Amateur Efforts to survey a new, shorter
Amateur, “better” route had been underway since 1864. By 1867, a new
route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte
River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state
of Wyoming, ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole
Creek and Crow Creek to the 8,200-foot (2,500 m) Evans pass (also called
Sherman’s Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed
English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864.[57] This pass
now is marked by the Ames Monument (41.131281°N 105.398045°W)
marking its significance and commemorating two of the main backers of
the Union Pacific Railroad. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation 2,834
feet or 864 metres), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a
new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory (the
n part of the Dakota Territory) along the north bank of the South Platte
River and into what would become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine,
Wyoming. Evans Pass was located between what would become the new
“railroad” towns of Cheyenne and Laramie. Connecting to this pass, about
15 miles (24 km) west of Cheyenne, was the one place across the L
aramie Mountains that had a narrow “guitar neck” of land that crossed the
mountains without serious erosion at the so-called “gangplank”
(41.099746°N 105.153205°W) discovered by Major General Grenville
Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S. Army.[58] The new route sur
veyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240 km) shorter, had a f
latter profile, allowing for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and
also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in
the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges.
The railroad gained about 3,200 feet (980 m) in the 220 miles (350 km) climb
to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about 15 feet per mile
(2.8 m/km)—a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This “new”
route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and
grass to feed the emigrants’ oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not
need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if
necessary.
