News

During 2023 we have had many accomplishments – the further restoration of our Southern Pacific Pullman Car #109, the “Shasta”, a major expansion and renovation of our library, the re-construction of a historic train depot installation known as “Black Rock Station”, ongoing forest and creek restoration activities and the installation of a long-planned and anticipated wheelchair lift to provide access to our PFE Reefer library space and boxcar music stage. We hosted several successful gatherings and events, including Spring and Fall work parties, a June Railroad Days party, the second NML get-together, and a number of boxcar music shows. We partnered with Railway Workers United, Southern Oregon Historical Society, the Smithsonian Postal Museum and others in commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Tunnel 13 train robbery attempt in the Siskiyou Mountains. We have also partnered with The Wheelhouse to facilitate music shows in Dunsmuir, including Hearts Gone South in October and Jason Dea West in December. We continue to provide support (information, communications, networking and more) to a national and international community of train-obsessed travelers for whom BBCRC has become an invaluable resource. This is all in addition to the ongoing maintenance and operational costs required just to keep things going day to day – as well as infrastructure improvements and amenities we are trying to provide to make living at BBCRC more sustainable for our resident caretakers.

Over the past four years, we received a series of Covid-19 relief and other general operating support grants through the California Arts Council and the State of California. These helped us maintain basic general operations at a time when many of our supporters had limited capacity to financially assist. However, those grants have now ended. Individual supporters have always been key to our financial viability, and now we need to ask supporters like you to step up and help us sustain our efforts and activities over the coming year. Please consider making a donation to help us strengthen and maintain our operations in 2024! You can donate online, via Venmo @bbcrc, or by sending a check made out to BBCRC to 800 Black Butte Road, Weed, CA 96094. Buying BBCRC merchandise is another way you can support the Center. Check out our revamped online merchandise store.

We have a fun series of events, activities and projects in the works. However, this can only happen with the support – financial and through volunteer engagement – of our friends and supporters. Thank you and we hope to see you at the Center sometime in 2024!

Greetings from Black Butte. We have had a good year at the Center. After having our re-opening stall out in 2021, due to both acute wildfire smoke/danger and the resurgent Covid-19 situation, we got back on track in 2022 – and even held our largest event ever! We also made good progress with a number of new and ongoing projects and are well-positioned to sustain those efforts in the coming year. We continue to benefit from the creative energies of our resident caretakers and many volunteers who have come and helped over the course of the year. Among the highlights:

In June, we hosted the long-anticipated and twice delayed End of the Line Moniker Show. When it happened it really happened – an estimated 500-600 people attended our events in Dunsmuir and at Black Butte over the course of four days. The theme was historic and modern-day monikers – the drawing made by train riders, rail worker and other train enthusiasts and scribbled on railcars and under bridges along the tracks. Music was also a large part of the event with musician friends coming from all over the country to play on all four days. Perhaps most important was successfully bringing together our far-flung community after a long period of isolation. This was also a “coming out” event for our SP Shasta Car which, while still very much under restoration, functioned impressively well as a spacious and unique art gallery space. We also had exhibitions in our PFE Reefer car and at the Siskiyou Arts Museum in Dunsmuir. There was a railroad film event at the historic Dunsmuir theater, a series of presentations and a robust BBCRC presence at the Dunsmuir Railroad Days parade. We only pulled this off with a huge collective effort – thanks to everyone who helped out! For a more detailed summary of the event please see the End of the Line page.

In advance of End of the Line we help our first Spring work party since 2019. A major focus was getting ready for the big show in June. We also started on our new Access Project by raising up the deck adjoining our boxcar and reefer – the first step in making these cars wheelchair accessible. Further accessibility improvements are in the works for the coming year.

Over the course of the year, we accomplished several rounds of Ecological/Forest Restoration and Wildfire Prevention. This work has recently focused on our creekside (riparian) areas, including clearing and burning old dead willow debris (which has unnaturally accumulated due a lack of fire on the property for at least 75 years) and thinning out conifers. This allows for the regeneration of diverse species and is a benefit for birds and other wildlife. After some setbacks, our water trailer is now fully operational, increasing our capacity to safely conduct pile and prescribed burning and to fight small fires on the property.

In September, the No Mans Land (NML) gathering was held at Black Butte. “NLM was a great success. Guests came to the late summer event to gather with other members of the woman and trans/queer/gender non-conforming train-loving community. During the festival’s long weekend, workshops and skill demonstrations were shared, as well as wonderful food, dancing, music and art. This event was dedicated to the expansive train culture and to celebrate its diversity in a supportive environment. Look forward to future events.”
BBCRC board member and organizer, Ray Lupis

In October we organized a Fall Work Party which moved projects along on multiple fronts – creek restoration work, firewood processing, a new firewood shed for the Dorris caboose, painting and other work on some of the railcars, the construction of a new walking bridge across Black Butte Creek (built using donated narrow-gauge rails!) and many other infrastructure improvements. We had a great turnout, good music and lots of socializing around the campfire.

Not all was rosy. Our region is suffering through the worst drought in many hundreds of years, causing damage to our forests and local watershed. While we mostly avoided wildfire smoke at Black Butte this year, our local community of Weed suffered a tragedy when the “Mill Fire” broke out at the lumber mill near downtown Weed, decimating the historic African-American neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, killing two people and burning down 100 homes. The fire was caused due to negligent practices by Roseburg Forest Products, which will hopefully be held accountable for its actions.

We are currently in our “winter hibernation” mode and have already had a couple of good snowfalls. We are hoping that this is a sign that our drought is lessoning and that we will get more moisture over the next few months. We have lots of initiatives and ideas for the coming year, which will also be the 100-year birthday for our Western Pacific-Pacific Fruit Express reefer car, built in 1923.

BBCRC would like to thank everyone who helped make this past year so successful. We hope to see you at the Center in 2023!

This last year was a mixed one for us in many ways. We started off hoping for a full re-opening of the Center and a resumption of music and other events by mid-summer. However, a combination of acute fire danger and the resurgent Covid-19 situation, which was especially bad in Siskiyou County where we are located, made us reconsider. The “Lava Fire” in July burned up on the side of Mount Shasta right above us, including into nearby Diller Canyon. Despite these challenges, including many weeks of intense heat and smoke, we have been able to move forward with a number of projects and initiatives. We started welcoming limited numbers of visitors back to our site and had a number of small scale work parties and volunteer events. In April we conducted a 15-acre prescribed burn on the property, with assistance from the Siskiyou Prescribed Burn Association, the Karuk Tribe, Quartz Valley Indian Reservation, Weed Fire Department and other organizations.

In July a group of artists, including Shawnee, Fiona, and Heidi, came to Black Butte to paint a new mural on our compound. The mural will be described in a forthcoming artist statement. We were also able to proceed with further work on several of our railcars: a project to re-side the 1923 PFE Reefer, housing the BBCRC library and art space, was completed and then repainted and lettered in its historic Pacific Fruit Express/Western Pacific scheme. Work on our SP #109 “Shasta” car has moved to the car’s windows and interior. Note: We will be looking for carpentry assistance to further this restoration in 2022, let us know if you are interested in helping out. Further work also took place on our GN/OC&E caboose, “Dorris”. The caboose is now outfitted with all new upholstery and further window restoration and window reconstruction took place. In order to recreate the atmosphere of a caboose in the 1930s/40s, we are looking for donations of caboose furnishings from that era, including interior lamps, caboose marker lights and other “bells and whistles”. We will soon be posting photos of our progress and events over 2021 on the “Images” section of our site.