Union Pacific Country

by Robert G. Athearn

Book Overview

"No one has done before what Athearn has done in this volume. He has utilized company records and a variety of other sources to write a very attractive and readable, but scholarly account of the impact of the Union Pacific and its branch line son the country it served from the 1860s to the 1890s. . . . Everyone from railroad buffs to Western history scholars will like the book."--Choice. "This highly readable book is an excellent history of the heart-breaking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803258291
• ISBN13: 9780803258297
• Release Date: September 1976
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Unbelievably Detailed

This is an in-depth history of the rise and fall of the Union Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad. One of the most significant public works projects ever undertaken by the United States, it truly was initiated with a field of dreams mentality: If you build it, they will come. And come they ever did! Between its start and its finish an amazing amount of Western American history occurred that Mr. Ahearn has chronologically analyzed within the pages of this book. The transcontinental railroad and its component parts, the Central Pacific, and the subject of this book, the Union Pacific, were the most massive construction projects ever undertaken by the United States. At its completion, the Union Pacific alone stretched through 8 Western States from Omaha, Nebraska in the East to its terminus in Portland, Oregon in the West. Along the way it served Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Montana. At one point it even reached down into Texas but this portion was subsequently sold. It has been credited with increasing the Army's efficiency to subdue the Plains Indians, creating the State of Wyoming, substantively expanding the population and settlement of the West, enabling torrid economic growth and development in agriculture, ranching, timber and mining, assisting in the extinction of the buffalo, initiating the famous cattle drives Northward from Texas and building substantive population centers all along its routes. But this entire economic and social development largess was not spurred by the construction of the main line as much as it was by the branch or feeder railroads that fed into the main system. Over 20 branch lines laced and interlaced the fertile valleys made accessible by this road. Included in the feeder roads were such household names as the Denver and Rio Grande, the Nevada Central, the Utah Central, the Utah Southern, the Idaho Central, the Oregon Short Line, the Montana and National Park and the Kansas Pacific Railway. So extensive was this feeder system that competitors asserted that the Union Pacific had become a monolith, a monopoly that efficiently and effectively charged whatever tariffs it chose and in the process drove other railroads into bankruptcy and receivership. This is an excellently crafted work and if you are a railroad buff you are headed straight to heaven. For the rest of us, this work deepens our understanding of the settlement of the West, of the stunning logistics and the amazing amount of investment capital that its construction required. No other public works project undertaken by the United States had the massive impact on our country, or on the world for that matter, than the 30 years it took to complete the Union Pacific Railroad. It was the lynchpin of a nationwide transportation system that ultimately bound our nation into one economic, political and cultural whole. In connecting both the East and West coasts it enabled the land version of the fabled Northwest Passage, allowing Asian t

Bottom up view of RR

Earlier works on the history of the first transcontinental railroad by Oscar Lewis and Wesley Griswold, views the story in terms of the top executives who managed the two competing railroads. In contrast Robert Athearn's Union Pacific Country traces the story from the view of the ordinary people whose concerns and opinions are voiced in contemporary newspapers. Athearn adds another layer to the saga, largely omitted in previous scholarship, by explaining the public's perceptions of the railroad while also detailing everyday at the UP's railhead in Omaha and the dangers of early train travel in the frontier West. Athearn explains the widespread popular misunderstandings regarding the route's geography. Many Americans thought the Intermountain West and high plains was an uninhabitable desert. Skeptics argued that only the government could build such an unprofitable road. "This now-pessimistic, now optimistic view of the Great Plains that so sharply underscored the American public's suspicion and ignorance of the country," Athearn noted, "deeply concerned supporters of the Union Pacific project." According the author, the barriers perceived by potential investors were purely psychological and caused by an idealistic view of the land the UP would later develop. Fortunately for UP directors, pessimism turned to optimism. As the UP ventured deeper into Nebraska, misconceptions about the land subsided and the general public eagerly anticipated how the iron horse would transform their lives. Bayard Taylor, a well-known traveler, author and lecturer of the day, predicted the influence of the road in promoting settlement would be more appreciated as it approached completion. Taylor's prophecy held true. As the UP advanced west of Omaha, the nation increasingly recognized the benefits of locomotive travel, foreseeing cheaper shipping costs of all necessary goods and a means to visit relatives in the East. Soon the nation took a nationalistic view of the railroad, perceiving it as a public necessity that would bind the nation together. By 1869, to criticize or oppose the enterprise was almost unpatriotic. Omaha newspapers touted the railroad as a "pinnacle of fortune" that would expand the West's population and be the "almoner of prosperity." One job advertisement in an Omaha newspaper boasted, "good wages will be given," an attraction many could not pass up, an attraction that made Omaha similar to any "terminopolis" whose population suddenly exploded. Later terminus towns like Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, experience lawlessness and debauchery that gave them the nickname "hell on wheels." Prostitution and shootings commonly occurred in towns such as North Platte, Nebraska and Julesburg, Colorado. Although permanent settlers and UP laborers brawled regularly, violence did not dominate the scene. The UP encouraged political organization in the towns it spawned. For example, UP surveyors laid out Cheyenne in July, 1867. Citizens of the future capit