Sumpter Valley Railway

The original Sumpter Valley Railway was incorporated in 1890 by David Eccles as a 3 ft narrow gauge logging line, built to feed the Oregon Lumber Company sawmill in South Baker City and financed by Mormon backers in Utah; much of its early equipment came secondhand from the Utah & Northern Railway. Rails reached McEwen in 1891, the gold-mining town of Sumpter in 1896, and finally Prairie City on the John Day River by 1910. Highway competition bled the line through the 1920s and 1930s: the Prairie City–Bates section was abandoned in 1933, scheduled passenger trains ended in 1937, and operations ceased in 1947 except for a short stretch of lumber-yard trackage that was removed in 1961. In 1971 volunteers set out to rebuild the railroad, restoring 1915 Heisler No. 3 and reopening on July 4, 1976 over less than a mile of track. Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration Inc. then relaid six miles by hand over fifteen years to link McEwen with Sumpter, and in 2007 the railway opened a reproduction of the original Sumpter depot within sight of the Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area.