Caboose Visitor Center

Caboose #700 — Chamber Visitor Information Center

Caboose #700 now serves as the Chamber's Visitor Information Center. Built in the 1920s by a Simpson-affiliated railway company, it's a side-door caboose — a style once used to haul less-than-carload freight to logging camps and to carry passengers when rail was often the only way in or out.

The caboose was later absorbed into a private logging railroad and remained in active service for decades. Over the years it was upgraded for night runs with battery-powered lighting, and later equipped with a trackside phone connection so crews could communicate along the line.

It stayed in service well after most other railroads had phased out this style of caboose, finally retiring in the mid-1960s. It was preserved by a regional railroad historical group and displayed elsewhere for a time before being transported back to Shelton in 1983 and placed alongside the Shay locomotive on Railroad Avenue.

Side-door cabooses like #700 were once common on logging railroads and branch lines, but few originals survive today. It now stands as both a working visitor center and a monument to the region's logging and railroad history.

Location & Contact: 230 W Railroad Ave, Shelton WA, 98584