WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
2006 ANNUAL TREK

Wyoming State Historical Society
2006 Annual Trek
June 16-18, 2006

Tracks Across Wyoming Trek #1

June 16, 2006

            The Wyoming State Historical Society began its 2006 Annual Trek, tracing the first segments of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Lincoln Highway from Wyoming’s eastern border.  Trek Coordinator, Jim Ehernberger, and the trek volunteers guided trek participants to Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, where visits were made to the Texas Trail Museum, the High Plains Archaeology Museum, and the Windows on the Past Pine Bluffs Archaeology Site Interpretive Center. 

            Pine Bluffs has been called the Frontier Crossroads because of the converging trails that passed through or very close to Pine Bluffs.  Early buffalo herds passed the area, many prehistoric Indian tribes camped on the bluffs, the Texas Trail left its mark of cattle herds passing the area for 30+ years, and the Union Pacific Railroad came to the area in 1867.  At the Texas Trail Museum, guided tours showcased the museum’s collections and its several historic structures, including the Union Pacific Railroad boarding house, the first school house in eastern Laramie County, and St. Mary’s Catholic Church built in 1908.

The High Plains Archaeology Museum displays the multitude of archaeological collections, many of which come from the Pine Bluffs Site at the Windows on the Past Interpretive Site. Many other collections are from archaeological sites elsewhere in Wyoming, such as the Vore Buffalo Jump site near Sundance, Wyoming, and the Hell Gap Site near Lingle, Wyoming.

The Windows on the Past Interpretive Center is a cooperative research and public education program sponsored by the University of Wyoming and the city of Pine Bluffs, under the direction of Dr. Charles Reher.  More than 10,000 years of Native American occupation of the bluffs have left artifacts buried more than 20 feet deep.  Artifacts representing essentially the entire chronology for the High Plains region have been recovered at the site.

            The trek participants returned to Cheyenne tracing the route of the Lincoln Highway and the Union Pacific Railroad.  A detailed booklet guided the trekkers past sites, such as Tracy, Egbert, Burns, Hillsdale, Durham, and Archer.  Each site’s history was detailed in the trek booklet.

In October 1913 the Lincoln Highway was proclaimed to be the nation’s first transcontinental highway and covered 3,300 miles through gravel, mud, and sand.  Across Wyoming it followed the right-of-ways abandoned by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1901.  Many towns were already established along the railroad, and within each of those towns up sprang filling stations, hotels, cabins, and cafes.  It was the beginning of a new era!  However, one should not be confused by highway names such as the Lincoln Highway, Highway 30, and Interstate 80.  In about 1926 Highway 30 was built along the same route of the Lincoln Highway, but a much straighter route resulted.  Interstate 80 furthered those changes along the same route.

The first day of the trek concluded with a fine overview of the Union Pacific Railroad history in Wyoming by Jim Ehernberger.  The Union Pacific Railroad entered Wyoming on 11/13/1867, sent a spur to Fort Russell by 12/10/1867, and reached Laramie on 5/4/1868.  Ehernberger detailed the history of the town of Sherman and showed slides of Ames Monument (constructed in 1882) and Reeds Rock, from which all of the stone for Ames Monument was quarried.  The Union Pacific often built trackside two-story hotels at larger towns, and some of them housed a depot also.  Architecture for the depots varied depending on the year in which they were constructed and how they were to be used.  Many of the depots have disappeared, but two remain, the old Dale Creek Depot is located on North Third Street in Laramie and the Burns Depot was moved to a park in Greeley, Colorado.  The Cheyenne UP Depot’s cornerstone was laid on 7/19/1886, many additions and/or remodeling projects, such as the East Wing addition in 1922, were done, but the depot was vacated by the Union Pacific in 1990.  Many impressive slides of railroad history were shared, including steam locomotives, depots, the Hermosa tunnel, the Dale Creek bridges, and windmills, like at Laramie and Sherman.  Ehernberger disclosed that it is the Wyoming State Historical Society’s intention to showcase the second part of Tracks Across Wyoming (Laramie to Rock Springs) during the annual trek in 2007 and the third part of the Tracks Across Wyoming (Rock Springs to Evanston) during the annual trek in 2008.

June 17, 2006

            The second day of the 2006 trek began with breakfast at Holliday Park in Cheyenne where trekkers visited Cheyenne’s Big Boy 4004, one of twenty-five of the world’s largest steam engines.  Built in the early 1940’s, the steam engines normally operated on the rugged run between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah.  Cheyenne’s 4004 took its final run in 1958 and was put on display in Cheyenne in 1963.

            The Cheyenne Union Pacific Depot was showcased in the morning.  Original construction began in 1886 with the cornerstone being placed July 19, 1886.  After the Union Pacific vacated the depot in 1990, a multi-million dollar restoration project restored the depot to its original grandeur.  Lynn Nystrom guided the trekkers on a tour of the maintenance yards, including the turntable, the roundhouse, and the XXXXX.  Also, they enjoyed a self-guided tour of the Cheyenne Depot Museum, which detailed railroad history in Wyoming, and more specifically, the history of the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming, the Cheyenne region, and Cheyenne, itself.  The museum’s displays also told the story of the original construction and later preservation of the depot.

            Later in the day, the trek caravan left Cheyenne on the Lincoln Highway and traveled west learning about some of the train stations on the rail route over Sherman Hill.  The trek booklet provided details of those stations, but a more complete history of Sherman occupied the trekkers for about 45 minutes.  Among the notable sites to visit at Sherman, elevation 8,242 feet, were sites of the five-stall roundhouse, the 50-foot hand operated iron turntable, the footings of the old depot, the footings where the 35,000 gallon water tank was located, and the windmill, which pumped water from a well to the nearby water tank.  Ames Monument, dedicated to Oakes and Oliver Ames, also lured trekkers to its promontory south of the town site of Sherman.

            A most exciting part of the tour followed the rail grade west from Sherman to the bridge crossing Dale Creek.  This was the greatest of all obstacles encountered by the Union Pacific Railroad during construction in 1868.  The bridge, which spanned the canyon’s 707 feet and reached a maximum height of 127 feet, cost $200,000.  The wooden bridge was replaced with a steel bridge in 1876, and further remodeling of the bridge occurred in 1885.  The bridge and the route over Dale Creek were abandoned in 1891.

            The evening banquet was highlighted by a presentation by Dr. Larry Ostresh, University of Wyoming geography professor, titled “The Mystery of the Gangplank.”  He described that the geographical feature is a ramp from the Great Plains to the east to the summit of the Laramie Mountains to the west.  It is located about 17-18 miles west of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and holds the key to the railroad’s accent of Sherman Hill.  Dr. Ostresh detailed the many surveys that were done from 1849-1866 attempting to find the best route for the transcontinental railroad to cross the Laramie Mountains.  National, regional, and local perspectives were reviewed, and Dr. Ostresh commented about the often criticized story of General Grenville Dodge’s discovery of the gangplank.  Ostresh believes that critics focus on Dodge’s allegations that the discovery of the gangplank occurred during an encounter with Indians.  Ostresh believes Dodge did discover the gangplank and puts forth convincing details of Dodge’s travels during the that time.

June 18, 2006

      The 2006 trek closed with a whetting of the appetite for the next two years of Wyoming State Historical Society treks.  Barbara Bogart, director of the Uinta County Museum in Evanston, Wyoming, presented a stimulating talk about Tracks Across Wyoming.  Formed in 1992, Tracks Across Wyoming is a partnership of southern Wyoming organizations formed to promote, preserve, enhance, and interpret the historic transcontinental transportation corridor for the purpose of economic development, education, and the celebration of our heritage.  The corridor stretches 400 miles across Wyoming, and the first part of the corridor was the focus of the 2006 Wyoming State Historical Society Trek.  The 2007 and 2008 treks will focus on the remainder of the railroad/Highway 30/I-80 corridor to the western border of Wyoming.  For more information, one can visit Tracks Across Wyoming website, www.tracksacrosswyoming.com.