Klamath

History fans may be interested to know a bit more about the old railroad that used to run along this stretch. In addition to the bridge foundations now exposed at this point, you can now see the old railroad cuts in the basalt cliffs along the south side of the river for at least a couple of miles downstream.

The Klamath Lake Railroad was initially built between 1901 and 1903 by the Pokegama Sugar Pine Lumber Company to ship logs out of timberlands a few miles north of the Klamath River in Oregon. It descended a series of switchbacks along Fall Creek to the Klamath River just downstream of Copco Reservoir. It then generally followed the river downstream to meet the main Southern Pacific Railroad about 4 miles southeast of Hornbrook (specifically, the historic terminus of Thrall, 41.88964, -122.48285). From there, the train rain to the former sawmill at Klamathon (near the present Hornbrook-Ager Road bridge over the Klamath River).

Unfortunately, the mill burned down, so the train was never actually used to ship logs. However, the railroad company set up a stage from its upper terminus (New Pokegama) 30 miles to Klamath Falls and ran freight and passenger services along the route. Weyerhaeuser bought the tracks in 1905, change the name to the Oregon Southern Railroad in 1907. By 1911, Weyerhaeuser abandoned the easternmost part of the tracks, and leased the western section to the Siskiyou Light and Power Company in 1912 for construction of Copco Dam. The successor California Oregon Power Company (COPCO) bought the railroad in 1921, but the tracks were little used after 1925. The U.S. Army bought up and removed the rails in 1942.

See http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/kblrr/pokegama.html for more info.