St. Paul Pass Tunnel

Selection of the St. Paul Pass route, and construction of the St. Paul Pass tunnel

The St. Paul Pass Tunnel was constructed as part of the Milwaukee Line’s “Pacific Coast Extension” construction project in the first decade of the 1900s. This project extended the Milwaukee’s concentration of railroad lines in the upper Midwest area of Milwaukee-Chicago-Minneapolis-St. Paul across the Rocky Mountains to the Seattle-Tacoma, Washington area on Puget Sound. The construction of the “Pacific Coast Extension” of the Milwaukee Line occurred late in the historical era of railroad building, and it was the last transcontinental railroad line to be constructed connecting the Pacific coast with the midwest. The Pacific Extension surveying started in 1901, and continued until 1909 when a final golden spike was driven at Garrison, Montana.

The St. Paul Pass route was surveyed from Butte Montana, starting in August 1906 and continuing through November 1906. The surveyors used using the surveying tools of that day – transit, stadia rod, surveying chain and barometer. The Milwaukee Road was committed to a route with no more than a 2% grade on the Pacific Extension line, and the surveying west of Butte to the St. Paul Pass was thorough and extensive, covering some 1,400 miles, in order to select a route of 240 miles in length. As a result of this diligent work the surveyors and engineers achieved a very even low grade of 1.7% grade from Haugan, Montana on the east to Avery, Idaho on the west. This even low grade allowed trains to cross the pass with long loads fairly easily. From the pass, the route then descended the St. Joe River to Avery Idaho.

The St. Paul Pass was chosen because of the stands of marketable white pine timber and also because there were no other competing railroads nearby. The contract work for the building of the St. Paul Pass Tunnel was done by Winston Brothers Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota with the primary subcontract work carried out by contractors W.B. Cronk, A.D. McDougal & Company, Stewart and Welch, and Street & Lusk.

Grading toward the pass began from Missoula, Montana in July, 1906, and about this same time work began on both approaches to the tunnel, with the approaches being completed in 1906. Heavy boring began in 1907, and the tunnel was officially completed in December, 1908. The Milwaukee line recorded the tunnel as “#20” since it numbered its tunnels from east to west. The official length of the tunnel was 8,771 feet and it was the second longest tunnel on the Milwaukee main line from Chicago to Seattle, only exceeded by the 11,888 foot Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Decline of the Milwaukee Route, and abandonment of the St. Paul Pass tunnel

The Pacific Extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad was the United States’ last transcontinental railroad route to be constructed. Because the Milwaukee was built without federal land grant assistance that earlier transcontinental railroads had received as an incentive, its construction costs particularly for right of way acquisition, ran significantly over budget. The route by-passed some major population centers and passed through other areas of limited local traffic, which reduced prospective traffic revenues. Because operation of steam locomotives over the mountain passes was difficult, in 1914 and 1915 the line underwent an electrification process in two sections, one over the Rocky Mountains (1914-1915) and the other over the Cascades (1917) extended to Seattle in 1927, which further deepened cost over-runs. The extension became a long haul route. During its history, the Milwaukee offered high speed passenger trains from Chicago and twin cities area to the Tacoma and Seattle area, including the well known “Hiawatha”.

Throughout its life, the initial over-run of costs for the “Pacific Extension” left the Milwaukee plagued by financial trouble. The depression and several unsuccessful receiverships followed by the general decline of railroad traffic in the 1950s, followed by the consolidation of larger railroads finally caused the Milwaukee to abandon its entire trackage system in the Idaho-Montana area in 1980.

Revival of the St. Paul Pass Tunnel as a rail-trail route

The St. Paul Pass Tunnel sat dormant and empty for more than 20 years. Then it was included in the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company Historic District. The St. Paul Tunnel route was officially ‘rededicated’ on June 23, 2001, as part of the “Route of the Hiawatha” rail/trail. Tours are available, or one can simply walk or take a bike through the tunnel from portal to portal. Today the tunnel sees thousands of hikers and bikers annually. Along with the St. Paul Tunnel there are other bridges and tunnels intact on the Idaho approaches to St. Paul Pass, as are part of the structures that bore the overhead wires for the electric trains, and some signs and signals along the right of way.

Taft, Montana

The tunnel under the St. Paul Pass was also known as the Taft Tunnel, after the town of Taft, Montana (1907-1910) which sprang up at the east portal of the tunnel during construction. The town had a short but colorful history. It was allegedly named after William Howard Taft who visited the work camp while Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt, and who chastised the town as a “sewer of sin” and “a sore on an otherwise beautiful national forest.” Either out of jest or spite, the town named itself after Taft. The town was the last of wide open towns that followed railroad construction. The town sprang up after the end of the “wild west” era, and drew people who were leaving communities which were increasingly turning to law and order; it also drew persons of the same stripe returning from the gold rushes in Alaska. It became a den of criminals and vice. It was a long way from the nearest county seat, which was then at Missoula, Montana and the county sheriff and deputies let Taft develop as it would in anticipation that it would have a short life. It extended along a half mile stretch of right of way track. The town peaked at about 3000 denizens and had between 20 and 50 saloons, and the second biggest profession after “railroad worker” was prostitution. In the spring the melting banks of snow in the mountain town meant the discovery of dead bodies, and allegedly during the final spring of 1909, as many as 17 bodies were found. Buildings in Taft had been hastily constructed of wood and were flimsy. After experiencing a few smaller fires, Taft was destroyed by the 1910 “Big Burn” forest fires that extended over much of northern Idaho and western Montana. As the fire approached Taft the remaining residents ignored a call to join fire-fighters, drank up what they could in the saloons and hastily left on an evacuation train. The residents had mostly “squatted” on National Forest land, and forest rangers suppressed any effort to rebuild the town, and, after all was said and done, the construction workers had moved on, and with them the money. After the fire, the railroad named the same area the East Portal and it had an electric substation after electrification of the line in about 1914. The few remaining abandoned buildings were buried by the construction of I-90 in 1962, and now nothing remains but an exit named Taft on the interstate.