WaltersRail

The image above shows what is left of Walcott, Wyoming. If you look closely in the middle of the picture, you will see a road crossing and a few abandoned buildings. That's it, as if the earth suddenly opened and swallowed most of a once functioning community.

The rolling Wyoming landscape is barren of all save the sparsest vegetation, and an approaching train can be heard for miles as though hurtling forward from the bowels of the beast, too terrible to contemplate, that swallowed the town.

This is the country that the Union Pacific crossed after the War Between the States -- a country unknown to all but the few hardy souls scratching an existence from a land that, were it not for scrub grass, would not look out of place on the moon.

With 576,851 people, Wyoming is the least populous state in the Union -- fewer people even than Alaska or Rhode Island. The state comprises 97,818 square miles, almost exactly six people per square mile. Large sections are completely uninhabited. Most of Wyoming (save for high mountains peaks) receives little rainfall, virtually all of it sits more than one mile above sea level, winters are harsh, winds fierce, storms violent. Snow has occurred every month of the year.

But to those who love the state -- and your author is one -- those facts are meaningless. Complaining that Wyoming is cold in winter is like complaining that playing the piano takes practice. Of course it is cold. Of course it takes practice. If it wasn't cold, if it didn't take practice, it wouldn't be worth it.

How many places have peaks as magnificent as the Grand Tetons, as overwhelming as Yellowstone? The serenity of isolation in nature is worth Wyoming's price.

Union Pacific's Overland Route roughly follows I-80 across southern Wyoming except for the diversion from Laramie to just west of Walcott, where the tracks roughly parallel U.S. 30 to avoid the Medicine Bow Mountains.

This is why Wyoming is the least populated state. This is also why people don't bother you in Wyoming.

Eastbound autos.

When I think of deserts, I think of wind and sand and cactus and unrelenting heat, sun radiating off barren rocks like a condensed beam through a magnifying glass. Yet the land around Walcott is not hot, even in the worst of summer, and the winters are brutal beyond imagining, brutal beyond what life should be able to endure. Life does endure here, even if most of it involves the transient rolling of freight trains that arrive and depart every 30 minutes or so.

No cacti grow, because the soil is too dense, the weather too cold. Cacti need well-drained soil and hot summer weather. There are no desert plants at all, just scrub grass, dirt and clay. When you stand on a hill, the scrub grass stretches for miles, disappearing at the earth's curvature.

Walcott sits on the southern edge of the Hanna Basin, bounded to the north by the Shirley and Seminole mountains, to the east by Simpson Ridge, to the south by the Medicine Bow Mountains and Park Range, and to the west by the Rawlins Uplift. As the mountains grew around it during the Laramide Orogeny in the late Cretaceous, the basin began to sink and became endorheic, meaning that water did not drain out of it. Prior to the orogeny (mountain building), west central North America was part of a shallow sea stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. The combination of sea water and basin resulted in a thick succession of Upper Cretaceous to Lower Paleogene sedimentary deposits up to 19,000 feet thick -- the deepest structural basin in North America, rock bent in a giant "U," with the mountains at the top of each end and the basin at the low point in the middle.

Both coal, oil and natural gas have been produced here, with some of the coal seems as much as 50 feet thick, though the mines and many of the wells are shuttered in the 21st century, leaving behind a short-grass prairie, receiving just enough rainfall each year to take it to the top end of a "desert" or the bottom end of "semi-arid" steppe (take your pick) -- where hardy souls find solitude in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-southeast-Wyoming-after-Lillegraven-et-al-2004-in-the-vicinity-of-Hanna-Basin_fig4_258646130

The Hanna Basin of southeast Wyoming.

Dusk.

Wyoming is well-known for its winter brutality. Less well known is Wyoming's almost constant wind. And even less well know is the amazing damage caused by wind.

Before roads were paved, people avoided driving in Wyoming after noon, when the winds were strongest, because blowing dust and sand would scrape the finish off an automobile and scratch the windshield almost beyond visibility. Today, strong winds routinely capsize tractor-trailers on I-80. Your author's Jeep has more than once almost been blown off the road.

Wind also creates winter havoc apart from frigid temperatures. Falling snow piles deeply and does not melt in Wyoming. Instead, as the locals say, it just "wears out." And even after a storm has passed, the worst is not over. The sun comes out, the wind begins blowing and snow swirls up from the scrub grass, creating a ground blizzard that can blind an area as large as the entire Hanna Basin, burying houses, piling 30 feet or more in road cuts. I-80 has been closed for snow every month except August, sometimes for days.

Westbound beneath Elk Mountain. I-80 runs at the base of the mountain, the most treacherous stretch of interstate in Wyoming, where snow fences surround the passing traffic but are often helpless to prevent massive drifts.

KCS pusher on westbound autos.

Eastbound between Walcott and Hanna.

And now a digression. We are all combinations of competence and incompetence. We all have our pluses, and we all have our minuses. Your author, for example, is book smart, but he cannot, for the life of him, figure out the simplest daily concerns.

Several years ago, I agreed with a friend and his wife to take a bike ride. I had not ridden my old bike in years; it was stored in the garage in what I assumed to be good condition. When I retrived it, I discovered that both tires needed air -- a lot of air.

I called my friend to announce that I could not join him and his wife on the bike ride. His wife answered the phone.

"Will the tires hold air?" she said.

"I think so."

"Do you have a pump?"

"No."

"Do you have a pick-up?"

"Yes."

"Okay, Put your bike in the pick-up, drive to a gas station and put air in the tires. Then you can join us."

Well, I'll be damned, I thought. Who knew?

Westbound approaching Walcott.

Another westbound passing Saint Mary's Ridge.

I tell this story to illustrate a point about Wyoming. Although the Hanna Basin rises more than a mile above sea level, although it is barren and dry, although its winter winds must be experienced to be believed, this place was once as green and verdant as the swamps of southern Louisiana.

When you follow the UP tracks north and west out of Laramie, you are imperceptibly climbing. The grade is minimal, which is why the railroad chose this route, but the influence of the mountains is unmistakable. Elk Mountain and the Medicine Bow Range rise to the south, inspiring awe and wonder, but you are driving along U.S. 30 and in the road cuts you see that the strata are tilted upward about 10-15 degrees to the west. The road is more or less flat, so that each cut is a little deeper than the last, revealing older strata, as though you are moving backward in time.

During most of the Cretaceous, before the Laramide Orogeny, the shallow sea here rose and fell, rose and fell repeatedly over millions of years, slowly inching westward, then receding, then westward again a little further, each recession leaving behind thick piles of sand and shale, to be covered again when the water rose, exposing a shore line, then covering it again, then exposing, then on and on.

Vegetation was rife along the coast -- dense swamps like the Florida Everglades -- flooded as the sea rose and buried under tons of sand and mud, the pressure of which after more millions of years created the coal that the Union Pacific used to power its trains.

You can see seams of coal in the road cuts, and if you close your eyes you can almost hear the giant UP steam engines roaring through the desolation.

Running east, with Elk Mountain in the background.

An eastbound manifest.

And here is another fact about the Wyoming of the 21st century that seems counterintuitive: this place of infrequent rain and frigid winters was once home to virtually every species of dinosaur that roamed the planet -- as though your grandfather was once, many years ago, a woman.

Dinosaurs were cold-blooded reptiles and could not survive hard and long freezes; they would not spend much time in 21st century Wyoming. But during the Cretaceous and Jurassic, Wyoming did not freeze. Imagine palm trees along a tropical beach, but without condos or restaurants or hotels or lifeguards. Instead, the lush vegetation was home to, among many others, Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus and Apatosaurus.

No one was aware of this until July 19, 1877, when Union Pacific employees William Reed and William Carlin wrote Yale paleontologist Othniel Marsh announcing their discovery of huge fossil bones just north of the UP mainline on the border of Carbon and Albany Counties.

The place is called Como Bluff and sits on private property not open to the public. Your author has been unable to discover where the name "Como" came from, although he is reasonably certain that the site was not named after the 20th century crooner Perry Como.

Como Bluff is part of an anticline -- rock on a long axis pushed upward -- in this case eons after the death of the dinosaurs, whose bones were buried under tons of sediment. Millions of years later, the middle of the anticline eroded away, leaving two ridges on either side. Como Bluff is the south ridge of the anticline, where the dinosaur bones lay exposed as the sediment eroded away.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, multiple expeditions mined dinosaur bones as fervently as gold was extracted from the Sierra Nevada. Many specimens were found in near perfect condition. Today, dinosaurs from Como Bluff are on display at Yale's Peabody Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

I have tried -- I have tried seriously -- to imagine Wyoming's containing a tropical forest abutting a huge sea, inhabited by dinosaurs, but my small brain simply cannot hold the image, no more than I can imagine myself as President of the United States or international chess champion or good looking. The idea of tropical Wyoming simply demonstrates that the earth as we know it is nothing like the earth millions of years ago, or millions of years in the future. The earth as we know it is simply an insubstantial pageant faded.

UP work train headed west.

The sandstone in these hills was once the shoreline of an inland sea.

The very edge of the Hanna Basin.

Less than 200 years ago, this country contained no permanent settlements -- natives passed through when hunting -- and crossing it was not for the faint of heart. Following is an excerpt from the Journal of E.S. Ingalls, who made the journey around 1850. This passage discusses the trip through what became Walcott:

We passed to-day a grave made yesterday of a man found with his throat cut. He had in his hand when found, a jack knife, and near him was found a scanty supply of provisions. He had committed suicide. It was evident that he was a foot packer, and had probably become depressed by his journey and the gloomy prospect of his not being able to get through his long journey with his slender supply of provisions. Poor fellow; he had become discouraged in prosecuting one long journey, and had entered upon another longer journey, with, perhaps, less preparation than upon the first. His name was not known. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31780/pg31780-images.html

Beginning with the California gold rush, traffic by whites along the Oregon/California/Mormon Trail across what is now central Wyoming grew exponentially -- the old fur-trade route up the North Platte and Sweet Water to South Pass, where the routes divided to California, Oregon or Utah.

Gold strikes in what is now Colorado's Front Range brought even more whites and generated perpetual conflict with natives whose lives were being eviscerated along with everything else in the immigrants' path, a rolling human tsunami impervious to reason or righteousness or rectitude.

In response to what can only be described as chaos, the U.S. Army created a new route West across southern Wyoming, which came to be called the Overland Trail, the route taken by Ingalls and those who committed suicide.

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/overland-trail-wyoming

The Overland Trail (shown above in red) followed the twin routes later chosen by the Union Pacific to Colorado and Utah. The junction of both trail and railroad was (and still is, in the case of the Union Pacific) located in Julesburg, Colorado, where one branch turned southwest and followed the South Platte River to Denver. Today (January 2025) that railroad line runs unmolested through corn fields, unremarked by all save those few (including your author) who don't have anything better to do.

At Denver, the southern branch of the trail turned north along the Front Range to the Poudre River (pronounced "poo'der" by locals), eventually crossing into Wyoming south of Laramie. The Colorado and Southern Railroad later followed the trail north of Denver to the Poudre but then diverged to the east, avoiding the Rocky Mountain foothills on its way to Cheyenne.

The northern branch of the Overland Trail followed Lodgepole Creek through western Nebraska, where the Union Pacific later laid its rails in places over wagon ruts. Skirting the southern edge of the Nebraska Pine Ridge, the trail led to Cheyenne, Wyoming, then crossed the mountains to Laramie. (Among railroad enthusiasts, the Pine Ridge is known for the BNSF's crossing at Crawford hill to the northeast.) The Union Pacific later diverged from the trail west of Cheyenne, choosing an easier crossing at Sherman Hill.

The two trails met at Laramie and then as a single route continued west across some of the most forbidding country in North America, crossing the Laramie and Medicine Bow rivers, passing north of Elk Mountain along Rattlesnake Creek, crossing the North Platte River a few miles south of Interstate 80, then finally crossing the Continental Divide at Bridger Pass.

The route west of Laramie was too rugged for railroads, so the Union Pacific headed north along what became the route of U.S. 30, eventually reaching the Hanna Basin and Walcott.

The big fill east of Walcott. Although the Hanna Basin is relatively flat, it is "relatively flat" only when compared to the rest of Wyoming.

Just west of Hanna, Wyoming, Union Pacific climbs a steep grade that your author has christened "Hanna Hill." Hanna was once a major coal mining town supplying coal to the Union Pacific. All the mines are now closed. For a detailed discussion of Hanna, see https://www.waltersrail.com/2020/10/union-pacific-tie-siding-to-hanna-hill.html. In Sand Ridge behind the train, you can clearly see how the strata are tilted upward from east to west..

In the late 1840's, the United States annexed California after the Mexican-American War. Gold was discovered near Sacramento at about the same time, and the river of humanity flowing west grew so large so fast that California became a state in 1850 with a population unchecked until the 21st century when overcrowding and politics finally began to drive people away.

But overcrowding and politics were not on anyone's mind in the last half of the 19th century. Gold ruled, and the country decided that a railroad was necessary to connect the mines and all that wealth to the rest of the Union.

This eastbound contains both autos and stacks, a common practice of Union Pacific in the early 21st century..

Westbound autos running through the small canyon formed by St. Mary's Creek.

During the 1850's, Congress authorized several expeditions to explore possible routes across the West. Survey parties of men, mules, horses, oxen and wagons scouted from the Canadian border to the Mexican, and their reports, available online to anyone who cares, make fascinating reading, reminding those in the 21st century that the 19th century West was barren and boundless.

Northern factions wanted the railroad to be constructed above the Mason-Dixon line; Southerners below. Secession (with the removal of Southern votes from Congress) quickly settled the issue.

On July 1, 1862, and again in 1864, while raged the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Acts providing construction of the first railroad across the West by two government-subsidized companies -- the Central Pacific from Sacramento eastward and the Union Pacific from Omaha westward. Both Acts provided land grants based on the mileage of track laid -- land forcibly taken from Native Americans.

The scope of this project beggars the imagination. We are talking about the 1860's. There were no telephones, no radios, no televisions, no automobiles, no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning, no computers, no airplanes -- nothing that makes 21st century life livable. There were no roads in the West, only the occasional wagon trail. The Central and Union Pacific truly were going where no one had gone before.

The railroad was constructed in phases. First came the survey crews on foot and horseback, who determined the exact route for the tracks across country they had never seen. Even across what appeared to be the flattest land of Nebraska, surveyors repeatedly encountered grades that would halt even the most powerful steam locomotives, so the Union Pacific followed the Platte River Valley for hundreds of miles.

The mountains presented an even more formidable challenge. The only possible routes accessible by rail could contain sustained grades of only about two percent or less, so the survey scouts were required to venture on either horseback or foot into every canyon, up every stream, across every mesa, searching for a camino a traves de las montanas.

Once the initial survey routes were established, dirt work began. In the modern world, this task is accomplished by huge yellow mechanical beasts belching smoke like gun powder, operated by men able to move mountains. Until the invention of the Fresno scraper in 1883, pulled by huge teams of horses or mules, this back-breaking work was accomplished by laborers with shovels. picks, hoes and rakes, leveling the ground by hand, hauling away excess dirt in mule-drawn carts, dumping it where fill was needed. Construction through rock involved dynamite and steam shovels brought in across previously laid rails.

The thousands of workers were outcasts in 19th century society (Chinese, Irish and Mormons, for example), many of whom perished on the job.

Eastbound along St. Mary's Creek.

Autos beneath the Coyote Hills.

Once dirt work was completed on a segment, the track workers could begin laying rails, but they stopped wherever a bridge or tunnel was required. Then the bridge builders and tunnelers would arrive with their heavy equipment transported on the newly laid rails.

While bridges and tunnels were under construction, track layers would move to the next section, and the dirt workers were even further ahead, leveling more ground. Thousands of laborers were often many miles apart creating massive health and supply problems. Injured workers often received no medical treatment. Food and material shipments were often delayed for days or weeks. All took place in complete isolation and desolation, in areas without a semblance of European civilization, though Native Americans were always close, watching the destruction of their life.

Federal soldiers traveled with the construction crews to ward off native attacks. Forts Russell at Cheyenne, Sanders at Laramie and Steele outside Rawlins quartered the troops. However, not all tribes fought the railroad. The Pawnee aligned with the Army to defend the Union Pacific against the Pawnee’s traditional enemies the Sioux and Cheyenne.

A most interesting phenomenon was the swarm of people called "track-followers" who congregated around the construction like vultures, as though the railroad itself were producing pestilence. They traveled with the progress of construction, pitching tents or erecting small shacks where they sold liquor and gambling and women and opium and anything else incompatible with long-term human survival. Outlaws also followed construction, another source of misery that kept federal soldiers occupied.

Some of these encampments reached critical mass and became legitimate towns -- Laramie, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Green River and Evanston in Wyoming.

Westbound.

A "meet" in the Hanna Basin.

Eastbound.

Lost in fog is whether Walcott sprang from an end of track encampment. The town was really never a town, instead just a station stop along the railroad. South of Walcott lies Saratoga, Wyoming, a hot springs and trout fishing paradise on the North Platte. In the 21st century, Saratoga sports a population of about 2,000, sees a steady stream of tourists and even includes an airport where private jets deposit wealthy fishermen.

Prior to air travel, Walcott was the stop where anglers and those seeking the regenerative powers of hot water left the rails for the rugged journey south to the North Platte. The Walcott Hotel sought the business of fly fishermen and even prospered for a few years. "Prospered" is too strong. "Survived" is more accurate.

Walcott Hotel in 1922. The vehicle was likely used to transport travelers to Saratoga.
https://historicwyoming.org/profiles/walcott/

At 6,600 feet, Walcott can be chilly even in the heart of summer. Most winters are too harsh for cattle. Sheep were once raised, though when your author has spent time here, he has not seen any livestock of any species anywhere -- just mile upon mile of scrub grass surrounded by mountains and derelict fencing.

The first transcontinental highway -- the Lincoln Highway, U.S.30 -- followed the Union Pacific through much of Wyoming, but it traveled north of Walcott by a few miles, as does I-80 today. A narrow road runs downhill from the interstate to the tracks, but the blacktop has not been maintained in years, filled with potholes large enough to swallow small children.

https://historicwyoming.org/profiles/walcott/

The website Alliance for Historic Wyoming contains a short discussion of Walcott and notes the followiing:

"Today, the town of Walcott is nearly nonexistent. A road leading to the town from Highway 30 is not well maintained, and sections appear to be located on Union Pacific Property."

Walcott is not totally forgotten. A Google search reveals the following:

1. Find Walcott, WY Hotels -- None.

2. The 10 Best things to do in Walcott WY 2024 -- Nothing.

3. Walcott WY Homes and Real Estate for Sale -- Nothing.

My favorite website is https://www.bestplaces.net/people/zip-code/wyoming/walcott/82335, which contains the following description:

"82335 Walcott, WY is a small rural community with a population of 63 people. It has a population density of 1 person per square mile, which is much lower than the US average of 93 people per square mile. The town is home to several local businesses such as the Walcott Country Store and the Redwood Hotel & Saloon. The area also has plenty of outdoor activities year-round, including fishing and hunting in nearby wildlife preserves, camping in national parks, and biking or hiking in the Big Horn Range. Other organizations in Walcott include the local 4-H Club and Little League baseball team. Every June there's an annual rodeo event that draws visitors from all over Wyoming. 82335 Walcott is small but thriving community with plenty to offer its residents and visitors alike!"

Don't know who wrote this, but it was not someone who has ever seen Walcott.

Mid-trains beneath Elk Mountain.

Hanna Basin.

Passing trains.

Some argue that the disappearance of places like Walcott demonstrates the slow death of rural America. I have an alternate theory, best stated by the saying: In England, 100 miles is a long distance; in America, 100 years is a long time.

European settlements have existed in Wyoming for barely 100 years, a blip on the radar screen compared to European history, much less compared to geologic time, which stretches over four billion and more years. Towns in the West were established like restaurants -- on speculation. Like restaurants, some made it, some did not. Think of all the restaurants that have closed in your life. It is the same with Western towns. Perhaps in a thousand years or so, things will settle down.

In my life, the most rainbows have occurred in Wyoming.

To see my other posts, go to waltersrail.com.

To see my photographs on Flickr, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpwalters/.

WaltersRail

Thursday, January 2, 2025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Union Pacific: Walcott, Wyoming

The Author