Chapter Text
1883. Gravity Falls, Oregon.
The time? About 2PM. Maybe 2:35PM. Honestly, time is a bit difficult to track when everyone just has pocket watches. Those things aren’t hugely reliable.
The colour scheme? Sepia.
The weirdness? Basically off the scale, as always.
The 11:53AM Pacific North-Woodsman – a slightly less than bottom tier train - rattles through the famous floating cliffs to the trestle bridge, carrying a selection of the area’s best pillows, haybales, rubber balls and stickers, along with a couple of passenger carriages full of ne’er-do-wells.
The entire thing is being hauled by Old No.4, a battered steam engine that leaks like a sieve and whistles like a kettle. All in the care of a half asleep engineer who’s busy writing a letter to his ex-wife about how he’s approximately three hours away from retirement. The conductor is sat back drinking from a mug of molasses while reading the latest issue of Bare Ankles Monthly. He should be watching the railroad line, but nothing weird ever happens in Gravity Falls.
Apart from the odd gnome.
Or giant caterpillar.
Details, details. Nothing to write home about, unless you’re three hours away from retirement.
Suddenly, a bright flash appears ahead of the train – behind it, a portly, nervous and constantly stammering time traveller escaping time-jail and a manotaur using a piece of rail as a toothpick, who decides the train is trying to start a fight.
He prepares his fists while the time traveller watches in his usual brand of anxiety – and slight indifference.
“Oh jeez. This is my fault. I-I-I probably shouldn’t have landed here.”
The train hits the manotaur full force, plummeting from the suspiciously shaped bridge towards the centre of Gravity Falls. The explosion – followed by a rain of hay, bouncy balls and fine feather-down pillows creates a scene of extremely non-threatening – albeit chaotic – disarray. The town was also covered in stickers advertising maple syrup, which would later lead to a future mayor’s complete distaste for the sticky garnish.
Blendin Blandin, Time-traveller extraordinaire, ex-wig model, and occasional competitive cross-stitch player, quickly makes himself scarce, before re-emerging as a mildly successful pocket watch repairman at 618 Gobbling Ostrich Avenue – never to speak of this ordeal, unless in a particularly difficult Vigenère code.
The town would never be the same again - as there was now the remains of a freight train jammed in the middle of it. That will generally change things. The great train crash of 1883 would never be forgotten. Mostly. Actually, it’s almost been forgotten entirely, without even having a gravestone, plaque or marker - but it’s a great story to tell the kids. Either way, you probably want to buy a postcard, right?
Only $1.50. $20 if you’re a tourist.
Years passed, and slowly the crash site became a bit of a health hazard. Tetanus reigned supreme, and some teenagers wrote disrespectful things such as ‘equal rights’ and ‘I enjoy child labour not being a thing’ on the rusting lumps of iron. At some point, it was even believed to be inhabited by a group of small men in pointy hats who chased after local women seeking a new monarch. This was vehemently denied by the town authorities. Eventually, by the year of 1960, the town’s mayor, Eustace Befufftlefumper, demanded the area be cleared, and replaced with something tasteful, that created a free rolling enterprise for the bustling – or at least, mildly pulsating – town.
The townspeople, lacking imagination, decided on a diner with wheels.
A flat wagon, taken from the wreck, was rolled onto a pair of rails, with every intention of using more wagon parts for the structure atop it. After all, who can afford those fancy things like bricks, or fresh timber. Do you think timber grows on trees?
They were just setting up the diner’s chassis with when Marilyn, one of the town’s biggest redwoods, was unceremoniously felled by a group of giant beavers, one of Gravity Fall’s most enduring, adorable and difficult vermin problems (at least since the giant rats were led away by a man playing a flute.) The beavers were given a minimum wage of $3 to hollow out the remaining tree trunk to provide the diner’s interior, which was later fitted out by the town’s people using whatever they could find nearby.
Before long, unhappy with the meagre wage and poor provisions, beavers decided to strike for an extra $2 per hour towards the end of construction, for which they were denied. The remaining work was done by schoolchildren, who worked for free.
The whereabouts of said beavers is now unknown.
Greasy’s House of Endless Bacon, later Greasy’s House of Finite Bacon with no Refunds, followed by just Greasy’s Diner after a brief legal battle (see Gravity Falls Gossiper Issue 6118, April 21st, 1991) is one of the more curious examples of Oregon architecture, being developed from a railroad flatbed, carriage seats, engine parts and the redwood’s remains. Despite suffering a rabid animal problem, draughts and the odd lawsuit due to excessive splintering, Greasy’s remains an institution for the town, its unique nature and the population’s occasional bursts of inventiveness and psychosis.
It’s unsurprising that, when two twins who saved the sleepy area of Gravity Falls came back to their spiritual home, it was the first place they went to meet their Grunkles, and kickstart another summer.