_The_ OVERLAND
ROUTE to _The_ Road
_of_ a Thousand Wonders
_The_ ROUTE OF _The_ UNION PACIFIC _& The_ SOUTHERN PACIFIC FROM OMAHA
TO SAN FRANCISCO
A JOURNEY OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED MILES WHERE ONCE _The_ BISON _& The_
INDIAN REIGNED
Over the wagon trail of the hardy Pioneers runs the Overland Route as
pictured in these pages; over vast plains, once prairie, now farmland;
past the high outpost of the Rockies; across the surface of that strange
inland sea, Great Salt Lake; over the crest of the high Sierra; through
picturesque canyon and valley to the Golden Gate
ISSUED BY THE
UNION PACIFIC AND SOUTHERN PACIFIC
PASSENGER DEPARTMENTS
1908
[Illustration: The OVERLAND ROUTE
Union Pacific & Southern Pacific between Omaha & San Francisco]
[Illustration: DEFENDING THE WORK TRAIN. THERE WAS AN INDIAN ARROW SHOT
FOR EVERY SPIKE DRIVEN IN THE IRON TRAIL OF THE OVERLAND ROUTE.
ENCOUNTERS WERE NUMEROUS AND OFTEN FATAL.]
THE OVERLAND ROUTE
[Illustration: THE BUFFALO—CORONADO’S HUMP BACKED OXEN—PASSED WHEN THE
WAGON TRAIL GAVE WAY TO THE RAILROAD]
[Illustration: Drop-cap illustrated “T”]
The memory of the Overland Trail will not soon pass away. Traces of it
are left here and there in the West, but the winds and rain and the
erosion of civilization have nearly rubbed it out. Yet in its time it
was the greatest wagon way. All in all, from the Council Bluffs crossing
of the Missouri to the Golden Gate of the Pacific, it was two thousand
miles long.
Vague are legend and story, prior to the nineteenth century, of the
country it was to traverse. One legend indicates that Coronado visited
the land of the “humpbacked oxen” in the sixteenth century; a tale of
like uncertainty credits Baron La Honton with a visit to Great Salt Lake
in the century following. The Franciscan friars, Escalante and
Dominguez, saw Utah Lake in 1776, and carried home strange stories of a
sea of salt farther north.
The Lewis and Clark expedition to the mouth of the Columbia, starting
from St. Louis in 1804, is the beginning of the history of the Overland
Trail. Soon after came the Astor party, which in 1811 founded Astoria.
Thirteen years later, a most adventurous spirit, a daring hunter and
pioneer, Jim Bridger, began his picturesque career in the West. Caring
for no neighbors in the wilderness, at home in the high mountains, on
the treeless plains or in the desert, this fearless and intelligent man
sent out much accurate information and guided the Mormon “First Company”
to its future home.
In 1843 the Pathfinder, General John C. Fremont, began to spy out the
military ways across the West, and the same year the Oregon pioneers
took the first wagons westward to the Pacific.
The trail that began with the journey of these Oregon pioneers was
widened and deepened by the wheels of the Mormons in 1847; and when the
herald of the first California Golden Age sent forth a trumpet call in
’Forty-nine, heard around the world, the trail was finished from Great
Salt Lake across the mountains to the sea.
That era had its great men, for great men make eras. Ben Holladay,
William N. Russell, and Edward Creighton gave to the trail the Overland
Stage Line and the Pony Express and the telegraph.
Dating the beginning of transcontinental wagon travel from the days of
’Forty-nine, it was twenty years before the railway reached California.
The period was one of great out-of-doors men and women—the last of
American pioneers. When the old trail was in full tide of life, it was
filled with gold-seekers from the Missouri to the Pacific. A hundred
thousand souls passed over it yearly. Towns, stirring and turbulent,
some now gone from the map and some grown to be cities, flourished as
the green bay tree. Omaha, Salt Lake, and San Francisco, and such lesser
places as Julesburg, Cheyenne, Laramie, Carson, Elko, and Virginia City
were picturesquely lively. Hardly was there a stage station without its
stirring story of swift life and sudden death, and long and short haired
characters with fighting reputations were to be found anywhere from St.
Joseph to San Francisco.
[Illustration: HANSCOMB PARK, OMAHA, IS PLEASANT WITH SHADY TREES AND
SPARKLING WATERS]
The traffic of the old trail was of long wagon trains of emigrants; of
great ox outfits laden with freight for the mines; of Holladay’s
coaches, six teams in full gallop, station to station; of the fast
riders of the Pony Express, and of all other manner of moving men and
beasts that might join the line of the westward march. Outlaws lived
along the trail and as opportunity offered, plundered its followers; the
protesting savages having no place upon it, but perceiving in it an
instrument to alienate their dominion, burned its wagon trains and
destroyed its stages as opportunity offered. At times great herds of
buffalo obliterated sections of the trail. Yet it held its own until the
golden spike was driven, and passed away as a wagon road only when the
need for it passed. But the railway lines that took up the burden of
stage coach and Pony Express and ox team, have marked the way of the
trail upon the map of the West so that it shall endure as long as the
West endures.
[Illustration: THE OVERLAND ROUTE BEGINS AT THE MISSOURI, CROSSING FROM
COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OMAHA ON A DOUBLE TRACK BRIDGE OF STEEL]
In the early days when the gold seekers sought San Francisco across the
Isthmus, around the Horn, or by way of the trail, it is said that a
Dutch landlord in San Francisco greeted his guests with the query: “Did
you come the Horn around, the Isthmus across, or the land over?” Through
some such distinction from the waterways, the wagon road from the
Missouri came by its name, and to-day the railroad that succeeded it is
known everywhere as the Overland Route. The railway came in the face of
opposition and predictions of disaster. The builders were men to whom
difficulty merely meant more effort, men who were not to be denied. The
Pacific Railroads, as they were styled, were two; the Union Pacific and
the Central Pacific. Starting, one from the center, the other from the
extreme westward verge of the United States, they rapidly moved towards
a junction; the Union Pacific being built westward from Council Bluffs;
the Southern Pacific eastward from Sacramento. On May 10, 1869, they met
at Promontory, Utah, and then and there was signalized the spanning of
the continent by the driving of the golden spike. In the presence of
eleven hundred people, this last spike was driven into a tie of polished
California laurel by Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific,
and Thomas C. Durant, president of the Union Pacific. A prayer was said,
the pilots of the engines touched, and a libation of wine was poured
between, and the message, “The last rail is laid, the last spike driven,
and the Pacific Railroad is completed,” was flashed to the President of
the United States.
By a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the beginning
of the Overland Route is at Council Bluffs, in Iowa.
The “Bluffs,” according to tradition, were for centuries the meeting
place of Indians to settle tribal disputes—a supreme court place of the
aborigines. The city antedates Omaha many years, and has buildings that
were old when Omaha was born. As a place of beauty and much activity
Council Bluffs is well worth a pause in a journey to visit.
The first rails of the Overland Route were laid westward from Omaha in
July, 1865. There was no rail line between Omaha and Des Moines, and the
first seventy-horse power engine was brought by wagons from Des Moines
to begin the work of construction. Ties came from Michigan and
Pennsylvania at a cost sometimes of $2.50 each. All supplies had to be
brought from the East.
[Illustration: OMAHA, METROPOLIS OF NEBRASKA, IN FIFTY YEARS HAS GROWN
FROM A VILLAGE TO ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CITIES OF THE WEST]
The Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company was organized July 23,
1853. The promoters and the Indian Chiefs met in dignified conclave and
with pow-wow and peace-pipe a treaty was concluded and, title acquired
to the townsite and ratified by the Government, Omaha was founded in the
following year. The town that was once a fringe along the waterfront has
spread back over the uplands, and with great business blocks and
beautiful homes has become a city of a hundred and fifty thousand
people, a fitting gateway to the great West.
[Illustration: THE EASTERN ENTRANCE TO THE UNION-PACIFIC BRIDGE ACROSS
THE MISSOURI IS FITTINGLY CROWNED WITH A BUFFALO’S HEAD]
Near by is the site of historic Florence, gathering place of the Mormons
after their enforced and hasty exodus from their persecutors at Nauvoo,
Illinois. This was in the winter of 1846, and, after a brief rest, from
here on April 6, 1847, began the march of the first company of one
hundred and forty-three men, three women and two children to Salt Lake
over an unbroken trail, accomplished without the loss of one soul. The
journey occupied one hundred and nine days, in striking contrast with
the present fifty-six hour trip of the Overland Limited from Omaha to
San Francisco. The first company toiled through sand in canvas covered
wagons; the Overland Limited traveler has at his disposal modern drawing
rooms, state rooms, and sleeping car sections, a club cafe, with writing
desk, tables, and easy chairs, an observation parlor with easy seats and
library and a recessed rotunda, giving an open air view of the scenery.
Instead of circling a smoky camp fire with frying pan and toasting fork,
he dines at ease in a tastefully appointed car, supplied with the best
the markets of two sides of the continent afford, while at night he can,
at will, read in his electric lighted berth, the trials of earlier
wanderers.
[Illustration: THE BLOCK SYSTEM EFFECTUALLY SAFEGUARDS THE TRAINS OF THE
OVERLAND ROUTE]
Leaving Omaha, the Overland Limited passes through South Omaha, third
place in the United States in the packing of meat products. Just beyond
may be noted to advantage the block safety system, in operation on the
Overland Route all the way to San Francisco.
Fremont, well situated at the junction of the Platte and Elkhorn
valleys, is a prosperous and beautiful city of ten thousand people. The
next stop is Columbus, a place of four thousand people, junction point
of the Norfolk branch. Citizen George Francis Train, the irrepressible,
decided that Columbus was the geographical center of the United States,
and announced that the capital should be removed there at once; but so
busy was the country with the Civil War at the time, that the idea was
seemingly overlooked and has remained unadopted.
From Columbus the passenger is carried over a way that does not waver
from a straight line for forty-one miles. On every side is unrolled a
pastoral panorama as splendid as any in the world. To view it, when the
headers and binders are at work in the golden fields interspersed with
stretches of green growing corn, is to grasp the greatness of
agricultural Nebraska.
From Omaha westward to the first glimpse of the white summits of the
Rockies, the way is through visions of country loveliness. As the
Limited ascends on its journey westward and rises above the corn levels
nearer the Missouri, meadows join the grain fields. Stacks of hay are
deployed over the plains as are soldiers on a battlefield. The homes of
farmers are impressive with evidence of a prosperous and proper pride.
The fences are straight and symmetrical, the houses all well painted;
there are great red barns to remind you of Pennsylvania, and active
windmills tower over all as landmarks. The scene is given life by high
grade cattle, sleek horses, and flocks of well kept sheep. Above is bent
over the landscape a sky of clear blue, where troop the vagrant clouds
amid its arches, and all is permeated with air pure and sweet beyond
description. Such is Nebraska.
[Illustration: HERDS OF HIGH GRADE CATTLE HAVE USURPED THE PASTURES OF
THE BUFFALO]
The agricultural area along the line of the Overland Route, east of the
Rockies, from producing nothing fifty years ago, now yields annually a
half billion dollars, and this apart from and in addition to the immense
livestock and mineral output. Nebraska alone has a property value
exceeding two billion dollars.
[Illustration: CATTLE NOONING AT NORTH BEND, NEBRASKA, NEAR THE PLATTE
RIVER]
Grand Island is a thousand feet higher than Omaha. Here Robert Stuart of
the Astor party camped in 1812 and called the island in the river Le
Grande Isle. On Independence Day, 1857, a little company of Germans from
Davenport, Iowa, named their newly started town after the island, now
grown to a prosperous city of ten thousand people. Among other things
they do here is to make a thousand pounds of beet sugar annually for
each inhabitant. Grand Island and the section immediately to the west to
old Fort Kearney and beyond were the scene of many Indian fights when
the Overland Route was being built.
[Illustration: IN THE CITY PARK OF COLUMBUS, THE SEAT OF PLATTE COUNTY,
IS A MEMORIAL TO THE CIVIL WAR HEROES]
Kearney is the next town of importance westward. Not far from here is
the site of old Fort Kearney, where in these early days of progress were
acted more stories of desperate fights and literally hair-raising
adventures than Fenimore Cooper ever dreamed of, and where Major Frank
J. North, with his four companies of Pawnee Indians made history
defending the Overland Route against hostile Indians during the
construction period. As an Indian fighter he had no superior. It was fun
alive for him to take a band of scouts and clean out a whole tribe of
hostiles, and he did it so frequently that his name became a terror to
the Indians. The Plum Creek, Ogalalla, and Summit Springs campaigns
under Major North’s direction did much to prove conclusively to the
Sioux and Cheyennes that he was their absolute master. Kearney is now a
city of eight thousand people, and is the site of the State Normal
School. To the northwest from Kearney runs a branch line through the
beautiful Wood River Valley, opening to the city a great tributary
territory.
Lexington, now a prosperous town of twenty-five hundred people, was once
called Plum Creek. Here in 1867 the Southern Cheyennes, under Chief
Turkey Leg, captured and burned a freight train. In the subsequent
campaign already alluded to, they were thoroughly subdued and many of
them made good Indians. Lexington is now more famous for its great
irrigation system than for Indians. Great grain and vegetable crops are
raised.
West of Lexington sixty-six miles is North Platte, a place of four
thousand people, and much more lively than the North Platte River. Here
we have a good view of the river, which in summer time is the laziest
thing that moves in all Nebraska. Like Hammerton’s summer air, it “has
times of noble energy and times of perfect peace.” North Platte has
great agricultural and stock interests; hence have been shipped a
million tons of hay per annum. Here is the home of Buffalo Bill, most
famous perhaps of all the plains’ scouts. Near by is his famous Scouts’
Rest ranch.
From Kearney westward to Julesburg are little towns, around some of
which cluster memories of earlier days. To Ogalalla, for instance, in
Texas cattle-driving time were driven thousands of long-horns from the
Lone Star State to start by rail for the eastern markets.
[Illustration: THE ROUTE RUNS BY A SEA OF WIND-WAVED GRAIN NEAR SHELTON
AND GIBBON, NEBRASKA]
The West had many styles of wildness, and the cowboy style was one. It
was different from all others. The writer was familiar with them and can
discriminate. There was system usually in the frontier wildness; men
killed each other, but for some cause great or small. But cowboy
wildness was not to be measured by rule or reason. The cowboy was
picturesque. He wore a roll around his broad brimmed hat, a red sash
around his waist, big spurs, high heeled boots with the Lone Star of
Texas embroidered on the top, an open shirt and two six-shooters. In
appearance he was one-half Mexican and the other half savage.
Opportunity to shoot down a man or “up a town” meant the more fame was
his when he should return to the Brazos. His touch upon the trigger was
as “light and free” as the touch of Bret Harte’s Thompson and there was
no limit, while ammunition and targets lasted, to the “mortality
incident upon that lightness and freedom.”
[Illustration: THE “OVERLAND ROUTE” STATION AT COLUMBUS]
Julesburg, 372 miles west of Omaha, was in 1865 an important stage
station on the Overland Route, and as a supply point was the subject of
much attention from the Indians. On one occasion a thousand Sioux and
Cheyennes attacked it, but were finally driven off. The station was
named after one Jules, agent for Ben Holladay’s stage line. He was
killed by J. A. Slade, a noted desperado, who fought both for and
against law and order. His career and that of his faithful wife are set
forth in Mark Twain’s “Roughing It.”
[Illustration: AT NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA, COLONEL CODY (BUFFALO BILL)
HAS A RANCH WHICH HE NAMED “SCOUT’S REST” IN MEMORY OF FRONTIER DAYS]
Long after Julesburg was an Overland Route railway station, the buffalo
fed on the plains around it. These animals should have some share in the
credit for the construction of the Overland Railways. Their destruction,
if deplorable, was a factor in the success of the builders. They
provided sustenance for the brawn of the workman almost all the way
across the plains from Omaha to the Rockies, and while rib steaks and
succulent humps comforted the inner man their robes kept warm the outer
one. The camp hunter did not have to travel far for meat those days.
Time was, and not so many years ago, when an Indian would trade a
buffalo robe for a cup of sugar or a yard of red flannel, but now save
in a few parks and exhibition places the buffalo has passed away. The
plains were at one time strewn with their white bones. It was the custom
of the Mormons to use the frontal bones of their skulls as tablets
whereon to write brief messages to the wagon trains following. One may
be seen in the Commercial Club museum, Salt Lake City, bearing in
Brigham Young’s writing the inscription:
[Illustration: THE NORTH PLATTE, KNOWN TO CIVILIZATION SINCE THE
EXPEDITION OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR IN 1812]
“Pioneers camped here June 3, ’47, making fifteen miles a day. All
well.
Brigham Young.”
After Sidney, a rich farming town of two thousand people, and in 1868 a
military post of importance, the Overland Limited stops at Cheyenne.
Shortly before reaching Cheyenne, Long’s Peak, with snow-clad summit
appears above the horizon.
[Illustration: WYOMING COWBOYS DELIGHT TO MATCH THEIR SKILL]
Five hundred and sixteen miles west and a mile higher than Omaha on the
last and highest of the tablelands that fringe the plains is Cheyenne,
capital of Wyoming and a growing, lively city of fifteen thousand
people. Above it loom the massive Rockies; around it are great plains,
partly irrigated from the great five hundred million-gallon reservoir.
Here each summer is held one of the most picturesque and representative
gatherings in the country—the Frontier Day celebration, when the
mountains and the most distant plains yield up their cattlemen and
cowboys, their hunters, trappers, Indians, and outpost men generally to
contest for honors in riding, tieing steers, horse breaking, shooting
and other frontier sports. No gayer or more picturesque crowd ever
assembled than this.
[Illustration: THE WYOMING COWPUNCHER IS STILL IN EVIDENCE AS A
PICTURESQUE AND USEFUL FACTOR OF THE PLAINS LIFE]
Cheyenne is a great livestock center, has railway shops, is the junction
for the Denver and Kansas City branch of the Union Pacific, and is
making progress as a mercantile and manufacturing place. With its
beautiful Carnegie library and half million dollar Federal building and
other excellent buildings, there is little to recall the town of the
early sixties, when its reputation was extended as a shipping center for
the long trails of cattle, and noted as a famous place for carved
saddles. Among its first pioneers was James B. Hickok (Wild Bill), a
brave gentleman, a great scout and guide, and noted throughout the West
as a superb horseman, and one of the most wonderful marksmen with a
six-shooter that ever lived. He was chief of scouts under Custer in the
Indian campaigns of 1868-69 and the latter paid him high tribute in his
book, “My Life on the Plains.”
Westward from Cheyenne the Overland Route rises steadily to the summit
of the Rockies, the crest of which it passes through by a long tunnel to
the slope whence waters flow to the Pacific. Near this tunnel is the
Ames monument.
[Illustration: AN INDIAN ENCAMPMENT AT CHEYENNE, WYOMING]
Here on the summit at Sherman, eight thousand feet above sea level, one
may pause for a sweeping glance that can take in the watersheds of two
oceans. The atmosphere is so clear that the eye can view the country for
hundreds of miles, though to the untrained sight, distances are
deceiving. Silhouetted against the northern sky is Long’s Peak;
northward the range breaks down on to the Black Hills with their Twin
Mountains; eastward the country slopes symmetrically to the plains,
treeless, level to where their horizon meets the curve of the sky.
Westward are tumbled a confusion of mountains immeasurable, and far off
to the southwestward if the weather be clear, may be seen the sparkling
ridge of the Snowy Range, refreshing with its suggestion of coolness.
[Illustration: THE STATE CAPITOL. CHEYENNE, WYOMING]
The roadbed of the Union Pacific is the best in the world. It is
absolutely dustless, and the stability of steel and ties insures the
smoothest possible riding. No other roadbed may equal this, for none
other has access to the famous Sherman granite, the best and cleanest
ballasting material known, which has created this unrivaled pink trail
across plains and mountains.
[Illustration: EXPERIMENTS ON THE GOVERNMENT FARM AT CHEYENNE HAVE
PRODUCED WONDERFUL RESULTS ON UNIRRIGATED LAND RECLAIMED FROM THE
SAGE-BRUSH PLAINS.]
Laramie has railroad shops and other industries. A clean and prosperous
city, the far reaching Laramie plains, once the bed of an ancient sea,
make of it a great livestock center. The State University, the United
States Experiment Station, the State Normal School, and the State School
of Music are here. The fishing and hunting in the streams and mountains
that can be readily reached from Laramie, constitute one of the few
really first-class hunting grounds left in the United States. More of
wilderness is accessible from Laramie and neighboring stations than
perhaps from any other railway station in our country.
[Illustration: AN ORIGINAL AMERICAN. CHIEF OF A DISAPPEARING RACE
Copyright by F A Rinehart, Omaha.]
Laramie is the center of a wonderful mineral section; near by are soda
lakes large enough to raise all the world’s biscuits for centuries to
come.
West of Laramie and fifteen miles away rises Elk Mountain, 11,511 feet
high, which by its isolation was a noted landmark in the days of the
trail. Northward twenty miles, dark and rugged, is Laramie Peak, another
landmark of the Rockies, rising blue and solitary from the plain. Both
peaks are visible from the car windows.
Passing beautiful Rock River, we reach Hanna, on the eastern border of
the great coal measure of Wyoming. Six thousand people live here, but
only half are on the surface at any one time. Between Medicine Bow and
Fort Steele, now abandoned but once a celebrated fort, the best views of
the Medicine Bow range are to be had. At Fort Steele are hot springs,
and we cross again the North Platte River, but at an altitude some four
thousand feet higher than the Nebraska crossing.
Rawlins, named after Grant’s Secretary of War, is an important
distributing point of three thousand people, whence hunters, miners, and
stockmen outfit for the Wind River Valley and other sections north and
south. From Rawlins the ascent is made to the Divide, seven thousand one
hundred and four feet above sea level, the highest point between Sherman
and Ogden. The grades are gentle now, for along here some of the
heaviest and most skillful work in the reconstruction of the Overland
Route was done.
[Illustration: PASSENGER STATION AND GROUNDS AT CHEYENNE]
The next stop is at Rock Springs, the greatest coal mining town in the
West. The town itself has the typical appearance of an active country
town, and there is little on the surface to indicate the labyrinthine
workings of the great underground measures, part of the vast mineral
treasure house of the state. Wyoming is a state of both underground and
over-ground industries, with its coal mines, gold mines, copper mines,
its great flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and lastly a newly
developed agricultural field of great possibilities.
Green River is a lively railway center with division headquarters. The
beautiful river of that name is of clear water, but gains its color from
the copper-green shale over which it runs. The wonderfully colored
shales give to the rocks that rise above it an added interest to their
striking forms. This is the paradise of the geologist. The Green River
Shales varying in thickness from a knife’s blade to several feet, are
full of fossils, fish, insects, and whatnot of ancient life. In them
have been uncovered the skeletons of huge ancient monsters. Agates and
other gems are found hereabouts in great variety and quantity.
At the next stop, Granger, the line of the Overland Route to Portland,
Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane branches off to the northwest.
[Illustration: AT LARAMIE IS LOCATED THE UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING]
From Leroy, seventy-four miles west of Green River, the new line to Bear
River is taken, avoiding the old time Tapioca hill. This new stretch of
road is most picturesque; the approach to the famous Aspen tunnel is
through the historic Pioneer Valley, about which the train climbs with
graceful sweeps. Next to the cut-off over Great Salt Lake the Aspen
tunnel affords the best illustration of what genius and money may do to
accomplish wonders in railway construction. The tunnel, a mile and a
tenth long, passes through Aspen ridge, four hundred and fifty-six feet
below the mountain top and at an altitude of seven thousand two hundred
and ninety-six feet. The distance saved is ten miles, the greatest grade
is forty-three feet to the mile, and the sharpest curve three degrees,
thirty-six inches.
Evanston, nine hundred and twenty-seven miles from Omaha, is the end of
a division, a prettily placed city with a Federal building, a Carnegie
library and many natural attractions. The streams provide great trout
fishing, and many hunting parties start on mountain expeditions from
Evanston. Just beyond we pass Castle Rock, a symmetrical stone sentinel
posted in the desert and which in the day of wagon migration was a
welcome sign that not far beyond the “Promised Land” would be found. To
the south lie the Uintah Mountains.
Yet a little way beyond the graving tools of nature have wrought out two
canyons, indescribable in their beauty, infinite in their variety.
[Illustration: AT FORT SANDERS, A FEW MILES SOUTH OF LARAMIE, IN 1867,
GENERAL GRANT AND HIS SUITE WERE PHOTOGRAPHED EN ROUTE OVER THE UNION
PACIFIC TO ARRANGE TREATIES WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES WHICH OPPOSED THE
RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION]
The train drops gently into Echo Canyon, running over rails alongside a
mountain torrent. All along the way are Nature’s cathedrals. There are
turrets and domes of gray stone, matching the architecture of an
oriental city. At almost every step of the journey through the canyons
are new and exquisite pictures, rock-framed, or strange monuments of
stone. Immense rocks, perched on the verges of precipices, seem to
threaten a fall into the abyss. The train passes under frowning cliffs,
crossing and recrossing the rushing river; now by waterfalls and
cascades; now bursting into a zone of sunshine, then into the twilight
between higher walls. The colors are the gray of rock and green of pine,
with here and there a splash of iron red.
[Illustration: EROSION HAS SCULPTURED MANY MONUMENTS OF WEIRD SHAPES AND
BRIGHT COLORS FROM THE RED SANDSTONE OF THE LARAMIE PLAINS]
Winged Rock, Kettle Rocks, Hood Rock, Hanging Rock, Pulpit Rock, The
Narrows, Steamboat Rock, Monument Rock, The Cathedral, Battlement Rock,
The Witches, Eagle’s Nest, The Devil’s Slide, The Devil’s Gap, and The
Devil’s Gate are names given to wonderful rock formations which can be
comprehended only by the eye, words being valueless. The canyon walls
are from five hundred to eight hundred feet high, and possess more weird
and striking rock formations than any other known canyons of equal
length.
[Illustration: AT COLORES, ROCKS TURNED BY THE LATHE OF THE WINDS INTO
UNUSUAL SHAPES, ARE IN SIGHT FROM THE CAR WINDOW]
Out of the Canyon the train breaks into one of Utah’s wonderful valleys,
and in a little while reaches the Union Station at Ogden.
Here the passenger who wishes to visit Salt Lake makes an hour’s side
trip through a garden section to the capital of Zion. There is no extra
expense—all Overland Route tickets are good via Salt Lake or will be
made good upon presentation to the Ogden Union Depot Ticket Agent.
Salt Lake has been famous more than half a century. In the lifetime of
the great Overland Trail it was the great oasis in the two thousand mile
journey between the “States” and the Pacific; and westward or eastward
bound, the travelers looked forward to it with fond anticipation. To the
Mormons it was Zion—home of their faith and haven from persecution,
where they might build a kingdom.
Salt Lake came into life on July 24, 1847, when there was not an
American settlement west of the Missouri and California was under
Mexican dominion. With the arrival of the first train of one hundred and
twenty-one wagons began far western agriculture. The new comers put
their hands to the plow the clay of their coming and began the first
irrigation canal built by the white race in America. And while redeeming
the wilderness and making the deserts blossom, they built a city with
such careful planning of streets and open places, of statues and public
buildings, such attractions of tree and vine, of home and temple, of
park and boulevard, that it has become a place of great interest to all
travelers, even though world-wide weary.
Salt Lake has that historic interest due such an oasis of the old
Overland Trail, where, before the days of that Trail, came a little band
of people so strong in their faith that unfaltering they left trodden
ways a thousand miles to build their temple in the desert. With
background of mountains (the Wasatch Range) and face set toward a
marvelous, silent sea, Salt Lake’s estate is one of natural charm.
Metropolis of the great intermountain country, with fertile, irrigated
valleys, the city’s destiny is perhaps chiefly to be forecasted in
manufactures. To-day, with its mountains of minerals, cheap coal, great
smelters (placed a proper distance from the city’s homes), it has first
rank among the ore reducing centers of the country.
The great turtle-shaped Tabernacle houses the sweetest organ in the
world—one that sings and almost speaks. Its acoustic properties are such
that a whisper lives from one end to the other. Seven thousand people
may at one time hear a spoken word. Near by is the Temple, a building of
remarkable architectural interest, home of the Mormon church and
sanctuary of its secrets. The museum adjoins the Tabernacle. The Lion
House, the Bee Hive and Amelia’s Palace have part in history.
The new Union Depot of the Overland Route in Salt Lake City will be in
architecture and appointments equal to any in the country.
[Illustration: ROCK RIVER, FULL OF LUSTY TROUT, COMES SPARKLING FROM
DISTANT SNOW PEAKS AND PASSES UNDER A MODERN BRIDGE]
The greatest charm of Salt Lake City is in the many broad, tree-lined
avenues, with streams of water flowing along the curbs. On either side
in the principal residence districts, are beautiful homes, largely built
from the proceeds of Utah mines. The public buildings are attractive,
and the city park a resting place with lovely lawns and flowers and
groves. The hot springs (within the city) and Fort Douglas should be
visited, nor should any stranger depart without passing an afternoon at
Saltair, the principal bathing resort on Salt Lake, with its immense
pavilion, promenade walks, and wharves extending far out into the salt
water. Here one may float for hours in warm, buoyant salt water—buoyant
and salty indeed beyond any other water on earth save the Dead Sea.
No people are more kindly and hospitable than those of Salt Lake. They
differ among themselves as to the plan of salvation, but are united in
the belief that if there be a heaven on earth, Salt Lake is that heaven,
and its portals are open to all who may choose to add themselves to the
eighty thousand there now.
Ogden has some twenty thousand people. Its present considered commercial
and manufacturing importance is but a suggestion of the greatness to be.
Ogden Canyon, easy of access, is a mountain rift with beauty of stream
and wall. The sugar mills and electric power plants are interesting.
[Illustration: GREEN RIVER RUNS OVER COPPER-STAINED ROCKS AND PEBBLES
THROUGH A COUNTRY OF ROMANTIC SCENERY AND ABUNDANCE OF WILD GAME.]
Utah is great in agriculture, fruit growing, stock raising and mining.
The mines have yielded four hundred million dollars—gold, silver,
copper, lead, and coal. The fruits are of fine flavor and exceptional
keeping quality. Of its agricultural area, a large proportion is as
gardenlike, perhaps, in its intensive cultivation, as any part of the
West, with proportionately rich yields. The livestock and sheep
industries, have made many wealthy or well-to-do.
Before journeying farther west it may be well to consider the two eras
in the history of the Pacific Railroads.
The total first cost of the Pacific Railroads—Union and Central
Pacific—was $115,214,587.79. Such was the report of the Secretary of
Interior to the committee of inspection. The work was undertaken
westward from Omaha (1865) and eastward from Sacramento (1863). The
intense rivalry generated by the desire of each company to build as far
as possible before the junction should be effected resulted in marvelous
celerity in construction, if the conditions be taken into consideration.
Collis P. Huntington said before the Senate Committee of Congress:
“There were difficulties from end to end; from high and steep
mountains; from snows; from deserts where there was scarcity of water,
and from gorges and flats where there was an excess; difficulties from
cold and from heat; from a scarcity of timber, and from obstructions
of rock; difficulties in keeping supplied a large force on a long
line; from Indians, and from want of labor.”
[Illustration: NEAR THE TOWN OF GREEN RIVER, RISE NUMBERS OF SANDSTONE
BUTTES IN INFINITE VARIETY OF SHAPE AND COLOR. THE ENTRANCE TO THE
INFERNO MIGHT WELL BE IMAGINED HERE]
[Illustration: WYOMING IS FAMOUS FOR ALWAYS KEEPING ITS LAVISH PROMISES
TO SPORTSMEN.]
For six hundred miles there was not one white inhabitant; for stretches
of one hundred miles not a drink of water.
Yet ten miles of track were laid in one day, and for several days faster
than ox teams could follow with loads. Twenty-five thousand workmen were
employed, and more than five thousand teams. At one time thirty ships
were en route from the Atlantic coast to San Francisco with supplies.
Between January, 1866, and May 10, 1869, over two thousand miles of
railroad were constructed through the wilderness.
Less dramatic has been the reconstruction of the Pacific railroads, and
yet not less in interest. By the year 1900, the transcontinental traffic
of the country and its promise for the future had outgrown its first
main highway. To the present owners and management, under the direction
of the president, E. H. Harriman, fell the task of reconstruction; the
task of tearing up the old track and replacing it with new; of
abandoning a large part of the route and choosing new grades; of cutting
through mountains by tunnels where formerly the track was laid around or
over them; of replacing wooden bridges with steel; and short sidetracks
with long ones. The expense of the work of reconstruction to date
probably nearly equals the first cost.
In this work of rebuilding, the eight-million dollar Great Salt Lake
cut-off stands prominently as the most startling of achievements in
railway work. The old road through the country where the golden spike
was driven was abandoned as a part of the main highway for a distance of
146.68 miles. To save grades and distance, the cut-off was built across
the heart of the lake from Ogden to Lucin, 102.91 miles and so nearly
straight that it is only one-third of a mile longer than an air line.
[Illustration: AN OVERLAND COACH, PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE DAYS OF THE MORMON
EXODUS FROM ILLINOIS TO UTAH]
[Illustration: CHIEF WHITE WHIRLWIND IN HIS WAR ARRAY. A GRIM AND
FORMIDABLE WARRIOR IN BYGONE DAYS OF THE OVERLAND ROUTE
Copyright by F. A. Rinehart, Omaha.]
The curves which have been thus saved by the new line would be
sufficient to turn a train around eleven times. The power saved in
moving an average freight train because of less grades would lift an
average man eight thousand five hundred miles. The power saved in moving
such a train because of the shorter distance would be sufficient to
carry a man two hundred round trips between New York and San Francisco.
The heart of Great Salt Lake is crossed by the Overland Limited by
daylight. The lake covers two thousand square miles, is eighty-three
miles long and fifty-one miles wide; its greatest depth is thirty feet.
In every five pounds of water there is one of salt of which thirteen
ounces is common salt, a density exceeded only by the Dead Sea.
Twenty-seven and a half miles of the cut-off are over the water, with
roadway sixteen feet wide at the bottom and seventeen feet above the
lake’s surface. The work began in June, 1902, and on November 13, 1903,
the track was completed across the lake. During that time in supplying
piles for trestles and subsequent fills a forest of two square
miles—thirty-eight thousand two hundred and fifty-six trees—was
transplanted into the waters of Great Salt Lake. Each day hundreds of
carloads of gravel were poured in between the piles to make a solid
pathway—sometimes more than four hundred cars in one day. The roadway is
on the surface of a foot of rock ballast and beneath that a coat of
asphalt upon a plank floor three inches thick, resting upon a
practically indestructible substructure. For thirty-six miles there is
no grade at all. The steepest grade in the one hundred and three miles
is five inches to the hundred feet. The saving in the vertical feet in
grades compared with the old route is fifteen hundred and fifteen feet;
in degrees of curvature 3.919.
[Illustration: THE “OVERLAND LIMITED” CROSSING HAM’S FORK, NEAR GRANGER,
WYOMING]
There is something fascinating about Great Salt Lake—something in its
weird, silent waters that draws you to it irresistibly. There are no
words to describe the impression made when first you see it lying out
there in the desert, its dense green waters reaching away to the dusky
mountains that mark its farther shore. Other waters, alive, break with
white crested riffles at the touch of the breeze; but these waters seem
dead, and naught but the fury of a storm can break their placidity. No
craft ply upon their surface, and nothing lives within them save a queer
shrimp, a third of an inch long, and small flies before their wing
stage; and but for the gulls, herons, and pelicans that came to the lake
some time in the misty past, there would be no show of life upon its
broad expanse. These same birds fly twenty miles for fresh water and
food.
Over this strange sea, with no counterpart on the continent, the
travelers of the world now pass. East and west the scenes of the two
most majestic ranges of America spread before their eyes; but the
enchantment of this ride across the lake of mystery will linger in the
memory long after the beauty of mountain peak and grandeur of mountain
wall shall have passed to the realm of things forgotten.
Westward from Lucin the route follows the old overland trail to the
eastern base of the Sierra, across a region for half a century described
in geographies as the Great American Desert.
This one-time desert is now proved to be possessed of mineral riches
beyond dreams—gold, silver, copper, iron, soda, borax, sulphur, and
other minerals in abundance. Agriculturally, too, the Carson Valley
within the “Desert,” under Uncle Sam’s nine million dollar irrigation
enterprise, is proving the worth of Nevada soil and water properly
associated.
In 1833 Kit Carson and Jim Beckwith, with a few Crow Indians, crossed
Nevada, and in 1846 Carson guided Fremont across it, but the Mormons
were the first settlers.
[Illustration: ECHO CANYON, UTAH, WHERE THE SHRIEK OF THE LOCOMOTIVE
REVERBERATES AMID A THOUSAND CLIFFS AND PEAKS]
[Illustration: PULPIT ROCK IN ECHO CANYON. FROM THIS NATURAL ROSTRUM
BRIGHAM YOUNG IS SAID TO HAVE PREACHED HIS FIRST SERMON IN THE “PROMISED
LAND” TO HIS FOLLOWERS, IN 1847]
In 1860 the famous pony express service of Jones, Russell & Company was
begun between Sacramento and Salt Lake City, with schedule of three and
one-half days. The first express left Sacramento, April 4, 1860, and the
first arrived from Salt Lake City April 13, 1860. The record for time
was held by the relay of pony express riders that carried President
Lincoln’s message from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, seventeen
hundred and eighty miles, in five days and eighteen hours. The through
stage line across Nevada was established in 1865, when the Overland
stage Company extended the line between Virginia City and Sacramento (in
operation since 1860) to Salt Lake City and connected with Ben
Holladay’s line thence to the Missouri River. The through telegraph line
was completed across Nevada in 1865.
[Illustration: IMAGINATION RUNS RIOT AMID THE BRILLIANT COLORING, THE
CURIOUS CARVINGS OF THE CLIFFS OF THE ECHO AND WEBER CANYONS. A FERTILE
FANCY HAS STYLED THESE “THE WITCHES’ ROCKS”]
Nevada is in great part the bed of an ancient ocean ribbed with lean
mountains. Multitudes of travelers have noted that the rain, driven in
from the Pacific, falls heavily in the valleys of California and up the
western slopes of the Sierra, and on the summit of the mountains creates
a deep blanket of snow, but to thirsty Nevada gives little save the snow
fed rivers that flow down the mountain sides. So while they see skies
marvelously clear and crests of brown far-off hills snow-crowned (under
the sunlight seemingly tipped with flame), and drink the rare air, to
the fevered face a balm and to the lungs as rare old wine to the palate,
yet they pass it by and see nothing in the waste out of which to create
a home. The Sierra watershed and government money are to change all
that. Changed, also, is its mining life to-day. Capital, with new
railroads—yes, and Capital, new railroads,—yes, and automobiles,—have
torn the mask from the face of this treasure land. The dawn of the day
of this land of mystery between the Rockies and the Sierra is here. Salt
Lake City is now probably the greatest smelting center of the world and
the once named ‘Great American Desert’ is helping give as neighbors to
the green fields, running streams and fruitful orchards of the Mormon
haven, the tall chimneys and mighty fires of many furnaces. Discoveries
of new mining districts follow hard one upon the heels of another.
[Illustration: THRUST FROM THE RED SOIL RISE TWO DAZZLING WALLS OF
WHITE—FORTY FEET HIGH, TWENTY FEET APART; SHEER FROM THE BRINK OF THE
CLIFF TO THE WATERS OF WEBER RIVER—THE DEVIL’S SLIDE]
When the glaciers in the infinite past were set in flow, grinding rocks
to make soil from which food could be raised for races of men not then
in existence save in the mind of God, Nevada and Utah were not left
valueless. Rather, when the world was freighted for its long voyage,
some of the richest stores were given this intermountain land to keep,
and jealously has she guarded them with barren mountains for sentinels
and lusterless sage for a cloak.
“A wide domain of mysteries
And signs that men misunderstood
A land of space and dreams; a land
Of seas, salt lakes and dried up seas.
A land of caves and caravans,
And lonely walls and pools;
A land that has its purposes and plans.”
[Illustration: CROSSING WEBER BRIDGE THE TRAIN PLUNGES INTO A TUNNEL
HEWN THROUGH THE ROCK, LEAVING THE SERPENTINE RIVER FOR AWHILE]
[Illustration: ALL DAY LONG HEAVY SHADOWS HANG OVER DEVIL’S GATE AND THE
FOAMING WATERS CHAFE AGAINST ITS ROCKY PORTALS]
So wrote Joaquin Miller thirty years ago; more and more the “purposes
and plans” of the great basin become apparent. In forty-seven years
Nevada alone has yielded in treasure $1,700,000,000.
But the store of riches is not alone in mines. Silt-laden rivers born in
snow-clad mountain heights for untold centuries have carried their
riches into the great basin. The principal streams of Nevada have no
outlet but disappear in sinks. The Truckee, rising at Lake Tahoe almost
at the summit of the Sierra, tumbles down the mountain side to a last
resting place in Pyramid and Mud Lakes. The Carson River, rising in
equally lofty heights, sinks in a lake of the same name, and the
Humboldt, companion to the railway through central Nevada, flows from
the Great Wells at the base of the Ruby Range and westerly finds its way
120 miles to a vanishing point in Humboldt Lake.
To give life to the desert by joining again these streams with the
silt-surface earth of the Nevada valleys through irrigation, is the task
now in hand. Ere finished, the commonwealth should be as great in
agriculture and horticulture as in mining.
In Nevada’s 110,000 square miles are many thousands of fertile acres
requiring but the touch of water to make them productive. Here are some
of the great grazing lands of America. A total of not far from 10,000
carloads of cattle, horses and sheep is exported from Nevada every year.
[Illustration: IN OGDEN CANYON IS THE HERMITAGE, BUILT AMID ROMANTIC
SURROUNDINGS AND ATTRACTING MANY LOVERS OF TROUT AND SCENERY]
The Great Salt Lake Cut-off of the Overland Route westward from Ogden is
now of course the main line; the old line runs to the north of Great
Salt Lake, crossing the mountains at Promontory at an elevation of 4907
feet and rejoining the Great Salt Lake Cut-off at Umbria Junction.
Through trains no longer are operated via Promontory and in the march of
progress that station which one day held the attention of the entire
country as the junction point of two great railways binding together the
East and the West is now only a name on a side line. Yet the day of its
birth was one of glory. New York City celebrated it with the chimes
ringing out Old Hundred and a salute of one hundred guns; Philadelphia
rang all its bells in celebration and Chicago rejoiced with a mass
meeting where Vice President Colfax spoke, and sent through the
decorated streets a parade four miles in length. Omaha turned loose with
all of its firearms and paraded with every able-bodied man in town in
line, and closed the day with fireworks and illuminations. As usual, San
Francisco was fore-handed with its rejoicing, starting its celebration
two days in advance of the driving of the golden spike, and continuing
it two days thereafter to preserve a proper equilibrium. Bret Harte
wrote a poem for the event.
The reasons for abandoning the old historic route in favor of the new
mid-sea pathway across Great Salt Lake are more eloquently expressed in
the diagram on page 47 than can be done by words.