The Union Pacific Railroad Complex in

Evanston, Wyoming Evanston is a city in and the county seat of Uinta County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 11,747 at the 2020 census. It is located near the border with Utah. History Evanston was named after James A. Evans, a civil engineer for th ...

, was built to serve the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

main line running through Evanston. The complex's brick buildings were built in 1912–13, with frame buildings spanning the period from 1871 to the 1920s. The complex features a roundhouse with 27 stalls built during the 1912 improvement phase, replacing an earlier roundhouse built in 1871. The complex was the chief service point on the UP main line between

Ogden, Utah Ogden ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the United States Census ...

, and

Green River, Wyoming Green River is a city in and the county seat of Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 11,825 at the 2020 census. It is the 7th most populous city in Wyoming. History The townsi ...

. Five brick structures remain: the roundhouse, machine shop, gas building, storehouse and the mineral building. Five frame buildings include an office, a woodworking shop and a

company store A company store is a retail store selling a limited range of food, clothing and daily necessities to employees of a company. It is typical of a company town in a remote area where virtually everyone is employed by one firm, such as a coal mine. In ...

. The maintenance depot was closed and transferred to Green River in 1927. The Evanston complex became the Union Pacific Reclamation Plant, where rolling stock received heavy overhaul. It was the largest employer in Evanston, employing more than 300. The Union Pacific deeded the complex to Evanston in 1974. An overhaul facility for railcars reopened the same year. Starting as the Wyoming Railcar Company, the operation was absorbed by the Lithcote Company, which was in turn acquired by the Union Tank Car Company. The Union Tank Car Company moved out of the complex in 1998. The roundhouse complex is being restored by the Evanston Renewal Agency. Near the complex is a disused Union Pacific

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

, built in 1900 and donated to the city of Evanston in the late 1980s. The depot last saw service in 1983, when the

San Francisco Zephyr The ''San Francisco Zephyr'' was an Amtrak passenger train that ran between Chicago and Oakland, California, Oakland from June 1972 to July 1983, when it was renamed to the California Zephyr History From the start of Amtrak in spring 1971 unti ...

was discontinued and again from 1991 to 1997 with the Pioneer. The Union Pacific Railroad Complex was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1985.

References

External links

Union Pacific Railroad Complex
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office * * Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming National Register of Historic Places in Uinta County, Wyoming Properties of the Union Pacific Railroad Railroad roundhouses in Wyoming Evanston Railway roundhouses on the National Register of Historic Places Railway buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming Evanston, Wyoming {{Wyoming-NRHP-stub

See also

References

External links