Nothing Like It in the World The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  52 Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, vol. 7, pp. 572-73.

  53 Charles Crocker comments on his Bancroft biography, Bancroft Library.

  54 E. B. Crocker to Huntington, Nov. 7, 1867.

  55 Huntington’s comments on the Bancroft history, Bancroft Library.

  56 See Kraus, High Road to Promontory, chap. 11.

  57 Ibid., p. 163.

  58 See Harry Carman and Charles Mueller, “The Contract and Finance Company and the Central Pacific Railroad,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 14, no. 3 (Dec. 1927).

  59 See Hopkins to Huntington, March 16, 1868.

  60 Hopkins to Huntington, Dec. 1, 1867.

  61 Samuel Bowles, Our New West, p. 67.

  62 Bancroft, History of California, vol. 7, p. 570.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: THE UNION PACIFIC ACROSS WYOMING

  1 E. B. Crocker to Huntington, April 23, 1868, Collis Huntington Papers, Bancroft Library.

  2 From the Virginia City [Nevada] Territorial Enterprise, quoted in the Salt Lake Daily Reporter, July 30, 1868.

  3 Chicago Leader, July 20, 1868.

  4 New York Tribune, Aug. 4, 1867.

  5 Ibid., June 30, 1868.

  6 Quoted in Robert G. Athearn, Union Pacific Country, pp. 114-15.

  7 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, June 20, 1868.

  8 New York Tribune, Sept. 18, 1868.

  9 Grenville Dodge, Romantic Realities, p. 21.

  10 Grenville M. Dodge, How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, p. 23.

  11 Ibid., p. 22.

  12 Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, p. 262.

  13 Huntington to Stanford, May 22, 1868; E. B. Crocker to Huntington, Oct. 14, 1867; see also Maury Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 150.

  14 All these telegrams and hundreds of others are in the UP Archives, Omaha; heartfelt thanks to UP Historian Don Snoddy for typing them all up.

  15 Ibid.

  16 John Debo Galloway, The First Transcontinental Railroad, p. 159.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 150.

  19 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 263.

  20 David Dary, Seeking Pleasure in the Old West (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1995), p. 118.

  21 Reed to Crane, Feb. 28, 1868, Reed Papers.

  22 Frontier Index, Dec. 24, 1867.

  23 Cheyenne Daily Leader, April 6, 1868.

  24 Charles Edgar Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 272. When Edward Harriman redid the entire line at the end of the nineteenth century, he went south of the Dale Creek crossing, and the bridge is no longer there. It is possible to walk through the cuts.

  25 Reed’s various telegrams are in Reed Papers.

  26 Quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 263.

  27 Dodge’s April 16, 1868, telegram to Browning is in UP Archives, Omaha.

  28 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 151.

  29 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 264.

  30 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 272.

  31 James Ehernberger and Francis Gschwind, Sherman Hill (Callaway, Neb: E.G. Publications, 1978), pp. 14-17.

  32 Ferguson Journal, Utah State Historical Society.

  33 Ibid.

  34 Ibid.

  35 David Lemon, “An Experience on the Road,” Union Pacific Magazine, May 1924, pp. 5-6.

  36 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 151.

  37 Henry Morton Stanley, My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia, vol. 1, p. 211.

  38 Ferguson Journal, Aug. 17, 1868, Utah State Historical Society.

  39 Ibid., July 21, 1868.

  40 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 291.

  41 Morris Mills, “With the Union Pacific Railroad in the Early Days,” Annals of Wyoming, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1926), p. 200.

  42 Chicago Tribune, July 16 and Aug. 18, 1868.

  43 Mills, “With the Union Pacific,” p. 201.

  44 Maury Klein, “The Coming of the Railroad and the End of the Great West,” Invention and Technology, vol. 10, no. 3 (Winter 1995), p. 14.

  45 Ferguson Journal, June 23, 1868, Utah State Historical Society.

  46 Quoted in Klein, “Coming of the Railroad,” pp. 14-15.

  47 Charles Edgar Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 247; Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 156.

  48 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 275.

  49 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 270-71.

  50 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 283.

  51 Quoted in ibid., pp. 283-84.

  52 Quoted in ibid., p. 287.

  53 Quoted in Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 165.

  54 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, Aug. 21, 1868.

  55 Quoted in Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 114.

  56 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 168-69.

  57 Ibid., p. 175.

  58 Western Railroad Gazette, Sept. 5, 1868.

  59 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, Dec. 15, 1868.

  60 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 176.

  61 Western Railroad Gazette, Nov. 30, 1868.

  62 Huntington to Mark Hopkins, May 30, 1868.

  63 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 178-79.

  64 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 287.

  65 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, Sept. 30, 1868.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BRIGHAM YOUNG AND THE MORMONS MAKE THE GRADE

  1 Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, p. 274.

  2 John Debo Galloway, The First Transcontinental Railroad, pp. 241, 244.

  3 Robert G. Athearn, Union Pacific Country, pp. 69-71.

  4 Young to Reed, Aug. 10, 1866, and to Dodge, Nov. 5, 1866, Brigham Young Papers.

  5 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, pp. 69-71.

  6 Ibid., pp. 75-78.

  7 Salt Lake Deseret News, May 9, 1868.

  8 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, pp. 89-90.

  9 Durant to Young, May 6, 1868, Young Papers.

  10 Young to Durant, May 6, 1868, Young Papers.

  11 Young to Seymour and Reed, May 19, 1868, Young Papers.

  12 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, pp. 90-91.

  13 Lewis Barney Papers, Archives, Church of Latter-Day Saints Library, Salt Lake City.

  14 Young to Reed, May 29, 1868, Young Papers.

  15 Reed to Durant, May 31, 1868, Samuel Reed Papers.

  16 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 83.

  17 Cheyenne Daily Leader, June 15, 1868, quoted in Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 95.

  18 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 90.

  19 Ibid., pp. 93-94.

  20 Cheyenne Daily Leader, June 16, 1868.

  21 Dodge, How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, p. 34.

  22 Salt Lake Deseret News, Sept. 11, 1868.

  23 Ibid., June 5, 1868.

  24 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 270.

  25 Clarence A. Reeder, “A History of Utah’s Railroads,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah, 1959.

  26 Samuel Schill Papers, Archives, Church of Latter-Day Saints Library, Salt Lake City.

  27 Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah (San Francisco: History Company, 1890), p. 754.

  28 Galloway, First Transcontinental Railroad, pp. 277-79.

  29 Ibid., p. 240.

  30 Stanford to Hopkins, June 9, 1868, Huntington-Hopkins correspondence, Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley.

  31 Young to Stanford, June 23, 1868, Huntington-Hopkins correspondence.

  32 Stanford to Young, July 28, 1868, and Young to Stanford, July 29, 1868, Young Papers.

  33 Young to Stanford, Aug. 10, 1868, Young Papers.

  34 Young to bishops, Sept. 5, 1868, Young Papers.

  35 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 254.

  36 Stanford to Hopkins, Nov. 9, 1868, Huntington-Hopkins correspondence.

  37 Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr., Golden Spike, pp. 32-33.

  38 Stanford to Hopkins, Dec. 10, 1868, Huntington-Hopkins correspondence.

  39 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 343.

  40 Milando Pratt Memoir, Utah State Historical Libra
ry, Salt Lake City.

  41 James Maxwell Memoir, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

  42 These telegrams and many others are in the Young Papers.

  43 Cheyenne Daily Leader, June 15, 1868.

  44 Young memo, Oct. 8, 1868, and Young to Durant, Jan. 9, 1869, Young Papers.

  45 Young to Durant, Jan. 9, 1869, Young Papers.

  46 Athearn, Union Pacific Country, p. 97.

  47 W.C.A. Smoot, “Tales from Old-Timers,” Union Pacific Magazine, Dec. 1923, p. 12.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE CENTRAL PACIFIC GOES THROUGH NEVADA

  1 Huntington to E. B. Crocker, Jan. 1 and 21, 1868, and E. B. Crocker to Huntington, Jan. 22, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  2 Above letters and telegrams all in Huntington Papers.

  3 Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, p. 234.

  4 Clement to Stanford, July 21, 1887, U.S. Pacific Railway Commission, exhibit no. 8.

  5 Ibid.

  6 George Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 159; Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 193. Quote from Griswold.

  7 Hopkins to Huntington, July 16, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  8 Brown’s account is reprinted in Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 190-91.

  9 Southern Pacific Bulletin, Aug. 1920.

  10 Ibid., Sept. 1920.

  11 Quoted in Bruce Clement Cooper, Lewis Metzler Clement, p. 7.

  12 Ibid., p. 194.

  13 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 227-29.

  14 Huntington to Hopkins, April 14, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  15 Huntington to Charles Crocker, April 15, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  16 Stanford to Hopkins, June 9, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  17 Charles Crocker to Huntington, June 16, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  18 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 196-98.

  19 Charles Crocker’s remarks on his Bancroft biography, Bancroft Library.

  20 Reno Crescent, July 14, 1868, quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 244.

  21 Huntington to Charles Crocker, July 1, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  22 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 245-46.

  23 Clement to Stanford, July 21, 1887, U.S. Pacific Railway Commission, exhibit no. 8.

  24 Charles Crocker to Huntington, July 15, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  25 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 203.

  26 Crocker interview on his biography, Bancroft Library.

  27 San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1868, quoted in Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 204-11.

  28 Quoted in ibid., p. 211.

  29 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 247-48.

  30 Huntington to Charles Crocker, Oct. 21, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  31 Humboldt Register, Aug. 1, Oct. 3, and Dec. 26, 1868.

  32 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 212.

  33 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 253.

  34 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 216-21.

  35 Huntington to Stanford, Nov. 13, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  36 Stanford to Huntington, Nov. 21, 1868, Huntington Papers.

  37 Stanford to E. B. Crocker, Dec. 1, 4, and 8, 1868, Huntington Papers. All these letters are reprinted in Kraus, High Road to Promontory.

  38 Huntington to Hopkins, Dec. 15, 1868, in Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 227.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE RAILROADS RACE INTO UTAH

  1 Charles Edgar Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, pp. 558-59.

  2 Young to Durant, Jan. 15, 1869, Brigham Young Papers.

  3 Young to Dillon, May 19, 1869; to Durant, same date; to Duff, Aug. 12, 1869; to Bushnell, Aug. 12, 1869; to Oliver Ames, Aug. 12, 1869; to Durant, Aug. 14, 1869; to Hammond, Nov. 12, 1869, plus others, all in Young Papers.

  4 Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The Pacific Railroad Ring,” North American Review, Jan. 1869, pp. 116-50 passim.

  5 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, pp. 244-45, 300.

  6 Adams, “Pacific Railroad Ring,” p. 118.

  7 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, Feb. 16, 1869.

  8 Crocker to Huntington, and Hopkins to Huntington, Jan. 20, 1869, Huntington Papers; also quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 297.

  9 Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Sacramento Union, April 15, 1869, quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 296.

  12 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 298-99.

  13 Ibid., pp. 299-300.

  14 Ibid, pp. 300-301.

  15 Ibid., p. 305.

  16 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 329.

  17 Maury Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 200-201.

  18 Sacramento Union, March 6, 1869.

  19 New York Tribune, March 6, 1869.

  20 Quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 292-93.

  21 Ibid., p. 298.

  22 Omaha Weekly Herald, Dec. 30, 1868.

  23 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 191.

  24 George Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 228-29.

  25 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 303.

  26 Sacramento Union, Jan. 19, 1869.

  27 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 210.

  28 Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.

  29 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 328.

  30 Ibid., pp. 329-32.

  31 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 198-200.

  32 Ibid., p. 197.

  33 Ibid., pp. 229-31; Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 195.

  34 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 196-97.

  35 Quoted in Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 231.

  36 Salt Lake Daily Reporter, Feb. 16, 1869.

  37 Reno Crescent, March 20, 1869.

  38 Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr., Golden Spike, pp. 34-35.

  39 Grenville M. Dodge, How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, p. 118.

  40 Collis Huntington Memoir, Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley. The affair is discussed in Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 285-87.

  41 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 312.

  42 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 237.

  43 Young to Durant, April 2, 1869, Young Papers.

  44 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, p. 333.

  45 Ibid., p. 314.

  46 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 202-3.

  47 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 306.

  48 Ibid., p. 305.

  49 Salt Lake Deseret News, April 1, 1869. See also Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 237-41.

  50 Utley and Ketterson, Jr., Golden Spike, p. 35.

  51 Ibid.

  52 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 210.

  53 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 291-92.

  54 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 244.

  55 Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.

  56 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 211.

  57 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 295.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: TO THE SUMMIT

  1 Maury Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 210.

  2 Ibid., p. 212.

  3 Ibid., p. 213.

  4 Ibid., pp. 214-15.

  5 Ibid., p. 217.

  6 San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 23, 1869.

  7 Ibid., April 26, 1869.

  8 Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr., Golden Spike, p. 39.

  9 San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 27, 1869.

  10 Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.

  11 Ibid.; Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, pp. 309-20.

  12 San Francisco Bulletin, April 29, 1869.

  13 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 219.

  14 San Francisco Bulletin, April 30, 1869.

  15 Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.

  16 Ibid.

  17 Griswold, Work of Giants, pp. 311-13.

  18 Huntington to Charles Crocker, May 10, 1869, Huntington Papers.

  19 San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 30, 1869.

  20 Ibid., May 2, 1869.

  21 San Francisco Bulletin, May 1, 1869.

  22 Grenville M. Dodge, How We Built the Union Pac
ific Railway, p. 54.

  23 San Francisco Daily Alta California, April 28, 1869.

  24 George Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 258.

  25 Dodge, How We Built, p. 68.

  26 San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 5, 1869.

  27 Salt Lake Deseret News, May 6, 1869.

  28 Quoted in Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 258.

  29 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 312.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DONE

  1 Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, p. 328.

  2 Robert Athearn, “General Sherman and the Western Railroads,” p. 48.

  3 Maury Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 220.

  4 New York Herald, May 10, 1869, quoted in ibid., p. 222.

  5 Charles Edgar Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, pp. 321-23; Klein, Birth of a Railroad, pp. 219-20.

  6 San Francisco Bulletin, May 11, 1869.

  7 Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, pp. 322-23.

  8 J.N. Bowman, “Driving the Last Spike,” California Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 36 (1957), pp. 98-99.

  9 George Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 264; Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 317.

  10 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, p. 267.

  11 See all the various newspapers from Salt Lake, Sacramento, San Francisco, and elsewhere for accounts of the festivities, as well as all the books on the UP and CP.

  12 San Francisco Daily Alta Californian, May 10, 1869. It is not often that, when quoting someone else’s writing, I say to myself, “I wish I had written that,” but in this case I do wish that the last eight words were mine.

  13 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 220.

  14 Hugh O’Neil, “List of Persons Present, Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869,” Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 24 (1956), pp. 157-63.

  15 Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 325.

  16 Kraus, High Road to Promontory, pp. 278-81; Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 225.

  17 Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1869.

  18 Klein, Birth of a Railroad, p. 226.

  19 New York Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Salt Lake Deseret News, San Francisco Daily Alta California, San Francisco Bulletin, and other newspapers for May 11 and 12, 1869, carry these and other telegrams.

  20 Dodge, How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, p. 66.

  21 Anna Judah Papers, Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley.

  22 Salt Lake Deseret News, May 11, 1869.

  EPILOGUE

  1 Trans-Continental, May 30, 1870.

  2 Sidney Dillon, “Historic Moments: Driving the Last Spike of the Union Pacific,” Scribner’s Magazine, Aug. 1892, p. 254.

  3 “Pacific Railroad Grants,” Putnam’s Magazine, Oct. 1868, pp. 488-89.

  4 Charles Edgar Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific, pp. 371-73.