August 7, 2001. Mitchell to
Prineville, Oregon. (49 mi.) Mile 4034
More
history in Prineville
We left the fly off the tent last
night to enjoy the stars. Just before dawn, Jupiter and Venus shown
exceptionally bright, joining the nearly full moon over
the pink bluffs above our camp site.
We were on the road feeling rested
and strong by 7:00 am. We have pedaled through some incredibly beautiful country, and today was no exception. The air was cool and the
morning sun cast a golden light as we climbed out of the sagebrush and juniper
into forests of bunch grass and Ponderosa pine, then zoomed back down another
long descent to sagebrush again.
Ponderosa pine
forest near Ochoco Divide
We made it another short mileage
day and decided to enjoy a motel in
Prineville, the biggest town in central Oregon at the turn of the century. At
that time, the citizens of Prineville decided they needed a railroad. The City of
Prineville Railway, all 19 miles of it connecting the town to the main line,
was completed by 1918.
Galloping Gertie
of the Prineville Railway
The first train, referred to as
Galloping Gertie, ran past my great-grandparents' ranch between
Prineville and Redmond. They would persuade the conductor to let them off near
their house. This was my grandmother's home when she met my grandfather, the
same one who grew up in Scott City, KS, and whose boyhood home I stayed in
when we passed through on our bikes July 2. My
grandfather had moved west, and on July 1, 1923, he boarded Galloping Gertie
in Prineville and rode it to my grandmother's home where they were married.
They returned to Prineville on this train to begin their honeymoon. The City
of Prineville Railway is still the only city owned railway in the U.S.
Our bicycle trip has been an
unfolding east to west history lesson. From the first English settlement in
tidewater Virginia, through Civil War battlefields, Midwest river towns along
the Mississippi and Ohio, sites of Indian conflict on the Plains, Wild West
boom towns, the formidable Rockies, and the terminus of the Oregon Trail, this
history takes on a unique perspective from a bicycle.
