08/05/2026
Caboose #1 is shown in 1927 on an inspection train at Ramer’s Spur, milepost 146, between Alturas and Lakeview near Willow Ranch. A year later, it would be sold to E.G. McAdams.
Shotgun shack?
On May 26, 1928, the final narrow-gauge train departed Lakeview behind ten-wheeler #14, effectively marking the completion of widening the N-C-O. The road’s three-foot-gauge equipment, suddenly obsolete, was placed up for sale or held for use on other lines by the Southern Pacific. On August 10, General Manager S.H. McCartney reported disposing of 100 pieces of company property, including locomotives and cars. Much of the rolling stock was de-trucked for use as outbuildings or, in at least one case, incorporated into pre-existing structures. Among the cars sold was caboose #1, built in the N-C-O’s Reno shops in 1900, which was purchased by E.G. McAdams of Alturas.
Edward McAdams was an itinerant house painter. In 1916, he lived in Likely, according to a Modoc County precinct register. Two years later, he filed a $75 claim against the county’s general or road fund in the name of the E.G. McAdams Tinting Library. He was not counted in the 1920 US census. By 1927, he resided in Reno.
The following year, he returned to Modoc County. On September 6 1928, he took out an advertisement in the Modoc County Times announcing the services of “E.G. McAdams, the Painter”, offering paperhanging, tinting, and decorations, under the motto “Let me help you with your color scheme.” His listed address was P.O. Box 329 in Alturas.
On the night of Saturday, November 24, McAdams was drinking at his residence, which the press described as a “cabin” located “north of town.” Lloyd Nuchols, his employee, approached the entrance to collect his wages. McAdams warned him to go away and not bother him. Another account states he threatened to shoot him. Nuchols, unaware of his boss’s condition, opened the door and was met with a blast from McAdams’s shotgun. “Fortunately, he was so close to the door that the bulk of the shot load shot the iron doorknob and was deflected,” reported the Alturas Plaindealer. “Just four shots penetrated Nuchols’ clothing and embedded in the skin of his stomach, while two or three pellets entered his hand.”
Later that week, McAdams pled guilty, asking for clemency on the grounds that he was irresponsible at the time of the incident. He was sentenced to a year in the county jail, but paroled on the condition that he leave the county immediately and not re-enter for the duration of his sentence. He was allowed a few days to close up his business and settle his affairs. After two weeks, he was still in town and told to leave twice more. “While there seems to have been a dispute as to the facts in McAdams’s case, there was no dispute as to the fact that he was an undesirable citizen here and authorities wished him to move on,” opined the Plaindealer.
Nearly three months later, on February 28, 1929, he was back in Alturas, from Lakeview, where he had been living. He might have just been passing through because by May 29th he was working in Reno again. No trace of him appears in the US Census of the following year.
It seems likely that the caboose McAdams purchased from the N-C-O that summer, and the “cabin north of town” are one and the same. The implied small size of the enclosure is analogous to a narrow-gauge caboose, and the sturdy “iron doorknob” is perhaps more descriptive of railroad hardware than of what is usually found on a cabin door. His stubbornness to leave town could point to a reluctance to abandon his investment. But it's impossible to know for sure.
Unless, of course, it's still there. Somewhere north of town, with or without its cupola, wrapped in all-weather siding, or part of another structure entirely. Something practically invisible, around so long it blends into the scenery. Could caboose #1 still exist? Check the doorknobs.
(This is a sample article from the summer issue of Narrow, Crooked & Ornery, published 4 times a year, that comes with membership https://www.ncory.org/membership/ to the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway Historical Society. Article by Dan Haneckow.)
