St. Paul Pass Tunnel

[2] The tunnel was constructed as part of the Milwaukee Road's "Pacific Coast Extension" project, undertaken in the first decade of the 1900s.

The construction occurred late in the historical era of American railroading; it was the last transcontinental line built.

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.

[6] Because the Pacific Extension 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.

Throughout its life, the initial overrun of costs for the Pacific Extension left the Milwaukee Road plagued by financial trouble.

[3] The abandoned tunnel sat dormant and empty for more than twenty years, then it was included in the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company Historic District.

A similar Milwaukee Road rail trail in Washington through the Cascades, Iron Horse State Park, includes the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

It had a short but colorful history, and was allegedly named after President William Howard Taft, who visited the work camp while Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt; he chastised the town as a "sewer of sin" and "a sore on an otherwise beautiful national forest."

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 attracted those returning from the gold rushes in Alaska, and became a den of criminals and vice.

[5][8] As the fire approached Taft, the remaining residents ignored a call to join firefighters, drank up what they could in the saloons and hastily left on an evacuation train.