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March of America Facsimile Series #97 How We Built the Union Pacific Railway HC
March of America Facsimile Series #97 How We Built the Union Pacific Railway HC
By Grenville M. Dodge
1966
Hard Cover
41 Pages
Major General Grenville M. Dodge was one of the greatest railroad builders of the nineteenth century. He served as chief engineer of the Union Pacific during the construction of that road and his How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, published by the Government Printing Office in Washington in 1910, presents a short factual account of that feat. Dodge's little book provides the stark outlines of what took place, with names of participants, dates, and engineering information. As an engineer and builder, Dodge was a genius; as a writer, he was pedestrian. No glimmer of imagination enlightens his text, but he does give the facts as the chief architect of the railway saw them. For that reason the tract is important.
Dodge received his education in schools and academies in New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1852 he got a job with a surveying party on the Illinois Central Railroad and was noticed by the engineer in charge, Peter A. Dey, who took Dodge with him when he undertook surveys for the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad (later the Rock Island). Dodge was placed in charge of the survey from Davenport to Council Bluffs, completed in 1853. At Council Bluffs, Dodge made his home, and for the next few years he engaged in mercantile ventures and helped to promote railway construction. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered his services and rose to the rank of major general. He was wounded twice, at Pea Ridge and at Atlanta. Sherman and Grant both commended him highly for his gallantry in action and his skill as an engineer, specially in the construction of railway bridges.
In 1866, Dodge gave up his commission in the United States Army to become chief engineer of the Union Pacific. Grading for the road had started in December, 1863, at Omaha, but scarcity of labor and money had delayed work until the end of the war. After Dodge took over the operation, construction accelerated. Before the end of 1866, track was being laid at the rate of a mile a day, and that rate was soon surpassed. During the year 1868, Dodge drove his crews to lay 754 miles of track as far as Humboldt Wells in Utah.
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