The Blue Mountain Locomotive

In June 2017, the Museum welcomed the Blue Mountain for long-term display. Dr. Dorsey Syng Baker ordered this locomotive in 1877 as part of the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad between Wallula and Walla Walla. It is the only surviving narrow-gauge locomotive from Baker’s “Rawhide Railroad” line and, remarkably, the oldest existing locomotive used in Washington State.

Work on Dorsey Baker’s Railroad began in 1871 under the corporate name Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad Company and was completed in October of 1875. Timber for the road’s ties and bridges was obtained along the Yakima River, and a mill was erected on the Columbia in Wallula to process the wood. Over 9,000 tons of wheat were hauled over the line in 1875; 15,266 tons in 1876. Baker sold most of his company stock in 1879 to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company (later the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company). Starting in 1881, local lines were converted to standard gauge, eventually leaving 14 miles of track into the Blue Mountains as the only remaining narrow gauge track in the area.

In 1893, the Blue Mountain was shipped via boat to the Columbia Gorge, where it worked the portage railroad for 11 years. In 1906, it was sent to the Nome gold fields of Alaska to serve mining operations. By 1910, the Nome gold rush was over and train service ended, marking the last run of the Blue Mountain. However, its story was not over—sometime in the 1940s, the locomotive was submerged in the Bering Sea as part of the Nome sea wall. Eventually, it was retrieved by a Nome resident and acquired by the Washington State Railroad Historical Society in Pasco, WA, in 1992.