Railroad 1869 Along the Historic Union Pacific in Utah to Promontory

By Eugene Miller

At the end of 1868 Union Pacific crews finished their phenomenal push across Wyoming. As they reached Evanston, winter set in. The Union Pacific’s ultimate construction challenge lay ahead of them and they could ill afford to wait.

In Utah there were difficult rock cuts to be hacked out of steep canyon walls, ravines to be crossed with embankments and bridges, and most difficult of all, three tunnels to be driven. Mormon and other work crews alike were strung out down the Echo and Weber canyons. They were pressed hard through the severe winter weather and worked doggedly to get rails laid down as far west as humanly possible.

Speed was elusive and tunnels were bottlenecks. Only a few workers could occupy a tunnel-heading at any one time and there were only so many hours each day. Some work crews by-passed tunnels to work in canyons, but their progress was frustratingly slow. When spring arrived, construction crews broke out of the canyons and resumed their pace, grading and laying rails through Ogden and north around the end of Salt Lake, only to be again slowed in the Promontory Mountains by more heavy grading and more temporary trestles.

The railroad’s final push to Promontory Summit and the celebratory driving of the Golden Spike provided an unequaled historic climax to many long years of effort. But work was far from done. With the railroad’s mantra, “Build it fast, fix it later”, only the first part was accomplished. The second "fix it" part had already been started, the replacement of trestle bridges, finishing of tunnels, and elimination of by-passes. There was much more to be fixed and that would take years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugene Miller
• Release date: Jul 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780692018095

Eugene Miller

Eugene Arundel Miller is the youngest grandson of Arundel C. Hull, who was one of the earliest photographers to travel along the Union Pacific Railroad during its construction in the late 1860s. Intrigued by stories of Hull’s travels across the Nebraska plains and into the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, Miller researched Hull’s early life and organized his photos to write his biography and Miller’s major book “Rail-road 1869, Along the Historic Union Pacific”. The book traces construction of the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha to Promontory during 1867 to 1869 and incorporates many photographs by Hull and other contemporary photo-graphers. The original book, republished as a printed State-by-State series, and as an abridged e-book series, is offered for the continued enjoyment of travelers, railroad buffs, students, and historians.

Book preview

Railroad 1869 Along the Historic

Union Pacific

In Utah to Promontory - Abridged

By Eugene Arundel Miller

Smashwords Edition

e-book ISBN 978-0-692-01809-5

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without prior written permission from the author/publisher except for brief quotations for the purpose of review.

For the unabridged print edition

see ISBN: 978-0-9728511-7-6

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 The Final Year

Chapter 3 Wahsatch

Chapter 4 The Zig-Zag and the Tunnels

Chapter 5 Fantastic Echo Canyon

Chapter 6 Weber Canyon

Chapter 7 Ogden and Around the Lake

Chapter 8 On to Promontory

Chapter 9 A Final Word

Chapter 1 Introduction

In the early 1800s the young American nation struggled to define itself: its government, its economy, its identity. As the country’s frontier moved inland from the Atlantic seaboard and crossed the Ohio River, eyes turned farther west. The vast open lands between the populated east and the Pacific Ocean seemed insurmountable.

Asa Whitney, an obscure New England merchant foresaw a trade link connecting the eastern half of America with its West Coast and the Pacific. Inspired, Whitney wrote up a plan of action - A Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific to be built privately with government incentives: grants and government backed bonds.

Asa Whitney’s vision became reality when the Pacific Railway Act became law in 1862. Government land grants and government backed bonds emerged as the great inducements for private investment. However, government decisions were stalled by Congressional disagreements.

When the Civil War removed the Southerners from the Congressional debate, the promoters got busy, ready to seize a great entrepreneurial opportunity. The newly formed Union Pacific Railroad won entitlement to build westward from the Missouri River. In California the Big Four, Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, and Stanford, formed the Central Pacific Railroad with their own capital and received government approval to build eastward from Sacramento. When construction started in 1864, the two railroads were a whole country apart. But during the following four years, as their respective rails drew closer, an increasingly intense race developed. The government had not clearly determined the railroad meeting point and each company raced to construct as many miles of track as possible to reap the benefits of land grants and government backed bonds.

Investors could readily see that a completed railroad across the country would hasten settlement of the western lands and that railroad companies could monopolistically control rates for freight and passengers. The early Union Pacific officials had an even greater view. They pontificated The profit is not in operating the railroad but in BUILDING it! The entire enterprise thus attracted dreamers, schemers, and influence peddlers, giving rise to all manner of skimming, side deals, and corner cutting.

Union Pacific Railroad 1864-1869.

The railroads created hundreds of new jobs and brought thousands of new inhabitants to the West. The entire nation was changed in ways that could not have been imagined.

Among the thousands of individuals who contributed their efforts and energies in creating the monumental transcontinental railroad, many characters emerged larger than life for their roles in the construction effort.

Other lesser known individuals broadened the record of the railroad’s monumental efforts and add color to our story. Among them are: Arthur N. Ferguson, Arundel Hull, Andrew Russell, and William H. Jackson.

Arthur N. Ferguson, a young man from Bellevue, Nebraska, signed on as a rod man in the railroad’s corps of engineers as the surveyors were called. His diaries survived the years. They describe his adventures during 1865 and 1866, when he and his crew worked far in advance of the construction. Later as the construction crews raced westward Ferguson’s crew remained in Wyoming marking the lines and grades for the excavations, embankments, and bridges needed for more permanent construction.

Andrew J. Russell, a well known Civil War photographer, operated a popular studio in New York. UP's Doc Durant, with his obsession with railroad promotion, commissioned Russell to take views of important points on the Union Pacific Railroad. For two years, 1868 and 1869, Russell lived in various construction camps taking photos of the railroad and surrounding points of interest. He was the official Union Pacific photographer at the Promontory Golden Spike ceremonies. There he joined the Central Pacific’s photographer, Alfred Hart, and the local Salt Lake City newspaper photographer, Charles Savage, to record the momentous occasion.

William H. Jackson’s recognition as a notable western photographer began with his 1869