Oregon Pony

Last updated
Oregon Pony
Oregon Historical Quarterly Vol. 25 p. 238.jpg
Type and origin
Power typeSteam
Builder Vulcan Iron Works of San Francisco, CA
Build date1861
Specifications
Configuration:
​
 •  Whyte 0-4-0
Gauge 5 foot
Driver dia.34 in (0.864 m)
Wheelbase Coupled: Front axle gear driven from both cylinders
Length14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
Width10 ft 9 in (3.28 m)
Height15 ft 4+1⁄2 in (4.69 m)
Loco weight16,000 pounds (7.3 tonnes; 7.1 long tons)
Fuel typewood
Boiler pressure130 psi ???
Cylinders Two, outside
Cylinder size 9 in × 18 in (229 mm × 457 mm)
Train heatingSteam heat
Career
Operators Oregon Portage Railway, Oregon Steam Navigation Co.
First run1862
Retired1873 (stored until 1904)
Restored1904, 1981
Current owner State of Oregon
DispositionEnvironmentally controlled static display at the Cascade Locks Historical Museum in Cascade Locks, Oregon

The Oregon Pony was the first steam locomotive to be built on the Pacific Coast and the first to be used in the Oregon Territory. [1] The locomotive, a gear-driven steam 5' gauge locomotive with 9"X18" cylinders and 34" drivers, [2] was used in the early 1860s to portage steamboat passengers and goods past the Cascades Rapids, a dangerous stretch of the Columbia River now drowned by the Bonneville Dam. Steamboats provided transportation on the Columbia between Portland, Oregon and mining areas in Idaho and the Columbia Plateau. Portage was also necessary at other Columbia River navigation obstructions, including Celilo Falls. [3]

Contents

San Francisco's Vulcan Iron Works built the wood-burning engine in 1861 for $4,000. [2] The design of the Oregon portage locomotives (three were ordered at the time [4] ) used a return flue boiler (with the stack projecting up from the cab roof), an outside frame, and four coupled driving wheels. At least one of the engines of the Market Street Railroad used a near-identical design. Weighing only 8 tons and only 14.5 feet long, the Oregon Pony arrived in Oregon in 1862 [3] on the steamer Pacific, and made her initial run on May 10, 1862, with engineer Theodore A. Goffe at the throttle, who had supervised her construction and assembly. [5] It replaced flat cars running on rails, equipped with benches for passengers and pulled by mules for 4.5 miles over iron-reinforced wooden rails for the Oregon Portage Railway. Shortly after the Oregon Pony was put into service, canopies were added to protect the passengers and their goods from the hot, sooty water that rained down on everything as the locomotive operates. The engine moved nearly 200 tons a day on the rail route between the Cascades and Bonneville. [1] Portage owners Ruckel and Olmstead received $20 per ton for transporting freight from one end of their portage to the other. Forty cubic feet by measurement counted as one ton.

There is no record of when the two similar but larger Oregon Ponies built by the Vulcan Iron Works arrived, or which of the three portage railroads they were initially assigned to, the Oregon side at The Cascades, the Washington side at The Cascades, or the 14-mile section on the Oregon side 41 miles upriver, between The Dalles and Celilo Falls. It is believed these two locomotives were named "Ann" and "Betsy". The various accounts all show April 1863 as the completion date for all three portage railroads.

The railway was bought by Oregon Steam Navigation Company (OSN). April 20, 1863 was the date the “Oregon Pony” made its last run on the Cascades portage. [6] The company consolidated its Cascades rail portage monopoly on the Washington side of the Columbia River and moved the Oregon Pony on May 11, 1863, to The Dalles, where it may have been used for portages around Celilo Falls. [3] There is no evidence that the “Pony” ever actually operated on the Celilo portage.

In 1866, OSN sold the locomotive (for $2,000) to the Steam Paddy Company and it was shipped out of Portland on the Steamship Montana on October 18, 1866. It was returned to San Francisco for work filling and grading the streets of that city. It worked there until 1873, thereafter being stored in a warehouse. After the Oregon Pony was damaged in a 1904 warehouse fire, the owner, David Hewes, partially restored it and donated it to the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon. Col. Henry Dosch of Portland worked as a timekeeper for Hewes in San Francisco and discovered the “Oregon Pony” in use there. He was instrumental in having it brought to Portland for exhibition at the Lewis and Clark Fair in 1905.

It was displayed at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition and afterward at the Albina Railyard. In 1931, the Oregon Pony was moved to Portland Union Station when a suitable pedestal was erected in front of the recently remodeled station. It was repainted, and displayed outside. It was borrowed by the Cenaqua Celebration at Vancouver, Wash. From August 7 to 13, 1950. [6]

It was returned to Cascade Locks in 1970. [7] The Port of Cascade Locks funded a 1981 restoration (back to its 1905 appearance; restored by Gales Creek Enterprises) and built a permanent, covered display. [3] This restoration replaced the 1904 wooden timber frame and canopy, and was thorough and complete, but did not result in an operating artifact.

The Oregon Pony is currently owned by the State of Oregon and is preserved in a climate controlled exhibition chamber next to the Cascade Locks Historical Museum at the Marine Park, Cascade Locks. [1] In February 2016, Trains Magazine reported that the Union Pacific Railroad donated $10,000 for shelter restoration for the Oregon Pony. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbia River Gorge</span> Canyon along the border of Oregon and Washington in the United States

The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep, the canyon stretches for over eighty miles (130 km) as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range, forming the boundary between the state of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south. Extending roughly from the confluence of the Columbia with the Deschutes River in the east down to the eastern reaches of the Portland metropolitan area, the water gap furnishes the only navigable route through the Cascades and the only water connection between the Columbia Plateau and the Pacific Ocean. It is thus that the routes of Interstate 84, U.S. Route 30, Washington State Route 14, and railroad tracks on both sides run through the gorge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cascades Rapids</span> Former area of rapids along the Columbia River, USA

The Cascades Rapids were an area of rapids along North America's Columbia River, between the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. Through a stretch approximately 150 yards (140 m) wide, the river dropped about 40 feet (12 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km). These rapids or cascades, along with the many cascades along the Columbia River Gorge in this area of Oregon and Washington, gave rise to the name for the surrounding mountains: the Cascade Range.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company</span> Railway company

The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of 1,143 miles (1,839 km) running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Steam Navigation Company</span>

The Oregon Steam Navigation Company (O.S.N.) was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen. It was incorporated in Washington because of a lack of corporate laws in Oregon, though it paid Oregon taxes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steamboats of the Columbia River</span>

Many steamboats operated on the Columbia River and its tributaries, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, from about 1850 to 1981. Major tributaries of the Columbia that formed steamboat routes included the Willamette and Snake rivers. Navigation was impractical between the Snake River and the Canada–US border, due to several rapids, but steamboats also operated along the Wenatchee Reach of the Columbia, in northern Washington, and on the Arrow Lakes of southern British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cascade Locks and Canal</span> United States historic place

The Cascade Locks and Canal was a navigation project on the Columbia River between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, completed in 1896. It allowed the steamboats of the Columbia River to bypass the Cascades Rapids, and thereby opened a passage from the lower parts of the river as far as The Dalles. The locks were submerged and rendered obsolete in 1938, when the Bonneville Dam was constructed, along with a new set of locks, a short way downstream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celilo Canal</span> Columbia River bypass

Celilo Canal was a canal in Oregon connecting two points of the Columbia River, just east of The Dalles.

<i>Hassalo</i> (1880 sternwheeler)

The steamboat Hassalo operated from 1880 to 1898 on the Columbia River and Puget Sound. Hassalo became famous for running the Cascades of the Columbia on May 26, 1888 at a speed approaching 60 miles (97 km) an hour. This vessel should not be confused with other steamboats with the same or a similar name, including Hassalo (1899) and Hassaloe (1857).

<i>Oneonta</i> (sidewheeler)

The Oneonta was a sidewheel steamboat that operated on the Columbia River from 1863 to 1877.

<i>R. R. Thompson</i> (sternwheeler)

R. R. Thompson was a large sternwheel steamboat designed in the classic Columbia River style. She was named after Robert R. Thompson, one of the shareholders of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, the firm that built the vessel.

<i>Colonel Wright</i> (sternwheeler)

The Colonel Wright was the first steamboat to operate on the Columbia River above The Dalles in the parts of the Oregon Country that later became the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. She was the first steamboat to run on the Snake River. She was named after Colonel George Wright, an army commander in the Indian Wars in the Oregon Country in the 1850s. She was generally called the Wright during her operating career.

<i>Nez Perce Chief</i> (sternwheeler)

Nez Perce Chief was a steamboat that operated on the upper Columbia River, in Washington, U.S., specifically the stretch of the river that began above the Celilo Falls. Her engines came from the Carrie Ladd, an important earlier sternwheeler. Nez Perce Chief also ran up the Snake River to Lewiston, Idaho, a distance of 141 miles from the mouth of the Snake River near Wallula, Wash. Terr.

Belle of Oregon City North American iron steamboat

The Belle of Oregon City, generally referred to as Belle, was built in 1853, and was the first iron steamboat built on the west coast of North America.

<i>Charles R. Spencer</i> Steamboat that plied rivers in the Pacific Northwest, and once collided with another boat

Charles R. Spencer was a steamboat built in 1901 to run on the Willamette and Columbia rivers from Portland, to The Dalles, Oregon. This vessel was described as an "elegant passenger boat". After 1911 this vessel was rebuilt and renamed Monarch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Portage Railroad</span>

The Oregon Portage Railroad was the first railroad in the U.S. state of Oregon. It was located on the south bank of the Cascades canal of the Columbia River.

<i>Teaser</i> (sternwheeler) Steamboat

Teaser was a steamboat which ran on the Columbia River and Puget Sound from 1874 to 1880.

<i>Harvest Queen</i> (sternwheeler)

Harvest Queen was the name of two stern-wheel steamboat built and operated in Oregon. Both vessels were well known in their day and had reputations for speed, power, and efficiency.The first Harvest Queen, widely considered one of the finest steamers of its day, was constructed at Celilo, Oregon, which was then separated from the other portions of the navigable Columbia River by two stretches of difficult to pass rapids.

<i>Regulator</i> (sternwheeler)

Regulator was a sternwheel-driven steamboat built in 1891 which operated on the Columbia River until 1906, when it was destroyed by explosion which killed two of its crew, while on the ways undergoing an overhaul at St. Johns, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">People's Transportation Company</span>

The People's Transportation Company operated steamboats on the Willamette River and its tributaries, the Yamhill and Tualatin rivers, in the State of Oregon from 1862 to 1871. For a brief time this company operated steamers on the Columbia River, and for about two months in 1864, the company operated a small steamer on the Clackamas River.

<i>Relief</i> (1906 sternwheeler)

Relief was a stern-wheel steamboat that operated on the Columbia and Willamette rivers and their tributaries from 1906 to 1931. Relief had been originally built in 1902, on the Columbia at Blalock, Oregon, in Gilliam County, and launched and operated as Columbia, a much smaller vessel. Relief was used primarily as a freight carrier, first for about ten years in the Inland Empire region of Oregon and Washington, hauling wheat and fruit, and after that was operated on the lower Columbia river.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Cascade Locks Historical Museum & Oregon Pony". Port of Cascade Locks. 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
  2. 1 2 "Other Geared Steam Locomotives - Page STUV". Geared Steam Locomotive Works. 2010-05-30. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Tucker, Kathy (2010-05-29). "Oregon Pony". The Oregon Encyclopedia. Portland State University. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
  4. ↑ "Oregon Ponies".
  5. ↑ Abdill, George A. (1958). This Was Railroading. Seattle, WA: Superior Publishing Company. p. 11. ASIN   B003W03I4U.
  6. 1 2 https://pnwc-nrhs.org/Trainmaster1962/TM-1962-02.pdf
  7. ↑ https://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/trainmaster_special_editions/Oregon_Pony.pdf
  8. ↑ "Union Pacific donates to help build 'Oregon Pony' a new shelter" . Trains Magazine . 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-16.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.