What kind of reception did traveling entertainment groups receive in the West? Gloria Mata Phoenix, Arizona They were very popular in the...
Bards, Bison and Bowlers
read more
Railroad
Big, Bigger, Biggest
It doesn’t get much sweeter than this in rural Nevada. They probably pulled $10 million in copper out of the mines around McGill, Nevada, in its...
Tamer of Raton Pass
“Uncle Dick” Wootton helped build a nation with his Santa Fe Trail toll road. Well past midnight, everyone in the wagon train was snoring. First...
Fred Harvey and his Harvey Houses
Before the days of railroad dining cars, passengers were forced to eat in the local hash houses wherever the train happened to stop. The food was...
Ride That Train!
Towering pines whirl past an open window ushering in pine-scented breezes. The click-clack of train wheels underneath relaxes riders. Puffs of...
The Notorious Crédit Mobilier
The notorious Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific...
Following the Tracks of the Kansas Pacific
Discover the beauty and history of the plains from Kansas City, Missouri, to Denver, Colorado.
Taking Revenge On The Railroad On the job injuries pushed John Sontag onto the outlaw trail.
John Sontag had a particular reason for becoming an outlaw: revenge. He was working on the Southern Pacific in 1888 when his leg was crushed as he...
Punch Your Ticket West!
Western heritage railways and railroad museums are open and ready for passengers.
Tom Bullock’s Railroad Tom Bullock was a gregarious, smooth-talking promoter. He'd been a bartender Prescott's Whiskey Row before heading to New York where he made a fortune building street railways...
Tom Bullock was a gregarious, smooth-talking promoter. He'd been a bartender Prescott's Whiskey Row before heading to New York where he made a...
A Long Walk Arizona in those days was separated from ‘God’s Country’ by a space of 1,500 miles, without a railroad…
In those halcyon days before the coming of the railroads especially to remote areas like Arizona, which didn’t have a railroad until the early...
The Day The Rails Reached Phoenix The two transcontinental railroad lines across Arizona along the 32nd and 35th Parallels were completed by 1883 but there was still no line running through Phoenix...
The two transcontinental railroad lines across Arizona along the 32nd and 35th Parallels were completed by 1883 but there was still no line running...