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The 650-foot (200 m) Dale Creek Crossing, completed in 1868 in the southeastern 
Originally built of wood, the trestle swayed in the wind as the first train crossed on April 23, 1868. In the days following, as carpenters rushed to shore up the bridge, two fell to their deaths. Still, the bridge's timbers flexed under the strain of passing trains.
The original bridge was replaced on the 1868 piers in 1876 by an iron bridge, manufactured by the
Dale Creek Crossing
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office * {{NRHP in Albany County, Wyoming Railroad bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming Buildings and structures in Albany County, Wyoming Bridges completed in 1868 Transportation in Albany County, Wyoming Railroad bridges in Wyoming Union Pacific Railroad bridges National Register of Historic Places in Albany County, Wyoming Trestle bridges in the United States Wooden bridges in the United States Iron bridges in the United States
Wyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital. The bo ...
, presented engineers of the United States' first transcontinental railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...
one of their most difficult challenges. Dale Creek Bridge, the longest bridge on the Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...
(UP), reached 150 feet (46 m) above Dale Creek, two miles (3.2 km) west of Sherman, Wyoming
Sherman is a ghost town in Albany County, Wyoming, United States. Sherman is southeast of Laramie in the Laramie Mountains and is named for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, purportedly at his request. From the 1860s to 1918, the town ...
. The eastern approach to the bridge site, near the highest elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum ยง ...
on the UP, 8,247 feet (2,514 m) above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
The ...
, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile. Solid rock also confronted workers on the west side of the bridge where they made a cut one mile (1.6 km) in length.
Originally built of wood, the trestle swayed in the wind as the first train crossed on April 23, 1868. In the days following, as carpenters rushed to shore up the bridge, two fell to their deaths. Still, the bridge's timbers flexed under the strain of passing trains.
The original bridge was replaced on the 1868 piers in 1876 by an iron bridge, manufactured by the American Bridge Company
The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pitt ...
. The wooden approaches at each end remained in place when the iron bridge was built. The western approach caught fire in 1884, and was repaired. The UP installed girder spans and granite abutments to strengthen the bridge in 1885. Engineers installed guy wires on both the wooden bridge and its iron replacement in an attempt to stabilize the structures.
The replacement iron "spider web" bridge, in turn, was dismantled in 1901, when the Union Pacific completed construction of a new alignment over Sherman Hill as part of a major reconstruction and improvement project, shortening the Overland Route by .
References
External links
Dale Creek Crossing
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office * {{NRHP in Albany County, Wyoming Railroad bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming Buildings and structures in Albany County, Wyoming Bridges completed in 1868 Transportation in Albany County, Wyoming Railroad bridges in Wyoming Union Pacific Railroad bridges National Register of Historic Places in Albany County, Wyoming Trestle bridges in the United States Wooden bridges in the United States Iron bridges in the United States