Bear Valley Lodge

A working engine maneuvers the tracks of Seneca.


The Kindergarten through fourth grade students worked together to make the town buildings out of boxes.  First we studied old photographs to see what each building looked like in the 1930s.  We also asked people who lived here back then.  We found out what shape the structure was, what kind of siding and roofing it had, and where the doors and windows were.


Our next step was to cut and tape boxes together to make the shape of the building.  Then we drew our siding and roofing on colored paper and glued it on the boxes.  We made windows and doors out of paper and glued them on the building.  We added important details like chimneys or porches.


After we finished making the building so it would look authentic, we placed it on our model.  We checked the map to make sure we had it in the right place in respect to other places in the town, like the railroad tracks, the river, or the highway.  We also made gravel roads and the river.  We still have a lot more road and river to make.  Eventually, we are going to make Camp 1, the planer mill, and more buildings.
K-4 showing their portion of the town model.


We laid the main track to show where the tracks used to be.  The train cars would be loaded up with logs out on the spurs in Logan Valley (point east) and the north end of Bear Valley (point north).  The Oregon Northwestern Railroad transported logs on this track from Seneca to Hines (point south along railroad grade) at the maximum speed of 15 miles per hour.  The train carried logs to the Hines mill where they were made into lumber.  At the time, the Hines mill was the largest mill under one roof in the world.  We changed one of the passenger cars in our train into a log car, but our locomotive is not strong enough to pull it.  We would like to have more tracks and a stronger engine!

This is the Seneca School .  It was built in 1932.  Grades one through eight attended school here, and ther class than there are now.  Around 1949 or 1950, the gym and two other classrooms were added on to the main building.  Hines Lumber Co. donated the materials, and the employees all donated a day’s wages to help build the new section. 

This section of Seneca had the shop where the train engines and other equipment were worked on.  Nearby was the power house where hog fuel was burned to heat water to make steam.  Steam was piped to the company office, warehouse, shops, the swimming pool, and across the river to the hotel and store.  The heated pool was the most popular place in town for kids in the summer.

The train shop is where the train engines, railcars, and other logging equipment were worked on.  The shop was big enough to drive a whole locomotive into it.  The train tracks ran right through the building. 

The center section of town had the hotel, the store, and the first baseball field.  The single men stayed in the hotel, one man to each room.  They ate at the restaurant.  The store building had a lot of different parts.  The store was a general store that carried just about anything you needed, from food to clothes to tools.  There was also a restaurant, a movie theatre, a gas station, and the Coconut Grove.  The Coconut Grove was a big room where meetings and special events were held.  For awhile, the post office was inside the store, and then later it was housed between the store and the hotel.  (Point to the baseball field due south of the store.)  This is where the Seneca Loggers baseball team played until about 1945.

The Town.

Town Log Deck.

Town with guides.