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Dale Creek Crossing

Wyoming, US

Dale Creek Crossing

Dale Creek Crossing was a railway bridge located in present-day Wyoming. The 650-foot (200 m) bridge, completed in 1868 in the southeastern Wyoming Territory, presented engineers of the United States' first transcontinental railroad one of their most difficult challenges. Dale Creek Bridge, the long

est bridge on the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), reached 150 feet (46 m) above Dale Creek, two miles (3.2 km) west of Sherman, Wyoming. The first Dale Creek Bridge was a wooden structure 720 feet in length. The eastern approach to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the UP, 8,247 feet (2,514 m) above sea level, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile. Solid rock also confronted workers on the west side of the bridge where they made a cut one mile (1.6 km) in length. Originally built of wood, the trestle swayed in the wind as the first train crossed on April 23, 1868. In the days following, as carpenters rushed to shore up the bridge, two fell to their deaths. The bridge's timbers flexed under the strain of passing trains. The original bridge was replaced on the 1868 piers in 1876 by an iron bridge, manufactured by the American Bridge Company. The wooden approaches at...

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