City of Prineville Railway

Taken from
Cascade East - Fall 1986

While morning mist still hangs over Ochoco Creek, a train rumbles down the tracks beside it. The whistle blows over and over as the orange cars move slowly east towards a sawmill and waiting lumber.

It is like that every weekday morning in Prineville, and has been like that for a half century. It is the mill that is a half century old; the railroad is older.

The railroad is owned by the city of Prineville itself. It was built by the city many years ago in a way that typifies what we call "the pioneer spirit." The City of Prineville Railway itself is not typical of anything. In a report issued in 1985, the Interstate Commerce Commission called it "the only example in the United States of a railroad which was developed and has been wholly-owned and operated over a substantial period of time by a municipality."

It all began shortly after the turn of the century, when the presence of a railroad could mean prosperity to a town or region, and the absence of one could mean extinction.

In those days, there was only one big town in Central Oregon: Prineville. Bend was one among dozens of small villages. Others included Powell Butte, Paulina. Sisters, Willoughby, Ochoco, Terrebonne and La Monta. Redmond and Madras did not exist.

PrineviIle was a cattle town of about a thousand people. Located on the banks of Crooked River and Ochoco Creek beneath ancient rimrocks, it was a green oasis in a land of sagebrush and juniper. Farmers and ranchers from a hundred miles in every direction went to Prineville for their supplies and their entertainment. It was the seat of Crook County, which then covered all of Central Oregon. and the location of the only high school in the region.

All that Prineville lacked to secure is future was a railroad. There were many schemes to attract one, but nothing ever came of them. All anyone could do was wait and hope that eventually some railroad mogul would take an interest in Central Oregon.

After the failure of numerous efforts to attract railroads, it was suggested at a city council meeting in February 1916, that the city build a railroad from Prineville to the main line, 19 miles away ( see map ).

By a 358-1 vote, Prineville's citizens endorsed the plan. Although the projected cost was a whopping $100,000, they believed that it was the only way to save the town from extinction.

Despite volunteer labor, despite food and wagons provided free by farmers, war prices forced the construction costs above $300,000. Enthusiasm for the project declined, but workers continued building the tracks.

The 19 miles of rail ( see map ) were laid from Prineville to a place on the main line ever after known as Prineville Junction, near Redmond. Depots were built in both Prineville and Prineville Junction. An office, shop and cattle pens were built at the Prineville depot, a tall, single-story building on North Main Street. Sidings were constructed at O'Neil and Wilton, hamlets west of town.

Both freight and passenger service were underway by 1918. Prineville celebrated.

But the railway barely survived infancy. After the war, the popularity of motor transportation cut passenger use so badly that it was eventually dropped. Freight use was halved by the Depression. The railway would have gone bankrupt if it had been privately owned. The city at one time was in default on interest of $120,000 on a $385,000 bond debt incurred for the railway. But the city to back the railway, confide someday sawmills would be built in Prineville to tap the area's timber, which included the largest stand of Ponderosa pine in America.

And mills did come eventually. Ochoco Lumber Co. and Alexander-Yawkey Lumber Co. moved into Prineville in 1938. The Hudspeth family, operating in adjoining Wheeler County, began shipping lumber out by the little railway after first trucking it into Prineville. Eventually, the Hudspeths moved into Prineville, where they established several mills and became the largest producer of yellow pine in the United States. The big mills saved the little railroad. Indeed, when the railroad was falling apart because of lack of maintenance, it was the mills which rescued it. They needed the railroad as much as the railroad needed them. In 1946, the mills loaned the city money for the construction of new tracks of heavier rail. They also insisted upon hiring a professional railroad man as manager.

The railroad turned a profit in 1946 and continues to do so.

Although the principal function of the railroad has been to give the mills a means of transporting their goods to market- thereby securing jobs for townspeople - dividends from the City of Prineville Railway have had many other benefits also.

For many years, Prineville called itself "The City of No City Taxes." It was the only incorporated town in the United States that collected no taxes. The railway paid all costs of city government.

The railway paid - totally or in part for a lot of other things in Prineville, too. City Hall, for example, was built with railroad money. Railroad money also went into a modern street lighting system, the city swimming pool, a modern sewage disposal system, park and recreation facilities and the high quality paving of almost all of Prineville's streets. The ICC reports latter cost was especially expensive because of the unusual width of Prineville's streets.

Early in 1986, the Prineville Railway loaned a private company $100,000 to build a new mouldtrig mill in Prineville. Only access to railway funds allowed the city of 5800 to swing such a deal, which has so far brought more than a dozen new jobs to the community.

Unfortunately, while the railway was paying for so many city improvements during the 'sixties and early 'seventies, too little money was being retained for upgrading the railway tracks and equipment. Although they were in better shape than after World War II, the tracks were coming apart. An intense effort has gone into rebuilding them during the last half dozen years, aided by about $2 million in grants from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Today, the City of Prineville Railway is headquartered on North Main, a modern building that little resembles the first depot that was the center of many community activities. An enginehouse is located just west, across North Main and up the tracks a few hundred feet.

Every day, the orange train rumbles out of Prineville, crisscrossing Ochoco Creek and Crooked River, under the long, flat rimrocks, past the ranches and farms, to Prineville Junction, where the cars will be put onto Burlington Northern and Union Pacific tracks.