The
Ames Monument is a large pyramid dedicated to brothers
Oakes AmesOakes Ames was an American manufacturer, capitalist, and member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. As a congressman, he is credited by many historians as being the single most important influence in the building of the Union Pacific portion of the transcontinental...
and
Oliver Ames, Jr.Oliver Ames, Jr. was president of Union Pacific Railroad when the railroad met the Central Pacific Railroad in Utah for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America. Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, he was a son of Oliver Ames, Sr., and a brother of Oakes Ames...
, Union Pacific Railroad financiers. The brothers garnered credit for connecting the nation by rail upon completion of the United States' first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Oakes, a U.S. representative to Congress from Massachusetts, asserted near total control of its construction, whereas Oliver became president of the Union Pacific Railroad (1866 - 1871).
The
Ames Monument is a large pyramid dedicated to brothers
Oakes AmesOakes Ames was an American manufacturer, capitalist, and member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. As a congressman, he is credited by many historians as being the single most important influence in the building of the Union Pacific portion of the transcontinental...
and
Oliver Ames, Jr.Oliver Ames, Jr. was president of Union Pacific Railroad when the railroad met the Central Pacific Railroad in Utah for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America. Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, he was a son of Oliver Ames, Sr., and a brother of Oakes Ames...
, Union Pacific Railroad financiers. The brothers garnered credit for connecting the nation by rail upon completion of the United States' first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Oakes, a U.S. representative to Congress from Massachusetts, asserted near total control of its construction, whereas Oliver became president of the Union Pacific Railroad (1866 - 1871). In 1873 investigators implicated Oakes in fraud associated with financing of the railroad. Congress subsequently censured Oakes, who resigned in 1873. He died soon thereafter.
Ames Monument marked the highest point on the transcontinental railroad at However, Union Pacific Railroad Company twice relocated the tracks further south, causing the town of Sherman that arose near the monument to become a ghost town.
Richardsonian design
Ames Monument is located about east of
Laramie, WyomingLaramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 27,204 at the 2000 census. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is west of Cheyenne, at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S...
on an wind-blown, treeless summit south of
Interstate 80Interstate 80 is the second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States . It connects downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. I-80 is the interstate that most closely approximates the route of the Lincoln Highway, the first auto trail to cross the...
at the Veedauwoo exit. The monument is a four-sided, random ashlar pyramid, square at the base and high, constructed of light-colored native
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
. The pyramid features an interior passage, now sealed, alongside the perimeter of the structure's base.
Noted American architect
H. H. RichardsonHenry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect of the 19th century whose work left a significant impact on Boston, Pittsburgh, Albany and Chicago, among others.-Biography:...
designed the pyramid, which includes two tall bas-relief portraits of the Ames brothers by sculptor
Augustus Saint-GaudensAugustus Saint-Gaudens , was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
on the east and west sides of the pyramid's top. Saint-Gaudens chiseled the bas-reliefs from Quincy, Massachusetts, granite. The north side, which at one time faced the railroad tracks, displays one-foot-high letters grouted in the granite noting: "In Memory of Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames". The monument is one of a half-dozen or more projects that Richardson did for the Ames family.
However, the pyramid is the only example of Richardson's work west of the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
. Richardson's monolithic structure employed rough-hewn granite boulders in its construction. The monument's stones at the base are five feet by eight feet and weigh thousands of pounds each. The pyramid narrows from the base to become progressively smaller towards the top at a ratio of four inches to the foot.
History
The audacity of building a transcontinental railroad in the 1840s 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 CanalThe Panama Canal is a ship canal which joins the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific ocean. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn...
, for mining
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
coal fields, and for digging the
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
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
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
on March 10, 1875.
The Norcross brothers of
Worcester, MassachusettsWorcester is a city in the state of Massachusetts in the United States of America. Having a population of 172,648 in the 2000 census, Worcester is ranked the second or third largest city in New England. It is the county seat of Worcester County....
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 south of, and above, the highest elevation of the original tracks of Union Pacific transcontinental railroad at . The U.S. president,
Rutherford B. HayesRutherford Birchard Hayes was an American politician, lawyer, military leader and the 19th President of the United States . Hayes was elected President by one electoral vote after the highly disputed election of 1876...
, 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.
Sherman
The small town of Sherman arose at the site north of the tracks where trains stopped to change engines on their transcontinental journey. The stop provided a roundhouse with five stalls and a turntable, two section houses, and a windmill with water tank. Trains were inspected at Sherman before beginning the long descent from the Sherman Pass summit, either east towards Cheyenne or west across the high Dale Creek Bridge to the Laramie Valley. The trusses for the original wooden trustle bridge located west of Sherman were prefabricated in Chicago and shipped to the site. The bridge was the highest railroad bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1868.
Several hundred people lived in Sherman, hunkered down upon a rocky, barren landscape interrupted only by a general store, post office, schoolhouse, two hotels (Sherman House and Summit House), and two saloons.
In 1885 William Murphy purchased the land that contained the monument for $9.75. He intended to cover the pyramid with advertising. The Union Pacific Railroad Company had other plans. The company obtained a special deed to the property in 1889. The railroad company's decision to twice relocate the tracks farther south to take advantage of more gradual grades over the Laramie Mountains threatened Sherman's tenuous existence a few hundred yards west of the monument. The town's death knell came in 1918. The railroad company closed its station house and relocated the tracks about three miles miles (5 km) south. Residents soon abandoned Sherman, leaving behind a small cemetery that is still present today.
The monument today
Union Pacific donated the railroad monument to the state of Wyoming in 1983. The structure is listed on the
National Register of Historic PlacesThe National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, and is maintained as a Wyoming state historic site. Time and/or vandalism have destroyed some of the features of the bas-relief portraits of the Ames brothers on the monument. Ames Monument is open year round, weather permitting.
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