This locomotive has been on every steam locomotive list, back to the dark ages. (Early 1970s). It was originally built for P.T. Clifford & Sons in Valparaiso, Indiana and passed through the hands of a private owner in Illinois to the Midwest Old Settlers & Threshers Association at Mount Pleasant, IA. In 1980 it was sold to Kim Graham of West Liberty, IA.

Despite several trips through West Liberty in the early 1990s I was unable to locate this locomotive, or, for that matter anyone who knew of it. This was probably just poor research on my part, but nonetheless I began to wonder if it even existed.

In the past could of days I've received information from three sources that the little locomotive was sold to the town of West Liberty on June 7th, 2013. Mystery resolved.
And a small locomotive preserved.

Doug -

Thanks for the info. Valparaiso is probably the closest decent size city to our museum and to have a surviving locomotive with a "tie-in" to Valpo, is interesting. I am not sure just what P. T. Clifford & Sons was, but perhaps we will find out some day. This brings up a question about Davenport; did that builder take photos of their locomotives when being sent out to a buyer? And if so, do these photos still exist somewhere? It would be nice to have a photo of the P. T. Clifford & Sons 0-4-0T to display with our other photo archives.

Les

It appears P.T. Clifford & Sons was a railroad contractor:

http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Biographies/Clifford259.html

http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/PorterCountyCentennial/Sec3-24_PatrickClifford.html

There is apparently still a Clifford Stone & Material Co., which may be related:

http://www.valparaisochamber.org/member ... ial-co.php

Steve Hunter

Steve -

Thanks for the info. I'll have to check some time with Clifford Stone & Materials to see if they can tell me if there is a tie in.

Les