The Folks of Dunsmuir

A steam engine scrapped in 1952

Caboose visiting Dunsmuir railroad yard

I have often thought that a small town, constrained against growth by a deep valley with a river running through it, bypassed by the main highway, and maybe where at night the mournful wail of a freight train brings up an old hobo song, and where the folks don’t get around much, and the men are of a working sort who have their philosophy well in hand—that such a town is where I’d like to settle.

Yesterday along the main street of Dunsmuir, the town gathered for the 71^st celebration of Railroad Days, complete with parade, cotton candy, country music, fire trucks and a speech by the mayor.  The Union Pacific brought in some old Zephyr cars and early train engines which they keep in storage and tow up and down the track for small towns to remember.

Tavelers Hotel on Dunsmuir Ave,
102 rooms, for sale
at auction for $400,000 with no bids 

house at 4314 Pine Street
for sale at $44,900 

On the historical tour, I learned that the Traveler’s Hotel, with its 102 rooms on main street, is for sale at $400,000, and a decent house just off the center of town is asking $44,900.  The original town was, understandably, down by the railroad, but almost all of it burned down in 1903.  The buildings on Dunsmuir Avenue, up from the tracks and the river, date from the 1020’s when it was the main road for traveling north.  Then in 1961 the I-5 Interstate bypassed the town and allowed it to remain quiet and untrafficed until today.  Of course, the lumber industry failed here as it did all up the Cascade range, and the town fell from a population of 5,000 to just 1,600 today.  Tourism seems the only economic hope for Dunsmuir, but with the state’s closing of the parks, even that seems crunched.  

Cornewr of Dunsmuir Avenue
and Pine Street, looking east

Still, the lovely setting of Dunsmuir in its cozy valley with its lush river surely promise a good long-term future in tourism.

My tour guide, Jan, after the tour ended and the parade was about to begin

The parade yesterday featured commercially extravagant floats, just like the rose parade in Pasadena.  These cyclists promote product “A” through subliminal hints.

And here, fathers sell pull-carts, using their children as bait.

And these singers, in appreciation of the hobo lifestyle, sell that great institution through their website at http://www.hobo.com/

I took this picture because I worked for the California Division of Forestry, as it was called then, and even drove a truck like this, and chopped brush on fire lines.

Of course, the US Forest Service, with Smoky Bear is represented, also an outfit I spent a summer working for.  It was back in the days when a lightning fire was to be extinguished at any cost.

But I had to walk out of town, away from the commotion, for some time in the woods.  As in Pasadena, so here.