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Ewauna Box Company |
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Ewauna Box #103 switching log flats on 7 June 1948, probably in Sprague River. Pennington negative, Jeff Moore collection.
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History Like many operations, the Ewauna Box Company got its start milling lumber produced by others into box shook in a box factory the company built on Lake Ewauna in 1912. In 1920, the company completed a sawmill adjacent to the box factory. The next step into logging followed shortly, when Ewauna Box purchased a substantial block of reservation timber located north of Klamath Falls from McComber & Savage after a previous deal they had to sell the timber to the Chiloquin Lumber Company fell through. Ewauna quickly supplemented this original purchase with a second large unit of reservation timber, and construction of the logging railroad into the timber from a connection with the Southern Pacific started in 1922. Another large unit of Klamath Indian Reservation timber secured in 1924 prompted the company to build a new railroad running north and west from Sprague River on the Oregon, California & Eastern. The two railroad systems eventually met, at which time the company abandoned the connection with the Southern Pacific main line and started using the OC&E connection at Sprague River. In August 1928 Ewauna Box purchased another 37,000 acres of timberland, this time from the Booth Kelley Lumber Company. The timber lay east of Bly, and Ewauna shortly started building a logging railroad running east from the end of the OC&E railroad. The line climbed up to Quartz Mountain summit on steady grades running between 2.5-3.5 percent. Logging railroads took off in several directions from the summit. Ewauna's end came on 1 December 1948 when Weyerhaeuser Timber purchased the company specifically for the remaining uncut timber. At the time the only remaining railroad operation was a 25-mile line running out of Sprague River, and for the short remainder of its life it shipped logs to the Weyerhaeuser mill in Klamath Falls as the Ewauna mill had already shut down. The old Ewauna Box railroad was gone by 1951. |
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Maps |
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Map of the Ewauna Box logging railroad system.
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Locomotive Roster 2- Heisler 3-truck, c/n 1520, Built 1925. Built for Whitney Engineering, Heisler's west coast dealer; to Kesterson Lumber Company #2, Dorris, CA; to Ewauna Box, initially for Quartz Mountain line. Scrapped. 101- Possibly a Shay by this number purchased around 1922, but no other information. 102- Alco 2-8-2T, c/n 66029, Built 1925. Cylinders 18x24, Drivers 44", Boiler Pressure 190 lbs., Tractive Effort 28,500 lbs., Weight 84 tons. Acquired new; to Weyerhaeuser Timber 1948; Scrapped 1951. 103- Willamette 3-Truck, c/n 20, Built 1926. Cyliners 12x15, Drivers 36", Boiler Pressure 200 lbs., Tractive Effort 31,968 lbs., Weight 75 tons. Acquired new; to Weyerhaeuser Timber 1948; to Rayonier #3, Sieku, WA, 1949; Scrapped 1956. |
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Photos |
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Ewauna Box #2, stored out of service in Klamath Falls on 6 April 1947.
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Ewauna Box #102 in Sprague River.
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Ewauna Box #103 on 7 June 1948. Pennington negative, Jeff Moore collection.
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One of the few enduring legacies of the Ewauna Box operations is the old sawdust burner in Klamath Falls, which stills stands in the old sawmill site.
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