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Early Attempts to Reach Grays Harbor by Rail
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Prior the arrival of the NP, other attempts to tap the rich timber
resources of Grays Harbor with rail service had been attempted.
One of the most notable attempts was begun by the Oregon & Washington
Territory (O&WT) Railroad. The OW&T was led by George Washington Hunt,
of Walla Walla, Washington, but the primary financial backer of the
line was C. B. Wright, an NP director.
The O&WT was a small railroad serving the grain-producing region
of Southeastern Washington and owed much of its success to indirect
support from the NP. At this time the NP was involved in a
complicated legal battle with the UP over this region and the NP
backed the OW&T in order to gain a foothold into UP territory.
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The degree of control which the NP held over the O&WT is unclear, but
by the summer of 1889 the O&WT was making plans to reach Grays Harbor.
Newly platted lots in Grays Harbor City, none less than $500, were
quickly sold and a 6,600-foot trestle was erected out over the mud flats
into the harbor. The population in nearby Hoquiam increased from 400
to 1500 nearly overnight. Unfortunately, primarily due to questionable
legal actions brought by the NP, the road was never completed and the
O&WT fell into receivership. This failure was in spite of a
pledged $750,000 subsidy to support construction was promised by the
residents of Grays Harbor City, Hoquiam, Aberdeen, and Montesano.
Grays Harbor City never recovered. Shortly after the
failure of the O&WT, the town was deserted with many of the
buildings being moved on barges to Hoquiam.
While Hunt was planning the O&WT rail line to Grays Harbor, early in 1887,
the Puget Sound & Grays Harbor (PS&GH) railroad was organized by the
owners of the Port Blakely Mill company. This line was
projected to run from Kamilche on the southern tip of Puget
Sound to Grays Harbor passing through Elma and Montesano. By 1889
the PS&GH stretched from Kamilche to Montesano, thus placing
the railroad within ten miles of Grays Harbor.
The PS&GH was a small, primarily logging, railroad with 5 locomotives,
3 passenger cars, 8 general freight cars, and 72 logging cars,
however much of it's right of way followed a route to Grays Harbor that
the NP desired.
Just as the PS&GH was in it's infancy, the Tacoma, Olympia &
Grays Harbor
(TO&GH) was formed as a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific on May 7, 1890.
The goal of the TO&GH was to reach Grays Harbor from the NP's Pacific
terminus in Tacoma. Shortly after it's formation, the TO&GH purchased the
portion of the PS&GH between Elma and Montesano. By late 1891
the TO&GH was operating trains between Tacoma and Montesano and
was negotiating with town leaders and land owners on Grays Harbor.
Prior to this point, a group of investors formed another railroad
company the Tacoma, Olympia, & Pacific (TO&P) on July 25, 1889.
The publicly-stated goal of this company was to build a rail
line to a new town on Grays Harbor, Ocosta, from the NP terminus
in Tacoma. Realistically, this company, along with several other
paper railroads of the day, was formed to provide an attractive
package to the NP. And the TO&P was indeed attractive to the NP.
Shortly after the NP formed the TO&GH, the TO&P holdings in Ocosta
were purchased.
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A Grays Harbor Railroad Terminus is Chosen
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As the end of the tumultuous 1880's was reached, the NP was within
10 miles of Grays Harbor and had purchased the land needed to build
a terminus on Grays Harbor. But it still was not clear, at least
to the residents on Grays Harbor, where the NP would build it's
terminus. This became the big question of the day as the tiny mill
towns vied for the privilege. Contemporary readers would guess one
of the existing mill towns of Aberdeen, Hoquiam, or perhaps
Cosmopolis, but to understand why the NP chose Ocosta it is
useful to digress for a moment and look at how the NP behaved in
anther small town a few years earlier.
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East of the Cascades, in what was then Washington Territory,
the NP planned to run the Cascade line though Yakima City. However,
the NP engineers were not at all satisfied with the depot
location mandated by the city. The ground was marshy, was
inconvenient to business interests and the railroad had little
control over surrounding property. Given these conditions the
NP decided to locate its depot facilities north of Yakima City
in a new town site called North Yakima. While the citizens of
Yakima attempted to fight this action, the NP offered to move
buildings free of charge and give free building lots to those who
would move to North Yakima. Soon a substantial portion of Yakima
City moved and the NP had solved its depot-location problem.
Given the NP's history in communities like Yakima City it should
come as no surprise that in 1890 colonel F.D. Heustis, the NP's
building contractor for the Grays Harbor line, announced that the NP
would bypass the existing towns of Grays Harbor to create a new town,
which would serve as the line's terminus. The new town was grandly named
Ocosta-by-the-Sea, but was normally called Ocosta. This
announcement was met with a flurry of land speculation and on
May 1, 1890 some 300 building lots were sold for a total of
$100,000.
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As early as 1891, the NP had second thoughts about Ocosta. It
offered, on September 24, 1891, to build a line into Aberdeen
if the city would donate depot ground, build a depot costing
no less than $2500 and donate the right of way through streets
and private property. The city did not accept the offer.
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Grays Harbor Finally Gets a Railroad
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NP records show that the line to Ocosta was completed in
1892. However, shortly after the line was completed the
devastating financial panic of 1893 coupled with a lack of
expected federal funds to deepen the harbor near Ocosta and
a large labor strike spelled trouble for the Ocosta terminus.
In 1893, the NP was back in Aberdeen with another offer to build
a spur into the town. However this time the NP had just floated
a $12,000,000 bond issue under the terms of an agreement that there
would be no new construction. To work around this limitation
the NP asked Aberdeen to pay the cost of building the line,
estimated at $35,000, for which the NP would reimburse those
who provided the financing with a 50% rebate on freight charges.
The city met to consider the offer but decided that it could
not raise the money and once again turned down the proposal.
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Grit and Determination
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Rather than accept the NP's offer to reimburse construction
costs, the citizens of Aberdeen instead decided to build the spur
into Aberdeen themselves. When completed they planned to
turn the line over to the NP.
Most of the Aberdeen extension had been graded by the NP prior to the
financial panic of 1893, but the methods used to build the Aberdeen
spur were downright amazing.
Much of the rail for this two-mile extension was salvaged from the
British bark Abercorn, which had sunk at the entrance to Grays Harbor
in June of 1888. The rails had lain in salt water for nearly six
years and local folklore says that one could tell when a train
reached Aberdeen simply by the sound of the wheels on the rails pitted
by salt water.
Three local mill owners, Weatherwax, West and Wilson, donated
ties and the town's founder, Samuel Benn, donated building lots
to any man who would give 10 days labor or ten days pay at two
dollars per day. Accounts of this construction tell of a
town driven to succeed. Young men were given time off from
school to work on the line and the whole town would turn out on
weekends.
The line was completed to the east edge of Aberdeen and on
April 1, 1895 the first train steamed into Aberdeen to the sounds
of a welcoming, brass band.
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The NP Finally Reaches the Industrial Centers
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Nearly four years later, on October 21, 1898, the NP extended the
line over the Wishkah river, through central
Aberdeen and on to Hoquiam.
The 4.6 mile extension largely replacing the plank road
that had been built between 1888 and 1890.
The Hoquiam extension was financed with a construction loan
from the Grays Harbor Company, which on occasion used the
name "Grays Harbor Northern Railroad" to secure construction
estimates without divulging to contractors their relationship
with the NP. The Grays Harbor Company was comprised
of Henry Heermans and George Emerson, both of Hoquiam, along with
Heermans' long-time friend and business parter from Duluth,
Minnesota Chester Congdon.
The Grays Harbor Company's construction loan was to cover the
costs of preparing the roadbed for the laying of rails, including
the cost of bridges over the Wishkah and Hoquiam Rivers. The loan was
to be repaid, with 3% interest, out of non-lumber gross earnings
from this extension.
When Hoquiam was reached the many mills and industries
along the waterfront in Aberdeen and Hoquiam were accessible to
the NP. The success of this line can be viewed in the traffic
data for 1900 shown below.
| Station |
Tons forwarded |
Tons received |
Passengers |
| Cosmpopolis |
26,872 |
2,590 |
2,492 |
| Ocosta |
2,176 |
917 |
1,452 |
| Hoquiam |
27,446 |
18,261 |
11,450 |
| Aberdeen |
8,357 |
37,820 |
18,312 |
The largest harbor mills, located in Cosmopolis and Hoquiam,
were the major shippers primarily producing lumber and
shingles, while Aberdeen, being the largest population
center on Grays Harbor, was the primary receiver of freight.
Although Aberdeen had several small sawmills it also had
several other industries served by rail. A gas works,
a shipyard, a flour mill, a slaughter house, and a hardware
outlet (logging supplies) each had a rail siding and account for
a significant share of freight received.
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Subsequent Construction
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By 1909 Ocosta had nearly withered and the UP finally arrived on Grays
Harbor. The Oregon and Washington Railroad, a subsidiary of the UP,
shared a line with the Milwaukee Road to Grays Harbor along south side of
the Chehalis River valley, roughly paralleling the NP line on
the north side of the valley. The UP, however, learned from the
NP blunder in Ocosta and ran their line directly to Aberdeen.
Joint facilities were constructed in both Aberdeen and
Hoquiam with a small engine-servicing facility in Hoquiam.
Construction continued through Hoquiam towards the Pacific. In 1905
the line terminated in Moclips, a small beach resort, which became
a moderately successful summer vacation spot for people in the larger
cities on Puget Sound. In addition to the tourist traffic, this 27.8 mile
extension, carried logs to the harbor mills from areas which
could not be reached via rivers.
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Appendices
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Notable Locomotives used on the Grays Harbor Line
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Most of this material has been graciously provided by Lorenz P. Schrenk.
First Locomotive to Serve Ocosta
When the first train arrived in Ocosta it was pulled by locomotive
number 99, an American Standard built by Baldwin in October of
1881. It was one of 47 Baldwin 4-4-0's with 17x24-inch cylinders
and 62-inch drivers that the NP ordered between 1879 and 1882. These
locomotives were called "Old Standards" to differentiate them from
another series of 4-4-0's ordered from Baldwin in late 1882 and
1883. Number 99 was renumbered 852 in 1897 and was sold to the
Sierra Railway in July 1898. It became Sierra's number 4 and
in 1917 was sold to the Pickering Lumber Company in Standard
California. Renumbered 14, it served Pickering until 1938 when
it was scrapped.
First Locommotive to Serve Aberdeen
Train number 115 was the first train to serve Aberdeen. It was
pulled by another Old Standard, number 114. The engineer was
A.L. Wood and the conductor was John Stamper. This
locomotive was build by Baldwin in March 1892. It was renumbered
in 1897 to 853, Class C-1 and was sold to the Sierra Railway as
their number 6 in April 1899. In 1922 it was sold to the
Atlas-Olympia Company in Atlas, California. It was scrapped
in 1937.
Minnetonka / Old Betsy
One of the first four locomotives purchased by the Northern Pacific
was named Minnetonka. It was purchased from Smith & Porter in
1870 to be used for construction work.
Minnetonka was shipped to the West Coast in October 1871 for use
during construction in Western Washington and when this construction
was completed Minnetonka was sold in 1886 B.P. Turner of Olympia,
Washington, for use in lumbering operations. It was resold in 1889 to
the Port Blakely Mill Co. and used to build the line between Kamilche
and Montesano. It was resold in 1895 or early 1896 to the Polson
Brothers Logging Company at Hoquiam, Washington, and used in logging
service until 1928 when it was set out on a spur in the woods. It was
nicknamed Old Betsy during its career at Polson.
In 1932, whil preparing to participate in the Century of Progress
Exposition at Chicago in 1933-1934, the NP desired to reacquire
Minnetonka to use as part of the transportation show. The show
featured early and modern engines actually running across the stage.
The NP traded Class F-1 2-8-0 No. 51 to Polson for Minnetonka. The
Minnetonka was rebuilt and shipped to St. Paul by flatcar. No. 1 was
painted on the engine during this period. The engine was then exhibited
at the Chicago Fair. Later, Minnetonka was sent to Duluth and put on
display indoors at the Lake Superior Museum of Transportation.
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