"I've got bucket loads of insulators I want to get rid of," the woman told me over the phone. "My husband salvaged them years ago off a railroad in Northeast Oregon." 

She instantly had my interest. I often advertise to buy insulators in want-ad newspapers. Her's was a response to such an ad. 

The woman lived in a town that's about a two hour drive from my place. When I visited her a couple of weeks later, she explained that her deceased husband had spent his career as a railroad conductor. At some point in the 1970's, he gathered some 500 insulators from the Sumpter Valley Railway, located not too far from Baker City, Oregon. 

I'm familiar with the railway, having walked sections of it just a year ago. There are downed poles all along the route, and broken pieces of two piece transpositions, hundred year old pony and beehive styles, as well as newer insulators.

Construction of the Sumpter Valley Railway began in 1890, running up the Powder River Valley from Baker City. The narrow gauge line was completed as far as a stage coach stop named McEwen in 1891. But the very next year, a new gold strike occurred near a mining community called Sumpter creating an economic boom for the area. 

But that's not to say the Sumpter Valley Railway was in any hurry to go anywhere. The railroad tracks weren't completed the six miles from McEwen to Sumpter until 1896. By then Sumpter was boasting of a population of 9,000 people.

When the mines began to decline a decade later, the railway gradually extended further and further into the mountains... for logging purposes. By 1901 the line went over Larch summit, 5,094 feet above sea level on the side of Huckleberry Mountain. In the valley beyond, the Oregon Lumber Company built a logging town called Whitney. The place remains standing today, a ghost reminder of busier times. Drive into Whitney, by the way, and you'll still see common insulators in the yards outside several cabins.

In 1903, crews extended the rails beyond the North Fork of the Burnt River, and over Tipton Summit (5,127 feet) in the Greenhorn Mountains. In 1905 the line reached White Pine, then Austin. Finally, in 1910, the railway descended to the John Day River Valley and halted at a town called Prairie City. It had taken 20 years for the Sumpter Valley Railway to extend the grand distance of 80 miles from Baker City.

Not that some people didn't have grand plans for the railway. One developer dreamed of snaking it down through all of Eastern Oregon and on to Reno, Nevada. But it wasn't to be.

Trains stopped coming to Prairie City during the Great Depression. Passenger service between Baker City and Sumpter ended in 1937. A daily freight train ran for another ten years, and paying passengers.. if there were any... had to ride in the caboose.

The last freight train pulled into Baker City in 1947. After that, the rails were removed and the rolling stock was sold. But one thing persisted. The communication lines alongside the tracks continued to carry the region's telephone conversations for another 25 years. I recall the phone lines still being up the first time I visited Sumpter. It was on an insulator hunting trip in 1968. A friend and I went to the region to hunt for Provo insulators, which were in use throughout the area at the time.

Today, the Sumpter Valley Railway is running again. Historical restoration began in 1971. An original engine and other rolling stock were located and returned. Track construction started once again, and the narrow gauge was back in business for short runs by July 4, 1976. Volunteers, and a donation from the only surviving family member of the original owner of the railroad, made it possible to extend tracks back to Sumpter by 1991. Today, the route is five miles long.

To get there, take Highway 7 out of Baker City. You will know you are close when you get to historic McEwen. Oh, when you turn off the highway to head for the depot, take note of the first power pole on the left. As of a year ago, that pole was still sporting a Provo in use. 

Other great power insulators can also still be admired in that area. The state of Oregon is renovating a historic power plant not far from a town called Granite. At the Fremont powerhouse are numerous Lima porcelain multipart insulators. Remember the trip I took in 1968? All we found out of service and abandoned on the ground were porcelain multiparts. We weren't interested in "mud" in those days, and left them all behind. Now I wonder how many of them were Lima's.

What about those bucket loads of insulators the woman had for sale? I bought them. So, were they full of two-part transpositions and colorful beehives? Not! Apparently insulator collectors got to the abandoned telephone lines before the railroad conductor did. 

Those buckets had been around so long the bottoms had rusted through on most of them. And out of them I pulled hundreds of aqua and clear glass Hemingray #9's, Brookfield ponies, Hemingray 12's, clear Hemingray 14's, clear Hemingray 16's, and a few stray McLaughlin's and Maydwell's. There wasn't a single insulator that was in the slightest bit unusual or scarce. 

Howard Banks

(You can learn more about the Sumpter Valley Railway at the historic railroad's web site: www.svry.com Or, for ticket information to ride the historic train, call 541-894-2268. Photos are all scenes from the Sumpter Railway.)