Ione, Washington — County Bought a Railroad to Keep Industry Alive

When the Milwaukee Road wanted to abandon rail service in northern Pend Oreille County, local residents faced a practical problem.

The mills still needed trains.

Voters helped create the Port of Pend Oreille, preserving the route that became the Pend Oreille Valley Railroad.

For years, the publicly controlled line continued serving major industrial customers including the lumber mill at Ione and the cement plant at Metaline Falls.

That strategy could not preserve every industry forever.

Plants eventually closed or changed.

But the railroad survived as an unusual example of a rural county treating transportation infrastructure as something worth owning rather than simply losing.

Ione was built around timber.

For a while, keeping timber alive meant buying the railroad.