Shay Locomotive moves lumber industry in Cadillac

Noticing several pictures of vintage trains on the walls as we enjoyed lunch at Shay Station coffeehouse café in Cadillac Michigan, and looking through the café’s picture windows to see a locomotive on display in the city park behind the café, I wondered about the possible connections between trains and the city.

We wandered out to the park after lunch to learn a little about Cadillac’s importance to Michigan’s logging history and how the inventiveness of a local man revolutionized that industry during the 19^th century.

Logging played an important part in Northern Michigan’s growth and development, with lumbering as the primary industry in towns like Cadillac during the late 1800s.

Credit for Cadillac’s flourishing as one of few lumbering communities without a river goes largely to Ephraim Shay and his Shay Locomotive, with its ability to climb steep grades and navigate sharp curves or track imperfections.

Shay, born in Ohio during 1839, enjoyed a fascinating career that included stints as a teacher, Civil War soldier and township clerk, before becoming a sawmill operator and moving near Cadillac to establish a mill and general store near a lumber camp in the 1870s.

At that time, loggers moved trees harvested along rivers by floating them downstream to a mill. They could only move the cut timber over land during the winter by dragging the large logs over the thick snow in horse- or oxen-drawn sleds. Snow less than two feet deep or unseasonably warm weather could shorten the season for transporting logs to the water and mean lower profits for mills.

Shay wondered about better ways to move lumber without relying on heavy snow cover, the possibilities of increasing profits by being able to log year round and reducing transportation costs.

Shay built a crude temporary tramway in 1875, which allowed him to move lumber year round. However, steep grades proved dangerous because runaway logs often killed or seriously injured the horses and oxen powering the moves.

Shay next experimented with steam locomotives, which easily hauled heavy loads up and down grades. But, the force of the pistons used by conventional engines at the time damaged some of the tracks.

Shay continued to spend money on his tinkering, with one source saying he invested at least the then-astronomical sum of $1,000 in the project.

He worked with several people, including William Crippen (a machinist and foundry operator in Clam Lake, which later became the City of Cadillac), to perfect his designs.

The inventive Shay eventually assigned rights to the locomotive to the Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio. That company refined the design and enlarged it over time, eventually building nearly all of the 2,771 Shay locomotives ever manufactured before closing down production in 1945.

Today, less than 100 Shays still reportedly exist. Some Shays enjoy a quiet life like the 1898 two-truck Shay used by the Cadillac-Soo Lumber Company and restored in 1985 on display in Cadillac’s park. A few Shay locomotives still enjoy active service, often in tourist railroads.

 

Today, tourism is one of the engines largely driving Cadillac with its proximity to the Huron-Manistee National Forest, Lake Mitchell and Lake Cadillac, and the William Mitchell State Park.

Meanwhile, Shay’s lonely locomotive sits quietly in Cadillac’s City Park as a reminder of the town’s boom days as a bustling lumber community and as a tribute to the inventive mind of its inventor.

Note:

I found a lot of interesting information about the Shay Locomotive online, with a wealth of information simply more than I could distill in a single article here.

For those interested in learning more about the Shay Locomotive or railroading history, here are a few of the more interesting links about those subjects I found as I researched this article.

Canada Science and Technology Museum

Shay Locomotive Wiki page

Shay Locomotives

Shay Locomotive restoration at California’s El Dorado Western Railway Foundation

© Dominique King 2009

Comments

[Cindy L]

When my son was small, we tried to visit as many train museums and attractions as we could find ... Thanks for the memories!

[Dominique]

Cindy-
Trains and their history are certainly fascinating. I can understand kids' interest in them.
We rode on one of the old steam engine trains out of Durango, Colorado a few years ago to an old mining community. Seeing this locomotive in northern Michigan reminded me of that trip!

[JimmyK64]

Reading your article and watching a few of the clips from YouTude(thanks for including the video)makes me think of how unique locomotives were in their design and manufacture. Kind of like the development of classic cars. Each has an eye-appeal that stirs great feelings.

[Dominique]

Jimmy-I found scads of information about locomotives, and Shays in particular, on the Web. They sure have a lot of fans online!
I use video fairly sparingly here, but this story seemed to scream for a little movement and the sound of whistles and clanging bells.