General AHC Collections

In charge of logistics and construction of the UPRR were the actual contractors, the Casement Brothers, Dan and Jack Casement. Jack Casement (1829-1909) served in the Union Army during the Civil War, first in a volunteer Ohio unit and was at the Battle of Winchester. Later he served in Tennessee. At the end of the War, he was breveted as a brigadier general and was, thus, referred to be workers on the railroad as "General Jack." 

Grenville Dodge wrote in How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, "To supply one mile of track with material and supplies required about forty cars, as on the plains everything – rails, ties, bridging, fastenings, all railway supplies, fuel for locomotives and trains, and supplies for men and animals on the entire work – had to be transported from the Missouri River. Therefore, as we moved westward, every hundred miles added vastly to our transportation.

Like his brother and business partner Jack, Colonel Dan Casement (1834-1881) served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Dan was in charge of accounting and payrolls, at times dipping into his own pocket to meet payrolls.

John Carbutt, a prolific publisher and printer of stereo cards in Chicago, briefly preceded A. J. Russell as U.P.’s photographer, but Carbutt’s work was limited in scope. He was hired to document a promotional event celebrating U.P.’s progress: the October 1866 Union Pacific Excursion to the 100th Meridian. It was Carbutt’s job to create souvenir stereo cards for the railroad boosters, funders, politicians, and journalists invited on a special train. 

Tunnel No. 2 located just east of Emigrant Gap and 84 miles from Sacramento, California, was completed by Central Pacific Railroad crews in September 1866. Photograph taken by Capt. A. J. Russell.

The scarcity of good water, free of alkali, along the railroad made it necessary to dig deep artesian wells for boiler water. Columbus, Nebraska, was promoted by George Francis Train as a new U.S. capitol due to its geographic center in the nation. Photograph by Capt. A. J. Russell. 

Caption on the back: "Photographed at Platte City Headquarters October 25, 1866. Seated is George Francis Train and behind him are Mrs. Train and T.C. Durant. Excursion to the 100th Meridian." When Casement and his crews passed this point, it guaranteed the Union Pacific the irrevocable right to continue westward, as stipulated in the Pacific Railroad Act. Thomas Durant, the vice president and general manager of Union Pacific, hosted a "100th Meridian Excursion" with a group of politicians, reporters, and other notable figures.

The Union Pacific platted its "Crow Creek Crossing" townsite on July 5, 1967. By August 8, 1867, the town of Cheyenne was incorporated. The tracks reached the new town by November 13, 1867. 

On Dec. 2, 1863, construction began on the railroad in Omaha, Nebraska Territory, but only made 40 miles by the end of 1865. The following year the line made it 260 miles, stopping at North Platte, Nebraska Territory, for the winter. In 1867 the road made it another 240 miles before stopping at Granite Canyon on the slopes of the Laramie Range west of Cheyenne. 

During this time illustrations for magazines and newspapers were done by illustrators. There was no way to transfer a photograph to a printing plate at this time. The halftone process had not yet been invented. An artist such as Waud would do detailed sketches in the field, which were then sent by courier back to the main office of the newspaper or magazine they were working for. A staff of  engravers would use the sketches to create engravings on blocks of boxwood.

A caption on the photograph identifies some of the men in the photograph. "Seated left to right - Mr Benedict - Engr Dept, Unknown, A A. Bean - Master of Transportation, W P Kennedy- Paymaster, A P Wood - Engr on Shop Construction. Standing left to right - Unknown, Unknown, O C Smith - Asst Paymaster, Unknown, Unknown, Chas [Charles] Bean - Secty to A A Bean, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, Mr Reynolds oF Reynolds & McDowell Contractors, Unknown, Unknown."

Building the transcontinental railroad transformed the art of laying rails into something of an exact science.  In time both roads were laying two, three, and even four miles day after day. For its part, the Union Pacific was resting on its laurels, having some months earlier staged a marathon from daybreak into the night that yielded an amazing seven-and-three-quarter miles.

The railroad companies first built temporary wooden trestles and bridges that they later replaced with more durable and permanent iron structures. Wood, though prone to decay and fire, was cheaper and more obtainable than the iron (and, much later, concrete) that would replace it.  

Photo caption on the back, "Papa's store in Carbon, Wyoming." Now a ghost town, Carbon was founded in 1868 on Union Pacific Railroad line. The town was named for its coal mines. It was located halfway between Laramie and Rawlins.

Before the advent of the railroad, trusses were used in foot and wagon bridges. The design was made up of supporting members joined together into triangular forms. For the railroad, the truss bridge was reinvented and constantly improved upon, from its overall design to the design of its separate members. The truss was ideal for the transcontinental railroad because it required less lumber. Its downward thrust required fewer substantial support members than the horizontal thrust of an arch bridge would have needed.

Although barely five feet tall, Jack Casement was tough as nails worked his men hard. He carried a bullwhip to intimidate tracklayers. The crews lived in 20 cars, including dormitories and an arsenal car containing a thousand loaded rifles.  The photographer of the image was Andrew Joseph Russell. He was employed during the Civil War by famed war photographer Mathew Brady. Following the war, Russell served the federal government on some of the surveying expeditions in the West before being employed by the Union Pacific.

This is a postcard that was made from a much older photograph. Printed on the back of the postcard: "The interior of the Paymaster's Tent at Laramie City. The slow emulsions available to the photographer, Capt. Russell, made this a most difficult shot." "Capt. Russell would have been Andrew J. Russell.

To make the shortest route to the top, Union Pacific engineers established a 90-foot grade that climbed 32 miles from the base of the Black Hills. The peak was first called Lone Tree Pass and later renamed Sherman Summit in honor of General William Tecumseh Sherman. Though General Dodge was often named as the one who discovered the pass, credit is more often given to English-born engineer James Evans, who surveyed the area in 1864. Sherman, was the highest point on the transcontinental railroad. 

The wooden bridge swayed in the wind as the first train crossed it on April 23, 1868. Carpenters rushed to shore it up. In the mad dash, two fell to their deaths. The bridge continued to flex under the strain of passing trains.

The Green River was crossed with a new bridge, and the new "railroad" town of Green River constructed there after the tracks reached the Green River on October 1, 1868—the last big river to cross. 

The Union Pacific faced resistance from Native American tribes who were seeing treaties broken and their homelands invaded and irrevocably changed. The railroad workers were armed and oftentimes protected by U.S. Calvary and friendly Pawnee Indians, but the workforce routinely faced Native American raiding parties that attacked surveyors and workers, stole livestock and equipment, and pulled up track and derailed locomotives.

Captioned on the back, "Drawing of the Indian attack on U.P.R.R. construction as road approached Laramie City, 1868."

Horses and mules were of primary importance as the movers of rail and dirt. The railroad also used animal power to drive wooden bridge piles. 

Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where they were needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks, and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls. The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.

Union Pacific's Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge wrote in his book How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, "Central Wyoming was desolate, dreary, not susceptible to cultivation and only portions of it fit for grazing." In winter, the cold was beyond belief. In warmer months, it was unimaginably hot. In the desert, the ambient temperature was around 110 degrees, while the temperature inside an engine cab topped out at 150 to 160 degrees.

As the road extended westward, canyons full of cedar trees near North Platte fell to the ax, and workers crafted hewn ties in the mountain forests of Wyoming.

Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the way if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and levelled to get ready for the rails.

Caption on the back of the photo: "Supply trains at End of Track, Last Siding. A Casement work train unloads materials to be carried forward by freight wagons to Union Pacific track crews racing toward Promontory Summit."

Same composition of another A. J. Russell photograph titled "View near Point of Rocks."

Surveyors, using specialized equipment, were tasked with finding the best route for both the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads.

In the final push of the railroad, Casement's train grew in length to 80 cars, including payroll and telegraph car, bunk cars, and a butcher car which supplied fresh beef to workers from a herd driven along the right-of-way.

The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 757-foot-long Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive, which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents.

One of the most impressive of its day, the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge was built at a cost of nearly $2.9 million. The Grenville Dodge design was a half-mile long and featured 11 spans, each 250 feet long and 60 feet above water. Tubular-iron piers were planted in bedrock and supported with concrete and masonry. Severe winds damaged the structure in 1877. The bridge was repaired in 1887 and rebuilt twice, in 1888 and 1916. The completion of this bridge marked the true completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

The Union Pacific Rolling Mill was constructed in 1875 to “re-roll” old railroad rails and other metals. The mill employed about 100 people. It burned down in 1910. A rolling mill uses rollers to bend and stretch iron into different shapes. the primary function of rolling mills was to produce rails for railroads.

Evanston, named after Union Pacific Division Engineer James A. Evans (1830-1887), was founded in November 1868, when the first Union Pacific graders arrived in the area. Originally, the division point was to be Wahsatch, Utah Territory, but a water shortage there assured it would be Evanston. Since Evanston was a division point, the railroad constructed a hotel and eating house, The Mountain Trout House, operated by the Kitchen Brothers of Omaha. Under its African American manager, Howard W.

Early living conditions in Rock Springs were harsh. The whites—mostly Irish, Scandinavian, English and Welsh immigrants—lived in downtown Rock Springs. The Chinese lived in what the whites called Chinatown, to the northeast, on the other side of a bend in the railroad tracks and across Bitter Creek. There the miners lived in small wooden houses the company had built for them. 

The population of the "Magic City of the Plains" grew rapidly to 4,000 after its founding. When Wyoming Territory was established in 1869, Cheyenne was selected as the territorial capitol.

A trip to Fort Sanders was part of Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant's presidential campaign. Grant is shown with his hands on the fence. Attendees included Generals P. H. Sheridan, John Gibbon, William T. Sherman, W. S. Harney. Also included is Joseph H. Potter, Commander of Fort Sanders.

The photographer, Arundel C. Hull (1846-1908), arrived in Omaha in 1867, and spent the next three years taking photographs in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. He was often the first person to document emerging towns. He was often the first person to document emerging towns.

Caption on back of photo: "Laramie Hotel. The construction crews reached Laramie in June, 1868, and it soon became a thriving rail center with yard tracks and a combination dining hall and hotel, the large building in the center."

Laramie was one among several stations
at which the Union Pacific pumped water from wells by means of enormous
windmills. Water was needed to power the railroad's steam locomotives. The locomotives were fueled by burning combustible material such as coal.

Written on the back: "Steve Young (hangin) Laramie, Wyoming, October 1868. The boy just behind the victim's right hand is your humble servant. W.O. Owen." William O. "Billy" Owen (1859-1947) arrived in Laramie with his mother and two sisters when the town was founded. At the young age of 9, Billy witnessed the lynching of self-appointed town marshall Steve Young for killings that were occurring in Laramie. In the background are shown the Union Pacific Hotel, Eating House, and Depot in Laramie City. 

The town was located about 10 miles southeast of Evanston, Wyoming. It is best known for the "Bear River City Riot." On November 19, 1968, after the vigilante lynching of a murder suspect who worked for the railroad, the suspect's friends revolted against the vigilantes. The town erupted in violence with numerous shootouts. Almost the entire town was torched, including most town government buildings. Recently appointed town marshal Thomas J. Smith stood his ground against both factions, but was unable to stop the violence which resulted in 16 deaths.

Note the traveling darkroom at the right owned by photographer Charles R. Savage.

Photograph by Charles R. Savage.

The most famous photograph associated with the first transcontinental railroad is Andrew J. Russell’s “East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail.” Also known as  “The Champagne Photo,” it was one of many glassplate exposures taken of the ceremony by three photographers who were present at the Golden Spike Ceremony. To see who is in the photograph go to https://www.nps.gov/gosp/learn/historyculture/a-moment-in-time.htm

The Union Pacific Railroad opened a hospital in 1868 exclusively for its workers. It operated under the UP until 1871.

Brigham Young signed a contract with the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) to employ Utahns to build the line through Echo and Weber Canyons. Laborers were readily available due to a recent drought that left many farms barren that year. Mormon labor on the transcontinental railroad mirrored the organization of the LDS Church. Brigham Young called local bishops to be head contractors and gave them a section of track to build.

Shown are the Pacific Hotel, the Bakery and Echo Restaurant, the Sunny Side, and a tent business with illegible name in photograph.

Some of the 12,000 men from China who worked with great stamina and courage on the difficult and dangerous construction of the Central Pacific Railroad through the mountains. Photograph by Thomas C. Roche.

From 250 in 1865 the construction forces grew to 10,000 by completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. About one in four were track layers. The others were graders, teamsters, herdsmen, cooks, bakers, blacksmiths bridge builders carpenters masons and clerks. On the average they made $3 a day. Many were Irish and most were veterans of the Civil War. Payday arrived and the money was passed out by the two clerks standing in the doorway.

A steam shovel was the only mechanical power used to move earth. A tremendous amount of grading, etc. was necessary in this stretch of the road. Photograph by Capt. A. J. Russell, official photographer for the U.P.R.R.

In 1868, Brigham Young contracted with U.P. to build part of the transcontinental railroad though Weber Canyon as well as Echo Canyon. (More here). Photograph by William Henry Jackson

Photograph by William Henry Jackson. In 1869, Jackson undertook a photography expedition along the Union Pacific. He left Omaha and purchased a ticket to the next town. There he took photographs similar to those taken earlier by A. J. Russell, an official U.P.R.R. photographer. When Jackson had raised enough money, he purchased a ticket to the next stop, working his way along the line to Salt Lake. 

Central Pacific Railroad President Leland Stanford and three other officials drove the last spike. The photographer was Charles R. Savage, who is best known for his photographs of the linking of the  Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory, Utah. 

Rev. John Todd of Pittsfield, Mass., and Mormon Bishop John Sharp spoke at the ceremony. Alfred A. Hart, the Central Pacific Photographer, captured the moment. Note the telegraph, used to send word of the ceremonies to the East.

George Pullman developed his Palace Car Company to counter discomfort on long rail trips. After he secured the right for one of his cars to serve as Abraham Lincoln’s funeral car in 1865, the interest in Pullman’s sleeping cars greatly expanded. In 1867, Pullman incorporated Pullman’s Palace Car Company with several investors and devoted himself to manufacturing sleeping cars. Photograph by Capt. A. J. Russell.

George Pullman designed an eight-car train for the transcontinental rail journey. The train cars included a baggage car, a smoking car, two commissary cars (the St. Charles and the St. Cloud), two hotel and drawing room cars (the Revere and the Arlington), and two saloon cars (the Palmyra and the Marquetta). Photograph by Carlton E. Watkins.

Note the organ built into the car. Photograph by Carlton E. Watkins.

Photograph by Carlton E. Watkins.

Photograph by Carlton E. Watkins.

Decorated with Japanese lanterns. Photograph by Carlton E. Watkins.

The photographer is unknown but their work is attributed to the Continent Stereoscopic Company, a major publisher of pirate and copy negatives (although they did issue some original work). They produced their views from their New York offices during the period 1870-1890. A great percentage of their views were of western scenes. Among the notable photographer of whom the company "borrowed" images were railroad photographers Charles R. Savage and William Henry Jackson.

Fort Sanders was a wooden fort constructed in 1866 on the Laramie Plains just south of what would become Laramie City. Originally named Fort John Buford, it was renamed Fort Sanders after General William P. Sanders who died during the Civil War. The fort was originally intended to protect travelers on the nearby Overland Trail from attacks by Native Americans, but later the garrison was tasked with protecting Union Pacific workers when the railroad arrived in spring 1868. Fort Sanders became less important after Fort D. A.

Captions: "The Highway of Nations. New York, San Francisco." "1,000,000 Acres of Choice Farming Land re now offered for Sale between Omaha and Fort Kearney. O.F. Davis, Land Agent, Omaha."

Thomas C. Roche took this photograph during his 1870 tour of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads for the E. & H. T. Anthony Co. of New York, owned by brothers Edward and Henry Anthony who established one the country's first companies to reproduce and sell stereographic images on a commercial scale.

Fort Fred Steele, was built in 1868 where the railroad crossed the North Platte River in present-day Carbon County, Wyoming. Fort Steele was named for Civil War hero General Frederick Steele. At first, the post was just a tent city, until about 300 troops, along with hired civilians, built the fort. The post included a sawmill, engineer, blacksmith, saddler, wheelwright, and a sutler’s store, in addition to barracks, officer’s quarters and other fort buildings. The fort was deactivated in 1886.  

Fort D. A. Russell, named in honor a David A. Russell who was a Civil War general killed at the Battle of Opequon, was established in 1867 to protect Union Pacific Railroad construction workers from attacks by Native Americans. Fort Russell was one of three forts built on the line. Fort Sanders (originally Fort John Buford) near Laramie and Fort Fred Steele were the other railroad forts. Fort D. A. Russell became Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in 1949.

The Solano was constructed and operated by the Central Pacific Railroad to ferry entire trains (up to 48 freight cars at a time) on the Central Pacific transcontinental line to and from the San Francisco Bay Area. It carried entire trains across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa in California, daily for 51 years from 1879 to 1930. Photograph by noted California photographer Carleton E. Watkins

L. A. Huffman took this photograph in Montana, but the image is indicative of buffalo that were shot as the Union Pacific rails went west. Read more here.

Completed in 1882, the structure honors Oakes and Oliver Ames, financiers and politicians whose business skills were largely responsible for the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Not long after the railroad’s completion in 1869, however, Oakes Ames found himself at the center of the Crédit Mobilier scandal concerning the railroad’s financing. The monument was designed by famed architect Henry Hobson Richardson and was his only commission west of St. Louis.

Long standing tensions between White and Chinese miners erupted in 1885 into what is today known as the "Rock Springs Massacre" in which at least 28 Chinese were murdered and 15 injured. Wyoming's territorial governor Francis E. Warren was seen as sympathetic to the Chinese, which angered whites in the area. Find out more about the Rock Springs Massacre on the Wyoming History Day website. 

The depot's construction began in 1887. It has been said that the depot's location was chosen so that state legislators would have to look out and see each day that the Union Pacific was so important to Cheyenne and the state.

Grenville Mellon Dodge was a Union Army officer on the frontier and a pioneering figure in military intelligence during the Civil War. In May 1866, he resigned from the military and, with the endorsement of Generals Ullyses S. Grant and William Tecumsah Sherman, became the Union Pacific's chief engineer and thus a leading figure in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.[

The wooden bridge was replaced in 1876 by an iron version constructed on the same 1868 piers. The bridge was the highest and most dangerous crossing on the line. Engineers had to slow the train to 4 mph or a strong Wyoming wind would push empty boxcars off the rails. In 1901, the bridge was replaced, abandoned, and later dismantled by the Union Pacific after the line was rerouted.

Union Pacific hired marksmen to kill American Bison, which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. 

At the beginning of World War II, the UP developed the 4000-class Big Boy steam locomotives, the biggest and most powerful engines that represented the climax of steam technology. At top speed they could reach 80 miles per hour. The power of the Big Boy engines surpassed the already advanced 9000-class steam locomotive, which had the capacity to pull trains at a swift 50 miles per hour. The 9000-class boasted a very long wheelbase and served the route from Iowa to Green River, Wyo. In 1948, UP began using gas turbine electric locomotives on some trains.

Within 15 months of the railroad reaching Sherman Hill in April 1868, Sherman Station boasted railroad machine shops, a Wells Fargo express office, a newspaper, a millinery store and, as indicated by the photo, 2 two-story false fronted hotels, the Sherman House and the Summit House. They were not much as hotels but featured decent meals. Next door to the hotels was a bar.  

Rock Springs began as a stage stop on the Overland Trail. The springs were a valuable source of water in the midst of the desert. The area was also rich in coal, an important commodity for Union Pacific's steam locomotives. A diverse group of people began arriving in Rock Springs to take advantage of the coal mining opportunities, including many people from China. These men arrived in the 1880s as miners and finally returned home to China in 1925.