The Utah & Northern Railway is a defunct

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

that was operated in the

Utah Territory The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah, the 45th state. ...

and later in the

Idaho Territory The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho. History 1860s The territory w ...

and

Montana Territory The Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted as the 41st state in the Union as the state of Montana. Original boundaries T ...

in the western

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the 1870s and 1880s. It was the first railroad in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

and in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. The line was acquired by a

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 ...

subsidiary, the

Oregon Short Line The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon in the United States. The line was organized as the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railway. The Union Pacific int ...

, and is today operated by the Union Pacific Railroad as the Ogden Subdivision (Ogden to

McCammon, Idaho McCammon is a city in Bannock County, Idaho, United States. It is part of the Pocatello, Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area'. The population was 809 at the 2010 census. Geography McCammon is located at (42.648993, -112.193366). According ...

), part of the Pocatello Subdivision (McCammon to

Pocatello, Idaho Pocatello () is the county seat of and largest city in Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the ...

), and the Montana Subdivision (Pocatello to

Butte, Montana Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...

). The original of the Utah Northern Railroad (later named Utah & Northern Railway) was conceived and built by the Mormons. It was a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

spur off the

Union Pacific 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 ...

portion of the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

. The labor for this railroad was largely volunteer Mormon labor as the intent of the railroad was to serve the Mormon communities in the

Cache Valley Cache Valley is a valley of northern Utah and southeast Idaho, United States, that includes the Logan metropolitan area. The valley was used by 19th century mountain men and was the site of the 1863 Bear River Massacre. The name, Cache Valley i ...

that had been settled almost entirely by the Mormons. It was a case of Mormons forming a company and building their own railroad because existing railroad companies showed no interest in building such a railroad. The northern half of the Cache Valley is in Idaho and, due to claims and disputes by the

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

and

Bannock Bannock may mean: * Bannock (food), a kind of bread, cooked on a stone or griddle * Bannock (Indigenous American), various types of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying * Bannock people, a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon ...

Indians, was not settled by the Mormons until after the

Bear River Massacre The Bear River Massacre, or the Engagement on the Bear River, or the Battle of Bear River, or Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Franklin County, Idaho, on January 29, 1863. After years of skirmishes and food raids on farms and ranc ...

and subsequent Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 that forced the Shoshone and Bannock onto reservations. The original Mormon plan for the Utah Northern was to build a railroad to the communities in the Cache Valley and about into Idaho to

Soda Springs, Idaho Soda Springs is a city in Caribou County, Idaho, United States. Its population was 3,058 at the time of the 2010 census. The city has been the county seat of Caribou County since the county was organized in 1919. In the 1860s, Soda Springs serve ...

that lies in a valley beyond called the Bear River Valley. This was by dictate of Brigham Young as he owned land in Soda Springs and believed that the Bear River Valley had potential for further Mormon settlement. The Mormons also believed they could break the monopoly that the anti-Mormon town of

Corinne, Utah Corinne ( ) is a town in Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The population was 685 at the 2010 census. Geography Corinne is located in southeastern Box Elder County, on the west side of the Bear River. It is the last town on the river bef ...

had on the wagon freight business on the

Montana Trail The Montana Trail was a wagon road that served gold rush towns such as Bannack, Virginia City and later Helena during the Montana gold rush era of the 1860s and 1870s. Miners and settlers all traveled the trail to try to find better lives in Montan ...

by extending the railroad into Idaho. There were tentative plans to eventually extend the Utah Northern to Montana. The road was constructed northward from the Union Pacific line at Ogden commencing construction on August 24, 1871. In three years, the largely volunteer railroad company had built of road. It reached

Franklin, Idaho Franklin is a city in Franklin County, Idaho, United States. The population was 641 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Logan, Utah-Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The town was founded by Mormon pioneers led by Thomas S. Smart ...

, across the Idaho border, in May 1874 where construction was halted. Investors had become hesitant after the

panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Lon ...

and the railroad was now moving into the northern half of the Cache Valley where there were fewer Mormon volunteers due to this area only recently having been relinquished by the Bannock and Shoshone. Poor decisions by the planners and the lack of business from the frugal residents of the

led to the bankruptcy and foreclosure sale of the Utah Northern only a few years later in 1878. Robber baron

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made hi ...

transformed the Utah Northern. He and

acquired the Utah Northern Railroad, changing the name to the Utah & Northern Railway and infused the railroad with capital.Colorado Rail Annual No. 15, Colorado Railroad Museum, 1981, p 31. Big business knew that an electrical age was coming and that the demand for copper products was putting pressure on copper prices.Ken Burns Presents: The West, Directed by Stephen Ives, Writers: Dayton Duncan, Geoffrey C. Ward, 2004 They knew that there were rich copper deposits at the mines near

. Union Pacific quickly resumed construction on the Utah & Northern Railway after purchase in April 1878. Jay Gould invested personal money to get construction started just beyond Franklin in the fall of 1877. The new plan was not to build the road to Soda Springs, but to build a longer road on a direct route through the Cache Valley, then north across eastern Idaho and north across western Montana to Butte, Montana. In the first year of construction, they reached Eagle Rock (now

Idaho Falls, Idaho Idaho Falls (Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: Dembimbosaage) is a city in and the county seat of Bonneville County, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho, United States. It is the state's largest city outside the Boise metropolitan area. As of the 2020 Un ...

), north of the Utah/Idaho border, where they built a bridge across the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

in early 1879. In the second year, they added another of track and crossed the

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

at the Idaho/Montana border. After three and a half years of construction, before the close of 1881, they completed the additional of road to Butte, Montana. Butte became the largest copper producing city in the world and Butte's population, by some estimates, grew to nearly 100,000. This made Butte, with its "

Copper Kings The Copper Kings were the three industrialists Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze. They were known for the epic battles fought in Butte, Montana, and the surrounding region, during the Gilded Age, over control of the local copper ...

," the second largest city in the West with more influence than Salt Lake City, Denver, Sacramento, Seattle, or Portland. Only San Francisco remained larger and more important. Butte, with its large-scale mining and smelting operations, was dubbed the Pittsburg of the West. The Utah & Northern was switched from

to on July 25, 1887 only six years after completing the line to Butte.Colorado Rail Annual No. 15, Colorado Railroad Museum, 1981, pp 55-56. The railroad operated successfully for several years and finally became a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad.

References

External links

Ogden Rails: Utah Northern, Utah & Northern
(with citations) {{DEFAULTSORT:Utah Northern Railway Defunct Utah railroads Defunct Montana railroads Defunct Idaho railroads Pre-statehood history of Idaho Utah Territory Pre-statehood history of Montana 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad Railway companies established in 1878 Railway companies disestablished in 1889 Narrow gauge railroads in Utah Narrow gauge railroads in Montana Narrow gauge railroads in Idaho

See also

References

External links