04/30/2026
The Sumpter Valley Railroad dates back long before the SVRR we know now. The railroad was first incorporated in 1890 and the last of it was abandoned in 1961.
Below is an article from ‘The Stump Dodger’ published in 1987, written by Bob Bergstrom, Memories of Railroad Days
--Notes from a conversation with Mrs. Geneva Cook, August 1987.
It is fortunate that in 1987, fully forty years after Sumpter Valley Railway ceased operations, there are still people who have clear memories of those days when the railroad was an important part of everyday life in Baker and Prairie City and “all points in between”. It is even more fortunate that some of them are interested in talking with folks who have become interested in the railroad in more recent years. Mrs. Geneva Cook is one of those people, and she has graciously agreed to share her memories of railroad days.
Mrs. Cook grew up on a farm in the area between Prairie City and John Day. Her maiden name was Geneva A. Campbell. Her husband Jim worked on the Sumpter Valley Railway for 12 years, in the 1920 and 30s. He started as a member of the roundhouse maintenance crew at Austin, then worked as a fireman for a year and later as foreman of a section crew. At the roundhouse in Austin, one of his jobs was to load wood into the tenders of the SVRy locomotives. Eventually he left the railroad and worked at a lumber mill in John Day, and a paper mill in St. Helens, as a log trucker in Scio, and at a lumber mill and as a carpenter in Albany.
The Cooks were married in 1926. Their first home was provided by SVRy; it was a converted boxcar alongside a sidetrack in Austin. They were one of several railroad families who lived in boxcar houses. The quarters had no electricity but were adequate. A bedroom and kitchen had been built on, adding to the area enclosed by the original boxcar walls. Mrs. Cook described how every week a SVRy locomotive would move along a side track next to the houses, stopping and using a hose to fill a steel tank at each front porch with water from its boiler. Wash tubs were then filled from the hot water tanks.
Mrs. Cook said there wasn’t much to do in Austin; “Everybody worked most of the time”, she said. The town had a small grocery store, a hotel, the SVRy depot, “about a half dozen nice houses”, several shacks, and a school house. After living in the converted box car for a few years, the Cooks moved to one of the nice houses on a hill near the depot. That house also was owned by the railroad and was bigger and more comfortable that the boxcar house, but still did not have electricity.
The women of the town would go to the Austin House from time to time for socials; Mrs. Cook enjoyed visiting and drinking tea in Mrs. Austin’s parlor, and singing songs to the music of an organ.
Sometimes the townspeople of Austin would go to Prairie City for dances and to buy things, but, they didn’t often go into Baker because Baker was so much farther away. They would go to Bates for groceries about once a month; between trips they got along with what they had or borrowed from neighbors if necessary. During the years that the Cooks lived in Austin, people travelled either by train or by automobile.
Mrs. Cook said that people didn't refer to the SVRy as “the Stump Dodger’ in those days; they just called it ‘the Sumpter Valleytrain.” The gasoline-powered railcar that ran between Bates and Prairie City for a few years was referred to as “the trolley car.”
Visiting with Mrs. Cook was like opening a window to the past. People, places and events of 50, 60, 70 years ago seemed just as real as today’s weather. –
It’s not too late to step back in time! Tickets are on sale now for our 50th Anniversary Celebration, June 13-21, 2026
📸 Daniel Bentz
