Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1917 — PREPARE TO MOVE PYRAMID OF GRANITE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PREPARE TO MOVE PYRAMID OF GRANITE

Out on the summit of the Rocky mountains, where the Union Pacific railroad crosses the backbone of the continent, workmen are now preparing to move a huge pyramid of granite, erected 37 years ago to the memory of Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, the constructors of President Lincoln’s great steel highway to the Pacific. Through a change In the line, built for the purpose of eliminating unnecsary mileage and for cutting down the grade, the Ames monument was left standing alone nearly five miles from the new tracks. The Ames monument- is. * unique among monuments; It stands on one of the most lofty eminences ever chosen for such a purpose and commemorates the name bf the men whose constructive genius carried the first

railway over the Rocky mountains, a feat, which at the time, held the admiration of the world. The driving of the golden spike at Promontory point, which linked the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific on May 10, 1869, is the event most prominently fixAl in the minds of the Itmericanpeople, for it was on that day that the entire nation celebrated with the military salutes and the ringing of bells and many parades. But the real task was conquering the mountains. The executives of the Union Pacific

railroad and the leading citizens in the states through which the rullroad runs have paused long enough from the stress and eares of the world war to pay this tribute to sentiment, for the reason that this year marks a half century since the audacity and courage of Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames brought (he mountains to the trtliof hmhi< When the rails of the Onion Pacific were first spiked to the ties over Sherman pass, at a height of over 8,000 feet, the work was considered one of the wonders of the world. A facetious punster in congress referred to the Pacific railroad as “the Colossus of Rhodes,” and one of the famous railroad men of that day. speaking of the task Oakes Ames had undertaken, said: “Only a madman would try such a Job.” Today this pass is the lowest in the Rocky mountains and known to railroad engineers- as an "easy grade.'* At the same time that the Ames monument Is being moved*to a new pedestal, engineers for the Union Pacific railroad are driving a second tunnel under the mountain at the top of Sherman pass, thus without fuss, and as though in the ordinary course of events, building the first double-track across the highest continuous piece of double-track in the world. These two events, the driving of the new tunnel, and the relocating of the Ames monument, are in the nature of celebrations of the great work of these pioneer, railroad builders, and it is fitting also that it should be done in this war-year, because the Union Pacific railroad was America’s first and only military railroad. Monument of Granite. The Ames monument is built of granite in the form of a pyramid. 60 feet square at the base and 60 feet high. It will be taken down a stone at a time and carried on wagons and “snowboats” across the five miles of mountain crest to its new site, just east of the station at Sherman. On one side of the monument is a bronze medallion of Oliver Ames, on the other a medallion of Oakes Ames. Mr. Oliver Ames of Boston, grandson of the great railroad builder of the same name, who visited the site of the monument some years ago, said after Tils visit — »The carving on the medallion on the northwest side is somewhat worn from facing the storms for nearly forty years, but the one of Oakes Ames on the southwest side is in just as good condition as it was when It came from Evans’ shop on Huntington avenue.”

Oakes Ames, Builder.

ERECTED TO MEMORY OF OAKES AND OLIVER AMES.