<I>Contributed photo</I><BR>In 1910, the Prairie City Depot opened for the Sumpter Valley Railway which had regular service from Baker City to Prairie City until 1933.

PRAIRIE CITY – It’s a triple-digit birthday, as the DeWitt Museum turned 100 years old June 10.

To mark the occasion, Alfred Mullett will offer a presentation and slideshow on the museum’s history, starting at 7 p.m. Sunday, July 4, at the museum.

On the very spot it sits today, at Bridge and Main streets in Depot Park, the museum was built in 1910 as a railway depot for the Sumpter Valley Railway (SVRy), when service was extended from Baker City to Prairie City.

The ground floor of the two-story building held the waiting area, station agent’s office, and baggage and freight rooms. Upstairs were the living quarters for the station manager and his family, as well as extra rooms for other railway personnel.

After railway service was abandoned in 1933, various families lived in the building until 1973. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

In the 1980s it became a museum, housing first the collection from area pioneers T. Gail and Peacha DeWitt. Over the years it has grown to become not only a collection of railroad and DeWitt family artifacts, but a treasury of Prairie City history.

Museum staff also plan to turn a duplicate of an SVRy cattle car into a float for the town’s Fourth of July parade.

For more information, call museum curator Vera Clark, at 541-820-3330.