Author’s Historical Note

In 1886 Thomas Sturgis, a rather substantial cattleman in northeast Wyoming, suggested to Union Pacific that a local company be created to lay tracks from Cheyenne, Wyoming, into northern Wyoming and Montana. Thus, the Cheyenne and Northern Railway was established. The initial investors included Thomas Sturgis, as well as the first president of the Cheyenne Club, a man named Phillip Dater.

The eventual goal of the railroad was to build all the way north to connect with the Northern Pacific line in Montana, but the immediate target was Fort Laramie, which would include the settlements of Walbach, Chugwater, and Uva, as well as some of the more substantial ranches in the area, such as the Goodwin, Davis, and Sturgis ranches. After a year and a half, the line was constructed 125 miles north, but there it stopped. Union Pacific took over the line in 1887, and in 1890 Union Pacific created the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway, which incorporated the Cheyenne and Northern as well as several other short-line railroad companies.

After a series of mergers and adjustments, the railroad was finally merged into the Burlington Northern system in 1981. Then in 1995, Burlington Northern merged with the Santa Fe Pacific to form the BNSF Railway, one of the U.S. Class I railroads serving especially the western half of the country, with a rail network of 32,500 route miles in 28 states.

The C&FL (Cheyenne and Fort Laramie Railroad) of our story (as well as the machinations and participants of its building) is fictional, though its existence is inspired by the early history of the Cheyenne and Northern.