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Narrative compiled by Allene Alder and Jennilyn Brockbank When my husband Frank decided that it would be advantageous for his newspaper to run a series on travelling across the west, I encouraged him. But then he announced that I would be going along with him! I became, to say the least, apprehensive! To give up the luxuries of New York society for such and extended period to embark on the rigorous journey to California was out of the question! I had heard horror stories about train robbers, savage Indians and derailed trains. One lady acquaintance, who has traveled quite extensively, wrote a letter which quite rooted me in my stand against going across the barbaric west. Well, let me read you this part of the letter: she wrote, "You will be cramped stiff with the confinement. You will turn blacker than the Ethiopian with the tan and cinders and be rasping like a nutmeg greater with the alkali and dust. Moreover, you can never sleep a wink for the jarring and noise of the train and never can you dress or bathe like decent Christians!" Frank is very persuasive, the fine businessman that he is, and eventually softened my apprehensions. He promised me the finest Hotel car that money could buy. Another friend assured me that just seeing the melting red sunsets over Echo Canyon, or a breathe of fresh air from the high Sierra-Nevada's would be well worth any discomforts or dangers of travel. My sense of adventure got the best of me! I began planning our tour enthusiastically. This excursion would be the most lavish yet! Not only my own reputation, but that of the newspapers would depend on this success. Oh! I beg your pardon; I see some lovely ladies and gentlemen with whom I have not been acquainted. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Mrs. Miriam Follin Leslie, wife of the renowned publisher, Frank Leslie. I'm sure you have heard of Frank Leslie's' Illustrated? It's one of the top newspapers all over the East! You may have seen some of the sketches printed in our paper of the Pullman Hotel Car in which we traveled. They really have the luxurious feeling of home. Seats of plush velvet furnish the spacious living room. One party can rent a hotel car to traverse the entire grade for a mere $120! A well-equipped kitchen allowed us our meals cooked and served on board. An ingenious system for running water has been installed; 20-gallon tanks hand suspended form the ceiling of the kitchen. I didn't realize what lavishness we were enjoying until observing the poor passengers who must take their meals at stopovers. Generally, the stops to fuel and water the locomotive are only 20 minutes long. What with having to calmer throughout he ravenous crowd to first obtain one's meal, and then devouring the scant victuals in one breath as they must, I'm sure every one of them suffers terrible indigestion. The washrooms of the hotel cars, though small, would suit any traveler's needs. However, "let me pause to say a word to my long-suffering sex bound on traveling near or far: Do not consent to share a bag with any man unless you wish to find collars, cuffs, and ruffles crushed into a corner beneath a dirty pair of boots, your toothbrush saturated with liquid hair blacking, and the contents of your powder box distributed to blow out at any moment, proving that even your complexion is not a right anyone is bound to respect." My husband got a word or two about that, let me assure you! In any case, we were far better off than those on the emigrant cars. As I sat on the soft cushions, chatting with my friends, I must say I felt a pang for the emigrants, all of them packed into dirty boxcars with barely room to turn their heads left or right! One would see them stumbling off the dark, windowless cars quite cowering form the brightness of the sun, and gasping for breath. Comparatively speaking, I felt like a queen! we had two servants at our beck and call. The Pullman Hotel car was quite a pleasant "home-on-wheels". A few of our dear friends, my dog Follette, and several of Frank's newspaper staff accompanied us on the journey. Our trip started in New York heading west by way of Niagra Falls and Chicago to reach the beginning of the "Great Pacific Railroad" at Omaha, Nebraska. My heart beat fast as the train crossed the magnificent bridge across the Missouri River. The bridge is said to be the finest in the world at nearly a thousand feet in length. Just last year, part of the bridge was carried away by flooding. Even so, this high bridge is safer than the ferryboat that the weary traveler had to endure before the bridge was built in 1873. When I entered Omaha, I found it in an awful state, with "streets dirty and ill paved. The shops deserted of customer, while managers and clerks lounged in the doorways, listless and idle. This depressing state of affairs is presumably temporary, for we have been told that two years ago; Omaha was on of the most thriving cities of the West. Certainly, its position at the terminus of the three great eastern railroads, and the beginning of the western one, would naturally entitle it to the pre-eminence." At Omaha station we saw the first sight of our fellow travelers, the poor immigrants. Men in strangely loose overcoats and "women in dresses that must have been old on their Grandmothers! The children were bundled up in garments of nondescript purpose and size." These French, German, Irish, English, Scots, and wherever else devilish place were headed to the Black Hills and elsewhere to start their new life in America. We were told that it took only about $800.00 for an ambitious young man to settle on his own section of land. At these prices, I'm surprised that half of the East doesn't move out West! From Omaha we began our journey west across the rolling prairies of Nebraska. This vast, treeless expanse of blowing buffalo grass seemed to go on forever. The last three years have seen the elimination of the buffalo herds, only their white, sun-bleached bones remind us that they once wandered this land. Only prairie dogs and ground owls remain. Ranches with roaming cattle, sod houses, and degenerate barns periodically appear across the prairie. Now, it wasn't wholly an uneventful trip through the buffalo grassland; we certainly had some excitement. While in Nebraska, we passed by a recent train wreck. A herd of cattle had wandered across the track. The encounter with the locomotive cost six of the beast their lives. "So inextricably had one of the poor creatures become complicated in the machinery of the locomotive, that it was hard to decide where the one ended and the other began, or which had suffered most in the encounter. The cars lay scattered along the track, all more or less wrecked, and the engine, completely dislodged from the rails, lay beside them in a mass of ruin." Sidney, Nebraska, a popular trailhead to the gold region of the Black Hills, positively frightened me! There were no women in sight and every man seemed like a possible murder and most probable a gambler. A shooting had just taken place that very morning! I was shocked when an emigrant asked me if I would sell Follette for five dollars, he said, "I'm needin' a barkin' pup to scare the Injuns away nights." The audacity of these people! It was on the plains that we spotted our first sight of the Indians. These noble savages were riding eastward on their shaggy ponies, their faces "hideously shining with red paint". As we moved farther west we say many Indians, often they were begging for food and money from passing tourists. The women were clothed in filth of every shade and texture. The men were somewhat more repulsive than the women and children, being equally dirty, but far more dangerous. We were harshly reminded that these seemingly docile people had not to long ago been fierce warriors. Our conductor, Tom Cahoon showed us his scalped head. In 1869 he had been fishing near Cheyenne when Indians had shot him with seven arrows and scalped him. He feigned death until they left and then crawled three miles for help. It's a miracle that he survived. We arrived at Cheyenne in Wyoming Territory on April 21, 1877. Although originating as a railroad "Hell on Wheels" town, Cheyenne had lost most of its wild character. In 1867 it was a village of tents, that were gradually replaced by wooden structures. Although 20 gambling saloons remain, the influence of the five churches can be felt as all of the saloons close between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Sundays. As we passed through Wyoming, the land became even more desolate, if possible. Only jack rabbits and lizards inhabit this bleak land. Nothing will grow here but sagebrush. Never on earth have I seen such utter loneness. It will be a million years before Wyoming is ever settled. Even the small railside towns like Wilcox and Medicine Bow look all the same: dusty desolation. The next town we stopped at was Evanston near the Wyoming-Utah border. Evanston is more picturesquely situated than most of its sister towns along the route. The Bear River on one side and steep divides reside on the other lends refreshing variety to the scene. One of our friends was right about this area's sunsets--absolutely stunning! Evanston was where we first saw the Chinese cheap-laborer. These laborers who helped build the Central Pacific Railroad, still live in small groups throughout the Far West. While their hovels are small and dirty, I found the Chinese to be a very clean, pleasant people. Clean! Cleanliness "... is a matter of obsession with these quiet, little people! They bathe every day--a full bath! Can you imagine? One would be liable to catch pneumonia! I do think we could use some of these Celestial laborers on the East Coast. They are legendary for their discipline and endurance. To look at their smooth, olive-colored, serene, and utterly expressionless faces, made me wonder, in vain bewilderment, what emotions, what passions, what opinions of one's self lay beneath it" Soon after leaving Evanston we started our ascent up the Wasatch Mountains. Echo Canyon indeed displays breathtaking scenery with its deep gorges and high mountains. It is a wonderful change from the dilapidation of the plains. We chugged through tunnels and over trestles as we wound down Weber Canyon into the Salt Lake Valley. The great achievement of the Mormons is evident. This once dry wasteland is now green and fertile. Ogden, "Junction City", is the first settlement of Latter-Day-Saints (Mormons) in which we stopped. It is nothing remarkable, except that it is the junction of the two railways that unite Atlantic to Pacific, the clasp of that belt, so to speak, by which the continent is gilded. In actuality, the junction was effected at a place called Promontory some 50 miles west of Ogden. The readers of the illustrated papers eight years ago may recall the poetic and picturesque interest attached to the scene that took place then. A picture where an engine upon the Union Pacific road and another upon the Central Pacific road approached, one from the east and the other from the west until they actually touched pilots. While a libation of champagne was poured upon the last tie, the gold and silver spikes were presented. By the hands of Governor Leland Stanford, representing the Central Pacific Railroad, and Dr. Thomas Clark Durant of the Union Pacific. Prayer was offered by a Massachusetts clergyman. The ceremony was a combination of heathen, Christian, and civil rites, characteristic enough of our great Republic. Also, I suppose, telling of the work carried on and completed by Europeans and Asiastics with Americans directing them. Six months after the celebration the junction was moved to Ogden, a more practical spot than the dry and desolate Promontory Mountains. From Ogden we took a side trip, a distance of some 30 miles, to Salt Lake City, the home of Mormonism. This was easily done on the line built from Ogden to Salt Lake City by Brigham Young, the Mormon prophet and President of the Territory. This sideline was begun one week after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. I found the Mormons an unimpressive lot, men with uncouthly cut hair, and women in old-fashion calico dresses, their sunburnt and invariably plain faces crowned by a marvel erection of a hat. The children are all healthy and freckle-faced, the fearful and wonderful combination of both their parents. Every house however small or poor has its own little garden in front, filled with flowering shrubs. Everywhere is the evidence of hard work and pride of ownership. Myself, being a strong advocate of Women's Suffrage, was very impressed to learn that Mormon women have the right of legislation in school matters, and they can obtain almost any position they choose to try for. I observed the women's actions are free, their opinions sought and regarded. Actually upon meeting Brigham Young I found him quite an impressive person. At 76 he had a magnetic manner about him, definitely a man of mark. I was sad to hear that just two weeks after our interview with him, the Mormon prophet passed away. We again joined the transcontinental railroad at Ogden there transferring from the Union to the Central Pacific. Normally the Pullman cars are abandoned here, replaced by Silver Palace Cars. But by special courtesy the Leslie Party retained our Pullman hotel car. Thankfully this eliminated the hassle of collecting our bags that the other passengers must endure. From Ogden we headed Northwest through Brigham City and Corinne to the historical spot of Promontory. Actually I found Promontory just another small railroad station, one would never have guessed that this spot made history just eight years ago. Of all the desolate land we have traveled, Nevada may be the worst yet. I cannot imagine that a drop of dew has ever lain on this God-forsaken land. The Humbolt or Twelve-Mile Canyon breaks up the monotony of the desert with its steep, high cliffs rising nearly perpendicular 300 to 600 feet above us. Coming out of the canyon, we rush by the "Maiden's Grave". This pioneer grave was discovered by the railroad builders and tenderly fenced as a reminder of the many whom died while moving west. How the railroad has changed this! Although we did see a wagon train, travelers go by wagon only to get from the station to their final destination, or to carry goods to and from mines and farms. The railroad has cut the 5 month trip from Omaha to Sacramento to just under 5 days. For a family to travel by wagon train it would cost about $2000. Now for just $47 one can make the same journey on the Emigrant ticket. Of course this price does not include the luxuries of the Pullman Palace Cars. No matter whether you occupied the Pullman Hotel, the passenger cars, or the emigrant cars, you would be much better off than the way many tramps choose to travel. When footsore, these tramps will try catching a free ride on the train by jumping unseen under the cars, coiling themselves along the ironwork between the wheels. Half-lying, half-hanging, they are whirled away at 20 miles per hour. Any man willing to tie himself in a knot and suspend his aching frame in the midst of dust, alkali, and cinders only 6 inches above the tracks ought to be left alone and allowed to torture himself in his own way. The conductors are of a different opinion. Our conductor could tell you startling legends of personal encounters with these gentry of the road. Occasionally, a sharp tussle takes place on the platform, and the strong-armed conductor, with reinforcements of brakemen, pitches the intruders' right and left without much regard for their personal feelings. Before traversing the grade of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains we made a small detour to see the mining town of Virginia City. I found Virginia utterly God-forsaken. The style of building can be inferred from the fact that about two years ago the whole town burned down one night, and was rebuilt as good as ever in just six days! It rains little here, but there is plenty of snow. Even in May when we visited, there was still two feet of snow on the ground, and me without my winter boots! No one would ever think of living here if it wasn't for the Comstock Silver deposits. The whole town is full of miners and few women and those few being generally of the--least reputable kind. Take my advice friends, when the train stops in Virginia City; stay in your car! Leaving Virginia City, we return to the transcontinental line, ready for the ordeal of crossing the Sierra-Nevada Mountains. "If the Americans were not the most modest people in the world, they would have, before this, convinced the public that no other piece of engineering ... is to be compared with this passage of this, the Sierras from Ogden to Sacramento ... Americans err in lack of self appreciation. I'd advise those statistical souls who thirst for exact information about anything, to go and read all the about this national triumph. Without the industrious Chinese workers the 1,659 foot granite tunnel would certainly still be under construction." As for Frank and myself, let us simply note the thrill of awe and wonder with which we gazed up at the Sierra's Blue Canyon, 1000 feet of sheer precipice and far below winds a narrow ribbon of blue water. It adds grace and beauty to the stern and rugged scene in a manner altogether feminine. How true is that instinct that makes one call a river "she", and a mountain "he". Of all the scenery of the entire route, nothing can compare with the Great American Canyon, heralded by the rounding of Cape Horn, where the railway clings to the face of a precipice, with a thousand feet of crag above and two-thousand feet below. Finally we reached Sacramento, the western end of the great transcontinental railroad. The capital of California is a picturesque town, with elegant houses and beautiful gardens. We quickly passed on, however, to San Francisco. This grand city offers visitors most of the luxuries of any Eastern city. However, I "would not advise the widowed mother of a family of lads and lassies to carry them to San Francisco for social training; ...although there is a large class of charming, exceptional, and rigidly moral society, there are several other classes... the social feeling in every circle is very reminiscent of bygone days when every man was a law unto himself. Make no mistake--the gun still rules the Wild West. I was terrifically excited to catch a view of the Pacific Ocean. As we looked out over vast waters, my heart jumped into my throat. The United States Flag stood firmly over Alcatraz, Old Glory, symbolizing the greatness of this nation. With all its vastness and diversity it is truly one great nation extending from the "sea to shining sea", knitted firmly together by the iron rails of the Transcontinental Railroad. For all you adventure seekers "who year by year wander up and down the earth seeking and not always finding delight, to you I say, Go West, my friends, Go West! Within the Golden Gate lies all that you desire. Go West!" Richard Reinhardt, Out West on the Overland, The Frank Leslie Party, 1877, The American West Publishing Company, Palo Alto, CA c.1967 Christaine Fischer, Let Them Speak for Themselves: Women in the American West, 1849-1900, The Shoe String Press Inc., c. 1977 |
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