After spending a day skidding logs, laying track or building Seneca's first homes, the workers needed a place to call home; temporarily at least.
In 1928 "Camp One" was established southwest of here, and with boxcars for homes, commissary, store, electricity, and running water, it was quite a logging camp! Gradually logs became lumber, and lumber became buildings, and by 1931, Camp One was no more, the town of Seneca having risen from the valley floor.
The harsh times of the 1930's gave way to increased demand for lumber from World War II onwards.
A new steam-heated, wood-paneled hotel became home to loggers who, so unused to the luxury, named it the "Waldorf-Astoria." Kids swam in the pool heated by the nearby locomotive shop. Labor Day picnics for Hines Company employees were the norm. The company newspaper carried cheery words:
"...it's sweet music to hear the wail of the locomotive whistling for the highway crossing into town, and count the number of log cars bound for the mill in Hines. While the mill seems to have an insatiable appetite for logs, the loggers have vowed to stuff it full to the gills..."
- Hines Log, July 1951.
Changing times means that Seneca has become a quieter place again, but with a richer history. Be sure to find out
more about the railroad at the interpretive site between here and Burns.
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