A little more info

I highly recommend the aforementioned The Oregon-American Lumber Company Ain't No More by Kamholz, Kamholz, and Blain- fascinating book about a fascinating subject.

As per some parts of the book not already remarked upon in this thread that are pertinent to the discussion, David Eccles himself started planning what became the Oregon-American Lumber Company operations. Under Eccle's direction, the Oregon Lumber Company purchased the "DuBois Tract", containing better than 2 billion board feet of timber on 22,000 acres. The Oregon-American Lumber Company was incorporated on 20 June 1917 by David C. Eccles, Royal Eccles, Leroy Eccles, Joseph Scowcroft, Charles T. Early, and M.S. Browning. The Eccles already had experience in northwest Oregon through their construction firms. On 28 July 1919 the Eccles incorporated the Portland, Astoria & Pacific Railroad, naming David C. Eccles president, M.S. Browning vice president, and Charles T. Early secretary and treasurer.

The Eccles announced plans to build a sawmill somewhere along the lower Willamette River; to that end, the original intentions for the PA&P were to build a common carrier railroad from the woods beyond Vernonia through town and down to a connection with the then existing United Railways, which the PA&P would lease. Another Eccles founded company, the Nehalem Boom Company, built a substantial log dump into the Willamette River at a point named Rafton, near where the United Railways connected with the Spokane, Portland & Seattle's Astoria line. It was for this purpose- running log trains from beyond Vernonia to the Rafton log dump- that the Oregon Lumber Company ordered the three big Alco mikados that sparked this thread.

Eccles involvement in this project lasted until the financial implosion of the David Eccles company in 1920-1921. As noted, the Central Coal & Coke Company took an option on the Oregon-American Lumber Company in early August 1921, but with the stipulation that the PA&P had to be sold, as Central did not wish to get into the common carrier railroad business. Central initially inked a deal to sell the PA&P to the Union Pacific, which forced the SP&S and its parent roads to exercise an earlier option they held to purchase the line.

As also noted, in the deal Central agreed to assume the purchase contract of the three Alco mikados...however, they only ended up paying for two of the three- in truth, they were designed for the mainline service over the PA&P that never materialized, as what was supposed to be the PA&P mainline instead became the SP&S Vernonia branch. The locomotives were too big for use on the logging railroads the O-A built...despite that, the #100 stuck around for the first few years, finally leaving the property around 1926, and the #102 lasted on the O-A until 1938. The #102 is still on display at Woss Camp as Canadian Forest Products #113.

Finally, as to the Copper River & Northwestern Alco mikados...McCloud River also ended up with two of them.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV