This cache also qualifies for the Disappearing RR Blues bonus cache. This series highlights railways of NW Oregon
About Carlton Train Station
In 1872 the Oregon and California Railroad opened the St. Joseph branch between Beaverton and St Joseph via Forest Grove. Eventually the line was extended to McMinnville and onto Corvallis. At St Joseph there the line is joined by the line from Newberg/Sherwood in 1907. The Southern Pacific acquired the line in 1887.
The story goes that the line passed thru what is now called Carlton without a stop as it was just open farmland. Mr. Wilson Carl along with a group of farmer requested the railroad add a stop near their farms. The railroad agreed to add the flag stop. The stop remained un-named, but railroad employees allegedly called the stop Carl's town, so Carlton was born as the stop became more of a station.
Although I have not found definitively when the current depot was built, but my guess it opened when the rail line through Carlton was electrified in 1915 as the depot looks like other SP depots built around that time. The SP Red Electric Interurban trains stopped here to take passengers to Portland, Beaverton, McMinnville and Corvallis. There was also a logging railroad then branched off here to go into the coast range called the Carlton and Coast Railroad. Electric Interurban passenger service ended in 1929 and the wires were pulled down. Freight service continued. The line thru Carlton was not formally abandoned in the 1990's and track pulled up.
The station today has been beautifully restored but is now used as a part of the Carlton area's famous wine country. There has been talk of converting the old RR right-of-way into a bike path, and possibly even restore the rails to make a wine train. The bike path may happen, but I don't have high hopes the rails will ever come back.
The cache is a bison tube across the street from the beautiful depot near a stop for the railroads replacement.