Wyoming the Railroad and What If

The transcontinental railroad was a brainchild of Eastern businessmen and politicians in the 1830s. It took a while, about two decades before any real planning took place and another decade before work was started. It took President Lincoln to finally push through legislation to build it. The Central Pacific started building in 1863 and the Union Pacific in 1865. Promontory Summit was reached and the railroads joined in 1869.

Wyoming was a big part and a big challenge for the railroad. The original route was to follow the Oregon Trail, but the Pony Express proved there was a better route through southern Wyoming to South Pass, the only feasible way to cross the mountains. This route saved a couple of hundred miles and was no harder to build.  Although original plans called for a route that was nearly the same as the finished railroad, there was a controversy about the route. Texas wanted a southern route, using better weather as their public reason. Privately they wanted the railroad for the huge economic benefit they knew it would bring. When the Civil War started, Texas was out and the tracks through Wyoming were not far away.

Trains are a bit faster today

Not everyone was happy with this, Denver had lobbied for the railroad, but no route including Denver was ever considered. But the early people of Denver, knowing that they could connect to the railroad and reap most of the benefits of its northern neighbors. Thus was born the Denver Pacific, a bit over 100 miles of track connecting Denver to Cheyenne completed one year after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

It was another 20 years before Wyoming became a state in 1890.  Most of the early population lived along the railroad, it brought jobs and with jobs came the people. It is always interesting to speculate as to what could have happened, what if.  How long would it have taken for Wyoming to become a state without the railroad? As the least populated state today, would it be even smaller if it would have taken another 20 or 30 years to have adequate rail service? Would the cattle drive era been a time when cowboys drove cattle south from Wyoming to the railroad in Texas?

I may have had too much time to think about offbeat subjects today. Hey, what if . . . . . .

Of Jim Bridger, Shakespeare and Laramie Peak

Jim Bridger was, by definition, illiterate.  He went through his entire life unable to read and write. The man who discovered or co-discovered south pass in1823, and was the first white man to view the Great Salt Lake in 1824. Yet his fame rests as much, or more, in his famous story telling and his ability as a guide than it does in his great discoveries.

Despite the fact he was uneducated he loved the works of Shakespeare, who he liked to quote, often at great length. He once traded a, $125.00 yoke of oxen for copies of Shakespeare’s books. Later he was renowned in the west for paying a young man, the then princely sum of $40.00 a month, to read Shakespeare to him.

Bridger was fond of telling his listeners that he came to Wyoming when Laramie Peak was but a hole in the ground. Thought I would end this post with a photo of Laramie Peak. The Peak, as us locals call it, is nearby, I see it every day, not old enough to have seen it when it was a hole in the ground like ol' Gabe though.

Sunset Over Laramie Peak -Photo From Six miles North of Town