Trains Then and Now

Today we take railroads and rail traffic for granted, at least, where I live we do. Dozens of trains pass through on the north side of our little town each day and no one notices, just part of life. But that was not always the case. When trains first passed through towns and cities much of the community would turn out to cheer and watch the powerful locomotives pulling a handful of cars.  When passenger cars were involved and the train stopped, even if but for a few minutes, it was the best entertainment in town. Funny how times change.

Modern day Coal Train rolling toward the mines to refill

When I was a kid growing up in 1950s Nebraska we still, on occasion, went down to watch the Rock Island Rocket, come in and leave. It was quite a site. The rocket would reach speeds of 70 or so miles per hour, making its Kansas City to Omaha trip in a few hours and that included several stops.

But long before our family, and many others watched and enjoined the trains, someone had to build the first track and what a job it was. 2,400 ties were needed every mile, and when they got out here our supplies of cottonwood, scrub cedar and pine were not good enough for the substantial ties needed. Most of the first ties laid through the west were Pennsylvania Oak. Eventually, enough good hard pine was found in the foothills and mountains to open several tie camps in Wyoming and the west.

At last the foothills and mountains provided Tie timber

Water and food were also a problem to supply as the tracks were built. Meat hunters like Buffalo Bill and others are well documented in history, but there is more to this story also. Building the railroad through an area where the native people did not want it was dangerous. Forts D.A. Russell, Sanders, and Fred Steel were built to house soldiers whose primary purpose would be to protect the workers and the process of building the railroad. In places, half the workers worked, and the other half stood guard duty, a tough build indeed. But they got it done, and today we hardly notice. 

The great herds were in decline but still supplied much of the
 meat for the crews building the railroad west

The Wild West

The Wild West

In his autobiography Standing Bear, a Sioux chief said that the white man, not the Indian made the west wild. “We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth, as wild. Only to the white man was nature a wilderness, and only to him was the land infested with wild animals and savage people, To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful, and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.” Interesting!

When the whites came into Indian lands, they tried to change the native peoples way of life. Religion, living style, lifestyle, food, cooking/eating utensils, dress, war, relationships and tribal makeups and hierarchy were all wrong – according to the new people, from the east, and now in the west.

In my view, the wild west came about as more and more non-Indian’s moved and crossed the west. Civilization movements and a clash of cultures changed the American West and created our, modern, view of the wild west. But, I’m most sure that this was not something new. Civilizations change as new people become more and more a part of something, where at one time they were outsiders. People being forced to change or obliged to accept what they do not want will fight, always have, probably always will.

Sometimes we do not look at the big picture, probably it was not as wild as Hollywood has made it out. Indian encounters are much more prevalent in old television series, movies, and novels than they were in real life. But the wars in the west were genuine, and were brought on as Standing Bear so eloquently stated, when the new people saw things as savage and wild instead of the way they were and had always been.