Rails To Paradise

RAILS IN THE NEWS

Timber Times Magazine Spring 2006 edition

Rails to Paradise
The History of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad (1890-1919)
Russell H. Holter and
Jesse Clark McAbee
8-1/2 x 11, 538 pages, hardbound. ISBN# 0-9776176-0-2. Price $64.95 + s/h.
Russell Holter
PO Box 1805
Tacoma WA 98401
www.railstoparadise.com

It’s been said that the timber industry built the Northwest. If that’s the case, the Tacoma Eastern Railroad and its affiliates are fine examples of that assertion.

Beginning life in the 1880s as a modest and rather primitive logging tram, The Tacoma Eastern Railroad of Pierce County, Washington eventually rose to play a crucial role in the development of western Washington State. At the time of the railroad’s inception, the new city of Tacoma, Washington was really nothing more than a rainy, muddy "stump town." Transportation was difficult at best, and the problem of getting logs to mill was in need of a solution.

Enter John and George Hart, two enterprising brothers who sought to make their fortunes in the lumber business in Tacoma. By 1890, they had realized that they needed a railroad to bring logs to their growing sawmill. After measured success using a wood-railed horse-drawn tram, the brothers elected to go with steam power. With a few miles of right-of-way secured, a secondhand 4-4-0 locomotive and a handful of flatcars, the Tacoma Eastern Railroad was born.

The Hart brothers struggled constantly to keep their railroad alive. As determined as they were, their complex and often "shady" financing of the railroad, and the terrible financial panic of 1893 proved their undoing and their fledgling lumber dream died.
John Bagley, a highly-successful lumberman from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, arrived on the scene and saw potential in the remains of the Harts’ operation. This colorful and inventive character was responsible for reviving and expanding the operation into a formidable player in the Northwest timber industry. The common carrier Tacoma Eastern hauled tremendous quantities of logs and lumber (and many passengers) over its eventual length of 99 miles south and east of Tacoma, fed by the many logging operations that sprang up along its route.

With a fleet of 14 locomotives and over 1,200 cars, the Tacoma Eastern was destined to become an enviable operation.

For most of its life, the railroad was heavily influenced by the Milwaukee Road, and was fully absorbed into that system in 1919. It continued hauling timber and lumber for decades.

This is one beautiful and impressive book and it’s big! Within its 538 carefully-researched, well-written and lavishly-illustrated pages is enough history to satisfy the hungriest Northwest railroad and logging nut; and it’s a welcome addition to this sparsely-covered yet important segment of Washington State history.

The authors chose a unique yet successful approach to the book’s organization by splitting it into two sections; the first (Russell Holter’s) being the history of the railroad proper, the second (Clark McAbee’s) that of the logging operations and sawmills that gave the railroad a reason to exist. The approximately 500 photographs are very well reproduced and are accompanied by excellent maps and diagrams. The documentation is impressive with rosters, footnotes and such.

You’ll want to clear a nice wide space on your bookshelf for this one. PHS

Rails took thousands to Paradise

PETER CALLAGHAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: March 12th, 2006 01:00 AM

The partnership that led to the newly released history of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad began when Russ Holter saw Clark McAbee hanging around a locomotive behind Freighthouse Square.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Holter shouted. McAbee explained that he was taking pictures of the engine so that he could build a model.

“How’d you like to go for a ride?” Holter asked. He was a conductor of what was called the Tacoma Eastern Railway in the mid-1990s. It operated the line toward Frederickson and beyond under contract with the City of Tacoma.

That short ride matched two men who love trains and love history. Their paths crossed frequently over the next several years until eventually, in late 2003, they decided to write a comprehensive history of the line that opened up southeast Pierce County and east Lewis County and delivered thousands of tourists to Mount Rainier.

“Clark sat at my table and said, ‘I want to read this before I die. Get to work,’” Holter recalled.

The result is “Rails to Paradise: The History of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad 1890-1919,” a massive book with more than 400 photos. It’s really two books – Holter’s history of the railroad and McAbee’s story of the logging operations that gave it birth.

Lots of people knew how the railroad ended, how it was taken over by the Milwaukee Road in 1909 and finally absorbed by the transcontinental line after World War I. How it began, however, was a mystery. Early records had been lost in a huge Tacoma fire in 1906.

Luck and curiosity took over when Holter took a job surveying historic properties damaged by the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. One of the buildings was the Temple of Justice in Olympia, and Holter spent his lunch hours exploring the reference books in the state law library, including reports of cases decided by the court. The first book he opened described a 1900 lawsuit involving the newly formed railroad, including a description of its founding.

“I had hit the mother lode,” Holter said. “I knew I had information no one else had and that I’d be the one to write the book.”

A small line had been built by John and George Hart to serve their lumber mill in what was called Bismark, now the east Tacoma neighborhood of Hillsdale. The line began in 1890 from a mill in Tacoma and climbed the gulch east of the Tacoma Dome and through McKinley near where Holter lives.

The point was to reach the timber lands owned by the Harts and feed their mills with logs. After the depression of 1893 left the Harts broke, the property was bought by investors led by John Bagley. He had the know-how and the money to extend it quickly into the timber stands around spots we now know as Midland, Frederickson, Graham, Ohop, Eatonville, LaGrande, Elbe and Morton. Others locales served by the T&E – such as Harvard, Hills, Harding, Holz, Haskins and Hewitt – have faded, and those are just the H’s.

Collectively, the towns served by the railroad became known as the Tacoma Eastern Area.

“They all had aspirations and founders with hopes that they would grow,” Holter said.

The line connected the timber lands, the mills, the coal fields and the brick yards that were either owned by the railroad men or owned by others willing to pay to get their goods to Tacoma and beyond via rails and ships.

Later, the managers realized there was a market for tourists who wanted to reach the new national park. The T&E built the National Park Inn and ran excursions from Tacoma into the park. By 1913, 120,065 passengers rode to Park Junction and Ashford.

McAbee said the turning point was a national convention of more than 1,000 mountaineers from around the county in 1905. On one day during the gathering, 61 climbers reached the summit.

“That put the T&E on the map,” McAbee said.

After taking over and discarding the Tacoma Eastern name, the Milwaukee Road continued to promote the tourist trade. But the motorcar became the preferred method to the mountain, and scheduled service ended in 1932.

Most of the depots built by the railroad are gone, including the Arts and Crafts-style station at 26th and A streets in Tacoma. Only the Morton depot remains.

Today the right of way is owned by Tacoma. The Belt Line serves the remaining industries and mills from Frederickson to Morton. But there are still hopes that passenger service can be restored to the Paradise Valley Route to Park Junction if enough money can be found to restore the tracks.

Will modern park visitors ride a train to the mountain?

“They did it 100 years ago. They’ll do it now,” Holter said.

To learn more

What: Russell Holter and Jesse Clark McAbee will speak about their book, “Rails to Paradise,” and show slides at a meeting of the Tacoma Historical Society.

When: Monday, 7 p.m.

Where: Tacoma campus of Bates Technical College, 1101 S. Yakima Ave.

Online: www.railsto paradise.com

Phone: 360-748-0831

Authors Russell Holter and Jesse Clark McAbee presented a lecture and book signing event Saturday, March 4, in Mineral. The pair has recently published Rails To Paradise about early railroading between Tacoma and Mount Rainier.

The presentation was given in the grand fireplace room of the Mineral Lake Lodge. Innkeepers Ron and Ramona Sheppard welcomed nearly 30 guests to their splendidly refurbished lodge.

The historic lodge was the perfect setting to unveil the new [500+] page book on pre-WWI railroading and logging in the area. Holter and McAbee have produced an excellent book, lavishly illustrated with vintage photographs capturing scenes of a century ago along the Tacoma and Eastern Railroad.

An hour long slide show featured many photographs collected from sources along the railroad, which was built between 1890 and [1910]. Several local families contributed heirloom images including sources in Mineral, Morton, Eatonville, and Kapowsin.

Copies of the new book are available in the gift shop at the Mineral Lake Lodge.

After three straight years of business classes, Russell Holter (Business Administration ’98) was looking for a change of pace.

He enrolled in IAS Professor Michael Sullivan’s course on the history of Tacoma—and ended up changing his direction in life. Once determined to pursue a career in Marketing, Holter rediscovered his love of history and embarked on a fascinating new occupation.

“I’ve always been a history buff, and after I took that class, I realized that I was just no longer a business guy,” he said.

Now a compliance reviewer for the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation in Olympia, Holter assesses federally-funded projects to ensure that they abide by federal rules regarding archaeology and historic building preservation. It’s a job that’s allowed his to explore his love of history and has given him the chance to co-author a self-published book about the history of an important Tacoma railroad line.

Rails To Paradise: The History of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad, 1890-1919, published this year, examines the history of the railroad that still runs from Freighthouse Square to Mt. Rainier. Once a popular passenger line for travelers to the mountain, the rail line was crucial to the development of Mt. Rainier National Park, Holter said.

Holter said he enjoys his job. “I get to see really cool buildings and they pay me to do it!” he said.

Russell Holter’s book is available in the UWT Library.