Sherman is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in Albany County,

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...

, United States. Sherman is southeast of Laramie in the

Laramie Mountains The Laramie Mountains are a range of moderately high peaks on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S states of Wyoming and Colorado. The range is the northernmost extension of the line of the ranges along the eastern side of the R ...

and is named for

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

general

William Tecumseh Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...

, purportedly at his request. From the 1860s to 1918, the town sat at the summit of the original grade of the

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 ...

along the rails of 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 Paci ...

, at an elevation of . The town was abandoned after the Union Pacific moved its tracks to the south, where they crest a rise called Sherman Summit or Sherman Hill Summit about south-southeast of the former town. Before being named Sherman, Union Pacific construction crews had called the area Lone Tree Pass and Evans Pass. The original name honored James A. Evans, who surveyed the area searching for a shorter route through Wyoming than the earlier trails which crossed at South Pass. Because the tracks were later moved a few miles south, the original town of Sherman no longer exists, but this is still the location of the Ames Monument, erected by the railroad to mark its original high point.

Ghost town

The small town of Sherman arose at the site north of the tracks where trains stopped to change engines on their transcontinental journey. The stop provided a roundhouse with five stalls and a turntable, two section houses, and a

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...

with water tank. Trains were inspected at Sherman before beginning the long descent from the Sherman Pass summit, either east towards Cheyenne or west across the high Dale Creek Bridge to the Laramie Valley. The trusses for the original wooden trestle bridge located west of Sherman were prefabricated in Chicago and shipped to the site. The bridge was the highest railroad bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1868. Several hundred people lived in Sherman, hunkered down upon a rocky, barren landscape interrupted only by a general store, post office, schoolhouse, two hotels (Sherman House and Summit House), and two saloons. In 1885, William Murphy purchased the land that contained the monument, intending to cover the pyramid with advertising. The Union Pacific Railroad Company had other plans. The company obtained a special deed to the property in 1889. The railroad company twice moved its tracks southward toward more gradual grades over the Laramie Mountains, eroding Sherman's tenuous existence a few hundred yards west of the monument. The town's death knell came in 1918, when the railroad company closed its station house and moved the tracks about three miles (5 km) south. Residents soon abandoned Sherman, leaving behind a small cemetery that is still present today.

Nearby summits

Interstate 80

Sherman Summit or Sherman Hill Summit, elevation , is a mountain pass about north-northwest of the ghost town of Sherman at . While not a particularly rugged mountain crossing, it is the highest point of the transcontinental

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

Lincoln Highway

Just southwest of present-day Sherman Summit at , at an elevation of about , is the highest point on the original transcontinental

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 191 ...

and its successor, U.S. 30. This location, where the pavement is still in place, is known simply as The Summit. A huge bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln once stood here; it has been moved to Sherman Summit.

Overland Route

As a result of the track move, the high point on this section of the railroad, known as the Overland Route, is now about southeast of the Ames Monument at , at an elevation of . There is no town there, but the official railroad name for this location is Sherman. However, this point (like the Ames Monument) is not actually on the crest of the Laramie Mountains, which is now surmounted via the nearby Hermosa Tunnel at the slightly lower elevation of .

References