I knew Portland was going to have a very brief heat wave this past weekend with bright sunny skies and I needed to get out of the house and do something. I subscribe to multiple resources for ideas about what to do and see around the Portland area with one of my favorites being Portland Living on the Cheap. Earlier last week they had an article about riding an historic Oregon train along the Willamette River that I thought looked fun. Little did I know that the actual 45-min ride on the train was going to take me on an emotional all-day journey into my past. Here’s the story…
My ticket for the train ride was for the 230 pm trip, so I decided to make the 10-minute drive to the Southeast side of town over the Ross Island Bridge for some lunch first.
My destination was the Mt Hood Brewing Company, a local craft brewery with three locations in the Portland area and surrounding towns. Mt Hood has been serving up local craft brews since 1991.
I decided to go here because the online reviews and pictures of their personal pizzas looked incredible coming fresh out of their wood-fired oven, their train car dining and because they shared a parking lot with and were right across the street from the Oregon Rail Heritage Center (ORHC) where my train ride would begin. But before we go there I need to take a moment to circle back on the pizza and beer.
I bellied up to the bar and ordered up a pint of their Hogsback Oatmeal Stout, brewed with a specialty malt of oats and molasses with an ABV of 5.7%. I found it refreshing and flavorful, not bitter or heavy at all even though it was pitch black. I paired it with their Diablo pizza, a 12-inch Neapolitan style with Soppressata, Calabrian chilis, aged and fresh mozzarella, and chestnut honey. The crust was perfectly crunchy and chewy, and the sweet heat mixed with the Stout was nicely aligned. I get why Bobby Flay puts those chilis on everything.
After putting away the pizza and beer I headed across the street to check out some trains. The first thing visitors are greeted with is SP&S 700 (Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway) sitting on a rebuilt replica of the original Brooklyn Roundhouse (the turntable is original).
The roundhouse still works, and while we were waiting for our train ride they rotated the train a full 360 degrees (I didn’t ask, but I think they do this possibly to periodically keep it lubricated, much like they raise many of the bridges, like the Hawthorne, across the Willamette every 8 hours whether there is boat traffic or not).
Entrance to the ORHC is free, but they have someone standing at the door to welcome visitors and subtly point out the donation box… It’s a good cause and I was getting some value, so I chipped in. Inside the machine shop are three engines.
The first is Baldwin Locomotive Works #197, built in 1905 and used by Union Pacific until it was donated to the City of Portland in 1958. Every part on this thing was huge with the wheels themselves taller than me.
Behind #197 was the Polson Logging Company’s #2 another locomotive built by Baldwin in 1912. This one is loaned to ORHC and pulled the Holiday Express route in 2023.
The final big boy taking up nearly one whole side of the machine shop is Southern Pacific’s #4449. Built in 1941, this is the only remaining streamlined steam locomotive of the Art Deco era left in America. Its engine produces 5500 hp propelling it up to 100 miles per hour. Through most of the engine’s life it ran the LA to San Francisco passenger route, but shortly here we’ll talk about this locomotive’s place in America’s history back in 1976.
Attached to the engine are several additional cars, with a caboose at the end that visitors can walk through.
The car is restored to the 1970s period. I found it interesting that the cupola was traditionally used to see out and look ahead at the train, but in this car it was actually converted into bunks, one on either side (there were two additional bunks in the forward part of the car). The car also contained a very small restroom, a stove for heating and a conductor’s desk.
Having looked at everything in the caboose I headed back up towards the front of the train to look over the displays. I had seen the display taking up a major portion of the wall when I first came in, but I paid it no mind at that time and made straight for the locomotives.
Upon this second inspection I discovered a pretty significant event in American history that I didn’t know about, the Bicentennial American Freedom Train. The train was actually a series of trains, including #4449, that made up the overall route (represented by the red, yellow and blue colors on the map of America above). It included a number of additional cars that were loaded with memorabilia and historical artifacts (think Smithsonian Museum on rails). At the time the Ford Library even put out a brochure describing President Ford’s announcement of the train.
The train ran from April 1st, 1975, through 138 stops later finishing on December 31st, 1976, in Miami Florida. While looking at the timetable I noticed that the train had been in Sacramento 28-30 Nov 1975 and was displayed down in Old Town at the site of the future Railroad Museum. I would have been 5 1/2 at the time and I had no recollection whatsoever of this train. What I did recall at the time though was a tour of the Liberty Bell and it is this part of the story where things start to go down the rabbit hole. Before we go there though let’s finish this ride.
The train boarded around 215 for a 230 departure. Upon boarding the conductor told me that there were air-conditioned cars and that there was an open-air car in the back. I thought he was joking and that by air-conditioned he meant breeze blowing through your hair. It turns out there were actual cars with seats and air conditioning and at the back was one actual open-air car. I opted for this one so that I could get a better view and could interact with people biking, riding, skateboarding and more along the path that ran by the tracks. The conductor came around upon departure, stamped our tickets and we were off.
The train runs south along the riverfront for about 20 minutes or so, going past Oaks Amusement Park and concluding near Sellwood Riverfront Park.
At that point the train simply slows to a stop and reverses direction with the engine that was in the back now picking up the slack and pulling the train back to the machine shop. Overall, it was interesting to see a part of town that I hadn’t seen before and I’m sure it would be a blast for kids, but this would not be something that I would likely do again unless I had out-of-town visitors that wanted to make the ride.
We got back to the machine shop and I headed home. On the way I thought more and more about that 1976 Liberty Bell tour. You see, I have a very distinct memory of seeing a Liberty Bell sitting in the school parking lot on a trailer being pulled around by a truck and visiting it when I was in kindergarten at Cordova Meadows Elementary School in Rancho Cordova, CA. I can still vividly picture it in my mind 48 years later, much like we all remember where we were when both Space Shuttles crashed or the Twin Towers came down. I remember a Liberty Bell.
Or was it just a figment of my imagination? Has my mind been playing games on me all these decades? When we took our son on a tour of the East Coast when he was in middle school because we knew he was going to be studying US history the next year one of our stops was to Philadelphia to see the original Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. At that time, I told him about my story of seeing a Liberty Bell when I was a kid.
I keep saying “a” Liberty Bell, but until this weekend I don’t know if I thought as a kid that I saw the original or a replica, so I started researching to figure it out. I quickly determined that the last time the original bell was in California was in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. After a little more research I saw that the bell “made… a trip” in 1976 and I got excited, but then I kept reading and saw that it was a trip across the street to the location before the one it sits at now (pictured above).
I was stymied. I knew I saw a bell, so I had to consider at this point that what I saw in 1976 was not the original but rather a replica. Ok, that’s fine. It was a good replica. I started looking into how many of those there were and discovered that the American Legion had a bell cast, and it was actually on the American Freedom Train. But my memory was vivid … school parking lot…trailer, truck, not big old train downtown. So that could not be the right bell.
More research turned up the story of the 57 State Liberty Bells commissioned in 1950 by the Treasury Department to support their Bond Drive. California received one that is sitting in the park outside the Capital Building. I had forgotten about that one and having spent a lot of time in that park I’ve seen it many times. Hmm. Could this have been the bell that I saw? Did it go on tour? More research turned up a Sacramento Bee newspaper entry from September 1976. Yes, I had found something from the right year…. I pulled it up on Newspapers.com and it turned out to be an obituary for the woman who was the first person to ring the California Liberty Bell.
That wasn’t helpful so more research ensued. Next, I discovered an article, again in the Sacramento Bee, from May 15, 1950 that talked about how the California Liberty Bell would tour all the counties of California as part of the bond drive. At this point I really thought I had something, but try as I might I couldn’t find any further evidence of this bell going on tour, and certainly not to my little elementary school.
At this point I changed tactics slightly and started looking at the local Rancho Cordova newspaper archives. It turns out Rancho Cordova’s Grapevine-Independent has archived their papers online back to the 60’s. I did a search and quickly came up with an article talking about an art show at the strip mall that was less than a mile from my then home in Rancho Cordova where a replica of the Liberty Bell would be displayed. I thought, no, no, no. I didn’t see a bell at a shopping mall. I saw it in the parking lot of my school. Seriously, how could I have mis-remembered something so badly over all these years.
I wasn’t ready to give up. The article talks about the owner of this bell being the Mt Vernon Memorial Park Morturary, a place I was very familiar with as it was next to one of the few remaining drive-in theaters in Sacramento. So, I did yet another search and added in this tidbit and I hit the motherload.
It was at this time that I came across an article back on the Treasury Department’s site describing the 57 Bond Liberty Bells. However, this article was about The Mount Vernon Memorial Park Liberty Bell. Hmm, I was intrigued and continued to read the rather long article (You should check it out. It includes a story about how Jimmy Hoffa himself invested to start Mount Vernon).
Twenty minutes into this article I can’t believe my eyes when I come across the following:
There it is in black and white, “…planning a traveling display so school children throughout Sacramento …will learn about the Liberty Bell and have a chance to ring it….The Bell debuts at the Sacramento Home and Trade show….the bell will tour Northern California extensively, towed on a custom-made trailer, by…a Mount Vernon pickup truck. Ten thousand school children will hear it’s peal….”
The bell is still there today.
It’s weird, but emotion came over me at that point. After a full day’s worth of research, I had proven that (in this instance at least) I wasn’t crazy. I remembered what I remembered 48 years ago and there was fairly indisputable evidence that my 5 1/2-year-old self’s memory was correct. I was elated and immediately set to writing this story…
Now, if only I can remember where my car keys are.