Railroads in Utah
by Don Strack
(Originally published in Utah History Encyclopedia, University of Utah Press, 1994, ISBN 0-87480-425-6, pages 450-455)
(Don Strack also had another article in the encyclopedia, about Utah's canning industry.)
(Read the online version of this article; as part of the online Utah History Encyclopedia)
Historians agree that the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869 was one of the most important events in United States history, as it was also in Utah history, both as a territory and as a state. In fact, 1869 is considered to be a benchmark in Utah history--the pioneer era coming to an end with the arrival of the railroad.
Brigham Young, as community leader and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, foresaw the impact that the coming of the railroad would have and wanted the transcontinental rail line built through Salt Lake City. He was fully aware of the role that a railroad could play in tying a community together, as well as connecting a remote region with the outside world. After representatives of both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads met with him and explained the difficulty and extra expense of a route through Salt Lake City, Young accepted the decision and helped wherever he could to speed the completion of the project, including arranging for the use of local contractors for the construction of the transcontinental rail line across the Territory.
The construction of a connecting railroad line south from Ogden, Utah Territory, to Salt Lake City and later into almost all parts of the state, had a much larger impact on the local populace than the joining of the rails at Promontory. In early 1869, prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the church leaders began working on the organization of a railroad that would connect Salt Lake City with Ogden, and its soon to be completed Union Pacific line. In January 1870 that line was completed, affording Salt Lake City direct commerce with the east. One of the benefits that the area would receive from the coming of the railroad, the Mormon church officals knew, would be the availability of low cost transportation to bring large numbers of its members to the new "Zion". From places as distant as Great Britain and Europe, new members came by way of the ports of call along the East and Gulf Coasts.
Union Pacific was the first of the major railroad companies that were successfully built within Utah's borders, connecting with the Central Pacific at Promontory in 1869. Twenty years later, by 1889, Union Pacific had become the largest railroad in the territory, either by actual ownership or by direct control of the subsidiary companies. It was in 1889 that Union Pacific consolidated the control of its interests in Utah and Idaho through the organization of the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway.
In 1893, however, Union Pacific was forced into bankruptcy, along with its subsidiary railroad companies. The former subsidiary Oregon Short Line emerged from bankruptcy in 1897 as an independent company, and the reorganized Union Pacific emerged from bankruptcy in 1898. The old bankrupt Oregon Short Line had controlled much of the traffic that the Union Pacific depended on, and the new Oregon Short Line was no different. Within two years the new Oregon Short Line was again under the full control of the new, reorganized Union Pacific.
The Union Pacific lines west from Evanston, Wyoming, down Weber Canyon to Ogden follow the original Union Pacific route into Utah. The Oregon Short Line routes in Utah included the Union Pacific lines between Salt Lake City and Ogden, and the lines north of Ogden. The lines operated by Union Pacific south and west of Salt Lake City were originally those of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, which completed its through route to Los Angeles in 1905. Instead of building a new route through Utah, the Los Angeles and Salt Lake purchased in 1903 the former Utah and Pacific Railroad between Milford and the Nevada state line, completed in 1899. The new railroad also purchased the former Utah Central/Utah Southern line between Salt Lake City and Milford, completed in 1880. Both lines were purchased from the Oregon Short Line Railroad, which had purchased the Utah and Pacific line in 1901.
Also included in this 1903 sale was the Oregon Short Line's new standard gauge line west of Salt Lake City, called the Leamington Cut-off. Completed in 1903 the new line ran west from Salt Lake City and then south through Tooele and connected with the former Utah Southern route at Lynndyl. The new line roughly paralleled the former narrow gauge Utah Western Railway, completed in 1877 between Salt Lake City and a point just north of Stockton called Terminus. Union Pacific gained control of the Utah Western in 1881 and reorganized the company as the Utah and Nevada Railway.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway completed its narrow gauge line between Colorado and Salt Lake City in March 1883, and was extended to Ogden a few months later in May. The company was reorganized in 1889 as the Rio Grande Western Railway to finance the conversion of its line from narrow gauge to standard gauge. In 1901 the Rio Grande Western came under the control of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado. The original Denver and Rio Grande Western, after 1884, and the Rio Grande Western after 1889 were independent railroads until 1901. In the seventeen years that the two companies were independent they succeeded in completing a network of branch lines that put them in direct competition with the Union Pacific in the State of Utah. In addition, the Rio Grande also had a virtual monopoly on the movement of coal out of the state.
The Western Pacific Railway started construction in 1906 and was completed between Salt Lake City and Oakland, California in 1909. The company was controlled by the same people that controlled the Rio Grande, and was completed as a Pacific Coast extension of the Denver and Rio Grande. In 1908 the Denver and Rio Grande consolidated its various branch lines with subsidiary companies in Utah and Colorado, including the Rio Grande Western, to finance the completion of the Western Pacific. The route was completed west from Salt Lake City and around the south end of the Great Salt Lake, continuing due west across the salt desert to the Nevada state line at Wendover. Rio Grande lost control of the Western Pacific in 1916, with the railroad remaining independent until it was merged with the Union Pacific in 1982, giving Union Pacific direct access to the ports of Oakland and San Francisco.
The Southern Pacific came into the state by leasing the original line of the Central Pacific. Although most of Southern Pacific's line in Utah is located west of the Great Salt Lake, that part of the railroad which crosses the lake is unique in the nation. In 1903 the Southern Pacific completed one of the longest railroad trestles ever built when it constructed a new line across the north arm of the Great Salt Lake. In 1959 the trestle was replaced by an earth-fill causeway. In 1988 the Southern Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande Western merged, forming the fifth largest rail system in the nation, and in 1996, Union Pacific bought the routes of both Southern Pacific and Denver and Rio Grande Western.
The growth of a network of railroads in Utah began with the completion of the Utah Central between Ogden and Salt Lake City in January 1870, along with the start of construction of the Utah Southern south from Salt Lake City in May 1871. Brigham Young saw the completion of these railroads more as a benefit to the communities that they served rather than as profit making enterprises. These "Mormon Roads", as some historians have called them, radiated like spokes of a wheel from Salt Lake City and Ogden. The Mormon Roads made the movement of goods and people easier within the territory, and included, in addition to the Utah Central and the Utah Southern, the Utah Western, built west from Salt Lake City, and the Utah Northern, which was built north from Brigham City, later connecting with Ogden.
Also among the Mormon Roads was the Summit County Railway, completed between Echo and Coalville. The Summit County line was extended to serve the silver mines in Park City in 1880. At the same time that the railroad was being completed into Park City, it was also being converted from narrow gauge to standard gauge. In 1881 the line was sold under foreclosure to the Echo and Park City Railroad, a Union Pacific subsidiary.
Other railroads were planned in the region in order to move the Coalville coal to the Park City mines, as well as to furnish competition to Union Pacific's monopoly in moving Wyoming coal to Salt Lake City. The first company to construct a line was the Utah Eastern Railway, completing its narrow gauge line between Coalville and Park City in 1880. Both the Summit County and the Utah Eastern companies reached Park City on the same day, in fact within a few hours of each other, over virtually paralleling routes. Union Pacific soon gained control of the Utah Eastern company however and shut it down during December 1883. Much to Union Pacific's chagrin another local road was successful in reaching Park City. This time it was the Salt Lake and Eastern Railway, routed up Parley's Canyon, east from Salt Lake City in 1890. Just before reaching Park City the new road was reorganized as the Utah Central Railway. The Rio Grande gained control of this line in 1898, realigned and rebuilt the worst of it, standard gauged it, and operated the route as its Park City branch until 1946 when most of the line was removed. Union Pacific operated its Park City Branch, originally the Summit County Railway and later the Echo and Park City Railroad, until late 1987. The line was removed during the summer of 1989.
The development of Utah's abundant mineral natural resources also saw the building of a large network of railroad branchlines to serve the transportation needs of the mining industry. The availability of low cost transportation did much to help Utah gain its reputation as one of the nation's treasure houses.
The earliest railroad lines built to move the mineral traffic were the American Fork Railroad, completed in 1873, and the Utah Southern Railroad Extension, built to serve the vastly rich Horn Silver Mine near Milford in 1880. Included in the other examples of the early mining railroads are two railroads built by Charles Scofield, sometimes called the Scofield Lines. They were the Wasatch and Jordan Valley and the Bingham Canyon and Camp Floyd, built to tap the silver mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon and Bingham Canyon, both completed in 1873. A third Scofield line, the Utah and Pleasant Valley, built its line south from Springville in 1879 to reach the newly discovered Winter Quarters coal mines.
The large quantities of coal in eastern and central Utah were just being discovered in the early 1880's when the Denver and Rio Grande Western completed its line into Salt Lake City during 1883. The D&RGW was able to improve its position in Utah by purchasing all three of the Scofield lines. The former Utah and Pleasant Valley line shortened the Denver and Rio Grande's route between eastern Utah and the Utah Valley. Purchase of the other two Scofield lines gave the new company some guarantee of the highly valued mining traffic once it reached the Salt Lake Valley.
The construction of the Rio Grande line through what is now Carbon County provided transportation for the coal mines as they were discovered and developed. The discovery of coal mines in Price Canyon were followed by the location of other coal resources at Sunnyside.
After the turn of the century additional coal mines were developed at Kenilworth, Hiawatha, Mohrland, and in Spring Canyon. Later railroad companies built to serve the region's coal mines included the Kenilworth and Helper Railway, the Southern Utah Railroad, the Utah Railway, and finally, the National Coal Railway, which completed its line in 1925 to serve the newly developed coal mines located in Gordon Creek Canyon. The Carbon County Railway was completed in 1923 to furnish coal to the new steel mill at Ironton, near Springville in Utah Valley. The Carbon County was a subsidiary of United States Steel and was closed in 1984 along with other U. S. Steel properties in the state. The Utah Railway remains in service today moving huge amounts of coal from the Carbon County mines to the Intermountain Power Project near Lynndyl.
By 1915, in part because of the availability of low cost transportation, coal had become a major contributor to the economic growth of the state of Utah, and remained so until the late 1940's.
The Tintic Mining District near Eureka was developed in the early 1870's, just after the coming of the transcontinental railroad. The silver, lead, and gold ore was of such high value that the first mines were successful, even with the high cost of wagon transportation. The first railroad to the district, the Union Pacific-controlled Salt Lake and Western Railroad, was actually headed toward California in competition with the Central Pacific. Construction stopped in 1882 at Mammoth Mills, southwest of Eureka in the Tintic Valley. Within a year the company completed a branch into Silver City, and in 1889, a branch was completed to serve Eureka. The company immediately began shipping ores out of the district. With the availability of low cost transportation, many of the marginal mines became successful operations.
By the end of 1891, the Rio Grande controlled Tintic Range Railway completed its line into the Tintic District from Springville and gave the Union Pacific line some needed competition. Other railroad lines built to serve the mines around Eureka were the Eureka Hill Railway, the Goshen Valley Railway, and the New East Tintic Railway. Both the Eureka Hill and the New East Tintic roads used Shay locomotives. Shay locomotives are a special type of gear driven locomotive designed for use on railroads with steep grades and sharp curves. The New East Tintic later came under Union Pacific control and its two Shay locomotives, along with a third purchased later, were the only ones of their type operated by the Union Pacific.
Other mining districts in the state attracted other railroad companies. The Deep Creek Railroad was built to serve the copper and gold mines in the Deep Creek District along Utah's western border. The Los Angeles and Salt Lake built branches in Iron County to move iron ore from the mines to steel mills in Utah County as well as in California and Colorado. The St. John and Ophir Railroad was completed between the Union Pacific at St. John and the silver mines in Ophir along the western slope of the Oquirrh Mountains.
Just south of Ophir was the fabulous gold mining district of Mercur. In 1895 the Salt Lake and Mercur Railroad completed its line into Mercur from a connection with Union Pacific's former Salt Lake and Western line at Fairfield. The line was constructed using some of the most tortuous curves and grades of any railroad in the state. This line was among the nine railroads in the state that used Shay locomotives as their sole source of locomotive power. These other railroads included the New East Tintic, the Eureka Hill, the Logan City Transit, the Copper Belt, the Kenilworth and Helper, the Crescent Tramway, the Newhouse, Copper Gulch and Sevier Lake, and finally the Salt Lake and Alta.
About ten miles north of Mercur was the mining camp of Bingham Canyon. By the late 1890's the silver mines in Bingham Canyon were fading. Any further expansion would require much larger financial resources - resources that the local operators didn't have. A series of mining company consolidation, with out of state financial backing took place over the next decade. These mining company consolidations were being spurred on by increasing quantities of copper ore. Copper ore was becoming a consideration due to the growing market for copper metal, mostly for use as copper wire needed by the growing use of electricity in America's households.
In 1903 the Utah Copper Company was organized to exploit the vast quantities of low grade copper ore discovered in Bingham Canyon. Utah Copper Company, along with Boston Consolidated, and later Ohio Copper Company, soon developed the methods of mining and milling that would be needed to make the mining of the low grade ore profitable.
Railroad transportation was to play a very important part in the new mining method, which is called open cut mining. First, steam shovels would remove the capping (or waste material) which covered the ore, and load it into railroad cars for movement to other parts of the canyon. As the ore was exposed, the shovels would load it into rail cars for transportation to the mills. Both Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated built mills sixteen miles north of Bingham Canyon on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake, where the availability of free-flowing springs could furnish enough water for the milling operations. Ohio Copper chose to build its mill at Lark, just outside of Bingham Canyon.
At first the facilities of the Rio Grande Western's Bingham Branch, along with the Copper Belt Railroad, completed in 1901, were sufficient to handle the growing amounts of traffic. To increase the capacity, in 1907 the Rio Grande Western completed a new line into the canyon, allowing the operation of longer and heavier trains.
Within a year the copper companies asked for still more capacity, but the Rio Grande hesitated in building more trackage just to serve the mining operations. To overcome Rio Grande's lack of service and reluctance to purchase additional ore cars and locomotives, in 1911 Utah Copper completed its own line between the mine in Bingham Canyon and the mills near Magna. The new line was called the Bingham and Garfield Railway and soon became one of the busiest rail lines in the nation, moving some of the heaviest trains.
In 1924, to reduce the costs of operations, Utah Copper installed rotary car dumpers and electric switching locomotives at the mills. Additional cost reductions came between 1925 and 1927 when the shovels and locomotives used in the mine itself were converted from steam power to electric power. Utah Copper Company's Bingham Canyon mine soon gained the reputation as being one of the most modern mining operations in the world.
The Bingham Canyon mine became the Utah Copper Division of Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1941. By the end of 1941 Kennecott's Bingham Canyon mine was producing a third of the nation's copper, and the Bingham and Garfield railroad was setting records by moving more than 100,000 tons of copper ore per day.
Kennecott continued to lower its costs by completing three railroad tunnels between the open pit mine and the lower portions of Bingham Canyon. The first tunnel was completed in 1944, the second in 1952, and the third, and longest at 3.4 miles, in 1961. In 1947 Kennecott completed an entirely new, all-electric rail line between the mine and the mills. The new mainline was built using grades that were much lower than the original Bingham and Garfield line, which the new "Low Line" replaced. The new electric line allowed the daily production of ore to increase, with a daily average of 110,000 tons of ore being moved over the company's own railroad. The traffic on this private railroad was still at this high level when in 1979 the 1947-built electric locomotives were replaced by new diesel locomotives. The electric locomotives in the mine itself were also replaced by diesels, beginning in 1976. During the 1980s, use of rail transportation at the Bingham mine has dropped off considerably, and the diminished use continues today (1999).
Railroad companies also built a network of agricultural branchlines to serve Utah's major agricultural industries. These industries included dairy products, wheat, sugar beets (for the production of sugar), and all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Most of the vegetables and some of the fruits were grown as part of the state's canning industry, centered mostly in Weber, Davis, and other counties along the Wasatch Front.
The railroads played an important part in the state's various agricultural industries by moving the finished goods to markets both within and outside the state. Most of the dairy products were shipped to California, and the wheat was shipped either as grain or as flour also to California and the southern states. The destination for finished, or refined sugar from sugar beets was the local markets and points in the middle and northwestern states. Utah's canned goods were sold mostly on the Pacific Coast and in the Intermountain West and the Midwest.
The agricultural branchlines which the railroads built were almost solely built for the movement of sugar beets from the fields to the sugar factories. The major sugar beet growing regions included the Cache Valley, the Bear River Valley, and most of Weber and Davis Counties. Also included were parts of Salt Lake Valley, Utah Valley, and the areas around Gunnison and Delta.
The Oregon Short Line built several branch lines in these beet growing regions. Three branches were built in the Cache Valley, four were built in the Bear River Valley, and both the Oregon Short Line and the Denver and Rio Grande completed branches into the area west of Roy and Clearfield and short spurs in the West Jordan, Spanish Fork, and Gunnison areas. The Los Angeles and Salt Lake built two branches to serve the region around Delta. Beet loading stations were also built at many points along the railroads' other branchlines and some of the mainlines themselves. In the period between 1895 and 1940, before the widespread use of trucks, railroads were the most efficient way to transport the beets to the factories. Two of the state's sugar beet processing factories were located in the Cache Valley, at Lewiston and at Logan. Another factory was built at Garland in the Bear River Valley. Other factories were located at Brigham City, Ogden, Layton, West Jordan, Spanish Fork, Gunnison, and Delta.
The canning industry in the state placed Utah as the eighth ranked producer of canned goods in the nation. Of the more than seventy-five canning companies that have been in business in the state, less than fifteen were truly successful and were able to remain in business year around. Each of these successful canning factories were located on a direct railroad connection, allowing direct shipment of the canned goods to their waiting markets. The largest canneries were located in West Ogden and in Smithfield, which remains today as the only cannery in the state. Some successful, small canneries were located in Tremonton, Perry, North Ogden, Roy, Hooper, Clearfield, Syracuse, Morgan, Murray, and Spanish Fork.
In 1914, to support Utah's growing canning industry, the American Can Company built in Ogden one of the largest can manufacturing facilities in the west. Between 1915 and 1979, when the plant was closed, American Can shipped many railroad boxcars filled with new, empty cans for shipment to canneries all over the state and the region.
The railroads also had an important role in Utah's canned milk industry, which produced both evaporated and condensed milk. In 1904, Utah's, and especially Cache Valley's, dairy industry received a major boost when Sego Milk Products Company opened a milk condensing plant in Richmond, north of Logan. In 1925 Sego built a milk processing plant in Hyrum. The Borden Company opened its milk condensing plant in Logan in 1916. The Morning Milk Company opened a milk condensing plant in Wellsville in 1923. Morning Milk sold their Wellsville plant to the Carnation Company in 1946. The Sego plant in Richmond was served by the Oregon Short Line, as was the Morning Milk plant in Wellsville. The Sego plant in Hyrum was served by a spur of the Utah Idaho Central electric line. Borden's Logan plant was served by both the Utah Idaho Central and the Oregon Short Line.
The opening of these plants was called the single greatest stimulus to the dairy industry in northern Utah. In 1933 milk was collected from nearly three thousand dairy farms and delivered daily to the milk condensing plants, mostly using the trains of the Utah Idaho Central interurban railroad and those of the Oregon Short Line's Cache Valley Branch. Between 1926 and 1930 the annual sales for milk products made the dairy industry the third largest farm based industry in the state, and half of the dairy production came from the annual production of sixty million cans of both condensed and evaporated milk.
The story of Utah's railroads continues with the completion of the electric railroads for the movement of passengers, including electric interurban lines between the cities of the Wasatch Front, and electric street car lines in the cities themselves. Between 1890 and 1920 Utah's population more than doubled, from 210,779 to 449,396. Most of that growth was in the urban areas and the nearby farming communities along the Wasatch Front. By the turn of the century, and with this amount of population growth, the steam railroads were straining to provide the local populace with transportation to local destinations. To fill this need for additional local passenger transportation, several local electric interurban railroads were organized over the ten year period between 1900 and 1910. This group of companies developed into what became one of the largest system of electric railroads in the nation.
Between 1910 and 1920 four separate railroads completed either the electrification of their lines or the actual construction of their lines as electric railroads. The Salt Lake and Utah Railroad was begun in 1914 as an electric line south from Salt Lake City to Provo, and was extended to Payson in 1916.
The Salt Lake, Garfield and Western began in 1891 as the Saltair Beach Railway to build from Salt Lake City west to the new Saltair Resort. Construction began in 1892. At the same time the name of the line was changed to the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railway to show that the company had larger plans. In 1916 the company was reorganized as the Salt Lake, Garfield and Western Railway and made the announcement that the line would be electrified, which was completed in 1919.
The Utah Idaho Central railroad began as the Ogden, Logan and Idaho Railroad. The earlier road had taken over the street car lines of the Ogden Rapid Transit and the Logan Rapid Transit in both of those two cities and completed a connection between the two by way of Brigham City in 1915. The Logan Rapid Transit had completed their line north to Preston, Idaho in 1912. Preston remained the northern end of a network of electric interurban railroads that spread along the Wasatch Front from the Cache Valley south to Payson, at the southern end of the Utah Valley. In 1910 the Salt Lake and Ogden Railroad electrified its line between those two cities. The railroad was built by Simon Bamberger and was completed to Ogden in 1906. In 1917 the company became the Bamberger Electric Railroad.
Simon Bamberger was elected governor in 1917, as the Progressive Party candidate. Ironically, it was the improved road and highway system that he developed while he was in office which was the eventual demise of the interurban railroad system in Utah. As people were better able to get around in their own cars they were less prone to take the electric powered trains into and between Utah's major cities. The improved road system also allowed the trucking companies to become more competitive and they gradually took the lucrative package express business away from the interurban lines. The interurban companies were able to gain back some of the lost traffic by offering their own trucking services between the cities that they also served with electrified railroad service.
Two of Utah's interurban companies -- the Utah Idaho Central in the north, and the Salt Lake and Utah in the south -- were only able to hold on until the late 1940's. The Bamberger stopped operating passenger trains in 1952, using diesel locomotives to remain in the freight business until 1958. Utah's last interurban line, the Salt Lake, Garfield and Western is still in business today, having converted to using diesel locomotives in 1951. The line stopped running passenger trains during the early 1960's, however.
The Emigration Canyon Railroad was built in 1907 to move sandstone from quarries located in Emigration Canyon down to the city for use as building stone. Unfortunately the company's timing coincided with the availability of cement within the state. Since concrete is a much better building material, the market for building stone, along with the railroad's traffic base, virtually disappeared within a three year period between 1909 and 1912. With the evaporation of their freight traffic, the Emigration Canyon Railroad looked to electrified passenger trains as a second chance and began operating sight-seeing trains as a way to save their business. The railroad's excursion trains operated regularly between Salt Lake City and the Pine Crest Lodge located at the top of Emigration Canyon; however, even the excursion trains couldn't save the company and they went out of business in 1917.
Street car lines were built in Salt Lake City, Provo, Ogden, and Logan. The line in Provo consisted of only a single line and was abandoned after being in operation for only six short years, from 1913 to 1919. There were six lines in Ogden, with a total length of about twenty-four miles. In Logan there were three lines, totaling just over eight miles, with the longest being from the Oregon Short Line depot to the Utah Agricultural College.
After the 1915 merger of the Ogden and Logan lines, the new Ogden, Logan and Idaho Railway operated the street car service until the respective cities began paving their streets. At that time many of the lines were removed because the railroad couldn't pay its share of the paving costs. The Ogden lines were sold to a separate company in 1920 and by the mid 1930's the street cars in Ogden were replaced by buses.
The street car lines in Salt Lake City were by far the most extensive in the state, beginning with the Salt Lake City Railroad in 1872 and the Salt Lake Rapid Transit Company in 1890. These two companies built a large network of street car lines throughout the city and outlying area. Also in the 1890's other companies were organized to build lines into other parts of the city. All of the lines were merged in 1901 as the Consolidated Railway and Power Company, and reorganized in 1904 as the Utah Light and Railway and again in 1914 as the Utah Light and Traction Company.
The street car system in Salt Lake City reached its peak mileage in 1918 with over 146 miles of trackage, including a line south to Holladay and another line north to Centerville. Beginning in the late 1920's buses began to replace the street cars and slowly over the next twenty years the individual lines were abandoned. The last street car ran in Salt Lake City in 1946.
The part that the railroads have played in the economic development of both the Territory and the State of Utah was a major one. There can be no doubt that without the railroads our state would not be what it is today. The completion of the transcontinental rail line through Utah Territory in May 1869 was the beginning of a much larger story of railroads in Utah that has largely gone untold. Some historians have touched on the importance that the coming of the railroad was to Utah's growing pioneer economy. The availability of low cost transportation had as much to do with Utah's economic success as the state's actual ability to produce the goods and services being shipped.
A good example of the significance of transportation is the delay in economic development within the Uinta Basin until a network of federally funded highways was completed in the 1930's, connecting that area with the rest of the surrounding region. The region still does not enjoy railroad service in the surrounding areas, though railroads were planned through the Uinta Basin as early as the 1870's.
Of course, with the development of a complete network of modern, paved roads and highways throughout the state, along with modern airports for airline travel, the role that the railroads play today in the everyday business of the state has been much reduced. But railroads still have a vital role in moving goods and people around and through the state. The amount of rail traffic that moves into, out of, and through Utah is today setting record levels every year. This trend will continue because America's, and Utah's, railroads are still an irreplaceable element in a dynamic chain in the economics of transportation for our nations goods and services.
Additional Reading
Crossroads of the West, by Blair Kooistra, Jim Belmont, and Dave Gayer, Pentrex Media Group, Pasadena, California, 1998
The Denver and Rio Grande Project, 1870-1901, A History of the First Thirty Years of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, by O. Meredith Wilson, Howe Brothers Publishing Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1981
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, Rebel of the Rockies, by Robert G. Athearn, Bison Books, 1977, Reprint of "Rebel of the Rockies: A History of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad", Yale University Press, 1962
Great Basin Kingdom, by Leonard Arrington, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1958
The History and Economics of Utah Railroads, by David F. Johnson, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, MS Thesis, 1947
The History of Utah's Railroads, 1869-1883, by Clarence A. Reeder Jr., University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, PhD Dissertation, 1970
Rio Grande...to the Pacific, by Robert A. LeMassena, Sundance Publications, Ltd., Denver, Colorado, 1974
Utah Ghost Rails, by Stephen L. Carr and Robert W. Edwards, Western Epics, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1989
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