Historic Railroads

CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT CRM VOLUME 22 NO. 10 1999 Historic Railroads A Living Legacy U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR National Park Service Cultural Resources PUBLISHED BY THE VOLUME 22 NO. 10 1999 NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Contents ISSN 1068-4999 Information for parks, federal agencies, Indian tribes, states, local governments, Historic Railroads and the private sector that promotes and maintains high standards for pre serving and managing cultural resources Foreword 3 The Copper River and Katherine H. Stevenson Northwestern— Alaska's Bonanza DIRECTOR Railway 34 Robert Stanton Historic Railroads in the National Park Geoffrey Bleakley ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR System and Beyond 4 CULTURAL RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP Susan Kraft and Gordon Chappell Frontiers in Transportation—Denali AND PARTNERSHIPS and the Alaska Railroad 36 Katherine H. Stevenson Railroads as World Heritage Sites 6 Ann Kain Colin Divall EDITOR Alaska Tourism, Skagway, and the Ronald M. Greenberg 19th- and 20th-century Potawatomi White Pass and Yukon Route 39 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Culture and the Railroad—The Rails Frank Norris Janice C. McCoy of Change 9 Kenneth C. Kraft and Lisa A. Kraft The Curious Case of the Buried GUEST EDITOR Locomotives—or Railroad Archeology Susan Kraft The Unheralded Resources of with a Vengeance 42 ADVISORS Golden Spike National Historic Site . .12 Gordon Chappell David Andrews Adrienne B. Anderson and Allegheny Portage Railroad— Editor, NPS Rick Wilson Joan Bacharach New Support for Old Arches 44 Museum Registrar, NPS Diane M. Garcia and Randall J. Biallas A Grand Canyon Railway —Project Historical Architect, NPS for a New Century-the 20th 15 Nancy L. Smith John A. Burns Architect, NPS Gordon Chappell "Paint and Park"—The Lehigh &c New Harry A. Butowsky England Railroad Caboose 583 47 Historian, NPS Through "the Greatest Gateway to the Pratr Cassity Greatest Park"—Dudes on the R. Patrick "Pat" McKnight Executive Director, National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Rails to Yellowstone 18 The Rutland Railroad's Muriel Crespi Susan Kraft Caboose No. 28 49 Cultural Anthropologist, NPS R. Jay Conant and MaryCullen Livingston—A Railroad Town and Director, Historical Services Branch R. Patrick "Pat" McKnight Parks Canada its Depot 21 Mark Edwards Dale Martin The Sacramento Locomotive Works Historic Preservation and Cultural Resource Group Manager URS Greiner Wtoodward Clyde Federal Services of the Central Pacific and Southern Roger E. Kelly To the Tetons by Train 24 Pacific Railroads, 1864-1999 51 Archectogist, NPS Robert C. Hoyle Antoinette J. Lee Gordon Chappell Historian, NPS Union Pacific Railroad Dining Lodges Pardon Me Boys, Is That the Naval ASSISTANT and Cafeterias for the National Parks . .26 Ordnance Choo-Choo? 54 Denise M. Mayo Paul Shea Robert A. Rowe Petrified Wood and Railroads 29 The Valley Railway—A Tale of Terry E. Maze Two Landscapes 56 Sam Tamburro Copper Mining, Railroads, and the "Hellhole of Arizona" 31 On Track through a Laurie V. Slawson Beautiful Country 59 Deloris Jungert Davisson An electronic version of this issue of CRM can be accessed Cover: Top, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy workers posed by a railroad car in Cody, Wyoming, through the CRM homepage at 1924, photo courtesy Yellowstone National Park; middle, first passenger train to the Grand Canyon, <http://www.cr.nps.gov/crm>. September 1901, photo courtesy David Rees Collection, see article p. 15; bottom, Central Pacific Railroad 4-4-0 locomotive no. 173 built in the Sacramento shops in 1872, see article p. 51. Statements of fact and views are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an opinion or endorsement on the part of the editors, the CRM advisors and consultants, or the National Park Service. Send articles and correspondence to the Editor, CRM, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1849 C Street, NW, Suite 350NC, Washington, DC 20240 (U.S. Postal Service) or 800 North Capitol St., NW, Suite 350NC, Washington, DC 20002 (Federal Express); ph. 202-343-3411, fax 202-343-5260; email: <[email protected]>. 2 CRM No 10—1999 Foreword map of the United States showing the routes of its current and bygone rail roads gives the impression of a large quilt stitched together by the universal symbol of the railroad track. Indeed, this impression is not far from reality. American history is interwoven with and bound to the history of its railroads. It is aA history of growth and change, manifest destiny and financial scandals, the desire to improve the quality of life and a reckless disregard for lifeways destroyed. To some it is the epic tale of transcontinental travel reduced from several grueling months overland to several days on the iron trail, the trip perhaps made memorable by stunning scenery, fresh-faced Harvey girls, and glimpses of the sooty workers who made it all possible. To others, it meant cheaper transport of natural resources that once seemed boundless, the scarring of unvalued pristine landscapes, or the desecration of sacred ground. It is also synonymous with the char acters who peopled it. Notorious tycoons financed the lines, reveled in competition with their rivals, and, in many cases, have justly taken their place in the gallery of Americas greatest scoundrels. At the same time, often nameless immigrants—Irish, Chinese, German, Greek, and others—along with America's Civil War veterans, Mormons, American Indians, and for mer slaves, made the tycoon's vision real. Over a history at once glorious and shameful but never colorless, railroads have moved soldiers and vacationers, catalog houses and furnishings, commuters and hobos, circus animals and livestock, sugar cane and parlor organs. They attracted and exploited America's newest citizens; misled settlers; created, named and aban doned towns; and brought loved ones home for the holidays. They opened a new world to the many Americans who had never been more than a day's travel from home. Today, American railroad history is preserved in myriad ways across the land, as scores of federal, state, local and private sites—including more than a dozen units of the National Park System—concern themselves with the subject. This issue of CRM highlights some of the most notable ongoing efforts to research, compile, synthesize, analyze, preserve, and interpret the history of railroads in America. From Maine to Florida and across the West, to Alaska and even Hawaii, railroads have touched every part of the nation, for better or for worse. Their presence and impact are always before us. Katherine H. Stevenson Associate Director, Cultural Resource Stewardship and Partnerships National Park Service CRM No 10—1999 3 Susan Kraft and Gordon Chappell Historic Railroads in the National Park System and Beyond ailroads and national parks have from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast just rolled through history hand in south of Glacier National Park in 1893. The hand since 1883, when the first Great Northern also undertook development of national park, Yellowstone, was a an impressive array of lodging in and near decadRe old. In that year, the Northern Pacific Glacier, including the magnificent Many Glacier Railroad completed a spur line from Livingston Hotel. to Cinnabar, Montana, near the northern edge of Far to the south, the Atchison, Topeka & the park. Eventually, four other railroads would Santa Fe Railway and its Arizona subsidiary, the bring the "dudes" to the park's other entrances or Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, Western Division, nearby gateway communities. had just recently emerged from bankruptcy. The close, often interdependent, relation Nevertheless, an enterprising Arizona business ship between parks and railroads began even man proposed a branch line to the Grand before the first train arrived at Cinnabar; indeed, Canyon. His efforts paved the way—literally lay it started before the national park idea had fully ing much of the track—for the Grand Canyon taken shape. Agents of the Northern Pacific Railway. Development of the South Rim of the warmed to the notion of setting Yellowstone Grand Canyon as a destination resort for tourists aside as a public park, seeing in this historic quickly followed. The Santa Fe System erected a Northern Pacific development a clear opportunity for profit. Once large, rustic hotel, El Tovar, virtually on the rim; Railroad promo the park was established, the railroad went about a reproduction of a Hopi Indian pueblo, Hopi tional booklet courtesy promoting and facilitating travel to and through House, as a sales outlet for southwestern Indian Yellowstone the legendary but little-visited destination. The arts and crafts; and sundry other facilities, roads National Park. results of their efforts included fleets of deluxe and trails. Then the railway—through its allied vehicles and luxuri Fred Harvey Company, which operated the ous park lodging, tourist facilities—successfully lobbied for the most notably, per establishment of Grand Canyon National Park. haps, the Old There were other motives for railroad build Faithful Inn. ing that had little to do with tourism. The This story was Southern Pacific Railroad lobbied Congress for repeated, with differ the creation in 1890 of Sequoia National Park, ent casts of charac but its main goal was to deny the timber in the ters, at existing and park to local markets, forcing them to import future national park from railroad timberlands in Oregon over a much areas throughout the longer—and more profitable—haul for the rail West. And, as in road. Yellowstone, market That same year, Congress created Yosemite ing by railroads National Park, surrounding the vaunted Yosemite would play a key— Valley, which had been granted to the State of some would argue California for park purposes in 1864. Some years overpowering—role later, the Yosemite Valley Railroad would con in the early history of struct a line from Merced to El Portal (literally, visitation to the "The Gateway,") a settlement just west of parks.

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