Built in 1883 by Philadelphia-based Baldwin Locomotive Works, Locomotive No. 3, the Three Spot, was originally intended for the Tehuantepec Interoceanic Railway in Mexico, but when that line never took delivery, the engine became available to the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad, which needed motive power while John S. Wolf and Company of Ottumwa, Iowa, was building a 68-mile line from Agate Bay on Lake Superior to an iron ore mine near the town later known as Soudan. Purchased for $9,750 as the railroad’s first locomotive, the Three Spot reached Duluth over existing rail lines under its own power, then was lashed to a scow under D&IR civil engineer William McGonagle for the 30-mile trip to Agate Bay, later known as Two Harbors, towed by the steam tug Ella G. Stone under Captain Cornelius O. Flynn through a northeaster that nearly sank the scow before arriving safely on August 29, 1883. It then served as a construction locomotive, carrying men, supplies, rails, and equipment from Agate Bay to the track-laying site, and as a wood-burning engine it could gather wood and water along the wilderness route, though it did not haul the first load of iron ore from the Vermilion Range because it was too light for heavy raw ore loads. In 1899 it was sold for $3000 to the Alger-Smith Logging Company’s Duluth and Northern Minnesota Railroad at Knife River, renumbered D&NM No. 2, and used to haul logs over lightly built logging railroad track beds. After several later sales and a narrow escape from being scrapped, the little 2-6-0 returned and, beginning in 1923, the Thirty Year Veteran’s Association of the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Company was allowed to display the Three Spot by the D&IR Depot, where it has remained.