In 1922, the US Forest Service offered one of the largest timber sales
in the agency's history, encompassing 890 million board feet of mostly
Ponderosa pine timber in the mountains north of Burns, Oregon. Among
other requirements, the sale terms required the successful bidder to
build and operate 80 miles of common carrier railroad through some of
the most remote and undeveloped country in the state. The Fred Herrick
Lumber Company and its Malheur Railroad initially won the bidding, only
to lose it when a crash in the lumber market forced the company into
insolvency. The Edward Hines Lumber Company of Chicago picked up the
pieces, and from 1929 until 1984, its subsidiary Oregon & Northwestern
Railroad made a living hauling logs, lumber, and occasional livestock
between Burns and Seneca, Oregon.