The history of the Union Pacific Railroad stretches from 1862 to the present. For operations of the current railroad, see Union Pacific Railroad; for the holding company that owns the current railroad, see Union Pacific Corporation.
There have been four railroads called Union Pacific: Union Pacific Rail Road, Union Pacific Railway, Union Pacific Railroad (Mark I), and Union Pacific Railroad (Mark II). This article covers the Union Pacific Rail Road (UPRR, 1862–1880), Union Pacific Railway (1880–1897), and Union Pacific Railroad (Mark I)(UP, 1897–1998). For the history of the Union Pacific Railroad (Mark II), see Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Transportation Company.
Beginnings: 19th century
The original company, Union Pacific Rail Road (UPRR), was created and funded by the federal government by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. The laws were passed as war measures to forge closer ties with California and Oregon, which otherwise took six months to reach. UPRR remained under partial federal control until the 1890s. Its management was noted for many feuds and high turnover. The UPRR main line started in Council Bluffs, Iowa and moved west to link up with the Central Pacific Railroad line, which was built eastward from Sacramento.
Construction on the UPRR main line was delayed until the American Civil War ended in 1865. Some 300 miles of main line track were built in 1865–66 over the flat prairies. The Rocky Mountains posed a much more dramatic challenge but the crews had learned to work at a much faster pace with 240 miles built in 1867 and 555 miles in 1868–69. The two lines were joined in Utah on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Interstate 80, built in the 1950s, paralleled the UPRR main line.
In 1870 the fare in coach from Omaha to San Francisco was $33.20 , with sleeper cars costing extra. The train stopped for meals at lunch rooms along the way. Passenger traffic for the long trip was light at first—2,000 a month in the 1870s, growing to 10,000 a month in the 1880s.
Wall Street speculator Jay Gould (1836–1892) took control of the UPRR in 1874, as well as the smaller Kansas Pacific Railway based in Kansas City. He merged the two into the Union Pacific Railway in 1880, giving the Union Pacific new markets in the wheat and ranching regions of Kansas and eastern Colorado. Branches were opened to mining districts in Montana, Idaho, and Utah and (until 1893) to farmlands in Oregon. Despite severe austerity measures the Union Pacific was unable to repay its old government loans. Most of the wheat farmers joined the People's Party, a Populist movement in the 1890s and engaged in heated anti-railroad rhetoric. The Populists were soon voted out and had no lasting impact on the Union Pacific.
In the Panic of 1893 financial crisis the Union Pacific Railway, like 153 other American railroads, went bankrupt. The trains continued to operate but the bondholders lost their investment. In 1897, a new Union Pacific Railroad (UP) was formed and absorbed the Union Pacific Railway; this new railroad reverted to the original Union Pacific name of the original company but now pronounced "Railroad" and not "Rail Road". Empire builder E. H. Harriman (1848–1909) purchased the UP for a song. He upgraded its 3,000 miles of trackage, modernized its equipment and merged it with the Southern Pacific, which dominated California. The Supreme Court broke up the merger in 1910. From 1910 to 1980, there was little growth in the UP, which dominated the farming, ranching, mining and tourist trade in a region stretching from Omaha and Kansas City in the East, to Salt Lake City and Denver in the West. Economically, the UP provided transcontinental service, as well as shipping out wheat and other crops, cattle, and mining products and bringing in consumer items and industrial goods from the East.
There was little expansion 1910–1980 but after that the UP system grew to over of track with large lines like the Southern Pacific, the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad becoming part of the UP system as well as smaller ones.
Finances
The UPRR main line was completed in 1869, at a cost of $109 million . About $50 million was spent on the construction work. The rest included a profit of about $13–16 million to the owners, possibly several million dollars in bribes to Congressman and especially heavy discounts in the sale of bonds of a railroad that most investors thought would never make a profit. The original UPRR was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872. Its independent construction company, the Crédit Mobilier, had bribed congressmen. The UPRR itself was not guilty but it did get bad publicity.
The Panic of 1873 another financial crisis, led to financial troubles but not bankruptcy. Jay Gould took control in 1873 and built a viable railroad that depended on shipments by local farmers and ranchers. Gould immersed himself in every operational and financial detail of the system. He built up encyclopedic knowledge, then acted decisively to shape its destiny. "He revised its financial structure, waged its competitive struggles, captained its political battles, revamped its administration, formulated its rate policies and promoted the development of resources along its lines.". Gould created the new Union Pacific Railway and merged the original UPRR, the Union Pacific Rail Road, into the new Union Pacific Railway.
After Gould's death, the Union Pacific Railway slipped and declared bankruptcy during the Panic of 1893. Yet in November 1897 the national economy was quickly reviving and profitability was at hand. An agreement was reached to pay the US Treasury the entire amount of principle and accrued interest on the bonds. The government received every dollar it wanted from the Union Pacific.Maury Klein, Union Pacific: Volume II, 1894-1969 (1989) p 28.
In 1897, a new Union Pacific Railroad (UP) was formed and absorbed the Union Pacific Railway, this new railroad reverted to the original Union Pacific name of the original company but now pronounced "Railroad" and not "Rail Road".
E. H. Harriman bought the line cheaply, and made it much more efficient and highly profitable. He tried to incorporate it into a vast western system but the Supreme Court blocked his attempts as monopolistic.
Construction
Thomas C. Durant had overall charge of the UPRR construction program. He selected routes on the basis of how cheap they were to construct, for that would maximize profits on the fixed congressional loans. He did not give emphasis to the long-term economic potential of the area served. He, therefore, vetoed the civil engineers who wanted to use the otherwise highly attractive South Pass route in Wyoming.
Building the line came in stages: first, the surveyors (often with Army protection) laid out the precise line to minimize the grade and the need for bridges and trestles. Then came the grading party with plows and shovels. Finally came the ties and the rails, along with the telegraph line, signals, sidings and switches. Starting in summer 1865 Omaha became the logistics base for thousands of tons of rails, ties, tools, and supplies. As soon as a few miles of track was ready, supplies were moved to a forward supply point, and teams of horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons carried them to the work point. Eventually, the teams could lay several miles of track per day — the record was 10 miles. It was largely a pick-and-shovel and wheelbarrow job, with most of the unskilled work done by Irish immigrants.
The original UPRR of track started in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Winter and spring caused severe problems as the Missouri River froze over in the winter; but not well enough to support a railroad track plus train. The train ferries had to be replaced by sleighs each winter. Starting in 1873, the railroad traffic crossed the river over the new long, eleven span, Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge to Omaha, Nebraska.) The main line bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails.
During the winter of 1865–66, former Union General John S. Casement, the new Chief Engineer, assembled men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. To protect the railroad's surveying and hunting parties, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Indians grew more aggressive. Temporary, "Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west. Most faded away but some became permanent settlements.
The railroad bridged the North Platte River over a bridge at North Platte, Nebraska, in December 1866 after completing about of track that year. In late 1866, General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific; Casement continued to work as chief construction boss and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer. The North Platte/South Pass route was popular with wagon trains but not attractive to the railroad, for it was about longer and much more expensive to construct up the narrow, steep and rocky canyons of the North Platte. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state of Wyoming, ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole Creek and Crow Creek to Evans pass was discovered in 1864. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation ), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory along the north bank of the South Platte River and into what later become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine, Wyoming. Evan's Pass was located between the new railroad towns of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Laramie, Wyoming. The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over shorter, had a flatter profile, allowed for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges. The railroad gained about in the climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about per mile (1.6 km)--a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad drilled wells for water. Coal was mined in Wyoming by the time the UP arrived. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized, as Wyoming is the nation's largest coal producer in the 21st century.
The original Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans' (Sherman's) pass. At , Evans/Sherman's pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. The Dale Creek Crossing bridge was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Located from Evans pass, UP connected to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Cheyenne became a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to clear the tracks of winter snow or help haul heavy freight over Evan's pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads.