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Show J Golden Spike Was Driven At Promontory . looked back Just as a mounted Indian crashed the butt ol a gun to his skull. He fell and lay feigning death when the brave jumped from his pony and scalped him. Happy as a child with his new found secret of destruction, Turkey Leg ordered two tracks bent up and out of joint. He and his war party squatted among the sage brush and waited for their west bound next victim. Soon rammed the barricade and left the track. The engineer and the fireman roasted as the fire box spewed flames over the engine, but the other crew members escaped back down the track to Plum Creek to spread the word. Thompson, the lineman, witnessed the bloody episode and at dawn, when the Indians left the wreck with loot, walked to the next station without his freight-approache- i scalp. The . j , ring was set up for the fight when congress passed and Lincoln signed the enabling act in 1862. The act authorized the construction of a "continuous line of railroad, ready for , use, from the Missouri river to the navigable waters of the the Sacramento river in California. Reenactment Of Golden Spike Ceremony Annual Attraction The enabling act allowed the two railroads 12 years in which to build the 1600 miles of track and as an added inducement granted the companies subsidies, 10 sections of land to every mile of track completed successfully and this was later increased to 20 sections along the 400 foot right of way. The roads were bond-aideat the rate of $16,000 per mile, the amount doubled and trebled through the rugged mountainous part of the route. Commanding the. Union Pacific's army of 10,000 Irishmen was General Greenville Dodge, brilliant Civil War tactician, whose driving energy demanded action after the battles of the war between the states was only a memory. With the Civil War just ended the military were looking for new fields and the personnel of the Union Pacific was liberally sprinkled with generals, colonels and majors. Field officers under General Dodge were the Casement brothers, Jack and Dan, who held the contract for grading and laying Drama Of Momentous Occasion Of Connection Of U. S. Railway each year on May 10 when the ceremony is acted out at the spot of the A huge success, over 600 people traveled to Promontory Summit to witness rites. original the event. was only the graveyard, the railthe rails for a thousand miles. was coppered at the jae. Noise at the "End O Track road station, heaps of tin cans It was they who roamed the grade and track, pushing their at Julesburg was so loud that and peace and quiet for the ... is caught men on, demanding more and wind of it reached General more road be built each day. Dodge back at his headquarters They were the ramrod behind and he wired Jack Casement, who was far out ahead with the the gigantic effort. , . For the Irish on the Union Pa- grading gangs:. Julesat mess Clean up that cific all the battles at End O Track were not with the In- burg, before Congress investidians. Following at the heels gates. That fall when General Dodge of the steaming crews, were the reached the settlement,- - Casecarpet bag leeches with a long ment proudly took him in a wabar, polished mirror, deck of to a dusty graveyard stud-- ' gon of all! dice handful and cards, ded with wooden crosses where other - gambling parphanelia of both factions who that could be carried on a wa-- members had died in the fray were burgon. ied. Whenever the railroad stopAfter five months of all the ped for a breather to build up life of roaring Julesburg there adsupplies and construct an vance camp, a tent "city" would blossom. Its leading citizens were the smoothly garbed gamblers and the thickly painted ladies. 1 tj With his last pay check, a typical rail carrier or spike driver could get roaring drunk, shoot up a carton of .44 ammunition and contribute generously to the bottomless pockets of the casino operators. When End t) Track moved on, the tent city would move on too, and set up headquarters at a new location. One such town, where the lawless element became so overbearing that it cut its own throat was Julesburg. In early June the population was one woman and forty men. By July it had 4000 transient residents and more coming. Julesburg like many of the roaring towns, was staked off in town lots that were selling for a thousand dollars each. The streets were ankle deep in sand and lined with sham fronts. In Julesburg there was the Big 'fent, 100 feet long and forty feet wide, with its huge eastern mirrored bar, its roulette wheel, its monte, keno, faro, poker board games and chuck-a-lucbeckoning with thier promises of riches, where girls in fancy black crook dresses, derringers, dangling daintily from their 6kin ribbon and rattlesnake belts, mingled with the bearded roosters and gentlemen gamblers lured the unwary. More than 20 saloons and numerous dance halls flaunted their amusements under the swinging kerosene lamps. More than one man who had made a stake- strayed intosome of the "sporting rooms and under the urging of some smooth proprietor, made and lost until his all - prarie dogs, owls and rattlesnakes. Julesburg had burned itself out! Hell on Wheels had . rolled on into the West! While the Union Pacific was battling the elements, the Indians and the gamblers in its advance westward, the Central Pacific was pushing eastward t from California. The Centrals problems of construction, though enough - to make its builders spend many sleepless nights, were not - so huge as the Union Pacifics. Its pathway led through mining camps already established and (Continued on Following Page) - HjErighama "City Rnd Yheftlesi Genuine Indian Jewelry Silver Spoons Salt and Peppers i i i i Souvenir Plates Leather Goods Greeting Cards . . . gifts to send your friends and folk back home . . . Hallmark greeting cards vacation needs postcards complete' line of Gifts of Lasting Charm for any occasion. Complete Stock Of All Lines Of FILMS -- CAMERAS -- SUPPLIES FOR MOVIE AND STILL CAMERAS REMINDER Office Supply |