HORSESHOE BEND, Idaho -- When it lost its Boise Cascade Corp. sawmill last year, Horseshoe Bend also lost its identity as a logging town. Now it is counting on a 92-year-old railroad car to help build a new image as a tourist town.
The former Northern Pacific Railroad car, once a gilded showpiece thought to have been used by President Warren Harding on vacations to Yellowstone Park, was moved to Horseshoe Bend from Owyhee County last month. It's been stopping downtown traffic on Idaho Highway 55 ever since, which is precisely what some say Horseshoe Bend needs."We want something that will get people to stop and spend time here instead of just passing through on the way to McCall or Boise," City Councilman and Mayor-elect Brian Davies said. "We'd like to have people at least stop for lunch."
Eager to fill the void left by the mill's closure in September 1998, Horseshoe Bend residents recently created the Scenic Payette River Historical Society to preserve, and perhaps capitalize on, the area's history. In Horseshoe Bend, history tends to be rail history. Trains have hauled logs, grain and people there for nearly a century.
"The railroad has been a big part of this town for longer than most people who live here can remember," society treasurer Chuck Wolfkiel said. "It's been an important part of our commerce and our history. In the '20s and '30s, it was the only way to get to McCall in the winter when the roads weren't plowed. University of Idaho students rode it on their way to Moscow. It was quite a ride."
Railroad buffs say it could be again. They envision a railroad museum as the centerpiece of Horseshoe Bend's effort to appeal to tourists. The old Northern Pacific car would be a part of the museum, which its promoters see as re-creating the historic railroad experience.
"We're using the Oregon-California Trail Living Interpretive Center at Montpelier as our inspiration," Wolfkiel said. "It wouldn't be a static museum with exhibits. We don't have the details worked out yet, but the idea would be to show people what it was like to ride one of the old historic trains.
"We'd try to re-create as much of the experience for them as we could. When you came to the museum, you'd become part of the history. It would make Horseshoe Bend a destination instead of just a place to pass through. Ideally, we'd be able to sell people a ticket and take them on a train ride."
Idaho Historical Railroads operates tour trains from Smiths Ferry to Cascade and Emmett to Horseshoe Bend. The company is the former owner of the rail car now turning heads in Horseshoe Bend. IHR donated the car after its plans to renovate the car were abandoned to pursue other projects.
Northern Pacific's Car 1031 was one of a limited number of luxury cars built in 1907 by the Barney and Smith Co. in Dayton, Ohio. It's believed to be one of six still remaining in the United States.
Retired in 1942, it was purchased in 1985 and moved to Givens Hot Springs in Owyhee County, where its owners hoped to convert it into a restaurant. Banks wouldn't finance the project, however, and the once-luxurious car spent 14 years weathering in the desert, its condition steadily deteriorating.
"It's going to take a lot of work to renovate, but it's not undoable," Wolfkiel said. "We expect to get a lot of donated material and labor."
Boise's TNT Insured Towing donated the equipment and labor to move the car to Horseshoe Bend. In a town of 700, more than 30 people attended a recent informational meeting sponsored by the historical society, which is so new it hasn't officially started accepting members yet.
"There's a strong feeling in this town that we don't want to see the rails gone," society board member Joan Cochrane said.
Cochrane and her husband, Jim, own Horseshoe Bend's old railroad depot, which has been turned into a bed and breakfast. The city has allocated $2,500 for the museum and rail car project, and Horseshoe Bend recently became an Idaho Gem Community, improving its chances of getting economic development grants from the state.
"We'd like to get some of the old mill land for the downtown," Wolfkiel said. "We'd like to build some parks and new businesses and the rail museum, hopefully somewhere near the tracks."
That would lessen the impact of the mill closure, still a damper on the local economy more than a year after the fact.
"It's not as if we have a lot of homeless people walking around, but we're still feeling it," Davies said. "We got a new Chevron station, but that's not going to take the place of a Boise Cascade (mill). We need something that will enhance our image and attract new industry. . . .
"That old rail car isn't much to look at yet, but it definitely has people talking. The tourists are slowing down and craning their necks when they drive through Horseshoe Bend now. It's a start."