_Progress Made._
Completion of Eleven Miles--Excursion--Officers--Labor
Supply--Ex-Soldiers--Methods Employed--Progress Made--Headquarter
Towns--Rough Times--Competition With Central Pacific for
Territory--Stations--Buildings, Etc.
As we saw in our last chapter, ground was broken at Omaha, December
2nd, 1863. This, however, was more in the nature of a jollification on
the part of the citizens of Omaha over the selection of their city as
the eastern terminus of the line,--it being under the auspices of "the
leading citizens," organized and enthused by the irrepressible George
Francis Train.
Grading was commenced in July, 1864, and track-laying the spring of
1865. The start was not auspicious, the line was originally located
directly west from Omaha, but after one hundred thousand dollars had
been spent, it was abandoned on account of the hills and consequent
heavy grades, and two new lines were surveyed, one to the north and
then west and the other south nearly to Bellevue, Kan., and then west.
This latter was called the "Ox-bow Route" and was finally selected by
the Company, notwithstanding violent opposition on the part of the
people of Omaha, who feared that the Company would cross the Missouri
at Bellevue, thus leaving Omaha out.
September 25th, 1865, saw eleven miles finished, and in November an
excursion was run from Omaha to the end of the track, fifteen miles.
This was gotten up by Vice-President Durant, who took an engine and
flat car, inviting about twenty gentlemen to go with him on the first
inspection trip to Sailing's Grove. Among the excursionists was
General Sherman who gloried in the undertaking and expressed regret
that at his age he could hardly anticipate living until the completion
of the work. The party was very enthusiastic, and as the narrator
naively puts it "as the commissary was well supplied, the gentlemen
enjoyed themselves."
For a number of reasons the work dragged. It took one year to complete
the first forty miles. The lack of rail connections east of Omaha
were, previous to January, 1867, when the Chicago and Northwestern
Railroad reached Council Bluffs, a very serious occasion of expense
and delay. The work was new, those in charge were not at that time
experienced, funds were scarce, and the credit of the Company not yet
established, and as a result the average rate of progress during the
first twelve months was but a mile a week.
The work of construction was in charge of Vice-President and General
Manager, Thomas C. Durant.--The location, General Granville M. Dodge,
Chief Engineer, formerly General of the United States Army and who had
up to this time been in charge of the department. The operation of the
line, forwarding of material and supplies, actual construction, etc.,
was in charge of Samuel B. Reed, General Superintendent and Engineer
in charge of Construction. The track laying was done under contract by
"Casement Brothers" (General and Daniel) while Mr. H. M. Hoxie was
ubiquitous with the title of General Western Agent. Colonel Silas
Seymour of New York was Consulting Engineer and Mr. W. Snyder,
Assistant Superintendent and General Freight and Ticket Agent.
Another of the reasons for the slow progress made up to 1865 was the
scarcity of labor. The surrounding territory had no surplus workmen
and the East had not as yet grasped the idea that the road was
actually under construction. With the disbandment of the armies, both
North and South after the war, this situation was changed for the
better. Large numbers of the ex-soldiers drifted West and were glad to
find steady work at remunerative wages with the construction forces.
The Secretary of the Interior in his annual report for 1866 stated
that out of fifteen hundred laborers employed on the Pacific Railways,
three hundred were negroes and performed their duties faithfully and
well, and he recommended legislation looking to the employment of more
of the surplus freedmen on the same work. Among the officials,--engineers
and bosses,--there were many who were ex-officers in the army. Thus
the Chief Engineer had been a General, the Consulting Engineer, a
Colonel, the head of the track-laying force, a General. This can best
be explained by quoting from a paper on trans-continental railroads
read by General Dodge, before the Society of the Army of the Tennessee
at Toledo, Ohio, September, 1888.
"The work was military in character and one is not surprised to find
among the superintendents and others in charge, a liberal sprinkling
of military titles. Surveying parties were always accompanied by a
detachment of soldiers as a protection against Indians. The
construction trains were amply supplied with rifles and other arms and
it was boasted that a gang of track-layers could be transmuted into a
battalion of infantry at any moment. Over half of the men had
shouldered muskets in many a battle."
The same facts are brought out by the following extract from a
newspaper of that day.
"The whole organization of the road is semi-military. The men who go
ahead (surveyors and locators) are the advance guard, following them
is the second line (the graders) cutting through the gorges, grading
the road and building the bridges. Then comes the main body of the
army, placing the ties, laying the track, spiking down the rails,
perfecting the alignment, ballasting and dressing up and completing
the road for immediate use. Along the line of the completed road are
construction trains pushing 'to the front' with supplies. The advance
limit of the rails is occupied by a train of long box-cars with bunks
built within them, in which the men sleep at night and take their
meals. Close behind this train come train loads of ties, rails,
spikes, etc., which are thrown off to the side. A light car drawn by a
single horse gallops up, is loaded with this material and then is off
again to the front. Two men grasp the forward end of the rail and
start ahead with it, the rest of the gang taking hold two by two,
until it is clear of the car. At the word of command it is dropped
into place, right side up, during which a similar operation has been
going on with the rail for the other side,--thirty seconds to the rail
for each gang, four rails to the minute. As soon as a car is unloaded,
it is tipped over to permit another to pass it to the front and then
it is righted again and hustled back for another load.
"Close behind the track-layers comes the gaugers, then the spikers and
bolters. Three strokes to the spike, ten spikes to the rail, four
hundred rails to the mile. Quick work you say,--but the fellows on the
Union Pacific are tremendously in earnest."
Or as another writer has it, "We witnessed here the fabulous speed
with which the line was built. Through the two or three hundred miles
beyond were scattered ten to fifteen thousand men (?) in great gangs
preparing the road-bed with plows, scrapers, shovels, picks, and
carts, and among the rocks, with drills and powder were doing the
grading as rapidly as men could stand and move with their tools. Long
trains brought up to the end of the track, loads of ties and rails the
former were transferred to teams and sent one or two miles ahead and
put in place on the grade, then spikes and rails were reloaded on
platform cars and pushed up to the last previously laid rail and with
an automatic movement and celerity that was wonderful, practiced hands
dropped the fresh rails one after another on the ties exactly in line.
Hugh sledges sent the spikes home,--the car rolled on and the
operation was repeated; while every few minutes the long heavy train
behind sent out a puff of smoke from its locomotive and caught up with
its load of material the advancing work. The only limit to the
rapidity with which the track could thus be laid was the power of the
road behind to bring forward material."
The above description applies to the later period of construction,
when the forces had become thoroughly organized and the work
systematized. The following table shows the rate of construction:
Ground broken at Omaha December 2nd, 1863.
Work commenced at Omaha Spring, 1864.
11 Miles completed to Gilmore September 25th, 1865.
40 Miles completed to Valley December 31st, 1865.
47 Miles completed to Fremont January 24th, 1866.
50 Miles completed March 13th, 1866.
100 Miles completed June 2nd, 1866.
247 Miles completed to the 100th Meridian October 5th, 1866.
305 Miles completed December 31st, 1866.
414 Miles completed to Sidney, Wyo. August, 1867.
516 Miles completed to Cheyenne, Wyo. November 13th, 1867.
573 Miles completed to Laramie, Wyo. May 9th, 1868.
745 Miles completed December 31st, 1868.
1033 Miles completed to Ogden, Utah March 8th, 1869.
1086 Miles completed:
To Promontory, Utah April 28th, 1869.
Formal connection made May 10, 1869.
Regular train service commenced July 15th, 1869.
Completed according to Judicial decision November 6th, 1869.
The progress made was daily wired East and published in the principal
newspapers. Thus in the "Chicago Tribune" items such as "One and
nine-tenth miles of track laid yesterday on the Union Pacific
Railroad" appeared in every issue.
During the construction of the line, headquarters were established at
different points at the front, which were used as a basis of
operations for the construction of the section beyond. These places
enjoyed a temporary boom, some of them like Jonah's Gourd to wither up
and die away, others profiting by the start are today points of
importance. The first of these was North Platte, Nebraska, its
selection being caused by the delay incident to bridging the river.
This was the terminus of the road during the fall of 1866 and up to
June 1867. During this time it was the distributing point for all the
country west. The mixture of railroad laborers, freighters, etc., all
of them with more or less money, inaugurated a rough time and was the
beginning of the wild scenes that attended the construction of the
line. The town during the winter had a population of five thousand and
over a thousand buildings. With the completion of the line to Sidney,
Wyo., in June, 1867, the rough element left and established themselves
at that point, leaving at North Platte about three hundred of the more
sedentary law-abiding class who had determined on that point for their
home. In moving to the front, houses were torn down, loaded on cars to
be taken to the new site and there re-erected.
When it was known that Cheyenne was to be the terminus for the winter
of 1867-1868, there was a grand hegira of roughs, gamblers,
prostitutes from all along the line and from the East. The population
jumped to six thousand. Dwellings sprang up like mushrooms. They were
of every conceivable character. Some simply holes in the ground roofed
over, known as "dug outs," others of canvas, while some few were of
wood and stone. Town lots were sold at fabulous prices. The only
pastimes were gambling and drinking. Shooting scrapes with "a man for
breakfast" were an every day occurrence, and stealing so common as to
occasion no comment. It is said of old Colonel Murrian, the then Mayor
of Cheyenne, that he advanced the City's script eighteen cents on the
dollar, by inflicting a fine of ten dollars on those who "made a gun
play" i. e. shot at any one,--and that it was his custom to add a
quarter to the fines he inflicted, making them ten dollars and
twenty-five cents or twenty-five dollars and twenty-five cents, with
the explanation that his was dry work and the extra quarter was to
cover the stimulant his arduous duties required.
Such conditions brought about an uprising on the part of the more
respectable element. Vigilance committees with "Judge Lynch" in
command, took hold and from his Court there was neither appeal, nor
stays. Witnesses were not held to be essential. The toughs were known
and the judgments of the Court generally right. At least the
defendants were not left in a condition to make complaint or appeal.
The Vigilance Committee during the first year of its existence hung
or shot twelve of the desperadoes, and were instrumental in sending as
many more to the Penitentiary. The effect was to compel the tough
element to either leave or abide by the laws and to put the decent
element in control.
The next headquarters was Benton, Wyo. In two weeks (July 1868) a city
of three thousand inhabitants sprang up as if by the touch of
Aladdin's Lamp. It was laid out in regular squares, divided into five
wards, had a Mayor and Board of Aldermen, a Daily Paper and volume of
ordinances for the City Government. It was the end of the freight and
passenger service and the beginning of the division under
construction. Twice a day, long trains arrived from and departed for
the East, while stages and wagon trains connected it with points in
Idaho, Montana, and Utah. All the passengers and goods for the West,
came here by rail and were re-shipped to their several destinations.
Twenty-three saloons paid license to the city, while dance halls and
gambling dens were even more numerous. The great institution was the
"Big Tent." This was a frame structure, one hundred feet long and
forty feet wide, floored for dancing, to which and gambling it was
entirely devoted. A visitor to the city thus described it: "One to two
thousand men and a dozen or more women were encamped on the alkali
plain in tents and shanties." Only a small proportion of them had
aught to do with the road or any legitimate occupation. Restaurant and
saloon keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of every grade, the vilest of
men and women made up this "Hell on Wheels" as it was most aptly
termed. Six months later, all that was left to mark the site was a few
rock piles and half destroyed chimneys together with piles of old
cans. The city after a tumultuous existence of only sixty days had
"got up and pulled its freight" to the next headquarters.
Green River, Bryan, Bear River City, and Wasatch were the headquarters
successively. The first, owing to the railroad having made it the end
of a division and located shops there, has survived; the other three
are but memories.
At Bear River City, the tough element who had been driven out of the
different points East, congregated in large numbers, proposing to make
a stand, it being supposed it would become a permanent town. The law
abiding element numbered about a thousand, the toughs as many more.
Three thugs were hung for murder, and in a reprisal the town was
attacked on November 19th, 1868, by the tough element. They seized and
burned the jail, then sacked and destroyed the plant of the "Frontier
Index," a printing outfit that followed up the railroad, issuing a
Daily Paper, and which had been particularly outspoken in its
denunciation of the lawless element. They then proceeded to attack
some of the stores, but were met by the townspeople and in the
pitched battle that ensued, badly defeated. They made an undignified
retreat, leaving fifteen of their number dead in the streets. From
this time on the tough element fought shy of the city and with the
extension of the road, its business left. Today there is not a thing
to indicate that a town of four or five thousand had ever stood there.
The tough element started in to make Rawlins one of the "Hells" but
the decent element had had enough and proceeded to clean up the
town--showing they proposed to stand no foolishness.
The last of the railroad towns was Wasatch located at the eastern end
of the longest tunnel (770 feet) on the road. In fact it was the delay
occasioned by this work that gave rise to the town. When the line was
put down a temporary track was built around the obstruction so as to
permit the materials for the track beyond to reach the front. This
place originally had a machine shop, round house and eating station
all of which were removed to Evanston in 1870.
Upon the passage of the supplementary Charter in 1864 the restriction
confining the Central Pacific to the State of California was withdrawn
and they were authorized to build for one hundred and fifty miles east
of the California boundary. This latter restriction was also withdrawn
by Congress in 1866, leaving the meeting point to be determined by the
rapidity of the construction of the respective lines, or as the Act
of Congress put it, they could locate, construct, and continue their
line until it should meet the Union Pacific continuous line. With the
experience of three years behind them and the Land Grant, Government
Bonds and prospective earnings, not to speak of the element of pride
ahead, the two lines entered into a race the like of which had never
been seen. The rivalry extended from the Presidents of the respective
Companies down to the boy who carried water to the graders. Both
forces, justly proud of their achievements, considered themselves a
little better than the other. One form of the rivalry was as to which
outfit could get the greatest amount of track down in one day. The
Union Pacific's forces led off with six miles, soon after the Central
went them a mile better. Then seven and a half miles were put down by
the Union Pacific; the Central Pacific forces not to be outdone
announced they could get down ten miles inside of one working day.
Vice-President Durant offered to wager ten thousand dollars it could
not be done, and the Central Pacific outfit resolved it should be
done. Waiting until there were but fourteen miles for them to lay,
they started in and laid ten miles and two hundred feet from seven
A.M. to seven P.M., using four thousand men in the operation. And then
the Union Pacific outfit was mad. They claimed if they had massed
their forces, made special preparation, etc., they could do better
than their competitors, but they could not prove it for there was no
more track to lay.
The Central Pacific people ran their grade east of Ogden to Echo
Canon, this when their completed line was only built to the vicinity
of Wadsworth, Nev. The Union Pacific Railroad located their line to
the California State line and had their graders at work as far west as
Humboldt Wells, Nev., four hundred and sixty miles west of Ogden. This
line west of Promontory was never built, however, and it is said that
one million dollars was expended in this way. As it was the Central
Pacific had their grade established some eighty miles east of
Promontory Point, thirty miles east of Ogden, and this when the Union
Pacific were laying their completed track within a mile of and
parallel to their grade. The prize was so great that every nerve was
strained on the part of both contestants as to who should push their
track the further. The advantages were about equal. The Central
Pacific were somewhat nearer their base of supplies, their laborers
were the quiet, orderly, and easily managed Chinese and then they were
in comparatively good financial shape. The Union Pacific, though
farther from their base of supplies, were in railroad communication
with the points of manufacture, their men, while turbulent and hard to
control, were enthusiastic and worth three to one of the opposing
forces. They were well paid, well housed and well fed, and were
handled by men who had as a rule, army experience back of them and
who certainly were "bosses" in the best and fullest sense. During the
winter of 1868-1869 the advantage was with the Central Pacific
Company. Their line across the Sierras was fully protected by snow
sheds and they only met with one week's suspension of business from
snow troubles during the whole winter, while the Union Pacific were
blocked between Cheyenne and Green River for four long months. The
rate of construction grew rapidly. During 1864 there were about two
hundred men employed on the grading and track-laying. While it took
one year to complete the first forty miles, the second year, the year
1865, saw two hundred and sixty five miles done, over a mile a day
working time, and this was exceeded from that on. There were about two
thousand five hundred graders employed in 1867 in addition to four
hundred and fifty track-layers and from this number up, until the
completion of the road. Their forces numbered twelve thousand men and
three thousand teams, while six hundred tons of material were placed
daily during the spring of 1869 when the contest was at its height.
The maximum track laid in one day, was seven and a half miles. As the
line progressed round houses were put up at Omaha, North Platte,
Cheyenne, Laramie, and Ogden, each having twenty stalls, and at Grand
Island, Sidney, Rawlins, Bitter Creek, Medicine Bow and Bryan, of ten
stalls each. These were substantial buildings of brick or stone with
sheet-iron roofs thoroughly fire proof.
In addition to the large shops at Omaha where much of the building of
equipment was done, repair shops were built at Cheyenne and Laramie.
Stations were established at an average of fourteen miles apart. The
station buildings were built of wood and of two classes, three-fourths
of them twenty-five by forty feet, the remaining one-fourth thirty-six
by sixty feet. At each station water tanks were erected, surmounted by
wind mills. Sidings three thousand feet long were located at each
station and in some cases at points intermediate fifteen hundred feet
long. In all there was about six per cent of the main line distance in
side tracks.
To accommodate not only the Public, but their own employees, the
Company put up good sized hotels at North Platte, Cheyenne, Laramie
and Rawlins.
Eating houses were established at Grand Island, North Platte, Sidney,
Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins, Bryan (Near Granger long ago passed out of
existence) Wasatch (afterwards removed to Evanston) and Ogden. During
construction days the charge for a meal was a dollar and a quarter,
but with the opening of the road this was reduced to one dollar and
afterwards to the present price seventy-five cents.