Union Pacific Railroad
Western Union

November 1865

Mr. Durant -

The railroad has already "spent over $500,000 dollars and laid only 40 miles of track, or as one newspaper said, 'two streaks of rust across the Nebraska prairie.' I will agree to work for the UP, but I must have absolute control in the field." 

Send my new UPRR crew to Omaha so we can really start laying track for this railroad.1

Grenville M. Dodge

Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad
Matthew Brady photograph of Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge
Union General G. M. Dodge
Courtesy Library of Congress.
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