Steam Locomotive No. 2252 was manufactured by Crooks Locomotive & Machine Company of Patterson, New Jersey, in March 1897 as one of thirty-eight identical T-1 class locomotives built that year. Only two, No. 2252 and No. 2248, located in Texas, survive.

The locomotive was first used for freight service along the Donner Pass Line. In 1929, it was released from freight service and equipped to fight snow-shed fires, brush fires and forest fires along the Donner Pass Route in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

After nearly three decades of firefighting, the locomotive was retired in 1956 and donated to the city of Roseville for display at the Placer County Fairgrounds.

On October 13, 2004, the seventy ton locomotive was transported across the city to its current location.

Source: Adapted from an interpretative marker at the site of the locomotive.