The Ames Monument is a large pyramid in Albany County, Wyoming, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and dedicated to brothers Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, Jr. The brothers were Union Pacific Railroad financiers. The monument was built at a cost of $65,000 and completed in 1892. The brothers garnered credit for connecting the nation by … Continue reading The Ames Monument →

The Dale Creek Bridge, located some twenty miles southeast of Laramie and four miles west of the Ames Monument, was the longest bridge on the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad. Completed in 1868 in southeastern Wyoming Territory, the Dale Creek Bridge presented engineers of the transcontinental railroad with one of their most difficult challenges, requiring them to … Continue reading Dale Creek Bridge →

Pictured above are passengers waiting for a train at an early train station in Wyoming. The railroad did something for many a small town along its tracks that nothing else could — it made the town matter. A depot became the hub of that town just as it did in Laramie where hundreds of passengers passed through … Continue reading Early Railroad Station →

Although Jane Ivinson of Laramie wrote (some 31 years later) that she and her family rode on the first Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) train into Laramie on May 10, 1868, other accounts give different dates of when the first train actually arrived. From reports in both the Cheyenne Leader and Frontier Index (published in Laramie … Continue reading The First Train into Laramie →

When Grenville Dodge was appointed as Chief Engineer in charge of overseeing the engineering and planning of the transcontinental railroad in 1866, he hired the Casement Brothers as his contractors. Jack Casement was in charge of the actual construction of the transcontinental railroad and his brother Dan oversaw accounting and payroll, occasionally dipping into his … Continue reading Jack Casement –The Brigadier General Who Built the Railroad →

To construct the railroad, groups of workers shoveled the earth to create mounds of dirt and gravel. Other workers laid down the ties that held up the tracks. These groups worked in tandem, racing through the mountains to meet up with the Union Pacific Railroad. Learn more about the men who built the Transcontinental Railroad.  Resources

At the end of the Civil War, Virginian journalist brothers Legh and Frederick Freeman decided to follow the Union Pacific Railroad’s progress to extend its tracks to the West coast with their newspaper called The Frontier Index. The Freeman brothers began their journey at Fort Kearney in Nebraska Territory and followed the railroad across Nebraska, … Continue reading The Frontier Index →

Railroad engineers used dynamite to blast through mountains to create tunnels.  Although tunnels were time and labor intensive, they were preferable to constructing steep mountain passes or routing trains over dangerous bridge crossings. Learn more about how the railroad engineers built tunnels through mountains.  Resources

During the construction of the railroad, wagon trains went ahead of each construction site to deliver the needed materials to build the tracks. As the construction workers progressed forward they found construction materials waiting, which helped the process run smoothly. Above, emigrant wagon trains move along the same trail used by Jack Casement’s construction train. For the … Continue reading Construction Train →

When the workers who laid the Union Pacific Railroad track saw this little pine tree that seemed to be growing out of a granite boulder, they jogged the path of the railroad sideways to preserve it. They dubbed the unique feature “Tree in the Rock,” and the name stuck. On closer scrutiny, the tree appears … Continue reading The Tree in the Rock →