Nostalgia & History > Gypsy Locomotive

Three pictures from the Humboldt library website.

http://library.humboldt.edu/humco/index.html

On the above website click on photos and do a search for railroad men. You should get a list of 72.

Picture 1, [picture 4 from the list of 72]. “Excelsior Redwood Co, Eureka, Cal [Men pose by train of large log sections].”

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Picture 2, [picture 22 from the list of 72]. “Back end of railcar with men standing.” Is this a selfie?

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Picture 3, [picture 25 from the list of 72]. “Four Men pose with a gypsy locomotive in a forest.”

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Picture 4, picture 3 enlarged.

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Picture 2 looks like it sould have been taken at the top of the incline by Yosemite.

Wow! I was unaware of this resource! Thanks for the pointer!

I can see that the rest of my day is going to be shot while I investigate the site.

I believe that the loco photo is of the Oregon & Eureka (rather informally lettered) #2, fittingly the "Gypsy", built by Globe Iron Works in 1881-2, and that the photo would date to 1912, or later. Martin, have I got things semi-right, for once?

Thanks again, Flynn!

-E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow! I was unaware of this resource! Thanks for
> the pointer!
>
> I can see that the rest of my day is going to be
> shot while I investigate the site.
>
> I believe that the loco photo is of the Oregon &
> Eureka (rather informally lettered) #2, fittingly
> the "Gypsy", built by Globe Iron Works in 1881-2,
> and that the photo would date to 1912, or later.
> Martin, have I got things semi-right, for once?
>
> Thanks again, Flynn!
>
> -E.O.

As per the Steam in the Redwoods book, you appear to be correct.

As for the incline...there were quite a few of them scattered around Humboldt County.

Lastly, you could waste days (if not weeks) on just the photographs on the HSU Library website- my favorite is the Shuster Collection, Shuster being a local photographer who spent a lot of time flying in circles above various parts of Humboldt County roughly between 1940 and the early 1960s taking random photographs of whatever caught his eye...his current collection at the library containes over 2400 images, of which over 2200 are on the internet. The following link should take you to the collection filtered by "railroad":

http://library.humboldt.edu/humco/holdings/photoresults.php?R=0&S=railroad&CS=All%20Collections&RS=ALL%20Regions&PS=Shuster&ST=ALL%20words&SW=

Admittedly, quite a few of these are buildings or shots that just happen to have train tracks contained in the picture, but quite a few are of railroad subjects, including several featuring NWP's Eureka roundhouse and balloon track, and also quite a few of various sawmills- having lived there for six years, it is honestly hard to reconcile the the Eureka area shown in his photographs with the present version...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV