For those of you interested in more details about the filming of Buster Keaton`s movie "The General" , there was a book printed in 1998 called "The Day Buster Smiled" by the Cottage Grove Historical Society, P.O. Box 142, Cottage Grove, Oregon, 97424. It consists of all of the articles written by the local newspaper while the movie was being made near their town in 1926, many previously unpublished photographs, daily accounts of filming, and biographies of all the main characters. Also included are many human interest stories about Buster`s baseball games against the local teams, the movie troupe joining in with forest firefighters and using their costumes to beat out the flames, and Buster being knocked unconscious while standing in front of a Civil War cannon that fired prematurely. Of interest to historians are how the early press releases about the movie differ from the final product. In the beginning it was announced that the General would be wrecked in the trestle crash scene. After the filming was well under way, on July 8, 1926 , it was reported that a third engine had arrived in Cottage Grove named the Yonah and that it would be used in the crash scene instead. This must be the original source of information about an engine named Yonah but as we now know it was never used in the movie. The daily accounts of filming are informative and of interest is the fact that in August the smoke from nearby forest fires became so thick that they stopped filming and returned to Hollywood to work on interior shots at the studio. Keaton and the main characters came back to Cottage Grove in September after the Fall rains had cleared the air and finished the close-up shots that were needed. On September 16, 1926, after filming was complete, J.H. Chambers bought back the engines that portrayed the General and the Texas and continued to use them on the logging railroad until they were worn out. The third engine from the crash scene stayed in the river (the newspaper reports that it was turned over by high water on December 6, 1926) until it was cut up for scrap in the 1940`s.

TerryGookin@aol.com