UPDATE - June 26, 2014:
It appears that this engine was built in 1914, not 1904 as stated in the information accompanying the engine. This should be engine #2769, built 09-19-1914 for the Great Northern Railway and later sold to the Sommers Lumber Company. Shay Locomotives has this engine's datasheet in its database. On the database search page one must click first on MT under Locations in U.S., then on Columbia Falls 2769.
The 1904 engine. on loan to the city of Columbia Falls by Stoltze Land and Lumber Company, was restored as a 1964 Montana Territorial Project of the Jaycees, with help from many local volunteers. Used on standard gauge spurs for logging in the Swan Valley and north of Half Moon, the impressive relic remains the pride of residents and the attraction of tourists.
Ephraim Shay invented the Shay locomotive and first hauled logs with his new engine in 1878 near Cadillac, Michigan. This "Tom Thumb" locomotive pulled its short train of flat cars loaded with logs from the woods to a sawmill, on a standard-gauge spur averaging 12 miles per hour. The Shay differed from a larger steam engine because it had vertical pistons and cylinders and was gear driven whereas regular railroad engines were driven by horizontal pistons and push rods. Both types of locomotives were fired with either wood or coal. This locomotive was used by different logging companies. About 1914, Somers Lumber Company logged with this Shay in the Swan Valley. The best sources state that W.H. Best Logging Company at Bigfork purchased it in 1919 and that the F.H. Stolude Land and Lumber Company bought the Shay in 1923 when it was the State Mill and had resumed operations after moving to Half Moon from a site three miles to the soith on the Whitefish River.
Acquisition and restoration of the Shay
The locomotive was a Jaycees project for the Columbia Falls 1964 Centennial, celebrating the I00th year of Montana Territory, May 26, 1864, and coincidentally, The Diamond Jubilee of Montana Statehood, November 8, 1889. F.H. Stoltze employees, mechanic Carl Johnson and Tom Brayson began restoration of the little locomotive when a company in South America indicated an interest in buying it. Upon learning that the Shay was standard gauge rather than narrow gauge, the South American company lost interest in the engine, however restoration had begun. Spearheaded by E.M. Boyle, F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company loaned the Shay to the City of Columbia Falls for a lifetime exhibit. Tom Brayson and Fred Collins oiled and adjusted the old engine for moving. Gary Preston, and later Roger Elliott, chaired the Jaycees at the time of this project.
From the Accompanying article