Camp 6 Logging Exhibit

A Museum of the Great Days of Steam Logging

Last Updated: 01/27/99

The Camp 6 Logging Museum is located in Point Defiance Park in Tacoma Washington. It is part of the Western Forest Industries Museum. The setting and exhibits are intended to give you a flavor of what logging was like in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest during the hey day of steam powered logging.

Exhibits include various steam "donkey" engines (including a Willamette!), High Lead systems (the cable systems used to drag or carry the logs from the point where the tree had been cut down to the rail siding), Yarders, and Loaders.

Of particular interest (to me at least), are the Quinault Railcar Camp and Pacific Coast Shay #7.

The Railcar Camp (picture below) was the last operating rail car camp in the Pacific Northwest. The camp provided a mobile place for the loggers to live, and as soon as a stand of trees was "cut out" the camp would be moved. The camp cars are built on flat cars (several of these flat cars are of historical interest themselves).

Shay #7 was built in 1929 and is rumored (storied?) to have been on the erecting floor when the stock market crashed. This 90 ton locomotive was one of two shays in the last all steam logging operation in Washington. It came to the museum in 1964 from St. Regis Paper Co.'s Klickitat Log & Lumber Co. in Klickitat Washington.

#7 has been in storage for the last few years. It's in need of an overhaul and new tubes. Funding is being sought, but no one I talked to is optomistic. They now use a small diesel engine.

Phone: (206) 752-0047

or by mail:

Camp 6 is operated by the Tacoma Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and you can visit their web page at: Camp 6 Logging Museum.

The historical information here is derived from an informational brochure that was funded by the City of Tacoma's Cultural Resources Division and Department of Planning and Development Services. The personal observations and opinions are mine.

A typical logging railroad caboose. (88K 768x512 jpg)

Klickitat Log and Lumber #7 pokes it's cold nose out of it's shed. It is a "Pacific Coast Shay" and was built in November of 1929. If you look closely, you can just make out the flanger on the lead truck. (89K 512x768 jpg)

This little 40 ton 0-4-0T was built by Davenport in 1937 for the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in Tacoma. ASARCO is gone, but this little steamer survived for a few years in front of a hobby store in Midway. After the owner of the hobby store died, the next owner moved it to Camp 6 for storage. (147K 512x768 jpg)