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The evolution of a mountain road may seem a far cry from
the building of a great railway. In the first we have the trail of deer
and buffalo following the path of least resistance as marked out by
mountain streams in their journey to the sea, taken up in turn by Indian,
trapper and explorer, and they succeeded by horseman and wagon, each doing
his part in defining the highway of the future. There may seem but little
similarity between the winding road and the steel rails seeking the
shortest route between two given points, but the difference is more in
degree than in kind. The engineer as well as the wild animal is guided by
the water courses. He, too, must seek out easy mountain passes, and though
his skill may cut down hillsides and burrow through mountains, he, too, is
subject to the allcontrolling features of the country traversed.
Ten separate routes across Wyoming, Colorado and Montana were studied
before the course of the Union Pacific was finally decided upon. All of
these followed with surprising accuracy the old emigrant trails that had
been the growth of the natural agents playing their unconscious part in
the development of western civilization.1
The story of the building of the Union Pacific is a romance of itself. The
names of Asa Whitney, who, in i 830, first caught the vision ; of Sidney
Dillon, Oakes Ames and others associated with them in financing the great
enterprise, will go down in history. The charter was granted by Act of
Congress in 1862 and the route decided upon, but work did not begin until
after the close of the Civil War. The year 1865 saw forty miles of track
laid west of Omaha. The following year a great army of workmen was making
its way westward. First came the graders in gangs of hundreds, preparing
the roadbed, then laborers who placed the wooden ties that had been cut in
the mountains and floated down the streams ; track layers followed in cars
that ran to the end of the finished track, and after they had passed on,
came the ballasting crews to complete the work. A mile a day was the
average the first year, but by the time Carter station was reached they
were laying nearly seven miles of track each day. From Fort Bridger
soldiers came out to guard the workmen, and western Wyoming was spared the
awful tragedies that occurred farther east at the hands of the Indians.
Tent towns sprang up in advance of the work, and there was much
speculation in land, but, as one boom after another collapsed, investors
grew cautious. Bryan, the first big camp west of Green River, achieved
more permanency than most of these railroad towns, as it was the starting
point for South Pass trade. Here a wye was built by the railroad and
several stores were opened, some of which were later moved to Evanston.
In November, 1868, the graders reached Bear Town, about forty miles west
of Green River. McGee and Cheeseborough had the grading contract for this
stretch of road, and employed between four and five hundred men, most of
them raw Irish emigrants. A Frenchman named Alex Topence had the contract
for furnishing beef, and he put up a slaughter house and shack south of
the track, while the so-called town was north. It consisted of some
roughly constructed rooming and boarding houses and a row of business
buildings comprising the California Clothing Store, Nuckles' General
Merchandise, a Jewish shoe store, and a generous sprinkling of saloons and
gambling houses. On the same side of the track as Mr. Topence, but some
distance below, was the office of the Frontier Index, of which Lee Freeman
was editor. The paper was published daily and moved west with the work of
construction.
There was a rough element here, as in all grading camps, gamblers and
confidence men flocking in wherever there was a payroll. A vigilance
committee was organized, and on the loth of November several arrests were
made and the rioters were imprisoned in a temporary jail built of logs.
The Frontier Index came out the next morning approving of the action of
the officers and sounded a fearless warning against further lawlessness.
No sooner did the edition reach the graders than, incited by the
lawbreakers, they left their work and, armed with picks and shovels,
marched upon the town. Their first halt was at the jail, where they
released the prisoners and set fire to the building. Then Topence from his
place, saw them in a noisy mob heading for the printing office. He rode
down to Freeman's and urged the animal on the editor with the advice to
"go while the going was good." His counsel was acted upon, and none too
soon, for the mob marched across the gully, ransacked the premises and
destroyed all of the contents, including the type, and burned the building
to the ground.
Dr. Frank H. Harrison, a young physician who kept pace with the building
of the road, kept an office in the town as well as a hospital tent on the
Muddy. He was returning from the latter place, where he had been attending
some patients, when the picture of Freeman caught his eye. To use the
doctor's words "He was traveling so fast that you could have played
checkers on his coattails," and was making for Fort Bridger to get help.
On the outskirts of the town the doctor was met by a picket, who told him
that strangers would not be allowed to enter. It did not take the doctor
long to convince the man who he was, and that if there was any bloodshed
his services would be needed. He describes walking up the street where
fourteen men had been shot dead, or lay mortally wounded. The citizens had
barracaded themselves behind sacks of flour and bales of merchandise in
Nuckles' store, a substantial building made of green logs. When a
spokesman had opened the door for the purpose of parleying with the
rioters he had been shot dead on the doorstep. Inflamed by liquor, the
rioters raged up and down, and one man named Tom Smith brandished a big
six-shooter, which he shot off as fast as he could pull the trigger. A
bullet from the opposing side shattered the knuckles on his right hand,
but this did not deter his activity, for stooping, he seized with his left
hand the fallen weapon and continued his exciting work. The next day the
doctor counted eight bullet holes in the leg of one of the hightopped
boots in front of the Jewish shoe store, it had not been made a target but
had simply been in the way of that many of the deadly missiles. Miss Kate
Smith of Evanston has an ironing board that was in the battle and bears
the scars.
The following week was a busy one for the doctor, as the wounded numbered
more than the dead. At eight o'clock the morning after the riot troops
arrived from Fort Bridger to find order, restored and most of the
desperate outlaws moved on to pastures new. We have Mr. Topence's
authority for the statement that three outlaws were lynched at Bear Town,
a number so small as to cause him real regret, as most of them lived to
make trouble in other camps. There was much sorrow among the better people
over Lee Freeman's losses, but no means of redress were at hand and he
moved back to Laramie. Later he made Ogden his home, and for several years
published a weekly known as The Ogden Freeman. Mr. Freeman died in Idaho.2
Evanston was the next town located. It was named in honor of J. A. Evans,
surveyor on the Union Pacific. The first building was put up in the cut
east of town by Harvey Booth. Mr. Booth had been selling provisions at a
temporary camp between Bear Town and Evanston, and was moved on to the new
location by a man named J. U. Eldridge. The trip was made in a blinding
snowstorm on the twenty-third day of November. Mr. Eldridge, in the early
'70s, ran the stage from Evanston to Randolph. He is now clerk of the
court in Salt Lake City.
On the 16th of December, 1868, the first train arrived in Evanston. E. S.
Crocker, who had followed the building of the track from Nebraska, was the
first telegraph operator at Evanston. The office was in a building
opposite the freight house, where the section house was later put up. Dr.
Harrison bought the first lot on surveyed land. It was near the corner
where the federal building now stands, and cost him $200. Five hundred
people were soon on the scene, and the building of the town was in full
swing when a sudden change of plans on the part of the railroad moved the
town to Wasatch, with the idea of making that the permanent end of the
division. Here machine shops of wood were hastily constructed, so-called
"rag houses" of canvas and wood were hurriedly put up, and two thousand
people flocked in. They included all the early arrivals of Evanston, with
the exception of Harvy Booth and a saloon man by the name of Frank Moore,
who remained to cater to the section men and such chance travelers as came
along.
Wasatch was one of the wildest camps on the road. Out of the fourteen
graves on the hillside, only one was occupied by a man who didn't "die
with his boots on." Tom Smith, the crack shot, who had terrorized Bear
Town, was the marshal. Dance halls paid $200 a night for the privilege of
running, but history is silent as to whose pocket it reached.
Dr. Harrison was given the privilege by Land Agent Williamson of
exchanging his Evanston lot for one at Wasatch, and he moved his office in
the dead of winter into a tent that was boarded up three or four feet from
the ground. Fuel was a great problem, and he tells of paying $3o for a
load of wood, all of which disappeared before morning, not all of it up
his own chimney !
Frank H. Harrison was born in Toronto, Canada, April 20, 1842. He studied
medicine in the Belville School of New York City. At the outbreak of the
Civil War there was a shortage of army physicians, and a corps known as
"Medical Cadets" was formed from the students. Dr. Harrison volunteered
for this service, and remained in the army until the close of the war. In
1866 he drove a four-horse team to Denver, then a town of about four
thousand. When the railroad was built as far as Cheyenne he moved to that
place and was given a contract for caring for the workers of the grading
camps. He opened the first doctor's office in Laramie, May i, 1868. From
here he traveled west with the advance of the work, and many were his
gruesome experiences on the frontier, where human life was held so cheap
as to make death a matter of jest. From Wasatch Dr. Harrison went to the
thriving mining camp of South Pass, and was elected representative of
Sweetwater County to the first Legislature of the Territory of Wyoming. He
was a supporter of the first woman's suffrage law ever enacted. After a
visit to the home of his childhood he came once more to Evanston, and was
soon joined by C. G. Morrison, a South Pass friend. They opened a drug
store on Front Street between Ninth and Tenth, with Mr. Morrison in
charge, while the doctor devoted his time to the practice of medicine. He
has ever been the beloved physician of our town and county. No night was
ever so dark or no storm so severe, as to keep him from his errands of
mercy, and never was he known to ask, "What is there in it for me?" During
the "flu" epidemic of 1917, though he had practically retired from active
practice, he could be seen on the streets far into the night with his
black medicine case, bent on relieving our overworked physicians. His
interest in the general good, as well as the personal welfare of all, has
been recognized, and he has held many positions of trust in the city and
county. We are proud to claim Dr. Harrison as one of our foremost
citizens, as well as the first settler of Evanston.
On the tenth of May, 1869, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific met
at Promontory, Utah. Among those who witnessed this historic event was a
youth by the name of Ben Majors. In a letter to the author, written from
his home in Headrick, Oklahoma, July 2, 1922, he says that he stood at the
side of his father, Alexander Majors, that veteran freighter who had done
more than any other man in the field of overland transportation, and to
whom the driving of the golden spike connecting the eastward with the
westward track was the consummation of the dream of a lifetime. Both
father and son had taken their places in the active army of railroad
builders. They had constructed two miles of grade east of Green River, had
furnished the piling for the bridges across Green River and Bear River,
and had supplied six thousand cords of wood and one hundred thousand ties.
Mr. Majors was sixty-five years old at this time. He remained in the West
f or many years and showed his faith in its future by promoting the
development of every legitimate industry. He was well known in Evanston
during the '70s and '80s.
After entering Uinta County the course of the Union Pacific is almost due
west as far as the junction of the Muddy with Black's Fork. The first
station, Verne, consists only of a section house and tank. About five
miles west is Church Buttes, so called from the cathedral-like appearance
of a mass of rock a short distance to the south, that was a landmark from
the early days of western exploration. From here the road follows up the
valley eroded by the Big Muddy. In the summer months this is a small
stream, so clear as to belie its name and to make us wish that the
original name, Washakie Creek, had never been changed, but it is swelled
to a turbid torrent in the spring from the melting snows of the Uinta
Range.
About six miles west of Church Buttes is Hampton, so called from a ranch
owned by a man of that name who settled there in an early day, and six
miles farther on we come to Elkhurst. Carter, about the same distance
farther to the southwest, has been from the time of the building of the
road, an important shipping place for Fort Bridger supplies and for all
travel to the south. A little town of two stores and a school has grown
up. It was named for Wm. A. Carter of Fort Bridger, and his brother,
Richard Carter, was for many years its leading man. His hospitable home
was well known in territorial days, and the family was prominent in the
social and political life of the county.
West of Carter we find the red sandstone of the Wasatch group, which grows
coarser as we travel westward until, at Evanston, it is a coarse
conglomerate.3 The station
Antelope, five miles beyond Carter, like Elkhurst, was named from the wild
animals so common at the time of the building of the railroad. Bridger,
six miles to the southwest, is the only railroad point to remind us of the
famous scout whose name is perpetuated in mountain passes, trails and
lakes in various parts of the Rockies, as well as in Fort Bridger, fifteen
miles south of the railroad. At Bridger the rocks of the Cretaceous and
Jurastic ages come to the surface, though through the Bridger Basin they
are found below the tertiary beds.4
As first laid out, the road from Bridger followed the Muddy, climbed the
divide and came down to the now abandoned Bear Town. On its line were the
little towns of Piedmont, Hilliard, and Aspen, each important in its day
as a shipping point for cattle and other interests. A man named Moses
Byrne settled at Piedmont in 1867, and the station was first called Byrne,
after him, but it was deemed advisable to change the name because of its
similarity to Bryan. The sisters, Mrs. Byrne and Mrs. James Guild, wife of
another early settler, were natives of Piedmont, Italy, and they bestowed
this very appropriate name on the town at the foot of the mountain slope.
The divide itself was known to the early emigrants as Quakenasp Hill,
because of the groves of these trees found in every ravine, and this gave
rise to the name of Aspen. Hilliard was so called from Reuben T. Hilliard,
one of the earliest conductors on the Union Pacific.
The grade over the divide was steep, and there were many curves, so that
helping engines had to be used on every heavy train. In 1901 there was
opened through this section a new route following the course of the old
Mormon trail, but instead of climbing Aspen Hill it pierces the mountain
by a tunnel five thousand nine hundred feet long, the longest on the Union
Pacific. The construction was attended with much difficulty, as gas from
.the oil-bearing strata and the crumbling formation caused many accidents.
The highest point is seven thousand two hundred ninety feet above the
level of the sea. It is lined with concrete. This cutoff cost the company
twelve million dollars. Besides shortening the route ten miles, it
eliminates many steep grades.5
East of the tunnel is Spring Valley station, so called from the numerous
springs in the neighborhood. There is an exposure of the Frontier
formation near by, a coal-bearing sandstone. Some forty miles north this
vein reappears and furnishes a fine grade of coal. This vein is one of the
largest in the world. Engleman, the United States geologist, collected
fossils from Sulphur Creek in the valley in i858.
The waters on the east of the Aspen ridge flow to the Green River streams
and on to the Gulf of Mexico, while those on the western slope, with
sources almost identical, find their outlet in the Great Salt Lake.
A soft rock known as Hilliard shale is seen in the open valley through
which the road runs west of Altimont. A short distance farther on it
reaches what geologists call a "fault", that is, a rock pushed up from a
deep underlying strata.6 This
is called the Beckwith formation and is the oldest exposed rock in Western
Wyoming. Unlike the Bear River formation, the next to be entered, it
contains no fossils. The Bear River strata consists of conglomerate
sandstone with layers of opal and many fossils, and from here runs north
to the Salt River Range. A little farther on the Almy, Fowkes and Knight
formations, all coal-bearing, crop out. South of ,bullis begin the red
sandstone bluffs of the Knight formation, deposited before the river had
cut down to its present bed. They are topped with gravel and soil, where
native trees have taken root. A conspicuous landmark for miles around is
Medicine Butte. It is what is known as an "overthrust", having been pushed
up from the rocks of the Tertiary age. The old wooden railroad bridge was
about a mile east of the present steel structure. East of it is the
station Knight, which takes its name from the ranch extending along the
river that was owned at one time by Jesse Knight, an early citizen of
Evanston. Three miles farther on we come to Millis, named for J. W.
Millis, a conductor on the road in the early '70s. Evanston lies six miles
farther west. The elevation at the station is six thousand seven hundred
thirty-nine feet. A sidetrack branches off from the main road about a mile
west of town to Almy, and five miles farther on, at Wyuta, the road passes
out of Uinta County into the state of Utah.
-
Warman, "The Story of the Railroads."
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Wm. T. Shale, Editor.
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Guidebook of Western United States."
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Veatch, "Government Report."
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Union Pacific Historian in letter to the author.
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Ibid.
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