Ames Monument - History

History

The audacity of building a transcontinental railroad in the 1860s was "today's equivalent of the mission to Mars: Big, expensive and impossible," according to University of Wyoming historian Phil Roberts. President Abraham Lincoln reportedly told Oakes Ames that if he could get the transcontinental railroad built then he would be "the most remembered man of the century." Lincoln personally recruited Oakes after progress by and financial support for Credit Mobilier of America, the construction company charged with building the railroad, ground to a halt. The Ames brothers succeeded where others failed and completed the transcontinental railway. However, in 1873 charges of financial fraud were leveled at Oakes, tarnishing his and the Union Pacific Railroad Company's reputation.

Public outcry towards Oakes and other "Kings of Frauds" associated with scandal threatened the Ames family reputation and the Ames Company that dated back to 1774 when the company started making steel-edged shovels. The Ames Company later sold axes and shovels to miners during the California gold rush. The company continued its heritage as earth movers by supplying the government shovels during the Civil War, for excavating the Panama Canal, for mining Pennsylvania coal fields, and for digging the New York subway system.

Memory of the financial scandal that surfaced in 1873 had not been forgotten when the Union Pacific Railroad Company built the monument honoring the Ames brothers during 1881-1882. The Union Pacific Railroad Board of Directors voted in 1875 to erect the grand Ames Monument, in part to help reclaim some of the company's luster lost during implications of fraud leveled earlier at Oakes Ames. Union Pacific stockholders subsequently authorized the construction at a meeting held in Boston on March 10, 1875.

The Norcross brothers of Worcester, Massachusetts built the monument for $65,000, employing some 85 workers who lived on site, "where reportedly no liquor or gambling was allowed." Workers cut the stone for the pyramid from a granite outcropping common in the area. They then used oxen teams to skid the stone a half-mile to the work site. The rough-faced granite blocks used to construct the monument in many cases weigh several tons.

Workers constructed the pyramid about 300 yards south of the tracks on a small knoll. When completed in 1882, the Ames Monument stood 300 feet (91 m) south of, and 32 feet (9.8 m) above, the highest elevation of the original tracks of Union Pacific transcontinental railroad at 8,247 feet (2,514 m). The U.S. president, Rutherford B. Hayes, underscored the importance of the transcontinental railroad and thereby the Ames brothers by attending the monument's dedication ceremony.

However, when completed in 1882, the Ames Monument was visited by many persons who were allowed to momentarily leave their trains in order to view the monolithic curiosity. It was said that when the construction of the monument was almost completed, some people had the opportunity of being lifted to the top of the monument by a special rig and from their breezy perch could view the surrounding area for a hundred miles in all directions.