Thomas C. Durant. Builder of the Union Pacific Railroad

Thomas C. Durant. Builder of the Union Pacific Railroad
Identifier: harpersnew0109various (find matches)
Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 109 June to November 1904
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: various
Subjects:
Publisher: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho



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ack be-tween sun and sun. The route the new roadfollowed from the MissouriRiver had. long been fa-mous on the frontier. Spaniards had prob-ably reached what is now Nebraska asearly as 1541, but it was more than a hun-dred years later when Indians on theMississippi described to Father Mar-quette the course of the Missouri, andhis map showing the Platte flowing intothe Missouri is still preserved. Whitemen in 1739 explored the Platte as faras the present city of North Platte inNebraska, and French traders made ahighway of the river for more than ahundred years. The expeditions of Lewisand Clarke, close upon the LouisianaPurchase, opened the country to Amer-ican influence, and St. Louis became thegreat outfitting-point for the adventurersand traders who penetrated to the re-mote regions of the Northwest. In 1812, young Robert Stuart, bound overlandfrom the mouth of the Columbia Riverwith despatches for John Jacob Astor,found himself unhorsed among moun-tain wastes in what is now Wyoming.
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Thomas C. DurantBuilder of the Union Pacific Railroad The little party groping half famishedtoward the head waters of the Missouristumbled on the North Fork of the PlatteRiver, followed it through the BlackHilis, wintered under its cottonwoods onthe Nebraska bottoms, and in the springbrought to St. Louis the first definitestory of a trip down the line of the futurePacific railroad. In 1825, trappers ofthe American Fur Company had madeheadquarters as far west as the BeaverValley in Wyoming, and Jim Bridgerhad already tasted of the waters of theGreat Salt Lake. In 1820, JacquesLaramie, murdered on the bank of aWyoming tributary of the Platte, hadleft his name not alone to that river, butto the plains, the mountains, the peak,the county, the city, and the fort that 718 HARPERS MONTHLY MAGAZINE. still bear it. Trappers, headed by Bridgerand Milton Sublette, bought Fort Lara-mie in 1835, and it became the rendezvousof a generation of men that has passed,and whose like we can never see agai