List of Union Pacific Railroad civil engineers 1863 to 1869

This is a partial list of civil engineers who worked on the Union Pacific Railroad's initial line from its groundbreaking in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on December 1, 1863, to its completion at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

List

Ainsworth, Danforth Hulburt, (1828-1904) 1865-1866. (Engineer in charge of surveys, 1865; Div. Engineer) Recollections of a civil engineer by Ainsworth, D. H. (Danforth Hurlburt), 1828-1904 Accessed at Appleton, Francis Everett (1842-1877) Galloway (1950), page 198.Klein, 2006. Appleton was Brown's assistant engineer.(117) Armstrong, H.N. 1868-1869 (Division engineer: Cheyenne to Wasatch) Bates, Cpt Thomas H. (1833-1927) (Division engineer: Salt Lake City, Utah) Bissell, Hezekiah (1835-1928) (Civil engineer: UPRR, 1864-1869) Bissell was involved in the construction of the Dale Creek crossing and reportedly made the decision to use rope and chain to anchor the bridge against high winds.Wilcox, 2001 citing Hezekiah Bissell, "Reminiscenses," p. 76, ca. 1900, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne Blickensderfer, Jacob (1816-1899) Johnson, A., & Graf, L. P. (1999). Papers of Andrew Johnson: 15. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Pr. 1868-1869, page 137. Accessed at Brown, Percy T. (d. 1867) and L. L. Hills (d. 1867) In July 1867, Mr. Percy T. Brown, (assistant engineer) whose division extended from the North Platte to Green River, was running a line across the Laramie Plains. His party was camped on Rock Creek where they were attacked by the Sioux. Brown was out on the line with most of the party, but those in the camp were able to hold the Indians off, but a small party out after wood, under a promising young fellow named Clark, a nephew of Thurlow Weed, of New York, was killed with one of his escorts, and several of the escorts were wounded. Brown, in reconnoitering the country, ... struck 300 Sioux Indians who were on the warpath. He had with him eight men of his escort. Brown died in the fight.Dodge (1910), pages 111-112 Case, Francis M. (1835-1912) 1865-1867. (UPRR division engineer) Casement, John S. (1829-1909) (Casement Brothers construction, 1866-1869) Dey, Peter A. (1825-1911) (Locating engineer; UPRR engineer in charge of preliminary survey, 1863-1864.) The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 1911, Vol IX, No. 1, page 603, Accessed at Dixon, Wiley B. 1864 (Engineering corp.) Dillon, Sidney (1812-1892) Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Volume 22, page 706. Accessed at Dodge, Grenville Mellen (1831-1916) (UPRR chief engineer, 1866-1870; director, 1869-1973; U.S. representative, Iowa, 1867-1869) Galloway (1950) Eddy, J. M., served with Dodge during the Civil War and part of the 1867 expedition wherein Dodge laid out the line to Cheyenne. Edwards, Ogden 1864-1865. (UPRR division engineer - ) Eicholtz, Col. Leonard H. (1827-1911)Eicholtz, Leonard H. Diaries 1852-1910. 1.35 cubic ft. (3 boxes) #238, University of Wyoming. 1868. (UPRR bridge engineer) Evans, James A. (1827-1887) 1864-1869 (Division engineer - UPRR) Ferguson, Arthur Northcote (1842-1906) 1865-1869. (Second assistant engineer- UPRR Eastern Division) Savage, James Woodruff, John Thomas Bell, and Consul Willshire Butterfield. History of the City of Omaha, Nebraska. Munsell, 1894. Accessed at Golay, Philip, civil engineer (1827-1898). Golay worked on the UPRR Eastern Division. Gray, E.F., civil engineer, 1869 Harding, Henry (1837-1910), civil engineer (1865-1870), a Union Pacific Railroad engineer from Hartland, VT. Harding was one of the landowners shown on the map at a plot just west of Cheyenne. He entered into Norwich University in Vermont, in 1852, where he met Grenville Dodge. Harding worked on eastern railroads until 1865 when Dodge hired him to work as an assistant engineer on the Union Pacific. Harding's specific responsibility was the architectural backbone of the road; he designed bridges, station houses, roundhouses, etc. He would go on to work for the United States Engineering Corps, 1873-1890. He retired in 1890 to his hometown of Hartland. Hayden, Ferdinand Vandiveer, 1868-1869. (Geologist, author - "Geology of UPRR Route") Henry, John E. (Director - UPRR, 1863-1866; general superintendent and chief engineer - UPRR Eastern Division, 1864; general superintendent - N.E. road, 1864; chairman - committee on construction): Hodge, James Thatcher, (1816-1871) -1863. (Geologist) succeeded by David Van Lennep (1826-1910) Galloway, John Debo. The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific. Simmons-Boardman, 1950. accessed at on August 2020. Hodges, Fred S. (1865-1869 Engineering corp - rodman; assistant engineer):Klein, 2006. p. 118 -Hodges was Evan's assistant.(117) House, J. E. 1864-1868. Future Chief Engineer of the UPRR, laid out townsites in Utah. Hoxie, Herbert Melville (1830-1886) Haycox Jr, Ernest. "'A very exclusive party'." Montana; The Magazine of Western History 51.1 (2001): 20. accessed at Hudnutt, Col. Joseph Opdyke (1824-1910) 1869 (Division Engineer) Leeson, Michael A. History of Montana. 1739-1885: A History of Its Discovery and Settlement, Social and Commercial Progress, Mines and Miners, Agriculture and Stock-growing, Churches, Schools and Societies, Indians and Indian Wars, Vigilantes, Courts of Justice, Newspaper Press, Navigation, Railroads and Statistics, with Histories of Counties, Cities, Villages and Mining Camps. Warner, Beers & Company, 1885. Accessed at Hunutt picture is in Box 13, Folder 208, Hudnutt, Joseph Opdyke, 1824-1910, 1 mounted gelatin silver printEicher, John, and David Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford University Press, 2002. page 308. Accessed at Hurd, Major Marshall Farnam (1823-1903) Dodge's staff engineer during the Civil War, who became unit chief in what Dodge called some of the most difficult Indian Territory.Congressional Series of United States Public Documents, Volume 5658, page 107 Accessed at See also Dodge, 1871, page 107. Mount Hurd is named after him. Kelly, J.H., 1865. (Engineering corp - chairman) Ledlie, James H. (1832 – 1882) bridge engineer O'Neil, Hugh F. "List of Persons Present, Promontory, Utah: May 10, 1869." Utah Historical Quarterly 24.2 (1956): 157-164. Maxwell, James Riddle (1836-1912) MSS 170, James Maxwell papers , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.Klein, 2006. Maxwell was chief of survey for Seymour.(120) McCabe, J. F. Morris, Thomas Burnside (1842-1885) 1869. (Construction engineer) Jordan, John W. Colonial and revolutionary families of Pennsylvania. Genealogical Publishing Com, 2004. page 60. Accessed at Dodge (1910), page 96 North, Edward P. (1836-1911) Chicago, 1868-1869. (Resident Engineer) O'Neill, John Klein, 2006. O'Neill was assistant to Maxwell, chief of survey for Seymour.(120) Rawlins, John Aaron (1831–1869) Reed, Samuel B. (1818-1891) (Locating engineer - UPRR, 1864-1865; engineer of construction; superintendent of operations, 1866-1869) Rosewater, Andrew (b1848) Engineering News and American Railway Journal, Volume 26, July 11, 1891, page 33 Accessed at Seymour, Col. Silas (1817-1890) Deibert, Jack E., and Brent H. Breithaupt. Tracks, Trails, and Thieves: FV Hayden's 1868 Survey. Vol. 521. Geological Society of America, 2016. See page 58 for a picture of Seymour and of Dillion. Accessed at Sharman, Charles H. (1841-1938) Sharman's journal of his working on the project provided the source material for Western fiction author Ernest Haycox to write a story called the "troubleshooter" in Collier's magazine in 1936. Thus, Sharman's manuscript written by a civil engineer became the basis for the movie, "Union Pacific", released in 1939. Sickels, Theophilus E., 1870. (Chief engineer and superintendent - UPRR, 1870) Williams, Jesse Lynch, 1864-1868. (Civil engineer; government director, 1864-1869)

See also First transcontinental railroad List of people associated with rail transport List of civil engineers List of U.S. military railroad civil engineers in the American Civil War

Notes

External links Engineers of U.P.R.R. at the Laying of the Last Rail, Promontory 1869 Work (by Andrew J. Russell), identified by Oakland Museum of California. Nebraska State Historical Society Manuscript Finding Aid for Record Group 3761.AM: Union Pacific Railroad (Omaha, Neb.) Building the Union Pacific-From Wyoming Tales and Trails

References

Sources Athearn, R. G. (1971). Union Pacific country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Dodge, Grenville Mellen. How We Built the Union Pacific Railway: And Other Railway Papers and Addresses. Vol. 447. US Government Printing Office, 1910. List of civil engineers on page 37 of 1910 material. Galloway, John Debo. The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific. Simmons-Boardman, 1950. Accessed at Heier, Jan Richard. "Building the Union Pacific Railroad: A study of mid-nineteenth-century railroad construction accounting and reporting practices." Accounting, Business & Financial History 19.3 (2009): 327-351. Accessed at Klein, Maury. Union Pacific: 1862-1893. Vol. 1. U of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Manuscript Collections Casement Collection, 1795-1959. c. 2,000 items. Incl. a large group of letters written by John S. Casement about the Union Pacific. Kansas State U. Lib. and Dept. of Hist., Manhattan. 60-1211 Casement, John S. 158 items. Incl. correspondence, relating to the Union Pacific, 1866-69. Huntington Lib., San Marino. Papers of Levi O. Leonard, Collection Dates: 1850–1942, Special Collections Department, the University of Iowa Libraries, Accessed at