Quarrying for and completion of Ames Monument, 1880-1882

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. There are also two bas-relief sculptures of the Ames brothers—Oakes on the east side, Oliver on the west—crafted by renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and a $20 double eagle gold piece for the U.S. Mint. The monument stood in the town of Sherman and was at the highest point on the transcontinental railroad until 1918 when the railroad was moved several miles south. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_Monument