Gales Creek & Wilson River

Company History: The GC&WR was established in 1917 by a pair of timber land developers to link the Tillamook, Oregon area to a connection at Wilkesboro with United Railways (a joint subsidiary of Great Northern and Northern Pacific.) In two years they managed to build from Wilkesboro to Glenwood (13 miles.) The line included large trestles over Beaver Creek and Gales Creek. The locomotive fleet consisted of a pair of former Colorado Midland 4-6-0’s. Subsidiaries of Great Northern and Northern Pacific then jointly purchased the properties and railroad in 1922 ostensibly to keep it out of the hands of Southern Pacific (an interchange track with the SP was promptly removed.) Although CG&WR’s only connection was now with their sister railroad United Railways, the two were not merged.

Traffic (mostly logs) was modest until the Great Tillamook Burn of 1933 which damaged more than ten million board feet of timber just west of Glenwood. Timber companies swarmed the region to cut the trees before they began to rot. Traffic surged on the railroad with four to six trains at a time operating on the line. This remained the case until 1946 when the timber ran out. The last train ran in 1949 and it was officially abandoned the following year.

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