler currently working in the Miller Lumber Sawmill at Powerland Heritage Park near Brooks Oregon. Let me introduce myself and tell you a bit about where I come from and the mysteries and adventures of my long career.
assumed Boiler History
I wasn’t always a sawmill boiler, stuck in one place. I used to heave over spindly tracks, powering a mighty geared locomotive, hauling felled trees out of the woods. I was part of a vast network of logging railroads that provided a vital link to get trees from their forested growing habitats to centralized mills and eventually, in the form of boards, beams, timbers and hog fuel, used in towns and cities.
Most early geared locomotives were steam-powered with design elements that provided the greatest amount of traction to get heavy loads around tight curves and hills in the rough terrain where trees grow best.
For many years it was assumed, based on the number over my firebox door, that I served on a Shay Locomotive. I don’t really look like a standard Shay boiler – my steam pipe doesn’t come out of the dome in the right place to be a Shay and I have a small number of bolts securing my smokebox whereas Shay's have many more, but I have had a long and varied career and most people chalked up my irregularities as modifications from my post-logging railroad employment.
However, a dedicated team of researchers have re-evaluated that number over the past year, and a different story of my origins has emerged.
My Boiler Numbers
I have several stamped numbers and markings that offer tantalizing clues about my history. A re-evaluation of these numbers and some extra research over the past year has revealed more information about my past and helped clear up a few mysteries about my design and construction.
According to the date stamped on my backhead, I was assembled in October of 1920. I also have a number --1627-32 -- over my firebox door.
When I arrived at Powerland Heritage Park, it was assumed that the number over the firebox door was a National Board of Boiler Inspectors’ number that was also a Lima Locomotive Works construction number – Lima in its various iterations produced 2767 Shay Locomotives between 1878 and 1945, of which 116 (4%) are known to survive. Lacking the ready access to historical records that my team has today, that interpretation, though often questioned, stood until recently.
New Clues = New Direction
Another clue came in the form of the arrival of an early 1900's Case Portable Engine to the Western Steam Fiends Association who are based at Powerland Heritage Park. It, too, had a similarly formatted number.
When one of my research team asked an Oregon State Boiler Inspector about it, he said that was the standard numbering for the state’s inspection records, and that the “32” at the end identifies the first inspection date in 1932.
The final nail in the coffin for the Shay hypothesis came when my research team acquired the boiler drawing for Lima "Shay" 1627 from the California State Railroad Museum and the differences between the boiler shown and how I stand today are so significant that an explanation of "heavily modified" no longer seemed reasonable.
The most significant difference is that Lima construction #1627 has a "wagon top" boiler with the steam dome over the fire box, whereas I am of the "extended wagon top" variety and have my steam dome in the first course forward of the fire box and thus provide drier steam to whatever I am powering.
If I wasn’t used on a Shay Locomotive, where did I come from?
Detective Internet to the Rescue
The internet is many things, but one of its great strengths has been helping connect with history resources we wouldn’t otherwise have access too. Comparative analysis, looking at the details of construction (shape of parts, number and arrangements and fasteners), suggested I might have been used on another type of geared locomotive – a Heisler.
More definitive proof came when my research team connected with John Taubeneck, a participant on the Facebook Group “Logging Railroads of the Pacific Northwest.” He connected us with research done by Jack M. Holst, dated May 22, 1964, that a boiler with my number “1627-32” served the Glenbrook Lumber Company on their Heisler locomotive, then went to W.J. Miller Lumber Company in the Bellfountain (Benton County, Oregon) area. Jack noted that I had previously served Erickson & Kersten in Washington State. He also noted, with a question mark, that my locomotive's construction number was 1327. Here is the quote from Holst’s notes as provided to my current research team on Oct. 25, 2022 by John Taubeneck: "#1627-32 Glenbrook Lbr. Co. Heisler (1327?) blt 1920 to W. J. Miller Lbr. Co.(Bellfountain/Gales Creek) ex-Erickson & Kersten (Washington).
With more clues to go on now, my research team then looked that construction number up in the definitive Heisler Book: THE HEISLER LOCOMOTIVE 1891-1941 revised and expanded second edition (2018) written by Walter C. Casler with much early research done by Jack M. Holst, lovingly called "The Book" by the research team. “The Book” lists my locomotive as being built in 1916 and operated by the Booth-Kelly Lumber Company of Springfield, Oregon as their #4.
That’s when another mystery really started to take shape.
Why was I built four years after my locomotive?
Boiler Explosion Provides the Answer
Luckily “The Book” provided more answers. On the page (140) adjacent to my locomotives listing in "The Book" is printed the photographic evidence of the tragedy that led to my creation -- photos of #4 after its original boiler had exploded and flown thru the air landing approximately 100' farther down the track. Unfortunately, three men died as a result of that boiler explosion.
Per Jay Swofford, a historian of the Mohawk Valley of Oregon, Booth-Kelly replaced #4 with another, longer, locomotive but it couldn't handle the curves and wouldn't stay on the tracks. Booth-Kelly had #4 rebuilt and thus I was needed to provide the steam for it.
It seems likely that #4 was rebuilt by Frazier Ironworks of Eugene, Oregon who did most of the work on Booth-Kelly's equipment. Jay has provided many more photos of the wreck as well as a photo of the rebuilt #4.
"The Book" lists my locomotive as a 63-ton unit built in March 1916 to standard (4'-8 1/2") gauge with Booth-Kelly being the original owner, operating at Wendling, Oregon, which is north of Springfield, Oregon in the Mohawk Valley.
The next owner is listed as Glenbrook Lumber Company of Monroe, Oregon and lastly W.J. Miller Lumber of Bellfountain, Oregon.
The newspapers of the time indicate that these small (when compared to Booth-Kelly and the like) operations had a few miles of track in the east side of the Oregon coast range and operated into the 1930's. W.J. Miller Lumber Company suffered a fire on June 10th, 1936 which destroyed the main sawmill. Saved were most of the lumber, the steam plant, and the planing mill.
In 1938 W.J. Miller sold his operation to his nephew, Ralph Hull, who rebuilt the sawmill, opening in June of 1939 and creating what is now known as the Hull-Oakes Lumber which still operates to this day.
The newspapers of the time do not indicate what became of the logging railroad.
If you are interested in seeing some of my old stomping grounds, check out Page 62 of George B. Wisner's 1995 Master’s thesis which shows a map drawn by T.J. Starker of the logging railroads of the area. It is viewable online through the Oregon State University’s Scholar’s Archive
My Identity Quest Continues
My research team is looking for photos and information of my time after Booth-Kelly and before 1980 when I again appear in the Oregon State boiler records, this time with the curious listing of being built by the Lima Locomotive Works. My research team is inclined to think that the above- mentioned reference to being a product of the Lima Locomotive Company is an error probably caused by the use of the term "Shay" in a generic manner to mean any geared locomotive, thus obscuring the evidence that suggests I was built by Union Iron Works of Erie, Pennsylvania for the Heisler Locomotive works of the same city
. The various iterations of the Heisler company produced approximately 625 geared locomotives between 1891 and 1941, of which 35 (5.6%) are known to survive and about 8 are operational. This puts me in pretty distinguished company!
From 1980 to the early 2000's I was being used on the Cunningham farm in Jefferson, Oregon to provide steam to operate a mint distillery.
http://www.oregonmint.org/process.html
My New Home - Powerland Heritage Park!
In the early 2000's, I was brought to what is now known as Powerland Heritage Park to replace the boiler that was being used to operate the Miller Lumber Sawmill there. I was re-tubed and have had a pretty easy life, getting fired up a few times a year by the steam enthusiasts to help the sawmill enthusiasts demonstrate how a small, farm size, sawmill could have operated in the 1930's.
It’s a different job, but somehow fitting, given my history of helping move big timber from the woods to the mills in the past.
At this time, November 2022, I am in the process of getting some tubes replaced, my ash pit fixed up and various other little things attended to so that I may continue to serve for many more years to introduce future generations to the magic and power of heat and water combining to make steam and make life better for those that can carefully use that power.
If you would care to support the efforts to get me up to snuff and keep me in good shape please contact Antique Powerland Museum Association (my owner and operator) 3995 Brooklake Rd NE, Salem, OR., 97303, Office phone 503-393-2424, or email office@antiquepowerland.com.
Thank you!!
Many thanks to my research team whose original members included:
John Derderian, long time member of the Miller Lumber Sawmill crew
Nate Degerstedt, long time member of the Miller Lumber Sawmill crew
Dick Green, past assistant sawmill manager, Miller Lumber Sawmill
John and Nate have been of invaluable assistance in the current effort, along with the many members of the various Facebook groups interested in steam logging and locomotives and Oregon history, particularly John Taubeneck and Jay Swofford. Lloyd Neal, Asst. Librarian Southeastern Railway Museum provided photos of their Heisler (Campbell Limestone #9, a 1923 55 ton unit, shop # 1479) to help confirm the likelihood of Union Iron Works, Heisler origin before the discovery of the Oregon State boiler inspection record research done by Jack M. Holst.
See me operating the sawmill every year at The Great Oregon Steam-Up!