Nebraskas Cowboy Rail Line (Images of Rail)

Join Kobo & start eReading today

---

Starting in Valentine, you can pedal or walk two miles southeast down the rail-trail to reach it.

History of the Union Pacific Railroad

And just east of town, the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge offers pioneer-like surroundings with roaming buffalo, elk and prairie dogs. The trail itself is a haven for wildlife. Eagle-eyed travelers might spot white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, muskrats, beavers and many types of birds — even a plethora of monarch butterflies which migrate through the area in the fall.

Milkweeds have been planted along the trail by volunteers as habitat for the pretty pollinators. Between Valentine and the opposite end of the trail at Norfolk lies a continuous stretch of crushed-stone pathway spanning just over miles. Today, the eastern Norfolk end of the pathway traverses the lush Elkhorn River Valley and has the highest use as the towns here are larger and closer together, and situated only a two-hour drive from Omaha and Lincoln, the largest cities in the state.

More than a dozen additional miles of trail, disconnected from the main spine, are also open west of Valentine between Gordon and Rushville. This western section is primarily a dirt trail currently, but a few miles of it offer a crushed-stone surface and, by the end of , all of it will have the upgraded stone surface. Between the two completed segments, a large gap of undeveloped corridor awaits, and another 30 miles of trail to extend the route farther west to Chadron would complete the original vision.

If you want a candy bar or a t-shirt, you just leave the money. The quirky hole-in-the-wall joint is located just off the trail in Newport, a railroad hub in the s and now home to just shy of people. Before reaching the town, visitors coming from Valentine will also pass through the community of Long Pine and cross another bridge — in fact, there are more than of them along the entire route.

A crystal-clear creek of the same name just west of town is a local favorite for trout fishing and tubing. The stream traverses a forested canyon up through the Long Pine State Recreation Area, a pleasant place to camp for those making the trail journey over the course of a few days. Elwood tells the story of a husband and wife from Dallas that he once met on the trail who were aiming to hike the whole route.

When he asked them what they liked best about the trail, they told him it was people they met along the way. The love and commitment that locals have for the trail is evidenced by the development of that separated section known locally as Cowboy Trail West. In this sparsely populated, rural area, where government budgets are extremely tight, a core of volunteers stepped up with might and muscle to make the trail between Gordon and Rushville happen. When the railroad ties were pulled up in this western leg by a salvaging company, they unfortunately tossed the scrap to the side instead of disposing of it properly.

During the winter of —66, former Union General John S. Casement , the new Chief Engineer, assembled men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west.

To protect the railroad's surveying and hunting parties, the U. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Indians grew more aggressive. Temporary, " Hell on wheels " towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west. Most faded away but some became permanent settlements.

Reward Yourself

In late , General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific; Casement continued to work as chief construction boss and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer.

This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad drilled wells for water. Coal was mined in Wyoming by the time the UP arrived. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized, as Wyoming is the nation's largest coal producer in the 21st century. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evan's Sherman's pass.

The Dale Creek Crossing bridge was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Cheyenne became a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to clear the tracks of winter snow or help haul heavy freight over Evan's pass.

The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas , Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. The railroad established towns along the way: Interstate 80 now follows nearly the same route. In the Dakota Territory Wyoming it built the new towns of Laramie , Rawlins and Evanston, Wyoming , as well as many more fuel and water stops. The Green River was bridged on October 1, —the last big river to cross.

Evanston became a significant train maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah ahead of the railroad construction. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming. The tunnels were all made with the new nitroglycerine explosive which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents.

In the s, the original UP purchased three short Mormon -built roads: It built or purchased local lines that gave it access to key locations: It acquired the Kansas Pacific originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though an entirely separate railroad. It also owned narrow gauge trackage into the mining districts high in the Colorado rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas.

Jan Richard Heier argues that, "America's greatest technological achievement of the nineteenth century" was the transcontinental railroad. He adds that the political scandal over the disposition of millions of dollars in government bonds led to Congressional hearings that showed the weakness of accounting methods. The reporting of assets, liabilities, and capital followed standards of the day. The companies had to invent new methods for accounting for stock dividends and bond discounts.

Congress distrusted the UP, and forced it to hire as the new president a distinguished member of the Adams family, Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Adams had long promoted various reform ideas, but had little practical experience in management. As railroad president, he was successful in getting a good press for the UP, and set up libraries along the route to allow his employees to better themselves.

He had poor results dealing with the Knights of Labor labor union. The result was the Rock Springs massacre , that killed scores of Chinese, and drove all the rest out of Wyoming. He had great difficulty in making decisions, and in coordinating his subordinates. Adams was unable to stanch the worsening financial condition of the UP, and in Gould forced his resignation. In addition to charges for freight and passenger service, the UP made its money from land sales, especially to farmers and ranchers.

The UP land grant gave it ownership of 12, acres per mile of finished track. The government kept every other section of land, so it also had 12, acres to sell or give away to homesteaders. The UP's goal was not to make a profit, but rather to build up a permanent clientele of farmers and townspeople who would form a solid basis for routine sales and purchases.

The UP, like other major lines, opened sales offices in the East and in Europe, advertised heavily, [26] and offered attractive package rates for farmer to sell out and move his entire family, and his tools, to the new destination. In the UP offered rich Nebraska farmland at five dollars an acre, with one fourth down and the remainder in three annual installments. Sales were improved by offering large blocks to ethnic colonies of European immigrants. Germans and Scandinavians, for example, could sell out their small farms back home and buy much larger farms for the same money.

European ethnics comprised half of the population of Nebraska in the late 19th century. Harriman in became chairman of the UP executive committee, and from that time until his death his word was law on the Union Pacific system. He merged the UP with the larger Southern Pacific in to obtain greater efficiency and more monopoly power in the Southwest. Labor unrest was generally low in the United States after the great strikes of , but there was tension among the shopmen of the Union Pacific.

The railroad cut wage rates in Las Vegas, Nevada, the site of major repair shops. On 1 July , boilermakers, blacksmiths, electricians, carmen, and sheet metal workers went on strike.

The over-the-rails workforce did not join them. Local public opinion at first favored the strikers. After episodes of violence by striking pickets, the railroad obtained a federal injunction restraining against threats or attacks. The railroad also threatened to move the maintenance facilities to more favorable city.

Related Posts

Public support for the strike fell away. The strike collapsed in September, and union membership collapsed. From the ICC annual reports, except is from Moody's. At the end of , Union Pacific operated 9, route-miles and 15, miles of track. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. June Learn how and when to remove this template message. Revenue passenger traffic, in millions of passenger-miles Year Traffic 1, 5, 1, Source: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century.

Financial Scandal of the s". Wall Street's Great Railroad War. The Life and Legend of E.

Vanguards of the frontier:

• Dinky: The Nurse Mares Foal
• Many Horrorz 4
• Opportunities in Aviation
• Girlchild
• Prachuap Khiri Khan
• 21 checkmate puzzles (Chess hobby eBooks)