(The following “Q&A” by Autumn Reed appeared on the Casper Star-Tribune website on May 18, 2010.)
CASPER, Wyo. — Q: Hey, Answer Girl: There is a pyramid-shaped monument east of Laramie, basically in the middle of nowhere. What is it, and how long has it been there?
— Drew
A: Can I tell you how excited I was to get this question? A friend of mine and I were taking a drive up by Vedauwoo, into the mountains, looking for something interesting, and we found this!
I don’t know how many times I have driven up and down Interstate 80 and around that area and have never seen it before, but that day we drove right up to it and read all about the Ames Brothers.
The monument is the Ames Brothers Pyramid, and it was built in the early 1880s by Union Pacific Railroad.
There were two brothers, Oliver and Oakes Ames. Oliver was president of the railroad, and Oakes was a congressman in Massachusetts. The brothers were credited with “connecting the nation by rail” when the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. The monument marked the highest point of the transcontinental railroad at 8,247 feet.
The brothers made millions selling axes and shovels to men headed to California looking for gold, then using the profit from the shovels, they took control of the railroad.
The two inflated construction costs of the railroad, and it is estimated that they stole $50 million from the taxpayers. The fraud was discovered in 1872, and the brothers died soon after.
Union Pacific built the monument after the scandal had died down, trying to help recover its reputation. It was placed near a small railroad town where the train stopped to change engines. The UP line has since been moved several miles south of the original route.
The monument is close to the town of Buford. You can only get to it on a dirt road. It is made out of granite rock that was broken off a nearby outcrop and is about 60 feet tall. There is a picture of a brother on each side, but their noses have broken off.
The railroad hired architect Henry Hobson Richardson to design the monument, and sculptor August St. Gaudens chiseled the portraits of the brothers.
At the time the monument cost $65,000 to build, and it was such a big deal that former President Hayes came to the dedication ceremony.
Union Pacific dedicated the monument to the railroad to the state in 1983, and it is now a Wyoming state historic site.