Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad
Mill Creek Flume & Manufacturing Company

Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad

Dr. Dorsey S. Baker, a physician of Walla Walla who had also been active in steamboat operation on the Columbia River, sought relief from the high rates of wagon freight operators. On March 23, 1868, he formed the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad to provide access to the steamers of the Oregon Steam Navigation Co. at Wallula. After narrowly losing an election for local aid on September 18, 1871, he decided to build the railroad as a cheap narrow gauge with strap iron laid on wooden stringers. He opened ten miles east from Wallula in 1873 and began interchanging with wagon freighters at his railhead. In 1874 he built another six miles. In June 1875 he reached Touchet (19 miles), and began relaying his original track with 30-pound T-rail. The line was opened for full service to Walla Walla (32 miles) early in 1877. The railroad did quite well, mainly hauling wheat west to the river steamers.

On May 4, 1879, Baker sold his interest to Henry Villard of the Northern Pacific, who initially planned to build his Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. as a narrow gauge along the south bank of the river. Villard envisioned expanding the WW&CR into a network of narrow gauge mileage east of Walla Walla. In mid-1880 he built a branch off the WW&CR at Whitman southeast 19 miles to Blue Mountain, Oregon, but attempted no further extensions to the east. He had by this time decided to build the OR&N as a standard gauge railroad, but to avoid running his steamers through some difficult rapids, he extended the narrow gauge west 27 miles from Wallula to Umatilla, Oregon, in the summer of 1880. This was explicitly a temporary arrangement; Villard announced that the WW&CR would be converted as soon as the OR&N reached Umatilla from the west. The OR&N's standard gauge rails reached Umatilla in the spring of 1881 and the WW&CR was converted in May. The branch to Blue Mountain was initially allowed to remain narrow gauge because a portion of it was to be incorporated into a longer line. In the spring of 1883 the ten miles from Milton to Blue Mountain were converted as part of a line from Walla Walla to Pendleton, Oregon, and the segment from Whitman to Milton was abandoned.

The former narrow gauge mileage went with the OR&N into the Union Pacific system in 1906. This trackage is extant except for about ten miles immediately east of Umatilla that were replaced with a line diagonally to the southwest to Hinkle in 1951. (References: W. W. Baker, "The Building of the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad," Washington Historical Quarterly, 14 (1923), pp. 3-13; Randall V. Mills, Railroads Down the Valleys (Pacific Books, 1950), pp. 7-13)

Mill Creek Flume & Manufacturing Company

After selling his interest in the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad to Henry Villard in 1879, Dr. Dorsey S. Baker was active in promoting the Mill Creek Flume & Manufacturing Co. as a lumber railroad to the east of Walla Walla. The corporation was chartered on February 24, 1880, and in 1881 opened an eight-mile line from Walla Walla east to Dudley. The line ascended 600 feet along Mill Creek to a flume of the company that was the principal source of traffic. From the outset the carrier was expected to engage in the general business of a railroad. In 1882 a branch was opened from Dudley Junction, two miles east of Dudley, up Dry Creek five miles northeast to Dixie.

By 1890 a controlling interest in the railroad had been bought by the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. In the reorganization of 1896 it emerged as owned 100 percent by the Union Pacific's Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. The line operated as a minor branch of the UP system until sold on December 10, 1903, to an independent operator, the Mill Creek Railroad. This carrier reported itself to the Interstate Commerce Commission as not in operation. It sold the railroad on July 1, 1905, to the Northern Pacific, which merged it into its subsidiary, the Washington & Columbia River Railway. The NP abandoned the branch to Dixie, and converted 7.4 miles of the Dudley line to Tracy. The line was restored to operation late in 1905. The UP had not provided scheduled passenger service, but the NP operated a weekly passenger train on Mondays.

The Tracy branch was abandoned by the Burlington Northern under an ICC order of November 2, 1970.