William Crooks (locomotive)

William Crooks

William Crooks in Chicago enroute to the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Type and origin Power type Steam Builder New Jersey Locomotive and Machine Works Build date 1861 Rebuild date 1869, after damaged in 1868 fire

Specifications Configuration 4-4-0 Gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) Driver dia. 63 in (1.600 m) Adhesive weight 35,950 pounds (16,310 kg; 16.31 t) Loco weight 55,400 lb (25,100 kg; 25.1 t) Boiler pressure 110 psi (0.76 MPa) Cylinders Two Cylinder size 12 in × 22 in (305 mm × 559 mm)

Performance figures Tractive effort 4,700 lbf (20.91 kN)

Career Operators St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, Great Northern Railway Class 1 Numbers 1 First run June 1862 Retired September 1897 Current owner Minnesota Historical Society, loaned to Lake Superior Railroad Museum Disposition static display at Lake Superior Railroad Museum

William Crooks locomotive
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
William Crooks at the St. Paul Union Depot.
Location	Duluth, Minnesota
Built	1861
Architect	New Jersey Locomotive and Machine Works
NRHP Reference #	74002403
Added to NRHP	April 5, 1974

William Crooks, named after the Colonel of the Minnesota Volunteers' Sixth Regiment during the American Civil War (and later Chief Mechanical Engineer for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad), is a 4-4-0 steam locomotive that was the first locomotive to operate in the U.S. state of Minnesota. William Crooks laid out the initial ten-mile track between Minneapolis and St. Paul the locomotive operated on. The William Crooks was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 1974.

Constructed in 1861 for the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad as their number 1, it first provided service a year later in 1862 for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (into which the M&P had been reorganized by that time). After completion, the locomotive traveled by rail to La Crosse, Wisconsin, which was the nearest rail point to St. Paul at the time. From there, it was loaded onto a Mississippi River barge bound for St. Paul. Though it arrived in St. Paul on September 9, 1861, it was not until June 28, 1862, that the passenger equipment arrived and ten miles of track could be laid. The William Crooks carried its first train load of passengers on the same day. The trip began at 2:30 PM from St. Paul with the train and its passengers returning from its ten mile trip to St. Anthony (now Minneapolis) at 6 PM. While the governor of Minnesota, the founder of the railroad and other dignitaries were the train's first passengers, the train moved into regular service four days later.

The locomotive was originally a wood-burner with a tender that held just two cords of wood. Often, the tender's wood was used before the train could reach a wood pile, forcing the crew to make use of the wooden right-of-way fences to keep the train moving. Later the locomotive was converted into a coal-burner. As built, the engine had a straight boiler (was not tapered from a larger diameter at the firebox end to a smaller diameter at the smokebox end), had the balloon stack typical of wood burning engines, and three domes, the center of which was for sanding the rails to improve traction when needed. As the engine aged and parts replaced, the engine's appearance changed. The engine received a diamond stack for burning coal, its boiler replaced with a tapered design, and was reduced to a two dome configuration.