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II. History of the Promontory Route of the Transcontinental Railroad
There are many published accounts of the history of the Transcontinental Railroad, but this chapter is written to specifically focus on details that help the reader understand the why and how of the railroad's construction, the interactions between the railroad companies, the operation and the current service of the Promontory Route in Utah as a Scenic Backcountry Byway.
Native Americans and the Transcontinental Railroad While the focus of the historical discussion was the construction, maintenance, and eventual abandonment of the Promontory Route of the Transcontinental Railroad, it is important to recognize the Native American portions of this story. At the time of construction, the portion of the transcontinental railroad in Utah passed through the ancestral and traditional homelands of the Goshute, a tribe of the Western Shoshone, the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, and the Fort Hall Shoshone-Bannock Tribe. Native oral histories demonstrate the broad movement of their ancestors across Box Elder County who were actively engaged in the gathering of pinyon pine nuts in the Raft River and Grouse Creek mountain ranges, communal rabbit and antelope drives near Lucin, Kelton and Matlin, with extensive trails around the Promontory Mountains. 1 But the history of Native American use of this landscape extends much further, to the first arrival of humans in North America and what is now Utah, approximately 13,000 years ago. Immediately south of the western end of the Transcontinental Railroad in Utah, archaeologists recently identified a 12,800-year-old hearth on the margins of Great Salt Lake, with evidence of the roasting of geese and even finding a spear point which tested positive for the blood of an elephant, likely a mammoth. 2 Native American groups lived, hunted, gathered, and explored this region since
those earliest peoples. Archaeologists have identified hundreds of sites showing the evidence of Native Americans in Box Elder County. This evidence includes pottery and stone tools, standing brush structures called wickiups, and even an 1876 General Land Office plat showing extensive antelope traps and corrals made from juniper and sagebrush. It is important to the story of the Transcontinental Railroad to not lose sight of the fact that these lands were homes to hundreds of Native Americans before 1869, and the arrival of the railroad brought with it a faster arrival of new immigrants who further pressed Native Americans and their traditional lands and resources. Native Americans still live in and around this Transcontinental Railroad landscape, with large urban populations of Native Americans in Ogden and Salt Lake City, with the Goshute and Northwestern Band of Shoshone still residing on what little remains of their traditional homelands.
The Railroad's Beginnings in the American West At the beginning of the 19th Century, the United States began to expand rapidly. The first of these expansions was the 1803 Louisiana Purchase that doubled the U.S. land base. Following that there were the additions of Texas (1845) and Oregon/Washington (including Idaho) (1846) by treaty with Great Britain that secured U.S. claims to the southern portion of disputed northwest lands. Finally, California/Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico/Utah (1848) from Mexico. As early as the 1820s and 30s, many Americans clamored for trade with the Far East, especially China and Japan. Both the government and the public dreamed of connecting with the Pacific. The physical expansion of the country encouraged this dream. With the invention and adoption of the
