The Oregon and Northwestern Railroad (O&NW) is a defunct railroad in eastern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It ran from Hines north to

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

, which is on the edge of the

Malheur National Forest The Malheur National Forest is a United States National Forest, National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon. It contains more than in the Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest), Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. The forest consists of Great Basin ...

, over a total of 19

trestles ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Labora ...

Beginnings through 1930

The railroad's history began when the

Edward Hines Lumber Company Hines Supply (originally the Edward Hines Lumber Company), based in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, in the United States, is a business firm specializing in lumber, plywood, decking, doors, windows, trim, and other wood products. It also sells related ...

, having won a bid for a timber sale in the Malheur National Forest east of Seneca, purchased the Malheur Railroad and its corresponding

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

, both incomplete, from the Fred Herrick Lumber Company for $400,000 in 1928 (). In the early 1920s, Herrick had won a Forest Service auction of

ponderosa pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the ...

forest in the Bear Creek valley east of Seneca, and his company built the Malheur Railroad from Crane northwest to

Burns Burns may refer to: * Burn, an injury (plural) People: * Burns (surname), includes list of people and characters Business: * Burns London, a British guitar maker Places: ;In the United States * Burns, Colorado, unincorporated community in Eagle ...

in 1924. The company started to build a sawmill southwest of Burns and a rail line from Burns to Seneca, but it ran into financial troubles and did not complete either of those. Failing to meet the terms of its contract with the Forest Service, Herrick's company lost the auctioned land to the Edward Hines Lumber Company. The Edward Hines Lumber Company finished construction of the sawmill, where the

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

of Hines developed, and completed the Malheur Railroad between Hines and Seneca in 1929, thereby linking Crane with Seneca. The track between Hines and Seneca became the Oregon and Northwestern Railroad. The railroad received its permit from the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

and became a

common carrier A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...

on 24 June 1929. Charles John Pettibone was superintendent of the railroad and assistant manager of the lumber company. By the end of 1929, the company had begun to harvest and transport ponderosa pine from the Bear Creek valley. The sawmill began processing logs in January 1930 and was envisioned to produce of lumber each year.

Labor camp

The mill in Hines supplied wood products for the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

' efforts in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Since many Edward Hines Lumber Company employees had left to serve in the war, the company sought to hire new workers for the railroad and the mill. During the

Japanese American internment Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, the company operated Trout Creek Camp, a "primitive" railroad labor camp north of Burns. In 1943, some

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

s at the camp worked 8 to 10 hours per day for a wage of less than one dollar per hour (). Due to perceptions that Japanese Americans posed threats to the United States at the time, they had been required "to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States" before being hired. The camp was home to no more than 30 people during the war, and "when the war ended in 1945, most of the Japanese-Americans left, to be succeeded by Basque laborers." The railroad closed the camp in 1976.

Later years to abandonment

The Edward Hines Lumber Company owned and operated the railroad for many decades. In 1962, the mill reached a peak in lumber production— that year—as well as in payroll, but employees held strikes later that decade, and the lumber market began to decline in the 1970s. By December 1981, demand for lumber had sharply decreased; the company was transporting logs at only one quarter of capacity and was employing just 12 workers for the railroad. At the time, the company employed a total of 229 people, which was nearly four times fewer than its high of 900; many had been laid off in 1980. The railroad went out of service in March 1984 because of damage to the Oregon Eastern Branch from the flooding of

Malheur Lake Malheur Lake is one of the lakes in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located about southeast of Burns, the lake is marsh fed by the Donner und Blitzen River from the south and the Silvies River ...

and because it was no longer profitable for the lumber company. In 1990, the railroad was completely abandoned and lost its common carrier status. Four years later, in 1994, the railroad's tunnel, which had not been used since 1984, was closed to public use because its ceiling was beginning to collapse. Although its tracks were not well built, most of the railroad has been well preserved.

References

External links

*
Historic photos of the lumber mill in Hines
from the Harney County Library
Photos of old boxcars
by Richard Gibson {{Oregon railroads 1928 establishments in Oregon 1990 disestablishments in Oregon Defunct Oregon railroads Logging railroads in the United States Railway lines closed in 1990 Railway lines opened in 1928 Transportation in Grant County, Oregon Transportation in Harney County, Oregon