Klamath Heritage: Steam Engine with Lumber

Steam engine with lumber, c. 1910. Klamath County Museum

Klamath County Museum’s Photo of the Week for January 13, 2019, shows a steam-powered tractor making its way along Spring Street near the Southern Pacific train station in Klamath Falls.

The Southern Pacific passenger depot – which now serves as the Amtrak station – was built shortly after the railroad arrived in Klamath Falls in 1909. The lack of buildings in the Mills Addition neighborhood, seen in the background at right, suggests a date of around 1910 for this photo. The white line seen about a half-mile distant in the background is the A canal, which had been excavated in 1906.

A couple of smaller hills seen in the background are the “chalk hill” behind Ponderosa Junior High and the slightly higher hill above Beverly Drive, off Foothills Boulevard. Hogback is the higher mountain seen on the horizon.

The steam engine would not have traveled very fast, but it would have had plenty of power to pull three wagon loads of lumber. The boards on each of the wagons are tied down by a pair of chains. To tighten the chains, workers would place one end of a timber beneath each chain atop the load, place a block under the timber, and pull down on the far end of the timber. The timbers from opposite ends of the wagon would be bound together to keep them from lifting back up.

The lumber seen here may have been headed for transfer to a rail car for shipment out. The arrival of the railroad set Klamath Falls up for its boom period in the 1910s and ’20s, with dozens of lumber mills springing up around the Basin. Most of the larger mills were strategically located to have their own rail spurs.

Information provided from the Klamath County Museum.