Hear that lonesome whistle blow . . .
I live just one mile from Roaring Camp, and I can hear the steam engine whistle from my deck. It has a breathy “tu-whoot-ey” sound and never fails to send a chill up my spine. Roaring Camp came into being shortly after mountain man Isaac Graham settled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains in the 1830s; the Mexican authorities named his settlement “Roaring Camp.” Graham is famous for establishing the first saw mill west of the Mississippi, in 1842,where he thoughtfully left standing the “big trees” coastal redwoods. Around 1875 the area’s first railroad, the Santa Cruz & Felton, carried tourists to the virgin stand of trees and to the beach; later, the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge railroad began operation and has been running ever since. Roaring Camp owns several Shay locomotives, a Heisler, Climax, and five diesel engines. Shay locomotives, designed in 1872, dominated western U.S. logging operations. These engines have provocative names and interesting histori...